Cont: The Biden Presidency (4)

dudalb said:
Problem is too many of you Progs don't wholeheartdlt condemn HAMAS.
Click to expand...
That is a problem ... how?
Do you assume that I am in some Chain of Command and won't deploy enough troops against Hamas?
Is there any scenario where my support or lack of the invasion of Gaza by Israel is going to make any difference on the ground?

Exactly because they have no effect on the conflict we are free to think in ways the decisions makers can't afford to.

Maybe it will be of use sometime in the future.
 
dudalb said:
So what should Isreal do? Let HAMAS get away with it?
Thank heaven we have some liberals like BIden who get what is giong on, and no doubt the will take heat from the Left Wing of his own party who seem willing to undermine BIdne and Let Trump in again. I wonder if acclerationsim is not at work here.
Problem is you never question Left Wing Dogma. It ia religion to you.
If the footage wehave seen of what HAMAS did does not indicate who is the evil force here, you are truly blind. And i the worst kind of blindness..self inflcited blindness.
Click to expand...
Because the two options are "let Hamas get away with it" or "murder everyone in Gaza," right?

C'mon, where's the feckless centrist view we know and love? Shouldn't you be demanding that Israel make compromises and give Hamas whatever they're asking for? That's what adults in the room do, right?
 
Last edited:
Beelzebuddy said:
Because the two options are "let Hamas get away with it" or "murder everyone in Gaza," right?

C'mon, where's the feckless centrist view we know and love? Shouldn't you be demanding that Israel make compromises and give Hamas whatever they're asking for? That's what adults in the room do, right?
Click to expand...

Edited by sarge: 
removed uncivil content

And, what do you suggest Isreal do?
'And "Israel wants t murder everybody in Gaza" is pure propganda.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The Great Zaganza said:
That is a problem ... how?
Do you assume that I am in some Chain of Command and won't deploy enough troops against Hamas?
Is there any scenario where my support or lack of the invasion of Gaza by Israel is going to make any difference on the ground?

Exactly because they have no effect on the conflict we are free to think in ways the decisions makers can't afford to.

Maybe it will be of use sometime in the future.
Click to expand...


GOd, that is arrogant and egotistical.
 
The one area of foreign policy I don’t criticize Presidents of either party about is the Middle East. No one seems to have a very good answer. I believe the biggest foreign policy blunder of the last 75 years was made by Harry Truman when he recognized the nation of Israel.

Since then, it is a cluster **** for every President.
 
Edited by sarge: 
removed moderated content

Uh huh.
Problem is you never question Left Wing Dogma. It ia religion to you.
If the footage wehave seen of what HAMAS did does not indicate who is the evil force here, you are truly blind. And i the worst kind of blindness..self inflcited blindness.
Click to expand...
Self-blindness, indeed.

And, what do you suggest Isreal do?
'And "Israel wants t murder everybody in Gaza" is pure propganda.
Click to expand...
Is this a genuine question or your usual "well, golly I can't possibly conceive of any other notion but the one course I'm advocating for?"

I suggest Israel go after the people who planned and executed the attack, i.e. Hamas. They appear instead to be shooting anyone who looks at them funny. They've already killed more Palestinians in response to the attack than Hamas killed Israelis in the attack itself, and aren't slowing down. Almost all of those people are not Hamas. I do not believe the Israeli forces care that they are not Hamas.

Nor are they deeply considering what will happen to all the orphans they're making in a few years' time, when they're grown up and fully aware that Israel took their families and lives away and left them with nothing left to lose. When those orphans form a new crop for Hamas or whatever terrorist organization du jour and they attack Israel like the people in the general vicinity of their fathers before them, I fully expect to find you still here pointing fingers at everyone stating the obvious and demanding to know what we suggest Israel do.

Perhaps the common thread behind the otherwise conflicting attitudes of "capitulate to Republicans on every issue" and "burn Palestine to the ground" is the favoring of momentary convenience and inability to imagine consequences.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
acbytesla said:
The one area of foreign policy I don’t criticize Presidents of either party about is the Middle East. No one seems to have a very good answer. I believe the biggest foreign policy blunder of the last 75 years was made by Harry Truman when he recognized the nation of Israel.

Since then, it is a cluster **** for every President.
Click to expand...

And the way it was done, unbelievable and without foresight how they simply ignored the people** living in large swaths of the area the same way we thought it was fine to drive the indigenous people off their lands.

The racism and bigotry, things could have been different if they had considered they were creating 'Zion' in a populated area because of some 2K old religious text that said the area had been in Jewish hands.

Then corrections were never made to the initial creation of the country. The Jews felt entitled to land and the population that had lived there of course reacted like anyone would if you moved onto their land and kicked them off.

A lot of people, especially the press, don't address the potable water rights issue. That elephant in the room has to be addressed in any 2-state solution discussion.

Has Israel ever stuck to any promises they made that new settlements would be stopped?


** I say 'people' to avoid the 'no such thing as a Palestinian' rabbit hole.
 
Last edited:
My, the Israel haters are outing themselves.
And that hatred of Israel has become Progressive Dogma is just another reason why I not a progressive.
 
Last edited:
acbytesla said:
The one area of foreign policy I don’t criticize Presidents of either party about is the Middle East. No one seems to have a very good answer. I believe the biggest foreign policy blunder of the last 75 years was made by Harry Truman when he recognized the nation of Israel.

Since then, it is a cluster **** for every President.
Click to expand...

As someone who thinks Israel was a histroical necessity in the wake of the Holocuast, I could not disagree with you more.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
And the way it was done, unbelievable and without foresight how they simply ignored the people** living in large swaths of the area the same way we thought it was fine to drive the indigenous people off their lands.

The racism and bigotry, things could have been different if they had considered they were creating 'Zion' in a populated area because of some 2K old religious text that said the area had been in Jewish hands.

Then corrections were never made to the initial creation of the country. The Jews felt entitled to land and the population that had lived there of course reacted like anyone would if you moved onto their land and kicked them off.

Now a lot of people, especially the press, don't address the potable water rights issue. That elephant in the room has to be addressed in any 2-state solution discussion.

Has Israel ever stuck to any promises they made that new settlements would be stopped?


** I say 'people' to avoid the 'no such thing as a Palestinian' rabbit hole.
Click to expand...

I use to follow the issues in Israel/Palestine. But neither side are the good guys or the bad guys. And politics here in the US prevent a real solution to the problem. Too many American politicians in both parties are afraid of taking the Palestinian side. The parties of God veto what honestly should be easily solvable.

My frustration with Islamic Jewish and Evangelical Messianic Christians here in the US that enable that disaster is immense.
 
dudalb said:
GOd, that is arrogant and egotistical.
Click to expand...

Really??!??

Admitting that what I say has no impact is egotistical?
I think it's realistic and humble.

Compare that to your assumption that one wrong word can sap the energy of out of the righteous war effort: that's arrogant.


If we can't play a bit of Devil's advocat, who can?
 
Last edited:
dudalb said:
As someone who thinks Israel was a histroical necessity in the wake of the Holocuast, I could not disagree with you more.
Click to expand...

No, it wasn’t. The answer to the refugee and stolen lands in Europe should never have been resolved by stealing lands in Palestine. It left the world with a permanent conflict zone.
 
acbytesla said:
I use to follow the issues in Israel/Palestine. But neither side are the good guys or the bad guys. And politics here in the US prevent a real solution to the problem. Too many American politicians in both parties are afraid of taking the Palestinian side. The parties of God veto what honestly should be easily solvable.

My frustration with Islamic Jewish and Evangelical Messianic Christians here in the US that enable that disaster is immense.
Click to expand...

I agree with and can relate to all that. And the culture of revenge for so and so's death, that stuff makes it a thousand years mess.

One thing that stuck with me however was seeing an old map from the 30s or so, of what is now Israel. The area that was supposedly unoccupied which was turned into Israel was pretty full of roads and habited areas, not the supposed empty area it was claimed to be. Just because you move your grazing animals around doesn't mean you have no claim to the land. And just because your culture had a different version of how land ownership was expressed (eg no property lines) was no reason to just confiscate the land.

And if no one occupied the land that was turned into Israel, how did so many people end up in refugee camps with no plan on where they would go?

From those early decisions on you get all the things you describe that I agree with.
 
Last edited:
On the other claw though, should the Arabs' genocide of the Jews who'd never been scattered in the early 1900s in order to claim the lands for Arabs only be rewarded by accepting the results?
 
Silly Green Monkey said:
On the other claw though, should the Arabs' genocide of the Jews who'd never been scattered in the early 1900s in order to claim the lands for Arabs only be rewarded by accepting the results?
Click to expand...

Sorry, forgive my limited knowledge of all the wars in the region. I can't parse this. Which genocide when and who was rewarded? 1900s?

How far back should we go, all the way back through the wars described in the Bible?
 
Silly Green Monkey said:
On the other claw though, should the Arabs' genocide of the Jews who'd never been scattered in the early 1900s in order to claim the lands for Arabs only be rewarded by accepting the results?
Click to expand...

Skeptic Ginger said:
Sorry, forgive my limited knowledge of all the wars in the region. I can't parse this. Which genocide when and who was rewarded? 1900s?

How far back should we go, all the way back through the wars described in the Bible?
Click to expand...

IMV, it is unreasonable to look back before 1946. Not that their weren't conflicts between Jewish people that settled there in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. There definitely were. But that simple fact should have been a warning to Truman that he could not solve an intransigent and millennia old problem with Pax Americana and hegemony.
 
Beelzebuddy said:
I suggest Israel go after the people who planned and executed the attack, i.e. Hamas. They appear instead to be shooting anyone who looks at them funny. They've already killed more Palestinians in response to the attack than Hamas killed Israelis in the attack itself, and aren't slowing down. Almost all of those people are not Hamas. I do not believe the Israeli forces care that they are not Hamas.

Nor are they deeply considering what will happen to all the orphans they're making in a few years' time, when they're grown up and fully aware that Israel took their families and lives away and left them with nothing left to lose.
Click to expand...
That's why it's important that they finish the job. Israel will never be safe while there are Palestinians.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom