Israel vs. Palestine

JennyEsquire said:
Bro, you shouldn't have admitted to that. These people won't hesitate to use it against you.

neontaster said:


The answer is actually yes and no, if you're THAT curious. Yes, my "official" religion is Judaism, but for the purposes of this discussion the answer would be no because I am non-practicing (closer to atheism than Judaism) and my arguments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are entirely political and deal with the past 150 years of history. I think "this is God's promised land for the Jews" is not an argument and I don't use arguments that are based off of the religion. So therefore my religion is irrelevant, which is also why I didn't mention it until you insisted, for whatever reason.

JennyEsquire said:


Western interference =/= true freedom.

Western interference helped destabilize a facist regime give freedom to the Bosnian people. But I guess you wouldn't know anything about that.

Shuhan said:
I insisted on it because it was obvious that you were biased. I would like to see some of your "political reasoning".

Shuhan said:

Western interference also helped Osama Bin Laden rise to power.

katsucats said:
No, I am confused because you compared ethnic Jews to other religious groups, and then went on this off-topic rant when I responded to your assumption in kind.

JennyEsquire said:

I know that, but I didn't say that it was always a good thing, like the way you equated western interference with less freedom for the people. All I did was give an example to show how you were wrong.

neontaster said:
Again, I am not getting dragged into this, so I'll respond once and end it at that.

I contest your claim that Israel commits international crimes. At least to the extent that if Israel does, then so does anybody else. The U.S. killed several thousand Somalis in the space of a couple of days in 1993 (the Black Hawk Down incident) and they got a standing ovation from the UN. They kill tons of civilians in drone strikes now and I don't see anybody talking about it. Israel gets singled out in a very unfair way. Again, I could break this down for you on a case-by-case basis, but you already have an opinion on this and I'm not going to change it. I'm just telling you where I'm coming from.

Defiance said:
Obviously introspection is not one of your strong suits, I merely stated that dogmatic practices are committed by people of all color/religion and that Jews should not be singled out.

Defiance said:
You retorted with a long winded response about all the bad things those evil Jews have done to separate themselves from the pack and ending with the phrase, which you see in my quote, "no other religion does this". The rest is documented so you can see it play out from there.

Defiance said:
That being said, it is you who blurred the lines of talking about Jews as a religion and as a people. If you can't see that, I'll go ahead and just end this debate right here.

JennyEsquire said:
Because right wing equals racist? The term ''Right-wing'' can be quite ambiguous

katsucats said:
You didn't say color, you said religion.

Defiance said:
Actually I did, I specifically said, and I mean word for word, "dogmatic practices by people of all color/religion".

Now you are flat out lying about what I've said. I don't know if it's because you are simply blinded by trying to prove your own point or are intentionally doing it because Tachii deleted the proof of me saying it due to that flame war, but this is unacceptable. I might poke my head back into this discussion with you when you are ready to act like an adult, but until then I'm done with you.

moose1 said:
25 people want to die in a suicide bombing

really, there's no reason for the U.S. to support anyone but Israel. We need someone to keep the middle east in check, I wonder if all these Palestine supporters know most Palestinians would have us all killed if they had the chance.

moose1 said:
You can't deny that muslim countries would wipe us out if they had the chance.

moose1 said:
We have more in common with Israel, politically and culturally, than we do with muslim countries.

moose1 said:
And as the only foothold the west has in the region, it's in our best interest to support them.

moose1 said:
Without USA/Europe backing them up the surrounding muslim countries would wipe them off the map in days.

neontaster said:


Popped in to see what was up and got mad at the post. Why am I refusing? Two reasons:

1) I spend A LOT of time discussing this topic already elsewhere (hell, I work in Middle East research, so it's also kinda my job)

2) Doing it here is CLEARLY a losing battle for me. I get it. There is something romantic about supporting the underdog and looking at the Western, more powerful country as the bad guy. I just think in this case it is highly misguided. Why you would want to support a bunch of people who danced on their roofs after 9/11? Who give the death penalty to homosexuals or those who sell land to Jews? Who mercilessly mistreat women and deny them of basic human rights? Who horrifically murder each other like Hamas did to Fatah when they took over the Gaza Strip? Personally, I don't understand it, but I'm pretty sure I am in the minority on this message board, and hence it feels like a Sisyphean Task and I'd rather not bother, honestly. It's too tiring.

That's basically it. That and I'd rather not ruin the good image I have of many people around here by hearing their opinions on this topic.

Why you would want to support a bunch of people who danced on their roofs after 9/11?

Who give the death penalty to homosexuals?

Who mercilessly mistreat women and deny them of basic human rights?

Who horrifically murder each other like Hamas did to Fatah when they took over the Gaza Strip?

katsucats said:
Aside from possibly Iran (and not because of nuclear capacity), no country in the Middle East has the capacity to touch a stray hair from Israel's underbelly. You're taking something Admadinejad (who has no real power in his own country) said and acting like every country will immediately declare war as soon as we pull out.

dankickyou said:


Israel's military gets really overrated nowadays. Good air force. So-so infantry and abysmal navy.

neontaster said:


I appreciate you not trying to drag me back into this. I'll just say one thing - In my opinion, message board posts are not a good way to argue this topic (which is part of the reason I don't wanna do it), and most of the stuff you accuse me of here is not stuff that I actually think. Just for the record.

uzu-dragons said:

That they have nuclear weaponry is enough to deter attacks from other nations though.

dankickyou said:

As a deterrence. But their ability for conventional warfare isn't as impressive as a lot of people are harping.

katsucats said:
Yeah but what are you comparing it to? They have already shown their ability to completely level Lebanon in under 2 months.

dankickyou said:
None. Just mentioning that Israel's military gets overrated a lot. Their industrial and manpower base is pretty weak too and the country is geographically terrible against any enemy with a good navy. Also, beating Lebanon in two months isn't terribly impressive for a modern military.A modern combined arms assault by their neighbors can actually shake up Israel bad without big old USA aroundl.

katsucats said:
It's hard to say if something is overrated without a comparison, but in this context I stand by my original statement that there is no near-term existential threat to Israel, even if we spontaneously pulled out of the area and stopped funding anyone. Turkey and Egypt are both comparatively moderate. Israel has no enemies around that could strike it with a navy.

dankickyou said:

Israel's military machine may not be able to support itself without US money. Military logistics is crazy expensive.

katsucats said:
Not in the long-term, which is why withdrawing US money will give Israel an impetus or urgency towards peace.

dankickyou said:
Maybe. Wait, like that will ever happen.

^Only peace there is a fiery one.

katsucats said:
Then that would be their own fault, and they can self-destruct without billions of US dollars going down the drain.

moose1 said:

Pakistan has them, not really middle-east I know, but same shit.

katsucats said:
Not in the long-term, which is why withdrawing US money will give Israel an impetus or urgency towards peace.

katsucats said:
It's hard to say if something is overrated without a comparison, but in this context I stand by my original statement that there is no near-term existential threat to Israel, even if we spontaneously pulled out of the area and stopped funding anyone. Turkey and Egypt are both comparatively moderate. Israel has no enemies around that could strike it with a navy.