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The Israeli Lobby and the Overuse of the Anti-Semite Card
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I definitely don't think that's the case either. Israel has already offered the Palestinians a significant amount of land (Gaza and most of the West Bank) and they turned it down.
Now, I agree that the settlements need to go. In fact, I think that a two state solution should require all settlements, not just the little ones, to be dismantled. But to say that Israel wants all of the land is just not true. A small, vocal minority (the settlers, about 10% of Israel's population) believes that, but the mainstream does not.
Also, your last statement is not true at all. Many members of the Israeli government are willing to give up Gaza and the West Bank provided that Hamas use the West Bank to send in waves of suicide bombers and rockets aimed at Ben Gurion (which would cripple the Israeli economy). In fact, I was just talking to a member of the consulate here in Chicago who, after a few drinks, had some rather uncomplimentary statements to make about Lieberman and the right wingers in general. He, like many other moderate Israelis, have nothing but contempt for the settlers and support stronger action against them.
Edit: Also, how would you explain the amount of aid that Israel sends in to Gaza and the West Bank, even during Cast Lead? Or the fact that Israeli hospitals admit Palestinian patients?
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
PR dressing on savagery.
The only war that could be construed as a land grab would be the 1967 War (Six-Day War) but that's not how I would characterize it. Anyway, they'd be willing to give back the vast majority of that land anyway (Gaza and the West Bank, possibly East Jerusalem, although they'd keep the Golan Heights).
So no, I don't think expansionism was the driving concern either. As for wanting as much land as they can get........well, who doesn't? You could easily level the same charge at the Palestinians, especially when they have repeatedly rejected offers that were, based on current circumstances, pretty generous.
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
Hardly. If a stable, peaceful Palestinian state emerged, one of the major beneficiaries would be Israel. The settlers are definitely douchebags but they're largely hated by other Israelis and only make up roughly 10% of the population. There are some hardliners out there but remember that the centrist party won the last election (failure to put together a coalition and the general suckiness of the Israeli political system aside).
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
No, it hasn't been generous if you want to actually build a state that makes any sense and doesn't suck to live in, and I'll go look in a minute for something to illustrate what I mean. And I'm not talking about expansionist wars, I am saying once they had the land, the idea of keeping it wasn't an unpopular one, and only became so when the consequences became clear.
Yes, a stable peaceful Palestinian state is good for Israel. But, somehow, that doesn't invalidate what I said.
Of course giving up land is generally going to be unpopular. How many situations can you name where any nation gave up land unless it absolutely had to?
Regardless, how would you create a fair resolution to the crisis that actually made sense given the facts on the ground? Israel is not going to allow Hamas to control the West Bank as long as Hamas remains committed to violence. Doing so would be virtual suicide since Hamas could easily cripple Israel's economy from there (closing Ben Gurion, firing rockets at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, etc).
I agree with you theoretically (my opinion about an actually workable solution calls for a signficant amount of sacrifice and restraint by Israel) but this is an extremely difficult situation to puzzle through. Neither side seems willing to make the sacrifices necessary to make this work, namely Israel giving up Gaza, the West Bank (all of it), and East Jerusalem, dismantling the settlements (all of them), and helping the Palestinians build infrastructure, and on the other side, the Palestinians giving up violence.
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
Israel has also built hospitals and schools in Gaza and the West Bank. Yet somehow, you didn't mention those. This isn't a 1-sided affair, with Israel as the horrible, savage monsters oppressing the hapless, defenseless Palestinians.
Both sides have committed savage, horrible crimes. To accuse one without accusing the other is willful blindness.
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
Go ahead accuse Hamas of savagery against Israeli civilians, especially during the intifada, and watch me say it wasn't savagery.
Wrong and wrong.
1948 was definitely a large land grab. Just look at a comparison shot of the 1947 partition and the 1948 Israeli state. And that doesn't even include the numerous Palestinian villages that the Hagganah and LHI purged internally.
In 1956 Israel occupied Sinai in the Suez War, and would probably have held onto it had they not come under diplomatic pressure from the U.S. to return it to Egypt. They did so yet again in 1973, along with making more territorial gains in the Golan Heights.
And as Elki has said, what Israel offered the Palestinians is pretty much the same as what Netanyahu is offering them now: a bantustan where they lack full sovereign rights and water access. Not terribly generous.
Oh, they built a hospital.
Those seemingly minor inconveniences that make life hellish
And they also built some schools! Ta da!
This thread was started over the issue of people being called anti-Semites for making valid criticisms of Israel's policies. This thread is full of examples of this exactly happening.
I haven't heard anyone being called racist against Arabs once in here. Not once. And people have leveled some pretty harsh criticisms against Hamas and Palestinians in general. So really all you're doing is blowing smoke since the issue is criticism of Israel directly, not a general analysis of Palestinian/Israeli relations.
I explained in my first post in the thread about why some Jews believe that attacks on Israel are attacks on Jews in general. It then morphed into a general discussion of Israel and its occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.
A lot of the posters here are way out to the left, to a degree that frankly disturbs me. They go on and on about Israel's atrocities (which is fair) but remain practically silent about Palestinian terrorism (which is unfair). You cannot discuss one without discussing the other.
Take, for example, the details of the occupation that Elki just posted. Then, zoom into the part about the population registry. Taken in a vacuum, it's awful. But one of the reasons for the non-issuance of cards is because lots of foreign fighters were trying to exploit the system. It became practically impossible to screen all of them sufficiently. So while the situation sucks, you can lay blame on foreign terrorists for breaking a system that could have worked, given different circumstances.
Anyway, we're just recycling old arguments at this point and it's going nowhere. It's nearly impossible to have a rational dialogue on this topic (similar to abortion, imho) because the radicals on both sides are not willing to cede any middle ground. I get blasted here for being too pro-Israel and I get blasted by Jewish and Israeli organizations for being too pro-Palestinian. I get enough of this stuff IRL to need another dose online
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
Jewish and Israeli organizations don't find your dismissal of enormous Palestinian suffering with references to some meager aid disgusting enough?
You're right, what he should do is make a signature image of Palestinians marching in a show of fake solidarity to illustrate his self-righteousness.
Or maybe in a debate with someone who is acting in a civil manner and who presents valid points, you could just ignore them all and attack him!
Take your pick.
It was fucking disgusting, and I don't feel like ignoring it.
Why should Palestinians not be held to high moral standards when we do so of virtually everybody else, nation or no? We condemn abuses in China as much as we do the Taliban. Why shouldn't we hold both Israelis and Palestinians to higher standards?
I for one hold them both to the same stanard--and by that standard, the gross asymmetries in power and severity of attacks paint Israel as the aggressor.
Lol, dismissal? Hardly. I never dismissed their suffering, and if you read my posts on the topic, I support full Palestinian statehood complete with aid from Israel to help build a stable, prosperous Palestine. But don't let that get in the way of YOUR self-righteousness.
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
I can't speak for anyone else, but I think this part is pretty disgusting. Foreigners are making it really hard to sort out real claims of people living their lives, and foreign interventionists? Boo-fucking-hoo, you deal with it, and live with the fact some of them may try and kill you, thats the price you pay for being a supposedly enlightened nation. You don't get to lock down an entire nation and make their lives hell because that whole government bureaucracy thing is harder than you thought.
I think Elkis tone dropped mostly because the bolded part above makes you come across as a massive Israeli apologist, and thus something of a horrible human being.
Yeah, I can understand that reading but that's not what I meant at all. It should have been fairly obvious, given my previous posts. In any case, there's a balance here that many on both sides ignore.
For example: It's terrible that the lives of Palestinians living in Gaza are terrible. The restrictions on movement are onerous and kill their economy. Israel needs to dismantle its settlements in the West Bank. They need to own up to various war crimes and do more to avoid civilian casualties in future conflicts.
Meanwhile, it's terrible that Hamas fires rockets with the intent to kill civilians. It's terrible that Hamas siphons off aid that goes into Gaza and uses it to buy weapons or support violence. Suicide bombing is a despicable tactic. Hamas also needs to stop intimidating Palestinian opposition and assassinating dissenters.
There's plenty of blame to go around. But the keys to peace are fairly simple: Israel needs provide the Palestinians with enough usable land (aka not just crappy desert without water) and support to build a stable, safe country for themselves. The Palestinians need to stop firing rockets and sending suicide bombers and instead accept a deal and get to building a country.
I don't think inflammatory, accusatory rhetoric is constructive. Playing the victim game (history has treated us worse! No, it's treated us worse! and so on) only perpetuates the violence and prevents useful, meaningful discussion of what can be done to stop the fighting and start the building. Unfortunately, if you try to tell an Israel hardliner about all the terrible things Israel needs to stop doing, they call you an apologist for Hamas. And if you try to tell some of the people here about all the terrible things Hamas needs to stop doing, they call you an apologist for Israel.
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
The Israelis use military attacks on civilian targets, killing far more, for political purposes.
Israel gets a free pass in this country and to a lesser extent the Western World and as such any criticism seems harsh. But before we go further into it, I suggest:
Who gives a shit?
The Israelis have been incredibly harsh, the Palestinians utilize terrorism and there's been significant loss of life on both sides. But why are we so hung up on this particular conflict?
More people are killed in one year in the Sudan than in the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The same could be said for Rwanda, or Bosnia, or Chechnya or Liberia or the Philippines. More subtle than the unabashed pro-Israeli sentiment that the substantial and disproportionately affluent/educated/influential Jewish population* in the US is derived from is the fact that we give a shit in the first place.
Why all the focus on one strip of desert? Fuck it, a pox on both their houses.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
The Idea that you can travel to a far off place, tell the natives to fuck off and create your own nation is a very western Idea. If you are American you should remember that everything west of the Missisipi river used to belong to different people less then 200 years ago. Where are those peoples now? In tiny little reservations if they are lucky, dead if they are not.
Israel is continuing the path forge by the brave settlers of the west. Taking land, Harrasing the palestinians and disproportionate vengance when they defend themselves. Treating the Natives as savages, placing heavy restrictions on them or breaking treaties made.
Remember modern Israel is little over 50 years old and the majority of citizens are decended from latter imigrants. The Palestinians lived there for almost 1500 years before they came. Hell, there are some that claim that the Palestinians are ancient Israelis that converted to Islam.
One of the advantages of having people in my family tree who died in the Holocaust is that I have an invulnerable defense against it.
No, you fuckers, just because Hitler killed a lot of us doesn't mean you have the right to fuck the Palestinians over in turn. Play nice, give them their own land. And no, saying you were there first (3k years ago) is dumb. By that logic Native Americans have every right to violently and forcefully evict every single non-native American.
Yeah, but why should America currently care? Seriously, why not just stop sending aid to Israel or the Palestinians, stop vetoing UN amendments, etc. Walk away and if asked, just shrug our shoulders and say "Yeah that's a real mess there."
Pure isolationism is not a good thing of course. But why is America/The West/The UN/The OAS/OPEC/ AIPAC/etc., responsible for ensuring the set up of a two state solution and that everybody gets along.
At a certain point I think it is just entagling us in a region where by and large, we just don't have to give a shit. Not our area. Nobody there can drop nukes in our house. If there's going to be a two state solution, then the Israelis and the Palestinians are going to have to work it out for themselves, and they are going to have to feel committed to the solution and want it to work on a daily and personal level. When they say we are going to live in peace, they have to mean it.
I don't know how America or even any non-regional party is going to be able to do that.
So why the Kerfluffle?
EDIT: I am arguing for Governmental non-interference. Personal interference buying Israel Bonds, donating to Palestinian refugee camps, etc is a person's choice. On a government policy level, I am arguing for America to have a big cup of "Mind your own Goddamn business"
Much like the current Iranian affair. Yes their government is a dick. But the Iranians have the right of self-determination. People should have the right to settle their own lives. Their way.
The only time that there should ever be a hint of interference is if a) the situation has gotten atrociously bad. Darfur bad, Yugoslavia bad, WWII Germany bad.
b) The country involved attacks the United States, an ally, etc. Traditional causes for War. (the non- "we want your shit" causes)
Israel would not be able to afford being such dicks if it wasn't for that fact.
This also displays a less well-known part of the Israeli/American lobby: The fact that its financed by several large weapons manufacturers. These guys want Israel to continue their rampage and use charges of anti-semitism to deflect critisism
No, it's more "Here, buy our guns" money. On top of the money going right back in to American companies, it's also a huge incentive for all weapons in Israel to be bought from the US.
Quite frankly, this is a big thing since there aren't that many people in the world that want to buy American weapons, and while some do, they do not stay exclusive and buy weapons made by other countries or just make their own.
There's no question that if the US stops funding Israel, Israel would get by just fine but the US will lose quite a lot of business in the process.
Which of the above weren't part of Western Imperialism/colonization/meddling again?
So we should care because we care enough to give them money. There seems to be a flaw in this logic.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
The US sends the money anyway. America is like Israel's Grandmother or something.
Well, the buy American tag to the money was implied. And American weapons are fairly popular, its just that the most advanced ones are off-limits to all but America's closes allies(of wich Israel is one). This causes problems when Israel uses "smart-bomb 2.0 USA RULES" to bomb places like Gaza. Everyone sees them doing it and sees them using US weapons to do it. This causes people to not like America much.
Its a documented fact that America's heavy support for Israel(the weapon sales especialy) is used as a recruitment tool for Middle eastern Terror groups.
somewhat late for that kind of reasoning, I mean the most recent recruitment videos have been claiming that Obama is a secret Jew, so I wouldn't be too worried about fighting that PR war.
I didn't, and wouldn't. But would lead to "accusatory rhetoric, and what is, at best, a really retarded thing to say is that someone isn't giving balance to the situation by ignoring the how Israel is making Palestinian lives not fucking miserable. How anyone could find omission of some look-good aid by Israel to the Palestinians note-worthy is beyond me.
Almost universally - at least at university - it comes down to, "Well, Palestinian terror groups blow up Israeli citizens, so it's okay to fire rockets back at them." Now, not everyone has that point of view, and if you don't, this isn't directed at you. I sort of thought the world was past Hammurabi's Code. Just because the Palestinians blow up parts of Israel does not make it okay for Israel to respond in kind. When we catch a cannibal in this country [the U.S.A], we don't eat them. "But they hurt us!" is not a valid argument in the modern world.
Granted, I can see the difficulty of trying to fight off militants who hide among innocent civilians, but the answer is not to blow up innocent civilians - for either side. A better solution, frankly, needs to be come to than a military solution, because the military solution isn't working. At least, not until there aren't any more Palestinians. It's not like you can dissolve a non-sovereign nation. There's no capital to hit, just an ideology. Bringing the terrorists to justice is difficult for Israel. I'm sympathetic to that. I just don't approve of their solution. It seems fairly juvenile.
Why do people keep thinking this?
Both groups are immigrants, the "natives" (Jewish and Palestinian) make up an insignificant minority of the current population.
That land has changed hands so many times anyway. The whole original settler thing is pointless.
One is a terrorist wing of a radical political group. Supported by people who throughout their entire lives have been completely fucked over by the powerful country that stole their land. Hamas is the only option for them, because even though they are violent and murderous, at least they cared about them.
Israel is a democratically elected goverment of a first world nation, representing a nation of seven million people, participating in world discourse as an acknowledged and powerful member, has it's own economy which openly trades with other first world nations, it's own army and is supported by the United States. Israel is not supposed to be doing the same things as Hamas does. Their actions are completely analogous to a scenario where U.S. army would have confirmed intel of Osama Bin Laden hiding in Riyadh somewhere, and they would fly a plane straight to Kingdom Tower to attempt to kill him.
So whenever you answer a criticism of Israel with "But Hamas are doing the same thing too!", you are not helping your point.
The goverment of Israel is no better then Hamas, they simply have bigger guns. No other first world nation get's the same pass that they have gotten for years upon years. The Israeli-Jewish lobby in the U.S. IS a reason for this, probably the main one, and pointing it out is not anti-semitism.
Not that it matters, but I have lost all respect for Thanatos over the course of this thread.