I've been arguing with people about Israel v. Palestine lately. I still have not heard a decent argument in support of Palestinians. It's all the same mumbo jumbo (illegal occupation! - even though the UN formed Israel) I even had a long time friend take me off his myspace because of this. He considers himself a "progressive" yet he supports the Palestinians. I reminded him that homosexuality is not only illegal there but gays suffer violence often. I linked him up with several articles about it, most gay magazines and websites are now pro-Israel because of their liberal views on homosexuality. It's funny how when Bush tried to put a constitutional ban on gay marriage the progressives were up in arms and called Bush a nazi and a fascist yet in Palestinian culture it is fine to kill gay people and they are worth marching for! http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid33587.asp http://www.glapn.org/sodomylaws/world/palestine/psnews003.htm http://www.indegayforum.org/news/show/27154.html I reminded him that women are second class citizens in the area. I reminded him that women are even killed under Sharia law there. How is that progressive? I reminded him that progressives are nauseated by Bush's religious nature yet the Palestinians are are a far more extreme brand of Religious fundamentalism. I reminded him that he or I could live our same lifestyle in Israel but would face violence if we lived in Palestine. He never really answered any of that. But what gets me is this - he is a progressive yet he (and many others on the left) think that terrorism against innocent civillians is ok. He claims it's just people trying to reclaim their land. Even after 60 years of this nonsense which has only made things worse for Palestinians, he claims that terrorism is justified. I don't get it. But his views are shared by many. I found this after typing in Alan Moore into google news - you'll see my response if you click the link: http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/09/alan-moore-will.html?cid=131794788#comment-131794788 "V was NOT "brilliant". It was a plain old sellout which pandered to, bent over and swallowed for the Bush administration. Moore chose the date of September 11 for V's re-emergence and the start of his revolution for a reason... it represented (and still represents) the start of the new age of WASP colonialism because 9/11/1922 was the day that the British Mandate of Palestine started murdering Muslims in order to make room for European Jews. 9/11 is and was a legitimate day for political violence against the USA, the UK and Israel. That was the whole point of Moore choosing that date nearly 2 decades before 9/11/2001. By eliminating this from the movie, the producers eliminated the central theme of the entire film and replaced it with nothing." I don't think this view is uncommon. I've encountered it quite a bit. Yes this is the far left that supports this view but it's still a dangerous view. I am guessing if you put up an anonymous poll on bigsoccer and asked if Palestinian terrorism was justified you would get at least 20% saying "yes". Why is this?
This agument is like the Tibet supporters fight for independence. People scream "Free Tibet" but for whom? Before the ChiComs came in, Tibet was a feudal serfdom society. How a nation that supports having legal slavery can scream about independence in this day in age is beyond me. As for Israel and Palestine, Yes Israel was formed illegally by an entitiy that doesn't have the authority to do what it did as a make up for European asshattery. But you know what? It doesn't matter. Neither group is going anywhere. Both are right and both are wrong. Both have to come to terms with that.
I believe that it is as simple as this: lefties believe that our government is irredeemably flawed, and any friend of the US is a friend of their enemy. And any enemy of the US likely has good reason. Until we change our system to whatever Ratdog and Mel Brennan think it ought to be, enemies of the current US of A will be viewed with great tolerance and understanding. Even if they are careless and blow up a bus or a highrise every now and then.
Considering it was eventually the choice of both the UN and British (eventually), I don't see how you could consider it illegal. It's like calling troop action in Iraq illegal, despite the fact Congress has never told Bush to stop. Anyway, to paraphrase Chirs Rock, Libs love Jews but they hate Israelis. The Left loves the story of the Jews before 1947 because its a great example of their argument against nationalism, being that they like the strong to serve the weak and all that. The problem is that to survive as a nation, you have to actually do things that most of them disdain, and that's what Israel has often had to do since a billion people have been at war with them since the day they became a country. Now, their nice little pet Jews have become just another nation of self-involved troglydites that actually have the audacity to defend themselves from the invasion of people different from them. The other head-scratcher I've had is the propensity of jews to actually embrace communism, especially during the McCarthy era and before. The Soviets treated the Jews in Russia no different than the Romanov's and lent great assistance to the likes of the Nassar and the Baathists and any other Muslim lunatic that was willing to push Israel in to the Mediterranean.
Yes, if the enemies of Israel ever really got their wish, the libs would love them again. Israel can probably do without that kind of love. Libs all wax poetic about how after 9/11 the whole world loved us. If we could just make that happen every couple of weeks, they'd love us to death.
The Economist had the most realistic take on the conflict that I've seen: Israel should realize that the Palestinians aren't going anywhere and let them have their own state based on the original borders; and the Palestinians should realize that Israel isn't going anywhere and should abandon their insistence on a right of return to Jerusalem. The only problem is that both sides have been held hostage by extremists (and if you don't think that the settlers are just as repellent as the PLO, then you don't know anything about the settlers). Both also demonstrate how poisonous religion can be. The entire concept of a religious state is an anathema to Enlightenment thinking. In bojendyk's world, the UN steps in and declares the entire region to be a secular state wherein everyone had voting rights, and the rest of the world stands ready to defend that secular state against the whiny, thin-skinned extremists who remain.
The Jewish affinity for the Soviet state died once news about the atrocities and suppression became available in the west.
You'd better be ready to kill lots of people who don't like secular states. LOTS. Ann Coulter's solution is only a little more practical than yours. In smiley's world, we can identify places without good solutions and stay the hell away from them.
I don't know what "Jewish affinity" is or how it's measured, but news of atrocities was coming out in the 1930's. By the 1950's there was no doubt to anyone who wasn't deluded. And there were lots of deluded people on the left in this country back then. Joe McCarthy had a target-rich environment.
I actually agree with the sentiment, the funny thing is that the "religious" state that was created has been more aligned with Enlightened principles than anything bordering it by about 1000 years. Most of that was tried in 1947. How's that going?
Israel was formed illegally how? The UN is illegal? The controlling British decision to put it to a UN vote was illegal?
Agreed. Except that Israel never calls for the destruction of the Palestinians. Come on, no one in Israeli power is or was as bad as Hammas. Look at the concession Rabin was making - he was killed by an extremist and his murderer was seen as a monster by the general population in Israel. In the West Bank there are all sorts of incidents of the PLO and Hammas shooting at eachother. There is no Israeli equivolence of Palestinian extremism. Israel is pretty close to being a Secular state, at least in terms of lifestyle and culture. An atheist can live there and voice his opinions without much reprocussion. The same can not be said for the Gazza Strip or the West Bank.
Hey, sometimes I'd like nothing better than to bring the troops home and aim them at the Mexican border (same climate, for the most part), but in bo's world there would be much wailing and gnashing of teeth. We'd have to jump in to whatever Western Europe wanted us (because they know much more about these things, being not American), such as trying to wipe Serbia off the map and making them feel better about the absolute mess they left Africa in. The trouble is no one else is really going to help and defend actual democracies in places where it has a tough time, like Israel and Iraq, partially because its not in their economic interests, partially because thanks to colonial guilt they refuse to say boo to people darker-skinned than Swedes, and partially because they hate Jews and us. Perhaps we can be more selective in where we try to drag the world out of the 15th century, but I still don't trust anyone else (outside of maybe the Aussies, they at least have a semblance of a conservative movement once in a while) to do the right thing.
It amazes me that there are still conservative dead-enders who believe that our actions in the Balkans were wrong. You guys are like the liberals who opposed action in Afghanistan.
Define "wrong". I don't think we should be getting involved with anyone who doesn't attack us. My hypocritical exception is Israel because I feel like they are our brothers. Don't ask me why because I probably don't have a good enough reason other than they are a liberal democracy in a sea of fundamentalism. But from a moral or humanatarian standpoin, yeah, the Balkans thing was the right thing to do. I am opposed to doing the right thing if it costs us any tax payers dollars. Sorry if that sounds like I'm being a dick but that's how I feel.
The Balkans have been a powder keg since, well, forever, and conflicts in that region have a nasty habit of spilling into Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Greece. The rest of Europe--NATO countries, to be specific--end up dealing with the resulting refugee crises. Furthermore, Serbia was one of the last remaining regions in Europe where Russia still exacted influence (the only remaining country, I believe, is Belarus).
I guess I'm still a conservative dead-ender in that I don't think we need to go far afield looking for more enemies. But I'll give Clinton this much credit - he knew enough to keep our involvement limited to dropping some bombs. And it ended up OK, so I'll pass on giving it the thumbs-down.
Bojendyk, I don't and didn't disagree with any of that. Like I tried to explain, if foreign humanatarian ventures in foreign lands is important to you then it's hard to disagree with what Clinton did. I just don't think we should be involved in anyones problems. Defense should only be for defense...of the U.S. I don't like NATO to begin with.
And didn't Israel basically offer returning to the 1968 borders (or whatever year that was) in Camp David. They won't give up Jerusalem, but were willing to work with everything else. It was the Palestinians that walked away and continued the fight.
Let's face it - there's no compromise that will suffice for the Palestinians. Anything short of the dissolving of Israel will continue the fight. Too many chauvinistic muslims believe that the mere presence of a non-Islamic country in what they regard as their turf is an abomination.
I've faced it. I was mostly responding to Bo Israel was willing to give them original borders except for all/part/most of Jerusalem. So... Israel basically agreed to the Economist plan back in the 90's. Palistine walked away. To equate both parties after that is futile.
I don't get your criticism here. Arafat dropped the ball. Everyone knows that. Arafat's demands were exactly those that The Economist said should be forgotten.
I think this thread from it's intended course a bit.... I pose the question (and smiley answered correctly I presume) of why liberals/progressives have largely taken the side of the Palestinians even though the Palestinians stand for everything that they hate i.e homophobia, sexism, guns and violence, religious fundamentalism, etc Aside from Smiley's answer there are people like Janeane Garafallo (sp) who have openly stated that Christian "fundamentalism" in America* is more dangerous than Islamic fundamentalism and that Islam should be understood and accepted. * Apparently America is full of fundamentalist, which means people who go to church, legally protest abortions, legally use the politcal process to vote for Christian values, etc etc. This is somehow more dangerous than Islamic fundamentalism where people are beheaded, women ride in the backseat of cars and have to walk behind the man, if a man is suspected of being gay he is subject to sharia law, etc etc. And yes Bo I know it's the extreme left that talks like that but they have their own radio station and moveon is filled with these people and they donate lots of money to Barrack Obama (mind you I'm not blaming Obama) ** The typical disclaimer is required apparently - there is nothing wrong with Islam or Muslims, it's the extreme version I oppose. There are lots of secular Muslims in the Detroit area and they listen to rock music, wear the same clothes as me, date white bitches, let their sisters drive in the front seat of their car and act like everyone else.