So are WWII & the Holocaust essentially the fault of the Allies because of the Versailles treaty? The Versailles treaty treated the Germans terribly and threw the German economy into chaos making leaders like Hitler more viable. Is every bit of Nazi racism the fault of the Allies who punished Germany too harshly while simultaneously leaving Germany intact as a state? Why give Germany free will? They were punished, they were abused after WWI. Poor little victims abused by the Western powers. — BitconnectCarlos

It's very likely Hitler wouldn't have come to power if Germany wasn't being bled dry and had land stolen from it after WWI. One of the big reasons why land grabs have become internationally illegal. Which is also why the settler colonialism of Israel is such an egregious crime.

The difference of course is that Germany had a lot of agency despite the crime that was Versailles. As such it couldn't be considered oppressed as opposed to Palestinians who are firmly kept under the heel of Israel precisely to avoid it getting agency. My judgment would be entirely different if Palestinians had agency and weren't oppressed, in which case we could place terrorism squarely at their feet. In this case, the root cause is Israeli crimes.

We have to be realistic about the logical outcome of Israel ending all it's current practices. A Palestinian state, funded and armed by Iran. That's not a recipe for peace, but for a larger conflict, with more victims. — Foghorn

Crystal ball thinking. The logical outcome is that it removes all justified reasons for Palestinians to commit acts of aggression. If they would try it then 1. Israel is still much stronger militarily speaking and 2. doesn't lose any allies by doing so and will gain more of them. The idea that Iran can somehow successfully fund a proxy war and Palestinians even being interested in it when they have the peace they want for decades now is pretty laughable and only fueled by paranoia.

I think the whole terrorism definition for criminal law purposes is bloody insane. See: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h55kWBVmoJJ-sH6SicwON7QXOObDiv0q/view?usp=drivesdk

wtf? Are they serious?

It is 2021, Zionism has already been realized. It does not matter if other thinkers had other ideas because a state has been established. Borders change and neither side needs to stop building. — BitconnectCarlos

OK, I disagree, but let's assume it is. So the illegal settler thing is the de facto view is every Jew as something that should happen? You really want to go there? Because then this

You know Israel is full of Israelis, right? Do individual Israelis have a right to be upset when their neighbors are killed? Is that okay with you? Let's talk about the people now. — BitconnectCarlos

You don't get to complain about Hamas in the midst of committing and supporting ethnic cleansing and annexing land, which according to BitconnectCarlos is the interpretation of Zionism that's the only correct one and every Jew holds.

How about the atrocity of how gays are treated in Gaza? Or the atrocity of how they treat their women? I guess the Jews really do control everything. I'm sure when Palestinian men beat their wives it is also Israel's fault. — BitconnectCarlos

Probably. We don't know what sort of society would've developed if the people weren't being oppressed. A lot of problems like this are a consequence of poverty.

Yeah, if only I had the time and financial comfort to work full time on this. But in principle it's good advice.

But if you wanted to help the people of Hong Kong you should've started 2 years ago. — Pretty Herds

I did. I've donated and wrote Dutch members of Parliament.

Look up the statistics: — Pretty Herds

I did, which is why I asked you not to share bullshit.

That's not what I'm saying at all. But to read the question is to imagine the genocide of two people as part of the four options on the table. I really have no idea because it's not a situation that can arise. I find the imagining of something impossible not very useful or informative.

Edit: I assume the question has a purpose though. Maybe you can go into that?

How is it helpful to imagine genocide?

@Andrew4Handel



Israel breaking ceasefires more regularly than Palestinians


What "peace talks" bring Palestinians



I gathered pictures for you so maybe you can wrap your head around the facts this way.

Don't pollute my thread with bullshit.

No, that's fair to ask. For me the Hong Kong situation is already enough, where they have reneged on clear promises.

Here's about intimidation of Uighurs abroad. I can confirm this is indeed happening in the Netherlands. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2020/02/china-uyghurs-abroad-living-in-fear/

Here's PBS including satellite imagery https://www.pbs.org/newshour/features/uighurs/

Uighur fugitive reports across various countries are the same. So we pretty much know what's going on.

the Jewish narrative — BitconnectCarlos

There is no "the Jewish narrative", there are several. Homeland doesn't mean state in some, nor from the west bank to the sea in others. When talking about anti-Zionism quite early on in this debate I explicated what I understood to be right wing political Zionism and why this should be opposed.

Your focus on factual correctness here is masturbatory. As long as you continue to support (which is effectively the same as refusing to condemn) the deliberate murder of innocent civilians I cannot engage with you, it is that simple. Please come back to the side of humanity here. — BitconnectCarlos

I have but you haven't been paying attention. I've condemned it but maintain that every atrocity happening to Israelis is of their own making and every atrocity befalling the Palestinians is wreaked upon them by Israel. That's a consequence of the power differential and Israel's treatment of Palestinians in general. In other words, Israel is asking for it by treating Palestinians as animals and as such has no moral standing to be outraged by a bunch of ineffectual rocket attacks while it's state (sponsored) terrorism is many times worse.

excellent. Glad to know there's something we agree on! :up:

By the way, any ideas where we can buy stuff with "Boycott China" and similar logos? — Apollodorus

No idea.

I find it a bit weird though that the first association with an argument for divestment and boycott of a certain country because of human rights abuses is that with racism.

Anyhoo, in a capitalist world and in a capitalist society like the Netherlands, money is power, which is precisely why China isn't boycotted. It's become too powerful. So the only way to influence politics is diminishing China's power by diminishing its income. Our governments might be too chicken to do something about it, or shouldn't stop us from voting with cash.

The nice thing is also that countries like Germany, South Korea, Japan, etc. often have much higher quality standards for production, resulting in those extra expenses probably paying off in the long run.

Yeah, I'm a total Nazi. You got me.

Why would it raise suspicion? Generally the lancet is a good peer review journal and I think for laymen to trust it is a reasonable heuristic.

"Yeah, but Fatah and Hamas torture their prisoners too and it's even worse, they do it to their own people, so there."

I shared proof right there and so did Streetlight about how Israel treats activists (and that's not going into their administrative detentions in general). And I've never said it's Nazi Germany but as Hannah Arendt and Einstein already pointed out in 1948, Israel did choose to learn a lot from them. Much better men and women than you realised this much earlier.

And here's an American Jew banned from Israel, who based on the Law of Return, has a right to Israeli citizenship: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/15/i-am-american-jewish-and-banned-from-israel-for-my-activism

But I'm not interested in making you understand what is going on in Israel as you have demonstrated no interest in the facts on the ground. You have refused to read the various reports I have shared and to either discuss or accept them. Instead you've been on a world-tour of how other regimes and groups also commit crimes, as if that somehow would excuse Israel. A very, very long string of fallacies in reply to facts.

No, the only reason I post is everytime you post falsehoods and mistakes I'll be more than happy to correct it so that less biased people can know what's really going on.

Except it does and regularly too.

https://theintercept.com/2021/05/24/israeli-police-round-palestinian-protesters-global-attention-fades/

China is the biggest dictatorship in the history of humanity. Can't seem to find the outrage thread for that. — Foghorn

Try the Hong Kong thread.

It was actually really funny, I gave him an article about how Hamas arrested & imprisoned 3 Palestinian grassroots peace activists for talking with Israeli peace activists over skype or zoom and his response was basically "well it was all done by the books and done very professionally, unlike the Israelis!" :brow: — BitconnectCarlos

What's funny is how everybody has such problems with basic reading comprehension. I said in response to your umpteenth tu quoque:

Hmm... Due process afforded after being charged with an actual crime according to local law. That's already a step up from the "administrative" detention of Israel where no charge is laid and Palestinians are in prison for months and sometimes even years. Try again... — Me

So as an example of how "bad" Hamas was (and I therefore shouldn't complain about Israel), you completely failed to realise Israel is much worse in this respect. It's that context in which I made the comment even ignoring the fact that every time you do that is a fallacy to begin with.

Every time you say something that's false on this topic, I'll reply. There's no obligation on you to do the same.

e would not be in this place because we would never refuse to recognize another group. — BitconnectCarlos

Israel doesn't recognise the right to a Palestinian State. No Palestinian group denies the existence of "Israel" as an entity or group of people they have to deal with, some of them refuse to recognise the Israeli state though.

We wouldn't refuse to establish diplomatic relations with them.

This is a very confusing statement. Hamas has refused, but doesn't any more. Fatah never refused diplomatic relations but Israel has and continues to refuse to recognise the observer status of the Palestinian State in the UN. Hamas is also designated as a terrorist organisation by Israel so it only talks to Hamas via Egypt. The last fair and open election by the Palestinians resulted in an outcome not wanted by Israel, leading to boycotts by Israel and its supporters. Basically messaging that democracy is fine until you elect someone we don't like (eg. can't bribe to sell out their own people).

Nor would we teach our children that they must avenge their history by any means necessary.

Says the guy who dredges up conflicts from 400 BC and defending Zionism as a state entity. And if by "avenge" you mean, "resist oppression" than definitely, they should never acquiesce to crimes.

Jews have been kicked out of Judea several times.

So?

I think for most of us it appears as a normalisation and so there's less to say that is particular to Biden. Biden rocks less boats than his predecessor.

Plenty of critique possible with respect to the US corporate-governmental apparatus but I don't think Biden plays an exceptional role in that.

Apart from surprise, what do you think was worthwhile to mention in the past 11 weeks?

Plenty of people, including in this thread, don't see a fundamental problem with how the Palestinians are treated and will go to untold lengths defending it. Much like what we see in society.

define oppose. I think we still can't know but the possibility of the lab escape certainly has gone up, compared to a year ago when most people were thrown off by the Lancet study claiming it couldn't have been engineered.

It's also possible it wasn't engineered and escaped the lab all the same.

And it's also still possible it came about naturally.

As I noted earlier, one of the problems is undisclosed Intel is supposed to support the lab theory and it's flatly denied by China. It's likely we'll never know because we're not getting all the available information to begin with.

I'm not implying anything. I'm telling you it's there. Go on, read them.

If you were concerned about innocent muslim victims, you'd be able to show a series of posts on this forum where you express concern for the victims of the Assad regime, victims of the Taliban, oppression by the Saudis, the Iranian regime shooting it's own people down in the streets etc. Any of that would do.

If you were sincere, most of your outrage would be directed at those doing most of the harm to innocent muslim victims. — Foghorn

Which is still irrelevant but you're welcome to use the search function and read my 4,500 posts. I'm not going to do it for you. I'll be here waiting for you to swallow your words.

Oh for crying out loud, cut the crap. You won't provide the evidence because there isn't any, and you're not honest enough to admit that. Here's the relevance. Why should we bother to respond to claims made by someone who is not actually interested in the topic??? — Foghorn

I'm not going to divulge my identity you twat. The reason to respond to my claims is because this is a public board, we have a subject, and I make testable claims that can be waylaid or accepted. So far you've done a lot to question me but rather little about the points I made.

EDIT: one can wonder why I would bother to engage in this thread for 68 pages for instance. If you assume that would be for self-aggrandizement that would be extremely telling.

... "as long as the occupation lasts", which ends upon the recognition of Israel which they'll do along the 1967 borders as written in the same paragraph.

You'll notice that Hamas has also accepted the Arab Peace Initiative, which pretty much says the same thing as I'm saying their declaration of principles says. Hamas balked at the inclusion of land swaps in that initiative. And this is consistent with their position; you can only propose land swaps if the land you're giving away is yours. Since Hamas denies Israel exists at this point, admitting beforehand to land swaps would implicitly admit Israel has legal claim to any land in the region.

The important difference between Fatah and Hamas is, is that Fatah is prepared to give away these sorts of points (recognising Israel, agreeing beforehand to landswaps) and this weakens their negotiation position before they even get started only to get Israel at the table.

ah, you're not capable of reading. Got ya.

You want us to take your questions seriously, but you don't take the topic seriously yourself. You've been asked multiple times to demonstrate that you actually care about innocent Arab victims, and you've never provided that evidence, because it doesn't exist. Your entire engagement in this thread is just a pose designed to serve your own emotional situation. — Foghorn

Because it's irrelevant and I won't be offering such evidence. Maybe my human rights activism is very extensive, that won't make my arguments suddenly true. Or the converse situation false. It's just a distraction. Maybe figure out what a fallacy is.

I see you have problems with reading their principles. It rejects the Zionist entity and it rejects various treaties, declarations etc. and then it says :

Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus. — Hamas

The operative word there being "however".

The bottom line question seems to be, would the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders lead to a real peace? Or just the next chapter of the conflict?

Best I can tell, Israel has concluded the later, and thus sees little reason to agree to a Palestinian state. — Foghorn

Yes, people do tend to whip out their crystal balls as an excuse not to work towards peace. Those are trust issues and it should be moved to where it belongs: negotiating.

But really, why should there be a prerequisite on the Palestinians to recognise Israel before entering into negotiations but not the same the other way around? I think any "pre-requisites" to peace negotiations ought to be dropped. The only one is and for both sides : no fucking killing while we're talking OK?

says the guy who came in here and couldn't answer a simple question after 4 attempts. So, right back at ya.

To refine that a bit, the question may not be what MOST Palestinians want, but what do those with the most guns want? You know, when did majority opinion really matter in the Arab world? — Foghorn

Yeah, it's comments like this that disqualify you. It's funny how you like to pretend to be impartial though.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/hamas-2017-document-of-general-principles-and-policies

No, I call people stupid from a position of being actually informed. If human rights activism is being self-involved. Guilty. I'm not going to apologise for it.

Hamas continues to pursue it's long stated goal of ending the Jewish state, leading to ever more conflict and violence, and ever more victims. — Foghorn

This is false. Hamas rejects Israel because recognising it recognises the existence of territory belonging to that State. It believes the territory Israel claims is all illegal and therefore Israel can only be recognised as part of a negotiated settlement. Hamas will accept something along the 1967 borders and has put that in writing in 2017.

Here's a two-state solution and how to get there:

1. Israel to unilaterally recognise a right for the Palestinians to have a sovereign state where the 1967 borders will be the basis for the size of Palestine
2. stop all further settlements in WB and evictions in East-Jerusalem, recognise ownership rights in East Jerusalem
3. repeal all discriminatory laws in Israel proper
4. no more collective punishment of Palestinians
5. no more blockade of Gaza and its air space and sea
6. no more mass destruction in response to ineffectual missiles or balloons
7. tear down the wall
8. For the interim period, Gaza and WB remain occupied territories but they will be policed instead of military oppression
9. Palestinians to commit to an indefinite cease fire as long as Israel maintains the above 8 points
edit: 10. forgot: Palestinians to recognise Israel along the 1967 borders as the basis of the size of israel

In other words, stop the crimes. There's no excuse.

Enter into the transition period where Palestine should be set up:
1. include the political wing of Hamas in talks as well as PA
2. land-for-land exchanges to arrive at comparable land size
3. Israel to pay Palestine an amount equal to all the monies spent supporting illegal settlers so it has the means to settle the new lands it receives through the land-for-land exchange
4. Palestine to hire their own first and Israeli contractors second (which will lead to "reparations" flowing back to Israel and creating economic interdependence)
5. have religious leaders negotiate the Temple Mount
6. Jerusalem as independent city-state administered by Palestinians and Israelis alike
7. gradually transition policing activities in Palestine to Palestinians
8. Set up a special task force of like minded Israelis and Palestinians to investigate (terrorist) crimes committed by Israelis against Palestinians and vice versa, where jurisdiction will be with the state of the victim
9. retreat from WB and Gaza and set up border controls
10. Declare a Palestinian state
11. Party with your Israeli neighbours

You're comparing Israel and Palestine to children right now. The level of arrogance is unbelievably. The term "be less white" has never made more sense to me than it does now.

Ethnic cleansing is not two children fighting. — BitconnectCarlos

I'm not comparing Israel and Palestine to children, I'm comparing your moral thinking to that of a six year old.