Middle East Conflict Megathread (Syria, Iraq, Yemen, etc)

[United Islamic Commonwealth]

>2 of hundreds of Native American tribes
lol

Okay, so name them. Get them to a million.

Actually, nevermind, don't do that here.

I won't. But I will tell you that 56% of the US' 5.2 million Native Americans are full-blooded, according to the US Census Bureau.

[The Empire of Pretantia]

Okay, so name them. Get them to a million.

Actually, nevermind, don't do that here.

I won't. But I will tell you that 56% of the US' 5.2 million Native Americans are full-blooded, according to the US Census Bureau.

"I won't do that here."
>Does it here

[United Islamic Commonwealth]

I won't. But I will tell you that 56% of the US' 5.2 million Native Americans are full-blooded, according to the US Census Bureau.

"I won't do that here."
>Does it here

I won't name them. But if you have run out of come backs because you proven wrong, okay then.

[Constantinopolis]

Irony:

Pretantia defending the Jewish State by resorting to arguments based on purity of the racial bloodline to determine whether an ethnic group has a right to a piece of land.

Why not just say that Israel requires "living space" and be done with it?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Israel is the greatest political irony since Liberia. A state founded by refugees who have embraced the ideology of their oppressors. "Blood and Soil", indeed.

[The Empire of Pretantia]

Irony:

Pretantia defending the Jewish State by resorting to arguments based on purity of the racial bloodline to determine whether an ethnic group has a right to a piece of land.

Why not just say that Israel requires "living space" and be done with it?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Israel is the greatest political irony since Liberia. A state founded by refugees who have embraced the ideology of their oppressors. "Blood and Soil", indeed.

Does it not require living space?

[Constantinopolis]

Irony:

Pretantia defending the Jewish State by resorting to arguments based on purity of the racial bloodline to determine whether an ethnic group has a right to a piece of land.

Why not just say that Israel requires "living space" and be done with it?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Israel is the greatest political irony since Liberia. A state founded by refugees who have embraced the ideology of their oppressors. "Blood and Soil", indeed.

Does it not require living space?

The reference.






Your head.

[The Empire of Pretantia]

Does it not require living space?

The reference.






Your head.

What did I miss?

[United Islamic Commonwealth]

The reference.






Your head.

What did I miss?

*sigh* Are you being a smart ass or did you actually miss it?

[Uxupox]

Irony:

Pretantia defending the Jewish State by resorting to arguments based on purity of the racial bloodline to determine whether an ethnic group has a right to a piece of land.

Why not just say that Israel requires "living space" and be done with it?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Israel is the greatest political irony since Liberia. A state founded by refugees who have embraced the ideology of their oppressors. "Blood and Soil", indeed.

Pretty sure that the Ashkenazi Jews don't have concentration camps solely developed to destroy another ethnic race within Israel.

[Yurizlansia]

Irony:

Pretantia defending the Jewish State by resorting to arguments based on purity of the racial bloodline to determine whether an ethnic group has a right to a piece of land.

Why not just say that Israel requires "living space" and be done with it?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Israel is the greatest political irony since Liberia. A state founded by refugees who have embraced the ideology of their oppressors. "Blood and Soil", indeed.

I will not deny that Israel's police and defense forces show a degree of brutality against Palestinian civilians that is not excusable. What I don't understand, however, as I said earlier, is the justification of the idea that "Israel does not have the right to exist". I don't understand what gives Palestine more "existence authority" than Israel has.

And I will assume that based on the "living space" comment you are referencing Nazi Germany. As I said earlier there are certainly issues with how the IDF deals with the Palestinian population in the West Bank, and they could certainly deal with Hamas in the Gaza strip better, but to compare Israel to Nazi Germany is a stretch. This false equivalency is a favorite among the critics of Israel, and people who use it usually only do so to stir emotions in people. Israeli Arabs have full protection under the law of Israel. Does it always work out that way in practice? No, but the same can be said for every other country, and probably every other former country on Earth. I have to ask, did Jews/Roma or anyother people considered by Nazi Germany to be sub-human have representation in the Reichstag? No, of course they didn't (not after 1933 anyways). On the other hand, Israeli Arabs have representation in the Knesset (about 13 of the 120 seats, or a bit more than 10%). And these are just seats belonging to the Joint List who represents Israeli Arab interests. To compare Israel to Nazi Germany is ridiculous and intellectually dishonest.

[Constantinopolis]

Irony:

Pretantia defending the Jewish State by resorting to arguments based on purity of the racial bloodline to determine whether an ethnic group has a right to a piece of land.

Why not just say that Israel requires "living space" and be done with it?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Israel is the greatest political irony since Liberia. A state founded by refugees who have embraced the ideology of their oppressors. "Blood and Soil", indeed.

Pretty sure that the Ashkenazi Jews don't have concentration camps solely developed to destroy another ethnic race within Israel.

Ethnic nationalism is still ethnic nationalism, even when it doesn't go to genocidal extremes. The point is that the Jews fled Europe because the Europeans wanted to purge their states of ethnic minorities and achieve racial purity (I don't mean just the extreme example of the Nazis here, I mean almost every single European nation-state in the 19th century and some well into the 20th). Then the Jews created their own state and proceeded to... purge it of ethnic minorities (or in this case, majorities) in order to achieve racial purity.

Zionism is very much comparable with the 19th century European ethnic nationalism that persecuted the Jews and made them start thinking about leaving Europe in the first place. The treatment of the Palestinians in Israel is very much comparable with, say, the treatment of the Jews in France during the Dreyfus Affair in the 1890s-1900s.

It's a shame that the murderous insanity of the Nazis has made people forget the far-less-murderous, far-less-insane, but still Very Bad 19th century European racism that came before it (and that provided the cultural environment in which Nazism grew).

By thinking of Nazism as some kind of alien aberration that fell out of the blue one day - instead of seeing it as the peak of the European ethnic nationalist tide which had been building for over a century beforehand - we've made ourselves blind to similar phenomena in the present day. We can't see the poisonous thorns of mundane ethnic nationalism around our feet because we're too distracted by the giant glowing swastika in the sky above it. But the giant glowing swastika emerged from those little thorns.

[Constantinopolis]

Irony:

Pretantia defending the Jewish State by resorting to arguments based on purity of the racial bloodline to determine whether an ethnic group has a right to a piece of land.

Why not just say that Israel requires "living space" and be done with it?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Israel is the greatest political irony since Liberia. A state founded by refugees who have embraced the ideology of their oppressors. "Blood and Soil", indeed.

I will not deny that Israel's police and defense forces show a degree of brutality against Palestinian civilians that is not excusable. What I don't understand, however, as I said earlier, is the justification of the idea that "Israel does not have the right to exist". I don't understand what gives Palestine more "existence authority" than Israel has.

As I said before, what I support is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious state with equal rights for both Jews and Palestinians and equal respect for both Jewish and Arab cultures and languages and so on.

Advocates of Israel are the ones who typically refer to this idea as tantamount to saying that "Israel does not have the right to exist". In doing so, they implicitly admit that their idea of "Israel" is an ethnic supremacist state, and that abolishing ethnic supremacy would be - to them - equivalent to abolishing Israel.

And I will assume that based on the "living space" comment you are referencing Nazi Germany. As I said earlier there are certainly issues with how the IDF deals with the Palestinian population in the West Bank, and they could certainly deal with Hamas in the Gaza strip better, but to compare Israel to Nazi Germany is a stretch. This false equivalency is a favorite among the critics of Israel, and people who use it usually only do so to stir emotions in people. Israeli Arabs have full protection under the law of Israel. Does it always work out that way in practice? No, but the same can be said for every other country, and probably every other former country on Earth. I have to ask, did Jews/Roma or anyother people considered by Nazi Germany to be sub-human have representation in the Reichstag? No, of course they didn't (not after 1933 anyways). On the other hand, Israeli Arabs have representation in the Knesset (about 13 of the 120 seats, or a bit more than 10%). And these are just seats belonging to the Joint List who represents Israeli Arab interests. To compare Israel to Nazi Germany is ridiculous and intellectually dishonest.

Oh, I didn't mean to compare present-day Israel with Nazi Germany. As I said, I think Israel is best compared with the average 19th century European nation-state that persecuted its ethnic minorities.

I meant to compare Pretantia's ideas with Nazism - and to point out where the logic of ethnic nationalism eventually leads if you keep going down that route.

Israel is absolutely not comparable with Nazi Germany in any way at the present time. But if the current status quo continues for another 50 years, I think there is a real possibility that Israel could go in that direction. After all, extreme Zionists want to purge the Arabs from Judea and Samaria, and it is very clear that no amount of persecution is going to make them emigrate in large enough numbers to achieve that. It is only a matter of time until someone asks, "why don't we just kill them all?"

When you are dedicated to the project of purging your country of undesirable ethnic groups, and when it becomes clear that you can't pressure them to emigrate fast enough, someone always puts the genocide option on the table eventually.

[The Empire of Pretantia]

Pretantia's ideas

It wasn't my idea, it was Hitler's.

[Yurizlansia]

I will not deny that Israel's police and defense forces show a degree of brutality against Palestinian civilians that is not excusable. What I don't understand, however, as I said earlier, is the justification of the idea that "Israel does not have the right to exist". I don't understand what gives Palestine more "existence authority" than Israel has.

As I said before, what I support is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious state with equal rights for both Jews and Palestinians and equal respect for both Jewish and Arab cultures and languages and so on.

Advocates of Israel are the ones who typically refer to this idea as tantamount to saying that "Israel does not have the right to exist". In doing so, they implicitly admit that their idea of "Israel" is an ethnic supremacist state, and that abolishing ethnic supremacy would be - to them - equivalent to abolishing Israel.

And I will assume that based on the "living space" comment you are referencing Nazi Germany. As I said earlier there are certainly issues with how the IDF deals with the Palestinian population in the West Bank, and they could certainly deal with Hamas in the Gaza strip better, but to compare Israel to Nazi Germany is a stretch. This false equivalency is a favorite among the critics of Israel, and people who use it usually only do so to stir emotions in people. Israeli Arabs have full protection under the law of Israel. Does it always work out that way in practice? No, but the same can be said for every other country, and probably every other former country on Earth. I have to ask, did Jews/Roma or anyother people considered by Nazi Germany to be sub-human have representation in the Reichstag? No, of course they didn't (not after 1933 anyways). On the other hand, Israeli Arabs have representation in the Knesset (about 13 of the 120 seats, or a bit more than 10%). And these are just seats belonging to the Joint List who represents Israeli Arab interests. To compare Israel to Nazi Germany is ridiculous and intellectually dishonest.

Oh, I didn't mean to compare present-day Israel with Nazi Germany. As I said, I think Israel is best compared with the average 19th century European nation-state that persecuted its ethnic minorities.

I meant to compare Pretantia's ideas with Nazism - and to point out where the logic of ethnic nationalism eventually leads if you keep going down that route.

Israel is absolutely not comparable with Nazi Germany in any way at the present time. But if the current status quo continues for another 50 years, I think there is a real possibility that Israel could go in that direction. After all, extreme Zionists want to purge the Arabs from Judea and Samaria, and it is very clear that no amount of persecution is going to make them emigrate in large enough numbers to achieve that. It is only a matter of time until someone asks, "why don't we just kill them all?"

When you are dedicated to the project of purging your country of undesirable ethnic groups, and when it becomes clear that you can't pressure them to emigrate fast enough, someone always puts the genocide option on the table eventually.

Ok, I guess I misunderstood your comments, sorry about that.

[Alsheb]

Good example actually, as the notion of the Native Americans taking D.C. or New York on horseback is equally realistic to the Palestinians destroying Israel.

I agree. That's why I'm framing the issue in terms of Israel giving citizenship and equal rights to Palestinians. Because realistically, that is the only way the Palestinians are ever going to get their rights back. The State of Israel cannot be defeated, and trying to fight it through guerilla warfare is particularly stupid. The Palestinians need to let go of the "anti-colonial struggle" framework, and switch to a "civil rights struggle" framework. They need to follow the South Africa strategy, not the Zimbabwe strategy.

Are you suggesting a Miko Peled style of solution, with one state incorporating both grouos as equals, with redistribution of the land itself accordingly?

[Alsheb]

Erm. What?

Can't reclaim their land if they have no birthright to it.

Didn't stop the zionists though, did it?

[The East Marches II]

Can't reclaim their land if they have no birthright to it.

Didn't stop the zionists though, did it?

Yes but they can fight unlike your lot

[Alsheb]

Irony:

Pretantia defending the Jewish State by resorting to arguments based on purity of the racial bloodline to determine whether an ethnic group has a right to a piece of land.

Why not just say that Israel requires "living space" and be done with it?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Israel is the greatest political irony since Liberia. A state founded by refugees who have embraced the ideology of their oppressors. "Blood and Soil", indeed.

Does it not require living space?

Yes, but not by violently taking land from others.

As has been said so many times before, the "Israelis" are not a homogenous ethnic group, most of them are not descended from the Hebrews, and they have no ancestral link to the land whatsoever.

Judaism is a religion. And a religion by its very definition is not limited to one ethnic group, and as such has no ethnic homeland that have right to.

[Alsheb]

Didn't stop the zionists though, did it?

Yes but they can fight unlike your lot

Yes, they were very good at massacring villages. So?

[Uxupox]

I will not deny that Israel's police and defense forces show a degree of brutality against Palestinian civilians that is not excusable. What I don't understand, however, as I said earlier, is the justification of the idea that "Israel does not have the right to exist". I don't understand what gives Palestine more "existence authority" than Israel has.

As I said before, what I support is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious state with equal rights for both Jews and Palestinians and equal respect for both Jewish and Arab cultures and languages and so on.

Advocates of Israel are the ones who typically refer to this idea as tantamount to saying that "Israel does not have the right to exist". In doing so, they implicitly admit that their idea of "Israel" is an ethnic supremacist state, and that abolishing ethnic supremacy would be - to them - equivalent to abolishing Israel.

And I will assume that based on the "living space" comment you are referencing Nazi Germany. As I said earlier there are certainly issues with how the IDF deals with the Palestinian population in the West Bank, and they could certainly deal with Hamas in the Gaza strip better, but to compare Israel to Nazi Germany is a stretch. This false equivalency is a favorite among the critics of Israel, and people who use it usually only do so to stir emotions in people. Israeli Arabs have full protection under the law of Israel. Does it always work out that way in practice? No, but the same can be said for every other country, and probably every other former country on Earth. I have to ask, did Jews/Roma or anyother people considered by Nazi Germany to be sub-human have representation in the Reichstag? No, of course they didn't (not after 1933 anyways). On the other hand, Israeli Arabs have representation in the Knesset (about 13 of the 120 seats, or a bit more than 10%). And these are just seats belonging to the Joint List who represents Israeli Arab interests. To compare Israel to Nazi Germany is ridiculous and intellectually dishonest.

Oh, I didn't mean to compare present-day Israel with Nazi Germany. As I said, I think Israel is best compared with the average 19th century European nation-state that persecuted its ethnic minorities.

I meant to compare Pretantia's ideas with Nazism - and to point out where the logic of ethnic nationalism eventually leads if you keep going down that route.

Israel is absolutely not comparable with Nazi Germany in any way at the present time. But if the current status quo continues for another 50 years, I think there is a real possibility that Israel could go in that direction. After all, extreme Zionists want to purge the Arabs from Judea and Samaria, and it is very clear that no amount of persecution is going to make them emigrate in large enough numbers to achieve that. It is only a matter of time until someone asks, "why don't we just kill them all?"

When you are dedicated to the project of purging your country of undesirable ethnic groups, and when it becomes clear that you can't pressure them to emigrate fast enough, someone always puts the genocide option on the table eventually.

If in the last 50 years that they were officially founded haven't done so but have been continuously attacked by their neighbors why would they do it within another 50 years?. Heck within in Israel there is a basic law called "Human Dignity and Liberty" which protects guarantees all's right to liberty inside Israeli borders. Groups such as the Druze unto where around the region are persecuted are protected within Israel.

[Constantinopolis]

Ok, I guess I misunderstood your comments, sorry about that.

Ah, no problem! I was happy to clarify.

I agree. That's why I'm framing the issue in terms of Israel giving citizenship and equal rights to Palestinians. Because realistically, that is the only way the Palestinians are ever going to get their rights back. The State of Israel cannot be defeated, and trying to fight it through guerilla warfare is particularly stupid. The Palestinians need to let go of the "anti-colonial struggle" framework, and switch to a "civil rights struggle" framework. They need to follow the South Africa strategy, not the Zimbabwe strategy.

Are you suggesting a Miko Peled style of solution, with one state incorporating both grouos as equals, with redistribution of the land itself accordingly?

Yes.

And I know how unrealistic it is, but it's either that or endless war (or genocide), so... to adapt a famous Sherlock Holmes saying, when you've eliminated all of the unacceptable options, then the only option that remains, no matter how unrealistic, must be the one to pursue.

[Uxupox]

Does it not require living space?

Yes, but not by violently taking land from others.

As has been said so many times before, the "Israelis" are not a homogenous ethnic group, most of them are not descended from the Hebrews, and they have no ancestral link to the land whatsoever.

Judaism is a religion. And a religion by its very definition is not limited to one ethnic group, and as such has no ethnic homeland that have right to.

What is the answer then? Throw them to sea as their neighbors have tried to do several times but had their ass handed to them every single time?

[Alsheb]

Pretantia's ideas

It wasn't my idea, it was Hitler's.

Indeed. So you admit following ideas that were originally Hitler's...

[Alsheb]

Ok, I guess I misunderstood your comments, sorry about that.

Ah, no problem! I was happy to clarify.

Are you suggesting a Miko Peled style of solution, with one state incorporating both grouos as equals, with redistribution of the land itself accordingly?

Yes.

And I know how unrealistic it is, but it's either that or endless war (or genocide), so... to adapt a famous Sherlock Holmes saying, when you've eliminated all of the unacceptable options, then the only option that remains, no matter how unrealistic, must be the one to pursue.

Such a solution seems the most sensible one indeed.

[The East Marches II]

Yes but they can fight unlike your lot

Yes, they were very good at massacring villages. So?

And wiping out the organized armies of Islamic countries that rallied to Palestine's defense. The best chance was Saddam but he is gone now. The old Shia trick of sending 12 year olds over minefields doesn't work on Israel. They are far better at organized violence. Much lIke the white man and the native. They lost rightfully so for the same reason.