I'm done with you, you're not speaking in good faith.

Go argue your Zionist lunacies with someone else.

not giving up land they are stealing s — Manuel

Property is theft. Land is only owned by force

Go argue your Zionist lunacies with someone else. — Manuel

And good luck with your rabid delusions.

No. I am saying the premises of the debate are fallacious. Moral debates are mainly garbage. I am antinatalist/ No one who creates children has a moral leg to stand on in my opinion. — Andrew4Handel

I see.

Well there you have it. The thin veneer of the Pro Palestine's.

I see. — Baden

I doubt it. You engaged in a bogus moral debate based on false premises weak axioms and emotions. Defend your axioms and let's debate. Let's have no slogans and sentiment.

Go argue your Zionist lunacies with someone else — Manuel

It is called not being Anti-Semitic and supporting Jews.

Let's weep for personal tragedy to obfuscate the slow genocide of an entire people. — Benkei

The population of The area "Palestine" was 800,000 in the mid 19th century there are now 7 million Arabs living there. So where exactly is this genocide taking place? In your imagination?

Hamas won a democratic election in Gaza. Israel did not like the results and punished Gazans for voting Hamas in. — Manuel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatah%E2%80%93Hamas_conflict

"The Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens' Rights has found that over 600 Palestinians were killed in the fighting from January 2006 to May 2007.[14] Dozens more were killed or executed in the following years as part of the conflict."

Andrew is the best thing to happen to this thread.

Andrew is the best thing to happen to this thread. — StreetlightX

Add this to the list of things which totally aren't expansion by conquest.

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. — Judaka

I guess now is as good as a time as any for a post-mortem here.

For me it honestly wasn't that bad. I've had many other discussions with SL and I thought compared to those that this was one of the better ones. The key when you're talking to people like that is you've gotta translate - when he calls you a racist or genocidal you just ask him to explain what those mean to him and you'll see where he's coming from: He defines these terms is a very different sense than you or I would. It's actually a good thing if SL calls you a racist and I stopped viewing the term as a bad thing given his definition of it. I also noticed his levels of toxicity never really reached past a certain level so I just kinda gradually became accustomed to it and gave a bit of it back sometimes. There was only one other poster here who struck me as being unnecessarily hostile as well as extremely critical so I just stopped interacting with him. Most of the others were o.k. to interact with -- not comfortable -- but I think I've been called genocidal or a racist or a Nazi so many times in this thread that it just doesn't faze me anymore. You also just don't have to respond to everything.

It was a fun way to pass time on the weekend but I gotta get back to work now.

Who in this thread has actually visited Israel and Palestine? — Tzeentch

I visited Jerusalem, including East Jerusalem, in early 2019. Why relevant?

he/they must completely dismantle the entire state-apparatus of oppression now... [and] should begin by giving up its own policies of state-terrorism and military-economic support for client/proxy-terrorism — 180Proof

I understand what you're saying but it would probably help for clarity to explain exactly what you think this means in practical policy terms... I assume you mean dismantling all settlements over the Green Line, ending occupation and bombing campaigns, that sort of thing?

Apologies for the late reply, have been away. (and in all honesty somewhat trepid about getting myself involved in a 28 page Israel thread...)

in all honesty somewhat trepid about getting myself involved in a 28 page Israel thread. — coolazice

:100:

Apologies for the late reply, have been away. (and in all honesty somewhat trepid about getting myself involved in a 28 page Israel thread...) — coolazice

No need to read it actually.

Only thing required is curiosity and/or interest. ;)

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. — Saphsin

You say that this would be a difficult proposal, I'm just wondering what you make of the failures not just of Oslo but also Camp David and Taba? It seems that these negotiations were deeply unpopular with both Palestinians and Israelis.

I am not claiming Israel has done nothing wrong but they are clearly in an existential fight for survival. — Andrew4Handel

What argument for securing the future of the people of Israel would not also apply to the people of Palestine? The latter are also a people of diaspora - created by the actions of the former. They need a homeland too.

I couldn't imagine the US tolerating rocket attacks on US citizens with their homes being bombed and neighborhoods destroyed. There'd be some major hell to pay for the aggressor. — BitconnectCarlos

Yep.

Reminder of the topic:

Whatever else will be said about this massacre, Israel cannot be said to be defending itself from territory it is occupying. It's a contradiction in terms.

The US needs to stop sending military support to the only country in the Middle East which has nuclear weapons and is destroying the lives of civilians which lands it is stealing. This issue will not stop until the occupation stops. Utterly horrifying and contemptible behavior from the Israeli state. — Manuel

No doubt many Muslim countries do terrible things. And no doubt there are anti-semites around, some of them on the left, some on the right. No doubt this thread is not about either of those things. Please focus your agreement or disagreement at least mostly around the points raised.

Both sides need the moderates to kick their extremes out and realize it is a zero sum game to do otherwise. The end.

99% of the killing is done by Israel. 99% of the children murdered are murdered by Israel. The idea that's just defending themselves from the vastly inferior power they are violently occupying is where the parody comes in. — Baden

Indeed.

Notice the rhetoric. If our team does it, it’s self defense. If the other team does it, it’s terrorism.

Completely ignoring the power imbalance, and hence reality.

Completely ignoring the power imbalance, and hence reality. — Xtrix

If these scenes - eg the air striking of an Al Jazeera office, the bombing of a hospital, blacking out internet and social media sites - came from another middle eastern country, that country would be seen as part of the Axis of Evil.

Right. Which should provoke some basic questions: why does the US so strongly side with Israel? Why do we vote in lockstep with them? Why do we send billions of military aid and technology to them?

Questions a child would have, but which reveal some very interesting facts. I hope threads like these at least encourage people to look into it a little deeper.

99% of the killing is done by Israel. 99% of the children murdered are murdered by Israel. The idea that's just defending themselves from the vastly inferior power they are violently occupying is where the parody comes in. — Baden

The reason Israel suffers so many less casualties is because they have a missile defense system that intercepts the vast majority of rockets which saves countless lives. Would you support Israel more if more Israelis died and the casualty count was 50/50?

Have you also considered that around 25% of the rockets fired (200/850) by Hamas misfire and explode around Gaza killing their own civilians. A couple days ago 8 Palestinian children were killed this way.

Just watched a good interview with Gideon Levy live.

I'll put a link here once it's available.

This a thread which has rhetorically rehearsed and repeated both the arguments and behaviors of the principles. Now can the agonists do better and withdraw from combat, allowing peace? Or is the blood in the water?

I assume you mean dismantling all settlements over the Green Line, ending occupation and bombing campaigns, that sort of thing? — coolazice

Yeah, in that ballpark. From the cheap seats, the practical terms look to me something like this

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/536647

Apologies for the late reply, have been away. (and in all honesty somewhat trepid about getting myself involved in a 28 page Israel thread...)

No worries. Glad for your company again, cool; though in all seriousness all I can say about joining this knife-throwing circlejerk is "I can't lie to you about your chances, but... you have my sympathies."

this knife-throwing circlejerk — 180 Proof

A compelling image. But which hand for which - or God help us, whom

The reason Israel suffers so many less casualties is because they have a missile defense system that intercepts the vast majority of rockets which saves countless lives. Would you support Israel more if more Israelis died and the casualty count was 50/50? — BitconnectCarlos

Is this meant as a joke, or do you sincerely not see how fatuous this statement is?

You've clearly identified with one "side" and so are possibly incapable of looking at this conflict objectively, but take a few moments to consider again what you've said and see if you can at least play Devil's advocate to your own remarks.

(If you can't, there's no need in going any further -- defend Israel to the end; I'm not interested.)