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Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

arstechnica.com

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Re: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

#151

Post by xenophanes »

skrebbel wrote: post #133
xenophanes wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude, you called them nazis and then you assume i'm mad about any kind of criticism? you can't figure out it's actually that specific statement that's a problem? the excuse that "i am only criticizing israel (which just happens to be the jewish state, what a coincidence), not jews" is an extremely common statement of anti-semites. using it without further elaboration only makes you look more anti-semitic.

"Dude", I'll again admit that that comment was out of line. Nevertheless, I have a hard time understanding what you hope to gain by your approach here. While you may be quite right that stating "i am only criticizing israel, not jews" is common among people who hate Jews, did you ever consider that this does not imply the inverse? It does not mean that everyone criticizing Israel hates Jews. As a programmer, you must…

I've never seen a single example of a person who:

- criticizes israel in public, in ways anti-semites like to criticize israel - is not anti-semitic - does not include any clarifications in his criticism to differentiate himself from anti-semites

I think all good people know such clarifications are needed when you sound like you might be an anti-semite but actually aren't. If you leave them out, you're giving aid and comfort to anti-semitism and misleading people about your character, at best.

Note that any old clarifications won't work. Many anti-semites try to clarify how they aren't anti-semitic. A decent person would have to figure out how to say something that objectively differentiates himself. And he would care to do it if he wanted to publicly agree with the anti-semitic position on some specific point.

Re: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

#152

Post by xenophanes »

glomph wrote: post #136
xenophanes wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you disputing facts like these? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01...

I am shocked you would actually try and make that argument about a whole country of people and still have the guts to call someone criticising the Israeli government antisemetic . What possible moral high ground do you have now?

I said the majority, I linked to something saying the majority.

Your mistake is no random accident. You should go learn positive things about Israel until you wouldn't make such a mistake again.

Re: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

#153

Post by philwelch »

ominds wrote: post #150
philwelch wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you support suicide bombing and rocket strikes against civilian targets?

Check the numbers. In 2009 Israel killed 1034, Palestinians killed... 9!!! That's around 115 for each one Israeli killed. That's genocide, not retaliation. And it's done with US military jet fighters and tanks, that Palestinians don't have (talk about terrorism!) Let's look at it simply, Israel has the land, settlements in Palestinian territory, denying right of return and controlling East Jerusalem. All of which are…

So you support suicide bombing and rocket strikes against civilian targets.

Re: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

#154

Post by ChuckMcM »

DanBC wrote: post #137
ChuckMcM wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I do know people who have changed points of view. But I am more interested in the way in which technology has changed the way all of the parties involved are acting. During the Egypt uprising as part of the Arab spring there was a tremendous backlash on Egypt for cutting off (or trying to) Internet access to keep word of what was going on from getting out. I felt that was pretty egregious, but I wouldn't feel bad…

I'm really sorry that I derailed your thread. You make some interesting points, and they could have led to some useful discussion. I'll try (and I'll avoid the traditional flame-war aspects of the discussion.) I think the difference may be the perceived power balances: in one situation there is an oppressive regime censoring communications to hinder rebels who are protesting against that oppressive regime. In the oth…

No worries, it was destined to be de-railed.

I think you are correct about the power balances. People revolting in Egypt don't have a 'voice' but the government does, similarly Israel has its own 'voice' in the form of television media, etc and doesn't "need" the amplification that Twitter provides.

Its an interesting dichotomy that I'll have to think more about. Meanwhile this whole thread has been modded into oblivion :-)

Re: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

#155

Post by ubermammal »

kamaal wrote: post #78
blvr wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. No. You've got it completely wrong. Zionism is the idea that Jews need a Jewish nation to take Jewish refugees fleeing persecution. History has basically proved that to be true. What it's not: 1. The idea that Jews are in any way superior. All races have equal rights under Israeli law (although secular Jews have some obligations that other groups don't, i.e. mandatory military service) and Israel has a significa…

>>Zionism is the idea that Jews need a Jewish nation to take Jewish refugees fleeing persecution. Makes perfect sense. If you settle a persecuted set of people on a totally unoccupied land, which would be totally harmless. What I don't understand is the need to persecute one already existing set of people to accommodate another set of people who just got persecuted. If a persecuted tribe in Africa decides to settle d…

>>What I don't understand is the need to persecute one already existing set of people to accommodate another set of people who just got persecuted.

But they weren't persecuted - they were paid off.

In 1917, at the end of WW1, Britain was given the mandate of administering Palestine - at the time a chunk of the recently-defeated-and-defunct Ottoman Empire. Part of this mandate was the Balfour Declaration, which basically said that Britain would work to build 'a national home for the Jewish people' in Palestine ("it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine").

They worked with the "Jewish Agency for Palestine" (these days the Jewish Agency for Israel), who had been buying the land in the area from the previous owners - mostly Arab clans and local sheiks and so on. Nothing was seized, nobody was driven out or persecuted.

Re: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

#156

Post by philwelch »

illuminate wrote: post #149
philwelch wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But people can (and do) build that kind of narrative all the time, which was my real point. The reality is always more complicated.

I see. I still don't think white flight is a valid comparison to military operations and bulldozing settlements.

It's not even a valid comparison to the Mexican-American war, that's the point. You can oversimplify vastly different issues down to the same narrative if you want to, which is why these simple narratives tell us nothing.

Re: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

#157

Post by kbenson »

xenophanes wrote: post #152
glomph wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am shocked you would actually try and make that argument about a whole country of people and still have the guts to call someone criticising the Israeli government antisemetic . What possible moral high ground do you have now?

I said the majority, I linked to something saying the majority. Your mistake is no random accident. You should go learn positive things about Israel until you wouldn't make such a mistake again.

> I said the majority, I linked to something saying the majority.

You also implied they are not decent because of their voting preferences, completely ignoring the complex factors that may have led each to make that decision. There are so many ways you could have gotten the point across that the Palestinion public needs to make better choices in their elected officials, yet you decided to just call those people indecent.

> Your mistake is no random accident. You should go learn positive things about Israel until you wouldn't make such a mistake again.

Is your attitude regarding the people of Palestine no random accident? Should I advise you to learn more about individual Palestinions with the assumption that would change your mind?

Re: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

#158

Post by kbenson »

ubermammal wrote: post #155
kamaal wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Zionism is the idea that Jews need a Jewish nation to take Jewish refugees fleeing persecution. Makes perfect sense. If you settle a persecuted set of people on a totally unoccupied land, which would be totally harmless. What I don't understand is the need to persecute one already existing set of people to accommodate another set of people who just got persecuted. If a persecuted tribe in Africa decides to settle d…

>>What I don't understand is the need to persecute one already existing set of people to accommodate another set of people who just got persecuted. But they weren't persecuted - they were paid off. In 1917, at the end of WW1, Britain was given the mandate of administering Palestine - at the time a chunk of the recently-defeated-and-defunct Ottoman Empire. Part of this mandate was the Balfour Declaration, which basica…

How does that relate to governance? Depending on the laws of the nation, property ownership and residence may not imply voting rights (or any sort of say in governance, voting or otherwise). I truly have no idea of the laws regarding this in that part of the world, but a simple argument of land purchase without addressing those issues doesn't really sway me too far one way or the other.

Re: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

#159

Post by skrebbel »

xenophanes wrote: post #151
skrebbel wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Dude", I'll again admit that that comment was out of line. Nevertheless, I have a hard time understanding what you hope to gain by your approach here. While you may be quite right that stating "i am only criticizing israel, not jews" is common among people who hate Jews, did you ever consider that this does not imply the inverse? It does not mean that everyone criticizing Israel hates Jews. As a programmer, you must…

I've never seen a single example of a person who: - criticizes israel in public, in ways anti-semites like to criticize israel - is not anti-semitic - does not include any clarifications in his criticism to differentiate himself from anti-semites I think all good people know such clarifications are needed when you sound like you might be an anti-semite but actually aren't. If you leave them out, you're giving aid and…

Yes, you have seen a single example of such a person: me.

Re: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

#160

Post by youngtaff »

philwelch wrote: post #148
vhf wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly agree with your comment except for the first sentence. The problem is that while Arafat officially recognized Israel in 1993, Israel never reciprocated. Would it still be war if Israel recognized the right for a Palestinian State to exist, and how this Palestinian demand for a right to have a state can be denied by people who asked for the exact same thing and obtained it (leading to the existence of Israel)…

There isn't really a de facto Palestinian state to recognize, unfortunately. In the dying days of the Clinton administration Barak offered Arafat a recognized Palestinian state, but Arafat didn't agree to the terms. Maybe the terms were unreasonable, but most sources agree that Arafat didn't even bother with a counteroffer. Sharon made enough concessions to the Palestinians to alienate his own party. Even Netanyahu a…

The offer Barak made to Arafat apparently carved the West Bank up into little Palestinian enclaves that could not function as a whole due to the settlements and settlers only roads that went through it.
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