4,000 attempted murders that somehow don’t count
What’s the difference between what Israel was doing and what Hamas was doing in the Gaza fighting? Really, there are two: Israel was reactive and Hamas was proactive, which is to say Hamas initiated the fighting, and Israel was targeting the military while Hamas was targeting civilians.
How do we know Israel was not targeting civilians, and certainly not children? Two ways, aside from the fact that they have no reason to target civilians and every reason not to:
- We have records of their issuing warnings before blowing up some targets. Given that missile launch sites are concentrated in civilian areas, launch sites are impossible to eliminate without destroying civilian property. The press is aware of this.
-
The death count. There are fewer than 300 dead in over a week of fighting. If Israel didn’t care if they killed civilians, the count would be drastically higher. If Israel wanted to kill civilians, they could have killed more than that many within five minutes. Bomb or shell a block or two. Israel’s approach of minimizing civilian casualties is a lot more work-intensive and a lot more expensive, meaning that in circumstances like these if Israel could afford less they’d be forced to kill more to stop the missiles.
But that’s Israel. What about Hamas? We know they killed very few Israelis, due to three factors:
1. Iron Dome
2. Israelis being warned and running for bomb shelters
3. Bad aim. Bad enough that Hamas managed to kill more of their own civilians than Israelis from missiles that fell short and landed within Gaza.
More importantly, we know what factor was not involved:
Lack of trying.
Over 4,000 missiles (manufactured by Iran, which is important to know for another discussion) were fired at Israeli civilian targets.
That’s over 4,000 attempts to kill civilians. If this was being done on the ground we’d call it terrorism, which is of course what it is. Do you hear this being discussed by all those people condemning Israel? Why exactly should Israel not be trying to stop these attempts? Would we expect that of any other government under similar circumstances, particularly when some of their civilians are killed?
You might wonder what my featured image is. It’s part of a page from an app called Tzofar. Tzofar is one of multiple apps that warn Israelis of incoming missiles so they can seek shelter if they don’t hear an alarm. I first learned of the existence of these apps during the 2014 fighting. I was attending Torah study when one of the participants walked out of the room to make a phone call to Israel because the app just told them that their son had a missile headed toward his area. As it stands, he’d already been warned and had sought shelter. These attempts at killing civilians have been common enough that people developed apps for this. You can read online comparisons of them by reviewers. My rabbi has an Israeli wife who is visiting her family for the first time in over a year because of COVID. She’s of course using an app.
I downloaded this a few days ago because I was curious. What you’re seeing is a very small portion of a page. As you scroll down in the app, you see launch after launch after launch along with dates, times (some of them are the same or extremely close) and predicted destinations, including clickable maps of destinations. From what I understand, you can limit your warnings to your own region, which I’d think would be logistically necessary if you didn’t want your phone’s alarm to be going off continuously.
Every listed launch represents an attempt to kill civilians. In the United States and I assume in most countries, attempted murder is a serious crime. Apparently for a lot of people all over the world and a substantial portion of the American Left (which is to say people with whom I share most political leanings), it is not a crime if it’s done to Israelis. I’d say Israeli Jews except that if more of these missiles had arrived at their intended targets they would also have killed Israeli Muslims though I somehow doubt that either Hamas or the watching world are thinking about Israeli Muslims in this case.
If these views of what’s going on between Hamas and Israel are based on a lack of thought, that’s typical and unfortunately expected. If they are based on something else, the nature of the problem is very different. And way too traditional, including by the Left.
940 total views, 1 views today
06/04/2021 @ 8:29 pm
I have tons of questions about this situation that I have been meaning to contact you about, but I have just read your statements and responses, and they tend to cover my questions.
The one new thought I have, and not to draw attention away from this issue, but rather more deeply become immersed in it. That thought is, it seems like the US’s future may become something like Israel’s present situation. By that I mean, if the GOP, or Qanon, or whatever is driving this counter-democracy movement currently consists of is successful, we may become two nations (for lack of a better term) fighting over an idea that the country belongs only to them. I know its origins are quite different, but the dynamic could come to live on its intractability. Does that make any sense?
06/04/2021 @ 11:25 pm
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
—Abraham Lincoln
06/05/2021 @ 8:58 am
Yes, it makes sense. It’s not completely analogous of course because every situation brings its own variables but there are similarities and the dangers here are more than real. One thing that makes them similar is a propensity to buy into myths. Or wishful thinking. Or both.
There are a lot of myths in Israel, but there’s one really big one: It is possible for one population to make the other population leave. There are people on the Israeli Right who buy into this but the population that buys into it completely – and bases their existence on it – is Hamas. This is exactly what makes dealing with Hamas impossible for the Israelis. There is nothing to negotiate but Israel’s nonexistence, and that’s not up for negotiation. I had recently observed that the Hamas model is similar to the North Vietnamese model, which is to say fight the foreigners long enough for them to get tired of it and go home, then I found out that Hamas had actually visited Gen. Giap in Vietnam to discuss this. Gen. Giap was talking to a couple of retired Israeli generals and he observed that Hamas had come to see him, I think multiple times, to ask how he did it. He replied by describing the model I just did, then observing that for the Israelis this is home and so it will not be possible to get them to leave. And once again I reinvent the wheel.
There are a lot of myths here. The most frightening one is that Trump really won the election, frightening because it’s so easy to refute if you’re objective at all. But Trump’s support comes from other myths. Here’s a few I can think of:
* When the US no longer has an absolute White majority, dire things are going to happen to Whites.
* Terrorists come in to the US over the Mexican border.
* The influx of Hispanic immigrants will result in English no longer being the national language of the United States.
* The Democratic Party wants to take away everyone’s firearms.
* The Democratic Party wants to eliminate all police.
* The Democratic Party wants the Mexican border to be entirely open.
* The LGBTQ agenda is more extensive than allowing the LGBTQ population to share the same rights every other American has.
* Most claims about racism aren’t real, and so those complaining are really looking to take advantage of the White population.
* The founding of America is based on Christianity.
* American identity is really based on White American ethnicity.
* Man-induced climate change is a Chinese myth.
There are a few flat-earthiers thrown into the mix, and QAnon has myths that make the tooth fairy look like scientific fact.
When enough people believe myths, bad things happen. That’s the story of Nazi Germany. The most dangerous thing Trump accomplished was delegitimizing the mainstream press. They, by the way, brought that on themselves.
06/05/2021 @ 10:36 am
Yes. Nicely put. It seems to me that this is the politics version of asymmetric war. One side with extremely limited resources pitches a battle against the other side with significant res-our enemies advantage. With politics, one side supports status quo in the form of style of government, and the other side having no inroads into power chooses to destroy the institutions of government and society, blended with disinformation, to gain power over that government. This asymmetric thing seems like it may be the political wave of the future…as it has been Israel’s bane for the past 70 years. It is like one said had to become bankrupt enough to make this tactic necessary.
06/05/2021 @ 11:11 am
It’s weird because it’s asymmetrical war that was led from the epicenter of power.
Asymmetrical warfare hasn’t been Israel’s bane for seventy years, it’s been Israel’s bane for 54 years, since taking Gaza and the West Bank in the 1967 war. Before that everyone on both sides knew who to shoot at.
06/05/2021 @ 11:33 am
I suspected that might be the case. My first guess was to say about 50 years, but I figured possibly 70. I figured you’d clarify if necessary.
This arguing against falseness is shifting into wars against falseness, or rather war under false pretenses. An good luck ever putting an end to that.
06/05/2021 @ 7:51 pm
Actually, with Geneva conventions, and “international law”, there is nothing but gray areas. First, the conventions are conventions. They are not laws. They are just agreements about various issues. There is no jurisdiction giving legal authority to actions regulating agreements. They are about as gray as gray gets.
Then, “international law”. Also, with no legal authority to regulate consequences and actions, they basically remain agreements. Civilization has never risen to the level where there is consistent international justice. There have been moments, but they have been few. The world functions based on power, scarcity, and the ephemeral nature of human life. Justice in America is not yet achieved, and internationally it is just an illusion.
All that is not to say that that is how it should be. It is just recognition of what is. There can be no justice without survival.
06/06/2021 @ 12:17 am
By the way, never quote Bobby Fisher. That really won’t get you anywhere.
06/06/2021 @ 12:15 am
No, Amy, not the struggles of American Jews currently. I have a grandfather who during WWII worked for a defense contractor in Manhattan by passing because they didn’t hire Jews, so he got to listen to antisemitic cracks constantly without being able to react. My other grandparents fled violence and persecution in Europe. My grandfather’s sister was killed in the Holocaust. We grow up with this stuff.
You can talk about fighting for liberation being legal but you can’t when that fighting is overwhelmingly concentrated on civilian targets. Your giving Hamas a pass for that is as inexplicable as your defending an organization that makes Mike Pence’s LGBTQ views look like Elizabeth Warren’s.
This has Nothing to do with power symmetry. That is a gigantic obfuscation, including by Trevor Noah, whom I ordinarily agree with. All the recent Gaza fighting has to do with is how Israel reacts to attempted killings of Israeli civilians. They have to stop the missiles. They have no choice. No government would. If they have any civilians being killed they have to stop the missiles. Their existence is predicated on protecting their people, which somehow Hamas’ isn’t.
You can make a case for the illegitimacy of Israel until the cows come home but it will accomplish nothing because no one is going anywhere no matter how we or Hamas or anyone else feels. This is true of Israelis and of Palestinians. Any actions not taking this for granted on either side are a waste of time and lives. Hamas missiles will not gain land. They will gain bilateral death. They might create public relations issues for Israel, but that won’t help Palestinians. If anything, it will make their situation worse. It will make more of the Israeli population hard line and if Israel is ever short on military assets it will mean replacing expensive surgical strikes in Gaza with cheaper and easier strikes that kill way more civilians out of necessity.
06/06/2021 @ 1:19 am
Another comment about asymmetry:
Asymmetry does not absolve the weaker party from blame for murdering civilians. Making that case is ridiculously immoral.
06/06/2021 @ 6:11 am
“All that is not to say that that is how it should be. It is just recognition of what is. There can be no justice without survival.“
This is how I ended my previous comment. It is quite clear that I am not excusing it. Ok, good. Now that is cleared up. Let’s fix the rest of it.
Laws vis a vis individuals, and laws vis a vis corporations have a certain characteristic or function. In our country, individuals and corporations have rights regarding laws control of them, and we have responsibilities regarding our operation within laws. The way this set functions is as a closed set of concepts. Individuals have their self interest and freedom to protect, and controlling legal authorities have the coercive powers of government. The way we “agree” as humans to live under certain concepts for the greater good is a complete closed system with a controlling legal authority. Those are the laws that we are most familiar with, which meet the definition of law that is most commonly understood. Conversely, international laws and agreements, without a controlling legal authority, are not laws. You stated, “ Either you support things like the Geneva Conventions and International Laws or you don’t. They is NO gray area.…”. My point was, there is a difference between the laws that we are responsible to under a controlling legal authority. Internationally, where one does not exist, it is the greatest of areas.
There is an important reason to point this out. That is, in a conflict between two parties without a controlling legal authority, the only controlling forces are power and resources to take the measures to accomplish those. Your argument presumes that one side volunteer against their interest, (one of which is survival), in order to sacrificially satisfy some requirement of their opponent. That is an unrealistic expectation. Again, that is not excusing anything. It is an understanding of the paradigm of conflict.
Now, to understand the paradigm of resolution, you must for have a solution, and either demonstrate or persuade how it can be acceptable to both parties. Repeatedly stating the transgressions of one side, while ignoring the transgressions of the other, is like a tire stuck in the world’s deepest mud puddle. There will be no traction. You’re stuck. Forever.
Now, when that happens, there is one thing to which a conflict can and will default in all cases. That default is might. Military and economic might when paired together will control this conflict as long as it exists. We have rules under controlling legal authorities so that this does not have to be the default. We, as free humans, desire t live under a system that is purer and kinder than might makes right. We come close to that at times within controlling legal authorities. The situation between Israel and Palestine has no controlling legal authority. No, “belief” in the GC is meaningless. They exist as a valuable guideline, but they are meaningless in the effort to survive when one side will break with them arbitrarily. They only work when voluntary discipline is applied. Peace will take a voluntary acceptance of its value. Neither side is doing that now. One side provokes to make a point, and the other side crushes the the provocation because survival remains a responsibility. The only thing that will make change in that arrangement is a disciplined agreement to not threaten the survival of the other. As they exist currently, the Geneva Conventions do not do that.
06/06/2021 @ 9:35 am
Damn, that assessment is good.
In business, the way my business is structured is there is a relationship between manufacturer, dealer, and rep (me). My father always taught me that a deal that isn’t good for all three is a bad deal. He never explained it but I never needed an explanation and it was more than an ethical point. If a deal is bad for anyone they will continuously try to undermine it. If you want a stable deal that lasts, you need to take everyone’s needs into account. That is also true in politics and is a principle very few people get. I think Biden is one of the few people who does.
The stupidity of Israel is that they don’t get this in the West Bank. What they want and need more than anything else is peace and stability and what they’re doing there is exactly how not to get it. What they also don’t get is that if the Palestinians in the West Bank are satisfied that drastically weakens Hamas in Gaza.
The problem in Gaza is very different, because Gaza is run by Hamas and Hamas by definition does not want a deal that is good for Israel in any way, shape, or form. As long as Hamas runs Gaza, there is no such thing as a stable agreement because one party’s existence is predicated on conflict. From Israel’s standpoint, a threat has to be contained. Containing it is a pain in the ass, but Israel has absolutely no choice. Eliminating the threat would be preferable, but there are only two ways that happens, and one of those is untenable. The first is the ousting of Hamas which, as I said, the Israelis are doing a terrible job of because the path to that is through the West Bank. The second, the untenable one, is the elimination of the Gazan population somehow, either by moving them or by killing them. This is nothing but a gruesome fantasy on the part of anyone who wants this
Unless the threat becomes otherwise unstoppable or uncontainable. As you point out, Israel will choose survival over anything. Anyone will. This is particularly true given who the Israelis are. They’re the Never Again people. With few exceptions they are refugees or the children and grandchildren of refugees from places where Jews were persecuted and sometimes mass murdered. They are in Israel in part because they are sick of 2,000 years of being pushed around and they won’t be pushed any more, which is the real root of Zionism. They are also a people who takes existential threats very, very seriously. This asymmetry argument is all about Hamas not being an actual existential threat. That’s not a view Jews in general will buy, let alone Israeli Jews. The Nazis started out minor. When it comes to existential threats, Israelis will pull the trigger earlier than most because they take the threat more seriously than most. And they absolutely will not take anyone’s word for it that a threat claiming to be existential actually isn’t. The Jews who are in Israel are not there because of a ton of help from non-Jews. The refugees from Arab countries/majority Muslim countries, of which there were more than Arabs who left Israel voluntarily and involuntarily combined in 1948 and who got no reparations or help of any kind from anyone but Israel, and the refugees from postwar Europe who are acutely conscious of the fact that hardly anyone helped them (from a national standpoint Danes, Bulgarians, and Serbs, and that’s about it, and that absolutely includes the United States) do not trust most other nations when it comes to assessing existential threats because no one else has enough of a vested interest.
06/06/2021 @ 10:02 am
…that should say {grayest}
06/06/2021 @ 11:02 am
Far be it from me to interfere with your fun counting angels dancing on pinheads (or pandering to the – apparently – now resident loon) but it’s all summed up handily in the Ghandi quote: “…Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews…” As I’ve said all along, the whole thing is and always has been solely about Arab racial purity, nothing else.
06/06/2021 @ 12:21 pm
Is it just me or have I read all this somewhere else before?
06/07/2021 @ 8:58 am
Probably most of it. The site hadn’t had a post in about a week and I found a lot of the public reaction to the Gaza fighting overlooked some factors I view as critical.
06/06/2021 @ 2:28 pm
This comment invokes some of the best and the worst that this conflict presents for civilization. Interestingly, Gandhi practically personifies the best and the worst of understanding this issue. For some context, that quote from Gandhi was made in November of 1938. While many of the events that made Israel necessary were already in effect by then, many were not known by the world until later.
One thing I like about Gandhi’s contribution is this term “ satyagraha”…which he invented. He cobbled together two words from Sanskrit which essentially mean politely insisting on truth. “Sadya” or satya…(Gandhi’s invention) means truth in a way that also means existence or reality. (Asatya means non-existence or untruth). His addition of “agraha” invokes his interest in non-violent resistance. The combination creates the concept of arriving at some philosophical condition of truth or reality by these non-violent means of insistence. All by itself I find that fascinating. I even think it is valuable in many contexts.
What makes this one of the worst aspects of understanding this conflict is, I do not think this is helpful in resolving this conflict. Gandhi has a pre-genocide perspective about placing moral expectations on Israel, which I do not think are entirely fair. Furthermore, a huge part of Gandhi’s built in moral value in this concept involves some sort of righteous death, and sending one’s soul into some blissful condition, while relinquishing all hold on this life on Earth. I find that an absurd condition to introduce into a here and now dispute about territory. Offering a trade for the hereafter with a moral judgement about the choice just seems profoundly unfair to me. One of the worst things that led to the need for Jews to have a homeland was the Holocaust. By Gandhi’s analysis, life on Earth should be surrendered to validate one’s moral principles. That places a very different value on dying in the Holocaust, or losing one’s family in the Holocaust. Gandhi’s trans-philosophical principle is more problem than solution.
06/07/2021 @ 1:31 am
Except of course that Jews didn’t die in the Holocaust to validate anything.
This also has to do with differing views of death, or of death relative to life. For Gandhi, wanting to send his soul into bliss, or for Jihadist Muslims, wanting their souls to get the virgins, or for Christians, wanting their souls to go to Heaven, life is a test, sort of Death Prep. That’s not how Judaism works at all. There is martyrdom in Judaism but it though it can be noble it’s always tragic, not something to be aspired to. In Judaism, life is sacred. Life is the main event. Heaven is a concept but not a detailed one because that’s not where Judaism’s emphasis is.
It’s interesting that you point out that Gandhi’s opinion was expressed pre-Holocaust. What the Holocaust did was prove the necessity of an Israel.
But Gandhi is relevant here for an entirely different and perhaps more traditional reason. There are situations where non-violent resistance would be effective and situations where it absolutely would not be. Against Nazis it would not be. Against Israel it would be. Violence is what makes the Palestinian movement ineffective. It won’t trigger the Israeli behaviors they want; in fact, it prevents them. If the Palestinian movement were non-violent they would have had a state thirty years ago, maybe more.
06/07/2021 @ 4:16 am
Exactly. That’s how I see it.
There are also hints of other issues involved with Gandhi’s perspective from that 1938 statement. One thing I noticed is hints of his view of the British, and more broadly European colonialism. That view seems to be given more weight in his opinion from the 1938 statement than I think really applies in the Israel-Palestine conflict of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
06/07/2021 @ 8:56 am
Meaning he viewed the Balfour Declaration as a manifestation of British colonialism rather than as anything else?
06/07/2021 @ 9:46 am
I think that however he thought of it, it is likely that it was at least partially influenced by his understandable views of UK as a colonizer.
06/07/2021 @ 10:54 am
This comment stream comes eerily close to the exchange between Einstein and Freud, first published in 1933:
“The quest of international security involves the unconditional surrender by every nation, in a certain measure, of its liberty of action — its sovereignty that is to say – -and it is clear beyond all doubt that no other road can lead to such security.”
“As long as all international conflicts are not subject to arbitration and the enforcement of decisions arrived at by arbitration is not guaranteed, and as long as war production is not prohibited we may be sure that war will follow upon war. Unless our civilization achieves the moral strength to overcome this evil, it is bound to share the fate of former civilizations: decline and decay.”
…wars, as now conducted, afford no scope for acts of heroism according to the old ideals and, given the high perfection of modern arms, war today would mean the sheer extermination of one of the combatants, if not of both. This is so true, so obvious, that we can but wonder why the conduct of war is not banned by general consent.”
—–Einstein
“How long have we to wait before the rest of men turn pacifist? Impossible to say, and yet perhaps our hope that these two factors — man’s cultural disposition and a well-founded dread of the form that future wars will take — may serve to put an end to war in the near future, is not chimerical. But by what ways or byways this will come about, we cannot guess. Meanwhile we may rest on the assurance that whatever makes for cultural development is working also against war.”
—-Freud
06/07/2021 @ 11:23 am
I have a couple of questions:
Koshersalaami asserts that: “…Hamas initiated the fighting…”
Who or what initiated the fighting in the conflicts between the Native American Indians and the white European settlers (‘civilians’)?
If the technology was available and accessible, how many missiles would the Indians have launched against “civilians”.
We’re the African slaves who participated in the guerilla style revolts against slavery and slave owners (civilians?), ‘freedom fighters’ or ‘terrorists’?
06/07/2021 @ 2:23 pm
“ The questions aren’t about being analogous. They are about what response does the perception or reality of being egregiously wronged provoke?”
As ridiculous as this exchange is, it does lead to some absolute, and conclusive answers.
First, you are absolutely setting up an analogue. You did it in this way. “If the technology [were] available and accessible…”.
We know that it wasn’t. The purpose of posing the hypothetical is to compare it along side a situation where the technology does exist. However, for a variety of reasons, the conflicts are not analogous. (KS made that case already.)
Your best hope is to compare their analogous elements because as a straight question, “ what response does the perception or reality of being egregiously wronged provoke?…”, the answer is simple. That response has to be within whatever civilized rules exist because without those the complainant, if you will, has no hope of success. Without a reasonable, reasoned case, which would remove the conflict from a battlefield and locate it in a courtroom or whatever, the complainant will be crushed. What you have is an emotional, and possibly a moral argument or cause, and that will not succeed against military and/or economic might. Your only hope is that the case of enslaved Africans or native Americans is analogous because without the philosophy of fairness, survival takes precedence and power settles it. It can’t be both ways.
06/07/2021 @ 11:27 am
CORRECTION:
WERE the African slaves who participated in the guerilla style revolts against slavery and slave owners (civilians?), ‘freedom fighters’ or ‘terrorists’?
06/07/2021 @ 1:08 pm
Neither conflict is analogous.
In the Native American case, most Whites who fought were military, not civilian. Whites got land by conquest, not purchase. There was no White indigenous population, whereas in Israel some of the Jewish population was immediately indigenous and the rest was ancestrally indigenous. There was no situation analogous to East Jerusalem, where the Jordanian military forced the indigenous civilian Jewish population from the Jewish quarter where they’d been, according to the Jordanian commander, for a thousand years. No part of the White population was fleeing persecution from Native American nations in Europe while a great deal of the Israeli Jewish population was driven out of majority Muslim nations, mainly Arab nations, and at times in Israel’s history (like when I first visited in 1980) the non-European Jewish population constitutes the majority of Israel’s Jews, a fact which changed after Soviet Jewish immigration. Israelis never attempted to convert Muslim (or Christian) Palestinians to Judaism or to prevent them from worshipping or to set up schools to indoctrinate Palestinian children in Judaism. The Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza were not founded by Israel but by Jordan and Egypt. And Israel has no territorial ambitions involving Gaza, they forcibly pulled their settlers out years ago.
By Initiated by Hamas I mean that in the immediate past there were riots in Jerusalem but these did not to my knowledge involve fatalities. Hamas, in a different not contiguous area, started firing missiles at Israeli civilian areas. The use of deadly force was initiated by Hamas.
As to slave revolts, any claims that the Palestinian population is enslaved is ludicrous to the point of trivializing the experience of your own ancestors. If anyone else made a comparison like that you’d be all over them like I am when a whiff of persecution is deemed comparable to Naziism.
06/07/2021 @ 1:41 pm
Kosh, you’re missing the point being made…
The questions aren’t about being analogous. They are about what response does the perception or reality of being egregiously wronged provoke?
Re trivialization:
I’m not trivializing. my ancestry or my heritage. I’m not trivializing anything at all.
However, you are attempting to trivialize my question with a nonresponsive, bullshit, disrespectful, ,and insulting remark.
And , no , you didn’t answer the questions In either scenario…
“In the Native American case, most Whites who fought were military, not civilian. Whites got land by conquest, not purchase. There was no White indigenous population…”
I don’t believe that it should have been incumbent on the Indians to make any distinctions…
The white American military sure as he’ll didn’t…
06/07/2021 @ 1:46 pm
CORRECTION:
The white American military sure as hell didn’t…
06/14/2021 @ 12:36 am
Kosh, I agree with you regarding the morality question in the current Israel/Palestine conflict however; I question the morality of building settlements anywhere behind the 1967 line IF their INTENT is truly peace with Palestine. They cannot have it “both ways” either…
In the case of most of the Native American vs White conflicts prior to the creation of the Army ALL of the conflicts were civilians against civilians. It changes little that the US Army was, in fact, founded in 1775… there’s still a couple hundred years of white civilians attacking and completely exterminating entire tribes of Native Americans in the name of taking land and resources they felt they “deserved” because they were white and Christian and the Indigenous people did not because they were not human due to their skin color and their lack of Christianity. Don’t kid yourself it was about “security” because it wasn’t. Not even when the Army became involved was it about “security” for the United States OR for “civilians”. White civilians SAW, White civilians said “I WANT” and the Army and the US Government GAVE THEM WHAT THEY WANTED at the expense of the Indigenous people.
GREED was the name of the game and HISTORY shows that truth… just look at the “Great Sioux Reservation” and how it CHANGED because white “settlers” decided THEY deserved the land in question and the “Indians” didn’t – and understand those changes were NOT made due to “conquest” but rather because CONGRESS made the changes DESPITE the treaties of Fort Laramie so the land could be SOLD to white settlers. That happened ALL OVER the Western half of the US… huge reservations were set aside by TREATIES and the CONGRESS changed the treaties because White settlers DEMANDED LAND at cheap prices so the government TOOK IT from the tribes and moved them off their land. Literally HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of acres were taken in that manner.
George Custer went (ILLEGALLY) into the He Sapa (Black Hills) and started a GOLD RUSH… that still continues TODAY and is the reason the US Government REFUSES to return the He Sapa to the Lakota despite a court stating that the Lakota had never SOLD it at all and are still the LEGAL owners. That same sort of thing happened to Native Tribes all across the US… and to a degree it still happens. The moving of the Navajo to less desirable land so that a COAL COMPANY could mine the reservation with NO PAYMENTS being made to the tribe in the 35 years since that occurred is an example. That sort of crap happened all across the US and Canada as well and it was NEVER about anything OTHER than the THEFT of land and/or resources for the exclusive benefit of white Christians.
06/14/2021 @ 1:55 am
I assume prior to 1775 the British army was involved in some of it. I’m not about to argue for the morality of White actions, far from it.
As to Israel, about the West Bank I mostly agree with you and I’ve never made a secret of that. The exception is Jerusalem for two reasons, though I don’t support the evictions: WhenJordan controlled East Jerusalem for 19 years, no Jew could worship at our holiest site, and the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem was in East Jerusalem and was continuously inhabited by Jews for, according to the Jordanian commander who drove them out, a thousand years.
06/07/2021 @ 12:27 pm
Jonna, I owe you an apology. At the time that I responded previously, I thought the “angels dancing…” was a slight about being interested in the general subject. Now I see that your comment was on the money. Accurate and warranted as hell. I do sincerely apologize.
06/07/2021 @ 6:12 pm
Bitey, I’m not sure why you’re apologizing to me but thanks and accepted.
I didn’t mean to disparage anyone (well, almost anyone) but as much as anyone, myself because I can’t keep up with the philosophizing you all do and should keep my mouth shut but sometimes … and I do think my practical summary is accurate.
… almost always well-meaning.
06/07/2021 @ 3:29 pm
The White American military didn’t, but there is no question about the morality of the White American military. They were wrong, period. We agree on that. But that’s not your question.
Assuming for some reason that you weren’t drawing analogies to Gaza with that question, which is certainly not an assumption I can imagine anyone reading your question making at face value, I’ll address them:
Would it have been moral for Native Americans to kill White American civilians? They sometimes did, by the way. One certainly couldn’t accuse them of a morally asymmetrical response. It’s not like their civilians were free from military attack.
As to African slave revolts, let’s start with the fact that Africans were not enslaved by the military so restricting missiles to the military wouldn’t make any sense. From a moral standpoint I don’t have a problem with that given what was done to them. From a tactical standpoint that’s a more involved question. From a Give me liberty or give me death standpoint missiles would be sensible. What would the retaliation look like? Who is making the decision to risk whose lives? Is it a gesture or is it likely to work? Would Northern sympathy that made the Civil War possible have been dissipated by sympathy for Southern White deaths? Sure it’s moral to kill one’s direct enslavers but will the likely result be any kind of improvement and, if not, who is making a decision on behalf of whom? Also, what was being expected of Whites on the part of Black rebels? This was about freedom, not universal White destruction, whether or not the White population deserved it. This was about Let my people go, not I object on religious grounds to your existence and trees will reveal that you are hiding behind them so we can kill you. (That’s in the Hamas charter.)
06/07/2021 @ 6:16 pm
As nouns the difference between comparison and analogy is that comparison is the act of comparing or the state or process of being compared while analogy is a relationship of resemblance or equivalence between two situations, people, or objects, especially when used as a basis for explanation or extrapolation.
First; Your post doesn’t seem to be about morals or morality.
Introducing the concept of morality in response to my question is disingenuous at best.
Second; bringing the use of missiles by participants in the slave revolts is a false even on a comparative basis.
I alluded to ‘guerilla style’ tactics when referring to the violence involved in the slave revolts…
Thirdly; The questions don’t call for an evaluation re who is ‘right’ and who is ‘wrong’ the questions which are incorporated in the query I posed later in the thread:
They (the questions) are about what response does the perception or reality of being egregiously wronged provoke?
Again. I invite you to take a peek at my post re the exchange(s) between Einstein and Freud…
Hopefully, you’ll get a better picture of what my inquiry is about…
06/08/2021 @ 1:12 am
Unusually, Ron, this post is absolutely about morality. It’s about the immorality of failing to acknowledge over 4,000 attempted murders out of political convenience, out of holding one party responsible for something while refusing to hold the other party to the same standards. This happens to Israel constantly and it’s immoral every time it happens, and the truth of that has nothing whatever to do with my being Jewish. All my being Jewish has to do with it is that I notice and that I have a reasonable idea of what to attribute it to, and the phenomenon I attribute it to certainly isn’t moral at all.
Someone else doing worse doesn’t make conduct excusable but it does make holding Israel responsible while failing to hold other actors behaving worse responsible inexcusable. Either the criticism is based on the standard or it’s based on bigotry, and how widely the criticism is applied indicates which it is.
What response does the perception or reality of being egregiously wronged provoke? Violence and/or other retaliation would be typical. That doesn’t make it the most effective response, merely the most immediately gratifying. In some cases it’s the only response available, which was certainly true of Native Americans. Treaties weren’t respected by Whites. In the case of Palestinians other than Hamas, it’s the least effective response available. In the case of Hamas it’s the only response available because they define egregious wrong as a combination of presence and existence.
06/08/2021 @ 6:07 am
Kosh, you finally answered my question with what may be the best possible answer:
“What response does the perception or reality of being egregiously wronged provoke?
Violence…. ”
In the comment stream to Koshersalaami’s latest post on the conflict between Israel and Hamas the following question arose:
“Is violence primal?”
In my post re re the exchange between Einstein and Freud re war and violence:
Einstein officially invites Freud to participate in the Institute for Intellectual Cooperation exchange, presenting the brief:
“This is the problem: Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?”
Would it be possible to articulate your position without appearing to be an advocate or apologist for what might be perceived as the morally suspect conduct and behavior of Israel re the West Bank and Gaza?
06/08/2021 @ 6:33 am
Ron, you have mentioned your Einstein and Freud post several times. Their discussion, while meaningful on its own, is not meaningful with regard to settling the Israel-Palestine issue. Einstein and Freud were discussing moving beyond war conceptually. That is a separate question from a specific war, in this case, Israel and Palestine. They are not fighting about the concept of war, they are using war. It is not incumbent upon Israel to move humanity beyond war by sacrificing itself to those who seek to end it. The same applies to the Palestinians. One is A war, and the other is the concept OF war. The only common thread is the word “war.” Beyond that, Einstein and Freud’s discussion do not apply.
06/07/2021 @ 7:47 pm
Ron, it was an analogical comparison. If it weren’t, it would be a complete non sequitur. It has to be an attempted analogy. That’s actually giving you credit it. Otherwise, it would make as much sense as talking about the ingredients of a Reese’s cup.
06/08/2021 @ 1:02 am
Bitey,
Not all comparisons involve or require analogues. While analoguesanalogies begin with comparison….
My inquiries are about who or what is the root cause of violence in response is a reaction to a condition or circumstance.
Pure analogy isn’t my intention here. However, there may be some aspects or facets of my interrogatory that have the flavor of analogy…
06/08/2021 @ 5:43 am
Ron, we are into the “head of a pin” bullshit that was pointed out earlier. This discussion about whether a comparison is a comparison is not about the issue with Israel and Palestine. That’s the first problem with it. Your hardheaded-ness in this particular case is aligned step by step with your wrongheaded-ness. This isn’t a discussion about whether the peace table be a circle or a square. This is a discussion about what IS a circle or a square.
Now, as to your “root cause” question, (I can’t believe I am repeating this), it does not bear mentioning if there is not a point of comparison. Your contributions, “slave revolts” and White settlers and Native American disputes, have a number of common elements. The main one is that White populations have been the “root cause” of the violence in these various cases. You can state that, or you can not state that, but you can’t have it both ways. If those elements are not analogous, their inclusion in the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict is meaningless.
You can take exception to the term “terrorism” as you did, if you offer these cases as analogous in some way/ways, which you did. That is a debatable point. But, if you claim that you did not construct an analogy, the comparison has no value. Beyond that, the cases that you offered are not analogous. You are going from, what appears to be, an emotional perspective about White settlers, White slavers, and White Israelis, and trying to draw a line regarding the root causes of violence and the validity of naming the various players, (“terrorist”, etc). The problem is, that line can not be drawn. There are too many confounding factors. It lacks a consistent logic. The lack of logic problem can not be overcome by denying that it is a set of analogies. You need the analogies. How you feel about White slavers, White settlers, and White Israelis has to be set apart from what can be shown to be objective facts. How you feel about the respective elements can be used in support of the logic, but it can’t replace it.
Kosher was and is right about that, and not only that. Kosher was not being insulting when he gave his explanation.
06/08/2021 @ 6:35 am
I repeat my response to Koshersalaami here for your benefit:
They (the questions) are about what response does the perception or reality of being egregiously wronged provoke?
Again. I invite you to take a peek at my post re the exchange(s) between Einstein and Freud…
Hopefully, you’ll get a better picture of what my inquiry is about…
In the comment stream to Koshersalaami’s latest post on the conflict between Israel and Hamas the following question arose:
“Is violence primal?”
In my post re the exchange between Einstein and Freud re war and violence:
Einstein officially invites Freud to participate in the Institute for Intellectual Cooperation exchange, presenting the brief:
“This is the problem: Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?”
06/08/2021 @ 6:56 am
Civilization overcomes, or at least deals with, many things that are primal. War can be assumed to be one of them. Courts exist to handle disputes short of war. The problem is, parties can not go into court with one party stating that it refuses to accept the right of the other party to exist. Rocket attacks from Hamas are not seeking a negotiated settlement short of war. They are provoking war. The way to make the move beyond war would be for them to not take rockets made in Iran, and then use them in this conflict. BY the same token, Iran is not trying to help the Palestinians by giving them rockets. They are using this as a proxy for their own dispute, which involves the destruction of Israel. That should not be ignored, nor can it be denied. It is a matter of fact.
Find what Einstein and Freud say about guaranteeing Israel’s existence…and then the discussion of ending war becomes relevant.
06/08/2021 @ 5:41 am
CORRECTION:
“While analogues or analogies begin with comparison….”
06/08/2021 @ 6:14 am
I saw that. The next step is that with that comparison, they must be shown to work in a similar fashion to make a salient point. These comparisons fail to make a point because the philosophical connecting tissue of being “egregiously wronged” does not gain ground in a fight for survival. Feeling egregiously wronged is an emotion. Legitimate or not, it does not land a punch. If the entity throwing the punch is doing so to protect its survival, it will use all means at its disposal to land the punch until the threat stops trying to advance.
In fact, it can be reasonably concluded that the entity provoking the punch response, but lacking the capacity to actually advance from its attack, is not trying to advance by those means. It is conclusive that this entity is trying to make a point are receiving a punch from the more powerful entity, so that it might advance by other means. And those tactics used to provoke the retaliatory punch are terroristic. Its hope is that the terror causes a course change that its power lacks the potential to bring about. It is asymmetric and terroristic.
06/08/2021 @ 6:43 am
In your view and assessment would it be legitimate to conclude that:
“Violence is primal because survival is primal.”
06/08/2021 @ 7:47 am
When survival is dependent on violence, yes, which is exactly Israel’s situation.
Just to correct what may be a misperception here:
From a racial standpoint, Arabs are White. There is absolutely not a racial difference between most Jews and Arabs. Jews originate in the Middle East. Having known a lot of Middle Eastern Jews (meaning Jews whose ancestors didn’t spend time in Europe, at least more recently than the Spanish Inquisition), they are not racially different from me. There are some variations within White, like the difference between Swedes and Southern Italians or Greeks, but they’re all Caucasian. The differences between European and Arab Jews are not racial, and the population that Jews resemble most genetically is Syrian and Palestinian Arabs. This really is not about race. Where more racial differences come in is within both categories. There are Ethiopian Jews and they are Black. The Berber population includes both races.
06/08/2021 @ 7:54 am
I don’t really see the value in making a determination about whether violence is primal or not. We know that it exists, and we know that it can be overcome. Being primal does not make it inevitable. We do know that it is likely given a certain set of circumstances. Would you care to share why you seek a determination one way or another?
06/08/2021 @ 8:02 am
I still have a distinction about primal. Israel’s engagement in violence is not mainly primal, it’s deliberate because it’s what insures survival.That’s as a nation. Settlers’ violent reactions to Palestinians is on the other hand primal. Hamas’ reaction is primal. Fear is primal. I’ve spoken about the tunnel kidnapping plot, trying to explain that that engendered an extremely primal reaction to the point of altering Israeli politics and moving it more into the primal realm. That’s exactly what was so destructive about it. But reacting to a lethal threat is not always primal, sometimes it’s simply logical. There is nothing primal about dropping leaflets saying you’re going to bomb because there are arms and launch sites in tunnels beneath houses, or making robocalls saying the same thing, or dropping small noise making bombs on rooftops to get people to evacuate before real bombs hit. That’s the opposite of primal. But treating Palestinians with disrespect at West Bank checkpoints is primal. That’s the problem with it – it’s counterproductive emotional reaction.
06/08/2021 @ 8:10 am
“Find what Einstein and Freud say about guaranteeing Israel’s existence…and then the discussion of ending war becomes relevant.”
The exchanges between Einstein and Freud took place well before Israel came into being.
Their discussion is not about the nature of international relationships and nation building as such, but violence, war, and human nature.
In this context and this context only is it appropriate to conclude that:
Violence is primal or instinctive because survival is primal or instinctive.
Or
Is Einstein’s admonition prescient re the conflict at issue here:
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
06/08/2021 @ 8:08 am
Deliberate violence is sometimes deliberately augmented by the primal. This is what is accomplished by both propaganda and football coaches’ halftime speeches.
06/08/2021 @ 8:28 am
In light of today’s conflict-torn world, Freud’s conclusion echoes with aching discomfort:
How long have we to wait before the rest of men turn pacifist? Impossible to say, and yet perhaps our hope that these two factors — man’s cultural disposition and a well-founded dread of the form that future wars will take — may serve to put an end to war in the near future, is not chimerical. But by what ways or byways this will come about, we cannot guess. Meanwhile we may rest on the assurance that whatever makes for cultural development is working also against war.
In April of 1932, Einstein made a contribution to a symposium on “Europe and the Coming War”:
As long as all international conflicts are not subject to arbitration and the enforcement of decisions arrived at by arbitration is not guaranteed, and as long as war production is not prohibited we may be sure that war will follow upon war. Unless our civilization achieves the moral strength to overcome this evil, it is bound to share the fate of former civilizations: decline and decay.
06/08/2021 @ 8:48 am
“ The exchanges between Einstein and Freud took place well before Israel came into being…”
This is my point. And in my view, what happened to Jews during the Holocaust has contributed significantly to the need for the state of Israel, and maybe even more importantly, understanding the mind of the Israeli in this conflict. So…to examine a philosophical consideration that predates the conflict which is the context at issue…is not helpful. It is an anachronism created by the 20th century pogrom.
In the 1960s, Ford and Ferrari waged a battle for primacy using two very different philosophical platforms. There was an establishment player, Ferrari, and an insurgent, Ford. Now, in trying to understand Ferrari and Ford in this competition, you might go back to Spain and England and their respective navies in the 16th century. If you did, you’d have two different platforms, one dominant militarily and economically. They employed different strategies by necessity. The determining factor was weather. With different weather, Spain would have defeated England. By the time of Ferrari vs Ford, something as simple as weather being determinative was overcome by technology. The mid 20th century was a very different world from the mid 16th. Similarly, a question of Israel is considerably different after the Holocaust relative to before. Now, you may or may not consider the Holocaust to be relevant. That’s fine. But, it would still be a massive error to ignore that Jews, Israelis, and many, many others, myself included, consider that the Holocaust is very significant. Freud and Einstein’s musings on war have their value, but as it applies to a response to the Holocaust, which did not exist during their correspondence, that value is diminished.
06/08/2021 @ 11:45 am
Einstein:
“The quest of international security involves the unconditional surrender by every nation, in a certain measure, of its liberty of action — its sovereignty that is to say – -and it is clear beyond all doubt that no other road can lead to such security.”
Einstein then arrives at his main question for Freud:
“Is it possible to control man’s mental evolution so as to make him proof against the psychosis of hate and destructiveness?”
Freud then describes his theory of the evolutionary trajectory of violence:
“You begin with the relations between might and right, and this is assuredly the proper starting point for our inquiry. But, for the term might, I would substitute a tougher and more telling word: violence. In right and violence we have today an obvious antinomy. It is easy to prove that one has evolved from the other and, when we go back to origins and examine primitive conditions, the solution of the problem follows easily enough.”
In tracing how civilization evolved from “brute violence, or violence backed by arms” to law, Freud argues that shared identification and a sense of community are a better bastion of order than force….
But this, Freud points out, is easier in theory than in practice, since it assumes a community of equals and yet most groups have an inherent power imbalance between individuals, which results in inevitable conflict….
Understanding the principles and concepts expressed by Einstein and Freud can be central to understanding the nature of the conflict and the articulation of a viable resolution.
This may not be the spotlight in the cavern but a candle in the darkness is better than no light at all.
06/08/2021 @ 11:52 am
Bitey, If what you assert is true, then the study of History, Anthropology, Philosophy, etc have no value at all…
06/08/2021 @ 1:10 pm
I don’t know how you come to that conclusion re: the study of History, Ron. I’m completely at a loss as to how to address that. It makes no sense.
And SBA:
I never said either of those things regarding the Holocaust and Israel. I am neither Jewish, nor Israeli, nor Palestinian. I do not have a say in how or if a state is created for them or anyone else. Nothing I said purported to be that. My statements are about understanding the issue, and how a solution by be found. Part of the understanding is introducing the Holocaust into the context of the question. I consider that historical event relevant to understanding the mind of the Zionist, and the obligation of the rest of the world to Jews since the rest of the world essentially turned its back when German tried to wipe them from the Earth. Again, my comments are about understanding the issue.
As for the rest of the groups that you mentioned, and the “attack” idea that you have insinuated…AHHHH, that’s the crux, isn’t it? You took that circuitous path to say that Israel is attacking Palestinians. Ok. Is that it? That’s not even really a question. So…I have no answer for you.
06/08/2021 @ 2:42 pm
Giving up sovereignty only works if the international body can be trusted to exercise their standards universally. When it comes to Israel, there isn’t one.
06/08/2021 @ 1:22 pm
This is just the goofiest damn question. If I go to Baskin Robbins and ask for a scoop of Boysenberry Cheesecake on a sugar cone, and the clerk asks me, do you support the creation of strawberry, and pistachio? Should we make ice cream flavors out of the stools and the tables? Should we make idea cream out of extinct berries and beans? Do you support your boysenberry crowding out space in the cooler for other flavors of ice cream? Why only 31 flavors?
Can I just get my motherfucking cone, please?
06/08/2021 @ 3:54 pm
Who died and made you the arbiter of what’s relevant and what isn’t?
“Freud and Einstein’s musings on war have their value, but as it applies to a response to the Holocaust, which did not exist during their correspondence, that value is diminished.”
I’m completely at a loss as to how to address that.
Of course you are. And you’re likely to remain that way…
I repeat:
Understanding the principles and concepts expressed by Einstein and Freud can be central to understanding the nature of the conflict and the articulation of a viable resolution.
This may not be the spotlight in the cavern, but a candle in the darkness is better than no light at all.
When you pick and choose what’s relevant you should add a caveat re relevance.
You want to talk about the Holocaust re the mind of the Zionist, but you eschew the notion that violence may be the normal or natural response to the egregious wrongs humankind perpetrated against itself.
Freud suggests that we will evolve beyond violence and Einstein wants to know if we can wait that long and can we create institutions and systems that will tend to hasten that eventuality before we destroy ourselves…
In my view, not an inappropriate or irrelevant set of interrogatories.
06/08/2021 @ 5:12 pm
“…You want to talk about the Holocaust re the mind of the Zionist, but you eschew the notion that violence may be the normal or natural response to the egregious wrongs humankind perpetrated against itself…”
That quote from you, Ron, is idiocy. You can read what I wrote you and see that I did address this, and you should have come to a different conclusion.
Let me say it again for you. I do not reject that violence may be the natural response. It may very well be the natural response. It may very well be “primal”. As I said before, just because it is primal does not mean that it is inevitable. As I said before, we overcome many primal urges all the time. Shall I list some, or can you fill in those blanks for yourself? Fight or flight is overcome often. The manner and place in which we defecate and urinate is overcome to fit into civilization. How, where, and what we eat takes these manners into question and controls them. Many, many things we do in civilized society overcome primal urges. We can and do make frontal lobe decisions about what, how and when we do things constantly. The notion that making war in the manner of this context based solely on primal urges is so dumb that it does not merit discussion.
Einstein and Freud are not discussing war in a narrow context. They are discussing it broadly. It is obviously relevant broadly, but in this narrow context, the burden to save humanity from war is not what this conflict is about. So, to answer the childish taunt of yours, no one “died to make me the arbiter of …”. I am not the arbiter. But, any child of probably 12 years of age, or older could tell you that this context was not about war broadly.
06/08/2021 @ 7:09 pm
Freud and Einstein quite possibly may have chosen to place the conflict in a broader context. In order to use it as an example or manifestation of the concepts and principles they discuss in their exchanges.
I thought it might be interesting to look at the matter in a broader context where the meeting of these two minds takes place…
Given the nature of the conflict as described by Koshersalaami, I believe the both Freud and Einstein would have concluded the violence is/was unavoidable and inevitable.
06/08/2021 @ 7:28 pm
“…I believe the both Freud and Einstein would have concluded the violence is/was unavoidable and inevitable…”
So…Ron, if violence is unavoidable and inevitable, as explained by a Psychiatrist/Psycoanalyst, is everyone absolved of responsibility for violence? If violence is unavoidable and inevitable, when EXACTLY is it going to happen next? By what means? What is the address? Who does it involve. We should examine these specifics so we can know who is not responsible for them based upon their human psychological makeup.
You see, the rocket attacks from Gaza happened at a specific time. They occurred in a specific location. They were built in a specific location. A long chain of logistics, and command signal and execution was arranged in order to deliver the missile attacks. Likewise, the response all had deliberate origins. Iron Dome has a method and a procedure, and is actuated by a specific set of triggers. If Freud and Einstein’s musings on violence have any value, show me how they are predictive about the next spate of violence…so that it can either be prevented, or ignored because…” Freud and Einstein would have concluded the violence is/was unavoidable and inevitable”.
06/08/2021 @ 5:02 pm
No, SBA, it is not that either. I’ll be more clear for you.
Your question is merely a loaded way to grandstand about your point. I’m actually surprised that you even wanted an answer. You want to say Israel is bad. I don’t care. You want to flood the zone with lots of other cases of genocide and ask me to establish a choice about them as well. The answer is I don’t need to. What you are attempting is obvious. Since it is unlikely or maybe even impossible to do for all, why do it for one? I don’t care for that question either.
And finally, the respective groups are not being ice cream. The notion was about being pressured to make extra additional choices once you see that a person has made one choice. It is not about the people at all. You post script is cheap demagoguery. It is boring and it does not contribute any understanding of anything. So…I am not interested in it.
You have a bullshit style of pressure question asking, SBA. I’l pass on all of it. That is not a statement about any issue at all. It is about the way you construct questions. Life goes on without it. That is what you should get out of my answer…about me. And speaking of me…why do you keep looking at my profile? You want something?
06/08/2021 @ 5:09 pm
Armenia as a country exists. I don’t know Hutu/Tutsi geography but I might agree with you on that one because the Tutsis were absolutely a genocide. The idea of an LGBTQ nation doesn’t work because it assumes that that community’s identity is more significant to the community’s members than their other identities are, particularly familial. Mayan are First Nation over a national border. But we’re left with a problem: Everyone here except Native Americans lives on stolen land. For Black Americans that’s not really an issue because they didn’t come here voluntarily but for the rest of us it is. That has to turn our self-righteous zeal down a notch.
06/08/2021 @ 7:13 pm
Why are apparently, more deserving, and different in quotes? Who said that? Why are sensitive, insensitive, and privilege in quotations marks? Who said those? And…what “privilege” is on display? Seriously, what the hell are you talking about? You may choose to answer, and you may not. I am not pressed about it. But, if anyone comes along after, and reads this thread, I want them to know, that I have zero idea what you are referring to by all of that. It looks and sounds like you opened up a box of virtue signaling Mad-libs and arranged them in the only way that you could make a sentence. For the life of me, I have no freaking idea what “privilege” you think you’re seeing.
06/08/2021 @ 4:18 pm
The point about the Holocaust only applies to Einstein’s and Freud’s views on the creation of Israel, not about violence in general.
Can we create institutions in time? That’s only part of the problem. The other part is respecting the institutions we create as opposed to merely using them as vehicles for our own purposes. This right now is the Great American Problem. A substantial part of one political party no longer respects elections. Without that our institutions are functionally useless. They’re as useless as the Reichstag was once Hitler got elected. Trump is out of office and we still can’t a commission on Jan. 6, Manchin refuses to play and everyone’s blaming him for that but his constituency is overwhelmingly Republican and if he pushes too far we don’t have the seat at all. I’d still rather see more guts but I get it. We have the same problem with all these voter suppression laws and with partisan takeovers of the vote counting process.
06/08/2021 @ 5:08 pm
“…Einstein’s and Freud’s views on the creation of Israel, not about violence in general.”
There is nothing in the materials I reference that includes either Einstein’s or Freud’s views on the creation of Israel.
06/08/2021 @ 5:28 pm
That’s kind of the point, Ron.
06/08/2021 @ 6:45 pm
But it’s not Koshersalaami’s point…
He made an erroneous statement…
06/08/2021 @ 11:02 pm
Amy,
Of course not, and if you’re going to expect me to respond to your points, you might respond to the post other than just to the last paragraph.
I am talking about self-righteous zeal because you are profiting from racial conquest and genocide by living in the United States; actually, by living in the Western Hemisphere. Not only are you profiting but you have considerably less right to live in the United States than Jews have to live in Israel. Let’s do a point by point comparison here:
* Jews are originally indigenous to Israel, that’s the Jewish point of origin, and this is universally acknowledged by anyone not trying to rewrite history for their own purposes. Whites are not originally indigenous to the Americas.
* There has been a Jewish presence in Palestine pretty much continuously since the Romans. The Jerusalem Talmud was written there. Maimonides is buried there. There was a mystical Jewish community founded in Tsfat (you know it as Safed) in the 1500’s or 1600’s. Jews have lived in the Jewish Quarter in East Jerusalem for, according to the Jordanian commander who drove them out by shelling all their residences out of existence, a thousand years. (Shelling all their residences out of existence. Sound worse than Gaza?) Whites had no continuous presence in the Americas until they basically invaded.
* Jews for most of the time between the beginning of Zionism until statehood bought their land. Whites may have bought Manhattan Island but the rest of the country was conquered.
* How Whites treated Native Americans is way, way worse than Jewish Israelis have treated Palestinians. In the Americas we found real attempted genocide, not the phony genocide people accuse Israel of, as in actual ethnic extermination. Israel doesn’t interfere with Muslim worship (except perhaps in the midst of other violence – it is never driven by Israeli objection to Muslim worship), Whites interfered with Native religion big time. Whites set up schools to try to indoctrinate Native children into White culture; Israelis never did anything of the sort to Palestinians. The killings of civilians isn’t remotely comparable, even including Deir Yassin, which was incidentally preceded by Hebron in the other direction.
So my question for you is as you advocate returning Jews to Europe (though what you plan on doing to the Jews and their descendants who came from Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Yemen,Iraq, and Palestine itself is a mystery to me) is when do you plan on following the same principles and moving to Europe? As an American, you’re in one Hell of a glass house to throw stones.
06/08/2021 @ 5:26 pm
‘I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.’
—Abraham Lincoln, 16th President, United States of America
07/28/2021 @ 8:48 am
JP,
If in this case it were possible that would be great. It is around the edges Mainstream it could be but not lately. It would take a lot of shifting perspective. And we’ve been having enough trouble with that here. We can’t get people to see what’s wrong with enabling partisans to reverse state election results here, so how can we expect better of anyone else? Both are tragic, both entail a great deal of stupidity, and both create a great deal of misery, not to mention anger.