Innocent People in the Middle East, Victimized by Fascist Theocrats

[Subjective Effect]

Likud are not the overarching architects of Israel. The Middle East is at war for territory and power. Sometimes that power is wielded through theocrats, sometimes not .

[Starker]

Territory definitely plays into it more, in my view. The concept of Greater Israel is central to this whole conflict. This is why you see illegal settlements being built and Palestinian areas being flooded with hundreds of thousands of settlers. This is why Israel doesn't allow Palestinians to return to their homes. This is why building permits are given out in an unequal fashion. The Torah is used for the rhetoric, sure, and to whip up the fanatics, but the central issue is that Israel doesn't want Palestinians on what they view as the land of their ancient forefathers.

Even at the founding, territory was central to the Zionist movement:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Ben-Gurion_letter

"This is because this increase in possession is of consequence not only in itself, but because through it we increase our strength, and every increase in strength helps in the possession of the land as a whole. The establishment of a state, even if only on a portion of the land, is the maximal reinforcement of our strength at the present time and a powerful boost to our historical endeavors to liberate the entire country."

[heywood]

I think these are naive and superficial responses. Of course they are fighting over control of territory. That's what a war is.

But why are there two parties to begin with and what defines and differentiates them? Why do they think they have a right to the territory? What makes people across the world with no connection to the Middle East move to Israel? What is behind the Sunnis and Shiites warring with each other all over the region?

It's all coming from religion and it's not going to be worked out or settled until the religious motivations behind it are gone or at least well suppressed by secular governments. I see no hope for secular government in Iran during my lifetime, and neither do most people. I think there is hope for Israel, but not with the right wing government that has controlled the country for the last 15 years.

[SD]

What makes people across the world with no connection to the Middle East move to Israel?

I'd say Jews have quite a big connection with the Middle East. It's where they came from.

[Harvester]

But why are there two parties to begin with and what defines and differentiates them?

Different heritage, these have been separate people since before the birth of Christ. According to the Bible since Abrahamic times.

Why do they think they have a right to the territory?

The Palestinians have lived there for centuries and the Jews for centuries before that and also concurrently with the forebears of the Palestinians.

What makes people across the world with no connection to the Middle East move to Israel?

Seriously, you're saying that about the Jews? They have a long history there and it was decided by international parties that they could live there after WW2.

What is behind the Sunnis and Shiites warring with each other all over the region?

You could attribute that all to religion and I'm not denying that plays a part but the Shiite Persians of Iran and Sunni Arabs of elsewhere in the Middle East have been separate people since centuries. So tribal/heritage reasons also play a part.

It's all coming from religion and it's not going to be worked out or settled until the religious motivations behind it are gone or at least well suppressed by secular governments. I see no hope for secular government in Iran during my lifetime, and neither do most people.

For the record, I wish for more freedom for the Iranian people too. You see these photos from before the Islamic Revolution, and people then clearly had more freedom to be themselves back then even though the Shahs were dictators.

Look, to illustrate my point of view, there are a lot of struggles in a lot of counties in Africa. You and Nicker might attribute that to backwards religion which we'd better get rid of. And again, I'm not saying it's not a contributing factor. Like in Nigeria and other countries in the West Sahel, Muslim Fulani shepherds are killing Christian farmers from another tribe. But that didn't happen before and can more accurately be attributed to global warming, the grass fields that animals eat are drying out and the more fertile lands of the farmers are looking mighty attractive. Now those shepherds might be using religious arguments to stir up their own forces, but it's not the main cause of the conflict.

My brother-in-law has spent a few months in Ghana. It’s a developing country but most people have enough to eat to get by. Christians, Muslims and people with traditional African religions mostly live peacefully together. Now if there was a long-term drought or flood and people were starving, that might change when people start to fight for food. And they would probably talk about holy wars, say Allahu Akbar and Death to the Infidels and such. But that wouldn’t be the cause of the conflict of course, to think so THAT would be naive. Do you really think the Isrealis and the Arab Palestinians and other Arab countries would be so at each other’s throats if the Palestians could live free, peaceful lives and the Israelis weren’t hit by rockets, do you still think they would continue their feuds this fervently just because they are of different religions? Religion may help put already aggravated masses into a frenzy but the root cause is a lack of safety and freedom.

Look, I'm not blind to negative effects of organized religion. But I'm saying that if people of different religions in the same region are safe and have enough to eat, they might maybe live mostly separate lives and there might be a little mistrust, but by and large they're not going at each others throats like that. When they are, mostly the root cause is not religion itself but an underlying issue, where I admit religion is used as a tool to whip up the masses. I wish for more secular government in Israel and Iran too, but secular governments can also derail like we see in China and North Korea.

[heywood]

I'd say Jews have quite a big connection with the Middle East. It's where they came from.

By that logic, all 4.5 billion Christians and Muslims also came from the Middle East. And well, every one of us on Earth came from Africa.

[heywood]

Look, to illustrate my point of view, there are a lot of struggles in a lot of counties in Africa. You and Nicker might attribute that to backwards religion which we'd better get rid of.

Yes, many of the current conflicts in Africa are due to the expansionist efforts of militant brands of Islam. And I don't seek to get rid of religion. I'm very much a supporter of religious liberty. My wish is for theocrats not to be in control of nation states.

[Harvester]

On that much we can agree. Unlike some atheists I know and am even friends with, I believe religious people can be active in politics, but I prefer them to be voices among other voices in secular democracies, and not theocracies, because in theocracies, people not of the dominant religion will often be worse off. But when saying that, I would also like to say that religious people and other dissenters are worse off in some secular nations like China and North Korea and several historical regimes I could mention.

[SD]

By that logic, all 4.5 billion Christians and Muslims also came from the Middle East. And well, every one of us on Earth came from Africa.

Well, no, because Christians and Muslims aren't an ethnicity. This is the commonest misconception of who "Jews" are. First and foremost it is a tribe and nation of people, in the same manner as the Navajo or Maori. And while many members of the tribe follow the traditional tribal religion of Judaism, many do not, including at least three Prime Ministers of Israel who were openly atheist. It is not possible to fully understand Israel unless you appreciate that what you are dealing with is a vast extended family rather than a strictly religious association.

[Nicker]

It doesn't matter to me what people believe about gods and reality, when they do so in their own place on their own time. But it does matter when those beliefs spill out and are used to justify atrocities, like these wars.

In wartime, religion is more often an accelerant than a cause. It justifies the atrocities of both sides as being sanctioned by god, despite the inconvenient fact that the same god, we are told, supports both sides.

The other inflammatory mind-crime that religion commits, is belief in an afterlife, devaluing this life with the promise of the next, an eternity where the children of god will party and the enemies will suffer. Convincing people that an eternal reward awaits those willing to give their own life while taking another, is immoral gasoline on an irrational fire.

Fear. The mind killer.

There are two main causes for wars, disputes over resources and the ego aspirations of psychopaths, who often see themselves as either the agents of god, or simply behave like gods themselves. While both of these are normally part of the mix, to some degree or another, they are still separate ingredients.

When actual threats to resources don't exist, the self-deified psychopaths create that threat in the minds of their followers. And when there are real resource issues, they exploit them for violence.

If a fraction of the middle east war efforts had been directed to desalination plants, reforestation and agriculture, the only thing to fight about would be gods and that can be done over dinner.

[Nicker]

This is highly disingenuous. The bombs were not "random" but were small focused explosions highly likely to injure only the person carrying them, and those people were in Hizbollah's command structure because that is who ordered the pagers.

So, the bombs were justifiably indiscriminate? And if the collateral damage is just other Muslims, that's acceptable?

Do you really think that such acts will do anything other than create temporary disruptions in the command structure. We can be certain it will inspire new recruitment. It always does. Doing the same shit over and over expecting a novel result. You know what that is the definition of, right?

No, it's attacking Houthi rebels in Yemen, who have been attacking Israel totally unprovoked.

We aren't bombing your hospitals and schools, only the bad people hiding underneath them.

As for "unprovoked", that is itself a "highly disingenuous" characterization of Likud's slow-burn aggression.

[Subjective Effect]

Why is Israel held to such ridiculous standards? The comms attack was highly, highly targeted. Name a more targeted attack, really. And why do you think the collateral damage would just be too Muslims??

Of course the Houthi attacks are unprovoked. Did Israel attack them? No.

[Jason Moyer]

The thing that struck me when the first attack happened (the pagers) was seeing videos of people standing nearby looking like they were trying to control their laughter. The Lebanese don't want those fuckers in their country either.

[Starker]

Compared to bombing schools and hospitals in Gaza, the terror attacks in Lebanon have had far less civilian casualties and setting off an explosive device in a bus just doesn't compare to dropping off bombs on an entire block of residential buildings. Also, so far Israel isn't trying to blockade Lebanon or trying to starve Lebanese people or kill them with disease. If Israel would have fought Gaza in that way, there would be way more support and way less criticism.

The problem is what comes after. The policy of "escalate to deescalate" so far seems to be, in fact, "escalate to escalate". Israel is now planning ground raids to Lebanon and looks to be thinking about occupying Lebanon again or at least launching a ground invasion. This is the kind of thing that created Hezbollah in the first place.

[Thor]

For decades, if not millennia, two factions (with identical and impossible goals of exterminating the other) have engaged in violent conflict over lands around shores of the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Each faction purports to have deep, irrefutable, ancestral claims to the land, supported by the unconditional blessings of an almighty and merciful god, yet each think nothing of committing crimes of cruelty against their enemy or subjecting their own people to danger, deprivation and death, in order to advance their political and religious aspirations.

One side is wealthy, has superior military might and can afford a go-slow strategy of gradual strangulation. It says little and does much; expanding aggressively, disproportionately retaliating against any resistance, punishing entire families and villages for the alleged crimes of individuals, fighting rocks with tanks and enforcing a casualty ratio well above twenty-to-one.

The other faction is impoverished, out gunned and stupidly relies on desperate, cynical acts of provocation, which dependably result in a worsening of conditions for the very people they claim to protect. They hide fighters in homes, hospitals and schools, then complain about the inhumanity of civilian casualties. They repeatedly ignite armed conflicts which they have no hope of winning and which they must know will only add to the devastation of their lands and people. They use overt savagery against foes and friends alike, then wonder why they cannot elicit universal sympathy for their cause.


On October 7, 2023, after years of grinding and intensifying oppression by the former, the latter again provoked a hopeless war, expecting a preposterous, novel outcome (an enduring victory) despite no change in initial conditions or tactics. The stronger faction unleashed its predictable, amplified and deadly response, demanding that millions of people flee their war machine or accept responsibility for being trapped in its path.

Misery, disease, pain and death. A necessary price that others must pay, so that the two factions can assert the authenticity of their claims and the justification of their evil deeds. While neither side has any hope of annihilating the other, they pursue this goal with gluttonous delight, until exhaustion forces them to negotiate a peace, which both are already planning to violate.

Like furious toddlers, they cannot imagine a world where they do not get their way. Neither do they understand that, while they cling to the robes of their vengeful Father God, they will never, ever grow into adult human beings.

---------

How that other thread should have opened, IMO.

Indeed, this might be the only war in history that I find to be kind of worthwhile, because shit is fighting different brand of shit and results in the lessening of total shit on this earth. At least that's the idea. In reality everyone will get hit in some way or another.

[Nicker]

Why is Israel held to such ridiculous standards?

What ridiculous standards? I hold all aggressors on both sides to the same standards.

The comms attack was highly, highly targeted.

But the targets were embedded randomly among non targets. What if you were in an elevator with a target when their pager exploded? Would you still be so enthusiastic if you were at risk? Would it depend on whether you were injured or just spattered with blood and body parts? Be honest now.

The thing that struck me when the first attack happened (the pagers) was seeing videos of people standing nearby looking like they were trying to control their laughter.

Do you have a link to such a video?

Indeed, this might be the only war in history that I find to be kind of worthwhile, because shit is fighting different brand of shit and results in the lessening of total shit on this earth.

Except the opposite is what happens and has happened for thousand of years in the middle east. This is an ancient, tribal squabble which just keeps getting worse. But the "one state solution" folks there, and in here, keep insisting that they are right, because god.

Still waiting for our own "one staters" to provide details about how that will actually roll out, other than just more of the same.

The problem is what comes after. The policy of "escalate to deescalate" so far seems to be, in fact, "escalate to escalate". Israel is now planning ground raids to Lebanon and looks to be thinking about occupying Lebanon again or at least launching a ground invasion. This is the kind of thing that created Hezbollah in the first place.

Precisely. This is true for both sides. The difference is the quality and quantity of military resources each have. I have no doubt that if Hamas et al had the means to flatten Israeli cities, they would not hesitate.

[DuatDweller]

At first exploding Pagers, then exploding Radios....

[heywood]

Indeed, this might be the only war in history that I find to be kind of worthwhile, because shit is fighting different brand of shit and results in the lessening of total shit on this earth. At least that's the idea. In reality everyone will get hit in some way or another.

Be careful what you wish for. What if this is the second front of the third world war, with Taiwan coming in a few years and perhaps South Korea too. Why would China be propping up a theocracy like Iran, buying their oil and keeping them supplied with materials and goods? Chinese companies are partners in Iran's space/satellite program even. One can imagine missile technology too. It's hard to ignore the massive military buildup in China under Xi and how much more active they are in espionage and cyber warfare. They're deploying all new nuclear forces and their navy is now largest in the world. I feel like Putin and Khamenei have been given the green light and material support to pursue campaigns in eastern Europe and the Middle East to soften us up, deplete our resources, and make us war weary. This new axis is also waging a classic propaganda war designed to distract us and undermine our motivation. Meanwhile China's military readies itself to take Taiwan and control Southeast Asia. I hope I'm just paranoid.

[Subjective Effect]

What ridiculous standards? I hold all aggressors on both sides to the same standards.

People expect Israel to not fight back. You know it's true.

But the targets were embedded randomly among non targets. What if you were in an elevator with a target when their pager exploded?Would you still be so enthusiastic if you were at risk? Would it depend on whether you were injured or just spattered with blood and body parts? Be honest now.

The targets were terrorists. Hizbollah is a terrorist organisation. Everyone in Hizbollah is a member of a terrorist organisation. If I were in a lift with a member of Hizbollah and their pager exploded and injured me I'd be furious. At Hizbollah, for having terrorists in lifts with other people.

Why are you so upset that terrorists were injured?

It's FAR better to get them that way than to bomb them and cause massive collateral damage, isn't it?

[Starker]

Mass killings of civilians with bombs, starvation, and disease is not "fighting back".

[Subjective Effect]

Offer a solution. After Oct 7th, what should Israel have done?

[Starker]

They should have gone after Hamas as an organisation instead of turning Gaza into a disaster area and ramping up violence in the West Bank. In fact, I'll go even farther and say that dealing with Hamas instead of, say, Fatah was a fatal mistake. Israel's policy of seeing Hamas as an asset and PA and Fatah as a liability backfired terribly: https://mondoweiss.net/2015/10/hamas-israeli-consensus/

[demagogue]

What does any normal country do with domestic terrorists?
Arrest them, hold a trial, then imprison them for life.
Then you give Palestinians citizenship and a political say in the circumstances of their existence like any normal country, so disputes are handled through the political system and not terrorism.

That is how every normal liberal democratic country has ever dealt with this situation.
As it is now, Israel is making a whole lot more terrorists than they're killing, and they're just perpetuating the cycle for another decade or two.
It never ends until Palestinians have citizenship, equality, civil and political rights, and a decent standard of living.

And in case anybody is confused on this point, the Israeli Knesset has already committed itself to a one state solution, and with the settlers, infrastructural integration, and assured occupation of Gaza, there's no going back on that commitment short of Final Solution level ethnic cleansing as the only viable alternative at this point. (Everybody knows what a "Madagascar Plan" [Oklahoma Plan, Armenia Plan, Circassian & Crimean Khanate Plan, Bantustan Plan] etc., etc, really means.)
It's not really rocket science.
It's "how to deal with people that have lived in your territory for 100s of years" 101 stuff.

Edit: At least for Americans, I guess not many really ever learned that a two state solution was also the solution taken for granted for Native Americans for a very long time too, Sequoia, what we now call the state of Oklahoma (along with the return to Liberia solution for the former Black slave population). But of course white nationalists obstructed its creation at every turn, like Zionists have done for a Palestinian state, and in both cases the situation on the ground makes them un-viable. Also the South African Bantustans while we're at it. Just like the US and South Africa, Israel will at some point realize there's only two viable options, genocide or give them citizenship, and the US was Christian enough to give Native Americans citizenship. I think Americans also probably don't appreciate that our longest wars by far were with Native Americans, Comanches, Apaches, Utes, Sioux, many of them lasting up to and longer than 50 to 80 years. I want to say I doubt that Palestinians want to kill all Jews any more than Apaches and Comanches wanted to kill all white settlers, but citizenship was still the right answer for Native Americans. But they have polls on that matter, and 78% of Palestinians desire living side by side in peace with Jews, as long as they have citizenship to a state. Anyway, Palestinians are still one of the largest stateless populations in the world, the state of Israel has total control over the conditions on the ground, and most decolonization happened already in the 1960s... Having citizenship is the first level for any protection or political agency for any population, and you just can't have a population be stateless for more than 80 years any way you cut it. Give them citizenship already and end the mess. There's really no excuse that isn't debunked by clear evidence and basic human rights standards.

Edit 2: If I were on the Palestinian PR team, the first thing I'd recommend is take a note from Mandela's playbook, which is your starting pitch is that the job of the new state is to ensure all persons in the territory get absolute protection by the state, and a no tolerance policy on any threats or violence against Israeli Jews. You have to make it explicit and the first item in the list, part of the actual slogan, to give no rhetorical chance to claim that Jewish lives might be at risk or that they wouldn't be equal citizens. I think that politically the challenge is that any Palestinians seen as collaborationists aren't going to get much political backing, which is a common theme in all colonial case studies, so I recognize the challenge, but you gotta go with what's worked in other cases.

[Subjective Effect]

Oh, you guys are right. It's so easy! Doh! Why didn't they think of that?

If that's what a "normal" country does, can you give me one example of this ever happening, in the same situation?

This, ladies and gents, is why I said Israel is held to a higher standard. There has never been a situation like this, where the terrorists are the elected leaders, embedded within the population, fire 1000s of rockets at the "normal" country's civilians, and has a standing militia armed to resist a military invasion on the ground.

Your suggestions are laughable and totally impractical. I'd really love to hear exactly how you would go about arresting Hamas.



PS. For what it's worth, I don't think they should have gone after Hamas at all. I think they should have, after repelling the attack, simply documented everything that happened on Oct 7th in detail and presented it to the UN and anyone else who cared to see, asked for international help in getting the hostages back and for help from geniuses like you guys on what to do next and how to solve the problem of terrorist maniacs living next door and doing all this stuff.

[demagogue]

I gave the example of Native Americans. Black South Africans. Catholic Northern Irish. Turkish Russians. Kurdish Turks. Karkalpaki Uzbekistanis. Muslim Indians. Hindu Pakistanis. Fur Sudanese. Kachin Myanarmese. Herero Namibians. Vietnamese Cambodians. I mean... 9 out of 10 countries have had an internal population it's been at war with for a long time. Almost all of them now have citizenship except for Palestinians.