Is there any country that would tolerate a pacifistic leader after such an attack? — RogueAI

I don't know. Is there? I hope so.

'Ethnic cleansing' seems more apt than genocide. But ethnic cleansing may be a form of it. From
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/ethnic-cleansing.shtml:

Ethnic Cleansing
Background

United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR).
UN Photo/John Isaac
Ethnic cleansing has not been recognized as an independent crime under international law. The term surfaced in the context of the 1990’s conflict in the former Yugoslavia and is considered to come from a literal translation of the Serbo-Croatian expression “etničko čišćenje”. However, the precise roots of the term or who started using it and why are still uncertain.

The expression “ethnic cleansing” has been used in resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly, and has been acknowledged in judgments and indictments of the ICTY, although it did not constitute one of the counts for prosecution. A definition was never provided.

Definition
As ethnic cleansing has not been recognized as an independent crime under international law, there is no precise definition of this concept or the exact acts to be qualified as ethnic cleansing. A United Nations Commission of Experts mandated to look into violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia defined ethnic cleansing in its interim report S/25274 as "… rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area." In its final report S/1994/674, the same Commission described ethnic cleansing as “… a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.”

The Commission of Experts also stated that the coercive practices used to remove the civilian population can include: murder, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, extrajudicial executions, rape and sexual assaults, severe physical injury to civilians, confinement of civilian population in ghetto areas, forcible removal, displacement and deportation of civilian population, deliberate military attacks or threats of attacks on civilians and civilian areas, use of civilians as human shields, destruction of property, robbery of personal property, attacks on hospitals, medical personnel, and locations with the Red Cross/Red Crescent emblem, among others.

The Commission of Experts added that these practices can “… constitute crimes against humanity and can be assimilated to specific war crimes. Furthermore, such acts could also fall within the meaning of the Genocide Convention.” — United Nations

That's a risk any country takes when going to war, but what would you recommend Israel do? Suppose you were president of Israel. What would your response have been to the attacks? Suppose you were the American president after 9/11. Would you have gone after Al Queda? Also, suppose Israel adopted a pacifist strategy and gave in to Hamas's demands. Would Hamas and all the other Muslim terrorist organizations stop trying to kill Jews? I doubt it. — RogueAI

My response would have been to improve watching the Gaza border. Then, and not as a response Hamas, express some embarrassment for being the beneficiaries of British giving land away that wasn't theirs, but probably stopping short of promising to dismantle the state of Israel. I'd relocate settlers back within Israel's borders. I'd comply with agreements and expedite a two state solution as rapidly as possible. Or something like that. Basically ignore Hamas as much as possible. None of this is giving in to Hamas pressure. It's doing the right thing regardless of Hamas. But I doubt i'd get elected on this manifesto.

What we need is a world government with courts and a police force. Then the Palestinians and colonists can both make their submissions to the court and the matter decided on accordance with law.

I didn't really mean it that way. I meant unintentionally by pissing people off. Nevertheless Hamas is useful as an excuse to continue colonisation. Conflict is in the coloniser's interests.

Israel is creating Hamas, not destroying it

I agree with you on that. I think if that were a serious possibility I might fight to oppose it. But that's not an anti-immigration stance. That's an anti theocracy stance, which might, at some theoretical point in the future, entail a limited anti-immigration policy, if immigration was remotely likely to result in a theocracy. I'm not sure we're in serious disagreement.

Why shouldn't a nation want to keep it's national identity and protect it from large waves of immigrants hostile to that identity? — flannel jesus

Well it can if it wants, I just don't like it I suppose. I don't really like national identities, except as objects of mockery. But I take your point that there is a valid analogy to be made, but it's obscured by the extremity of current circumstances.

Palestinians wanted to cut off Jews right to immigrate to the region before it was ever describable as "illegal colonization". They were willing to live side by side with the Jews who were already there, but they absolutely didn't want more Jews coming in. — flannel jesus

Oh is that right? Oh well, in that case the Palestinians are racist bastards as well then, just like the rest of us.

The Swede is, arguably, racist, or at least immoral, or perhaps just ignorant (from a lefty perspective). Whereas a Palestinian who objects to illegal colonisation isn't. It may be that the Palesitian, in peace time, with no illegal colonisation, would be fine with Jewish immigrants, and welcome them, if they came lawfully, asked permission, and didn't terrorise the local neighbourhood. There's a huge difference. Are we talking at cross purposes? I hope I'm following you. I'm trying to do an assignment at the same time so I may have got in a muddle.

EDIT: So I guess I'm saying that the leftie wankers are actually being consistent in denouncing the Swede and being sympathetic to Palestinisans wanting the foreign Israeli invaders to fuck off back home.

The British should have invited everyone to Blighty. Build Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land, as it were.

The influx of Jews that populated Israel from the 20s to the 70s were in no small part refugees. — flannel jesus

Sure, but they didn't seek permission from palestinians did they? (I have no idea if they did or not). It sounds like the good ol' Brits handed out permission for them to settle in other people's land. Is that what happened? I'm not a historian. Neither the original refugees, their descendants, nor current colonisers seem overly embarrassed about it. Or perhaps those who were embarrassed moved out of Palestinian lands, leaving just those who felt entitled to stay. I love making up history. Fuck books.

Interesting point. What about this difference: Israeli settlers are neither economic migrants nor refugees asking permission for asylum. They are colonists. Migrants and refugees seek permission (except those who don't i guess).

I've seen a few YouTube video on the guys with the black clothes and ringlets etc who say Israel shouldn't exist. They seem really nice and rational. It's the bloodthirsty lot that worries me.

Not really to me, no. Questions can contain false hidden assumptions, be leading, be rhetorical, be impossible to answer coherently etc. But only answers can be incorrect. Questions are not claims about anything.

I don't think the calculus would be that cynical that they actually think it's in their interest but anything that's an obstacle to a two-state solution is not necessarily a bad thing in Likud's book (until of course when it is, like now). — Benkei

Yes, that sounds plausible.

What should the Allies have done then to relieve pressure on the Russians? — RogueAI

Something else

We need world structures so such disputes can be resolved by a court

As if raping someone on Saturday is excused on Sunday because he tells us he's done. — Hanover

I wasn't suggesting any excuse, just questioning the rationale of self defence.

The way to kill an idea is to call it geocentrism or something.

But Israel was more or less safe the day after Hamas' attack wasn't it? Bombing Gaza won't get hostages back, presumably. Israel is now watching the fence. Threat over, no? More or less? Sure there would still be some rockets as always, but there is now anyway.

The problem with the dog analogy is that you can kill a dog and end the threat. You can't kill an idea while there are people left to believe it.

Is the continued existence of Hamas actually in Israel's interests, or at least the more colonialist strand in Israeli politics? Hamas violence can be a 'justification' or at least a distraction from settlement and annexation.

Yeah. 'Attack' seems a much more apt term.

It strikes me as odd that countries invading others outside their borders is frequently, perhaps always, referred to as 'defence'. In chess, attacks are attacks and defence is defence.

annihilation of Hamas — magritte

Do you not think Israel is guaranteeing the survival of Hamas in some form? I wonder if Hamas can only be permanently stopped by a police force within a functioning Palestinian state. Not that I think Hamas is the most pressing problem.

Obviously there's lots of things the poll could have been but wasn't. The point is it's a perfectly good poll. For example, it didn't capture my position, which is that no causes are physical. But the framing of the question is interesting on its own terms and I picked the closest option.

I was genuinely confused as to who you meant! Sorry, maybe it's obvious.

"Double standard" anybody? — neomac

Who has the double standard?

Most contemporary philosophers of mind employ a Cartesian conceptual space in which reality is (at least potentially) divided into res extensa and res cogitans. — Dfpolis

Really? How contemporary is contemporary? Most people are monists these days, no?

Love the OP. This is what philosophy should be. Planck cubes? Are we living in Mincecraft?

I think the idea is that suffering goes along, necessarily, with differentiation. And creating a world is nothing other than differentiation, so that one bit of space if different from another. Only when there are other things can something impinge on you from outside, like an earthquake or other person.

To me, too. I'm just stating the case for the other side, and asking how it works — Patterner

Oh I see, that makes sense. Sorry I haven't been following closely.

Behavior is explained by the physical. — Patterner

Is it though? I do things because of the way I feel, it seems to me. So we have the problem of overdetermination. A topic for another thread I think. I still have to catch up on a paper @fdrake wants me to read though, so I'll do that first.

I;d say it has been explained. — FrancisRay

I broadly agree, with caveats. There's still a bunch of questions left over with my view. I'm interested though, what explanation do you favour?

Right now we don't know how a bachelor could be a married man, but that doesn't mean we won't discover it in the future.

Is there anything you'd like to discuss about this? Or should this be in the lounge?

Sure, that's fair enough, and on topic for this thread.

OK, it seems like your view is a stipulative definition, rather than a theory of something we already agree the is the referent of the term 'consciousness'.

sleeping — Corvus

What about when dreaming?

I have no memory of writing all this. Note to self - practise memory games.

@Mikie I think some softer liberal wishy-washy Christians would agree with you. They think all the God stuff is true, but recognise that the imagery and vocabulary they approach the matter with are culturally relative.