Users should be required to show their age in their 'About' section, not wasting my time arguing with someone if they are under 23 years old, which I think is the case half the time.

I'm going to go commit a murder and use this as an excuse I'll let everyone know how it works out.

Do you think you can overlook the killing of 6 million people. Obviously it is relevant to the situation in the Middle as part of history. The expulsion of Jews from Israel by the Romans, the ensuing diaspora the crusades, pogroms and so on. Where did the Jews originate from and the Hebrew Language. The Jews are mentioned in the Quran.
If people killed 6 million of my relatives I wouldn't give a fig what people thought of my actions. Consider the genocide, colonialization and warring history of the rest of the world they haven't a moral authority to give or a moral leg to stand on

In this specific context I was talking about people having 8 children (or even 14) (like the case I cited earlier) and blaming the Jews or Israel for their problems. I can cite evidence that people In Gaza have deliberately had large families to outnumber the Jews. They are not having children to reduce their suffering or for the survival of an ethnicity they have simply overpopulated a finite space (like the rest of humanity is doing). You can criticise one sides actions and criticise the other sides.

But Like I say even if you think someone own a piece of land (something I think is metaphysically impossible) that doesn't mean you can do what you like on it such as overpopulate it increasing children's hardship — Andrew4Handel

Honestly baffling how people like this can possibly function day-to-day in real life.

Additionally discloses how untenable the Zionist line that only one side of this conflict is a "terrorist organization",despite whatever Olympic-level mental gymnastics will be conducted to justify this and similar attacks that are aired live. — Maw

Some gold medal Olympic Gymnastics right here

Do you actually believe your actions here make even a tiny difference? — Judaka

It's actually fucked up, I admit, because myself, @180 Proof and @StreetlightX and several others are legitimately the only people in the world capable of ending conflict in the Middle East, and yet instead of doing so we just routinely ridicule others on the Internet.

Are you sympathising with the Palestinians because of what Israel is doing or because literally 2-4 people on an obscure philosophy forum think it might be justified? — Judaka

You just articulated sympathy with Palestinian plight here. So what excludes you from this psycho-analysis of intent or are you just more upset by people calling others by mean names over people denying apartheid, moral atrocity, etc. ?

If you were even trying to change their minds, you wouldn't talk the way you talk. This is the crux of the problem — Judaka

All about tone, not content. — Maw

hmmm

Philosophy Forums hasn't been as good since the original shut down around 2016/17 (as I recall) and a majority of users didn't transition over. This is a general internet trend, as forum based communication (particularly niche topics) was gradually replaced by scaled social media communication (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) that could contain their own niche topic groups. Also need to take into account newly popularized ideological currents, and cultural wars that sprung from the internet around this time and hasn't faded.

This thread is really ugly, the usual suspects are really just going hard on the name-calling, insults and hyperbole. Just like the Trump thread a while back,I do more or less agree with their main view. In this case, Israel is an apartheid state, centred around the idea of being a "Jewish" state. The evidence on their systematic oppression and institutionalised racism is crystal clear. "Self-defence" can't be the label given toa one-sided massacre and it's not as though Israel isn't partaking in the escalation which gets things to the level of violence. One doesn't need to know "all the facts" to come to these conclusions.

Nonetheless, we've got posters in this thread who have little interest in doing anything except feigning moral indignation, virtue signalling and just trying to drag others through the mud. There are some interesting conversations to be had about this situation and you'd think a philosophy forum might discuss them but this thread is about as bad as it gets. The very same people who are generally being retards on this forum, back at it again, many of them moderators - or at least streetlightx.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/480/site-guidelines

The guidelines on this site are a complete farce. No need to like me or care about what I think, just read the guidelines and try to match them to this thread to see its quality. — Judaka

Look at what they say in the first paragraph (my bolded emphasis): "yes Israel is an apartheid state, yes Israel engages in systematic oppression and institutionalized racism" etc. ..then looks at who they critically target (my italicized emphasis), "This thread is really ugly. The usual suspects are really just going hard on the name-calling, insults and hyperbole." Not people defending or unconcerned for moral atrocities that they agree are immoral!, but people saying mean things to others. That's liberalism folks. All about tone, not content.

Nonetheless, we've got posters in this thread who have little interest in doing anything except feigning moral indignation, virtue signalling and just trying to drag others through the mud. — Judaka

Here's a thought: just because you are incapable of sympathy doesn't mean everyone incapable of it, and therefore are "virtue signalling" or "feigning moral indignation".

This thread is really ugly, the usual suspects are really just going hard on the name-calling, insults and hyperbole. — Judaka

Looks like the veracity of my comment here strikes again.

States do not have a right to exist.

I think I can one up you here with when my copy of Zizek's First as Tragedy, Then As Farce fell out of my backpack on to the security belt in full view of the TSA agent at the airport a number of years ago.

The woman's name in the video is Ruth Wisse, a professor at Harvard who is also known for her conservative views. Unsure what the event she spoke at was.

Not sure, the person whose Twitter it was might have deleted it

Lunatic

I'm about 1/3 the way through it and it's absolutely brilliant. Definitely one to return to again and again. Unfortunate title though, not sure how How The West Came to Rule perceptively plays out with passing neighbors when I read outside....

Videos like these are also why the other unthinking line of justification - "Israel has a right to defend itself" - will be showen to be the hollow, cynical, joke that it is. No one with a working lung and spleen will ever be able to take it seriously again. — StreetlightX

Additionally discloses how untenable the Zionist line that only one side of this conflict is a "terrorist organization", despite whatever Olympic-level mental gymnastics will be conducted to justify this and similar attacks that are aired live.

you are right — Number2018

No need to read the rest after this line

The people who are making dumb comments over and over again are the same people who are surprised when people get mad at them for making dumb comments over and over again. Not surprising.

The most difficult thing in the world to do is be open to the possibility that the one you are instinctively driven to hate , to condemn, to criminalize, construes the world though an entirely different lens than you do — Joshs

It's actually extremely easy and obvious

lol maw it was obvious satire. learn to take things less literally. — BitconnectCarlos

Right of course, "obvious" ex nihilo satire.

But what about the ongoing genocide of black and brown people in the United States? Shouldn't we be condemning that one first? Have you been to Baltimore, Maryland lately? Reminds me of Auschwitz. — BitconnectCarlos

moron alert! moron alert!

We SHOULD imagine that this discussion was about slavery, or the holocaust , or serial killers, or Stalin or Pol Pot. That’s the whole point. — Joshs

...Right, and imagine someone replying that in such conversations "focusing on differences in perspective and worldview" instead of direct condemnation of slave-owners.

On the other hand, there are a group of commenters on this thread( perhaps you included , perhaps not) who seem to evince textbook characteristics of what I call ‘woke cultishness’ . — Joshs

Congratulations for being the umpteenth dumbass to use "woke cultishness", a meaningless phrase used typically by conservatives as a substitute for actual thinking. A thought terminating cliché and clarion call for dipshits. Christ, banal white people have appropriated "woke" for own purposes for several years now, it's so boring at this point. It's ironic that you are accusing us of lacking "moral nuance", and "complexity" before quoting Batya Ungar-Sargon, who once compared Ilhan Omar to David Duke, harasses Jews of Color, and publishes insane articles about befriending Neo-Nazis.

fuck him up :fire:

PM sent

This forum would be far better if people like yourself didn't insert themselves into conversations and issues they clearly know nothing about and hardly care about to begin with. Just a waste of time otherwise.

Gandhi and the peaceful resistance he was part of was also not operating in a vacuum. There were certainly violent movements against the British occupying force in India. Civil Rights in America was also pushed forward largely in part because of external pressures from the Soviet Union who leveraged American racial inequality against them. MLK also died with a 75% disapproval rating. Far higher than Trump's rating by the end of his Presidency. It would also be very wrong to say that MLKs vision of racial equality has been realized today, over 50 years after his death. Just an outright stupid demand to make upon Palestinians.

Does condemning Israel change anything? If so, how? — frank

I see, it's easy to prescribe a solution for the Palestinians. They just need to produce a Gandhi or an MLK. No sweat. What should Israel do? Oh that's complicated how would condemning them even change anything?! Feel free to reread my posts, as well as @StreetlightX and @180 Proof, throughout the thread. Israel is the occupying force. The onus is on them. This has been explained multiple times. This shouldn't be a difficult concept to grasp for anyone over 14.

They need a Gandhi or MLK Jr. Lots of marching and civil disobedience. That approach has a pretty good track record. — frank

In the meantime Israel should keep doing what it's doing. They don't need a Gandhi or an MLK, or anyone. Only the Palestinians require that.

Can't get over how funny it is that on page 13 of a thread titled "Israel Killing Civilians in Gaza and West Bank" we have a guy asking where sympathy and empathy come from.

Where do sympathy and empathy come from? Are they simple ‘capacities’ or do they depend on our ability , rather than desire, to understand worldviews alien to our own? Are ‘oppressors’ and ‘evil-doers’ lacking in the intent to care, or so they misinterpret those they ‘oppress’?

Is it threatening for you to contemplate the possibility that there is nothing that distinguishes from you those you condemn for subjugation, prejudice or even atrocity in moral terms? That they believe passionately, as you do, that they are behaving according to the highest standards of morality? And that the root of our conflicts is precisely what you are doing here, questioning moral intent and will to sympathy of the other rather than focusing on differences in perspective and worldview? — Joshs

Imagine being an "independent writer in philosophy" and still writing this babble. Textbook example of how many self-described philosophers end up kicking up so much dust just for the sake of it that everything becomes opaque. The result is as you see here: resorting to pseudo-intellectualism as apologia for colonial atrocities. Imagine if this discussion was about slavery and someone responded in this manner.

Yes I understand that you don't want to appear incapable of human sympathy and require half-brained excuses.

Do you get the sense that some of the more strident critics of Israel on this thread are using the Palestinians more as symbolic props than as real people? Kind of like Hollywood movies where the set-up involves an ‘other’ ( black, native american, fill in the blank) victimized and oppressed by the imperialist Western white man. This oppressed other can do no wrong since they are just empty symbols. — Joshs

What Joshs is actually saying here is that he is so incapable of basic human sympathy that he cannot fathom how others can be capable of it.

Also needs to be mentioned that the majority of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are 24 years or younger (about 65% and 58% respectively), and the plurality are 0-14 years (about 44% and 36%). Regardless, it's hopeless to discuss further when a handful of interlocutors are, like a magnetized needle fixated towards the North, incapable of pointing anywhere else besides the agency of Palestinians, who have the least agency of all involved.

Not a bad comparison. But I was thinking more of science fiction. More like Jules Verne or H G Wells. With an economic twist — Apollodorus

Fuck that's absolutely :100:

Yeah the Lord of the Rings and Capital are pretty interchangeable

All true. But this does not somehow make any consideration of tactics and the relation between ends and means superfluous. The results of an escalation are obvious - people will die, most of them Palestinians. And then it will provide further cover and justification for continuing and deepening the oppression.

And again I'm not imagining I'm somehow talking to Palestinians here. I just don't understand how anyone can see anything positive in stuff like rocket attacks on Israeli cities — Echarmion

Except this arbitration is still being directed towards those who are oppressed, not the oppressors, therefore falling for the liberal demand that the latter not only solve their own emancipation but that they are issued limitations for the "correct" way to do so.

Yup these both sounds good and correct to me :up:

Examples of violence against Israelis can be brought up time and time again, as certain members, given a lack of a broader understanding of the issue or lacking an ethical concern for the oppressed, are wont to do, but this continues to exclude the fact that Israel, as the occupying force, owns the monopoly on colonial violence that takes place in the region. All other forms of violence occur within that sphere and cannot be decontextualized from that sphere. Given this, it's audacious to expect Palestinians to limit modes and mechanisms of emancipation by demanding that they act solely through nonviolent methods and peaceful resistance. Violent resistance has a historically successful track record of securing freedom and self-determination, and to demand that the oppressed struggle for emancipation through limited, pre-approved means presents itself as an implicit justification for the state of oppression.