International News Israeli is a racist state operating ethnic cleansing

Paul Cannell said:
Fair enough. But why do you quote a cohort of Richard Dawkins whose primary interests career-wise seem to be denigrating religion (particularly islam) and writing middle-brow books on subjects on which he has little knowledge. I'm just reading the article you quoted and the wikipedia page on him.

The argument that a jewish state is necessary because of the holocaust ignores the historical fact of it's establishment (actually the preparation of it's establishment by jewish immigration, and the political reality of the 2021 British Mandate which explicitly announced the creation of a jewish homeland), and fails to acknowledge the existence of a functioning, developed society whose land it was built on. The theatrical shriek that israel's atrocities aren't atrocities because the muslims (remember this is a professional muslim-hater speaking) would do far worse just demonstrates that he has never actually engaged with palestinians, in my opinion.
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Hey Paul. Thanks for taking the time to read it.

I quoted him out of pure chance that I stumbled upon it when scrolling who I follow on Twitter. I felt it gave a different view to the general view on social media as all Palestinians as the good guys. This is not a debate that you can summarise in a tweet.

Re. Sam Harris. He certainly is part of the new-atheism that rose up around 15 years ago. I note that you say 'Muslim-hater'. I say he's authored a broadside against the equally nonsensical Abrahamic faith Christianity in Letter to a Christian Nation. He's very much a hater of the game and not the player.

As I mentioned above, I have no dog in the fight and nor do I want one. You seem to have drawn your historical line with the Balfour Declaration and that is indeed a milestone in the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but there are hundreds of years of events and occurrences that have led here - destruction of the First Temple and the banishment of the Jews from the Holy Land, the ill-treatment of the Jewish people the world over (especially in Europe), the rise of Zionism, the land passing between Roman, Byzantium, Ottaman hands all with their own sky fairies that they went to war over and many more. It's been a twisted road here and the origins lie way before the British rocked up and got kicked from pillar to post by the Irgun and their mates. There were Jewish people in Mandatory Palestine before the mass Jewish immigration the first half of the 20th century who largely lived peacefully alongside their Arab neighbours. What may have seemed a good idea at the time in the entertaining of Zionism seems a pretty rubbish decision now.

But you can't put that genie back in the bottle and nor will you ever. What's done is done and there is little point pointing back at the past and saying 'well, that shouldn't have happened' as it solves nothing now. Now over 73 years old, Israel isn't going anywhere and will only continue their illegal encroachment into lands they have from time to time agreed the Arabs to have. A Palestinian future state (presuming everyone downed arms tomorrow and agreed that Gaza and the West Bank borders as drawn up now were to be regarded as Palestine in a two-state solution) with Hamas as influence isn't going to be sweetness and light towards their Israeli neighbours if their charter is anything to go by. It'll take some radical future thinking to solve this and not navel-gazing into the past blaming past decisions.
 
Good post, and thanks for the detailed personal reply.

I disagree with a few of your opinions but agree in substance with your last paragraph, although I don't see the problem being solved in my lifetime.

I think the history is important though. For sure a fairly stable population of jews were present in palestine / Syria (Palestine & Lebanon being provinces of Syria which was the most typical 'large administrative unit') from before the crusades until the 19th century as a more or less tolerated. I think it makes sense to start from the ottoman empire since land registry exists from then, in Istanbul, and land ownership can often be established from then. The british and french colonial attitudes, together with the growth of Zionism (influenced both by maltreatment and by the growth of nationalism) totally removed that stability. My opinion is that you can't understand what's going on now, and without understanding there's no hope.

Fair enough, the guy you quoted hates all religions, he seems to like hate. It's much harder to hate something if you understand why people behave the way they do, and that neither israel, hamas nor fatah are monolithic. I suppose I'm trying to get to that understanding.

Finally, I don't have social media so I can't speak for what's on it (except that I expect 90% of it is ill-informed and barely considered.) In print and TV coverage I believe the coverage is immensely biased towards israel, and ignores the history that enables a reasonable person to understand context.

All the best.
 
Big Ron said:
Remove ‘appear to be…” and you are spot on. Always good to see the views of our Tommy Robinson supporting fellow fan.
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I'd actually forgotten about Waxy-Lemon. Is he in prison or has he got into the US yet?
 
unification said:
Hey Paul. Thanks for taking the time to read it.

I quoted him out of pure chance that I stumbled upon it when scrolling who I follow on Twitter. I felt it gave a different view to the general view on social media as all Palestinians as the good guys. This is not a debate that you can summarise in a tweet.

Re. Sam Harris. He certainly is part of the new-atheism that rose up around 15 years ago. I note that you say 'Muslim-hater'. I say he's authored a broadside against the equally nonsensical Abrahamic faith Christianity in Letter to a Christian Nation. He's very much a hater of the game and not the player.

As I mentioned above, I have no dog in the fight and nor do I want one. You seem to have drawn your historical line with the Balfour Declaration and that is indeed a milestone in the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but there are hundreds of years of events and occurrences that have led here - destruction of the First Temple and the banishment of the Jews from the Holy Land, the ill-treatment of the Jewish people the world over (especially in Europe), the rise of Zionism, the land passing between Roman, Byzantium, Ottaman hands all with their own sky fairies that they went to war over and many more. It's been a twisted road here and the origins lie way before the British rocked up and got kicked from pillar to post by the Irgun and their mates. There were Jewish people in Mandatory Palestine before the mass Jewish immigration the first half of the 20th century who largely lived peacefully alongside their Arab neighbours. What may have seemed a good idea at the time in the entertaining of Zionism seems a pretty rubbish decision now.

But you can't put that genie back in the bottle and nor will you ever. What's done is done and there is little point pointing back at the past and saying 'well, that shouldn't have happened' as it solves nothing now. Now over 73 years old, Israel isn't going anywhere and will only continue their illegal encroachment into lands they have from time to time agreed the Arabs to have. A Palestinian future state (presuming everyone downed arms tomorrow and agreed that Gaza and the West Bank borders as drawn up now were to be regarded as Palestine in a two-state solution) with Hamas as influence isn't going to be sweetness and light towards their Israeli neighbours if their charter is anything to go by. It'll take some radical future thinking to solve this and not navel-gazing into the past blaming past decisions.
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Just on Harris, I used to listen quite frequently to his 'Making Sense' podcast, and I think it is fairly clear that he is trying very hard to fill the hole left by the late, great Christopher Hitchens as an objective, rational atheistic voice. But, for my money, he fails. Hitchens' great genius, as I see it, is that he managed to critique the ideologies behind, and ridiculous mandates of, organised religions without being disrespectful to the (non-extremist) followers of those religions. Harris fails in this respect by often using emotive language or one-eyed, unsubstantiated claims to critique religion - and far more often than not targets Islam. For example, there's one podcast (I think the one with Russel Brand?) where he talks of 'women wearing bags on their heads', which is the kind of language that I think immediately undermines your credentials as a serious contributor on the topic. There's a great interview he does with Masha Gessen, the lesbian Russian journalist, where he is, essentially, trying to colour Islam as uniquely backwards because of the state-mandated treatment of homosexuals in orthodox Muslim states. She gives him very short shrift, and points out that she was literally driven out of Russia, an orthodox Christian state, because of her sexuality, and that violent homophobia it is not a uniquely Muslim problem.

I've only had a chance to read the opening few paragraphs of the article you link, so apologies if he goes on to qualify his opening statements, but I think this particularly dim view of Islam does seem to colour his whole stance on the subject. For one thing, I would be very curious to know how he could hope to substantiate the statement, "There are religious extremists among Jews. Now, I consider these people to be truly dangerous, and their religious beliefs are as divisive and as unwarranted as the beliefs of devout Muslims. But there are far fewer such people." For another, his whole attempt to frame the issue as 'Islam v Judaism' from the outset is immediately problematic, as it allows him to criticise or support the relevant 'sides' based on his level of disdain for the relevant doctrine.

I know very little about the Israel Palestine conflict, and generally don't comment on it as I am aware that my opinions (as a result of my ignorance) hold little to no value. But I do think that distilling the two sides down into their relevant religions, and ignoring the huge amount of other far more relevant factors that dictate the current dispute, is, at best, unhelpful, and at worst, an emotionally manipulative trick used by the dominant power to obfuscate legitimate criticism of its actions.
 
Plenty of minority groups are persecuted in the middle East and other Islamic countries yet people only want outrage over Palestine it seems.
 
Taken from the letters page of the Oxford Mail and pretty much sums Corbyn up ....the dirty terrorist loving scumbag.....


A weekend of shame for the UK. Synagogues vandalised, rabbis attacked, Jews chased through the streets, convoys of cars through Jewish areas threatening sexual violence against Jewish girls.

This is what the racist Corbyn has legitimised. What do we hear from his defenders? That his mother was at Cable Street. Are we sure she was even on the right side?
 
dannyc said:
Plenty of minority groups are persecuted in the middle East and other Islamic countries yet people only want outrage over Palestine it seems.
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Why don't you start a thread about them, if you care?
 
cassox said:
Taken from the letters page of the Oxford Mail and pretty much sums Corbyn up ....the dirty terrorist loving scumbag.....


A weekend of shame for the UK. Synagogues vandalised, rabbis attacked, Jews chased through the streets, convoys of cars through Jewish areas threatening sexual violence against Jewish girls.

This is what the racist Corbyn has legitimised. What do we hear from his defenders? That his mother was at Cable Street. Are we sure she was even on the right side?
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Governments and the press also play their part. In UK, USA there have been attacks on "Chinese" due to Trump and others. This has included Singaporeans, Filipino's and other Asian nationalities......
 
Seems to me there is fault on both sides. To be fair, the Palestinians did democratically elect the Hamas political party, who several nations including the US and us regard as a terrorist organisation, and amongst their policies one of them is the destruction of Israel. Whatever side of the argument you are, that policy is never going to end well for the people you represent.

The Israelis on the other hand have elected a firebrand in Benjamin Netanyahu, who seems hell bent on fighting fire with fire. He seems to believe that what some Palestinians regard as 'Muslim land' is actually 'Jewish land', and it is perfectly acceptable just to kick people Palestinians out of their homes that they have lived in for many years because it is 'Jewish land'. That too is never going to end well.

I just wish they would stop delving into the history books trying to argue who's land it is, and just try and find a way to co-exist peacefully together. It would be nice if we could replace Hamah with Yasser Arafat and Netanyahu with Yitzhak Rabin, as they seemed to be making some sort of progress - but they're both dead.
 
boogaloo said:
To be fair, the Palestinians did democratically elect the Hamas political party, who several nations including the US and us regard as a terrorist organisation, and amongst their policies one of them is the destruction of Israel.
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I think being elected in 2006 and having no further election since counts as being unelected, at least by the standards of any democratic nation.
 
Paul Cannell said:
Why don't you start a thread about them, if you care?
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well why dont you thats the point you care about one cause but ignore the rest total hypocrite i prefer to ignore basicly all problems simply because we cant deal wuth them all at once .
 
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