Middle East Conflict

[BayernMan]

Because the winners write the new rules and the losers have to live with them…until another war changes that. So far, it hasn’t.

That’s fine cold logic and all but living by the sword is hardly novel or clever.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

That’s fine cold logic and all but living by the sword is hardly novel or clever.

My mistake! I thought you were looking for answers? Not novelty or cleverness, but reality.

The State of Israel as we know it today was a result of WWII and perceived “owners” of the land at that time. Subsequent wars in the region have moved some of those boundaries. If you talk to a few people from other countries in, say, Eastern or Central Europe, you may find they would agree that borders get changed by war!

 

[BayernMan]

My mistake! I thought you were looking for answers? Not novelty or cleverness, but reality.

The State of Israel as we know it today was a result of WWII and perceived “owners” of the land at that time. Subsequent wars in the region have moved some of those boundaries. If you talk to a few people from other countries in, say, Eastern or Central Europe, you may find they would agree that borders get changed by war!

Franky I have no personal ties to borders. I think they are simply a function of dates and fundamentally humans should go wherever they want for a better life. I’ve always been partial towards Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s famous saying on fences.

That said, saying thats reality and one should just deal with it says more about you because that is what folks like Sinwar, Putin, Ben-Gvir, and Khamenei say to justify their actions. If that’s the world you feel is worth leaving behind then good luck.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

Franky I have no personal ties to borders. I think they are simply a function of dates and fundamentally humans should go wherever they want for a better life. I’ve always been partial towards Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s famous saying on fences.

That said, saying thats reality and one should just deal with it says more about you because that is what folks like Sinwar, Putin, Ben-Gvir, and Khamenei say to justify their actions. If that’s the world you feel is worth leaving behind then good luck.

See what you did there?

You whined. I merely pointed out the reality of the situation.

You then gave me some flowery prose and didn’t quote a quote, but gave me the author of the quote, as if it’s a test whether I know the quote from the author’s name.

Then, in closing, you liken my statement of fact to be the same sensibility as that of murderous dictators.

Charming…or is that cunty???

This is where i tell you to go fuck yourself and stop asking stupid questions if you don’t want straightforward factual answers. Is it because they strike a little close to home, perhaps?!

Have I wandered into an episode of Fawlty Towers?!

 

[BayernMan]

See what you did there?

You whined. I merely pointed out the reality of the situation.

You then gave me some flowery prose and didn’t quote a quote, but gave me the author of the quote, as if it’s a test whether i know the quote.

Then, in closing, you liken my statement of fact to be the same sensibility of murderous dictators.

Charming.

This is where i tell you to go fuck yourself and stop asking stupid questions if you don’t want straightforward factual answers. Is it because they strike a little close to home, perhaps?!

Have I wandered into an episode of Fawlty Towers?!

Lol! You’re a sensitive one. Good day to you sir.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

Lol! You’re a sensitive one. Good day to you sir.

It’s not being “sensitive” to be compared to murderous dictators and being told who I am by some anonymous twat on an Internet forum, no matter how much you LOL after accomplishing the feat.

Borders, especially the ones you appear to dislike, are drawn by war. I’d have thought a BayernMan would understand that more than most. It’s neither novel nor particularly interesting, but you asked, I answered…then you turned into a dick and laughed it off.

“Now, I’m getting the word…”

 

[BayernMan]

It’s not being “sensitive” to be compared to murderous dictators and being told who I am by some anonymous twat on an Internet forum, no matter how much you LOL after accomplishing the feat.

Borders, especially the ones you appear to dislike, are drawn by war. I’d have thought a BayernMan would understand that more than most. It’s neither novel nor particularly interesting, but you asked, I answered…then you turned into a dick and laughed it off.

“Now, I’m getting the word…”

Well sorry if you feel offended. It is what it is…

 

[BayernMan]

This meeting sounds like it went exactly as one would expect.

 

[SebastianBlue]

See what you did there?

You whined. I merely pointed out the reality of the situation.

You then gave me some flowery prose and didn’t quote a quote, but gave me the author of the quote, as if it’s a test whether I know the quote from the author’s name.

Then, in closing, you liken my statement of fact to be the same sensibility as that of murderous dictators.

Charming…or is that cunty???

This is where i tell you to go fuck yourself and stop asking stupid questions if you don’t want straightforward factual answers. Is it because they strike a little close to home, perhaps?!

Have I wandered into an episode of Fawlty Towers?!

But he is right, mate. The argument you are making is the same one used by murderous dictators and terrorist organisations (including Hamas) to justify their actions.

You are essentially matter-of-factly saying that ‘might is right’ and ‘to the victors belong the spoils’ regardless of what the ‘mighty victors’ did to “win”. You can say it is the reality as much as you like, but we aren’t really debating what has been in this thread (or in the wider world)—most rational, knowledgable observers know what has come before in history. What were are trying to parse out is what should be, and how that new reality could be brought about. That is the way you change things (hopefully for the better).

There is no need at all for a thread or any debate outside of it, if we are all just meant to accept what has come before will always be, specifically that “the winners wrote the rules and the losers have to live with them”. That is brutal, cold, totalitarian thinking, which is absolutely what the likes of Hitler, Putin, Ben Gvir, Sinwar, and countless other murderous entities have operated under for thousands of years.

Them having done so isn’t actually an answer to “why”. It’s just a statement of history. “Why” requires one to justify that mindset and the acts that follow. And no human-centred thinker could do that, for good reason. At which point, an alternative path needs to be developed to divert events and conditions toward humanist principles.

Ultimately, if you don’t want to be compared to murderous dictators and horrific terrorist groups, don’t make the same arguments to justify their actions as they have, whilst ignoring the realities of those actions and how they contravene humanist principles.

 

[Vic]

I don't really see the point in this argument. The fault of this lies with the politics of the Israeli government which I criticise and do not support. Not everybody in Israel supports Netanyahu.

Let's try to avoid that given the hypocrisy that you question Israeli nationalist votes for Netanyahu but you don't question the Palestinian nationalist support for the current terrorist authority in Gaza.

I don't know what the solution to the current problem is but it is not the removal of Israel as a nation state or the prevention of Jewish people from exercising their rights. If that right is removed then what are we talking about other than the argument that Israel should not exist?

Or are you saying that instead Israel should be some mashed up state of whoever lived there before and not much else given they're now all banned from living there and can't be allowed the right to vote etc?

What hypocrisy? You're making an argument from silence. Not everybody in Gaza supports Hamas, and possibly no-one would if Netanyahu hadn't fostered Hamas to weaken the Palestinian Authority and wreck a two-state solution.

Every Jew moving to Israel needs water and land, and too much of both has already been stolen from Palestinians, so on that basis I would question their "right of return" to a land where they've never lived at the expense of Palestinians' right to return to where they did live and to land stolen from them.

There probably is no point to the argument, as sadly you either just don't know enough or simply haven't made much attempt to understand the Palestinian cause.