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Ceasefire update
The ceasefire has been increased to 24hrs even though Israel continues to search & destroy tunnels and 4 rockets were fired from gaza into Israel but overall it seems like there is a respite
With the ceasefire Palestinians were able to search for survivors in the rubble and the death toll now stands at over 1,033 Gazans + 6,000 injured also 42 Israeli soldiers have died
Also France has banned pro-palestinian protests to the furor of the public and Amnesty International while peace talks are going on in Paris
2 Israeli groups rally in protest and support of the incursion, bbc posted a picture of the protesters (candles write 'sorry' in both arabic and hebrew)
Also someone uploaded the full Hardtalk interview with the Hamas leader onto youtube for those interested
Your just as bad as them posting an article from 2013...
right!
because the date of a news article from a legitimate site that correlates to the topic matters if it wasn't written yesterday.
might want to stay out of mature discussions until you can differentiate "your" and "you're". might as well throw in "ridiculous" and "rediculous" in there for you too
The land is yours if you can take it and defend it. Yay for the Kurds!
Look at turkey. It is still ruled by some foreign culture that came from Central Asian Turkic people. WHy don't people say free anatolia?
Look at our country Canada. It was stolen from the natives. Well.... that sucks for them. But that is a fact of life. If you can defend the land, like Colonial Canada vs America back in 1812, then the land is yours to keep.
As so long as Israel can defend itself we would have an Israel.
I'm not exactly pro jew or pro palestinian. the death toll is fucking gross. both sides are nuts. but many countries around the world recognize israeli soverignty. for now....
These are what we should be talking about, not about a conflict that doesn't involve pretty much anyone's ethnic or religious groups about 10,000 miles away
War-related death of civilians and children is one of the greatest tragedies on this planet. Forcing women & children to martyr themselves to get news headline sympathy is far more heinous.
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT [Note: This is a verbatim transcript of a spoken podcast. However, I have added notes like this one to clarify controversial points.—SH]
I was going to do a podcast on a series of questions, but I got so many questions on the same topic that I think I’m just going to do a single response here, and we’ll do the #AskMeAnything next time.
The question I’ve now received in many forms goes something like this: Why is it that you never criticize Israel? Why is it that you never criticize Judaism? Why is it that you always take the side of the Israelis over that of the Palestinians?
Now, this is an incredibly boring and depressing question for a variety of reasons. The first, is that I have criticized both Israel and Judaism. What seems to have upset many people is that I’ve kept some sense of proportion. There are something like 15 million Jews on earth at this moment; there are a hundred times as many Muslims. I’ve debated rabbis who, when I have assumed that they believe in a God that can hear our prayers, they stop me mid-sentence and say, “Why would you think that I believe in a God who can hear prayers?” So there are rabbis—conservative rabbis—who believe in a God so elastic as to exclude every concrete claim about Him—and therefore, nearly every concrete demand upon human behavior. And there are millions of Jews, literally millions among the few million who exist, for whom Judaism is very important, and yet they are atheists. They don’t believe in God at all. This is actually a position you can hold in Judaism, but it’s a total non sequitur in Islam or Christianity.
So, when we’re talking about the consequences of irrational beliefs based on scripture, the Jews are the least of the least offenders. But I have said many critical things about Judaism. Let me remind you that parts of Hebrew Bible—books like Leviticus and Exodus and Deuteronomy—are the most repellent, the most sickeningly unethical documents to be found in any religion. They’re worse than the Koran. They’re worse than any part of the New Testament. But the truth is, most Jews recognize this and don’t take these texts seriously. It’s simply a fact that most Jews and most Israelis are not guided by scripture—and that’s a very good thing.
Of course, there are some who are. There are religious extremists among Jews. Now, I consider these people to be truly dangerous, and their religious beliefs are as divisive and as unwarranted as the beliefs of devout Muslims. But there are far fewer such people.
For those of you who worry that I never say anything critical about Israel: My position on Israel is somewhat paradoxical. There are questions about which I’m genuinely undecided. And there’s something in my position, I think, to offend everyone. So, acknowledging how reckless it is to say anything on this topic, I’m nevertheless going to think out loud about it for a few minutes.
I don’t think Israel should exist as a Jewish state. I think it is obscene, irrational and unjustifiable to have a state organized around a religion. So I don’t celebrate the idea that there’s a Jewish homeland in the Middle East. I certainly don’t support any Jewish claims to real estate based on the Bible. [Note: Read this paragraph again.]
Though I just said that I don’t think Israel should exist as a Jewish state, the justification for such a state is rather easy to find. We need look no further than the fact that the rest of the world has shown itself eager to murder the Jews at almost every opportunity. So, if there were going to be a state organized around protecting members of a single religion, it certainly should be a Jewish state. Now, friends of Israel might consider this a rather tepid defense, but it’s the strongest one I’ve got. I think the idea of a religious state is ultimately untenable.
Needless to say, in defending its territory as a Jewish state, the Israeli government and Israelis themselves have had to do terrible things. They have, as they are now, fought wars against the Palestinians that have caused massive losses of innocent life. More civilians have been killed in Gaza in the last few weeks than militants. That’s not a surprise because Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth. Occupying it, fighting wars in it, is guaranteed to get woman and children and other noncombatants killed. And there’s probably little question over the course of fighting multiple wars that the Israelis have done things that amount to war crimes. They have been brutalized by this process—that is, made brutal by it. But that is largely the due to the character of their enemies. [Note: I was not giving Israel a pass to commit war crimes. I was making a point about the realities of living under the continuous threat of terrorism and of fighting multiple wars in a confined space.]
Whatever terrible things the Israelis have done, it is also true to say that they have used more restraint in their fighting against the Palestinians than we—the Americans, or Western Europeans—have used in any of our wars. They have endured more worldwide public scrutiny than any other society has ever had to while defending itself against aggressors. The Israelis simply are held to a different standard. And the condemnation leveled at them by the rest of the world is completely out of proportion to what they have actually done. [Note: I was not saying that because they are more careful than we have been at our most careless, the Israelis are above criticism. War crimes are war crimes.]
It is clear that Israel is losing the PR war and has been for years now. One of the most galling things for outside observers about the current war in Gaza is the disproportionate loss of life on the Palestinian side. This doesn’t make a lot of moral sense. Israel built bomb shelters to protect its citizens. The Palestinians built tunnels through which they could carry out terror attacks and kidnap Israelis. Should Israel be blamed for successfully protecting its population in a defensive war? I don’t think so. [Note: I was not suggesting that the deaths of Palestinian noncombatants are anything less than tragic. But if retaliating against Hamas is bound to get innocents killed, and the Israelis manage to protect their own civilians in the meantime, the loss of innocent life on the Palestinian side is guaranteed to be disproportionate.]
But there is no way to look at the images coming out Gaza—especially of infants and toddlers riddled by shrapnel—and think that this is anything other than a monstrous evil. Insofar as Israel is the agent of this evil, it seems impossible to support its behavior. And there is no question that the Palestinians have suffered terribly for decades under the occupation. This is where most critics of Israel appear to be stuck. They see these images, and they blame Israel for killing and maiming babies. They see the occupation, and they blame Israel for making Gaza a prison camp. I would argue is a kind of moral illusion, borne of a failure to look at the actual causes of this conflict, as well as of a failure to understand the intentions of the people on either side of it. [Note: I was not saying that the horror of slain children is a moral illusion; nor was I minimizing the suffering of the Palestinians under the occupation. I was claiming that Israel is not primarily to blame for all this suffering.]
The truth is that there is an obvious, undeniable, and hugely consequential moral difference between Israel and her enemies. The Israelis are surrounded by people who have explicitly genocidal intentions towards them. The charter of Hamas is explicitly genocidal. It looks forward to a time, based on Koranic prophesy, when the earth itself will cry out for Jewish blood, where the trees and the stones will say “O Muslim, there’s a Jew hiding behind me. Come and kill him.” This is a political document. We are talking about a government that was voted into power by a majority of the Palestinians. [Note: Yes, I know that not every Palestinian supports Hamas, but enough do to have brought them to power. Hamas is not a fringe group.]
The discourse in the Muslim world about Jews is utterly shocking. Not only is there Holocaust denial—there’s Holocaust denial that then asserts that we will do it for real if given the chance. The only thing more obnoxious than denying the Holocaust is to say that it should have happened; it didn’t happen, but if we get the chance, we will accomplish it. There are children’s shows that teach five-year-olds about the glories of martyrdom and about the necessity of killing Jews.
And this gets to the heart of the moral difference between Israel and her enemies. And this is something I discussed in The End of Faith. To see this moral difference, you have to ask what each side would do if they had the power to do it.
What would the Jews do to the Palestinians if they could do anything they wanted? Well, we know the answer to that question, because they can do more or less anything they want. The Israeli army could kill everyone in Gaza tomorrow. So what does that mean? Well, it means that, when they drop a bomb on a beach and kill four Palestinian children, as happened last week, this is almost certainly an accident. They’re not targeting children. They could target as many children as they want. Every time a Palestinian child dies, Israel edges ever closer to becoming an international pariah. So the Israelis take great pains not to kill children and other noncombatants. [Note: The word “so” in the previous sentence was regrettable and misleading. I didn’t mean to suggest that safeguarding its reputation abroad would be the only (or even primary) reason for Israel to avoid killing children. However, the point stands: Even if you want to attribute the basest motives to Israel, it is clearly in her self-interest not to kill Palestinian children.]
Now, is it possible that some Israeli soldiers go berserk under pressure and wind up shooting into crowds of rock-throwing children? Of course. You will always find some soldiers acting this way in the middle of a war. But we know that this isn’t the general intent of Israel. We know the Israelis do not want to kill non-combatants, because they could kill as many as they want, and they’re not doing it.
What do we know of the Palestinians? What would the Palestinians do to the Jews in Israel if the power imbalance were reversed? Well, they have told us what they would do. For some reason, Israel’s critics just don’t want to believe the worst about a group like Hamas, even when it declares the worst of itself. We’ve already had a Holocaust and several other genocides in the 20th century. People are capable of committing genocide. When they tell us they intend to commit genocide, we should listen. There is every reason to believe that the Palestinians would kill all the Jews in Israel if they could. Would every Palestinian support genocide? Of course not. But vast numbers of them—and of Muslims throughout the world—would. Needless to say, the Palestinians in general, not just Hamas, have a history of targeting innocent noncombatants in the most shocking ways possible. They’ve blown themselves up on buses and in restaurants. They’ve massacred teenagers. They’ve murdered Olympic athletes. They now shoot rockets indiscriminately into civilian areas. And again, the charter of their government in Gaza explicitly tells us that they want to annihilate the Jews—not just in Israel but everywhere. [Note: Again, I realize that not all Palestinians support Hamas. Nor am I discounting the degree to which the occupation, along with collateral damage suffered in war, has fueled Palestinian rage. But Palestinian terrorism (and Muslim anti-Semitism) is what has made peaceful coexistence thus far impossible.]
The truth is that everything you need to know about the moral imbalance between Israel and her enemies can be understood on the topic of human shields. Who uses human shields? Well, Hamas certainly does. They shoot their rockets from residential neighborhoods, from beside schools, and hospitals, and mosques. Muslims in other recent conflicts, in Iraq and elsewhere, have also used human shields. They have laid their rifles on the shoulders of their own children and shot from behind their bodies.
Consider the moral difference between using human shields and being deterred by them. That is the difference we’re talking about. The Israelis and other Western powers are deterred, however imperfectly, by the Muslim use of human shields in these conflicts, as we should be. It is morally abhorrent to kill noncombatants if you can avoid it. It’s certainly abhorrent to shoot through the bodies of children to get at your adversary. But take a moment to reflect on how contemptible this behavior is. And understand how cynical it is. The Muslims are acting on the assumption—the knowledge, in fact—that the infidels with whom they fight, the very people whom their religion does nothing but vilify, will be deterred by their use of Muslim human shields. They consider the Jews the spawn of apes and pigs—and yet they rely on the fact that they don’t want to kill Muslim noncombatants. [Note: The term “Muslims” in this paragraph means “Muslim combatants” of the sort that Western forces have encountered in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. The term “jihadists” would have been too narrow, but I was not suggesting that all Muslims support the use of human shields or are anti-Semitic, at war with the West, etc.]
Now imagine reversing the roles here. Imagine how fatuous—indeed comical it would be—for the Israelis to attempt to use human shields to deter the Palestinians. Some claim that they have already done this. There are reports that Israeli soldiers have occasionally put Palestinian civilians in front of them as they’ve advanced into dangerous areas. That’s not the use of human shields we’re talking about. It’s egregious behavior. No doubt it constitutes a war crime. But Imagine the Israelis holding up their own women and children as human shields. Of course, that would be ridiculous. The Palestinians are trying to kill everyone. Killing women and children is part of the plan. Reversing the roles here produces a grotesque Monty Python skit.
If you’re going talk about the conflict in the Middle East, you have to acknowledge this difference. I don’t think there’s any ethical disparity to be found anywhere that is more shocking or consequential than this.
And the truth is, this isn’t even the worst that jihadists do. Hamas is practically a moderate organization, compared to other jihadist groups. There are Muslims who have blown themselves up in crowds of children—again, Muslim children—just to get at the American soldiers who were handing out candy to them. They have committed suicide bombings, only to send another bomber to the hospital to await the casualities—where they then blow up all the injured along with the doctors and nurses trying to save their lives.
Every day that you could read about an Israeli rocket gone astray or Israeli soldiers beating up an innocent teenager, you could have read about ISIS in Iraq crucifying people on the side of the road, Christians and Muslims. Where is the outrage in the Muslim world and on the Left over these crimes? Where are the demonstrations, 10,000 or 100,000 deep, in the capitals of Europe against ISIS? If Israel kills a dozen Palestinians by accident, the entire Muslim world is inflamed. God forbid you burn a Koran, or write a novel vaguely critical of the faith. And yet Muslims can destroy their own societies—and seek to destroy the West—and you don’t hear a peep.
So, it seems to me, that you have to side with Israel here. You have one side which if it really could accomplish its aims would simply live peacefully with its neighbors, and you have another side which is seeking to implement a seventh century theocracy in the Holy Land. There’s no peace to be found between those incompatible ideas. That doesn’t mean you can’t condemn specific actions on the part of the Israelis. And, of course, acknowledging the moral disparity between Israel and her enemies doesn’t give us any solution to the problem of Israel’s existence in the Middle East. [Note: I was not suggesting that Israel’s actions are above criticism or that their recent incursion into Gaza was necessarily justified. Nor was I saying that the status quo, wherein the Palestinians remain stateless, should be maintained. By “siding with Israel,” I am simply recognizing that they are not the primary aggressors in this conflict. They are, rather, responding to aggression—and at a terrible cost.]
Again, granted, there’s some percentage of Jews who are animated by their own religious hysteria and their own prophesies. Some are awaiting the Messiah on contested land. Yes, these people are willing to sacrifice the blood of their own children for the glory of God. But, for the most part, they are not representative of the current state of Judaism or the actions of the Israeli government. And it is how Israel deals with these people—their own religious lunatics—that will determine whether they can truly hold the moral high ground. And Israel can do a lot more than it has to disempower them. It can cease to subsidize the delusions of the Ultra-Orthodox and it can stop building settlements on contested land. [Note: Read that again.]
This incompatible religious attachments to this land has made it impossible for Muslims and Jews to negotiate like rational human beings, and it has made it impossible for them to live in peace. But the onus is still more on the side of the Muslims here. Even on their worst day, the Israelis act with greater care and compassion and self-criticism than Muslim combatants have anywhere, ever.
And again, you have to ask yourself, what do these groups want? What would they accomplish if they could accomplish anything? What would the Israelis do if they could do what they want? They would live in peace with their neighbors, if they had neighbors who would live in peace with them. They would simply continue to build out their high tech sector and thrive.
What do groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda and even Hamas want? They want to impose their religious views on the rest of humanity. They want stifle every freedom that decent, educated, secular people care about. This is not a trivial difference. And yet judging from the level of condemnation that Israel now receives, you would think the difference ran the other way.
This kind of confusion puts all of us in danger. This is the great story of our time. For the rest of our lives, and the lives of our children, we are going to be confronted by people who don’t want to live peacefully in a secular, pluralistic world, because they are desperate to get to Paradise, and they are willing to destroy the very possibility of human happiness along the way. The truth is, we are all living in Israel. It’s just that some of us haven’t realized it yet.
__________________
Probably because he tells it like it is and knows hockey better than you two dipshits? People respect his opinions, not like you two dipshits? He has a solid income, not like you two dipshits?
- what does he keep calling the occupation? In his mind, he is saying an isreal should not exist?
keep in mind i'm a noob on this topic
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"Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't." - Eleanor Roosevelt
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tiger_handheld
Re; Hamas interview on BBC
- what does he keep calling the occupation? In his mind, he is saying an isreal should not exist?
keep in mind i'm a noob on this topic
gaza/west bank are being occupied (well the settlements were withdrawn in gaza)
and everything about their economy (or lack thereof) is being controlled by israel hence why i refer to it as a ghetto and why i imagine he calls it an occupation
not to want to start an argument, but it's better than just flattening it.
i assume they target locations for the purpose of disabling the terrorists, who use residential locations to store weapons.
I'd rather have a warning, as a civilian, that my place is going to get flattened, than just getting killed. I may have nothing, but at least i'd be alive.
these innocent people have nothing anyway, Hamas has made sure of that by not relinquishing power (i say this from the perspective that if Hamas truly cared about it's country and people, it'd do what's best for them in the here and now - there will never be true freedom for the Palestinian people)
I think you need to reevaluate the word terrorist because you seem to label someone who want to defend themselves as terrorists.
see my point now, what would you do if you were living in BC, and all the provinces around you, Washington state, and all the other states hated you because you live in BC? How would it feel to be living in such a small patch of land and be hated by a group group of people that outnumbers yours 50/1.
No one hates Israel, I don't hate Israel. I hate what they are doing because they seem to be on this higher than might pedestal.
Wow, this don't understand that if every Muslim hate Jews, why Israel continue to exist? They would wipe Israel off the map right?
They guy generalizes his words and uses them to manipulates you into hating Palestine's tactic and loving Israel because they seem to be following the rules by the book.
Wow, this don't understand that if every Muslim hate Jews, why Israel continue to exist? They would wipe Israel off the map right?
They guy generalizes his words and uses them to manipulates you into hating Palestine's tactic and loving Israel because they seem to be following the rules by the book.
that's because he's looking at the whole picture.
and Israel can take on the entire middle east by themselves. i'm pretty god damn sure. and the americans would back them up. thats why they continue to exist. thats the only reason they continue to exist.
if hamas threw down their weapons tomorrow, what would become of them?
if israel threw down all their weapons, what would become of them?
he is right from a "moral" and logical point of view dude. he has answered and logically broken down every single answer.
he is right, if it were up to the ones that opposed the jews... the jews would get slaughtered, every single one of them.
if it were up to the jews, there would be less fighting.
that's all it comes down to. that israel would be a better neighbour (even with their crazy extremist zealots)... vs the other side, along with everything they come with.
israel doesn't follow the rules by the book. but like he says, if you heard israel doing what the palestinians were doing, you'd think the israelis have gone mad.
but why is it ok when the palestinians do it? EVERYTHING "bad" israel has done, the Palestinians have done worse, and have OPENLY said they'd do worse if they had the chance.
I'm purely taking a stance on which side i'd take if i had to choose one of those guys to be my earthly neighbours.
one brings more direct harm. there's no doubt about it.
there is no argument.
and again, israel is around cuz their enemies cannot actually DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. they cant flatten israel. not a chance.
but israel has the power to just fucking go in and flatten ALL OF THEM. but they don't. if they played by the same rules as their enemies, all of israels enemies would be wiped off the faced of the planet in a snap of a finger.
like honestly, i was on the edge of feeling bad for the Palestinians... but then i realised I was only focusing on that area. There's a lot more to it than just the gaza strip. if you look at the whole picture... of the whole religion, and whole thing going on...
honestly. who the fuck would you rather have as a neighbour? forget who's doing what, or how you feel about what. who the fuck would you rather live with? who would you rather have living right beside you?
i tell you what, i'd have israel as a neighbouring country over any other country there in that region. for the sake of myself and other people around me. you know at least with israel you can negotiate peace. there's no negotiation with the other side. they're just gonna keep trying to kill you and never give up until you kill them. that's not the kind of game i wanna get myself into.
Last edited by Ulic Qel-Droma; 07-28-2014 at 11:46 PM.
now imagine the scenario where A has B surrounded. the situation is exactly the same. but A is hamas, and B is now israel.
which side would you be on?
it's easy to see people are just siding with the "side" that's taking more casualties.
what do you propose? make the war more even? let's give hamas all the skills and technology the Israelis have... isn't that a scary thought? you think the situation would be any better?
if we reversed the technologies alone, nothing else. You think everyone that supports palestine now... would have supported israel instead? cuz the deathtolls would be reversed.
as u can see this isn't about picking sides based on what they're doing. this is picking sides for the sake of harm reduction.
there simply is just less harm being done if things are the way they are right now.
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Israels neighbours can easily flatten Israel the only problem is that Israel has Nukes and they'll surely be getting a butt load of nukes launched at them if they did launch their missiles at Israel (it almost happened before)
There are jews living in peace in those so called countries that you imagine would flatten Israel if given the opportunity with equal opportunity in advancement and success in society unlike in israel
None of those neighbouring countries have created ghettos for a different religion or ethnicity that they dislike and subjugate them to continued psychological and physical torture nor have they slowly encroached on those ghettos and pollute their water sources with sewage or repress their economy... like Israel does
When those victims within the ghetto try to rise up in any way they know how its viewed as terrorism? what kind of crazy twilight zone are people living in when they believe that to be true?
A playground was shelled this past day with 10 children murdered and 46 injured
I guess we're meant to believe that hamas is hiding missiles in an open playground now
The death toll is over 1,115 Gazans now and 51 IDF soldiers and 2 Israelis
war is war. casualties of war are just that. there's no way around that.
what do you think we north americans do when we go to war? what do you think happened in afghantistan and iraq? and all those other conflicts?
flip the scenario around and the israelis would be the ones suffering all these casualties. what's the diff? one side will always suffer those casualties... that's just war.
don't focus on which side is causing those casualties... cuz in every possible power/scenario switcharoo... one side will ALWAYS be suffering those losses.
the question is, which side would be a safer ally?
like i said. if hammas had all the power of israel. you'd be posting shit about how the israelis lost 10 children and 46 injured.
those points are... not points. war is war. you have to look at whos fighting, and what they would do if they won, or if they were given absolute power over the situation.
and like i said before in this thread... the current situation is the BEST situation possible. The death toll is over 1,115 Gazans now and 51 IDF soldiers and 2 Israelis....
would u rather it be 1,115 israeli's, and 51 hamas fighters and 2 hamas civilians?
there is no other alternative unless you want israelis to be dying just as fast as the people in gaza. is it any better that one side is suffering more losses? either side. if u had to pick. which side would u pick? why not just make both sides lose 1000+ people? would it be a more fair and happier scenario? lol... see it makes no difference!!!
but would u want to take nukes away from israelis and give it to their opponents?
FUCK NO.
Last edited by Ulic Qel-Droma; 07-29-2014 at 01:30 AM.
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You're assuming the other side would act the same way, a hypothetical with no merit... we've seen what it was like when the power was reversed, before the state of Israel was created, and everyone was living in peace after the prospect of statehood was conceivable was when we saw israeli terror groups created to attack the Brits and drive out Christians and Muslims....
So your hypothetical is inconceivable
You note that this is what war is but so what? That doesn't make it right and as people we should be arguing for an end rather than taking sides and hoping they increase their kill ratio... you're so bizarre
(I know you'll likely say people are warring by nature but I disagree)
You're assuming the other side would act the same way, a hypothetical with no merit... we've seen what it was like when the power was reversed, before the state of Israel was created, and everyone was living in peace after the prospect of statehood was conceivable was when we saw israeli terror groups created to attack the Brits and drive out Christians and Muslims....
So your hypothetical is inconceivable
You note that this is what war is but so what? That doesn't make it right and as people we should be arguing for an end rather than taking sides and hoping they increase their kill ratio... you're so bizarre
(I know you'll likely say people are warring by nature but I disagree)
ummm before the state of israel there was peace?
dude... you're looking at just a tiny slice of a slice of the picture... how about we look at that area... for the past 2500 years?
i think your "living in peace" is overshadowed by all the war there. there has always been more war than peace there.
I was not saying it would be better to reverse the roles. I'm saying if the roles were reversed, you'd just be rooting for the side that was taking more casualties.
i was trying to make a point that it doesn't matter. you picking sides is completely biased and ... it makes no difference.
no matter how many times you play back time. no matter how many times you change anything. one side in that area will always be getting its ass beat hard.
you either pick A or B. one of those sides will suffer massive casualties. There is NO DOUBT about it.
throughout all of history (for simplicity sake we'll only go back 2000 years)... name a period there where peace dominated for more than 1 life time. LOL never.
there IS no END. thats what i am saying. your concept of END is delusional.
what are they all gonna do? put their weapons down, pump some hardwell and drop some MDMA together?
like i said before, this is THE best scenario for everyone. it LITERALLY is the best. not theoretical best (my hardwell scenario is a pretty good theoretical best). but a realistic best. encompassing both sides, and acknowledging what both sides encompass and all their values and needs and wants and desires....
this is the best situation for both sides. they both get what they want. any other way, and one side will be taken out completely.
if there was a better way, a better scenario that both parties could agree on, THEY WOULD ALREADY BE DOING IT!!! as soon as a better plan/idea emerges that satisfies both parties... they would both immediately adapt this new better scenario... but there just ISNT one that satisfies both sides...
they both want that land. at almost any cost. so... this is what they're doing. fighting for it. and israel is winning. it's as simple as that.
they dont care about lives as much as the land. they don't care about lives as much as their culture. they ONLY CARE ABOUT control of that land.
so understand that. side A, and side B, both want that land for their own. side A and B will never merge and never share it. the best option, and a win win for both sides, is the current result: war with each other.
they both get a shot at what they want. and the risk they take to attain that goal is annihilation.
it's very simple.
BOTH SIDES...don't care about lives. they care about their goal. attaining control of that area. the cost of that goal is lives. and they're willing to expend lives to do it.
you tell me what you're gonna do? you (party C) go in between them and tell them they're not allowed to fight for the land? they're not allowed to expend lives? they must talk instead? lol... talk about what? how they're NOT gonna share? how they all want it FOR THEMSELVES? how no matter what as long as they're alive they're gonna try to take it back from the other side?
the only way is to go in with your own superior military and take it all over yourself and dominate it the way you want and FORCE peace.
it's the same reason the americans dropped a nuke on japan. japan wouldnt of given up until that happened. we (westerners) would do it again, but we're not the only one with nukes anymore. so that option isn't too viable.
the BEST scenario is another korean war. a stalemate. a border put up and a endless ceasefire/stalemate. but you just know both sides entire existence will be to plan around taking the land back... waiting for that day where the other side is weak, and they'll launch another attack... they have mini stalemates, ceasefires lol. so really it makes no diff. we all know one day north korea is gonna get crushed or try to do something stupid. why delay it. just let it happen. its INEVITABLE. 30 year ceasefire, 5 hour ceasefire. whatever, same shit. get it over with... maybe they'll come to realisation when they hit rock bottom... or they'll just embrace martyrdom.
and yes, people are warring by nature. let's replace the word warring with hunting and domination of territory. like almost any other animal.
lions spray piss and hunt food in their territory. humans do the same. instead of piss we put up walls and signs, and our hunting involves using technological advanced weapons.
as long as there is the thought of "me" and "i" and "mine", people will always treat each other like shit.
Last edited by Ulic Qel-Droma; 07-29-2014 at 11:12 AM.
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I can't agree with your viewpoint I can't even see it that's how far apart we are
