Middle East Conflict

Chippy_boy said:
If a mad gunman kills some people and then barricades himself in to a house with 3 hostages, do the police get the bloke by blowing up the house, and sod the hostages?
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'Some people ' being attacked has been going on for 75 years , this is very different
You could answer how they do it on this scale under these conditions
 
199 Israelis confirmed to be abducted into Gaza.
Isreal evacuating 28 towns and surrounding villages near the Lebanon border
(Sky News)
 
The blue phantom said:
Where is it recognised that being an atheist is religious, part of a religion?

Or is this just an opinion?
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People trying to be clever mate, people who don't believe in god are by definition not religious. If someone genuinely doesn't believe in God some idiot tries to turn it around to explain that you're religious, we are living in weird times where people argue black is white.

  1. the belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods.
    "ideas about the relationship between science and religion"

    Similar:
    faith


    belief


    divinity


    worship


    creed


    teaching


    doctrine


    theology


    sect


    cult


    religious group

    faith community

    church


    denomination


    body


    following


    persuasion


    affiliation
    • a particular system of faith and worship.
      plural noun: religions
      "the world's great religions"
    • a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion.
      "consumerism is the new religion"


 
mexico1970 said:
People trying to be clever mate, people who don't believe in god are by definition not religious. If someone genuinely doesn't believe in God some idiot tries to turn it around to explain that you're religious, we are living in weird times where people argue black is white.

  1. the belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods.
    "ideas about the relationship between science and religion"

    Similar:
    faith


    belief


    divinity


    worship


    creed


    teaching


    doctrine


    theology


    sect


    cult


    religious group

    faith community

    church


    denomination


    body


    following


    persuasion


    affiliation
    • a particular system of faith and worship.
      plural noun: religions
      "the world's great religions"
    • a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion.
      "consumerism is the new religion"

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Contemporary Atheism has been fueled largely by authors promoting their Atheistic beliefs. In the preface to The God Delusion, Dawkins says,

“If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down.”
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Dawkins is saying he hopes that his book converts ‘religious’ people to his worldview—exactly what a missionary of any religion hopes to do.
 
inbetween said:
Ask yourself this, why did Hamas do what it did last week? Why is Israel attracting universal condemnation for quite simply defending itself from continuous attack? It's bizarre that so many people challenge Israel but they don't challenge the aggravating factor which is continued Hamas terrorism. If Hamas didn't do what it did, what is happening now would never have happened. Hamas is responsible for thousands of Palestinian deaths but that's what they want.

I ask again what do you seriously expect them to do? 1000+ Israeli's were murdered last week and Israel is responding. Seriously what is the proper response other than a large military response directed at source? You can't argue that it hasn't been effective because how many Hamas terrorists have jumped the fence since? A ground campaign is imminent and that will reduce Hamas to essentially nothing and the attacks will then ultimately stop.

It's easy for us to cry about humanity whilst sat in our cosy warm homes thousands of miles from these problems. I challenge anyone facing imminent attack to ask for anything else. If it was me then forget humanity, I'd drop two bombs just to make sure if that meant saving the lives of myself, my family and friends.
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Wiping out 2 odd million people to save your what 50 at most family and friends seems a little… well mental.

What makes a Jewish life any more or less valuable than an Arab life in your world?

As for what I’d do, i’d not be rushing head long in to the trap Hamas have set for me and I hope the Israeli government is having a proper rethink. The ground offensive is going to cost a shit tonne of Jewish soldiers. I mean a shit tonne - if military doctrine is that you need 5 attackers to one defender even if the far superior Israeli army is twice as good (and let’s face it the streets and ruins are a great leveller here as the heavy armour can’t operate effectively). that’s still 2.5 to 1, we’re looking at 60,000+ IDF causalities. I’d not be surprised if the numbers aren’t north of 100k for IDF alone if the objective is to wipe Hamas out. We’re probably going to be looking at causalities approaching 250,000-500,000 people on all sides, mostly civilians and a seriously degraded Israeli defence - not fatally but seriously.

The IDF won’t be able to fend off determined Hezbollah attacks, I suspect that’s behind the US messaging.
 
goalmole said:
But they'll get away with it not because they are right but because somehow the Palestinians don't matter to anyone, they are the orphans of the human race, the children of a lesser God.
The rules and standards that apply to others don't apply to them.
The world condones the Israelis as they gradually ethnically cleanse the Palestinians, pushing them into smaller and smaller spaces and then pushing them out of there as well as we are seeing in Gaza as we speak. The fact that they are besieging and killing civilians is seen as acceptable by the supporters of Israel.
When the Palestinians react, as anyone would, they are labelled terrorist presumably because they are not acting on behalf of a government, presumably because they don't have a state, because they are not allowed to have one and if they fight then they are labelled terrorist because they are not representing a government... It's a vicious circle for them.
What choice remains to them?
The sooner these double standards end, the sooner we will get to a solution where everyone can live in peace.
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Sounds like a similar Jewish story 80 years ago (or most of the last 4000 years). I understand your point of view very well, but you should be the first to understand the other side, too.
Fighting for a place to live.

Speaking for Germany (which I can't really do) I'm sure the vast majority has much more sympathies for Palestinians than for Israel due to Israel settling policies. Your claim 'Palestinians don't matter to anyone' certainly couldn't be more untrue. Not only for Germany.
Question is, what can be done in this complex matter.

That said, you shouldn't be surprised if the sympathies are under review if some brainwashed hateful extremists kill civilians.

Actually I don't think a peaceful sustainable solution can be found in that region. Too much has happened on that soil over thousands of years. Is this Palestine soil or Jewish? Arab? Muslim? What about Jerusalem alone? Which God wills it more?

We would have to relocate Israel somewhere to the US or wait til Greenland is warm enough. But I wouldn't bet much that Sunnis and Shiites would live peaceful together on that soil left by Jews.

Humans act according to their brain structure. It's fundamentally organized in our early years. We should finally start to discuss what we teach our young kids to later have peaceful adults.
Respect instead of hatred and revenge. Job done - theoretically.
 
St.Pauli support said:
Actually I don't think a peaceful sustainable solution can be found in that region. Too much has happened on that soil over thousands of years. Is this Palestine soil or Jewish? Arab? Muslim? What about Jerusalem alone? Which God wills it more?
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Of course it can, Europe has been at peace (well most of it has) since the two bloody world wars. there is a tentative peace on the island of Ireland where the divisions between the two branches of the same faith were and are just as bad as between muslims and jews, history does not make the future if we don't want it too

Things seem hopeless now, because of inaction by all sides witch has allowed things to fester under the surface, may be just may be this whole horror show might make the parties and the world actually sit up and take notice
 
metalblue said:
If Israel wants a real change in the dynamics then that leadership comes from the top of the Israeli government - you can never expect others to change, if you want change you have to change your own behaviour/ attitude as that is the only thing you can control.
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Optimistic, but pipe dream. The last time a leader wanting to have peace, Nobel Peace Prize winner Rabin was himself assassinated by an Israeli. Is that belief an anomaly or the norm?

While it’s true that there exist Israelis, including 1400+ former IDF soldiers as a society who are pro-peace and against illegal settlements, the repercussions in doing so are dangerous.
 
Alan Harper's Tash said:
Atheism is based on the belief that god doesn’t exist, which makes it exactly the same as all other religions. The Althusser believes they know better than the Christian/Jew/Muslim in the same way a religious person knows better than the atheist.

God will never be proved nor disproved.

I think more and more people are on the don’t give a fuck about god train. The passive agnostics.
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In the immortal ramblings of Ricky Gervais there have been 3000 gods, you don’t believe in 2999 of them, you deny they exist, I just don’t believe in 1 more than you do.
 
grunge said:
www.bbc.co.uk

Steve Bell sacked by Guardian in antisemitism row over Netanyahu cartoon - BBC News

Cartoon of Israeli PM Netanyahu was pulled following a row over its meaning.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
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Cheers, I was just wondering what people thought.. my mind didn't go to the merchant of Venice at all, I thought it was a dig at Netanyahu, cos although he's got boxing gloves on (ready for a fight) he can still manage to weild a scalpel to outline the strip on his guts..
I don't see the antisemitism myself, but I guess you have to be clever to find it
 
MellowJoe said:
How come he's been sacked for that?
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Because Merchant of Venice has been debated and considered anti-Semitic for decades. In post-Corbyn, completely 'starmerised' UK the cartoons like this one are the highest of moral crimes.

And yet a journo in The Times wrote it is time for silence now, while IDF is very close to expelling 2.2 million Palestinians from Gaza. We really live in some shitty times.

Cannot wait for fucking Saturday even if we lose.
 
Bluemoon_420 said:
A perfect summary of the situation unfolding from one of many brave Jews that are daring to speak out against most western media and politicians narrative:

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Many not privy to the braves, Avi Shlaim included, may not perceive them as representing Israel.

If so, consider the first-hand forefronts of all forefronts, former-IDFs who have after themselves involved in operations, realized to not support the heavy-handed actions. More than 1400 former soldiers have been speaking on the actions of war.







Of course, when following these actions, armchair critics will go “well yes, but…”
 
St.Pauli support said:
Sounds like a similar Jewish story 80 years ago (or most of the last 4000 years). I understand your point of view very well, but you should be the first to understand the other side, too.
Fighting for a place to live.

Speaking for Germany (which I can't really do) I'm sure the vast majority has much more sympathies for Palestinians than for Israel due to Israel settling policies. Your claim 'Palestinians don't matter to anyone' certainly couldn't be more untrue. Not only for Germany.
Question is, what can be done in this complex matter.

That said, you shouldn't be surprised if the sympathies are under review if some brainwashed hateful extremists kill civilians.

Actually I don't think a peaceful sustainable solution can be found in that region. Too much has happened on that soil over thousands of years. Is this Palestine soil or Jewish? Arab? Muslim? What about Jerusalem alone? Which God wills it more?

We would have to relocate Israel somewhere to the US or wait til Greenland is warm enough. But I wouldn't bet much that Sunnis and Shiites would live peaceful together on that soil left by Jews.

Humans act according to their brain structure. It's fundamentally organized in our early years. We should finally start to discuss what we teach our young kids to later have peaceful adults.
Respect instead of hatred and revenge. Job done - theoretically.
Click to expand...
I totally understand the other side insomuch as the Jewish people need a place to call home.
I'm totally behind that.
Home should be where it is now, but that should not preclude a viable independent Palestinian state with the right to it's own independent government, currency, defence forces and all the other apparatus that goes to forming an independent nation state.
When that has happened, and then we're the Palestinians, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran or whoever it is to continue their campaign against Israel then I would be firmly on the side of Israel.
As it is, Israel is the oppressor and the aggressor. It has through it's policy of confiscation, encroachment and settlement building, eviction, expulsion, killing and downright dehumanisation of the Palestinian people, succeeded in creating a system of apartheid where the Palestinians are herded into walled and fenced enclaves and kept on a drip feed somewhere between bare existence and absolute misery at the discretion of Israel.
No people would tolerate and endure this, the Palestinians are no different.
It is the responsibility of Israel and the powers that back it to bring this about rather than use their overwhelming strength to sustain and prolong this injustice, otherwise the outcome will be a continuing cycle of violence resulting in death and misery not only for the Palestinians but too for the Israelis.
 
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