Politics
- Thread starter Eric Newhill
- Start date
In politics you can only choose among people who are available.
I think a lot of working people - here and in the US - are fed up of politicians with slick well rounded sentences dragging us into wars. Think of the Labour leader Tony Blair, who eloquently explained why we had to go to war in Iraq again, and then made no provision even to put a decent government in power after Saddam had gone. Yes he talked nicely, but he should be facing a war crimes tribunal in the Hague. Then you have David Cameron, who did the same in Libya - both in conjunction with the US of course. He too should be in the Hague.
I dare say everyone here speaks well with decent grammar, but you need to realise why so many don't trust that sort of language any more.
David
I think a lot of working people - here and in the US - are fed up of politicians with slick well rounded sentences dragging us into wars. Think of the Labour leader Tony Blair, who eloquently explained why we had to go to war in Iraq again, and then made no provision even to put a decent government in power after Saddam had gone. Yes he talked nicely, but he should be facing a war crimes tribunal in the Hague. Then you have David Cameron, who did the same in Libya - both in conjunction with the US of course. He too should be in the Hague.
I dare say everyone here speaks well with decent grammar, but you need to realise why so many don't trust that sort of language any more.
David
Hamas, it seems to me, is an extreme reaction to an extreme aggression: an attempt by Zionists to strip from Palestinians their land. Sometimes, if somebody attacks you from an extreme position, you respond from an extreme position. It's not complicated. Nor is it complicated that the Zionists are the extreme aggressors.
Why would Hamas settle for less? Because they have no choice. They are mere minnows relative to the might of the Zionists.
As the speaker in the video pointed out, the single-state solution is really the only viable one. Once both Israelis and Palestinians have equal rights in a truly democratic state, tensions will ease, and the (slow) progress towards true equity in all forms would manifest, as it has [edit: I mean the slow march of progress, not the eventual outcome of equity in all forms] in South Africa.
Why would Hamas settle for less? Because they have no choice. They are mere minnows relative to the might of the Zionists.
As the speaker in the video pointed out, the single-state solution is really the only viable one. Once both Israelis and Palestinians have equal rights in a truly democratic state, tensions will ease, and the (slow) progress towards true equity in all forms would manifest, as it has [edit: I mean the slow march of progress, not the eventual outcome of equity in all forms] in South Africa.
I think there is sometimes a peculiar human reaction to war. In a full war, everyone accepts that huge numbers of people will die and more will be injured. However, when a war is prevented by imposing measures at the border that result in a far smaller number of deaths, people are far more outraged.
Nobody has denied that if Israel opened that border, terrorists would come through. Nobody has denied that there would then be attacks within Israel. Nobody has denied that this would almost certainly lead to full scale hostilities.
And yet it is argued that opening that wall is the right thing to do.
Maybe I am coming to appreciate walls!
Even the Berlin wall had the effect of containing what might otherwise have been the start of WW3. Think about it.
David
Nobody has denied that if Israel opened that border, terrorists would come through. Nobody has denied that there would then be attacks within Israel. Nobody has denied that this would almost certainly lead to full scale hostilities.
And yet it is argued that opening that wall is the right thing to do.
Maybe I am coming to appreciate walls!
Even the Berlin wall had the effect of containing what might otherwise have been the start of WW3. Think about it.
David
The biggest problem is, David, is that no wall can stand forever - for the simple reason that it solves nothing, and only further enrages and embitters the people who are being imprisoned behind (as the Palestinians) or torn apart by (as the the Cold-War-era Germans) such a wall. So your hope that the prolonged forceful segregation and disfranchisement of Palestinians would somehow slowly erase their earnest support for Hamas and Hezbollah, if given enough time, is doomed to fail: this support will never wane. This is the lesson that the world's oppressors have to learn once and again, yet they always fail to learn it well: human's will to freedom and dignity is indestructible, and no amount of repression will ever crush it.
So, there is only three possible scenarios:
1) a never-ending continuation of apartheid, and thus constant collective imprisonment and torment of Palestinians - and, thus, of perpetual low-intensity war;
2) a large-scale uprising leading to a full-blown high-intensitiy war, which, due to the horrid amounts of pain and humiliation - and thus also hatred and wrath - accumulated during decades of apartheid and low-intensity warfare, will quite inevitably lead to the extremely atrocious, possibly literally genocidal, treatment of the defeated side;
3) a demolition of wall and start of the reunification and reconciliation process, that inevitably will be very long and hard, will require a immence effort and goodwill of both sides, and will be inevitably accompanied with, and thwarted by, a notable amount of violent incidents and war propaganda from both sides of the process.
You seem to desire the first scenario, David - yet, aside from being an effective approval of everyday dehumanisation and torture of the whole nation of people, will, sooner or later, lead to the scenario 2. In Russia, there is a relevant saying, "Лучше ужасный конец, чем ужас без конца" ("The horrible end is better than a horror without end"), and people as badly tormented as Palestinians can understand it by their own ugly experience (that's why all these suicide bombings, David - not because the Palestinians are malicious fanatical Antisemites, as Israeli propaganda tries to paint them).
So, the scenario 3 is simply the only real way forward (well, unless one wishes for one side of the conflict to be simply slaughtered to the last person - which, I hope, none of us wish!). As I said already, this won't be quick, easy and painless path, to put it very mildly. It will require the prolonged and dedicated co-working of both sides, and, most importantly, the unwavering determination to proceed further by both of them despite all the obstacles, such as manifestations of violence and hositility that will unavoidably appear once the wall is demolished and the reunification-reconciliation process starts.
So, there is only three possible scenarios:
1) a never-ending continuation of apartheid, and thus constant collective imprisonment and torment of Palestinians - and, thus, of perpetual low-intensity war;
2) a large-scale uprising leading to a full-blown high-intensitiy war, which, due to the horrid amounts of pain and humiliation - and thus also hatred and wrath - accumulated during decades of apartheid and low-intensity warfare, will quite inevitably lead to the extremely atrocious, possibly literally genocidal, treatment of the defeated side;
3) a demolition of wall and start of the reunification and reconciliation process, that inevitably will be very long and hard, will require a immence effort and goodwill of both sides, and will be inevitably accompanied with, and thwarted by, a notable amount of violent incidents and war propaganda from both sides of the process.
You seem to desire the first scenario, David - yet, aside from being an effective approval of everyday dehumanisation and torture of the whole nation of people, will, sooner or later, lead to the scenario 2. In Russia, there is a relevant saying, "Лучше ужасный конец, чем ужас без конца" ("The horrible end is better than a horror without end"), and people as badly tormented as Palestinians can understand it by their own ugly experience (that's why all these suicide bombings, David - not because the Palestinians are malicious fanatical Antisemites, as Israeli propaganda tries to paint them).
So, the scenario 3 is simply the only real way forward (well, unless one wishes for one side of the conflict to be simply slaughtered to the last person - which, I hope, none of us wish!). As I said already, this won't be quick, easy and painless path, to put it very mildly. It will require the prolonged and dedicated co-working of both sides, and, most importantly, the unwavering determination to proceed further by both of them despite all the obstacles, such as manifestations of violence and hositility that will unavoidably appear once the wall is demolished and the reunification-reconciliation process starts.
Last edited:
I don't think that analysis is quite fair. The Cold War did end without serious bloodshed, and maybe it would not if troops of both sides had confronted each other in Berlin back in the 1950s.
You seem to almost support Hamas, and I think that is very naive. We saw in Syria how small bands of ruthless terrorists could control whole populations. We don't really know what the average man in the street thinks about Hamas - saying anything against them to foreign media would almost certainly be fatal.
Nobody can look an infinite amount of time ahead, gaining time for the hatred to cool, is probably the best strategy. Apartheid ended with the whites effectively conceding their country to the Blacks - are you suggesting Israel should do the same?
David
You seem to almost support Hamas, and I think that is very naive. We saw in Syria how small bands of ruthless terrorists could control whole populations. We don't really know what the average man in the street thinks about Hamas - saying anything against them to foreign media would almost certainly be fatal.
Nobody can look an infinite amount of time ahead, gaining time for the hatred to cool, is probably the best strategy. Apartheid ended with the whites effectively conceding their country to the Blacks - are you suggesting Israel should do the same?
David
Well, except all these Third World people who died and suffered in the countless proxy wars, regime changes and invasions that were widely practiced both by the USA and the USSR during the Cold War period. But, since all this violence was largely moved outside of the "civilised" regions and mostly involved the Third World "savages" rather than "civilised people" (unlike the previous two World Wars), it was much easier to look away.
The big diffrence between the Hamas and Hezbollah, on one hand, and the ISIS, Al Qaeda and all their fundamentalist ilk, on the other, is that the former try to defend themselves and their people from the aggression and oppression, while the latter attempt either to enforce their faith on everyone else, or to eliminate them if they refuse to accept it. Can't you see the moral diffrence between the defensive violence of the former and the aggressive violence of the latter?
Well, time does heal (even if slowly), and hatred may gradually cool in time... but only if it is not fed and reignited, once and again. And the hatred of Palestinians is being fed and renewed each and every day of their lives - by the cruel acts of the Israelis, and the oppressive treatment to which they are subjected by them. So it won't cool, it will only intensify, that's the problem.
The big diffrence between the Hamas and Hezbollah, on one hand, and the ISIS, Al Qaeda and all their fundamentalist ilk, on the other, is that the former try to defend themselves and their people from the aggression and oppression, while the latter attempt either to enforce their faith on everyone else, or to eliminate them if they refuse to accept it. Can't you see the moral diffrence between the defensive violence of the former and the aggressive violence of the latter?
Well, time does heal (even if slowly), and hatred may gradually cool in time... but only if it is not fed and reignited, once and again. And the hatred of Palestinians is being fed and renewed each and every day of their lives - by the cruel acts of the Israelis, and the oppressive treatment to which they are subjected by them. So it won't cool, it will only intensify, that's the problem.
Last edited:
That is very true, but I was referring to the end of the cold war. I suspect all those wars probably killed lees people than a major US-USSR conflagration would have done. Also, I suspect that whenever the cold war had ended, the NeoCons in the US would have looked for an excuse for more trouble - don't you?
I suspect there may be a fair amount of enforcement from Hamas on 'its' people. Yasser Arafat was said to be more willing to talk than Hamas.
Are you actually saying that a major conflagration would generate less hatred than what is going on now? I am not sure, Hamas may need to use a fair bit of coercion to get 'its' people to go to the wall and risk death. The people may be a building resentment against Hamas with a policy that is giving them nothing.
David
I suspect there may be a fair amount of enforcement from Hamas on 'its' people. Yasser Arafat was said to be more willing to talk than Hamas.
Are you actually saying that a major conflagration would generate less hatred than what is going on now? I am not sure, Hamas may need to use a fair bit of coercion to get 'its' people to go to the wall and risk death. The people may be a building resentment against Hamas with a policy that is giving them nothing.
David
I'll drop it after this since you refuse to acknowledge any alternative perspective on Trump.
I'll simply say that it appears you have chosen to reside in an echo chamber; ignoring and dismissing all criticisms. If you think its Trump's grammar that is the primary concern (and he certainly is grammatically challenged), you're not listening nor being honest with yourself.
I'll simply say that it appears you have chosen to reside in an echo chamber; ignoring and dismissing all criticisms. If you think its Trump's grammar that is the primary concern (and he certainly is grammatically challenged), you're not listening nor being honest with yourself.