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Israel
Oct 14, 2023 16:07:51 GMT -5
Post by james on Oct 14, 2023 16:07:51 GMT -5
NPR has had quite a few interviews from Israel. NPR's Ari Shapiro interviewed a Doctor/politician in Ramallah, "Dr. Mustafa Barghouti ... an activist and member of the Palestinian National Initiative". Maybe that one? - www.npr.org/transcripts/1205857043 Could be another.
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
Posts: 19,893
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Post by Dub on Oct 14, 2023 16:28:38 GMT -5
I keep thinking that one of roadblocks to our understanding is our country’s obsession with good guys and bad guys. We want to be able to judge right and wrong in every situation.
I don’t think our approach is useful in this situation. There are aspects of this tragedy that go back 3000 years. Zionism, as a force, is at least 150 years old. The Palestine we think of today, the one pictured on my Sunday school wall in 1947, began in the early 20th century. The Levant has been remapped many times in the last 3000 years. Its longest period of stability was probably under the Ottomans.
There is no simple answer here. A peaceful solution seems unlikely as each party holds positions that cannot be reconciled without compromise on everyone’s part.
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Israel
Oct 14, 2023 17:04:50 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by coachdoc on Oct 14, 2023 17:04:50 GMT -5
The very definition of intractable.
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Post by RickW on Oct 14, 2023 17:40:41 GMT -5
The West drew the stupid Middle East map. And it was an idiot job intent only on creating a stable supply of Oil. Redraw the map. Give Jordan the northern third of Saudi Arabia with that wonderful coastline and whatever oil is there. And relocate the Palestinians in this new land with water and oil and hope. Anything will be better than that little hellhole Gaza or that stupid, landlocked, no resources, West Bank. Both places are shitholes. With no hope for other. That's my drastic. And it is a hell of a lot better than some of the other drastics that will be coming down the pike if kick the can down the road is all that is ever done. www.britannica.com/place/Middle-EastThe west may have drawn the map. But when the Palestinian refugee problem erupted, it was the surrounding Arab states who refused to take them in. Jordan did, but keeps them in camps. While I in no way suggest that getting kicked off their own land was good, locking them into camps, instead of just taking them into the surrounding Arab populations, was just as bad as the west deciding what the countries would look like. And that’s on their Arab neighbours. Intractable indeed, now.
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Israel
Oct 14, 2023 18:20:30 GMT -5
Post by epaul on Oct 14, 2023 18:20:30 GMT -5
Yep.
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Post by millring on Oct 15, 2023 5:39:27 GMT -5
To millrings's point, I heard an interview on NPR a couple days ago. All Things Considered, I think. And the interviewer was interviewing the head of the PLO, (I think. It was a West Bank official for sure). And the Palestinian went on about the treatment that the Palestinians have under Israelie rule. His concerns are real. But I was waiting for the interviewer to ask if the Palestinian condemned or supported the Hamas attack. . . . , But the question never came. Plus the international press is sympathetic to the Palestinians and not to Israel. You and I might be ambivalent and humbly admit that we don't really know how one could solve the territory problem...who to blame, and when it started (heck, we even say that "the West" drew the map -- implied: There was no inherent sense of fairness to the drawing that had to do with concurrent history. We default to the Palestinian argument and against the Israeli argument for why). But the international press is not thus conflicted. It has blamed Israel throughout my entire lifetime. So of course we can all agree on the good sense and moral rightness of Israel not pursuing an eye for an eye retribution on innocent people. But it's an impossible task to fight a war on two fronts -- Hamas, and an adversarial press hell bent on documenting any perceived atrocity Israel might commit ... in order to continue its Israel-as-villain narrative.
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Israel
Oct 15, 2023 8:12:51 GMT -5
Post by Marshall on Oct 15, 2023 8:12:51 GMT -5
I wouldn't go that far.
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Israel
Oct 15, 2023 11:50:38 GMT -5
Post by John B on Oct 15, 2023 11:50:38 GMT -5
To millrings's point, I heard an interview on NPR a couple days ago. All Things Considered, I think. And the interviewer was interviewing the head of the PLO, (I think. It was a West Bank official for sure). And the Palestinian went on about the treatment that the Palestinians have under Israelie rule. His concerns are real. But I was waiting for the interviewer to ask if the Palestinian condemned or supported the Hamas attack. . . . , But the question never came. Plus the international press is sympathetic to the Palestinians and not to Israel. You and I might be ambivalent and humbly admit that we don't really know how one could solve the territory problem...who to blame, and when it started (heck, we even say that "the West" drew the map -- implied: There was no inherent sense of fairness to the drawing that had to do with concurrent history. We default to the Palestinian argument and against the Israeli argument for why). But the international press is not thus conflicted. It has blamed Israel throughout my entire lifetime. So of course we can all agree on the good sense and moral rightness of Israel not pursuing an eye for an eye retribution on innocent people. But it's an impossible task to fight a war on two fronts -- Hamas, and an adversarial press hell bent on documenting any perceived atrocity Israel might commit ... in order to continue its Israel-as-villain narrative. I'm not as familiar with the international press, but as to your second front: it is impossible for Israel to only kill and/or wound Hamas fighters. In a battle, or war, skirmish, whatever, there will always be unintentional casualties, and there will always be someone on the "right" side that affirmatively commits atrocities - because all sides involve humans, and humans will sometimes commit atrocious, horrific acts. I just hope that those occurrences (hopfully very rare) do not get conflated as a sign that Israel is evil. I'm having trouble picking out words, so I'm agreeing with you in case that's not clear.
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Israel
Oct 15, 2023 11:54:36 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by Marshall on Oct 15, 2023 11:54:36 GMT -5
I keep thinking that one of roadblocks to our understanding is our country’s obsession with good guys and bad guys. We want to be able to judge right and wrong in every situation. You’re right !
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Israel
Oct 15, 2023 13:05:18 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by coachdoc on Oct 15, 2023 13:05:18 GMT -5
One hundred percent Israel’s fault. Palestinians have been there forever. Israelis just showed up and said get the fuck outa the way. Not a very nice move. I have nothing against Jews per se, but Zionists have no right.
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Israel
Oct 15, 2023 18:44:21 GMT -5
Post by John B on Oct 15, 2023 18:44:21 GMT -5
One hundred percent Israel’s fault. Palestinians have been there forever. Israelis just showed up and said get the fuck outa the way. Not a very nice move. I have nothing against Jews per se, but Zionists have no right. Are you suggesting there is no Jewish connection to the land that is Israel beyond recent years?
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Israel
Oct 15, 2023 19:13:32 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by coachdoc on Oct 15, 2023 19:13:32 GMT -5
One hundred percent Israel’s fault. Palestinians have been there forever. Israelis just showed up and said get the fuck outa the way. Not a very nice move. I have nothing against Jews per se, but Zionists have no right. Are you suggesting there is no Jewish connection to the land that is Israel beyond recent years? Depends how you define recent. The end of WW2 is recent on a biblical time scale.
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Israel
Oct 15, 2023 19:14:16 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by aquaduct on Oct 15, 2023 19:14:16 GMT -5
One hundred percent Israel’s fault. Palestinians have been there forever. Israelis just showed up and said get the fuck outa the way. Not a very nice move. I have nothing against Jews per se, but Zionists have no right. Actually, didn't the UN create modern Isreal?
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Israel
Oct 15, 2023 19:15:43 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by coachdoc on Oct 15, 2023 19:15:43 GMT -5
One hundred percent Israel’s fault. Palestinians have been there forever. Israelis just showed up and said get the fuck outa the way. Not a very nice move. I have nothing against Jews per se, but Zionists have no right. Actually, didn't the UN create modern Isreal? At the end of WW2.
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Israel
Oct 15, 2023 19:38:02 GMT -5
Post by John B on Oct 15, 2023 19:38:02 GMT -5
I swear I've seen in a book somewhere that there were Jews in the area of modern-day Israel for thousands of years.
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Post by Russell Letson on Oct 15, 2023 19:47:00 GMT -5
Plus the international press is sympathetic to the Palestinians and not to Israel. I'm having some trouble figuring out how a monolithic "international press" can have been only and always sympathetic to Palestinians and not to Israelis, if only to explain where I got my very mixed notion of the situation*. That is, I am not widely or deeply read in the history of the 20th-century middle east, which means I get my information from the press in general, including the "international" (if Anglophone) press (e.g., BBC and Reuters, with a dash of Al Jazeera). I've always understood that multiple sources require a lot of parallax correction, source-comparing, semantic filtering, and such, and that there's a degree of noise and distotion in any journalistic signal. If I'm being fed a stream of one-sided reporting, what is the informational basis for my take on events? Am I just making shit up? * Vastly oversimple bottom line: There's plenty of blame to go around, and no "side" has been free of ugliness and bad behavior. That goes from individual group members right up through their notional collective-representative/governing bodies to the various interested regional and international parties. At this particular ox-in-the-ditch moment, Hamas would seem to be ahead in the race for ugliest behavior, though.
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Israel
Oct 15, 2023 20:58:14 GMT -5
Post by Cornflake on Oct 15, 2023 20:58:14 GMT -5
"Vastly oversimple bottom line: There's plenty of blame to go around, and no 'side' has been free of ugliness and bad behavior. That goes from individual group members right up through their notional collective-representative/governing bodies to the various interested regional and international parties. At this particular ox-in-the-ditch moment, Hamas would seem to be ahead in the race for ugliest behavior, though."
I don't think it's vastly oversimplified.
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Israel
Oct 16, 2023 9:00:36 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by Marshall on Oct 16, 2023 9:00:36 GMT -5
The unwritten loser in all this is Ukraine. The military attention of the Western world is shifting to the Gaza Strip.
And Russia has the resources and the staying power to grind out a long conflict.
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Israel
Oct 16, 2023 9:39:07 GMT -5
Post by Cornflake on Oct 16, 2023 9:39:07 GMT -5
"The unwritten loser in all this is Ukraine. The military attention of the Western world is shifting to the Gaza Strip."
Somehow Ukraine metamorphosed into a partisan issue in the House. In the Senate it still has support from McConnell and most Rs.
Crises abound in the world and our House of Representatives is closed until further notice. Where's the eyeroll emoticon?
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Israel
Oct 16, 2023 10:04:29 GMT -5
Post by epaul on Oct 16, 2023 10:04:29 GMT -5
Trump will solve the issues. He admires Putin (strong, very strong) and Hamas (smart, very smart). Follow his words. His actions, if he is allowed to take them, will solve both issues.
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