Becuase if you speak logicaly, you don't have a heart.  And people who don't have a heart are evil terrorists who need DHS to come and take them away.

I don't even follow this anymore, but damn if that wasn't an eye-glazing amount of buzzwords.

Why would anybody want to take either of these people's sides?

I keep typing and retyping but really I can't word it any prettier; if this is ever going to end, eliminating both side's ability and will to fight is the only thing that's going to end this meaningless bloodshed.

So should the Jews suffer an eternity of Holocaust, exile and mistreatment simply because of what the Hashemites and Jordanians did to the Palistinians?

Neither racism nor mythology have anything to do with my stance on the matter.  Nor would I even consider those things, as they dull the mind to the level required for these perpetual wars.

Both sides want you to think they're the oppressed and the other is evil incarnate.  But I see people taking up arms and slaughtering others, and "sides" be damned, they must be stopped by any means necessary.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:50, Mon 29 Aug 2011.

I agree even those I route for "The Israelies" have sometimes done things wrong. But I support their right to exist and arm themselves for their own lives. The Palistinians aren't necessarily evil incarnate but I believe they are being used by evil forces for the destruction of Israel. The evil forces are spiritual, but since you don't care about that, there is also the fact that people keep the Palistinians in poor, wretched conditions so that the Israelies will look like they are cruel occupiers.

Sure, neither are evil incarnate, but I like the Israelies a whole lot more.

You shouldn't.  You shouldn't side with anyone in this conflict.  People picking a side is the whole reason why the conflict goes on and on endlessly.  Once you pick a side, you find yourself justifying the evils of your "side" by pointing a finger at the other side, and start caring more about victory than peace.  We need more people who are willing to tell both sides what they're doing wrong, and both sides what they're doing right.  We need more people who ask "what can I do to help advance peace?" rather saying "what those people did justifies my actions of violence."  Picking a side isn't going to help, and in fact, is going to make things worse.

Also contributing to the problem is the idea that if you don't fully support one side or the other, then you're in favor of their destruction.  There are more choices than just "my side wins, or the other side wipes us of the map."  Pretending that this is not the case makes peace harder to achieve.

It's not justifying acts of violence that should be condemned, it's justifying acts of oppression and malicious harm. Most violence I've seen from the Israelies has been justified, though I admit some wrongs I don't know about may have been committed by them.

I still think acts of violence need to be included, but yes, oppression and malicious harm should certainly be included amongst the things we should condemn.


In the "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" sense, perhaps, but not often in the "will this action help or hurt the process of forming a lasting peace."  That's a large part of the problem in this situation, I think.  Both sides justify their acts by pointing at the bad things the other side has done.  They keep killing each other, and using the last round of killing as justification.  It's all "they killed so-and-so, and I can't just let them get away with it, so I'll shoot a rocket at them!" and "they shot a rocket at us, and I can't just let them get away with that, so I'll kill so-and-so!" and the cycle just goes on and on, with both sides feeling their acts are justified and necessary.  Instead of using the "do they deserve it" question to justify their actions, both sides should be using the "does this make peace easier or harder to achieve" question.  Because when you view someone as so completely evil and debased as both sided view each other in this conflict, you'll pretty much always think they deserve anything you do to them.

Yeah, but either side ceasing the conflict results in either
a) The other side stepping it up a notch or
b) Getting too tense for words waiting for the other side to go nuts and doing so themselves.

And, of course, destroying your enemy does create peace. Once all of the (Israelites/Palestineans) are dead, they won't cause the (Palestineans/Israelites) problems any more.

I don't accept the "either we destroy them, or they destroy us" dichotomy.  I believe peace is possible.  Some days I waver in that belief, but on the whole, I think it can.  And even if it can't, I think I'd feel better about struggling in vain for peace than accepting slaughter of a people as the alternative.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...gg6C0G6g&index=1

classy.

http://www.shoebat.com/

Kathulos, not sure if you're looking to start a discussion here, or just post information, but if it's the former, you're likely to get more bites if you put something in your post other than just a link.  Anyone who spends any time on the internet has a gazillion links to choose from, and if you don't give them any reason to clink on yours, instead of one of the others they see every day, they're probably not going to click it, let alone comment on it.

As for my thoughts on the link, it ignored a rather critical fact:  the palestinian people.  They live in palestine.  Like, right now, at this moment, they're there.  To discuss the situation without once mentioning them, is a pretty big absence, in my opinion.  This guy is claiming that Israel has a right to all the land.  Okay, claim it as part of Israel, and make all the palestinians citizens, and let them vote like any Israeli in Israel.  But Israel won't do that, because there will soon be more palestianians than Israelis, and thus that would cause Israel not to be jewish anymore.  Israel wants the land, but can't take the people living there.  Claiming rights to the land, while ignoring the fact that there are other people currently living there isn't right, in my view.  Trying to slowly push the palestinians off the land, and into a smaller and smaller portion of it, so that Israel can have most of the land without any of the people isn't right either.

Yes, a negotiated settlement is the ideal goal.  But that doesn't mean Israel gets whatever it wants and the palestians are shoved out of the way.  Pointing out that other countries have done bad things doesn't give Israel permission to do bad things.  "We won this land in a fair fight!" is a degree of justification for claiming the land, but "so all you people living here have to move out!" isn't justified.  Trying to frame the issue as one entirely about land, and not at all about people is to avoid the main issue, in my view.

Maybe if the Palestinians would stop teaching their children to murder all the Jews, it wouldn't, be such an issue anymore. But no, they want all the Israelies dead.

I agree, teaching children that anyone should be killed is bad.  Whether it's done by Palestinians, Jews, or anyone else.  Those teaching such things should be brought to account.  However, we need to avoid the "So and so did X, so I'm right to do Y!" mentality.  Two wrongs don't make a right, as we're all told as children.  There are Israelis who want peace, and there are palestinians who want peace.  And there are Israelis who want the Palestinians gone, and palestinians who want the Israelis gone.  Picking one side to remove the other is siding with the wrong group (regardless of which side you pick to get rid of the other).  The right position is to be on the side of those who want peace.  Both the Israelis who want peace, and the palestinians who want peace.

The trouble is grouping all palestinians into one group, that includes both the people shooting rockets and the people who want a peaceful resolution.  And likewise, grouping all Israelis together, both the settlers who vandalize mosques and those who want peace, is counter-productive.

Out of curiosity, what do you feel is the proper solution?

It is not only intelligent but morally right to keep potential mass murderers out of your borders.
Edit-
Also, please keep in mind that the founder of the PLO was quite unusually coi and smug with Adolph Hitler. It's no wonder the Israelies and Palistinians don't get along.



Israel should remain a Jewish state. I have heard, although I don't believe the Palistinians are having children in litters, like some people claim.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articl...40,L-3213608,00.html

In the meantime, before the Messiah Jesus comes, whether the Jews believe in him or not, minimize atrocities as much as they can on both sides, that's all we really can do.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:40, Tue 20 Sept 2011.

Sorry for the slow reply, been a bit swamped lately.

Anyway, it sort of sounds like you're viewing it as a short-term issue, and either don't really think lasting peace is possible, or perhaps just not worth the effort.  While I do get very discouraged at times, I'm still holding out hope, and think that moral thing to do is try our best to achieve a lasting peace.  Assuming up front that it's not possible guarantees that it won't be, so I think it's important we not completely give up hope.

I haven't given up hope. But as a believer in the Second Coming of Jesus I believe hope is misplaced in human beings as capable of solving this issue. The only way to make things better is to "make things better". We can't solve this problem anymore than we can stop things like death, and taxes.

I suppose then you'd rather be left out of the conversation when it comes to what we should do to fix things, since you think such discussions are pointless.

For the people who do believe things can be fixed, the subtext of any input you make is an attempt to dissuade people from fixing anything.  Any input from that point of view would only serve to forestall any action towards bettering the situation.

I wouldn't quite say that we couldn't fix "anything". I said we should do what we can to minimize/stop atrocities on both sides.

Fair enough.  I tend to disagree.  Even when I'm most discouraged by the situation, I feel we're obligated to at least try to find a solution.  Sort of the old "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem" cliche, maybe.  Maybe we'll try to make things better, and fail, but if we don't try, then we automatically fail.  I tend not to have much interest in the thoughts of those who just want to point fingers while believing that no solution is possible.

I also don't accept the "Jesus will show up any time now, so we don't need a permanent solution, we just need to minimize the damage for a few years," position.  People have been expecting Jesus to show up "any day now" for almost 2000 years now.  When some preacher put a specific date on it a few months back, he was pretty widely ridiculed as a crack pot, but a huge number of christians in the US seem to have similar (just less specific) views.  And in this case, it sounds like it could be leading similar bad decisions.  While "lets spend our retirement money on a billboard ad, because Jesus is coming and we won't need our retirement money anyway!" is a bad call for one family, "let's not try to solve this conflict because Jesus is coming and will sort it all out for us!" is a decision that affects millions of people in an even-more detrimental fashion.  In general, people who are convinced there's not going to be a next year tend to avoid doing the necessary work this year to make next year livable.  Now, your estimate on just when Jesus is going to come back may not be as short as next year, but if it's causing you to change your views about what we should or shouldn't bother doing right now, I think it's a stumbling block to peace.  Ironically, while Jesus said blessed are the peace-makers, some people view peace-making as unnecessary because of their belief that Jesus is just around the corner.  Of course, evangelicals aren't the only ones letting their religion get in the way of peace in this situation.  There's plenty of Jews and Muslims who are absolutely convinced that god is on their side, so they prefer to keep fighting than to seek peace.  I view it as a bit of a cop-out.  People who believe a deity is going to decide who wins or looses no matter what they do, or who believe a deity has instructed them on what action to take aren't taking responsibility for the situation, won't work for a mutually beneficial compromise.  Ironically, in a land that's holy to three religions, all of which claim to be religions of peace (though some claim this less than others), it tends to be the most secular on all sides that seem the most interested in working towards peaceful compromise.  There are exceptions (both peace-seeking religious people, and violence-promoting seculars) of course, but in my observation, the stronger ones religious conviction, the less likely one is to favor peaceful compromise in this situation.

All that's a bit of a ramble, and perhaps a bit off topic, though. Anyway, I'm with sciencemile on this one, Kathulos.  If you don't think peace is possible, realize that those who do probably won't be too interested in your opinion about what should be done.  Not saying don't share your views, but understand that your views will be based on different assumptions than others have, which may make the discussion largely pointless.  Which is the best option to achieve your desired outcome is mostly besides the point to someone who has a different desired outcome.

Realize that while they have been saying that for 2,000 years, Jesus also said that we would know when it's very close "Even at the door". Even pretending to disregard the signs of the End Times that have come, such as Israel being remade in a day, (Which only happened as late as 1948) realize that the Bible even goes so far as to say that people will be scoffing more than they ever have (some of the scoffers would be in the Church) about His (Jesus'es) Second Coming.

In reply to Kathulos (msg #342):

Sounds like your position on Israel/palestine is pretty heavily dependent on your views of the end times being near, so probably not too much more progress we can make on that topic at the moment (since I don't share the assumption upon which your position is based).  But I'll bump the end times thread to discuss the topic a bit further.

I would kind of like to apologize about the Jordanian/Hashemite comment. . . I think that the UK may have been more responsible for the development of the Palistine/Israel development than them.