I think the idea is, events are allowed to take place that you disagree with because there's a certain amount of freedom of speech. I don't see a problem with allowing rallys for ideas I disagree with, unless the rally is directly involved in violence or promoting violence.

I don't think a rally of nazis is necessarily directly promoting violence (I understand the intuition that it is, but I disagree with that), nor do I think a rally in support of Netanyahu or Israel is directly promoting violence. What reasons would you have to limit their speech in this way?

Maybe I didn't give a good reason to limit the speeches of BUND and Co, but BUND and other similar cases may provide some clues about American democracy. Although when you speak with Liberals they will imply that "democracy", freedoms, and their liberal values, etc., are the most rational things in this universe, in practice we see that things we are taught to be self-evident, rational, etc., are just power. (Many groups in the USA have won their rights in that way, by exercising more power than other groups.) 

The BUND rally in Madison square shows that 80 years ago it was okay to disregard Jews because they were not strong enough. Now, I assume, in the US and some other countries is okay to disregard Palestinians and Muslims insofar as they are weak in numbers and money.

It is more correct to think of Clintons, Bidens, and co, as people who count on donors, money, voters, etc., than as people who really care about justice and American interests in the Middle East. However hard someone tries to find the rationality of the US policy in the Middle East, he/she will fail.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/01/11/israel-hamas-gaza-war-us-middle-east-policy-saudi-biden/

There are two routes for the US policy in the Middle East to change: 1 (the most probable) repetitive failures and loss of public interest in foreign affairs, i.e. American isolationism, and 2 (the less probable) pro-Palestine people in US overcome in numbers and money the pro-Israeli people (this is the case in EU right now, where you have 25 million Muslims and EU is much more reluctant than the US to endorse the Netanyahus).

I still don't know what you mean by "disregard". Does "disregard" just mean "allow a public protest or rally that they don't like"?

The U.N.’s agency for Palestinians said that it fired several employees after receiving information from Israel showing that they had taken part in the October 7 terrorist attacks.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/u-n-agency-for-palestinians-discloses-involvement-of-employees-in-october-7-attack-u-s-pauses-funding/

With friends like the UN...

Guilt by association fallacy.

I’m quite skeptical about your last claim. Whom/what is “modern civilisation” referring to? Why does “modern civilisation” have a duty “for global security and to right the wrong of the exile of the Jews and the subsequent exile of the Palestinians”?

It’s a moral argument. An argument about the concept that the Jewish people have been wronged by the world (civilisation). That the current conflict is a symptom of this wrong and that to resolve this crisis this wrong will need to be put right in some way.

“Modern civilisation” for me is the human world of the last 2000yrs or so. Or perhaps from the point of the exile of the Jews in 800 BC, or thereabouts*. This whole period of civilisation was involved in the wrong and the evolution of the psychology and narrative of the state, or geopolitics of this time.

If one doesn’t accept this moral argument then we are not anymore addressing the moral argument applicable to this crisis. That’s fine, but we will be ignoring an important facet of the issue.

As far as I'm concerned, my understanding is that the conflict between Israel and Palestinians has to do with state-nation formation over the same piece of land, by two competing nations historically bent on preserving their national identity and security at the expense of the rival nation.

Well I would agree that this is what we see before us now. However we can’t ignore the way this formation was handled by the powers at the time. Not to forget the moral argument and the history of the peoples involved.

So either the feud continues forever or one succeeds in being genocidal against the other, i.e. it expels or exterminates the rival nation, or one nation dominates the other by assimilation or partial citizenship (Jews have historically experienced all these solutions on their skin).

The implications of any of these outcomes for the wider region, or world security may be complex, or unforeseen .

Other powerful states can intervene to impose a solution which is convenient to them (because the instability of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is detrimental to their interests),

Well we are witnessing the US hegemony at the moment. Which is only deepening the crisis and will likely have either of three outcomes. An unstable fortress Israel state. The failure of the Israeli state, or some wider conflagration.

The problem I would focus on is not the horror of zillions of Palestinian kids exploding under Israeli bombs or the historical traumas of the Israelis, but why we are powerless over this conflict.

Quite, and what do you put it down to?

* I accept that civilisation over the last 2000yrs or so is complex with a dynamic geopolitics and is not confined to The West. However I would argue that this whole period is involved in the development of the current global zeitgeist.

The ICJ's preliminary report:

https://www.dw.com/en/un-court-ruling-on-gaza-hard-to-ignore-for-israels-allies/a-68099139

:up:

also this:

I've never been a fan of the NYTimes' (elite opinion) columnist Thomas Friedman, but can any of TPF's resident Israel/Netanyahu regime apologists @Rogue AI @schopenhauer1 @tim wood @BitconnectCarlos ... explain where Friedman's 'analysis' goes wrong? :chin:

So I know you don’t pay attention to all my posts, but way back I posted several articles from Friedman and a video with him and Robert Wright and said that that was my view more or less, so you can stop mischaracterizing my positions please.

Once again: understand what an analogy is. Everybody understands beating a dog just makes it aggressive; this is no different than people. Why abused kids often become abusers, why dangerous neighbourhoods raise dangerous people.

And you have it reversed. Their actions result in who's better or worse. It's because Israel had no rights to the occupied territory, so armed resistance is just. It's Israel having collectively punished Gazans for decades. It's a matter of applying legal and moral principles as a result of which Israel is much worse than Hamas. Any tragedy visited in Israeli citizens is by their own making, Jews sacrificed on the Zionist altar.

I understand that you're making an analogy. In your analogies, you repeatedly metaphorize Palestinians are dogs and/or children while Israel is metaphorized as an adult.

Interesting how you describe Israel in the collective abstract, i.e. an impersonal state, while you write of the opposite side as "Gazans" i.e. actual people who are victimized.

explain where Friedman's 'analysis' goes wrong? :chin: — 180 Proof

Nothing. He said that the Israeli far right and the Palestinians/Hamas (PH) have in common that they both "want it all." As to the Israeli far right, I wouldn't know, and I suspect that what they want is peace, security, safety. As to PH, they have made clear beyond all doubt that they want the destruction of Israel and Jewish Israelis, and they act on that whenever they can on both large and small scale.

He says Netanyahu is bad. And so he seems to be, although imo his prosecution of the war, with its goal the destruction of Hamas and the pacification of Gaza, is in response to 7 Oct. correct - for what else should he do or have done? He says Israel does not have a day-after plan. Maybe not, but once PH Gaza pacified, the business of peace can start. And to be sure, he is also reestablishing Israeli security hegemony.

And he said that bottom line it's a proxy war with Iran - no disagreement here. Is there something I missed you would like to point out?

So going back to my main point, if one was to be indifferent or "that's what Israel gets" regarding this latest round of killings/barbarism, then especially when it comes to this war, we can no longer really discuss in terms of morality, but in terms of power. — schopenhauer1

That's what I've been doing.

I've given you reasons for why Israel is not acting in its own self-interest. For 75 years their policies have failed, utterly, to produce a security situation that Israel can build on for the future.

It can whinge all day about how others are responsible for that failure, but the end result is that Israel is in an extremely precarious position and its own actions are making it evermore precarious.

Further, it has been in a priviledged position where through US hegemony it can get away with much of its misbehavior. That situation will inevitably change some day, and Israel will have to rely on its own diplomatic ties with its neighbors, who are now utterly estranged from it through Israel's decades-long belligerence, and the only reason they aren't on overtly hostile footing is due to American 'gun boat diplomacy'.

And again, if Israel believes it can solve its security problem by apartheid, ethnic cleansing or worse, then it is missing the forest for the trees. Such actions will alienate it from the rest of the world, including, importantly, it's immediate neighbors.

Israel cannot be secure without normal relations with its neighbors, which requires it to find an acceptable solution to the Palestinian problem.


You use Genghis Khan as an example, but, unlike Israel, the Mongolian Empire actually had extreme amounts of power. Israel might have power over the Palestinian territories and Hamas, but compared to its neighbors Israel is not strong at all. For one, because of simple metrics like population and geographics, and secondly because Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people is giving its neighbors common cause against it.

If you think Israel can go around 'acting like Genghis Khan' you are sadly mistaken. Hamas is a small fish compared to Israel's regional rivals. Israel would much sooner find itself on the receiving end of a new 'Genghis Khan' when a Middle-East fractured by the US reunites under a new regional hegemon.


It might be worth emphasizing that a realist approach (which focuses on power) does not mean one can go around ignoring other nations' opinions when those opinions are in fact extremely important to one's own security. Realism is about security as much as it is about power, and clearly from a realist approach Israel is not doing well.

Because an oppressor is not a victim.

For 75 years their policies have failed, utterly, to produce a security situation that Israel can build on for the future. — Tzeentch

That's because "security" is the fig leaf for illegal land grab. It's not a failure, it's the defining feature of their policies.

I would argue it's a bit more complicated than that.

Israel's land grab of 1967, while illegal, can reasonably understood as Israel attempting to find strategic security in a geopolitical environment which was volatile and overtly hostile.

That decision was, in hindsight, extremely fool-hardy and still haunts them today. It is essentially the root of Israel's worst perpetrations, because from 1967 onward it became the belligerent occupier of millions of people.

Over time, the 1967 annexations have deteriorated (rather than strengthened) Israel's security position. How to go back on these decisions half a century after they were made, in a security environment which is almost worse than it was in 1967?

From an Israeli perspective, the two-state solution would essentially birth a nation (Palestine) which is (understandably) extremely hostile towards Israel. It also puts Israel in a strategically compromised position due to having a hostile nation right in the center of its territory. The distance between the West Bank and Tel Aviv is only some 70 kilometers. The distance between the West Bank and the Mediterranean is even shorter in some places.

There's more to this than base territorial greed, however in hindsight we cannot but acknowledge that this decision has in no way improved Israeli security, and might in fact be an anchor that eventually will pull it under.


As I've argued before, I believe the only way forward is to give Palestinians equal rights, forget the two-state solution, and turn Israel as it is now into a nation where both peoples can live together.

But this would require Israel to relinquish its vision of being a Jewish nation state, which understandably is a very bitter pill to swallow for some, the Zionist elite especially, but it is simply not feasible anymore under the conditions it has created in 1967.

While I think such a solution is perfectly realistic, I think the will to go there is absent from the Israeli elite. This might change as Netanyahu is ousted and hopefully makes way for more level-headed policies.

In my view, Israel's only hope is finding a rapprochement, but the time to accomplish it is ticking. For now the US still holds a lot of power internationally, and that power can be used to accomodate a rapprochement in a stable fashion. In ten, twenty years, I think this window of opportunity will be closed as well.

As I've argued before, I believe the only way forward is to give Palestinians equal rights, forget the two-state solution, and turn Israel as it is now into a nation where both peoples can live together.

The Israeli’s won’t agree to this because it will result in Palestinians (Arabs) becoming elected into government at some stage. Due to the Palestinian population growing faster than the Jewish population.

So again, it’s a system. Hamas has the ability to turn the key by giving up the hostages and giving up. They can CARE about THEIR citizens.

Remember, you and Benkei are the ones who threw out debates of morality when you decided that means don’t matter if the cause is something you think is just. But even without morality there is the ability to cut losses when there is too much damage incurred. And Israel considers any death a tragedy, not a martyrdom, and thus has a different calculation than Hamas.

As I said @Tzeentch

So in this morality of the Thunderdome, where power is the language, and anything goes to get what one wants from the enemy, we can start talking about how the two power dynamics are to play out and how they operate. It could be seen instead of "two sides", as a system that is in a tightly wound knot. When they tug the knot gets tighter, not looser. So to untie the knot, there needs to be a set of actions by both sides in this particular round. The Israelis have to allow for an exit ramp on the other side. Hamas has to figure out if its armed struggle is more important than the lives of its people. And there's the kicker. This is where, whatever you think its failings are, Israel will always win. Israel actually CARES about its OWN people, Hamas does not. Hamas cares about getting a token prize (prisoner exchange or ANYTHING that will allow it to not look like it lost with its tail between its legs). They care not one iota about suffering of their people, just about how the war is carried out.. Whether the media is portraying it their way, whether they get European and American Leftists on board, etc. But basically, they don't care about what is BEST (in terms of actual lives lost and suffering) of their people. The Israelis, DO care about its people to the extent that they don't really consider as much how badly the bombings will affect the Palestinians when they send rockets, because when the more targeted army rushes in, they will have less to deal with in terms of urban combat. They think about things in terms of PROTECTING ITS CITIZENS. Hamas could go on indefinitely and lose millions of people. But they don't care. They DON'T CARE about their people. They care ONLY ABOUT THEIR CAUSE.

That makes a huge difference in how the knot is undone. Hamas would have to CARE ABOUT ITS PEOPLE by letting go of the hostages and even giving themselves in. Odd that they are suicidal, yet can't make the big boy decision that giving up would be best for their own people. They have to turn the key on their end to untie the knot.

BUT then here is another kicker. IF people on the sideline say, "Hamas should not have to give up", then they also don't care about the people that Hamas supposedly is there to represent and protect. Even if Israel supposedly doesn't care about the Palestinian casualties, Hamas and their supporters sure don't either. So who is left to care about the casualties? If Israel doesn't, but it still cares about its side. Hamas doesn't and that's the only one that represents its side (and the Leftist supporters of course). So apparently, all around everyone seems to care only about THEIR CAUSE and not SUFFERING, which negates cries against calling "foul", because they have the key, they just don't want it turned. — schopenhauer1

So in this morality of the Thunderdome,

I think we can see what you’re saying here.
This is what is going to have to be dealt with though. There seems to be a failure by “The West” and by extension Israel to understand Arabic culture and morality. This isn’t confined to this arena, it applies to all Middle Eastern situations. Also there is likely an analogous failure on the other side too.

There seems to be a failure by “The West” and by extension Israel to understand Arabic culture and morality. — Punshhh

What’s the failure?

The Israeli’s won’t agree to this because it will result in Palestinians (Arabs) becoming elected into government at some stage. Due to the Palestinian population growing faster than the Jewish population. — Punshhh

I'm well aware that this is a problem - perhaps the central problem. Equal rights for Palestinians is not compatible with the idea of a Jewish nation state.

In my opinion, this simply means the idea of Israel as a Jewish nation state needs to be revamped. Clinging onto that idea means apartheid, ethnic cleansing or worse, and all of those options lead to complete isolation of Israel in the long run, which in turn will leads to its downfall.

However unappealing it might be for some people in Israel to have to change its identity, it's simply the only option if it wants to continue its existence. It also happens to be a just option: Israel solves its issue of strategic vulnerability, and in return for the territory grants the Palestinian people equal rights.

Is it the dream solution for either side? No. But it's infinitely more workable than the mess they're in now.

Remember, you and Benkei are the ones who threw out debates of morality when you decided that means don’t matter if the cause is something you think is just. — schopenhauer1

I think you've got it wrong. I would never argue that.

My arguments have not really been moral in nature, but pragmatic and realistic. Morality just isn't a suitable lens to view the actions of states, even if I can't help but feel some moral indignation at times. (Sue me)

The Israelis have to allow for an exit ramp on the other side. Hamas has to figure out if its armed struggle is more important than the lives of its people. And there's the kicker. This is where, whatever you think its failings are, Israel will always win. — schopenhauer1

This is where we are fundamentally in disagreement.

Israel has most to lose.

How do you suppose a nation of a couple million keeps itself afloat once US power in the region wanes? Especially when it's already fighting an insurgency against a number equal to its own population on its own turf?!

It's sowing the seeds of its own destruction, because once the balance of power shifts, it is going to be faced with the bill of decades of belligerence.

Do you not see this?

To put it in simple terms, Israel is fucked if it fails to find some form of rapprochement. Hamas on the other hand, as is typical for resistance movements, just needs to survive until inevitably some day the tables turn.

That seems like a reasonable analysis to me.

What’s the failure? — schopenhauer1

I guess @Punshhh is actually referring to how religion and the lack of the effort to understand each other split two communities. Our failure in the West - our governments - and their failure in the East - their radical religious groups - is not finding a reason to maintain or share common ideas.

There have always been conflicts between us and them during the centuries: since Crusades to the current situation. And, each of them have a common cause: the lack of respecting each side and the failure of not understanding the position in the Middle East.

This is where we are fundamentally in disagreement.

Israel has most to lose. — Tzeentch

Yeah I know you think Hamas and Leftist supporters are super cool nihilists that are “gonna make Israel look bad” in an apocalyptic frenzy..as if leftists in Europe, and Iran didn’t already hate them? But do you see how outrageously costly Hamas’ strategy that is to care so little about the lives of THEIR OWN people, even if they win in the court of (leftist or Islamist) public opinion? You’ve already lost if you think of your own people as CANNON FODDER. To be used for what? Bad press for Israel and hatred that has and will always be there for Israel amongst those who don’t like Israel?

I’m no supporter of the right wing Netanyahu government, but if he’s in there, you can question why it is Israel wants the hostages back and no negotiations with terrorists, but the responsibility of Hamas is to their own people. In the game of nihilistic power, you have lost if you can’t protect your people. However, the insane part, is that is not anywhere in their calculus. Cause before their own people.

Hamas on the other hand, as is typical for resistance movements, just needs to survive until inevitably some day the tables turn. — Tzeentch

This is just your bias. Yes, I get you don’t see a problem with Hamas it seems, only Israel.

Yeah I know you think Hamas and Leftist supporters are super cool nihilists that are “gonna make Israel look bad” in an apocalyptic frenzy. — schopenhauer1

This is just your bias. Yes, I get you don’t see a problem with Hamas it seems, only Israel. — schopenhauer1

These accusations are weak.

Apparently I care enough to warn of the danger Israel is putting itself in down the line.

I'd love to hear your arguments for why I am needlessly fear-mongering, but don't come to me with these accusations of bias.

Some might call it western paternalism to liken the palestinians (or Hamas) to children or dogs.

Which I haven't. That's entirely your interpretation. It seems you still don't understand what an analogy is. But please continue focusing on what you apparently think is a "gotcha".

That's because "security" is the fig leaf for illegal land grab. — Benkei

Like for Russia, "security" is the fig leaf for illegal land grab, right?

Living through a genocide happening before our eyes, with 10000+ children dead, and yet apologists think this time it’s an exception.

History will view them poorly.

Israel cannot be secure without normal relations with its neighbors, which requires it to find an acceptable solution to the Palestinian problem. — Tzeentch

And if you live next to a murderous rapist, you shall just have to provide an endless supply of daughters and wives for rape, murder, and mutilation, yes? No?

There is sense to your proposition that existentially the Jews have got to figure it out. But it seems to me to ignore the monster in the room, namely that the Palestinians and their neighbors want the Jews dead and Israel gone and apparently accept no moral constraint in pursuing that end. Nor do I see how they can be dealt with in good faith when murder is their avowed policy and goal.

However unappealing it might be for some people in Israel to have to change its identity, it's simply the only option if it wants to continue its existence. It also happens to be a just option: Israel solves its issue of strategic vulnerability, and in return for the territory grants the Palestinian people equal rights.
Is it the dream solution for either side? No. But it's infinitely more workable than the mess they're in now. — Tzeentch

Here we agree. Equal rights - no doubt a probationary period desirable for obvious reasons - and one nation. May I offer an analogy for comparison: the practical and legal impossibility of interracial relationships in most of the US has yielded in one lifetime to their being a commonplace. Pay attention to US advertising and you will see that many couples and families depicted are multiracial - that of course because the advertisers want to appeal to the largest market. Unremarkable today, but even 60 years ago impossible, and in real life possibly fatal.

Perhaps if it seems both necessary and wise for the Israelis to think in existential terms, maybe it should be suggested to the Palestinians and their friends that they do likewise. This of course presupposing that Israelis and Palestinians et al share at least some common values - and there is reason to believe that they do not.

And here another video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5wVaNknEkY
A bit long, but can be speeded up.

There is sense to your proposition that existentially the Jews have got to figure it out. — tim wood

Israel controls Greater Israel. There are currently millions of Palestinians under illegal Israeli occupation. So yes, obviously they're the ones who have to figure it out. They're also the ones who have held all the cards for the past 40 years. Finally, they're the ones who stand most to lose, because all Hamas has to do is hang on until the tables eventually turn, and that is inevitable given enough time. (Though with US power declining, that time is ticking away rapidly).

So yes, Israel has got to figure something out if it knows what is good for them. Things aren't going to be pretty for Israel if it cannot find a rapprochement before large Arab nations take back control of the Middle-East after a receding American empire.