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An Outline of Philosophy - Bertrand Russell

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Enemies of Hope - Raymond Tallis
Pure Invention - Matt Alt

Do you have a more preferred reason for being killed? Just wondering. — Book273

You think that among the reasons a person could die or be killed from, political calculations for a group of politicians is particularly noble or decent?

The point is that these murders are particularly onerous, given the situation.

Defending one's home or family and dying for them seems to me to be as good a reason as possible for dying. But killing people in the largest open air prison in the world is pathetic.

I haven't looked into Israeli domestic policy in some time. I too was under the impression that Netanyahu's rival recently, Benny Ganzt (?), was more moderate. So I'm unclear too, but I tend to trust Finkelstein.

As for a source, it's quite a long video, all of it interesting but the relevant point here begins around 55:38:

https://www.splicetoday.com/politics-and-media/norman-finkelstein-on-israel-in-2021-the-katie-halper-show

Well said. An author once said something along these lines: a thousand years from now, when the children's children's children look at this in the history book, will they see anything other than a tragedy? Death and destruction over such fantasies as religion and nations, which in due time will all disappear or morph unrecognisably anyways. — Echarmion

Yes. If we're still around by that time...

It's a gamble (a 'good' one, as far as murder goes), and if he wins, he'll take it as a vindication and things will get unimaginably bad. If it doesn't - I dunno, the Israeli political system will stay in it's current black hole and that could take it anywhere. — StreetlightX

And I heard Finkelstein mention that the remaining option are to the right and to the far right of Netanyahu. If that's correct, that's pretty nuts.

And to do this on top of the recent peace deals with other Arab countries, such as the UAE, is dumbfounding.

Well, I think the line usually given for attacks such as this one would be something like "We destroyed the enemies communication center." Or the classic "human shields" answer.

One problem Israel faces, aside from those already mentioned, is that it's an extremely paranoid state. They keep actually believing that some Arab country will come and wipe them off the map. As if any Arab state would do that considering the fact that Israel's army is vastly superior and it has nukes to boot.

The US and the EU wouldn't ever come close to dreaming about something remotely close to that ever happening.

So under this paranoia they strike southern Lebanon, Gaza, Syria and kill Iranian scientists out of fear. Which then acts as self-fufilling prophecy when they get hit back on occasion.

In any case the most fanatic of all Arab states is Saudi Arabia. Rhetoric aside, at the top level, there is mutual understanding and maybe even friendship of interest with Israel. So that can be ruled out too.

Eh. If it's the Abrahamic God, no thanks. That would be a nightmare. Most of us would probably go to hell. I'd prefer not to burn for eternity. It's a bit long.

There are other Gods. I don't know. What is better some strange life after this or eternal sleep?

As Mark Twain said:

"I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”

Put like that, maybe it's not so bad. Heaven knows there are situations here in life much worse than not being. In any case, fear and pain are for the here and now, not before or after.

Have they bombed any UN schools yet?

Can't say I'm surprised but its awful.

:clap:

Excellent post.

There's only so much horror anybody is willing to see before your start losing a PR battle. Some people here aren't bothered by caloric restrictions placed on the people of Gaza, these will never be startled even if they carpet bomb the whole of Gaza and kill every last person with white phosphorus. But as you said, once the PR battle is lost, the clock begin to tick and there's no stopping that.

It's a microcosm of the history of humanity in a sense. Thousand upon thousand of senseless deaths and for what? Pride? "Security"? Nationalism? And yet here we are. We're born after a very long time, live in this little blue planet we're burning up for a nano-second, and we'll return to nothing for ever. To be killed in such a brutal manner, for mere political theatre is disgusting.

As you said, maybe these deaths will eventually mean that they will be able to get a state and live in peace. I think it may be possible.

Agree about Yang. He's on the wrong side of this one, as are almost all Democrats. But it is changing. About time.

Novel Explosives - Jim Gauer

A Brief History of Seven Killings - Marlon James

2666- Roberto Bolaño

V. - Thomas Pynchon

Buddha's Little Finger - Victor Pelevin

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World - Haruki Murakami

Member - Michael Cisco

A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick

With the Covid situation a lot of countries in the Middle East are struggling more than usual. So who could possibly help the Palestinians now? Turkey? Egypt? Looks unlikely.

The US is still behind Israel. Biden on foreign policy has not been a big change, which is sad.

After a night of violence where Molotov cocktails were thrown at Arab homes in Jaffa, clerics are urging locals to remove any identifying symbols of Islam from their homes in order to protect them from anti-Arab attacks.

According to locals, some people have taken down decorative Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr decorations, such as moon crescents.

Meanwhile in Haifa, it appears that some Arabs are moving Muslim symbols from building facades, after residents claim they saw youth painting entrances to Arab homes in red. Women who wear the hijab head covering are also reportedly scared to leave their house.

These latest events join calls on social media to boycott Arab business in the cities.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-gaza-flare-up-heavy-rocket-fire-from-gaza-bombards-be-er-sheva-ashdod-1.9810782

It's almost a civil war inside Israel.

The easiest language to learn is the one you're born with.

Also Norman Finkelstein live stream, if any one is interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PTtsugw9pE

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/14/israels-bombardment-of-gaza-continues-live

And now, the UN estimates 10,000 people have fled there home. If these people were Jews today, you can bet whatever you like that NATO would be carpet bombing countries...

I know this topic decently well enough. There aren't too many I can say this with some confidence.

But even if I did not, the fact that a human being doesn't bat an eye at the prospect that an entire population is put under caloric restrictions by an occupying army, which took 78% of the historical land of such people, is astonishing to me. Now it's even more than that.

Granted, the 20th century was a horror filled era, the fact that in 2021 some people don't find such facts bothersome, regardless of whatever else they may believe in terms of culpability, only shows how slow and little we have progressed.

I've seen and read many horrible things. Doesn't mean I get used to them.

Perhaps Palestinians should remove logs from their own eyes. And it may be that's what they have to do. With Yasser, the PLO, and friends and Hamas and Hezbollah, to name just a few of the more recent, they have sown or have had sown on their "behalf" an entire forest of enmity. — tim wood

Wow.

Such statements send chills down my spine.

Horrifying.

Since that time, 1948, a rabid anti-Semitism has infected all of "the neighbors" with a rage to annihilate Israel and drive out or kill all the Israelis. Imo that's the correct frame with and within which to regard the conflict. And for so long as the overt and covert intentions of the neighbors remains the same, so they will have war. — tim wood

Really? The Arabs are anti-semites because they didn't welcome European invaders? I suspect the same can be said of Native Americans in regard to Americans, those Natives surely are anti-American.

But this raises an important point. If the US really cared so much about the plight of the Jewish people, which reached it's horrible zenith in WWII, why didn't the US take in most of the European Jews? There's plenty of land in the US, but no offer came.

Aside from the 1948 war, all other wars Israel was involved in were voluntary, with the Yom Kippur war maybe being an exception.

It would be nice if the Israelis could somehow win over the Palestinians, but near as I can tell, any attempts along those lines would be blown-up, literally, by the neighbors and their terrorist cells. Sometimes when the hatred runs deep into irrationality, the only course is to wait for the haters to die. And it can happen, depending on behavior, that some of them have to be helped. — tim wood

“My mother is in the hospital 7 kilometers [4.3 miles] from us, and we can’t get to her because of the shelling. Only my sister is with her. What do the Israelis think the end will be? Isn’t there anyone in the Israeli media who says, ‘Stop, desist, let’s think about what we want?’

“Aren’t there people who are afraid for the fate of the Jewish people and say, ‘Let’s think about what will be in a hundred years? Let’s defend the Jewish people.’ Since yesterday I’ve been wondering: Who’s the crazy one here? Us or them?

“Our young people are delighted [by the Hamas operation], really, because they have nothing to lose. There are two generations in our home – my generation, the older one, which harbored the hope that one day we’d live in this country peacefully with the Israelis, and my son’s generation.

“If he were an Israeli, he’d be drafted in another four months. He was raised on love and accepting the Other, but he’s in turmoil over what’s happening – over people he knew who were killed just yesterday, over the feeling of fear. And how will I be able to talk to him now about living in peace with the Jews?"

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-four-gaza-friends-tell-me-what-it-s-like-to-feel-the-wrath-of-israel-s-f-16s-1.9806495

Yeah, rabid anti-Semites who deserve the caloric restrictions placed on them by Israel. :roll:

Gandhi said that it takes a lot of bravery to just stay still and get hit. If you can't reach that standard, which is extremely difficult for anybody, then it's legitimate to use force to defend yourself.

So Gandhi would not condemn people defending themselves.

They need a Gandhi or MLK Jr. Lots of marching and civil disobedience. That approach has a pretty good track record. — frank

But they've done civil disobedience many times. They've also gone on hunger strikes.

But when they do this the western media ignores them. The consistent coverage they now get is "Hamas is terrorist."

The onus is on Israel to stop extending occupation and naval blockades. They have the power to stop and minimize the harm they are getting in return.

"What is" is all around us and, rather than trying to "know" all about it through some cognitive, analytical, critical, scientific dissection of it, it can better be known by living it, by being it. A first step in the journey is to not perceive of ourselves as separate, but merely different, and then observing, and entering into a relationship with what is. In his example, that relationship is the hunt. — James Riley

That makes sense. Diversions should be taken into the proper context I think, not necessarily ignored altogether, they are part of the experience of hunting, I would think, though not the main point.

While I say this and agree with you, on the other hand, so many people are hurting. If you can't put food on the table - the fact that the planet is burning and will lead to unimaginable horror, sooner rather than later - the rest can't be that important to you cause' you're starving.

So many problems. I do think we have some rather unique capacities compared to other animals, especially when it comes to imagination, creativity and being able to think and analyze our thoughts. But we also capable of such evil that no other animal could possible hope to match in a million years.

So yes, I'm torn. :joke:

:rofl:

Ah, that's good to know. I assume this change is more or less recent? I've heard of many cases where foreigners can't even get a home to live in if they don't speak Japanese.

But, good for them. It's a really fascinating country with a messed up recent history, but I'm glad they're doing better.

Fantastic quote. And nature is replying.

But we're still not listening enough.

I have to ask, do we ever know enough to know that what is has been exhausted? There's an awful lot to know about what is, it seems to me.

How about the Arabs countries? You think they love Jews over there? I haven't forgotten about your earlier post btw, I didn't mean to ignore it but I was just so mobbed with responses yesterday. — BitconnectCarlos

They don't. The Israeli's also haven't helped themselves in this regard in regards to the many wars it has fought, which could have been avoided, minus the 48' war and (perhaps) the 73' war.

I understand that it's not easy to create a state in such a place. It's the only place in the world in which there is some claim to a land for the Jews, even if the source of the claim doesn't merit any real life authority.

Nevertheless, by doing what your state is doing, they won't be loving Jews any time soon...

So China must be the most racist country by a multitude of factors above any other country. — Harry Hindu

China is quite racist actually and Japan as well for that matter.

But so is Israel.

Amira Hass is the real deal, a golden standard human being.

Terrorism, absolutely. Putting a people in a blockade, limiting caloric intake, shutting down electricity, limiting how far they can go fishing and just bombing people indiscriminately is akin to putting fish in a barrel, starving them, shocking them and then bombing them.

But these are people, not fish.

And to top it off, have the audacity to call it a "war".

I don't know much about Scotland per se, but I do know a little about the EU. It's not easy to learn about the EU at all compared to the US or many other countries. It's just a massive undemocratic bureaucracy. Not that it's all bad mind you, but it has very serious problems.

If the EU does not integrate like the US has, I fear it will be doomed to collapse. Coronavirus response was quite illuminating so far as EU unity goes...

So if Scotland does leave, it may be quite bad. But staying in this EU is not amazing either. Pick your poison.

Well given how we are burning the planet to a crisp. I don't think we deserve much moral praise on the whole. Not that some people or indeed all of us at some time have done good things. And bad things too. But destroying all living species just to buy more stuff, is lunacy.

Poor creatures.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-four-gaza-friends-tell-me-what-it-s-like-to-feel-the-wrath-of-israel-s-f-16s-1.9806495

Just now they bombed the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, which is south of us – very close but we don’t know where. They bomb with F-16s; there’s the constant noise of the drones and the planes flying overhead. When they bombed Arafat City [the police facility], our building swayed from side to side. We saw the plane as it dropped the bombs.

“I think around 20 bombs were dropped on the police facility. It’s like somebody went nuts. The shock wave was stronger and scarier than the explosion itself, as if the earth were blowing up into itself. The warships also didn’t stop shelling from the sea at the refugee camps. We haven’t been able to sleep for two days.

Impressive "self-defense", very brave. :shade:

Well, it works out for me because I am Jewish and a Jewish state does serve as a form of security for the Jewish people. I can't pretend to be a totally disinterested observer to the question. I'm also generally supportive of self-determination movements elsewhere. — BitconnectCarlos

Which is fine. Every state deserves security. Israel is asking for more because they are increasing settlements and annexing parts of the West Bank. Thus Israel is asking more rights than most other countries, and getting them.

But you said, the settlements are a necessary evil. But we agreed that prior to the expansion of settlements post 2000's, Israel was more secure. So that shows you that the fear goes hand in hand with the expansion. It's a self-feeding loop: We are in danger, therefore we have to keep our settlements and increase them so we can be safe. But the settlements are the problem.

The Palestinians more than deserve a state. Will there be complications if such an agreement is reached? Sure. But that's a risk Israel must take or continue in its path of hurting itself and killing people in one the most brutal blockades in the world.

As Chomsky says - who was a Zionist prior to Israel's existence and lived in a Kibbutz for some time - says: “Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s really an easy way: Stop participating in it."

That means your own government. That will ease tensions. Doesn't mean once they have a state you don't have security. You guys have nukes and a powerful army. Palestine will never get that.

I agree. If Hezbollah gets involved, that would be awful for everybody.

I don't think so. But who knows how far this one will go?

Ah. I hope they can achieve it.

Looks quite difficult now, momentum is swinging towards full out war.

That went over my head. Putin's power is constrained despite what is reported in the US.

In either case if the US doesn't tell Israel to tone it down, war will break out.

Bittersweet Symphony - The Verve

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lyu1KKwC74

Oh my:

10:25 P.M. Sources say rocket fire from Lebanon committed by small Palestinian group

Rocket fire from Lebanon toward Israel was the work of a small Palestinian group and occurred without Hezbollah's knowledge, according to Lebanese defense sources. (Jack Khoury)

Man, is Lebanon becomes involved, this is going to be very bad.

It would be nice to believe it to be the case. But I don't see why this should be so.

One can find beauty even in horrible things, so that alone causes one to question the plausibility of aesthetics being a part of ethics.

Oh you'd be surprised, there have been quite a few posters here that have refused to explicitly condemn it. — BitconnectCarlos

Then I'd disagree with them. Moral judgments about the value of life are universal or they're not serious.

I understand what you're saying here and I agree. I understand the anger when Israel comes and bulldozes houses of the families of suicide bombers. I understand that the occupation makes life tough. However I also believe that one is always fundamentally responsible for one's actions and that one's own problems or difficulties are not an excuse for wanton murder. — BitconnectCarlos

It's easy to talk for me, I don't live in Israel nor the Occupied Territories. I'll just say, if someone bulldozes my home and kills my brother or father, I can't say I wouldn't kill someone back. We've crossed a line here.

On the other hand If I were a settler, I'd think I'd recognize that me being murdered is a possible outcome. It a risk I'd have to know about and be willing to accept.

If I'm an ordinary Israeli, not currently in the military, just living my life and someone kills a family member, I would likely want blood in exchange. The only important difference here, is that I'd know that an occupation is the main cause of the murder. I can try and vote for the left, talk to my friends about the issue, do whatever I'm willing to do to diffuse the situation.

But I'd like to think that I'd still hold my beliefs that what my government is doing is horrific and monstruos. To be clear, the US as an international actor is way worse than Israel. So as a citizen of the US, I'm aware of the consequences that could come my way in terms of payback should be expected.

But never wanted.

I'd be more than happy to remove settlements if it meant peace. Unfortunately for the time being it seems both groups don't have much of an interest in peace from a political perspective. — BitconnectCarlos

I don't doubt that. But exactly as is the case with the US, the way the media in Israel to presents the situation to Israelis is quite different from what happens. And the effects of that propagada are just enormous. Not only in the US or Israel, but just about every state: the more power that state has, the stronger the PR. Look at China, Russia, etc.

That's just how states work.

I don't think anyone here would say that murdering innocent Israelis is not a problem. What's been the issue is that if a people have been oppressed for over 50 years and land theft continues, it would be strange for anyone to be surprised if such a people fight back against theft and discrimination. It doesn't make murder right in any case, but it makes it understandable given the context.

Settlers in the West Bank for example, cannot expect the people who's land they're taking not to fight back and possibly get killed.

But I think it's a mistake to take today's circumstance, which is what matters, and say that the two sides have problems. As if the problems on each side are in any way equal. One is clearly much more responsible than the other, given the available force and infrastructure they have.

Just switch Palestinians and Israelis. Make Israeli's the victims in the West Bank and Gaza and Palestine the occupying force. In such a case, the exact same arguments would go to Palestine and not to the Israeli victims.

It's not black and white like Apartheid South Africa was not black and white.

Was the murder of a white South African civilian during apartheid a good thing? Of course not. Apartheid was still the main thing responsible for the violence.

So sure, innocent Israeli do get killed. That's bad. Many more Palestinians are killed in much worse conditions. Does that mean that Israeli lives are less than others? Of course not.

But if you steal land, regiment a population in regards to caloric intake, separate the West Bank into cantons, sabotage the Palestinian authority at every moment and the like, you must except bad consequences. Remember one country has one of the best armies in the world, the other population is literally in a prison.

Israel was safer prior to these last 15 years of incursion into Gaza and settlement expansion in the West Bank, not less safe. This is the result of such policies.

Expansion? No. Occupation? I don't like the occupation but until the Palestinians renounce violence as a political tool I think the occupation is a necessary evil. I would love to end it though. — BitconnectCarlos

I don't know how you'd react if they keep stealing your land and killing family members. The PLO was a "terrorist" organization, until Israel helped create Hamas, as they did. Such reactionaries as the WSJ can confirm this:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123275572295011847

So what are they to do? Say thank you for stealing more land, for not staying to resolution 242 and for limiting our caloric intake in Gaza?

Please.

No.

Do you support continued Israeli expansion and occupation of Palestinian territory?