• frank
    15.8k
    They just kind of ought to choose better allies.thewonder

    So it all goes back to the US? What kind of global scene would be more conducive to a peaceful Israel-Palestine?

    A US-China cold war?
  • Joshs
    5.7k
    Well put. I do think the political character of the country has changed as a result of the massive influx of conservatively oriented immigrants from North Africa and Russia. What was once a strong liberal community in Israel has shrunk to a small minority, leaving theocratic and nationalist elements to run amok. Of course these are trends we’re seeing elsewhere in the Mideast as well as in the West.
  • Joshs
    5.7k
    Judaism is a dying religion isn't it?frank

    It is except among the orthodox and ultra-orthodox , whose number have grown wildly. At their current growth rate, they may become a majority of NYC Jews soon.
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    Though there is much that any person could take away from the blistering sentimentality of the poetry presented as political theory in my above post, the general gist of what I'm trying to get across to the person in Mossad whom I only imagine to read this is of my rather speculative theory that the CIA has been using the nation of Israel as a kind of geo-political experiment, which I think is just the sort of thing that a person who cares for the well-being of either your person or the community that you belong to would not do. It's a tightrope walk on the fine line between genius and insanity.

    Most of Europe, kind of a lot of people in the United Nations, people in the United States who have good reason to be critical of our intelligence community, and people who generally care about human rights ought to be the sort of people whom Israeli officials ought to think should view them favorably. On some level, that is sort of already the case, but I am willing to suggest that the military alliance between Israel and the United States has had a detrimental impact upon Israeli society, despite whatever either real or perceived security measures are considered as necessary to protect it.
  • Saphsin
    383
    There is a lesson in that period in that the violence was in some sense less about Israeli actions, which were moving towards peace and statehood, than about intra-Palestinian struggles over peace and spoiling attempts.Count Timothy von Icarus

    It's this crux that is mistaken, the Oslo Accords was the exact opposite of what you were saying. It was the completion of Israel's control of the Occupied Territories, not intent to give Palestinians their own sovereignty. That changes your whole picture of the motives for the attacks.

    "Oslo was not designed to lead to Palestinian statehood or self-determination, in spite of what the P.L.O.’s leaders at the time appear to have believed. Rather, it was intended by Israel to streamline its occupation, with the Palestinian Authority acting as a subcontractor. In Oslo and subsequent accords, the Israelis were careful to exclude provisions that might lead to a Palestinian political entity with actual sovereignty. Palestinian statehood and self-determination are never mentioned in the text, nor were the Palestinians allowed jurisdiction over the entirety of the occupied territories. Israel’s intention is even more clearly visible in the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, which followed the start of the Oslo process. There were fewer than two hundred thousand Israeli colonists in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem when negotiations began. Now, according to the Times, there are about six hundred and fifty thousand of them.

    The P.L.O. leadership, for its part, played a weak hand poorly. It failed to capitalize on the expertise that its delegation had accrued in Madrid and Washington in the two years prior, sending to Oslo inexperienced negotiators with little knowledge of the situation in the occupied territories or international law. As a result, Oslo reinforced rather than evened out the political imbalance between Israel, an undeclared nuclear power supported by the world’s sole superpower, and the Palestinians, a stateless people living under occupation or in exile. With the weight of the United States tipping the scales heavily in its favor—diplomatically, militarily, and through pressure on the Arab states—Israel was able to impose its will, entrenching an apartheid system in which millions of Palestinians live under military rule, with no rights or security, while Israel appropriates their land, water, and other resources. The only part of Oslo that was faithfully implemented, in fact, is the protection that the P.A. provides to Israel by policing its own people."

    https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/beyond-abbas-and-oslo

    Here's an exposition of the details of the agreement

    https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/palestineremix/the-price-of-oslo.html#/14
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    I do, in part, agree with your assessment, though find for the general proclivity towards Conservatism on the part of certain Jewish emigres to be fairly understandable, aside from that I will say that there are a few Orthodox Jews who kind of have better ideas on how to follow through with the peace process than most Labor Zionists. As much as I am an Anarcho-Pacifist and have a general preference for left-wing Liberalism, what I will say of effective Pacifism is that it does take all types.
  • BC
    13.6k
    I'm sure the CIA uses Mossad, just like they use ANY source of information they can get their hands on. Normal behavior for an intelligence agency, I should think.

    The US may be Israel's protector, but Israel is also our agent. Having agents in far away places, especially ones that are not only willing, but are successful in putting up with the 'bad neighborhood'. On balance, Israel is certainly not worse, and is probably better than the other people occupying the neighborhood.

    Among the neighbors of Israel, which one would you prefer to live in, if Israel wouldn't have you?
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    2.8k


    Sure, if the analysis of a partisan in the fight, writing 20 years later, through the lens of later shifts is to be taken as the final word...

    Did the Israelis also know ahead of time that Arafat would walk out on the offer of statehood? Clearly the must have, since they were a unified bloc with a hidden agenda, commuted enough that some of those who advocated for peace have continued to keep the act up for three decades.
  • frank
    15.8k
    but I am willing to suggest that the military alliance between Israel and the United States has had a detrimental impact upon Israeli society, despite whatever either real or perceived security measures are considered as necessary to protect it.thewonder

    I mean, I just assume this is the case without any facts to prove it. The US is not exactly Assyria, but they screw over as much of the world as they can. The CIA has done a lot of experimentation. That's no secret. What sort of experiment would they conduct on Israel?

    If you don't want to answer that's fine.

    What about biopolitics? What's that?
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    Israel has become a flashpoint for the left not just because of its subjugation of palestinians
    but because its form of nationalistic democracy exemplifies the Enlightenment era liberal political self-identity that the West is trying to distance itself from via brutal self-critique.
    Joshs

    This is delusional. Isreal is a racist state that is engaged in ethnic cleanisng. Moreover, it is supported - with arms, money, and media fawning - by the very 'West' you say is distancing itself from it. You are wrong on both counts of your comparison. Isreal is a 'flash point for the left' because its naked brutality is a second aparthied South Africa now with backed with 21st century weapons and a genocide program. "Nationalistic democracy that exemplifies Enligtenment era liberlism" - utter fucking madness. No wonder you're shit at philosophy, you've got bolts loose.
  • Saphsin
    383
    It wasn't the will of the Palestinians who signed onto it, it was the group around Arafat, who were extremely corrupt. That matters in terms of our initial topic, explaining the later popular support for Hamas, it was from disenchantment of the accords that didn't hit any of the core issues. The intent of Israel to subcontract its oppression to the PLO was well known at the time by critics from within Israel.

    From 1993:

    "The realization of the Israeli industrialists’ demands and their acceptance by the representatives of the Palestinian bourgeoisie would amount to a transition from colonialism to neocolonialism — a situation similar to the relations between France and many of its former colonies in Africa. But until a Palestinian state is established, Israel’s policy is clear. As Lt. Col. Hillel Sheinfeld, the Israeli coordinator of operations in the territories, put it, the declared goal of his work is to “integrate the economy of the territories into the Israeli economy.”

    https://merip.org/1993/09/israels-economic-strategy-for-palestinian-independence/

    "Throughout the interim years of the Oslo Accords, Israeli settlement activity was allowed to continue unhampered, with the number of settlers increasing from 110,000 on the eve of the Accords in 1993 to 185,000 in 2000, during the negotiations over a final status, to 430,000 today. That increase seriously undermined the notion that Israel was sincere about making way for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza."

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/the-oslo-accords-were-doomed-by-their-ambiguity/570226/
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    As I have the fortune of being within the libertarian Left, I can always claim that Abdullah Öcalan's change of heart was wholly without any form of subterfuge and offer note terribly critical and more or less unconditional support for the "Libertarian Municipalists" in Kurdistan. My joke aside, I do think that, though kind of an obvious rebranding of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, he was, to some degree, sincere in having turned away from Marxism-Leninism in favor of the political philosophy of Murray Bookchin.

    As to who to ally oneself with in the region, it's difficult to give any general political categorization or definite commitment to any particular alliance. There's probably a set of activists who took part in the Arab Spring, a set of intellectuals in some form of vague opposition to this or that authoritarian regime, the Kurds who are actually not interested in engaging in an ethnic conflict with Turkey, some Israelis, some Palestinians, and more or less de facto every person who is sincerely engaged in brining a genuine peace to the region whom I would find as allies.

    Despite what is mostly untenable of almost the entire Western Asian political spectrum, there are still good people out there with good ideas who even possibly could make a positive difference in the world no matter where it is that you go. I think that everyone in the West would choose to live in Israel given the alternatives. I am friends with an older man and devout, in kind of spiritual sense, Christian who went to Jerusalem not too long ago and found for his experience there to be fairly unsettling. His only remark was that it was "very sad". I think that kind of a lot of people would have a similar experience.
  • frank
    15.8k
    It is except among the orthodox and ultra-orthodox , whose number have grown wildly. At their current growth rate, they may become a majority of NYC Jews soon.Joshs

    Do they live isolated the way Jews used to?
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    The Wikipedia definition of biopolitics is that it is "an intersectional field between human biology and politics. Biopolitics takes the administration of life and a locality’s populations as its subject. To quote Michel Foucault, it is "to ensure, sustain, and multiply life, to put this life in order." I think that this is fairly apt. It's difficult to adequately summarize Foucault's theories succinctly. You kind of just have to read him to figure them out.

    As I interpret biopolitics, it moreso relates to Giorgio Agameben's theories, which proceed from Foucault, particularly in Homo Sacer, The State of Exception, Remnants of Auschwitz, and Stasis, both what I understand best of him and think to be his best work, of sovereign power over life and death. He has this grand concept of "forms-of-life" that a lot of people within the ultra-Left occasionally invoke, but, as he only explains this concept thoroughly in The Highest Power and makes mention of it The Use of Bodies, and, in the former, only really so well, I kind of don't think that most of them have any real idea as to what it is that they are talking about, as I kind of suspect that he only really has kind of a vague understanding of it, himself. Every Critical Theorist will tell you otherwise, though.

    I was saying that they were conducting an actual experiment, though they have been notorious for conducting psychological experiments in the past; I was just saying that they were using the nation of Israel as a geo-political experiment. I was using a metaphor. They kind of use the nation as a synecdoche, a single part that represents the whole, for the West. Doing so has the effect of making much of politics seem to revolve around Israel and providing them with cover for clandestine operations.

    I really just kind of felt like writing some political poetry, though.
  • frank
    15.8k
    really just kind of felt like writing some political poetry, though.thewonder

    It was very much appreciated. Thank you
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    2.8k


    I read the Khalidi article when it came out, but the 1993 one was new to me. It doesn't support your first quote, although the introductory paragraph might appear to. It's written from an Marxist prospective and explicitly states that Israeli power (i.e. the bourgeoisie) have abandoned colonization with the Oslo accords and are going for a NAFTA model (NAFTA being framed in the dire terms of the 190s) of exploitation. A neoliberal neocolonialism, which explicitly intends Palestinian autonomy and statehood. Maybe from a Marxist perspective they aren't different in the grand scheme, but with 20 years of hindsight, a US-Mexico relationship looks like something to aspire to.

    Everything I've read suggests Rabin was serious about peace. He sacrificed considerable political capital, and eventually his life advocating for it.
  • BC
    13.6k
    very sadthewonder

    It could be the "very sad" comment was directed at the penny-ante squabbling among the Christians over this or that holy sight. Or maybe it was the situation of the Palestinians.

    The Kurds are another group that can't seem to get a fair deal from anybody, They, among others.
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    This person is both genuine and sincere and was referring to the social ecology of the Irsraeli populace. He had thought that going to Jerusalem would be kind of a revelatory pilgrimage, but was disheartened by that the Israelis seemed to be subject to a kind of collective malaise. That's what I assume, anyways.

    The Kurds, unlike the Israelis, seem to be often more or less ignored by the mass media. Despite that the United States Military had been allied with the People's Protection Units in the fight against the Islamic State, the PKK is still designated as a foreign terrorist organization. It was really kind of duplicitous of us to have just kind of left them out there in favor of whatever alliance we have with the Turkish government that had already been pre-established. Though I don't really think that there are sides to take in so far that we are to exclusively consider the conflict between the proposed Kurdistan and Turkey as an ethic conflict, I do feel sympathetic towards the Kurds and think that it wouldn't be too much of a diplomatic effort to convince them not to wage terrorist attacks on Turkish civilians in exchange for being taken off of the list of foreign terrorist organizations, aside from that I think that they ought to be let to claim some form of self-determination.

    Though there is also a thriving and vibrant community of Israelis, aside from that I, myself, admit that Israel is probably a preferable place to live in Western Asia, I do still stand by that the militarization of Israeli civil society has had a detrimental impact on it. I'd bet that there are probably kind of a lot of Israelis who would tell you more or less the same thing.
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    I am glad. Thanks as well!
  • Saphsin
    383
    There is now no statehood, so it is straight up colonialism. (the prediction in the 1993 piece was that it would have been like France-West Africa rather than US-Mexico, the former is close to colonial control) But if in the Oslo accords (fully known by 1995), Israel retains virtually complete control over land and people, together with most of the attributes of sovereignty, then that's what it amounts to. The point was you pointing out the Rashid Khalidi piece was published decades later by a partisan, when it was recognized that the construction projects were well under way at the time and (not sure if you saw the edited post with the The Atlantic quote added underneath) the settlements increased right after the Oslo accords from 110,000 to 185,000 from 1993-2000. The intention wasn't towards peace and sovereignty for the Palestinians but control. The beginning of our exchange was your comment claiming factional-Palestinian fights leading to terrorist attacks on one side and an olive branch offerings on the Israeli side.

    The intentions of the efforts are laid out in the Oslo agreement:

    Jerusalem: Amid an analysis of Jerusalem as the nexus of Israel’s conquest strategy (‘an ever-expanding Jerusalem [is] the core of a web extending into the West Bank and Gaza’), Said presciently observes that ‘in the history of colonial invasion … maps are instruments of conquest’. Turning to Oslo II, we find that, although the text defers Jerusalem’s fate to the permanent status negotiations, to judge by the map appended to the accord, Jerusalem is already a closed issue. The official map for Oslo II implicitly places Jerusalem within Israel. Said also laments that the PLO agreed to ‘cooperate with a military occupation before that occupation had ended, and before even the government of Israel had admitted that it was in effect a government of military occupation’. In fact, the so-called Green Line demarcating pre-June 1967 Israel from the occupied West Bank has been effaced on the official Oslo II map. The area between the Mediterranean and Jordan now constitutes a unitary entity. Seamlessly incorporating the West Bank, Israel has ceased to be, in the new cartographic reality, an occupying power. On the other hand, the textual claim that Oslo II preserves the ‘integrity’ of the West Bank and Gaza as a ‘single territorial unit’ is mockingly belied by the map’s yellow and brown blotches denoting relative degrees of Palestinian control awash in a sea of white denoting total Israeli sovereignty. In sum, the official map for Oslo II ratifies an extreme version of the Labour Party’s Allon Plan and gives the lie to the tentative language of the agreement itself.

    Water: Although Palestinians will be granted an increment to meet ‘immediate needs … for domestic use’, the overarching principle on water allocation for the interim period is ‘maintenance of existing quantities of utilization’, that is, ‘average annual quantities … shall constitute the basis and guidelines’. Turning to Schedule 10 (‘Data Concerning Aquifers’), we learn that these ‘average annual quantities’ give Israelis approximately 80 per cent and Palestinians 20 per cent of West Bank water. Prospects after the interim period seem even dimmer. Although Israel does ‘recognize Palestinian water rights in the West Bank’, these rights do not include the ‘ownership of water’, which will be subject to the permanent status negotiations. Indeed, Israel already claims legal title to most of the West Bank water on the basis of ‘historic usage’. That is, having stolen Palestinian water for nearly three decades, Israelis now proclaim it is theirs.”

    Reparations: Juxtaposing the cases of Germany and Iraq, Said repeatedly deplores the absence of any provision for Israel to pay reparations: ‘The PLO leadership signed an agreement with Israel in effect saying that Israelis were absolutely without responsibility for all the crimes they committed’. Indeed, Oslo II explicitly imposes on the newly-elected Palestinian Council ‘all liabilities and obligations arising with regard to acts or omissions’ which occurred in the course of Israel’s rule. ‘Israel will cease to bear any financial responsibility regarding such acts or omissions and the Council will bear all financial responsibility.’ In what might be called the chutzpah clause, the Palestinian administration must ‘immediately reimburse Israel the full amount’ of any award that, ‘is made against Israel by any court or tribunal’ for its past crimes. “ To be sure, Israel will provide ‘legal assistance’ to the Council should a Palestinian sue the latter for losses incurred during the Israeli occupation. Washing its hands of all responsibility for nearly three decades of rapacious rule, Israel – Said rues – ‘crowed’ while ‘an ill-equipped, understaffed, woefully incompetent Palestine National Authority struggled unsuccessfully to keep hospitals open and supplied, pay teachers’ salaries, pick up garbage, and so on’, and ‘dumped’ Gaza ‘in Arafat’s lap … even though it had made the place impossible to sustain’. As we shall see, South Africa’s apartheid regime displayed rather more magnanimity after its comparable withdrawal from and institution of ‘self-rule’ in areas of black settlement. Even after conceding the Bantustans independence, South Africa continued to cover much more than half their budgets through grants.

    Sovereignty: Oslo II refers only to an Israeli ‘redeployment’, not a withdrawal, from the West Bank. Excluded from the Palestinian Council’s purview are ‘Jerusalem, settlements, specified military locations, Palestinian refugees, borders, foreign relations and Israelis’. Israel retains full ‘criminal jurisdiction … over offences committed’ anywhere in the West Bank ‘by Israelis’ or ‘against Israel or an Israeli’. Regarding internal Palestinian affairs, the Council effectively cannot ‘amend or abrogate existing laws or military orders’ without Israel’s acquiescence. There is even an explicit proscription on the wording of postage stamps which ‘shall include only the terms “the Palestinian Council” or “the Palestinian Authority”’. On a related matter, the Palestinian National Council must ‘formally approve the necessary changes in regard to the Palestinian Covenant’. No comparable demand is put on Israel to renounce its long-standing claim to the West Bank – and much beyond.”

    Security: Israel retains ‘responsibility for external security, as well as responsibility for overall security of Israelis’. In the name of ‘security’, Israel is thus free to pursue any Palestinian anywhere. Although duty bound to protect Israeli settlers and settlements that are illegal under international law, the Palestinian police cannot – ‘shall under no circumstances’ – ‘apprehend or place in custody or prison’ any Israeli. Israel preserves the right ‘to close the crossing points to Israel’. Palestinians who, due to Israel’s systematic destruction of their economy, are dependent on work in Israel are thus still left to the latter’s mercies. Israel retains ‘responsibility for security’ at the border crossings to the West Bank and Gaza. Accordingly, it can detain or deny passage to any person entering through the ‘Palestinian Wing’, and enjoys ‘exclusive responsibility’ for all persons entering through the ‘Israeli Wing’. Said dismisses these arrangements as a ‘one-sided farce’. Yet, Palestinians do get to post a policeman and hoist a flag at their entrance and provision is made for the expeditious processing of provision is made for the expeditious processing of Palestinian VIPs. The ‘Palestinian side’ also gets to issue new ID numbers for residents of the West Bank and Gaza – which, however, ‘will be transferred to the Israeli side’

    Land: The first phase of Israel’s redeployment leaves Palestinians with territorial jurisdiction over only 30 per cent of the West Bank. Further redeployments are promised in the future but their extent is not specified. And within the areas coming under Palestinian territorial jurisdiction, Israel continues to claim undefined ‘legal rights’. Moreover, the Palestinian areas are non-contiguous. A caricature of South Africa’s Bantustans, the Palestinian territorial jurisdiction comprises scores of tiny, isolated fragments.”

    Excerpt From: Norman Finkelstein. “Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict.” (from chapter 7 with the citations for the Oslo II accord)
  • coolazice
    61
    A question for everyone here:

    a) What sort of political realities or solutions would you like to see in Israel/Palestine?

    b) How likely is your imagined solution?
  • Maw
    2.7k
    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.
  • Changeling
    1.4k
    a) What sort of political realities or solutions would you like to see in Israel/Palestine?

    b) How likely is your imagined solution?
    coolazice

    a) Hopefully population growth will eventually slow in the fertile crescent as it has been in many other countries recently and the two sides will have some breathing space.

    b) It's likely if the younger generation turn into a bunch of internet nerds as they have in other countries.
  • Maw
    2.7k
    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.
  • Saphsin
    383
    a) For Palestine and Israel to negotiate a settlement based on the 1967 borders, the territorial rights that are currently written in international law. International law isn't the end be all, but it provides a legal mechanism for enforcement that the international community can agree upon. And it has to be done sincerely unlike the Oslo accords, the Palestinians need control of their own territory, they need their own country. That's the minimum requirement that needs to be done for Palestinians to survive strangulation, and the most that can be done in the short term in my opinion.

    b) Very difficult. I mean the first step I hoped for was pressure from a Bernie Sanders Presidency (who seems quite serious about it), but that didn't happen.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-steps-up-airstrikes-against-hamas-in-gaza-tries-to-contain-violence-at-home-11620900941

    Terror from the air now supplanted by terror from the ground.

    103 Gazans dead, including 27 children. That makes more than a quarter of the dead, children. Anyone claiming 'self-defense' - like @BitconnectCarlos - can go fuck themselves with a rusty nailgun. But more likely they will continue defending atrocities carried out by a murderous regime, while demanding that Palestinians die without complaining quite so much (i.e. @Echarmion).

    And some vapid shit like @Number2018 will say that all this isn't about Israel, employing philosophy in the most cynical, self-serving manner - or should I say copy-pasting, considering that is the only thing he or she knows how to do - while a @Joshs will have the gall to talk about 'empathy' while being utterly devoid of it.
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    Too late, BC. That toothpaste's long been out of the tube, squeezed-out not only by the late, murderous leader of the PLO & PA but, even more tellingly, also squeezed-out by the late, Likud PM, war criminal/hero and "father of the settler movement" (aka "the bulldozer"). OCCU-PATION. Oppression. Sticking bloody fingers in your ears, Bitcon, won't ever unring that bell! And it fuckin' tolls for thee.

    A question for everyone here:

    a) What sort of political realities or solutions would you like to see in Israel/Palestine?

    b) How likely is your imagined solution?
    coolazice
    :fire: Start here.

    What on earth is an ‘oppressor’ and what could ‘Legitimate’ possibly mean? The answer depends of course on whether you’re a relativist TWAT and how far you’re willing to take that. For me, the belief that such notions can be defined in anything but a hopelessly partisan way is at the heart of most conflicts.Joshs
    In any violent, vicious conflict, whom do you side with, Joshs: the weaker or the stronger? "David" or "Goliath"? Hint: The answer is fucking partisan. :shade:

    ↪180 Proof Where did you get this from? It sounds vaguely familiar.Joshs
    I don't know where you got your p0m0 apologetic bullshit from, brother, but I got my 'critical resistance' to oppression & colonization from these lucid, courageous comrades:

    Toussaint Louverture
    Thomas Paine
    Frederick Douglass
    Martin Buber
    C. L. R. James
    Mahatma Gandhi
    Ho Chi Mihn
    Malcolm X
    Martin Luther King, Jr.
    Abraham Heschel
    James Baldwin
    Hannah Arendt
    Edward Said
    Noam Chomsky
    Nelson Mandela
    Subcomandante Marcos
    et al ...
  • Echarmion
    2.7k
    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.Maw

    Who is doing that? The only person who has said anything along these lines (that I have read) is @BitconnectCarlos, and basically everyone else here has disagreed with him.

    The discussion here focuses on the Palestinians and ways out of the conflict because everyone agrees that what Israeli forces are doing is fucking evil and deplorable, so what is there to discuss?

    I have asked you this before, and you have not reacted: is any discussion of anything but atrocities and murders commited by people associated with the Israeli state automatically aiding the oppressors? @StreetlightX certainly seems to think so, given he feels the need to lie about, belittle and insult me for deviating from that line.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    Is any discussion of anything but atrocities and murders commited by people associated with the Israeli state automatically aiding the oppressors?Echarmion

    If by 'discussion' you mean, "it is preferable that the Palestinians are genocided in silence" then yeah, that's aiding the opressers you fuck.

    These are the kinds of people who watched the Death Star blow up in Star Wars and then cried about all the innocents who were on board.
  • Echarmion
    2.7k
    If by 'discussion' you mean, "it is preferable that the Palestinians are genocided in silence" then yeah, that's aiding the opressers you fuck.StreetlightX

    Never said that, you duck.

    These are the kinds of people who watched the Death Star blow up in Star Wars and then cried about all the innocents who were on board.StreetlightX

    "These are the kinds of people". You sound like an Israeli nationalist.
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