Israel is Coming Apart at the Seams, It Seems

Whoa, whoa whoa.

Being unable to mute someone means their words are "forced" on you?


If that isn't an insight into your broken, victimhood-fetishizing mind, I don't know what is.

See this is where my disagreement with you comes into play

You want a "Free Palestine". This tells me you don't give a fuck about the human cost

You'll have an authoritarian government in place that will physically punish, jail or kill you for something as simple as exercising free speech. Palestinian journalists will continue to be killed. Union chiefs representing Palestinian labor will be assassinated. You'll have woman being extremely oppressed to the point where they will be punished if they try and leave their abusive husbands. Children forced to marry old men. Honor killings. No freedom of religion. Islamic "morality" police. Gays being imprisoned and killed because of who they love. Trans rights? Lol yeah right, get the fuck outta here. Then, eventually, it will become a breeding ground for terrorists that will kill both Westerners and Muslims. All led by a government that will do nothing but enrich themselves at the expense and suffering of their people

So while you're busy accusing everyone of being a baby killer every other post, have at think about that

I'm not sure how you can fantasy world rep @Ten Lubak's post. That's exactly what a free Palestine would most likely become. You can hate Israel and still be aware of what an independent Palestine would still be like. It would not be a free, liberal society chosen by the people.

My big beef with all of this is: if it's not okay for Israel to be an ethnostate, why would it be okay for Palestine to be? Does anyone think a free Palestine would be accepting of Jews? This mutual hatred goes both ways. A "free" Palestine from the river to the sea is just as bad as Greater Israel.

I think we’ve learned enough from Iraq that even if all of this is true (and I can’t disagree with any particular point), it’s probably not a good idea to try to liberate them. Two states and high walls seems like the only answer.

That, or one state ruled by a relatively disinterested outside power. Both seem equally unlikely.

Because certain people on the left have convinced themselves that Israelis are "white" and Palestinians are not (which is incorrect), and also that it's only white people that are capable of being racist or bigoted or discriminatory or evil. If a non-white person does that same thing that would have a white person branded a racist, it's different because... reasons.

It's paternalistic and naive, and part of "the bigotry of low expectations."

Nobody has argued for any type of ethnostate. (Unless you count the Zionists amongst us).

The accusation was that @Amaris didn't give a shit about the human cost of this genocide because her proposed political solution to the overall situation was assessed by somebody else to be a poor one. Without even getting into the specifics of what a solution could or should look like, that simply doesn't follow.

It's kind of fascinating. Essentially, the argument given boils down to a Manifest Destiny style of "we can't give the land back to the Native Americans, so how do the whites and the Native Americans live peacefully? Better that the whites control the land," which is awfully goddamn convenient for the people currently holding the power.

Israeli/Jewish Supremacy. Arabic Supremacy. White Supremacy. Han Supremacy. Notions of racial / ethnic superiority are common in human populations everywhere, at every time in history that I know of. It's all much the same, or it all boils down to pretty much the same. But projecting American race politics onto the rest of the world is foolish. Every situation is different it has to be judged based on the conditions on the ground, not based on what's going on somewhere else.

Manifest Destiny, Lebensraum, and Zionism all share the same basic goal: a God given right to land that lesser beings had dared to already exist upon, and so they had to be dealt with in whatever means was necessary. I've posted about Zionists referring to Palestinians as animals, lesser creatures, the children of Amalek. The Nazis were just as blatant about Jewish people, the LGBTQ+ community, the Romani, and many more. Manifest Destiny was the US call for supremacy against indigenous peoples, and it's all linked together, because the United States has been involved in all three.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/how-american-racism-influenced-hitler

Okay, so no one here has explicitly called for a Palestinian ethnostate to replace the Israeli one. That's great, but utterly irrelevant.

I'm sure there are Palestinians and Israelis who believe the two groups can share a state. I wish they could, and I would support any organization that espoused such a belief. But the people in power on both sides don't want this. The Israeli government doesn't, and it certainly doesn't appear that what passes for Palestinian political authorities do either. So I can't support a free Palestine with no strings attached any more than I can support a free Israel that is ethnically cleansed of Palestinians.

Amaris said a while ago that she doesn't want a country called Israel existing on the land where Israel now stands, and for all the "Zionists" to leave that land and "go where they're wanted." What the fuck do you suppose that means?

The problem is that Israel shouldn't exist where it is because the people of Palestine already lived there. So there is going to need to be a redress of the occupation. Palestinians and Israelis will have to hammer something out, they will have to, because if they don't, countries like the US will continue to use Israel as its bludgeoning tool in the middle east, which is why the US wants Israel there. Zionist Christians don't give two fucks about Jewish people, they want Israel to exist as a weapon, as a herald for the return of Jesus and the coming apocalypse. Those are the people getting to make the decisions about what happens between Israel and Palestine. As long as those corrosive factors exist, Palestinians and Israelis can't come to an agreement of any kind.

The US must be removed from the equation, but then if that happens, Israel can't maintain its superiority. Do you see what I'm saying? Israel is a giant US fort. That's all it is. It's cultural and religious heritage means nothing to the US government outside those Zionist Christians I mentioned, and any Zionists who believe that Israel must be maintained to keep US authority in the region.

Israel, as it exists now, is a splinter in the flesh of everyone who lives in the Middle East, and not because of Judaism, but because of Zionism, because of US involvement. The United States has sent Israel more than $300 billion in assistance since WWII, while its own people can't afford healthcare, rent, or food. While infrastructure falls apart.

So to resolve the issue of Israel and Palestine, it has to begin at home, here in the US. The support needs to stop. The western world needs to stop shoehorning what it wants the Middle East to look like, and let the people who live there work that out.

Some people might say "but it causes wars!"

Yeah, no shit, and the United States hasn't had more than 20 years of peace in its 248 year history. It's white western arrogance that fuels all of this. You can see it in this thread of people who enjoy the comforts of living in the heart of empire, knowing they'll never have to defend the words they espouse in favor of that empire. Meanwhile, thousands upon thousands of people are murdered for a geopolitical entity that causes constant suffering.

This is a complex issue, but it has become complex because of US and western meddling, not because Palestinians and others in the Middle East don't know how to govern.

Even if this is completely accurate, I still have to ask: what exactly do you think a free Palestine, run by and for Palestinians, would be like? And saying it's none of our business or that it's their choice is a copout. Do you really think it would be a free and just society? Would you want to live there? Would you want someone you love to live there?

Im my opinion, you're right to oppose Zionism. But advocating for a free Palestine--which would most definitely purge or persecute any remaining Jews as an Iranian client state--is not much better than supporting Zionism. And that's what the most prolific and influential Palestinian political movements want.

I guess what I'm saying, though, is that I wish you would include the putrid philosophies of Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Palestine when you talk about Zionism, etc. They're equally evil. And Palestinians are not helpless victims; they, too, participate in the same evils the Israelis do.

Jews used to live in Palestine before Israel was established. Palestinian Jews are a real thing, you can look that up, I promise it's real.

While there have always been wars, violence, the peoples lived together. I mean, if that is a disqualifier for any nation, then the US and most countries in the world will need to be disbanded. Why do white countries get so much more leniency than countries where non-white people live? The US has so much violence, were it any other country and without the controlling stake it has in NATO and the United Nations, the UN would have intervened a long time ago. Canada has a history of murdering its indigenous peoples, attempting to convert them, and then burying their children underneath schools. The history of white folks is truly ugly, and just as bloodstained as any Middle Eastern region, but it gets softened, whitewashed, cleaned up.

You can see that bias on American television, when a white man is arrested vs when a black man is arrested. When a white shooter is apprehended after murdering half a dozen people, and when a black man selling loose cigarettes on the street is suffocated to death.

The reason it might not seem that way is because the people who wrote the history, who write the laws, are still doing the writing and publishing. There is an inherent western bias against non-western countries, a hypocritical position of a white patriarchal "Father knows best" while killing his adopted brown children and explaining why they just can't be trusted to govern themselves.

That's why I said the Palestinians and the Israelis will have to hammer it out. It's time the white savior bullshit offered up so often by western agencies needs to stop.

I'm all for Israel hammering out a deal with Palestinians to redress grievances without American involvement, but letting the Middle East "work itself out" doesn't sound like it would work out for anyone but Iran and radical Muslims. Self determination or no, I can't support that.

This is a flowery and polite sounding way of saying "the US needs to get out of the way so the Arab/Muslim world can unite to commit actual genocide against the Israelis without America stopping them or retaliating afterwards."

I don't think that's what Amaris actually wants, but that's what would eventually happen (although Israel would glass several enemy cities before succumbing). But short of a complete collapse of civilization, the West is not going to abandon the Middle East to its own devices. It's just not going to happen.

Why? The US has dozens of Christians in control of its government, and the US loves to call itself a democracy and that it spreads peace and prosperity throughout the world. Why can we do it but they can't?

Amaris might have become a hate filled lunatic, but she has just enough common sense left to not say the worst parts of her agenda out loud very often.

Amaris wants America to stop defending Israel. She knows it'll result in a genocide of the Israelis, but she won't admit that part out loud. Yet.

Amaris wants America to stop assisting Ukraine against Russia. She knows it'll result in a genocide of the Ukrainians, but she won't admit that part out loud. Yet.

Amaris wants America to be ruled by a communist government, and she wants that government installed by any means necessary. She knows that will involve a whole lot of Americans dying in the process, but she won't admit that part out loud. Yet.

The real answer is, because we have the power to do so without external influence. If we didn't, and if we were vital to someone's idea of security, we would be as subject to interference as the nations of the Middle East. That's how the world works.

Personally, I don't want radical Christians in charge of anything in my country and would fight if they established a theocracy here...even if a majority of Americans supported it. So no, a Middle East dominated by Iran and radical Islam is not something I support, even if many in the Middle Eastern population wanted it so. I don't believe in cultural relativism. I don't believe people should have the right to choose governments explicitly devoted to oppressing others. The US isn't perfect, but it's a damn sight better than Iran or any radical Muslim theocracy. Surely you can agree with that.

None of what you just said is true.

The US is one of the primary reasons why there are radical Muslim theocracies. Why do you think we cooperate with nations like Saudi Arabia? Iran? Afghanistan? Iraq? Syria? We've destroyed countless lives in the name of resources wars that bolster our coffers and prevent other countries from creating stable democracies. That's the key component to US foreign policy: if you're a part of its white western world, you have a democracy. If you're not, then you get to be a "third world" country with a despotic government favorable to US interests.

So many countries don't get the chance to build a society where everyone has a chance to thrive. Is some of it because of religious extremism? Absolutely. The problem is the US stoked that extremism many times over, like when we paid Osama bin Laden to attack the Russians.

That is why I talk about the US being removed from meddling. So many situations in the Middle East, where terrorism is a daily occurrence, exist because of what we've done. The US exports terrorism on a massive scale, reaps the rewards, and lets the people who happen to live in those places suffer the consequences.

I don't want a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy any more than I want a fundamentalist Christian theocracy. That said, the Christians, Muslims, and Jewish people of Palestine should have the right to govern themselves.

I don't give a fuck what you think, you Nazi piece of shit.

When the US found it's vessels being raided and sailors seized as slaves it sent emissary after emissary to the Emir of Tripoli. They stated 'We are not European. We have not any enmity with your peoples. Why do you steal our ships and make our people slaves?' The Emir responded, 'Because you are infidels. And the Prophet Mohammed has told us we can do these things to you. We will stop doing these things, though. If you pay us a tax.

The US paid tribute, but the attacks continued.

From 1890-1905 nearly 1.5 million Westerners were enslaved by the Barbary Pirates.

Finally, Thomas Jefferson sent a naval batallion that shelled Tripoli. The attacks finally stopped.

Yeah, it's all on the West.

Are you mentally unbalanced?

I get upset at genocide, I call out people who cover for genocide and bigotry, and I have the full range of human emotions, so no.
On the other hand, I don't pretend I'm not biased, and I have never made the claim that "normal" is anything other than what is culturally accepted at any given moment.

You do you, though.

The fact that other Muslim countries want zippo to do with the Palestinians tells me all that I need to know about them.

Many years ago, long before I was "terrorizing" the Internet, my seven-year-old daughter had a best friend who was half-Palestinian/half-American. This was, uh, around 1995. I was at their house once after the girls had gone somewhere and the mother invited me to have some (rather strong) tea with her. Admiring her wall hangings, of course I agreed. She seemed to be a very pleasant lady.

We talked about the kids and such and out of nowhere, she starting dogging the Jews. I was rather taken aback, she didn't know me from Adam and usually people are sure of their audience before expressing such sentiments. I didn't respond because I go by the unwritten rule that you don't insult someone in their own house who has offered you hospitality. I let her rabbit on for a bit, then deftly turned the subject. I must say, was massively relieved to escape there. I have to admit, I was rather surprised at the whole incident.

She didn't know that my husband was a non-practicing Jewish man. These days, that thought rather amuses me. But man, to have such a hatred to just let it out to a stranger having tea with you...

The fact that you can say this is a demonstration of your ignorance. Other Muslim countries already host very large numbers of Palestinian refugees. But the propaganda line doing the rounds right now is that because they refuse to facilitate Israeli plans for ethnic cleansing, they're washing their hands.

Also, I wish that the Palestinians would have a more enlightened response to the last 75 years of history, and chosen secular peace-loving politicians. But had I gone through what they have, yeah, I might support some bad dudes at this point. This is what brutalisation always does and it's why support for Hamas is now increasing.
And I'd apply a similar logic to Israelis. They're not just bad people. They are the product of their history.

Israel are now bombing the tent cities that Palestinians have fled to.

Here are 10 dead children as a result. Warning - graphic images.

@14thDoctor can have a nice chuckle.

@Demiurge is very pleased at how all this is going.