Israel/Palestine thread

The opposition in Egypt is The Muslim Brotherhood, an outlawed party, and it is where Hamas sprung from. Israel doesn't want civil war in Egypt. Israel doesn't want The Muslim Brotherhood running Egypt again. Israel doesn't want 2 million Palestinians from Gaza to just become Egyptians. The "Egypt should open its border" chorus from people trying to deflect blame from Israel is dishonest or at least ill-informed.

Let me repeat: Egypt can help the people in Gaza immensely, even WITHOUT taking many or any Palestinians in as permanent residents, if it so chooses.

Broad brushing with the label of anti-semite I dont think is accurate. I would say it is more accurate to say there is an ulterior motive (which could or could not be antisemitism) and they dont actually have any first principle concerns for human rights or suffering.

A lot of progressives are critical of anything or anyone they view as "white" and just lump Israel/Jews into the "white" bucket with zero knowledge or appreciation for the history of the Jewish people. I would actually put Victor and Pointless in this bucket. Victor is perfectly fine calling Jewish people Nazis not because he is an antisemite, but because he rejects history, especially Jewish history, so calling a Jew a Nazi is no different to him than calling any other "white" person one.

A perfect example of this in the real world was the progressive attitude towards "white" Serbia and its treatment of its "brown" neighbors. If the Serbian actions had happened today in the Internet era, todays progressives would probably be just as antagonistic towards Serbia as they are towards Israel today. Probably moreso actually.

I would say it is accurate to say the antipathy towards Israel/Jews in the Muslim world has its foundation in the antisemitism rampant in the founding texts and history of this religion.

For example, even Serbia's victims were Muslim, the general interest in the Muslim world wasn't 1/100 of Israel/Palestine because there they don't even pretend to have any first principle concerns for human life (even Muslim human life), and there is no built in historical/religious antagonism towards Serbians.

Those countries won't open up to democracy and liberal values unless they are forced to internally. Liberties aren't given; they are taken. But, if you're in a country that just exports raw materials and the people with all the guns (and the countries that benefit from the export of those materials) are rich because they keep the population in a state where it cannot receive the benefit of those raw materials (undemocratic), it's a tough road to hoe.

Who were you talking about their tweets (they didn't tweet about China) and being an antisemite?

Liberty are given every time rulers believe they gain by giving them.

It can be as you mention because they fear they can lose power if they don't, but other times it's about ruling over richer people.

I think you can admit that china opening up to a portion of capitalist values after Zedong death ("being rich is glorious") happened only because the rulers thought their power would increase if they were allowed to be overlords of s richer population

I dont think enough credit is given towards Western historical elites who realized pushing their people towards liberal values would be beneficial towards everyone (including themselves). I think common people everywhere are more or less the same, and the main difference that separates societies is the vision of the political elites.

Palestine finds itself in its current situation mainly because their leadership has sucked so hard from the inception. Arafat to Hamas, just a long line of horrible people making horrible decisions. And I dont think the rest of the world historically ignoring this and putting all the onus on Israel is a path towards things getting better.

I disagree with the notion that commoners are the same everywhere.

We have good reasons to think they were exceptional in some areas of Europe in being individualistic (anti-collectivists) and those areas inevitably reached the pinnacle of human success historically (england, northern Italy, southern Germany). At the least the "upper middle class" commoners.

That said I fully agree with "societies that made it, had elites that were forward thinking enough to understand that a less complete rule over a far richer society meant more power than absolute rule over very poor people"

ISRAELI MINISTER ELI COHEN OFFICIAL STATEMENT

“We would prefer not to reach peace agreements if they would lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

Saw a poll a few days ago. Most Israelis oppose a second state. No end in sight for the violence.

Sure. There are competing rulers who have taken different strategies, but 99/100 times or more rulers are going to be motivated by wealth, power, prestige or something ignoble whether they are the leaders of China or forum mods.

Conditions in China started to change when they became more valuable (for themselves and others) as a market than as a source of materials - think 1972 and Nixon "opening" China and later expanded under Deng Xiaoping. Conditions favored an environment that brought development and now China is the world leader in exploiting less developed nations for raw materials while the residents of those countries see as little of the benefit from those materials as possible.

They don't see little benefits because of the Chinese though, but entirely because of their local leaders.

We buy cheaper Chinese goods and benefits as consumers because our leaders are less horrendous than the leaders of some sub African countries.

If all the leaders of the world were equally "good", the raw materials wouldn't be so cheap and the goods from China would be extra not cheap and you wouldn't have so much stuff. That's why the "good" leaders get especially mad when the people of the raw material countries try to keep more of the wealth for themselves.

If they keep more for themselves, it's only the company loss, the market clearing price is the same worldwide for commodities (ex- transport costs)

You’ll get no argument from me there. 👍

If that doesn’t work he can just say they’re Hamas, like the hospitals and journalists

My own personal definition is simple.

If someone has absolutely no issues with the variety of (often oppressive) Islamic countries out there (born out of the post-Empire eras), but has a problem with Zionism and a homeland self-determined by Jews, they're antisemitic.

It's that simple and it's that clear.

My definition is if people hate Jews and there are lots of Israel supporters nowadays in the USA who hate Jews.

https://newrepublic.com/post/176924/far-...

There’s smart people who believe in intersectionality and there’s smart people who don’t. I’m quite confident intersectionality is real.

I'm not sure I know exactly what intersectionality is, but I don't think it's inviting people who said "Hitler was sent by God" and wants Jews to rule the holy land so that Jesus can come back and send them all to hell to your pro-Israel rally just because you have the same immediate goals.

briefly, What I meant is there are people who think that racism against black people is not antisemitism. antisemitism is antisemitism. Homophobia is not antisemitism. Antisemitism is antisemitism. Islamophobia is not antisemitism etc

And then there are people who believe in intersectionality and that those things are connected. I think those things are connected. In my case i’m specifically talking about an x-ray through the lgbtq community and that I think a large amount of antisemitism is being trafficked through accusations of “grooming”

"You can decapitate or hang homosexuals and we are fine with you as long as you oppose Israel "

I agree only antisemitism is antisemitism.

But you can imply antisemitism from the very simple idea of criticizing Jews if they do x, while you never criticize other non whites if they do x. That's very clearly antisemitism

Dunno about the specifics, but yeah, I generally think people who hate one group of others hate every group of others though there are some very different stereotypes and reasons/fears.

I would hope no one is ok with hanging homosexuals, :( I haven’t seen anyone in this thread say they are

So out of the two groups I laid out, you would fall into the first and I the second.
I agree with the second sentence, except your usage of the term non white is unnecessary.

I think you think liberals caring about islamic lives and lgbtq lives is some sort of impossibility that would implode the left. It’s not.