Speaking of Israel...

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Out of curiosity, why? I do agree that the concept is kinda funny for me in an uneasy manner since Ive had a better time with "shiksas" than any Jewish gal so far, but Ive always seen that phrase as more of a joke than something to be taken seriously.

In fairness - this is common to most communities - you can use the "other" for sex, but they're not fit to marry.

What do you call a girl you have sex with without a meaningful emotional relationship? - If you know going in it's not going to be for the long haul, it's not meaningful.

The word you are looking for is "whore".

Of course, I hear that White Americans think Jewish girls are easy - probably because the Jewish boys don't want them until they're ready to marry.

The article on John Stewart there makes the point very clearly. Stewart is a Jew - but his wife and children are not - he should be ashamed - he's practising "ethnic cleansing" against his own people - UNLESS his wife converted.

Obviously, if his wife converted and became a proper Jew - a proper woman - it's OK for them to be married.

[Beskar]

Reminds me of those Jack Straw comments about Arab Individuals preying on the 'easy meat' White Girls.
Article

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Reminds me of those Jack Straw comments about Arab Individuals preying on the 'easy meat' White Girls.
Article

That comment was somewhat miss-reported, as Jack Straw was making the point (quite accurately, I think) that a section of the Muslim community see white, non Muslim, girls as "fair game" for things they would never allow to be done to Muslim girls.

This is not news, nor is it a specifically Muslim problem - you only have to look at the shameful way the American G.I.'s behaved with women from Allied Countries to see the problem is endemic to all male cultural groups everywhere - although not all men.

[Hooahguy]

I see your point. In my circles at least its not quite as derogatory as the word "whore" its just the word used to describe non-Jewish women, but still certainly not a "good" term to use.

Anyways more on topic, the death toll is now ~425 - 20.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I see your point. In my circles at least its not quite as derogatory as the word "whore" its just the word used to describe non-Jewish women, but still certainly not a "good" term to use.

Anyways more on topic, the death toll is now ~425 - 20.

Well, if you want to marry out, I invite you to consider why the Jewish community has a specific word for non-Jewish women.

Death toll is absurd - this is like Lebanon all over again. As soon as one of Israel's neighbours shows any signs of progress they flatten them.

Israel is not only the focus for all Islamists in the region, it actively suppresses any positive development.

[Hooahguy]

Well, if you want to marry out, I invite you to consider why the Jewish community has a specific word for non-Jewish women.

Also a word for non-Jewish men. Basically all non-Jews. Were pretty xenophobic Id say.

Death toll is absurd - this is like Lebanon all over again. As soon as one of Israel's neighbours shows any signs of progress they flatten them.

Israel is not only the focus for all Islamists in the region, it actively suppresses any positive development.

What do you mean by "progress"?

[Idaho]

Meanwhile the Palestinian death toll reaches 348 with 2700 injured. Many women and children. So do you think it's unreasonable for the families of those dead to cheer the news of 13 dead Israeli soldiers?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...li-bombardment

[Hooahguy]

I thought it was past 425 now?

Either way, the Palestinians will cheer the deaths of the Israelis and the Israelis will cheer the deaths of the Palestinians. And the cycle continues.

[x-dANGEr]

This thread is so lovely. Too many people on their high pedestals. I guess it sounds too cool to be all wise and smart about people dying else where.. they're just animals killing each other, at the end of the day. Never mind you could very well be in these people's shoes, if it weren't for your "lucky" place or time of birth.

I particularly enjoy the "only possible solution" suggested by one of the members.

In short, get real. 10 is not the same as 1, no matter how you spin it. You can't just take things from people, that's called stealing, and if you do, you better expect they won't be happy about it, and never will be. Kill them? Well if this was a few hundred years ago that would probably slip just fine [think Amerika?], but no, your civility denies that doesn't it? Unless stealing things is fine, or killing people is fine if they're not fine with you stealing their possessions.

Keep going though, I'm feeling enlightened and intellectually bettered, by the post.

[Greyblades]

Interesting that you decry people for thier high pedestels while building your own even higher.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

This thread is so lovely. Too many people on their high pedestals. I guess it sounds too cool to be all wise and smart about people dying else where.. they're just animals killing each other, at the end of the day. Never mind you could very well be in these people's shoes, if it weren't for your "lucky" place or time of birth.

I particularly enjoy the "only possible solution" suggested by one of the members.

In short, get real. 10 is not the same as 1, no matter how you spin it. You can't just take things from people, that's called stealing, and if you do, you better expect they won't be happy about it, and never will be. Kill them? Well if this was a few hundred years ago that would probably slip just fine [think Amerika?], but no, your civility denies that doesn't it? Unless stealing things is fine, or killing people is fine if they're not fine with you stealing their possessions.

Keep going though, I'm feeling enlightened and intellectually bettered, by the post.

War is stupid - I don't think anyone here is defending the utter foolishness that led to this situation - and I don't think even frags is defending the wholesale slaughter going on right now.

Maybe you should, you know, read​ some of these posts?

[Papewaio]

So we are approaching/past the point where more civilians have died then in the Malaysian Airliner.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

[HOPPING ON PEDASTAL] Could we please stop reporting deaths as though they were ball-scores? I grew up with that in the '60s. It was silly at best and vile at worst then...and hasn't improved. [/PEDASTAL]

[Papewaio]

Collatoral damage implies:
(1) The target was military ie emplacement, communications, bunker etc
(2) That care was taken to minimize civilian casualties.
(3) That there is a miltary advantage to doing so in proportion to the act.

As a posed to a political advantage through civilian deaths which would be an act of terrorism.

[Montmorency]

The problem is with political conduct, not military conduct.

Sure, but, uh, if anyone had problems with the American interventions in the region, it's difficult to imagine them not being at least as displeased with the Levantine situation.

So speaking of proportion misses the point.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

How's that related?

Israel deliberately destroyed the infrastructure in Lebanon "we will bomb them back to the Stone Age". Lebanon was a functioning pluralistic democracy, Sunni, Shia, Christian, Druze...

sure, they made accommodations with Hamas, but it was still the Hamas military wing - not Lebanon's army - that was attacking Israel. By destroying the Lebanese military and political structure Israel made Hamas stronger in the long term for what was, frankly, a very limited short term advantage.

[Pannonian]

Israel deliberately destroyed the infrastructure in Lebanon "we will bomb them back to the Stone Age". Lebanon was a functioning pluralistic democracy, Sunni, Shia, Christian, Druze...

sure, they made accommodations with Hamas, but it was still the Hamas military wing - not Lebanon's army - that was attacking Israel. By destroying the Lebanese military and political structure Israel made Hamas stronger in the long term for what was, frankly, a very limited short term advantage.

AFAICS this is just another good old punitive campaign to demonstrate Israel's overwhelming military power and willingness to use it, in order to cow the other side into submission or at least a quiet period. Nothing wrong with it if that's the way you roll. Us western powers moved away from that by mid-20th century at the latest, but Israel isn't a western power. They're more westernised than most middle eastern countries, but they're a middle eastern country and they operate by those rules.

[Idaho]

Israeli snipers shoot people looking for dead/injured relatives. Then repeatedly shoot a down and injured man:



Grim, brutal and evil.

[Fragony]

Don't know about you but I bleed when I get wounded, not at war of course we don't have any here, but I certainly bleed more after losing a kickboxing match and riding pony's

Palywood, cynical, false, not be be considered considering earlier pallywood exploits. He wasn't even shot there are no wounds.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

AFAICS this is just another good old punitive campaign to demonstrate Israel's overwhelming military power and willingness to use it, in order to cow the other side into submission or at least a quiet period. Nothing wrong with it if that's the way you roll. Us western powers moved away from that by mid-20th century at the latest, but Israel isn't a western power. They're more westernised than most middle eastern countries, but they're a middle eastern country and they operate by those rules.

I am glad we of the effete West care about such things -- I think it represents an improvement in human governance and the use of power. I am happy that my country could no longer countenance the tactics employed without hesitation and with full official support in World War 2 or the intervention in Korea. I am happy that analogous actions taken during the Vietnam intervention, Gulf 1, Gulf 2 and the War on Terror [not what I would have called it] rarely have official sanction and have been in a number of cases successfully prosecuted as crimes. But nothing can make warfare humane.

Warfare probably started as a ritual clash between bands of hunter-gatherers which were more symbolic than violent. We still have vestiges of such rituals like the Inuit song duels to teach us of this.

When resources expanded following agriculture and metallurgy, war assumed its basic form. To wit: Defeat your opponents, kill the warriors who oppose you, kill the old or the young who will be a burden, take all of their valuta, acquire the younger women and breed them from your own men so that their maternalism binds them to your group thereafter. The defeated are thereby destroyed and cannot pose a renewed threat. Civilians v military; public v private property -- all such distinctions are irrelevant to war in its basic form. There are variations, but that is the essential character of war -- Clausewitz notwithstanding.

If warfare is less brutal than this model, then somebody is attempting to restrain or "limit" war -- usually for moral purposes. But there are always those for whom any such restraints are themselves wrong.

[drone]

I particularly enjoy the "only possible solution" suggested by one of the members.

Yeah, someone reads my posts!

The only way to stop the incessant fighting over this particular patch of desert (as seen in the excellent "This Land Is Mine" vid) is to make the land uninhabitable. Neither side wants peace, so to replace the constant war/low level terrorism endless cycle, there are two options:

• Complete genocide
• Denial of territory

I'm open to others if you have them.

[x-dANGEr]

I don't understand how you treat the two parties as equal. There are two aspects where I find this flawed.

First, at root, to me, this is a problem of legitimacy. Some people legitimately own all those lands, and have owned it for a very long time. Suddenly, others took over it, colonized it, and have been there de facto for the last what 90 years? Do you truly believe they both have equal right to the lands in dispute?

This isn't even a matter of politics to me. Say an old man owned half of Haifa, and was forcefully expelled from Haifa, but still has all the legal documents which prove he owns half of Haifa. Isn't it his right then to want his land back? What say does anyone in the world have to "rightfully" take over his land?

Second, does proportion even matter at all? For example, is it sound to paint all people who kill with the same color without looking into the details? I think doing that is a very superficial way of weighing things, it reflects absence of reality and too much book-reading. The devil is in the detail.

What's also truly disturbing is the hypocrisy the civilized modern world shows when dealing with this crisis in comparison to others. What happened, I don't get it.. How did I miss the world-wide convention on founding a country in some innocent people's land, expelling the original people, and then basing that country on a strictly racist hierarchy, and turning a blind eye to whatever evil shit that country does from then on?

Also, let's stop kidding ourselves. The country in question probably has the most allies in the region, contrary to the popular stigma, which goes "oh they're backed against the wall etc., poor them."

Excuse my deficiency of expression. My last post was unfair to most of the posters here, but then I really didn't address most of them with it. Sorry about that misunderstanding.

[Pannonian]

I don't understand how you treat the two parties as equal. There are two aspects where I find this flawed.

First, at root, to me, this is a problem of legitimacy. Some people legitimately own all those lands, and have owned it for a very long time. Suddenly, others took over it, colonized it, and have been there de facto for the last what 90 years? Do you truly believe they both have equal right to the lands in dispute?

This isn't even a matter of politics to me. Say an old man owned half of Haifa, and was forcefully expelled from Haifa, but still has all the legal documents which prove he owns half of Haifa. Isn't it his right then to want his land back? What say does anyone in the world have to "rightfully" take over his land?

Second, does proportion even matter at all? For example, is it sound to paint all people who kill with the same color without looking into the details? I think doing that is a very superficial way of weighing things, it reflects absence of reality and too much book-reading. The devil is in the detail.

What's also truly disturbing is the hypocrisy the civilized modern world shows when dealing with this crisis in comparison to others. What happened, I don't get it.. How did I miss the world-wide convention on founding a country in some innocent people's land, expelling the original people, and then basing that country on a strictly racist hierarchy, and turning a blind eye to whatever evil shit that country does from then on?

Also, let's stop kidding ourselves. The country in question probably has the most allies in the region, contrary to the popular stigma, which goes "oh they're backed against the wall etc., poor them."

Excuse my deficiency of expression. My last post was unfair to most of the posters here, but then I really didn't address most of them with it. Sorry about that misunderstanding.

Some of us have an even less hypocritical and less high pedestalled position than yourself. You complain about taking stuff from people and you call it stealing. Fair enough, but then what's your position on taking stuff back from the Israelis in order to restore it to the Palestinians? At what stage does taking and giving become righteous and principled in your eyes? Who decides what to give and what to take, and who enforces it to your satisfaction? If you're not just riding a high horse, but have a practical position, please answer these questions.

As for me, I care not who has what nor who kills whom. They're not me and mine, what they do doesn't affect me. I only wish there was an even lesser chance of what they do affecting me. I put forward a position earlier considering international law, but only as an academic point since, as I said, I care not enough to enforce it. If you want us to take a position of principle, explain why we should care enough to do so.

Just so you can have a point of reference and something to accuse me of, I'm a Brit, so you can drag up all the stuff about us illegally giving the Jews what wasn't ours to give. And you know what? I don't care that we did. I didn't do it, nor anyone in my generation. It's long past the stage where it's in our power to do anything about it, and since we can't do anything about it, why should we be bothered? The question is, what's in it for us now that we should back one side or the other? I don't think Israel offers anything that we don't already have, and Palestine offers even less. And if anyone tries the guilt argument on us, that's just an argument for us to care even less. We've done worse elsewhere, and if we can't be bothered to feel guilty about them, there's even less chance that we can be bothered to feel guilty about a patch of sand where everyone hates us anyway.

[lars573]

I don't understand how you treat the two parties as equal. There are two aspects where I find this flawed.

First, at root, to me, this is a problem of legitimacy. Some people legitimately own all those lands, and have owned it for a very long time. Suddenly, others took over it, colonized it, and have been there de facto for the last what 90 years? Do you truly believe they both have equal right to the lands in dispute?

This isn't even a matter of politics to me. Say an old man owned half of Haifa, and was forcefully expelled from Haifa, but still has all the legal documents which prove he owns half of Haifa. Isn't it his right then to want his land back? What say does anyone in the world have to "rightfully" take over his land?

The Arabs who owned (or more properly perpetually leased from the sublime porte) the land only really did so since 1858 or 1873 (when the Ottoman empire enacted a series of land reforms). Before that land was held collectively by a village in a very medieval sense of by custom rather than legality. Also don't forget that old chestnut, possession in 9/10th's of the law. So whom ever has it now has more right.

Who has the right? The legitimate government that controls Haifa, namely Israel. And Israel has passed 4 laws (The Absentees’ Property Law, 5710- 1950, Land Acquisition (Validation of Acts and Compensation) Law, 5713-1953, The Absentees’ Property (Amendment No.3) (Release and Use of Endowment Property) Law, 5725-1965, The Absentees’ Property (Compensation) Law, 5733-1973 ) saying that any Arab who abandoned his land (whether by their own choice or a gun to their heads), left any claims behind with it. Save for some sort of financial compensation, once a final peace deal is reached. So realistically his papers would be better used wiping his ass.

And let's be real here. For every Arab who fled Mandatory Palestine in 1948, a Jew left his home in North Africa or the Arab country. Guess where they ended up?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Israel

[Don Corleone]

First, at root, to me, this is a problem of legitimacy. Some people legitimately own all those lands, and have owned it for a very long time. Suddenly, others took over it, colonized it, and have been there de facto for the last what 90 years? Do you truly believe they both have equal right to the lands in dispute?

I'm very sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians, more so than I ever used to be. However, while I agree with you that the root issue here is legitimacy (as it applies to land ownership by a political body, sovereignty), I disagree with your supposition that one side has it and the other doesn't. We can trace who took what from whom all the way back to our pre-historic days.

I suppose before we can discuss who has legitimate claim to ownership, we have to define legitimacy and sovereignty. From whence do the rights come? How are they established? Are they transferrable? If I buy a property in good faith, and then I sell my property to a buyer, yet down the road it is revealed that my deed to the property had another claimant and my deed was in dispute... what then?

The more I think about this, the more I'm coming to believe that Chief Seattle may have been correct... You cannot "own" land, the Earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the Earth.

[Idaho]

This forum always depresses the shit out of me. I remember the Iraq war threads and the Afghan war threads. All the dehumanising of the enemy. The callousness and casual uninterest in civilian death. The blithe faith that the established media truth and the actions and decisions of our leaders were the natural and best course of action.

When we read through history we come across injustices and crimes that at the time went largely unchallenged. There is no reason our era should be different.

[Pannonian]

This forum airways depresses the shit out of me. I remember the Iraq war threads and the Afghan war threads. All the dehumanising of the enemy. The callousness and casual uninterest in civilian death. The blithe faith that the established media truth and the actions and decisions of our leaders were the natural and best course of action.

When we read through history we come across injustices and crimes that at the time went largely unchallenged. There is no reason our era should be different.

Israel possesses nukes. They're willing to spread their joy a bit if it comes to the crunch. So all the sermonising about injustices will amount to nothing. It's terrorism in its pure form, but by heck it's effective. If you disapprove of Israel, then the most we can do is the course I favour, which is to isolate ourselves from them as far as is possible. Not that I approve of what the Palestinians do either, except to acknowledge the legal injustice of the West Bank settlements. I think they're within their rights to do whatever they see fit to expel the Israelis from those areas of the West Bank which the Israelis have agreed to be Palestinian as per the last agreement. But it's up to them to use this right to expel the Israelis. If they can't do it themselves, c'est la vie.

[x-dANGEr]

If this sort of thing had happened say 500 years ago, I guess the problem wouldn't be as complicated. One side would exterminate the other, and the notion of owning a land would become irrelevant. That's not the case here though. So long the "true owner" lives, they will have a right to what they own. I realize the words between quotations are disputed and may sound controversial to some of you, especially if you start going all Plato, but to make things more simple:

Try imagining what would happen if the scenario would be repeated now, say with part of Britain (or anywhere, really). Say Obama promised Armenians a home in England.. As far as I'm concerned those people living in England now will be the rightful owners of their lands, even if for 100 years they're still fighting back for it, so long they still exist.

Again touching on the notion of legitimacy, I guess it's most similar to the right of the crown. Sure, you can "steal" that right, but ironically history has shown that you have to exterminate the rightful heir to become so yourself. This time around, the rightful crown prince is still alive, and you only killed the king. I guess history repeats itself for a reason.

Sadly I'm painting the same tragic picture most of you do.. One side has to exterminate the other, it is an existential conflict, but as far as what I think, I will side with the Palestinians on this, because well, I do think they are "rightful" until they do not exist. Of course this is not the only way to go. The other way to go about this is to try and altar the existential nature of the conflict, which requires integration efforts the involved parties are clearly not spending. This also, IMO, falls on the stronger party. The strong integrates the weak.

Dear brit friend, I welcome the notion of you not caring about anything. Indeed your country has done the world enough favors.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

This forum always depresses the shit out of me. I remember the Iraq war threads and the Afghan war threads. All the dehumanising of the enemy. The callousness and casual uninterest in civilian death. The blithe faith that the established media truth and the actions and decisions of our leaders were the natural and best course of action.

When we read through history we come across injustices and crimes that at the time went largely unchallenged. There is no reason our era should be different.

You refuse to vote - so you're pretty depressing too.

And anyway, maybe you should look at the posts where we're at least trying to be civil and even handed?

[Pannonian]

If this sort of thing had happened say 500 years ago, I guess the problem wouldn't be as complicated. One side would exterminate the other, and the notion of owning a land would become irrelevant. That's not the case here though. So long the "true owner" lives, they will have a right to what they own. I realize the words between quotations are disputed and may sound controversial to some of you, especially if you start going all Plato, but to make things more simple:

Try imagining what would happen if the scenario would be repeated now, say with part of Britain (or anywhere, really). Say Obama promised Armenians a home in England.. As far as I'm concerned those people living in England now will be the rightful owners of their lands, even if for 100 years they're still fighting back for it, so long they still exist.

Again touching on the notion of legitimacy, I guess it's most similar to the right of the crown. Sure, you can "steal" that right, but ironically history has shown that you have to exterminate the rightful heir to become so yourself. This time around, the rightful crown prince is still alive, and you only killed the king. I guess history repeats itself for a reason.

Sadly I'm painting the same tragic picture most of you do.. One side has to exterminate the other, it is an existential conflict, but as far as what I think, I will side with the Palestinians on this, because well, I do think they are "rightful" until they do not exist. Of course this is not the only way to go. The other way to go about this is to try and altar the existential nature of the conflict, which requires integration efforts the involved parties are clearly not spending. This also, IMO, falls on the stronger party. The strong integrates the weak.

Dear brit friend, I welcome the notion of you not caring about anything. Indeed your country has done the world enough favors.

Would we complain if another country claimed a right to the land we lived in? Have a look at the English language. It's one of the more irregular European languages, with several sets of rules each governing its own vocabulary. It's the result of this land having been conquered and occupied by different peoples through its history. The original Brits got pushed back into the mountains in the west, where they preserve their Welsh language. The Anglo-Saxons who took over endured numerous incursions from the Norse, who've left their mark especially in the north. However, it was the Norse's French-speaking cousins who left a more lasting mark. They were never expelled, but eventually identified themselves along with the general population as a unified English people. This reminder of how many times the area we call England has been invaded and conquered is now the most widely spoken language in the world. Do we complain about the injustices inflicted on us? No, we're grown ups and we call this process history.

BTW, if you want to talk about injustices and atrocities, the north of England, probably an area equivalent to Palestine as defined by the UN circa 1950, suffered a systematic depopulation that's far worse than anything the Palestinians have suffered. Not as bad as the Jews in WWII, but still pretty bad, with most of the population in the area killed or starving to death in the wake of a campaign by the Norman conquerors.