Israel vs Middle East

[_Robert_Participant]

Zionism and Arab Nationalism; both encouraged by the WWI era British Empire to undermine the Ottoman underside of the Central Powers. Both equally driven by devotion to an imaginary dictator. I am more educated on the ‘crimes of the millennium’ by fascists and xtians against the Semites and can easily understand their current militaristic/security mindset.

It’s not up to me to pick a side in the Middle East. Best to not sell arms or support any of them. Best not to pretend the US can broker peace deals. Fuck all this tribal bullshit and I say we just let god’s people kill themselves. I don’t care about any of these ideologist assholes. The US will be lucky if it doesn’t disintegrate into similar tribal civil-war bullshit in the near future.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Robert writes: Fuck all this tribal bullshit and I say we just let god’s people kill themselves. I don’t care about any of these ideologist assholes. The US will be lucky if it doesn’t disintegrate into similar tribal civil-war bullshit in the near future.

Although it is a confusing morass getting statistics i think USA has more of God’s people than Israel or at least of the Jewish population of Israel. But the super religious Jews are a problem-total assholes and quite destructive. It also seems religiosity is on the rise there among young. Does not bode well. Many of the orthodox oppose the state of Israel which begs the question why they live there.

[_Robert_Participant]

Yeah..the holy land is a real circus, as is the Southern US and anywhere else that reeks of faith in myths.  And yeah so many of US religious morons are paying the Covid-19 price, gasping for air and posting their go-fund-me pages. They should head to their pastors for help… instead of clogging up the emergency rooms. ‘Assholes’ is right, fuck them…let them all go to see jeebus, ASAP.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Robert – The more I read of that anti-vaxxer website the more I think “Yeah, let them go to their god”. I cannot muster much sympathy for them, which to a point annoys me as I have plenty of sympathy and empathy generally. It is just I don’t want to use it up on people with their attitudes. I have little time for them under normal circumstances anyway.

Same over here with hospitalizations on the rise as the anti-vaxxers start falling. The first lock-down had a reasonable recovery rate but Delta and the new variants on the way before Christmas will kill thousands of them, especially if they also catch the winter flu.  Their prayer warriors won’t be as exhausted as the healthcare workers!

[jakelafortParticipant]

How can we have any confidence youngsters will live out their natural lives? It feels like we are accelerating towards our extinction. A level of irrationalism that would make a novel or movie too unrealistic to hold my interest…

The persistence of belief smashes rationalism into a million pieces..

[_Robert_Participant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Robert – The more I read of that anti-vaxxer website the more I think “Yeah, let them go to their god”. I cannot muster much sympathy for them, which to a point annoys me as I have plenty of sympathy and empathy generally. It is just I don’t want to use it up on people with their attitudes. I have little time for them under normal circumstances anyway. Same over here with hospitalizations on the rise as the anti-vaxxers start falling. The first lock-down had a reasonable recovery rate but Delta and the new variants on the way before Christmas will kill thousands of them, especially if they also catch the winter flu. Their prayer warriors won’t be as exhausted as the healthcare workers!

Best comment ever regarding donations to these idiots…

I’ll donate $0 which will cover the cost of getting the rest of the family vaccinated.  

[PopeBeanieModerator]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Rest assured, it wasn’t my intention to derail Unseen’s thread on Taiwan.

I think it’s ok to go off-topic if it’s ok with the topic’s creator. I probably would have let an off-topic comment or two stay, but it grew into more posts even after Unseen asked to keep the topic on Taiwan… plus I agree that Israel’s worthy of it’s own topic anyway.

[DavisModerator]

Jake…the British occupied of the Levant was imposed on Palestine, they were not welcomes with open arms and would have happily had their own state after centuries of foreign rule by other powers. Or did you think that Palestine invited a massive migration of people from another continent and then suddenly changed their minds?

I am not picking a bloody side in the conflict either. I am simply stating that taking a land that had been occupied for over 2000 years (Palestine) and, at the moment if finally gains independence it has never known, forcing them completely against their will to radically transform into something they didn’t want to and then partitioning their land against their will and then turning their occupied half into an apartheid nightmare-land, is a colossally immoral thing to do…and maintaining this and actively making it worse by picking away at the little land they have left while millions rot in putrid refugee camps…is a catastrophic failure of humanity of Titanic proportion. I see nothing remotely admirable about this nation other than a few nice democratic features (that one segment of the population almost exclusively enjoys) and an ability to survive (with extremely generous funding and weapons from other nations).

I am not remotely beyond criticism of Palestine, from their inexcusable use of terrorism that murders civilians, their perpetuation of sexist, racist and homophobic oppression amongst their own people and splintering into squabbling factions.

Having said that, they never should have had what happened to them, imposed on them against their will…just as any nation would fight against something of the same sort. America would fight a radical transformation seeing their population doubled in a matter of years, against their will…and then forced to segregate, against their will all to appease the horrors that happened on another continent and the guilt of those who helped these horrors happen.

Why did the homeland have to be the recently liberated land of another people, under-developed and unstable? Why couldn’t it have been territory donated by the Americans or the British from their own lands? Why couldn’t the US have partitioned Rhode Island? Why not try a dozen other possible solutions? Why force all of this on people who didn’t want it against their will? Why excuse this scenario when it would be unacceptable for any other people under any other circumstance?

[jakelafortParticipant]

Davis, the British fucked over a great many people. Ever read about their role in the Irish famine? It is not just their colonialism. White man’s burden, Lloyd. The thing is some Jews never left Palestine. And after the diaspora and various rounds of persecution Jews returned to Palestine. Jews were thrown out of England and France. Forgot the years but 1300ish. Thrown out of Spain in 1492. The Russians had pogroms for Jews in the 18 and 1900s and all of the aforementioned and assuredly other waves of persecution caused Jews to return. So it is equally the case that the Jews not immediately fleeing the holocaust, the mother of all Jewish persecution, were living there and it had been the ancient Jewish homeland. Be it ever so occupied there is no place like home.

So any of the historical insults against the Palestinians are also visited on the Jews who lived there before the holocaust. And for the Jews escaping the holocaust and desperately seeking security the plight of the Palestinians is no greater and probably much worse.

There was violence that was quite predictable during the mandate. They wanted the British out and they wanted Palestine badly. However it was the Jews who celebrated like drunken sailors when the partition was announced. Ben Gurion knew what the Arabs would do before the act of aggression began. Attack, attack and attack. And they were so close to finishing the Jews off. We could have seen another holocaust.

So the compromise was cool beans for Jews and anathema for Palestinians. That continues to be their stance in the 75 years since formation of Israel. So there is a fundamental deviation in approach between Jews and Palestinians. Obviously they messed up in a big way by rejecting a nation. It is a ridiculously tiny area for so many humans. I can’t prove it but it is my strong guess that reverse the power structure and have the Jews in the occupied territories but with Jews as the dominant group in surrounding nations and the Jews would welcome them. But the reality is that the Pan Arab movement is not real. The unanimity among Arabs in the middle east is only in regard to hating the Jews and getting them out or killing them all.

In terms of the settlement of modern Israel by Jews it is among the most justifiable and yet despised. There is just no way to convey without living it escaping the holocaust and being rejected all over the world and being in danger of liquidation. And no doubt if the allies had lost that is what would have happened. Herzl and the other Zionists were not reading tea leaves. It was a limpid piscatorial pool of clarity that a homeland was necessary or that pool would be drenched in the blood of the Jews. And that was before the holocaust that it was clear. Coming back to the place they began when peoples had shown that they were not safe any longer as peripatetic vagabonds was logical and necessary. There were other places proposed. And sure the religious Jews wanted to suck the nipple of Jerusalem. Dumb Jews, Muslims and Christians have had a hard-on for Jerusalem low these many centuries. But it was in reality a secular choice when no other good one presented.

You are correct that religion is a part of the governance of Israel. It is an ugly and destructive aspect of Israel. But it is precisely the secularism of the people that makes Israel a better place to live than the rest of the middle east. Religion has choked out Islamic countries. Not Israel. There are loads of vegans. Sexuality is not taboo regardless of its expression. There is a thriving secular culture. People love basketball and various sports. You can’t have that many Jews living together and not have science as a primary aspect of their nation. Lots of advances in science occur there. The whole scenario is an intractable mess. The apologists for Jews and Palestinians rely on propaganda. Gawd all fuckin mighty is there a lot of propaganda. I am aware some of the books i have read are like Maxim Gorky’s Mother. There is a book i am trying to get my paws on that is purported to be balanced. Other thoughts occur but I will let those submerge.

[_Robert_Participant]

I always assumed the “White man’s burden, Lloyd” in “The Shining” was referring to booze…but I did wonder about that line. You know, I could use an imaginary bartender around here.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Robert ya got the reference. My sense is that it is Rudyard Kipling or at least his mien.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Just looked it up. My association of the phrase with Kipling was spot on but it is a poem which i forgot. That guy google knows everything.

Take up the White Man’s burden—

Send forth the best ye breed—

Go send your sons to exile

To serve your captives’ need

To wait in heavy harness

On fluttered folk and wild—

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,

Half devil and half child

Take up the White Man’s burden

In patience to abide

To veil the threat of terror

And check the show of pride;

By open speech and simple

An hundred times made plain

To seek another’s profit

And work another’s gain

Take up the White Man’s burden—

And reap his old reward:

The blame of those ye better

The hate of those ye guard—

The cry of hosts ye humour

(Ah slowly) to the light:

“Why brought ye us from bondage,

“Our loved Egyptian night?”

Take up the White Man’s burden-

Have done with childish days-

The lightly proffered laurel,

The easy, ungrudged praise.

Comes now, to search your manhood

Through all the thankless years,

Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,

[_Robert_Participant]

I think Kipling is overrated, LOL. I appreciate Victorian art and such….but damn…they could be some incredibly entitled, righteous bastards.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Robert writes…….but damn…they could be some incredibly entitled, righteous bastards.

That is exactly what i was trying to convey. But on top of that it was the English and other colonizers who had the burden of imparting their superior culture. Kipling is a good writer but he reflected White man’s burden Lloyd.

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