A thread on politics- have some balls and post

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Billy Puller said:
It's a metaphor mate.
Imagine that the Middle East is the boiling pot. All the different cultures/nationalities/religions are the ingridients. The flames been added and they're all cooked up. Now try and unmake the soup you've made.

You can't unmake soup.

You can't fix the Middle East.

Sittin here talkin about the UN and Jews and all that s**t is such a wank. The problems there have been going on for a thousand years.

The problems will continue to go on for a thousand years.

To even attempt to discuss a solution is so naive. There are that many parties involved it's ridiculous.
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Oh Billy, your initial response wasn't aimed at anyone professing to have a solution. Don't rewrite history.

I am sticking with my original thumbs down response soz brah. I don't have a solution, and wasn't claiming to. But am pretty convinced that destroying classrooms provided by international NGOs is a surefire way to pass on and intensify the hatred and sense of injustice felt by the next generation of Palestinian kids.

Dismissing people's reaction to a singular event by invoking the incredible complexity of the whole situation is a pretty lazy way to score points in a thread like this.
 
Billy Puller said:
I've lived and travelled exstensivley through the Middle East. The people are beautiful, the country's are beautiful. The reefs I snorkelled on in Jordan make the Great Barrier Reef look like a s**t hole.

s**t hole isn't the word I'd use. Too many clashing cultures in too little space.
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When I meant shithole I meant the geopolitical and social climate of the region. It seems every second week there is an uprising, a mass killing or religious faction spouting hatred and death.

The middle east is an amazingly beautiful place that is something everyone can agree on.
 

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TheBrownDog said:
The Barrier Reef kinda is a shithole.
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Soon to be ex-Barrier Reef unfortunately. Agriculture the main problem but also to a lesser extent introduced species such as the crown of thorns starfish. What really displeases me is the fact the governments are doing very little to help. Just enough to keep the pressure of themselves but not enough to actually have any meaningful impact.
 
SizeMatters said:
Soon to be ex-Barrier Reef unfortunately. Agriculture the main problem but also to a lesser extent introduced species such as the crown of thorns starfish. What really displeases me is the fact the governments are doing very little to help. Just enough to keep the pressure of themselves but not enough to actually have any meaningful impact.
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Australia by and large is just putting its fingers in its ears and humming "Mary Had A Little Lamb" while the whole environment goes to s**t. Gotta have that economic growth.
 
jason pm said:
Don't worry MacMum I like hearing yours and others anecdotes, I tell enough of them myself.
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We've played 'away' tonight MacMum and jason pm, but now it's time to head back to the Over 50's Clique Thread. Come home and we can tell a few stories over a sherry or two.
 
TheBrownDog said:
Oh Billy, your initial response wasn't aimed at anyone professing to have a solution. Don't rewrite history.

I am sticking with my original thumbs down response soz brah. I don't have a solution, and wasn't claiming to. But am pretty convinced that destroying classrooms provided by international NGOs is a surefire way to pass on and intensify the hatred and sense of injustice felt by the next generation of Palestinian kids.

Dismissing people's reaction to a singular event by invoking the incredible complexity of the whole situation is a pretty lazy way to score points in a thread like this.
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The hatred that already exists is backed by 5000 years of conflict between the two groups. Making such a big deal of the destroying of classrooms is lazy and making claims that it is a sure fire way to pass on the hatred and injustice is naive.

Destroyed classrooms, non destroyed classrooms the problems that exist between the two parties run so deep and have so much history there simply is not and most probably never will be a solution. Hell this chapter would barely rate a mention.

I am not trying to score points. The incredible complexities of the situation cannot be ignored when discussing the Middle East because it is incredibly complex. There is no black and white here, no morality on either side of the conflict. History matters there, blood runs deep, memories are long.

I know you have a very strong sense of social justice, I very much enjoy your posts on the recent nazi/communism debate and other thoughts on Australian politics etc. but had to speak up on the Middle East. Even mentioning it had me triggered.

It may sound like I'm throwing it in the too hard ignore basket but really I'm throwing it in the too much information we are but too small minds basket.
 
I am not trying to 'solve' the problem but I do see it a bit differently...

When I hear 'occupied' I think of the Arabs occupying land conquered that belonged to the Jews before that.
When I hear 'Palestinian homeland' I think of the half of Israel's initial grant that was split off to form just that - ie Jordan
When I hear about 'the horrors inflicted on the poor Palestinians' I think of all the horrors they have inflicted on others and have no sympathy for them.

In terms of the conflict I remember the old saying, "If the Arabs lay down their arms tomorrow there would be peace, if the Israelis lay down their arms tomorrow there would be no Israel"

The 'Palestinians' left their homes despite the pleas of the Israelis to stay in the expectation that the Arabs would crush the Jews. They failed. Then the rest of the Arab states refused to take them in and left them as a permanent refugee population. The people we refer to as the Palestinians I feel for ... I have little time for the rulers of Jordan, Egypt, Syria etc who created them and the guys who run Hamas and the PLO etc who have been using them as ammunition for their power plays for decades.

None of that is relevant to today since that is how it is now and we/they have to deal with it but when people talk about angelic Palestinians vs evil Israeli monsters I know they have agendas to push or are ignorant of historical realities or just live in an unreal binary world and have labelled their preferred side accordingly.

The tell? When the same action is done by two different parties and one is praised and the other is condemned then you know their is bias at play.
 
Viceregal said:
I am not trying to 'solve' the problem but I do see it a bit differently...

When I hear 'occupied' I think of the Arabs occupying land conquered that belonged to the Jews before that.
When I hear 'Palestinian homeland' I think of the half of Israel's initial grant that was split off to form just that - ie Jordan
When I hear about 'the horrors inflicted on the poor Palestinians' I think of all the horrors they have inflicted on others and have no sympathy for them.

In terms of the conflict I remember the old saying, "If the Arabs lay down their arms tomorrow there would be peace, if the Israelis lay down their arms tomorrow there would be no Israel"

The 'Palestinians' left their homes despite the pleas of the Israelis to stay in the expectation that the Arabs would crush the Jews. They failed. Then the rest of the Arab states refused to take them in and left them as a permanent refugee population. The people we refer to as the Palestinians I feel for ... I have little time for the rulers of Jordan, Egypt, Syria etc who created them and the guys who run Hamas and the PLO etc who have been using them as ammunition for their power plays for decades.

None of that is relevant to today since that is how it is now and we/they have to deal with it but when people talk about angelic Palestinians vs evil Israeli monsters I know they have agendas to push or are ignorant of historical realities or just live in an unreal binary world and have labelled their preferred side accordingly.

The tell? When the same action is done by two different parties and one is praised and the other is condemned then you know their is bias at play.
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A bit rich to claim bias of others after that retelling of history.
 

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ZoBlitz said:
A bit rich to claim bias of others after that retelling of history.
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Including the modern history of this thread.

I'm wondering where are all these people supposedly talking about "angelic Palestians" and "evil Israeli monsters".

Dead set Vice, you take such an extremist oppositional view that you insist on putting ridiculous words in the mouths of people before you argue with them... then you complain about bias?

You've got everyone pegged as viciously anti-Israel based on what?

There seem to be a lot of people with an interest in trying to create a false equivalency between sympathy for Palestinian people and anti-Semitism.
 
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TheBrownDog said:
Including the modern history of this thread.

I'm wondering where are all these people supposedly talking about "angelic Palestians" and "evil Israeli monsters".

Dead set Vice, you take such an extremist oppositional view that you insist on putting ridiculous words in the mouths of people before you argue with them... then you complain about bias?

You've got everyone pegged as viciously anti-Israel based on what?

There seem to be a lot of people with an interest in trying to create a false equivalency between sympathy for Palestinian people and anti-Semitism.
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I don't know if you noted the lack of quotes at the top of my post - this was because I was giving my general thoughts on the Israeli/Palestinian/Middle East situation *not* responding to specific points made in the 'modern history of this thread'

If you want to take a general comment about my reaction to when people act a certain way and apply it specifically to this thread and then bounce me for not being specific to this thread go for it but not sure why you would claim it is cut to fit???

Speaking of oppositional ... I didn't 'complain' about bias - or even suggest that I myself was immune to bias ... I simply pointed out a situation where bias was obvious to me. If you want to debate that the scenario I gave would not be biased or debate the validity of the scenario I gave again go for it but please wait for me to complain before you bounce me for complaining!

Btw - I do not know anyone who uses the terms "angelic Palestinians" or "evil Israeli monsters" I was indulging in hyperbole (and yes maybe I should have put it is quotes or something as an indicator but not sure that would have helped) - there are people who automatically assume that anything that Israel does is good and others that anything that anyone representing the 'Palestinians' does is good and vice versa ... normally based on what they already perceive as the 'good guys' in the situation rather than on specific actions taken. I can understand people who believe that the land inherently belongs to the Palestinians and that the Israelis are squatters and invaders consider them to be freedom fighters/members of the resistance and whatever it takes it fine and hell the other guys deserve it ... and I can understand people who believe that the land inherently belongs to the Israelis and the Palestinians are rebels and terrorists and they deserve whatever the Israelis try to do to stop them. I personally disagree with Hamas et al but I can see why they do what they do even while finding many of their action just like I can see why the Islamists do what they do. Where I find it difficult is when people who aren't in either group look at say building houses on disputed land and say it is good when done by Palestinians and provocative/bad when done by Israelis and when the houses are destroyed it is good when done by Palestinians and bad when done by the Israelis while smiling and claiming to be un-biased.

Sympathy for the Palestinian people (which I have already indicated I possess) is indeed not an equivalence to being anti-Israel (can't use the anti-Semitism description you gave as technically both the Arabs and the Jews are Semites). Sympathy for Hamas or the PLO however *is* an equivalence to being anti-Israel as both organisations are designed around the destruction of said country.
 
ZoBlitz said:
A bit rich to claim bias of others after that retelling of history.
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I am assuming by 'retelling' you are indicating that you feel that the way I presented it was biased yes?

Quick question - are you suggesting that what I typed ref history was incorrect or that what I typed was correct but only covered it from the Israeli perspective?
 
Viceregal said:
I am assuming by 'retelling' you are indicating that you feel that the way I presented it was biased yes?
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Of course.

Quick question - are you suggesting that what I typed ref history was incorrect or that what I typed was correct but only covered it from the Israeli perspective?
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It's incorrect and it did only cover a Israeli perspective, in particular one that justifies current Israeli status quo that involves war crimes and the slow death of the Palestinian people.

When you say "Arabs occupying land conquered that belonged to the Jews before that" you do realise that the Assyrians (not Arab), Babylonians (not Arab), Persians (not Arab), Macedonians (not Arab), Romans (not Arab) and Byzantines (not Arab) all ruled/fought/made vassals of the Jewish tribes in Palestine before the area was conquered by Arab Muslims in the 7th Century? And then you have the various Turkish dynasties taking control of the area, eventually resulting in the Ottoman Turks ruling Palestine for almost four hundred years. Guess what, they weren't Arab either.

And then the British ruled Palestine as a mandate for twenty plus years after the First World War.

I'm not quite sure why the Palestinians should have accepted the arbitrary British decision to Trans-Jordan as a "Palestinian homeland" considering the 1922 census of Palestine (not including Trans-Jordan) indicated there were 590 000 Muslims living in the area compared with 83 000 Jews, which was around the time that the British "split" their mandate of Palestine into Palestine and Trans-Jordan. Not that they could have accepted Trans-Jordan as a homeland as that was never how it came about - the administration of Trans-Jordan was never Palestinian and the Hashemite were more interested in using a possible future Palestinian state in Israel as a way to extend their territory. And by 1938 the British were talking about dividing up Palestine into two states anyway so Trans-Jordan wasn't really considered a "solution" in the way you're talking about it.

I love that quote you use because it basically justifies nothing ever changing and it's funny because when Palestinian groups do work to curb terrorism (when Hamas cracked down on rocket attacks being launched against Israel for several years a little while back), it doesn't stop Israel continuing to build in the occupied areas or continue all the apartheid-style policies that they've been doing for decades. And then some terrorist event happens and Israel bombs Gaza or the West Bank into oblivion. Or Israel just flattens some Palestinian schools into a day before school starts just because. There's currently no reason for Palestinian groups to work together with Israel because in the end it means choosing between a slow death or a quicker one. Israel, as it currently stands, will never allow a Palestinian state to occur that has any of the power or agency to do anything against Israel in any case so it's a fairly pointless quote in any case. Israel can keep on doing what they are doing while the US continues to fund them and provide protection from international responses to their actions.

The Nakba (the Palestinian exodus of 1948) is a more complicated issue than you're making out. Palestinians were expelled by Jewish forces by many cases. It seems likely that the early Israeli governments made a strong attempt to influence public opinion and strength their position by claiming that the Palestinians left voluntary (ie., if they left voluntarily, why should they be allowed to return?). There does seem to be a case in Haifa when the Jewish leadership tried to get the Palestinians to stay but with no effect but there doesn't seem to be any other confirmed cases of this. To conflate that incident to reflect the whole of Palestine is pretty disingenuous.

Probably one of the few points that I agree with you is that the Palestinians have been used as a pawn by Israel and other Arab states through their history where in fact they deserve to have their own state and not be slowly pushed out of the remaining parcels of land that they are currently allowed to "live" in.

But anyway, that's way too much time spent on a Friday night posting about the intricacies of the Israeli-Palestinian problem.

TheBrownDog said:
I think ZoBlitz is a history PhD. This could get good!
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A never-ending Masters student unfortunately. One day I'll finish :(
 
It can be done. I did my Masters in History by thesis at Melbourne Uni while working full time as a secondary school teacher in Warrnambool. It was also a pre-internet world. Research component was completed during school holidays, with various trips to Australian Archives in Canberra and Melbourne during the first year and then the piece was written during school holidays in the second. Never worked so hard, but never been happier. You will get there ZoBlitz, I'm sure. Good luck :thumbsu:
 
Billy Puller said:
I got a PHD in smoking bongs will completing my masters in tequila shots whilst attempting a bachelor of talking to women.

Still yet to complete that bachelor degree.
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I think you will find 'talking to women' is a fairly useless stat - the 'talking to women to advantage' (supported by the needed 1%ers of course) one is lot more useful! ;)
 
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