Originally posted by: AznAnarchy99
Originally posted by: Aisengard
Originally posted by: GrGr
Originally posted by: peachee
Originally posted by: Sudheer Anne
Of course, Israel's actions will no doubt only intensify the conflict and bring Muslim sympathy towards Hizbollah. So really is there anything Israel can do at this point? Seems to me like they are damned no matter what course of action they take.
The politicians of israel will always advocate military offense. This is a given as it wins more votes from their citizens. The result of constant military offense is constant war, not peace.
What WE (U.S. government) can do is stop supporting them with free $6 billion/year funding for Israel's war machine. When Israel realizes that they won't get free funding and free weapons, they will have to work things out with their own resources.
Of course, Israel loyalists, will disagree but then again, they are loyal to Israel no matter what Israel does so what can you expect.
Who are the real terrorists in the Middle East?
What exactly is being defended? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state?
By Oren Ben-Dor
07/26/07 "The Independent" -- -- As its citizens are being killed, Israel is, yet again, inflicting death and destruction on Lebanon. It tries to portray this horror as necessary for its self-defence. Indeed, the casual observer might regard the rocket attacks on Israeli cities such as Haifa and my own home town, Nahariya, as justifying this claim.
While states should defend their citizens, states which fail this duty should be questioned and, if necessary, reconfigured. Israel is a state which, instead of defending its citizens, puts all of them, Jews as well as non-Jews, in danger.
What exactly is being defended by the violence in Gaza and Lebanon? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state? I suggest the latter. Israel's statehood is based on an unjust ideology which causes indignity and suffering for those who are classified as non-Jewish by either a religious or ethnic test. To hide this primordial immorality, Israel fosters an image of victimhood. Provoking violence, consciously or unconsciously, against which one must defend oneself is a key feature of the victim-mentality. By perpetuating such a tragic cycle, Israel is a terrorist state like no other.
Many who wish to hide the immorality of the Israeli state do so by restricting attention to the horrors of the post-1967 occupation and talking about a two-state solution, since endorsing a Palestinian state implicitly endorses the ideology behind a Jewish one.
The very creation of Israel required an act of terror. In 1948, most of the non-Jewish indigenous people were ethnically cleansed from the part of Palestine which became Israel. This action was carefully planned. Without it, no state with a Jewish majority and character would have been possible. Since 1948, the "Israeli Arabs", those Palestinians who avoided expulsion, have suffered continuous discrimination. Indeed, many have been internally displaced, ostensibly for "security reasons", but really to acquire their lands for Jews.
Surely Holocaust memory and Jewish longing for Eretz Israel would not be sufficient to justify ethnic cleansing and ethnocracy? To avoid the destabilisation that would result from ethical inquiry, the Israeli state must hide the core problem, by nourishing a victim mentality among Israeli Jews.
To sustain that mentality and to preserve an impression of victimhood among outsiders, Israel must breed conditions for violence. Whenever prospects of violence against it subside, Israel must do its utmost to regenerate them: the myth that it is a peace-seeking victim which has "no partner for peace" is a key panel in the screen with which Israel hides its primordial and continuing immorality
Israel's successful campaign to silence criticism of its initial and continuing dispossession of the indigenous Palestinians leaves the latter no option but to resort to violent resistance. In the wake of electing Hamas - the only party which, in the eyes of Palestinians, has not yet given up their cause - the Palestinian population of Gaza and the West Bank were subjected to an Israeli campaign of starvation, humiliation and violence.
The insincere "withdrawal" from Gaza, and the subsequent blockade, ensured a chronicle of violence which, so far, includes Palestinian firing of Kasem rockets, the capture of an Israeli soldier and the Israeli near re-occupation of Gaza. What we witness is more hatred, more violence from Palestinians, more humiliation and collective punishments from Israelis - all useful reinforcement for the Israeli victim mentality and for the sacred cow status of Israeli statehood.
The truth is that there never could have been a partition of Palestine by ethically acceptable means. Israel was created through terror and it needs terror to cover-up its core immorality. Whenever there is a glimmer of stability, the state orders a targeted assassination, such as that in Sidon which preceded the current Lebanon crisis, knowing well that this brings not security but more violence. Israel's unilateralism and the cycle of violence nourish one another.
Amidst the violence and despite the conventional discourse which hides the root of this violence, actuality calls upon us to think. The more we silence its voice, the more violently actuality is sure to speak.
In Hebrew, the word elem (a stunned silence resulting from oppression or shock) is etymologically linked to the word almut (violence). Silence about the immoral core of Israeli statehood makes us all complicit in breeding the terrorism that threatens a catastrophe which could tear the world apart.
link
***********************
The more I think on it the less I support a two state solution. Let Israel be one democratic nation for all peoples and religions. I think that is the only option for a lasting peace in the region.
Israel is the most democratic country in the Middle East by far. By FAR.
Why should we be forcing democracy in countries that have survived and prospered for centuries? We tried forcing democracy in many countries during the Cold War and you see how well that turned out. We took out governments and put in people to control thinking we can control them.
Originally posted by: Aisengard
Originally posted by: AznAnarchy99
Originally posted by: Aisengard
Originally posted by: GrGr
Originally posted by: peachee
Originally posted by: Sudheer Anne
Of course, Israel's actions will no doubt only intensify the conflict and bring Muslim sympathy towards Hizbollah. So really is there anything Israel can do at this point? Seems to me like they are damned no matter what course of action they take.
The politicians of israel will always advocate military offense. This is a given as it wins more votes from their citizens. The result of constant military offense is constant war, not peace.
What WE (U.S. government) can do is stop supporting them with free $6 billion/year funding for Israel's war machine. When Israel realizes that they won't get free funding and free weapons, they will have to work things out with their own resources.
Of course, Israel loyalists, will disagree but then again, they are loyal to Israel no matter what Israel does so what can you expect.
Who are the real terrorists in the Middle East?
What exactly is being defended? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state?
By Oren Ben-Dor
07/26/07 "The Independent" -- -- As its citizens are being killed, Israel is, yet again, inflicting death and destruction on Lebanon. It tries to portray this horror as necessary for its self-defence. Indeed, the casual observer might regard the rocket attacks on Israeli cities such as Haifa and my own home town, Nahariya, as justifying this claim.
While states should defend their citizens, states which fail this duty should be questioned and, if necessary, reconfigured. Israel is a state which, instead of defending its citizens, puts all of them, Jews as well as non-Jews, in danger.
What exactly is being defended by the violence in Gaza and Lebanon? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state? I suggest the latter. Israel's statehood is based on an unjust ideology which causes indignity and suffering for those who are classified as non-Jewish by either a religious or ethnic test. To hide this primordial immorality, Israel fosters an image of victimhood. Provoking violence, consciously or unconsciously, against which one must defend oneself is a key feature of the victim-mentality. By perpetuating such a tragic cycle, Israel is a terrorist state like no other.
Many who wish to hide the immorality of the Israeli state do so by restricting attention to the horrors of the post-1967 occupation and talking about a two-state solution, since endorsing a Palestinian state implicitly endorses the ideology behind a Jewish one.
The very creation of Israel required an act of terror. In 1948, most of the non-Jewish indigenous people were ethnically cleansed from the part of Palestine which became Israel. This action was carefully planned. Without it, no state with a Jewish majority and character would have been possible. Since 1948, the "Israeli Arabs", those Palestinians who avoided expulsion, have suffered continuous discrimination. Indeed, many have been internally displaced, ostensibly for "security reasons", but really to acquire their lands for Jews.
Surely Holocaust memory and Jewish longing for Eretz Israel would not be sufficient to justify ethnic cleansing and ethnocracy? To avoid the destabilisation that would result from ethical inquiry, the Israeli state must hide the core problem, by nourishing a victim mentality among Israeli Jews.
To sustain that mentality and to preserve an impression of victimhood among outsiders, Israel must breed conditions for violence. Whenever prospects of violence against it subside, Israel must do its utmost to regenerate them: the myth that it is a peace-seeking victim which has "no partner for peace" is a key panel in the screen with which Israel hides its primordial and continuing immorality
Israel's successful campaign to silence criticism of its initial and continuing dispossession of the indigenous Palestinians leaves the latter no option but to resort to violent resistance. In the wake of electing Hamas - the only party which, in the eyes of Palestinians, has not yet given up their cause - the Palestinian population of Gaza and the West Bank were subjected to an Israeli campaign of starvation, humiliation and violence.
The insincere "withdrawal" from Gaza, and the subsequent blockade, ensured a chronicle of violence which, so far, includes Palestinian firing of Kasem rockets, the capture of an Israeli soldier and the Israeli near re-occupation of Gaza. What we witness is more hatred, more violence from Palestinians, more humiliation and collective punishments from Israelis - all useful reinforcement for the Israeli victim mentality and for the sacred cow status of Israeli statehood.
The truth is that there never could have been a partition of Palestine by ethically acceptable means. Israel was created through terror and it needs terror to cover-up its core immorality. Whenever there is a glimmer of stability, the state orders a targeted assassination, such as that in Sidon which preceded the current Lebanon crisis, knowing well that this brings not security but more violence. Israel's unilateralism and the cycle of violence nourish one another.
Amidst the violence and despite the conventional discourse which hides the root of this violence, actuality calls upon us to think. The more we silence its voice, the more violently actuality is sure to speak.
In Hebrew, the word elem (a stunned silence resulting from oppression or shock) is etymologically linked to the word almut (violence). Silence about the immoral core of Israeli statehood makes us all complicit in breeding the terrorism that threatens a catastrophe which could tear the world apart.
link
***********************
The more I think on it the less I support a two state solution. Let Israel be one democratic nation for all peoples and religions. I think that is the only option for a lasting peace in the region.
Israel is the most democratic country in the Middle East by far. By FAR.
Why should we be forcing democracy in countries that have survived and prospered for centuries? We tried forcing democracy in many countries during the Cold War and you see how well that turned out. We took out governments and put in people to control thinking we can control them.
Supporting of the squelching of human right FTL.
The Middle East, and only the people at the top, have 'prospered' for one reason and one reason only: OIL. The big O-I-L. You think Iran is the pinnacle of Muslim society? You think Lebanon is a paradise?
WTFU. People suffer in these countries because their leaders, their divine right, corrupted unfairly elected leaders say it is their lot to do so. The more poor suffering people there are in these Arab nations, the more people there are to hate Israel.
It is telling when most educated and well-off Arabs in these countries have no hatred for Israel or its people. It is the uneducated and easliy led that hate Israel, and while their 'leaders' invest all their oil money in suicide bombers and rockets, they tell their suffering civilians that it is Israel's fault they are suffering.
What a crock of sh!t, and the people outside that world that willingly drink it continue to amaze me.
Originally posted by: The Green Bean
Originally posted by: Aisengard
Originally posted by: AznAnarchy99
Originally posted by: Aisengard
Originally posted by: GrGr
Originally posted by: peachee
Originally posted by: Sudheer Anne
Of course, Israel's actions will no doubt only intensify the conflict and bring Muslim sympathy towards Hizbollah. So really is there anything Israel can do at this point? Seems to me like they are damned no matter what course of action they take.
The politicians of israel will always advocate military offense. This is a given as it wins more votes from their citizens. The result of constant military offense is constant war, not peace.
What WE (U.S. government) can do is stop supporting them with free $6 billion/year funding for Israel's war machine. When Israel realizes that they won't get free funding and free weapons, they will have to work things out with their own resources.
Of course, Israel loyalists, will disagree but then again, they are loyal to Israel no matter what Israel does so what can you expect.
Who are the real terrorists in the Middle East?
What exactly is being defended? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state?
By Oren Ben-Dor
07/26/07 "The Independent" -- -- As its citizens are being killed, Israel is, yet again, inflicting death and destruction on Lebanon. It tries to portray this horror as necessary for its self-defence. Indeed, the casual observer might regard the rocket attacks on Israeli cities such as Haifa and my own home town, Nahariya, as justifying this claim.
While states should defend their citizens, states which fail this duty should be questioned and, if necessary, reconfigured. Israel is a state which, instead of defending its citizens, puts all of them, Jews as well as non-Jews, in danger.
What exactly is being defended by the violence in Gaza and Lebanon? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state? I suggest the latter. Israel's statehood is based on an unjust ideology which causes indignity and suffering for those who are classified as non-Jewish by either a religious or ethnic test. To hide this primordial immorality, Israel fosters an image of victimhood. Provoking violence, consciously or unconsciously, against which one must defend oneself is a key feature of the victim-mentality. By perpetuating such a tragic cycle, Israel is a terrorist state like no other.
Many who wish to hide the immorality of the Israeli state do so by restricting attention to the horrors of the post-1967 occupation and talking about a two-state solution, since endorsing a Palestinian state implicitly endorses the ideology behind a Jewish one.
The very creation of Israel required an act of terror. In 1948, most of the non-Jewish indigenous people were ethnically cleansed from the part of Palestine which became Israel. This action was carefully planned. Without it, no state with a Jewish majority and character would have been possible. Since 1948, the "Israeli Arabs", those Palestinians who avoided expulsion, have suffered continuous discrimination. Indeed, many have been internally displaced, ostensibly for "security reasons", but really to acquire their lands for Jews.
Surely Holocaust memory and Jewish longing for Eretz Israel would not be sufficient to justify ethnic cleansing and ethnocracy? To avoid the destabilisation that would result from ethical inquiry, the Israeli state must hide the core problem, by nourishing a victim mentality among Israeli Jews.
To sustain that mentality and to preserve an impression of victimhood among outsiders, Israel must breed conditions for violence. Whenever prospects of violence against it subside, Israel must do its utmost to regenerate them: the myth that it is a peace-seeking victim which has "no partner for peace" is a key panel in the screen with which Israel hides its primordial and continuing immorality
Israel's successful campaign to silence criticism of its initial and continuing dispossession of the indigenous Palestinians leaves the latter no option but to resort to violent resistance. In the wake of electing Hamas - the only party which, in the eyes of Palestinians, has not yet given up their cause - the Palestinian population of Gaza and the West Bank were subjected to an Israeli campaign of starvation, humiliation and violence.
The insincere "withdrawal" from Gaza, and the subsequent blockade, ensured a chronicle of violence which, so far, includes Palestinian firing of Kasem rockets, the capture of an Israeli soldier and the Israeli near re-occupation of Gaza. What we witness is more hatred, more violence from Palestinians, more humiliation and collective punishments from Israelis - all useful reinforcement for the Israeli victim mentality and for the sacred cow status of Israeli statehood.
The truth is that there never could have been a partition of Palestine by ethically acceptable means. Israel was created through terror and it needs terror to cover-up its core immorality. Whenever there is a glimmer of stability, the state orders a targeted assassination, such as that in Sidon which preceded the current Lebanon crisis, knowing well that this brings not security but more violence. Israel's unilateralism and the cycle of violence nourish one another.
Amidst the violence and despite the conventional discourse which hides the root of this violence, actuality calls upon us to think. The more we silence its voice, the more violently actuality is sure to speak.
In Hebrew, the word elem (a stunned silence resulting from oppression or shock) is etymologically linked to the word almut (violence). Silence about the immoral core of Israeli statehood makes us all complicit in breeding the terrorism that threatens a catastrophe which could tear the world apart.
link
***********************
The more I think on it the less I support a two state solution. Let Israel be one democratic nation for all peoples and religions. I think that is the only option for a lasting peace in the region.
Israel is the most democratic country in the Middle East by far. By FAR.
Why should we be forcing democracy in countries that have survived and prospered for centuries? We tried forcing democracy in many countries during the Cold War and you see how well that turned out. We took out governments and put in people to control thinking we can control them.
Supporting of the squelching of human right FTL.
The Middle East, and only the people at the top, have 'prospered' for one reason and one reason only: OIL. The big O-I-L. You think Iran is the pinnacle of Muslim society? You think Lebanon is a paradise?
WTFU. People suffer in these countries because their leaders, their divine right, corrupted unfairly elected leaders say it is their lot to do so. The more poor suffering people there are in these Arab nations, the more people there are to hate Israel.
It is telling when most educated and well-off Arabs in these countries have no hatred for Israel or its people. It is the uneducated and easliy led that hate Israel, and while their 'leaders' invest all their oil money in suicide bombers and rockets, they tell their suffering civilians that it is Israel's fault they are suffering.
What a crock of sh!t, and the people outside that world that willingly drink it continue to amaze me.
You mean the Afghanistan and Iraq that are two of the very few muslis democracies are pinnacles of muslim society? The people of Iraq suffer because of American war mongering and illegal invasions. No civilized person would support American or Israeli terrorism in Iraq and Lebanon.