Hamas attacking Israel

[Bob Long]

4 hours ago, Canuckle said:

 

Puts me on ignore and then still tries to throw insults from the sidelines AAAHAHAHAHAHHAHA.

 

Living rent free baaaaaby!!!

 

 

I think this says what we need to know about your mindset. 

[Canuck Surfer]

 

[moosehead]

1 hour ago, Boudrias said:

Israel is faced with harsh realities that leave few options. Geopolitical reality is that Israel cannot truly trust any of the neighbors. None. Israel cannot really trust most countries in the world. History for the Jewish people is absolutely brutal. That history produced the German death camps and convinced the world that a Jewish homeland was absolutely needed. Israel was created by the world. A deal was offered to Palestinians and they declined and they along with Egypt, Jordan and Syria tried to destroy a fledgling Israel. Arab treatment of Jews is well known. 

 

Saudi Arabia is convening a Arab summit today and Iran is included. IMHO I don't think any of these countries give two hoots about the fate of Palestinians on the West Bank or Gaza. Palestinians have been used as pawns in ME politics for decades. They will continue to be. Israel has pretty much a blank check on dealing with Hamas. Innocent Palestinians will die in the process. That will be accepted.

 

Geopolitical reality is that Israel has nukes and can deliver them. Sunni Arabs are faced with Persian Iran having nukes in the near future. Who do the Sunnis distrust more the Iranians or the Israelis? Jews don't try to convert Muslims to Judaism. Shiites believe Sunnis have corrupted Islam and have fought wars to change Sunni governments in the ME. No trust there at all. Meanwhile the Saudis realize the heyday of oil is ending. Their strategy to evolve from oil dependency is a high tech ME economy with Israel being a part of it. Israel leads in world tech in many fields. 

 

I would be very surprised if Israel ha not told their neighbors that they will use nukes to defend themselves if needed. They know that what happened on Oct. 7th was simply a small scale of what would happen if their borders were breeched. They can never allow Palestinians back into Israel. I am amazed that 2 1/2 million Arabs live inside Israel now. It will take decades of peace for any trust to be developed. Ultimately Israel can never trust Arabs.  

 

I do not share your views.  Humans are inherently good.  People just want peace and if society treats them as equals then of course everyone can live/ work  together respectfully / peacefully. 

[Canuck Surfer]

 

[Canuck Surfer]

 

[Optimist Prime]

19 minutes ago, moosehead said:

 

I do not share your views.  Humans are inherently good.  People just want peace and if society treats them as equals then of course everyone can live/ work  together respectfully / peacefully. 

kind of outside the topic, but interesting none the less. Are we inherently good or inherently evil seems to be the framing? While i don't subscribe to good/evil theories, I think we are getting beyond good and evil finally as a species, and one mans good is another mans evil but i digress.... If we are living in the most peaceful time of our species existence, and evidence points to that with the vast majority of nations in the world living easily and peacefully beside each other: we still have these horrors we are seeing from around the globe. Our most peaceful era as a species is highlighted by atrocities in easily a dozen regions on earth this morning. Granted the information age puts it all on our phones in three minute videos now, which is the major difference between any war that happened in all history and today, this is the least we have been shitty to each other in our entire existence. Are we then still inherently good? Most people will steal if they think the consequence is zero and will not apply to them. The Selfish Gene is real. is that evil? Maybe not to the individual who thrives by realizing his selfish side....just supposing. It is a really neat concept to explore. I still think I am in the 'beyond good and evil' camp. We are skillful exploiters. Good Evil? depends on if you are the exploited or the exploiter. 

[Bob Long]

5 minutes ago, Optimist Prime said:

kind of outside the topic, but interesting none the less. Are we inherently good or inherently evil seems to be the framing? While i don't subscribe to good/evil theories, I think we are getting beyond good and evil finally as a species, and one mans good is another mans evil but i digress.... If we are living in the most peaceful time of our species existence, and evidence points to that with the vast majority of nations in the world living easily and peacefully beside each other: we still have these horrors we are seeing from around the globe. Our most peaceful era as a species is highlighted by atrocities in easily a dozen regions on earth this morning. Granted the information age puts it all on our phones in three minute videos now, which is the major difference between any war that happened in all history and today, this is the least we have been shitty to each other in our entire existence. Are we then still inherently good? Most people will steal if they think the consequence is zero and will not apply to them. The Selfish Gene is real. is that evil? Maybe not to the individual who thrives by realizing his selfish side....just supposing. It is a really neat concept to explore. I still think I am in the 'beyond good and evil' camp. We are skillful exploiters. Good Evil? depends on if you are the exploited or the exploiter. 

 

Culture has a lot to do with it imo. Democracies tend not to go to war with each other, they look for ways to make more money. Is that selfish? Sure maybe but I'd rather fight it out in a marketplace than a war.

 

Much of the hate in the ME is culture based, but there's only one true democracy there. That's the big threat Israel poses to the kingdoms and religion led countries.

[Optimist Prime]

22 minutes ago, Bob Long said:

 

Culture has a lot to do with it imo. Democracies tend not to go to war with each other, they look for ways to make more money. Is that selfish? Sure maybe but I'd rather fight it out in a marketplace than a war.

 

Much of the hate in the ME is culture based, but there's only one true democracy there. That's the big threat Israel poses to the kingdoms and religion led countries.

Yeah, i was trying to not mention religion, even deleted three sentences before hitting send to try to stear clear of it, but you have points for sure. 

One thing I was gonna say and changed my mind, till now, was, "Even religion is based on the selfish gene; control, power and convincing every follower to send you money/goats/virgins is a mighty propellent of fervant lectures from the pulpit." 

 

if i am a goat vendor and my enemy is a pig vender, it would be easy to see how i can use my infuence at the church/synogogue/mosque to declare pigs are unclean and none of my followers should ever eat them, but I have no idea how my goat sales just skyrocketed. 

bah, i am trailing off topic now....boo.

[Bob Long]

2 minutes ago, Optimist Prime said:

Yeah, i was trying to not mention religion, even deleted three sentences before hitting send to try to stear clear of it, but you have points for sure. 

One thing I was gonna say and changed my mind, till now, was, "Even religion is based on the selfish gene; control, power and convincing every follower to send you money/goats/virgins is a mighty propellent of fervant lectures from the pulpit." 

 

its what I find kind of ironic about Chomsky. He blasts Israel for the same things he gives places like Qatar a pass on. 

 

[Alflives]

1 hour ago, moosehead said:

 

I do not share your views.  Humans are inherently good.  People just want peace and if society treats them as equals then of course everyone can live/ work  together respectfully / peacefully. 

The vast majority of us are good. 10-15% (Biden’s suggested number) are not helpful and do harm to the collective good. It seems like Hamas is in that 10-15%. If they don’t do such terrible things on October 7 we don’t have the current war. Although it seems like they were at war with Israel anyway. From their own doctrine it’s like they’re at war with all who don’t believe as they do. 

[Optimist Prime]

1 minute ago, Alflives said:

The vast majority of us are good. 10-15% (Biden’s suggested number) are not helpful and do harm to the collective good. It seems like Hamas is in that 10-15%. If they don’t do such terrible things on October 7 we don’t have the current war. Although it seems like they were at war with Israel anyway. From their own doctrine it’s like they’re at war with all who don’t believe as they do. 

that is what makes them radical extremists and put them on terror group lists around the globe. Just rough math off the top of my head but if Hamas had 50k members of its 'army' and there are roughly 500k fighting age males in Gaza, that means one in ten of the fighting age males in Gaza is a member of a radical extremist terror group. Not even counting those who are sympathetic but not actually armed and outfitted by Hamas. Gaza needed to be rid of Hamas from the moment they popped up there. Sad that the catalyst needed to be the Gazan Army butchering the most sympathetic people to their plight: the kids and young adults at the PEACE festival. 

[Satchmo]

8 hours ago, Canuckle said:

And this cherry picked example is evidence of what? Of course there are outliers sometimes. Like any system.

 

But by and large, peer reviewed studies and published articles are trustworthy and backed by others that have studied the discipline. ie. Peer reviewed. PhDs have to sign off on the bloody things. If they weren't credible the whole of academia would fucking collapse. And that certainly hasn't happened.

 

Yes, I will trust what the experts say in their given disciplines over most anyone on a given subject. And I take my medical advice from my doctor.

 

And when it comes time to discuss coding, I will trust you there as well.

It was merely the example that was fresh in my mind having read it a few hours earlier.  So, an easy cherry to pick.  There are many more examples that could be provided but I am adverse to internet scavenger hunts and will not search for them.  I just know they are there because I keep hearing of them again and again.

 

I have to admit that I just now went as far as typing 'discredited academics' into Google to see how many hits it got.   There were lots.

 

I see your point, yet it seems your eyes are fully closed to mine.   I stand by mine though  - while there is a huge number of well respected PHDs publishing well respected works, far too many are publishing nonsense and earning Ig Nobel Prizes every year.  I'm going to just call that a fact and refuse to be swayed from it.  Call it a faith if you wish, I won't mind. 

 

I do not know for sure where your professor sits in all this but I have my suspicions, at least of bias if not hackery,  and can accept the fact that you have none. 

 

I think I now regret mentioning my past profession.   Your first reactions were quite amusing, but now I worry it will become quite tedious.

 

Should we all list our work histories so we can know who to trust?    Personally, I'm fine with just making that decision based on what is said on these pages. 

 

BTW - I share your belief that medical advice should come from doctors.   Watch out though - there is a dangerous minority of them that are complete idiots.

 

 

[Taxi]

13 hours ago, moosehead said:

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

Article II

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

1. Killing members of the group;
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml

 

Wouldn't Hamas' attack on October 7 also qualify as genocide?

Edited November 8, 2023 by Taxi

[Satchmo]

3 minutes ago, Taxi said:

 

Wasn't Hamas' attack on October 7 also qualify as genocide?

Careful, I don't believe we are allowed to talk of that here...

[Bure_Pavel]

16 hours ago, Bob Long said:

 

I'd argue that's going beyond the scope of the definition. If you are correct, then trying to remove ISIS from Afghanistan was also genocide.

 

No, they haven't. Check the population growth numbers for Gaza and report back. 

The main differences were:

 

1. It was America so its would be spreading freedom not genocide. 

 

2. Gaza strip is a lot easier to completely isolate. 

 

Both are cases of punching a bigger stronger bully and expecting not to get punched back though. Then crying genocide to mom after he does hit you back. 

[Satchmo]

6 minutes ago, Bure_Pavel said:

The main differences were:

 

1. It was America so its would be spreading freedom not genocide. 

 

2. Gaza strip is a lot easier to completely isolate. 

 

Both are cases of punching a bigger stronger bully and expecting not to get punched back though. Then crying genocide to mom after he does hit you back. 

There's that word again....

 

So much of this thread has been devoted to what the word means, who is crying it, and who deserves to.  

[Bob Long]

12 minutes ago, Bure_Pavel said:

The main differences were:

 

1. It was America so its would be spreading freedom not genocide. 

 

2. Gaza strip is a lot easier to completely isolate. 

 

Both are cases of punching a bigger stronger bully and expecting not to get punched back though. Then crying genocide to mom after he does hit you back. 

 

Or just compare this to what the Saudis are doing in Yemen.

[Bure_Pavel]

1 minute ago, Satchmo said:

There's that word again....

 

So much of this thread has been devoted to what the word means, who is crying it, and who deserves to.  

I think Israel's action have been just so far, but I would also keep an eye on them as they will likely look to take things too far. They would love to control the Gaza strip when all is said and done. 

[Satchmo]

17 minutes ago, Bure_Pavel said:

I think Israel's action have been just so far, but I would also keep an eye on them as they will likely look to take things too far. They would love to control the Gaza strip when all is said and done. 

I think the America that you and I both seem to share some distrust for is currently working on keeping Israel from going too far.

[Optimist Prime]

33 minutes ago, Bure_Pavel said:

I think Israel's action have been just so far, but I would also keep an eye on them as they will likely look to take things too far. They would love to control the Gaza strip when all is said and done. 

That is absolute speculation with no basis in reality. The Israeli's have no interest in managin the lives of the palestinians: they do want and demand zero threats from Gaza, and may have a role in administering Gaza for an interim period but there is no one in Israeli government that wants to 'control' Gaza outside of the idea of keeping israeli's safe from Gaza's attacks.

[Bure_Pavel]

7 minutes ago, Optimist Prime said:

That is absolute speculation with no basis in reality. The Israeli's have no interest in managin the lives of the palestinians: they do want and demand zero threats from Gaza, and may have a role in administering Gaza for an interim period but there is no one in Israeli government that wants to 'control' Gaza outside of the idea of keeping israeli's safe from Gaza's attacks.

Not really speculation when they have stated they want to be in charge of security of the region after the conflict and USA had to step in and say no not a good idea. 

 

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/netanyahu-says-israel-will-control-gaza-security-indefinitely-5979ac93

[RomanPer]

56 minutes ago, Bure_Pavel said:

Not really speculation when they have stated they want to be in charge of security of the region after the conflict and USA had to step in and say no not a good idea. 

 

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/netanyahu-says-israel-will-control-gaza-security-indefinitely-5979ac93

 

Controlling Gaza security and controlling Gaza are 2 completely different things.

[Bure_Pavel]

48 minutes ago, RomanPer said:

 

Controlling Gaza security and controlling Gaza are 2 completely different things.

By controlling the security of Gaza indefinitely it gives you a certain control over the region though, definitely more than they had previously. 

Edited November 8, 2023 by Bure_Pavel

[RomanPer]

Just now, Bure_Pavel said:

By controlling the security of Gaza it gives you a certain control over the region though. 

 

It absolutely does, but the only desire to control that security is to prevent attacks on Israel, not to take over Gaza territory for Israelis. And the only desire to control that security is because current administration in Gaza and West Bank have not proven that they can be relied on to prevent such attacks. After all, Israel isn't trying to control security in Egypt or Jordan, because these countries are doing good job on that themselves.

[Bure_Pavel]

9 minutes ago, RomanPer said:

 

It absolutely does, but the only desire to control that security is to prevent attacks on Israel, not to take over Gaza territory for Israelis. And the only desire to control that security is because current administration in Gaza and West Bank have not proven that they can be relied on to prevent such attacks. After all, Israel isn't trying to control security in Egypt or Jordan, because these countries are doing good job on that themselves.

As two groups of people who have hated each other for close to 100 years, I think it will be with a very strong hand if Israel is able to achieve this, while pissing off all their neighbors to the point Iran gets involved more.