Molyneux wrote:That's right, cut off an already-paranoid nation, surrounded by enemies, and armed with nuclear fucking weapons from all outside trade, and try to muscle them around. That's a bright move.
So you're now going to have to explain how that's any different from North Korea.
Well, Israel is at least ostensibly a republic, much more plausibly so than North Korea.
Also, unlike NK, Israel has not vocally devoted itself to the absorption of any other countries. Also also unlike NK, Israel has damn good reason to be paranoid, given how many times its neighbors have tried to invade it in the not-too-distant past. I have relatives who died in the Yom Kippur war; it's not exactly ancient history.
But nobody is going to cut off Israel due to guilt.
Nobody is going to cut Israel off due to guilt yet. What happens when every holocaust victim is dead? Eventually, Israel is going to play the victim card, and Europe, at least, is going to not give a fuck, because nobody will care in any sort of personal sense. In thirty years, why should I care that a large group of people were treated utterly terribly by an almost cartoonishly evil organisation, since they're all dead, and all the people who did it to them are dead? It's not like the people living in Israel at that point were ever sent to Nazi camps, yes? Playing the guilt card requires somebody to feel guilty.
There don't need to be any survivors of the event in question in order to feel guilty. The Europeans, and the Germans in particular, feel guilty as peoples about what has been done to the Jews as a people. When I visited Germany this summer, I was surprised about the extent of guilt I noticed - there were plenty of people who admitted that, upon visiting foreign countries, they did not want to reveal being German. This has very little to do with being implicated personally, or feeling guilty about what has been done to a particular survivor. It is being ashamed for one's nation and feeling a sense of guilt towards the Jewish people.
bobalot wrote:You make it sound like there was very little American interference in South America or that American interventions were only in response to major problems that were directly in opposition to American interests (like the Cuban Missile Crisis).
The U.S helped overthrow Government of Guatemala in 1954 because it decided to enact land reform and redistribute uncultivated land to peasants (landowners were compensated). This roused the ire of the United Fruit Company (who had large banana plantations there), who lobbied the U.S government to "deal with" Guatemalan government. Eventually some silly pretext of Communist takeover was made up and a democratically elected government was overthrown and 40 years of brutal military dictatorship was ushered in because of fucking bananas.
Guatemala is a central American nation. The US has had very little involvement in South America. We helped out with Operation Condor and helped overthrow Allende, but for the most part the US just doesn't get involved. While we overthrew Guatemala, Bolivia did the same thing and we didn't get involved at all.
Molyneux wrote:Also, unlike NK, Israel has not vocally devoted itself to the absorption of any other countries.
Yes it has, did you forget the illegal settlements that are annexation by any other name?
Also also unlike NK, Israel has damn good reason to be paranoid, given how many times its neighbors have tried to invade it in the not-too-distant past. I have relatives who died in the Yom Kippur war; it's not exactly ancient history.
You mean the war that was fought to get back territory Israel had stolen? Real good example to make me care about the 'plight' of Israel.
Molyneux wrote:Also, unlike NK, Israel has not vocally devoted itself to the absorption of any other countries.
Yes it has, did you forget the illegal settlements that are annexation by any other name?
Also also unlike NK, Israel has damn good reason to be paranoid, given how many times its neighbors have tried to invade it in the not-too-distant past. I have relatives who died in the Yom Kippur war; it's not exactly ancient history.
You mean the war that was fought to get back territory Israel had stolen? Real good example to make me care about the 'plight' of Israel.
Then the fedayeen raids and PLO raids before that, and Hamas and Hezbollah now. Weak enemies to be sure, but weak enemies with the benefits of destructive weapons and little hesitation to start a conflict that causes both sides to suffer.
I'm going to put on my brand new moderator hat and remind the News & Politics folks of PR8:
Posting Rule 8 wrote:8. Avoid the History of Israel vs Palestine. Feel free to discuss news from that part of the world, but we have a special moratorium on debating the history of that conflict, since such debates always go round and round in the same endless circles. If you wish to discuss IvP issues, stick to current events.
Tread carefully, and by all means, let us have a useful discussion.
73% of all statistics are made up, including this one.
Then the fedayeen raids and PLO raids before that, and Hamas and Hezbollah now. Weak enemies to be sure, but weak enemies with the benefits of destructive weapons and little hesitation to start a conflict that causes both sides to suffer.
After WWII half the population of the 'Israeli' Jews were Ashkenazi Jews from Europe. Turns out when you steal people's lands they get pissed.
Then the fedayeen raids and PLO raids before that, and Hamas and Hezbollah now. Weak enemies to be sure, but weak enemies with the benefits of destructive weapons and little hesitation to start a conflict that causes both sides to suffer.
After WWII half the population of the 'Israeli' Jews were Ashkenazi Jews from Europe. Turns out when you steal people's lands they get pissed.
And it turns out when the other half is made up of Arab Jews who were forced from lands they'd been living in for thousands of years, they're a bit paranoid.
Talhe wrote:And it turns out when the other half is made up of Arab Jews who were forced from lands they'd been living in for thousands of years, they're a bit paranoid.
Sorry that doesn't work, Jews at the creation of Israel were around ~34% of the population, half of those Jews were Ashkenazim and more were other ethnicities that had immigrated from other areas, between 1922 and 1946 the Jewish population exploded from 13% of the population to 34%. Yet for some reason Israel got over half of the land controlled by the Mandate.
In fact as of the 16th Century there were only 10,000 Jews in Palestine, the rest came from various immigrations from a number of different areas that the Jews had moved to since the Jewish Diaspora in the 8th-6th Century BCE. Sorry, but I don't recognize a claim to possession after a two thousand year gap of people who had not even been to the area before.
Sorry that doesn't work, Jews at the creation of Israel were around ~34% of the population, half of those Jews were Ashkenazim and more were other ethnicities that had immigrated from other areas, between 1922 and 1946 the Jewish population exploded from 13% of the population to 34%. Yet for some reason Israel got over half of the land controlled by the Mandate.
In fact as of the 16th Century there were only 10,000 Jews in Palestine, the rest came from various immigrations from a number of different areas that the Jews had moved to since the Jewish Diaspora in the 8th-6th Century BCE. Sorry, but I don't recognize a claim to possession after a two thousand year gap of people who had not even been to the area before.
My apologies; I wasn't very clear in what I said. After the 1947-1949 conflict, the population then became more mixed. Again, my apologies for not being clear.
Talhe wrote:My apologies; I wasn't very clear in what I said. After the 1947-1949 conflict, the population then became more mixed. Again, my apologies for not being clear.
It's cool, but you're not going to see the Old Yishuv coming together with the New Yishuv, they were quite different culturally. Not until the 60s to 70s or so, I'm pretty sure some of the more orthodox still refuse to mix.
It's cool, but you're not going to see the Old Yishuv coming together with the New Yishuv, they were quite different culturally. Not until the 60s to 70s or so, I'm pretty sure some of the more orthodox still refuse to mix.
Oh, of course. And yes, quite a few of the Orthodox are still rather assholish (although that can be said of most religious fundamentalists). The history and the narratives that go along with the IvP/Israel vs. Arab/Israel vs. Islamist conflict are quite complicated, and I've seen a tendency for each to make stupid mistakes and attempt to rationalize them away.
Molyneux wrote:Also, unlike NK, Israel has not vocally devoted itself to the absorption of any other countries.
Yes it has, did you forget the illegal settlements that are annexation by any other name?
Also also unlike NK, Israel has damn good reason to be paranoid, given how many times its neighbors have tried to invade it in the not-too-distant past. I have relatives who died in the Yom Kippur war; it's not exactly ancient history.
You mean the war that was fought to get back territory Israel had stolen? Real good example to make me care about the 'plight' of Israel.
I'm going to ignore the first bit to avoid an Israel-versus-Palestine flamewar.
The second bit is complete and utter bullshit. The Sinai peninsula and the Golan Heights were "stolen", as you say, during the 6-Day War, during a period of high tensions all around, when Iraqi and Egyptian troops were massing in Jordan, and shortly after the Straits of Tiran were closed to Israeli shipping - something that Israel had specifically warned would be considered an act of war. Calling it "stolen" territory is ignoring the role of Arab nations in the tensions leading to the 6-Day War.
I believe he means Resolution 242, which states that at the end of hostilities, the territory should be returned. At the moment, Israel is at peace with Egypt (a cold peace, but a peace nonetheless), and thus returned the land after negotiations. Syria and Israel are currently belligerent with each other, and the West Bank is supposed to have had a negotiated withdrawal with Oslo, if I'm not mistaken (which I might be; it's been a few years since I read it). Full text of the pertinent parts below:
i) Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;
ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force;
