Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Lagayascienza]

I've asked that question several times.

The idea seems to be that the Palestinians will need to be exterminated. They have been very naughty by not agreeing to having their homeland stolen, and so now they must suffer for their intransigence and make even more lebensraum for Israelis.

Those pig-headed Palestinians, having been so silly, must now, instead of merely being herded into gentle ghettos like Gaza, will be dispersed. There is nothing else for it.

Israel has tried valiantly to exterminate as many of the sub-human Palestinians as possible, but won't be able to finish the job. But good work always requires follow up maintenance. Try as they may to finish the job, there will be a residue that will need to be dispersed.

The only hope remaining for the evil Palestinians will be to form a diaspora and maybe, down the track, come back to reclaim their homeland, once a new world order is in place. That schtick has worked before, so why not.

[Sy Borg]

Sy Borg, what do you want to see happen in Gaza? Where do you see this conflict ending up?

Don't know. I just keep pointing out that Iran's proxy, Hamas, brought all of this on the Palestinian people - at the behest of Iran. Hamas knew exactly what would happen when they sent in missiles to kill 1,200 civilians and to kidnap and torture hundreds more.

They made their bed and they can lie in it.

Again, all of you here treat Palestinians as if they were ignorant savages, and thus you treat them as if they have no moral agency. There was a choice not to put Palestinians through all this. After all, China has been salami-slicing Bhutan more rapidly than Israel has done to Palestine.

Now you can answer a question for me: Why do you think Bhutan does not send missiles into China and hold hundreds of civilians hostage? What do you think would happen?

[Sy Borg]

Since you guys and the mainstream media only care about Gaza and don't give a damn about Sudan, I'd better help you stay in touch. I'd like to think that you'd all wring your hands about this too, but I know it won't matter to you. As I say, 1 Palestinian > 10,000 Sudanese.

The attacks in el-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, saw entire neighbourhoods housing primarily displaced Masalit communities looted, burned, shelled and razed to the ground.

The campaign that amounted to “ethnic cleansing” left hundreds of thousands of people as refugees, HRW said in its 186-page report.

The violence, which included mass torture, rape and looting, peaked in mid-June – when thousands of people were killed within days – and surged again in November, it said.

Alan Boswell from the International Crisis Group said an arms embargo was imposed on Darfur years ago but was never enforced, also warning that serious violations could be under way in el-Fasher, in North Darfur state and the last state capital not under the control of the RSF.

“The Sudanese have basically been forgotten, obviously there’s the war in Gaza which has taken a lot of attention,” Boswell told Al Jazeera.

[Mo_reese]

I've asked that question several times.

The idea seems to be that the Palestinians will need to be exterminated. They have been very naughty by not agreeing to having their homeland stolen, and so now they must suffer for their intransigence and make even more lebensraum for Israelis.

I agree but the pro-extermination crowd avoids answering the question. The following seems to be their justification:
1. Holocaust, someone must pay.
2. The unspeakable horrors of Oct 7, where Hamas struck back at a domineering, aggressive neighbor.
3. Israel stands alone against a world of antisemitism.
4. All Gaza Palestinians are Hamas, even the babies, and must be exterminated.
5. Palestinians want to see Israel destroyed.
5. Oil deposits off the coast of Gaza.
6. The land of Gaza is invaluable to be sold to rich European settlers.

The Holocaust was horrible, but the world didn't turn their backs, few in the world knew it was happening. Few Germans knew what was happening beyond people being arrested and shipped to prison camps. If anyone knew it would have been the Western leaders like the US.
I think there is a good chance that Israel knew about the impending Oct 7 attack and they stood down and allowed the horrors to occur. What better justification for extermination of the Gaza Palestinians. Even now Bibi isn't interested in getting the hostages released.
Israel stands alone? Yeah, with the US, the biggest bully on the block standing firmly behind them.
Not surprised that Palestinians want to see Israel destroyed as Israel officials have said over and over that they want Palestine destroyed and they are actually doing it.

My god says there is no justification for sniper shooting children or burying babies alive.

[Sy Borg]

Oh dear, the same logical error being repeated over and over. I guess that means I must repeat myself in response:

The world has many nations, and they are all competing, jostling for power. This has been the case for millennia. Individual humans are vulnerable. They are forced to band together so they can compete against other groups. Sometimes this group gains dominance, sometimes that group. The idea of a nation being a bully is childish and ridiculous - all nations are, by their very nature, bullies.

The main differences between societies are power and competence. The idea that the strong are bullies and those who wilfully remain weak are victims belongs in the schoolyard, not international politics. Sadly, universities have been promoting demented Marxist ideology based on the idea that everyone is either an Oppressor or Oppressed. The damage this intellectual vandalism has done to societies is incalculable.

[Mo_reese]

Oh dear, the same logical error being repeated over and over. I guess that means I must repeat myself in response:

The world has many nations, and they are all competing, jostling for power. This has been the case for millennia. Individual humans are vulnerable. They are forced to band together so they can compete against other groups. Sometimes this group gains dominance, sometimes that group. The idea of a nation being a bully is childish and ridiculous - all nations are, by their very nature, bullies.

The main differences between societies are power and competence. The idea that the strong are bullies and those who wilfully remain weak are victims belongs in the schoolyard, not international politics. Sadly, universities have been promoting demented Marxist ideology based on the idea that everyone is either an Oppressor or Oppressed. The damage this intellectual vandalism has done to societies is incalculable.

You again avoided the question of how do you want the disaster in Gaza to end. Will you be able to rationalize the deaths of all the Gaza Palestinians? Apparently that's Bibi's goal. And please don't say that you want Hamas to surrender when Israel has declared all Gaza Palestinians as Hamas.

“A bully is someone who habitually seeks to harm, intimidate, or coerce others perceived as vulnerable or weaker in some way.” There is a power spectrum in nations. Usually the most powerful are the bullies. They steal resources from weaker nations, they interfere with weaker nations governments to install leaders that are willing to sell out their nation for money. The US has a long history of empire. They waged war on Vietnam for nothing killing a million and doing untold damage. They invaded Iraq for their oil killing between half a million and a million. Now they are helping Israel exterminate thousands of Palestinians with no limit in sight.
Explain if I misunderstand that you are rationalizing that bullies will be bullies and the victims “willfully remain weak”. Sounds like you don't believe that there are such a thing as crimes against humanity.

[Sy Borg]

No, I just think your moralising is extraordinarily selective. Basically, you are following the herd. The media gives up breathless updates every time a Palestinian child is sad while the slaughter in Sudan is ignored.

My issue is the lack of honesty, the blatant biases that are not being acknowledged. Killing happens all over the world, all through history. If I had a hissy fit every time anyone suffered I'd be non-functional. I accept that bad things happen all the time, and this is the way of the world. Ultimately, Hamas knew what thy were doing and deliberately rained destruction on their own people to press a political point (and to block Israel/ Saudi negotiations).

Unlike you, I think the Palestinians are human beings capable of moral agency just like us. We (and Israel) are not some more advanced species, while the poor dumb Palestinians can't be expected to know what is right and wrong, or to strategise. That's basically the media, and your, narrative. Israel has moral agency and responsibility and Palestine lacks moral agency and thus carries no responsibility.

I notice that Nepal and Bhutan are not responding to China's constant incursions into their territory with missiles. Might that be because they know such an attack would lead to a similar result to the Middle East.

If a heavyweight boxer was being unfair to you, would you punch him in the face? Or might you choose a less suicidal route, including the idea of pragmatically cutting your losses? That's what Nepal and Bhutan are doing. Why didn't Palestine? Because they sought the obliteration of Israel and nothing else would suffice, when they had many chances to compromise and cut their losses.

But no, according to common "wisdom" Palestine could not possibly be reaping what they have sown. No, the issue has to be framed in an Oppressor v Oppressed, which is simply naive tunnel thinking.

[Mo_reese]

Sy Borg, Again you avoid the question – How do you see this ending? Will the world stand by and watch Israel exterminate a million men, women and children. Starve them or bomb them to death? Could you possibly be ok with that? There is no justification, none.

It seems you are saying that one should never fight back when getting beaten by a bully. Be pragmatic you say, but that won't stop the beating. Fighting back may not either but then again it might. I fought a few bullies and never beat them but they never bothered me again.

It seems that some think the Holocaust gives Israel carte blanche to exterminate others especially if they are deemed inferior. Do you not see the irony here?

Where do you get the idea that the US colleges are teaching Marxism? If that were true where are all those Marxists today? None in government, none in businesses. It's hogwash.
Also hogwash to say that college students are antisemitic. Where are you getting that?

[Sy Borg]

Mo, I'm not avoiding the question, you are avoiding accepting my responses.

I don't care how this conflict ends, no more than I care how Sudan's wars end, or Syria's, Yemen's and so forth. You would accuse me of being uncaring but the only difference between us is that you are indifferent to just one less conflict than I am.

If you are being bullied by Tyson Fury and there is no one around to save you, are going to kick him in the nuts and then knee him in the face? That's basically what Hamas did. The result was as predictable as Hamas planned. Going back to the Tyson Fury analogy, it's like hoping that Fury beats you up so badly that people feel sorry for you and come down hard on him for being a bully.

It's deeply cynical, but fortunately there are many suckers out there - known formally as "useful idiots" - who want to show each other what good people they are by siding with underdogs, ignoring how culpable they may be in creating their own misery.

I assume that you think that Nepal and Bhutan are weak and spineless for not sending missiles into China. I think their more philosophical approach is far wiser, more ethical and more humane than Hamas's. You seem to think the only acceptable way to deal with injustice is with suicidal violence. Better to die and take out as many of the enemy as possible than to surrender, eh?

Oppressor = bad, Oppressed = good is classic Marxist thought. The Marxism is not usually explicit, but I suppose it's too much to ask for subtlety of thought in this forum. The methods of influence have been refined to be subtle enough for plausible deniability, obviously. The proof of the pudding is on campuses, with students calling for intafada.

[Gertie]

The question of how this can end is starting to split the Israeli coalition cabinet. Netanyahu seems to want the conflict to continue indefinitely, so securing his own position. In today's Observer -

''The Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz has threatened to resign if Benjamin Netanyahu fails to adopt an agreed plan for Gaza, calling into question the future of the Israeli government.

During a press conference on Saturday, Gantz announced that if a plan for postwar governance of the territory is not consolidated and approved by 8 June, his opposition National Unity party will withdraw from the coalition government...

On Thursday, defence minister Yoav Gallant challenged Netanyahu over the same issue, saying he would not permit any solution where Israeli military or civil governance were in the territory. Gallant’s comments were immediately backed by his fellow minister Gantz, Netanyahu’s main political rival in the emergency coalition, plunging Israel’s leadership into a highly public row.

Gantz demanded a six-point plan, which includes demilitarisation in Gaza and the establishment of a joint US, European, Arab and Palestinian administration that will manage Gaza’s civilian affairs and the return of hostages.''

The American pressure, tragically too little and too late, is beginning to cause cracks.

[Pattern-chaser]

I think peace can only come if Israel will withdraw behind agreed borders, and stay there. Perhaps the borders established by the USA/UK/UN land-grab of 1947? Israel's neighbours, all of them, would also have to agree to respect those borders too, of course.

But can it happen? I pray for it, but don't expect it.

[Gertie]

I think peace can only come if Israel will withdraw behind agreed borders, and stay there. Perhaps the borders established by the USA/UK/UN land-grab of 1947? Israel's neighbours, all of them, would also have to agree to respect those borders too, of course.

But can it happen? I pray for it, but don't expect it.

I know, it's hard to see how the horror ends. Do you think that's something all sides might agree on? I don't understand the territorial ins and outs since then, it's a different territorial situation now.

[Lagayascienza]

There will be no peace. Neither side has ever wanted a two-state solution and neither do their backers. So what we currently see is what we'll continue to see for some time. The most likely outcome will be that most of the Palestinians will eventually be exterminated. The remainder will absorbed or dispersed. But this will take time. It's taken 70 years so far and we might to see this play out for another 70 years.

But in the grand scheme of history it will be just another blip. Semitic tribes have been fighting over the territory for thousands of years. Rome enforced some order for a while, then, after the Jews were dispersed, Christianity and Islam squabbled over the area. Then the West go all guilt ridden over the Holocaust and we got the 1948 partition which (understandably) the Palestinians never agreed to. And so the struggle continues.

The remainder of the Palestinians, after their dispersal, will add to the Palestinian diaspora already formed. Hated of he Jews will be thus perpetuated. And, depending on the how the Russia-China-Islam vs the West contest plays out, the Jews may one day be dispersed again. Few will really care one way or the other.

[Sculptor1]

There will be no peace. Neither side has ever wanted a two-state solution and neither do their backers.

Not quite true. a 2state solution has been offered by Palestine in the past, but no takers because Isreal thinks it can win. But it can only win by the complete destruction of millions of people.
I do not think Netanyahu sees that as a problem.
As for who is backing Hamas?? - Netanyahu. This is a matter of public record.

So what we currently see is what we'll continue to see for some time. The most likely outcome will be that most of the Palestinians will eventually be exterminated. The remainder will absorbed or dispersed. But this will take time. It's taken 70 years so far and we might to see this play out for another 70 years.

However. Palestinians are still human and like all humans seek to have a normal life with education, work, and building families.
The current population of Palestine in 2024 is 5,494,963, a 2.3% increase from 2023.
The population of Palestine in 2023 was 5,371,230, a 2.31% increase from 2022.
The population of Palestine in 2022 was 5,250,072, a 2.27% increase from 2021.
The population of Palestine in 2021 was 5,133,392, a 2.27% increase from 2020.

But in the grand scheme of history it will be just another blip. Semitic tribes have been fighting over the territory for thousands of years. Rome enforced some order for a while, then, after the Jews were dispersed, Christianity and Islam squabbled over the area. Then the West go all guilt ridden over the Holocaust and we got the 1948 partition which (understandably) the Palestinians never agreed to. And so the struggle continues.

The remainder of the Palestinians, after their dispersal, will add to the Palestinian diaspora already formed. Hated of he Jews will be thus perpetuated. And, depending on the how the Russia-China-Islam vs the West contest plays out, the Jews may one day be dispersed again. Few will really care one way or the other.

Netanyahu and his regime thrives on the conflict - it justifies all he does. The bullets and the cash keeps rolling in.
He has created a new generation of orphans who will take up arms to repeat the cycle.
The Palestinians who attacked in October were all under 25. Ask yourself how many under 25s do you know that are already orphans? 80 % of those joining the attack were orphans.

[Lagayascienza]

Yes, I agree with your points about Netanyahu and his murderous regime. And I agree that "Palestinians are still human and like all humans seek to have a normal life with education, work, and building families." But that is not what Israel want for them.

And at the moment Israel has all of the cash and most of the bullets and bombs. Gaza has been largely destroyed. It's hard to see how the Palestinians will ever be able to live, much less prosper there in future. And that is precisely what Israel is trying to prevent.

But the Islamic hatred of Israel will endure. As will smoldering antisemitism in the west. Israel under Netanyahu has perpetuated and strengthened the rod of antisemitism for its own back.

That said, Hamas with its October 7 attack has played into Netanyahu's hands. Just as he planned. But it's hard to see what else the Palestinians can do but wage war in the suicidal way they have. They are like the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto who wouldn't be sensible and just surrender. In the face of such intransigence the Nazis just razed the Ghetto. Sound familiar?