The shape Zionism took in that period is exactly what caused old tensions to reignite.

oh thanks, yeah got it, it was zionism that was the cause behind those families being murdered with blunt objects in their homes around dinner time. ya know for a second i thought it might have been the virulently anti-semitic arab political leadership in jerusalem at that time as well as the actual perpetrators who had no qualms about killing their neighbors with household tools but thanks for clearing that up for me; damn zionism... igniting tensions again. i mean how many more jewish children does zionism need to murder with a tire iron to the head before we just be done with the idea forever?

it is misleading to refer to this incident as a standard for Jewish-Arab relations during the period

oh no, there were no other riots. no other anti-semitic attacks during that period. you've clearly read your history here.

but seriously go back and read about the grand mufti of jerusalem and the numerous riots and killings he is responsible for. he's an extremely ugly figure.

all of them?

Palestinian violence against the Jews minority (at the beginnings of the 20th century it was very minority) starts with the proclamation of the State of Israel.In any case you cannot claim for a right that supposes equal violation of the rights of other people. — David Mo

The victims of the 1929 Hebron massacre would like a word with you.

Hundreds of arabs walked down a residential street with knives and tools and went from door to door murdering the jewish families - men, women, and children. the women were raped. it was deliberate and encouraged by the grand mufti of jerusalem, but i guess who really cares i mean they were zionists right?

It’s ever unsettling truth in the context of these race issues: “whiteness” is the villain.

I understand where you're coming from here. However, if you were to apply this type of thinking within a disability rights perspective the conclusion would be that the existence or presence of able-bodied people are essentially the problem. There's a certain truth to this thinking, but to actually hold it is just toxic. It's toxic psychologically.

(The real ethnic cleansing happened during the war in 1948. Atrocities did happen like with Deir Yassin massacre. Again, that's the ugly part of history.)

The Deir Yassin Massacre was roundly condemned by the Haganah (precursor to the IDF) as well as Jewish political authorities at the time. Political authorities sent a written apology to Jordan. These massacres have gone both ways and I wish we'd see such apologies from Arab leadership.

A lot of philosophy is systems-thinking and you can make right or wrong moves within systems.

I've been following this discussion and I'm basically in agreement with you. I just approach the topic from the disability side as opposed to the racial side. I think it could very well be therapeutic for POC/the disabled or who ever is on that panel to share their lived experience in a reasonable, honest way. There are just so few outlets for this type of thing in actual civil life. When it works it can work very well, but I can see how things can get out of hand when you basically have one "teacher" group sharing their lived experience with an outsider group who needs to adopt an attitude of humility.

But I do really like the approach that we're not looking to "end racism" or "end ableism" through this panels or whatnot; the goal is understanding.

You sound like you've been a part of a few of these panels on the racial side, how have they gone in your experience? Do you find that they're achieving their objective? Are there ways that they could be improved?

There is no need to 'start over'. When you successfully repel a thief from your home, or incapacitate a mugger, you needn't step back and ask yourself 'How now shall we organise society?' 'Society' is what happens when we don't aggress against one another and invade one another's property. The State will not be abolished through an overnight coup, from which we will have to wait for the dust to settle so that we can then rebuild civilisation. In some ways the State has grown, and in other ways the State has been totally out-manoeuvred by free enterprise, and shown to be the lumbering, ineffectual brute that it is (technology and the internet, especially, have contributed to this). If there is an end to the State, it will be through successive out-maneouverings by more competent service-providers, and in this sense the trajectory is good. We need not have a structural vision in our heads to anticipate the occurrence of such.

I like what you have to say here, and I do this issue of free enterprise trying to outmaneuver the state is extremely pertinent to our times and is going to play out over the next few decades. We're seeing it right now with the rise of digital currencies which threaten to unhinge the state's control of surveillance and put it back in the hands of the public. The government is closely monitoring this, and other governments around the world are in the process of developing their own cryptocurrencies which would effectively just act as enhanced surveillance tools. Banks and intelligence agencies have been in bed together for a while, at least here in the US.

Make no mistake about it though, the state will not go without a fight. The state can offer pretty good salaries to programmers and a number of other benefits. They are well aware of the threat that they are facing coming from tech. I also think there's another dog in this fight and that force is big tech (example would be facebook's libra currency.) In sum, what we have is the public vs. corporations vs. the state.

EDIT: In china this battle is effectively lost. The state has won. To the best of my knowledge the programmers there are nationalistic and the chinese government has really mastered the art of using tech to further control their population. they were able to arrest hundreds of hong kong protesters using their subway card information to know that they were attending protests via their personal data linked to those cards.

Now I need to know the actual topic because we've all this discussion about it and nothing really concrete about the actual details.

Fields like epistemology and ethics/morality do seem to have that kind of hierarchical relationship where conclusions drawn from epistemology directly bear on discussions on moral truth. Others like math and ethics the relationship seems much less clear. Personally I love inter-disciplinary connections and I'd like to know the two fields were. Certainly not all fields are oriented in this hierarchical-like structure.

I'm not an epistemologist here... just throwing out my 2 cents here so someone can crush it and I can go back to the drawing board.

The boring wittgensteinian in me would just relate truth to language games: that thing outside is a "tree" because of its use in our language, just like it would be "derevo" if we were in russia (which I believe means wood as well as tree). it would be absurd to point to it and ask which one it "really" is - tree or derevo?

going outside of language though - if we're able to do this - it does seem that certain languages are superior to others. if i were to go down this route and explain this it would be a different type of truth than the simple one explained above.

even the word "truth" has different meanings across culture and languages. russians distinguish between "pravda" and "instina": that which is apparently true and that which is an unshakeable fact of the universe.

Pretty much this exactly, and as you've mentioned when wealthy people face issues of substance abuse or trauma it's just a different case. I grew up down the street from a family of multi-millionaires and when one of their adult children fell into substance abuse he just got sent to a nice rehab resort and paying for the care or his rent was never really a concern. I recently watched a documentary on homeless women in Great Britain and it just seemed like they had basically no real family or much of a support network. If that's how it is for the women I'd figure it's much worse for the men.

i dont have time to fully respond now but i'll respond later. no, my point wasn't "oh the arabs treat jews like this therefore it's ok." the point i'm trying to get at is that part of the drive behind zionism was to establish a safe space for jews where they wouldn't be at the mercy of other powers. if we're going to make any progress in this convo you need to start thinking of zionism as an idea as opposed to how israel's right wing acts. one is a political party, the other is an idea with deep roots and is often identified with theodore hertzl.

how likud acts is a different discussion than the discussion on the essential idea of zionism which is older than likud. is the idea of a jewish state in palestine an inherently racist one - or at least any more "racist" than the idea of a muslim state? if you just want to say that all states that seek to maintain a certain religious character are racist then i actually think in some way we've made progress because we've clarified your position.

and for the record israel is not surrounded by autocracies, case in point lebanon. it's a troubled parliamentary republic and not fair to call an autocracy.

EDIT: I read what you said a few posts back which was that zionism was not an inherently racist enterprise. good, and i definitely agree that there's some problems but the reality is complicated and certain benefits are given for having served in the military which is compulsory for jews but not for muslims. certainly in america too veterans are entitled to benefits. i don't live in israel and presumably neither do you, i live in america which you could also call racist. the reality of israel's legal system is very complicated and you should probably talk to an israeli lawyer about it. i don't defend everything 100% but the existence of racial problems or inequalities doesn't mean we need to damn the entire country.

Just curious, do you think Jews were treated as equals in pre-1948 Palestine? Were they safe? Are Israel's neighbors Jewish populations treated as equals?

Demographically - at least in terms of immigration - it should go without saying that if Israel wishes to remain a Jewish state it needs to reflect that with immigration.

Judaism isn't a race though and there's no such thing as a "Jewish nationality" which you referenced earlier. You keep calling it racist for some reason when anyone can convert to Judaism regardless of race.

I don't really feel like continuing this argument with you because I don't know what the purpose of it is. I am just curious where you heard the "chosen people" line. Are you from the US? It's interesting because we were just talking about Israel and then you threw that in... I'm just a little interested in where it all comes from. Getting an honest view of where you're coming from would probably be the most valuable thing that I could take away from this conversation.

Hey ssu, I just want to point out before I really respond that I don't consider us in a "debate" here. A debate implies that we're both fixed in opposing positions and we're trying our best to convince the other person that we're right. I don't really see that here.

I consider this more of a discussion. I'm engaging you here because you actually seem to hold a pretty deep knowledge of facts and history which can sometimes be hard to find on a forum full of theoreticians. I'd like to learn from you, and maybe you have something to gain from engaging with me. That's why I'm discussing with you. It's not score internet points against a stranger.

In any case, I did read your last point and I don't really disagree with anything that you've said.

I did pose a question that last time that I would have liked you to answer. There's not really a right or wrong answer to it, I'm just curious where you'd fall here.

In regard to the nuclear threat, a good way to measure risk is to take into account both the odds of X happening as well as the amount of damage caused by X. In the case of nuclear war the odds of a nuclear strike by Iran are [probably] small (I think we both agree that it's small, but we probably disagree on how small. 1% and .00001% are both small but very, very different figures.) The amount of damage would of course be unfathomable. I'd be interested to see if you'd be willing to throw out a % here within the next 50-100 years that either Iran or a nuclear weapon from Iran is used against Israel.

Use of nuclear weapons truly has it's own logic and don't think that either side would take their use lightly.

Yes, it definitely shouldn't be taken lightly. If human beings were perfectly rational in the western sense of striving for self-preservation and happiness the odds of nuclear war would be 0%. I think any student of history knows that humans just aren't like that.

Yes, he was brilliant! I believe he was a student of Anscombe who is one of my personal favorites.

Scruton was an absolute force to be reckoned with though and I remember in college reading his "Kant: A Very Short Introduction" which was very well-written and clear. I'd highly recommend the "A Very Short Introduction" series to anyone looking for a quick but decent introduction into a topic.

Now that I'm browsing amazon he seems to have written "On Human Nature" in 2018 which caught my eye. Anyone read it? I would definitely be down to read more Scruton if his writing remains clear.

Israel has widespread anti-discrimination legislation. Of course there are problems, but so does every other country.

You're using an anti-semitic trope here. You seem like a sharp guy, so you should know this is an anti-semitic trope:

it's about the inherent racism that "God's chosen"

Nice quote cherry-picking one judge from 1989. I'm sure you really dug through the texts to find that one.

But you're right that Israel is a Jewish state, just as many Islamic countries base their own governments on Islamic texts.... but of course you're all over those and accuse Pakistan, Malaysia, UAE, Egypt, etc. of racism all the time and demand the destruction of their states too.

I don't even know why you're engaging me; are you seriously trying to change my mind or are you just looking to exchange insults? If you're going to pull the "zionism is racism" card then I'm going to pull the "anti-semitic" card and believe me I still hold the "nazi" card and I'm waiting for my chance. I guess you hold the nazi card too. We could just call each other nazis totally incapable of reasoning and be done with it.

In any case I don't agree with everything the Israeli government has done. Obviously. You can criticize settlement expansion and still be a Zionist.

All Zionism is about is establishing a Jewish state in the historic land of Israel. I can't tell if you're an angry white liberal with no real personal stake or history with the conflict or if you're an Arab who has a personal connection to it and to whom I would actually relate to a little better.

In any case no one's really changing minds here so.... great use of time.

I really shouldn't respond to this since you display no understanding on what Zionism actually is. It has nothing to do with race. Jews aren't a race. If you don't believe the Jews deserve self-determination or a "safe space" given history then you're either ignorant, uncaring, or anti-semitic.

Thank you for the history lesson complete with pictures. It was really tragic what happened with Rabin.

For the sake of our discussion, I've mostly been referring to Iran. I think we both know that Iran is no push over militarily speaking. In regard to the nuclear threat, a good way to measure risk is to take into account both the odds of X happening as well as the amount of damage caused by X. In the case of nuclear war the odds of a nuclear strike by Iran are small (I think we both agree that it's small, but we probably disagree on how small. 1% and .00001% are both small but very, very different figures.) The amount of damage would of course be unfathomable. I'd be interested to see if you'd be willing to throw out a % here within the next 50-100 years that either Iran or a nuclear weapon from Iran is used against Israel.

There the truth is that for Iran opposing Israel is an ideological issue, not an existential issue,

I would question this; members of the Iranian government or groups close to and funded by Iran have repeatedly supported the destruction of Israel. The destruction of a Jewish state and its replacement by an Islamic one would be a HUGE win on a religious front for nearly the entire Islamic world including Iran. Here's a few examples:

Khamenei: “This barbaric, wolflike & infanticidal regime of Israel which spares no crime has no cure but to be annihilated.” (2014)

Hossein Salami, the deputy head of the Revolutionary Guard: "We will chase you [Israelis] house to house and will take revenge for every drop of blood of our martyrs in Palestine, and this is the beginning point of Islamic nations awakening for your defeat." (2014)

Salami: "Today we are aware of how the Zionist regime is slowly being erased from the world, and indeed, soon, there will be no such thing as the Zionist regime on Planet Earth." (2014)

Hossein Sheikholeslam, the secretary-general of the Committee for Support for the Palestinian Intifada: "The issue of Israel's destruction is important, no matter the method. We will obviously implement the strategy of the Imam Khomeini and the Leader [Khamenei] on the issue of destroying the Zionists. The region will not be quiet so long as Israel exists in it ..." (2014)

Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guard: "The Revolutionary Guards will fight to the end of the Zionist regime ... We will not rest easy until this epitome of vice is totally deleted from the region's geopolitics." (2015)

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/03/Iranian-View-of-Israel/387085/

Make no mistake about it; Zionism is inseparable from the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. If Zionism falls Israel falls.

Iran doesn't recognize Israel and funds Hamas and Hezbollah. Both of these groups carry out intentional attacks on civilians and the Hamas isn't remotely shy about wanting Israel wiped from the map. How about the risk of Iran proliferating the nuclear weapons to one of these groups?

At the end of the day, I want to stay optimistic. I have no qualms towards the people of Iran, only the leadership. Neither of us have the inside scoop about their actual intentions, but based on rhetoric and ideology there is cause for concern. Do not underestimate the force of religious ideology. Mutually assured destruction might be insane by western standards, but radical Islam has a strong record of self-sacrifice for the greater cause.

Oh I don't agree with Singer at all I was just say he's made a pretty big impact, at least compared to your typical philosophy professor.

This is a very good explanation. In public discourse we're also looking for definite answers and you really can't get too abstract; both of these things don't work well for the armchair philosopher. You're right about the tightrope though.

I think that despite these barriers we are seeing some real-world impact, and the first field that comes to mind would be Singer's effective altruism as well as Singer's general impact on the vegan movement.

Can only a politician be a capable President? — Brett

Yes, Eisenhower. Consistently ranked in the top 10 Presidents by both parties.

I see a capable President as just a President who is capable of achieving his objectives, not that those objectives are necessarily good. An effective, capable President is not necessarily a good President. I can think of worse things than an incapable President.

The important thing is that the US, like you, is a drunken maniac who will bomb anything for any reason.

As long as everybody remembers that, we're good.

Not a bad strategy from a game theory perspective.

With having a strong nuclear deterrence, total superiority in the air and basically with their own armed forces being superior to other, having their foes in shambles (Syria in civil war, Egypt just barely hanging there), and having the sole Superpower as an obedient ally ready and wiling to rush to their help? It's not a dire situation as you think.

We're talking about Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.

but the fact is that Netanyahu has chosen this low intensity conflict as the normal for Israel.

Israel funds anti-Iranian regime groups and Iran funds anti-Israel groups. If Iran were to withdraw support from Hezbollah and Hamas I'd suspect there could be serious inroads made to normalizing relations.

And the ugly truth is that actually WW3 didn't happen. Yes, we came close, but we didn't have it. — ssu

That indeed in might have happened during their war of Independence. Afterwards, they crushed their enemies quite well. Today is different than 1948. — ssu

I understand that Israel won in 1948, 1967, and 1973. I also understand that there were no nuclear strikes between the US-USSR during the cold war or for the matter India-Pakistan.

You seem to regard these facts as inevitabilities though, and I'd like to push back against that notion. If we embrace free will we should understand that there could have been a nuclear holocaust and we've basically just got lucky that it hasn't happened. We should view our current situation as extremely fortunate. There were many, many critical junction points where things could have gone differently both in regard to a nuclear holocaust and Israel's victories in '48, '67, and '73. You know that in 1967 Israel did a very controversial pre-emptive strike against the Egyptians which took out their air force. It was hotly debated. Israeli tank commanders outmanuevered their enemies in tanks battles in 1973 despite being outnumbered; it was not a certain victory.

What do you think about this view of history?

To me it seems obvious that Iran acquiring nuclear weapons is a pretty major national security concern for Israel. The question is to what to extent Israel should go to prevent this from happening.

Well, I was kind of drunk when I wrote it (I am more drunk now.)

I take issue with the notion of indirect responsibility though because it seems to be essentially hollow: perhaps a village or a town bears some abstract "responsibility" for a school shooter.

Ultimately, the responsibility falls on the perpetrator. And I'm not blaming iran for this one; I do believe it was an honest mistake.

If your boss gives you a negative performance review at work and then you go home and beat your wife in a rage is your boss responsible for that?

But naturally the rhetoric HAS TO BE that Iranians are crazy Mullahs hell bent on destroying Israel even if that means that Iran will be destroyed. Yet it doesn't make sense. Never has.

It might not make sense to you. The Israelis still have reason to be worried because it threatens their entire existence. Israel has had several wars where, if it had lost, it would have been finished as a state and its people would have been at the mercy of its enemies. Yes, I've heard the term "second holocaust" tossed around more than a few times.

Yes, maybe in a world where all of Israel's enemies have nukes everyone acts reasonable and rational and everyone understands mutually assured destruction. But the costs of being wrong on this one are extremely high. Even against the "rational" Soviets we came nail-bitingly close to nuclear war and in some cases the choice came down the actual button-pushers. And that was without religion.

I've never called him a terrorist. I understand what you're saying here. Let me ask you though: From a moral standpoint, do you think Soleimani deserved what he got, roughly speaking?

Could you tell me the last time Bush or Trump used machine guns on hundreds of peaceful protesters protesting the government? That happened last month in Iran.

You realize most Iranians do not like Soleimani? Head over to r/iran if you don't believe me. I literally haven't heard anyone sympathize with him the way you have. It's absurd to the point where I feel like you're on the Ayatollah's payroll. It's just kind of funny because no one really sympathizes with this mass-murdering monster EXCEPT YOU and the Iranian regime. American Democrats and European liberals certainly don't. Normal Iranians don't support him. Only you seem to sympathize with him for some reason.

He was doing his job the same way your generals do.

Do American generals also murder and imprison their own people when they protest? This happened by the hundreds maybe a month or two ago. I feel like you're one of those people who would wear a Che Guevara shirt because, hey, he's just sticking it to the Americans, right?

The most likely explanation is that Iran made a mistake and shot it down.

Zero reported US casualties. Now would be a good time to de-escalate. Iran has now saved face; lets get back to business as usual.

There's a billion reasons for this. Historically, Jews were excluded from many professions but one of the professions that they were allowed to do was money-lending which of course got them very popular. /s

In New York today we're seeing a very sad phenomenon; Hasidic Jews are big targets because of certain unfair practices that they're accused of but also because of how insular they're accused of being. They're also extremely visible. If you looked at Nazi propaganda there's a similarity here: Jews are portrayed as being insular, only caring about themselves, and from there the Nazis additionally portray them as dirty and just a general blight upon humanity.

I see some of this rhetoric echoed today in reddit threads. Not so much the "dirty" part, but certainly the part about Jews being insular, not caring about anyone else except themselves, being unfair landlords etc. and that these attacks are basically just "punching up." It's interesting because no one is really justifying the attacks, they just claim to be "providing context."

For the record, I was raised a secular Jew and I can tell you that secular Jews tend to avoid Hasidic Jews. Very interesting debate about this going on within the Jewish community between those who support the Hasids and those who don't.

What evidence have you seen - read: not what evidence can you come up with now - that led you to this conclusion? Evidence you can now find is also useful, but I think it is important for us to notice if we are making decisions because someone asserted something and never justified that assertion.

It's all over the mainstream media and both sides of the aisle- democrats and republicans seem to agree on the basic facts here. Soleimani's complicity seems to be universally accepted.

I actually work in intelligence. I could go into work tomorrow and get the inside scoop, but it's not like I could ever actually deliver any physical evidence to the general public (or even really talk about what I heard.) Additionally, for all I know, the reports have been doctored. At some point you just sort of need to throw in with it. I think the connection between Iran and known terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah (which have been behind American deaths) as well as sectarian groups in Syria has been pretty well established.

Imagine if Vietnam or Laos or Cambodia killed Kissinger for crimes they considered he committed during the Vietnam war. They did this while Kissinger was visiting France and while he was an advisor in some way to a current president.

You wouldn't do this at the negotiating table, but out in the field I think Kissinger would have been a legitimate target for the vietnamese. I think a better comparison would be Westmoreland, who was actually a general - but yeah, absolutely a legitimate target for the Vietnamese. generals are absolutely legitimate military targets.

This act will very likely do just the opposite, except for certain interests: the arms and intelligence industries for example.

Yes, tensions could very well be inflamed. However, this comes after a long string of transgressions/attacks from Iran who previously believed themselves untouchable. With this strike that veil of impunity has been shattered. I'll make it very clear that I don't want war with Iran. Yes, we've raised the stakes but the iranians were really becoming quite bold thinking that we couldn't touch them. hopefully this will help prevent further bold escalations from iran because they know they are no longer untouchable. of course, the jury is still out on this one and the results will unfold over years.

Why?

The hardliners certainly hate our guts. Sometimes people just hate your guts.

Which is why he helped you fight the Taliban?

yes, we will occasionally share interests with groups that we aren't normally friendly with. would it mean kim jung il likes us if he dislikes isis?

No, it doesn't. You're not thinking. Try the analogy again. Try to think about not fucking yourself up just to get to fuck the other guy up. Or bite the bullet and admit you don't really care about how many people get killed, you care about being made to look bad by a country you consider inferior.

Bro, from a game theory perspective it makes sense to push the envelope if your opponent isn't responding. and that's exactly what happened; suleiman was brazen, he didn't even attempt to hide where he was going and he'd take selfies because he considered himself untouchable. you need to look at history and understand that sometimes the cost of inaction is worse than the cost of action. obviously, in this case, we'll just never know.

What are these, specifically, and why do they require you to get into an armed conflict with each other as opposed to finding some kind of mutually less destructive accommodation?

you keep implying that we can have peace and be best friends with iran but you never really come up with anything concrete... you just say de-escalate, but this term is pretty vague. so far you haven't suggested any actual alternative. the two nations won't even speak to each other directly. the iran govenrment as of 2018 refuses to negotiate with the US.

The guy is sticking pins in us because he genuinely hates us and has been hating us for decades. This is the regime, not the people. We can play nice with them, but that doesn't change the fact that we have diametrically opposed interests in the middle east. What Iran is doing now in targeting the US via proxy makes sense for it. It makes sense to ramp up the aggression if the US isn't responding too. That's just good strategy.

I don't want a war. We don't have a war, at least not officially. You're acting like this strike just started a war out of nothing and that's just not the situation.

I can't plot a positive economic or strategic outcome to this for the US ruling classes that beats sticking with the Iran deal and encouraging progressive forces in the country. Maybe I lack a sufficiently Machiavellian imagination or something. Anyone here see a war being good for the US?

No one wants a war, but given these facts:

-The general was behind hundreds of american deaths in iraq.
-He was behind the recent embassy attack.
-Was very likely to be planning more attacks, and never even really attempted to hide his involvement.

What is your solution here? To my understanding, the attacks in recent years have gotten worse and we really haven't responded to iran directly so that just emboldened them. Don't tell me the solution is empowering progressive movements because the regime just opened fire on unarmed protesters last month and killed hundreds. If it was as easy as getting a nicer iranian leadership into power that would be the obvious solution but I don't think that's really plausible.