Israel at War with Hamas October 7, 2023

[Diogenes]

There is no question this was a horrific attack by Hamas on Israel that also endangers Palestinians.
To what extent are attacks like this inevitable, considering the history of Israel?

Isn't this just another example of how religious conflict breeds violence?
or
Is it inevitable that strongly held beliefs will always ignite the passions of some?

Perhaps the difference with religions that claim authority from God is that they inspire absolute beliefs, an absolute conviction they are 'right' and therefore anything is justifiable... including following God's orders to kill your own son.

Palestinian land stolen in 1948, more in 1967, then more every day in the West Bank makes acts of terrorism inevitable. Then Netanyahu put a right wing criminal in charge of the 'Ministry of Justice,' and... BIG SURPRISE! ... another war.
"If I go the to write indictment number one, it would go to Israel's Justice Minister YARIV LEVIN. He is the man who drove this insane, corrupt, dishonest effort to basically take over the power of the Supreme Court. With Netanyahu's help, he fractured Israel. He fractured Israeli society. He fractured the Israeli ministry, the military. He fractured the Israeli air force...."
__ Tom Friedman

https://www.rawstory.com/tom-friedman-i ... A-TIAtHv6Y

[foolmefoolsyou]

What about in England? Germany?

This forum is not about England or Germany. If you want to open a discussion on that topic go for it, sweet pee.
P.S. the op
Israel at War with Hamas October 7, 2023

[AgnosticBoy]

The reason why we support Israel more than the Palestinians might be biblically-related, but I think it's also because Israel is closer to a democracy than a lot of the other countries in that region. In my view, which I admit is a subjective standard, people who push for a totalitarian style of governing should not be in control of any land nor should Western nations support any of them. This is why I can not bring myself to support Palestine, despite the fact that they are being unfairly occupied (i say unfairly in the sense that Israel has taken a disproportionate amount of land). If Palestine was not oppressing its own people, then I'd see the justification for supporting Palestine over Israel.

Q: Is committing unspeakable acts of evil(maybe even genocide) in the process of accomplishing the utopia "from the river to the sea" justified?

If they say yes to that, then that is essentially supporting Hamas. Hamas uses any means necessary to kill Jews. The fact that some on the Palestinian side don't distinguish between fighting to regain territory vs. just killing people by any means (including killing babies, raping and killing women, and pushing for a Palestine "from the river to the sea"), shows why there is such confusion as to who and/or WHAT the pro-Palestinian side is really supporting.

[William]

[Replying to AgnosticBoy in post #132]

The reason why we support Israel more than the Palestinians might be biblically-related,

(Everyone is "Biblically realated".)

but I think it's also because Israel is closer to a democracy than a lot of the other countries in that region. In my view, which I admit is a subjective standard, people who push for a totalitarian style of governing should not be in control of any land nor should Western nations support any of them. This is why I can not bring myself to support Palestine, despite the fact that they are being unfairly occupied (i say unfairly in the sense that Israel has taken a disproportionate amount of land). If Palestine was not oppressing its own people, then I'd see the justification for supporting Palestine over Israel.

The idea is to get a bead on where Palestinians derived (before they consolidated and took up that name) and why they ended up a dispossessed people consigned within the borders of a wasteland, long before the State of Israel became a reality.

For that we need not reach further back than when this whole area was controlled by a murderous tyrannical empire (Ottoman) which clearly explain why dispossessed peoples existed in said region.

Once The Path was cleared for the set-up of The State of Israel, those dispossessed peoples wanted better recognition and accommodation and were invited to become citizens of the new State of Israel but for reasons unclear, demanded their own territory, which Israel then gave to them, from the spoils of the Six Day War. (On the seventh, they rested.)

Not only was the gift a setting which Palestinians could call their own, but Israel took the wasteland for themselves, because they understood that their hundreds of years in exile had allowed for them to make friends, have an influence in the politics of the world and have finance of their own available with which to invest in the vision, something which the dispossessed people (now calling themselves Palestinians) had no such history and thus no way in which to invest in turning wasteland into productive outcomes.

As is clearly evident, Palestinians don't want the gift, they simply want everything from the river to the sea and for the Jews to go away.

In that, their continued brutal pushing has consistently resulted in a more forceful nation of people having to deal with those pushes with even more brutal force.
Should that game continue in this back and forth brutality, or is there a time and place for ending it for good, for the sake of the world in general?

If no negotiation can be had (as is Palestine's stance) then what else is there but the continuation of the brutality of warfare?

What happens when a gift-horse is looked in the mouth, or one bites the hand of good offering? Perhaps those peoples were dispossessed to the wastelands way back when, for a reason - because they had shown time and again, no one could negotiate with them as they were totally set in their ways?

What is it that will satisfy such souls, but the death of all life, because it seems to me that this is the underlying motive and why they use/allow their own children to be used as human shields against that which they provoke consistently with murderous intent?

If they hate life that much, why not just end it for them, rather than have them continually try and end life by their consistent treating of life as something to murder?

[AgnosticBoy]

[Replying to William in post #133]
All valid points, but what gets me are the double standards from the pro-Palestine side.

When the pro-Palestine side chants "free Palestine", the first thing that comes to mind is that the Palestinian state itself is not free. They oppress their own people. So are they really against oppression?

They say Israel is committing genocide, while calling for genocide against the Jews with their chants of "from the river to the sea". Is that consistent with being against genocide?

They say the Jews are occupiers, while the Arabs also took it over the land during the spread of Islam. Even if we say that the Arabs were always there, but so were the Jews. The Romans never expelled every single Jew from Israel. So I don't quite get the charge of occupation unless it refers to the Jews controlling the land in a disproportionate way. That whole scenario is different than some group of people, like the early American settlers, coming to a foreign land (a land that they had no ties to nor inhabitants in) and suddenly taking over.

So are they really against "occupation" or are they okay with it when only certain groups do it?

Prior to the Muslim conquest of Palestine (635–640), Palaestina Prima had a population of 700 thousand, of which around 100 thousand were Jews and 30 to 80 thousand were Samaritans,[62] with the remainder being Chalcedonian and Miaphysite Christians.[20][63][48]

Source: Wiki

From AD313, with the widespread acceptance of Christianity by Rome, Jerusalem underwent a revival, greatly aided by St Helena (wife of Emperor Constantine), who sponsored much re-building of the city in the early 4th century. It became a centre for Christian pilgrimage.

By AD638, with the rapid spread of a new religion in the region, Islam, the city was captured by an army led by Abu Ubaydah under the caliphate of Umar ibn al-Khattab and Islam came to Palestine.

Source: Al Jazeera

I recommend reading the rest of the 2nd article as it provides an excellent chronology for some of the major players in Jerusalem's history.

[Purple Knight]

There's no moral high ground in terms of Human rights, when we're talking about two totalitarian style governments. The freedom of opinion that people are expressing here would not be allowed in Palestine. You could not say something against the Quran and get away with it. So if human rights is really the standard here, we shouldn't be supporting either side, unless there's a bias for one side, which seems to be the case.

Supporting the side that is being denied land to live on, is more basic to human rights than any other concerns.

No, you wouldn't get freedom of opinion in Palestine and that's fine. They want to live their way, and I support that. I also want to live my way, with freedom of opinion. If people stop taking each other's land, everyone can be reasonably happy.

People have taken land from each other since the beginning of human civilization.

Q: Is really a Zod like mentality a good mentality?

Q: Is committing unspeakable acts of evil(maybe even genocide) in the process of accomplishing the utopia "from the river to the sea" justified?

Committing unspeakable acts of evil(maybe even genocide) in the process to take land, preserve land is worthless for in the end borders will change, cultures will change, dissolve and ultimately evolve, metamorphose into a total different thing.

Coexistence is the key.

It's Israel trying to take all the land.

At some point, to avoid the perfect becoming the enemy of the good, maybe you do forgive people for land grabs, and just live and let live.

However, you do not do that as they are in the process of grabbing more land. Nor do you do that, when they have made a People homeless.

This is the difference between saying whites in America should give the entire North American continent back to the Native Americans (when the Native Americans are alive and well on their reservations, which is sub-ideal to say the least) and saying that we should stop taking their land, if we were in the process of invading the reservations and making them homeless.

[AgnosticBoy]

It's Israel trying to take all the land.

Come on. That's a biased perspective. Why not consider that both sides want all the land? Israel is just more capable of doing it, militarily-wise, at least.

[Purple Knight]

It's Israel trying to take all the land.

Come on. That's a biased perspective. Why not consider that both sides want all the land? Israel is just more capable of doing it, militarily-wise, at least.

Sure, but whichever side is actually doing it, is in the wrong.

We don't go to the playground bully and excuse him, because, well, Sally wanted to hit him too, she was just less capable of actually doing it. We punish him, make him stop, and if Sally does go and beat on him later when she has the advantage, then she was in the wrong and we punish her.

[AgnosticBoy]

It's Israel trying to take all the land.

Come on. That's a biased perspective. Why not consider that both sides want all the land? Israel is just more capable of doing it, militarily-wise, at least.

Sure, but whichever side is actually doing it, is in the wrong.

We don't go to the playground bully and excuse him, because, well, Sally wanted to hit him too, she was just less capable of actually doing it. We punish him, make him stop, and if Sally does go and beat on him later when she has the advantage, then she was in the wrong and we punish her.

Technically, No one has taken over all the land. They are trying to perhaps, and so are the Palestinians. That is their stated goal. While you may count only the amount of effort put into an action as being wrong, I'd even say that intentions, along with weaker efforts (and it's only weaker until they can get their hands on a stronger weapon) also count as wrong.

[Purple Knight]

It's Israel trying to take all the land.

Come on. That's a biased perspective. Why not consider that both sides want all the land? Israel is just more capable of doing it, militarily-wise, at least.

Sure, but whichever side is actually doing it, is in the wrong.

We don't go to the playground bully and excuse him, because, well, Sally wanted to hit him too, she was just less capable of actually doing it. We punish him, make him stop, and if Sally does go and beat on him later when she has the advantage, then she was in the wrong and we punish her.

Technically, No one has taken over all the land. They are trying to perhaps, and so are the Palestinians. That is their stated goal. While you may count only the amount of effort put into an action as being wrong, I'd even say that intentions, along with weaker efforts (and it's only weaker until they can get their hands on a stronger weapon) also count as wrong.

Think of it more simply. Johnny has Sally's bike. Sally has been trying to break into Johnny's garage and steal back her bike for a while. She has not gotten it.

Someone says, "Well, just like Johnny, she would take both bikes if she could," and "Two wrongs don't make a right, nothing justifies breaking into Johnny's garage."

All the rioting in modern day when there is injustice, and the general attitude is you do not sit there and accept injustice. If you are denied what is yours, and you have to break into a garage to get it, then you do that. You can call for letting the ruling party handle it when there is such a party, and it is fair and unbiased. If not all bets are off.

[AgnosticBoy]

Technically, No one has taken over all the land. They are trying to perhaps, and so are the Palestinians. That is their stated goal. While you may count only the amount of effort put into an action as being wrong, I'd even say that intentions, along with weaker efforts (and it's only weaker until they can get their hands on a stronger weapon) also count as wrong.

Think of it more simply. Johnny has Sally's bike. Sally has been trying to break into Johnny's garage and steal back her bike for a while. She has not gotten it.

Someone says, "Well, just like Johnny, she would take both bikes if she could," and "Two wrongs don't make a right, nothing justifies breaking into Johnny's garage."

All the rioting in modern day when there is injustice, and the general attitude is you do not sit there and accept injustice. If you are denied what is yours, and you have to break into a garage to get it, then you do that. You can call for letting the ruling party handle it when there is such a party, and it is fair and unbiased. If not all bets are off.

The shortcoming of your analogy is that Palestinians have not simply attempted to attack Israel, but have attacked, which has included targeting innocent civilians in the process. To borrow from your analogy, it would be like Sally trying steal her bike back, but in the process, Sally attacks Johnny's kids and wife until she gets it back. We can even say that Sally attempted to kill Johnny's family but lacked the tools to do it, but she's around the corner planning it and perhaps will be successful once her big brother, Iran, gives her the tools. And to make things more interesting, let's also say that Sally doesn't have a clean history herself since she is also known to steal bikes and engage in other crimes.

Is Sally's actions justified since her bike was stolen?! Of course, Johnny has done wrong, but can you understand why some would have trouble sympathizing with Sally under those conditions?

Another issue I have with your analogy is you're again not factoring in that the land of Israel is disputable. A case can be made that it did not belong only to the Arabs. The Jews have always existed there, although in different numbers throughout history.