Is Germany Serious?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    Jerusalem Post:

    German gov't document gives backing to EU efforts to put "Made in Israel" label only on products from within pre-1967 lines.

    I get what they're trying to do (which is a WTF itself), but I'm fairly shocked, with how allergic Germans seem to be with their own N-word that they'd go down this path, since this is obviously how it will be portrayed:

    In a throwback to its darkest past, the German government recently decided to back an initiative which singles out Jewish-owned businesses and targets them for detrimental treatment. Joining 13 other European Union members, Berlin has reportedly agreed to support efforts aimed at applying special labels of origin to products manufactured by Jewish owned factories in Judea and Samaria.

    The goal, of course, is to harm the livelihood of Jewish businessmen and entrepreneurs as a way of undermining the settlement enterprise. Needless to say, goods made by Palestinian-run plants in the territories will not similarly be branded.



  • That's actually surprising, because Germans tend to be way more sympathetic to Israel than the other Euro-weenies. Probably guilt over something... Maybe Falco..



  • So, why exactly are you singling out Germany? When Sweden, Great-Britain and Spain are doing that for several years now?

    And we're not "sympathetic". It's only due to attitudes like those portrayed in this very thread - instant Godwin anytime we do something that Israel doesn't like.

    Well, they should get over it. It's not like Israel is the blinding epitome of fighting against racism itself...



  • Germany is ALWAYS serious
              \



  • The UN general assembly has already decided to recognise Palestine as a sovereign state.

    This article just says that Germany didn't sign the first request to not mark produce from that Palestinian state as being Israeli produce. Stuff made in pre-1967 lines is still frrely available and marked as "Israel", stuff from within settlements is not marked as "Israel". And Germany wasn't one of the first 13 from the 27 nations to approve this.

    @Article said:

    In a throwback to its darkest past

    It's hardly up there with the Polish death camps...

    @Article said:

    an initiative which singles out Jewish-owned businesses and targets them for detrimental treatment

    Only the businesses which are viewed by the UN as operating in occupied territories.

    @Article said:

    The goal, of course, is to harm the livelihood of Jewish businessmen and entrepreneurs as a way of undermining the settlement enterprise.

    The goal really isn't to harm Jewish businessmen. It's to avoid referring to land that Israel claims as Israeli as being part of Israel, which is very different.



  • @Rhywden said:

    So, why exactly are you singling out Germany?

    I have no idea. There's absolutely no historical reason for commenting on German antisemitism. I apologize profusely to the proud nation of Germany.

    @Rhywden said:

    And we're not "sympathetic".

    In the polls I've seen, Germany is usually far, far more sympathetic than other Euro-weenies.

    @Rhywden said:

    It's only due to attitudes like those portrayed in this very thread - instant Godwin anytime we do something that Israel doesn't like.

    I don't know why Israel would be upset at Germany for once again singling Jews out for persecution via a special mark. What a bunch of crybabies!

    @Rhywden said:

    Well, they should get over it. It's not like Israel is the blinding epitome of fighting against racism itself...

    So your argument is "Israel is racist, so that excuses Germany being antisemitic"? Also, I never saw Israel as particularly racist. They're certainly a lot less racist than any other Middle Eastern country I can think of, and all European countries, too.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Rhywden said:

    So, why exactly are you singling out Germany? When Sweden, Great-Britain and Spain are doing that for several years now?

    And we're not "sympathetic". It's only due to attitudes like those portrayed in this very thread - instant Godwin anytime we do something that Israel doesn't like.

    Those countries, to my knowledge, don't have things like anti-nazi laws. And Germany has always seemed to me to be especially sensitive to these sorts of issues. From the inside, I could see how you might have a different view, but that's how you guys have appeared to me.

    @Rhywden said:

    Well, they should get over it. It's not like Israel is the blinding epitome of fighting against racism itself...

    Aside from their whole existence being a fight against a particular kind of racism, yeah, you totally have a point.

    So I didn't get into the WTFishness of the "boycott" itself, but let's do that now. This is all about pre vs post 1967 borders. Europeans are apparently butt hurt that Israel's neighbors attacked Israel and got their asses handed to them by Israel and lost some territory to Israel in the process. Fuck you, Europe. Fuck you Arabs. You're the idiots who lost that land because you couldn't get along and you thought Israel would be as easy to defeat as they defeated you. Also, when governments do it, it's not a boycott, it's a trade war, which is pretty much always a WTF.



  • @nosliwmas said:

    The UN general assembly has already decided to recognise Palestine as a sovereign state.

    The UN general assembly is a joke. It's basically a kangaroo court made up of racists and sociopaths and the US.

    @nosliwmas said:

    It's hardly up there with the Polish death camps...

    Of course the Poles didn't construct their death camps in one day..

    @nosliwmas said:

    The goal really isn't to harm Jewish businessmen. It's to avoid referring to land that Israel claims as Israeli as being part of Israel, which is very different.

    No, harming Jews is just a convenient side-effect.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @nosliwmas said:

    The UN general assembly has already decided to recognise Palestine as a sovereign state.

    Oh, there's a respectable group. Who gives a fuck what the UN General Assembly says? They have no power, and are basically a club of dictators when it comes to voting for anything.

    @nosliwmas said:

    Only the businesses which are viewed by the UN as operating in occupied territories.

    And owned by Jews. But keep rationalizing if it makes you feel better.



  • @boomzilla said:

    Fuck you, Europe. Fuck you Arabs. You're the idiots who lost that land because you couldn't get along and you thought Israel would be as easy to defeat as they defeated you.

    Yeah, no shit. I'll support Israel returning to its pre-1967 borders when the fucking nations of Europe return to their pre-1000 borders. Also, you can hand over $1 trillion in gold as reparations for perpetrating the Holocaust (obviously with the guilt lying more heavily with some countries than others.) And they can sign a pact providing military assistance should Israel ever again be attacked by any of its neighbors.

    Until then, Europe can shut their fucking hypocritical mouths.

    Oh, and Israel: holding Jerusalem isn't worth being annihilated over. Just move your people to some nice, unsettled area far away from the Middle East, then turn the entire fucking shithole into glass. Seriously, there's a time to stand your ground and a time to realize the best revenge is living well and setting fire to the whole joint on your way out the door.



  • @nosliwmas said:

    @Article said:

    In a throwback to its darkest past

    It's hardly up there with the Polish death camps...

     

    Not sure if serious

     

    You're fully aware that death camps were founded and run by the Nazis (mostly, but not limited to German origin), not Polish people? Right?

     



  • @boomzilla said:

    @nosliwmas said:
    Only the businesses which are viewed by the UN as operating in occupied territories.

    And owned by Jews. But keep rationalizing if it makes you feel better.

    nosliwmas is in England, a nation that, last time I checked, is occupying several territories, like Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales..



  • @badfubglur said:

    You're fully aware that death camps were founded and run by the Nazis (mostly, but not limited to German origin), not Polish people? Right?

    Well, they worked, so they couldn't possibly have been built by Polacks.



  • @El_Heffe said:

    Germany is ALWAYS serious
              \

    There's the problem.  You don't want Germany to be serious.  You want lederhosen and alpenhorns and yodeling and beer and bratwurst and sweet young fräuleins screaming at David Hasselhoff concerts.  It's when they get serious that we start having trouble with them.

    "Once all the Germans were warlike and mean,
    But that couldn't happen again.
    For we taught them a lesson in nineteen-eighteen,
    And they've hardly bothered us since then."

      -- Tom Lehrer

     



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    nosliwmas is in England, a nation that, last time I checked, is occupying several territories, like Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales..
    We need to use the EU to abolish France and return the occupied territories to their true owners. The English would get back Aquitaine, Normandy, and so-on, the Germans would get the eastern parts, Italy and Switzerland the south, the Basques can have their bit, and to the north the Low Countries will finally get back to a reasonably practical size. The Ile de France can remain an independent micronation - walled-off, and filled with all the current French politicians and civil servants.



  • "I'm sorry, does your tattoo say Die Bart, Die?"

    "No, it's German. It says "the Bart, the."

    "Nobody who speaks German could be an evil man!"


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @badfubglur said:

    You're fully aware that death camps were founded and run by the Nazis (mostly, but not limited to German origin), not Polish people? Right?

    Are you sure about that?



  • @TDWTF123 said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    nosliwmas is in England, a nation that, last time I checked, is occupying several territories, like Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales..
    We need to use the EU to abolish France and return the occupied territories to their true owners. The English would get back Aquitaine, Normandy, and so-on, the Germans would get the eastern parts, Italy and Switzerland the south, the Basques can have their bit, and to the north the Low Countries will finally get back to a reasonably practical size. The Ile de France can remain an independent micronation - walled-off, and filled with all the current French politicians and civil servants.

    You're not thinking big enough. Why should we divvy France up among the English and Germans and so on, when those nations are themselves occupied territories? England is rightfully Celtic, and the Romans and Anglos and Saxons and Normans just need to get out.

    We need to dismantle each nation, and return the lands to the descendants of whatever tribe first settled there. People who are of mixed ancestry (like the English) will have their allotments adjusted based on the percentage of each race they are. America will finally send her Africans back to Africa, and return her lands to whichever Native American tribes first held the land. And it can't just be whichever tribe held it when Europeans showed up, since the Indian tribes were constantly at war. We'll have to painstakingly trace the ownership of each square yard of land until we find its rightful owner.

    Clearly the only way to achieve racial harmony is to divvy up all the Earth along finely-calculated racial lines. This will finally put an end to all of these territorial squabbles. If you disagree, you are a racist.


    Oh, also, we should clone some Neanderthals from whatever DNA we can find, because rightfully most of Europe belongs to them and not the Cro-Magnon usurpers.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Until then, Europe can shut their fucking hypocritical mouths.
    Huh? Remind me again which country has invaded the most other countries since WW2. Let's see... the Sovier Union invaded Afghanistan, but then again, so did the rest of the world. And several countries in Asia, Africa and the Balkans invaded one another, but nobody really cares about those. Most recently, Russia invaded Georgia.

    And of course, the USA invaded several Carribean micro-nations (which was generally a success, given the imbalance of power) and several larger nations such as Vietnam, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan (which would be a bit more difficult to be called a success).

    The main difference between Europe and the USA is that we don't have a powerful Jewish lobby here. The reasons for that are simple: about half of the Jews were exterminated during WW2, and a lot of them migrated to Israel after the war. So there aren't that many left.

    Also, the sympathy of Europeans was squarely with Israel, until about the time of the first Intifada. It started shifting after that. Because it had become clear that yes, we had been very mean to the Jews during the war, but now we saw tanks against teenagers throwing rocks. Somehow, the fight didnt seem fair, and we all know who gets the sympathy in an unfair fight.

     The Palestinians were clever enough to move away from terrorism (devoiding them of any sympathy) to portray themselves as victims. Whether this is accurate or not isn't even that relevant: it's what the general public believes. Israel did its part to become the bogeyman, such as pulling down the houses of the families of suicide bombers. In other words, collective punishment. There's a word for it: Sippenhaft. Three guesses from what language that word comes, and when last it was widely employed.

     What kind of screwed it all up for the Palestinians was al-Qaida and other fundamentalist terrorism. It gave Muslims in general a bad name, and the image of some Palestinians celebrating after 9/11 didn't do their cause a lot of good either. So now we're in a situation where we're not supposed to like the Palestinians, we're not supposed to like the Israelis either, and this is all terribly confusing.

     I don't expect people like you or Boomzilla, who've repeatedly shown to have entrenched opinions about this, that, and the other, to change your point of view. But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a very complex one, and can't be brushed off with "these are the good guys and those are the bad guys". You may choose a side, sure, but you'll accomplish nothing.

    The Europeans don't choose a side in the conflict. They maintain close ties to Israel (certain countries closer than other) and try to maintain good relationships with the Palestinians. The general view in Europe is also that the constant deprivation of and land-grabbing from Palestinians by the Israelis in occupied territories makes a peaceful solution to the conflict increasingly difficult. And that's why you'll see those labels, because nobody recognises the land-grabbing – not even the USA under various administrations.



  • @Severity One said:

    Vietnam

    What the fuck, are you some kind of idiot? We never invaded Vietnam. We had troops in South Vietnam, because they were an ally and had requested assistance. Fuck, our milquetoast administrations at the time were so afraid of upsetting the apple cart, they wouldn't even send troops into North Vietnam, a country we were at war with.

    @Severity One said:

    Because it had become clear that yes, we had been very mean to the Jews during the war...

    So apparently trying to wipe an entire peoples off the face of the Earth is "being very mean". Wow.

    @Severity One said:

    but now we saw tanks against teenagers throwing rocks.

    So if people were suicide bombing your home, launching rockets into your cities and trying to murder you, your reaction would be? To walk over and ask them to be nice? Yeah, they've sent in tanks, because it's a dangerous fucking situation and because they shouldn't have to risk their lives any more than necessary to stop someone who is assaulting them. And if someone is dumb enough to throw rocks at a tank when that tank is there to hunt down terrorists, they fucking deserve to be blown to fucking hell.

    I am continually amazed by the restraint the Israelis have shown in the face of overwhelming violence, aggression and terrorism. If it was me, after the first round of terrorism I would have given 48 hours notice to get the fuck out, then bombed the whole fucking shithole until it was nothing but dust.

    @Severity One said:

    The Palestinians were clever enough to move away from terrorism (devoiding them of any sympathy) to portray themselves as victims. Whether this is accurate or not isn't even that relevant: it's what the general public believes.

    No, Palestinians never gave up terrorism. Yes, Europeans are parochial and ignorant about most of the world. Yes, Europeans cling to crazy, Middle Ages antisemitic conspiracies. None of this is news to the people here who aren't fucking stupid.

    @Severity One said:

    It gave Muslims in general a bad name..

    And not the suicide bombing, stoning of women, genital mutilation, torture and murder of homosexuals and "infidels" (i.e. anyone who questions the authorities). Newsflash, asshole, Islam gave Islam a bad name. It's a violent, misogynistic, retrograde cult that's not even up to Dark Ages Europe in terms of morality. Now, of course, there are some good Muslims who have been moderated and pacified by Western Civilization (the same thing that happened to Christianity, in fact), but unfortunately they are not in the majority in many Middle Eastern countries (nor in most European ones, for that matter..)

    @Severity One said:

    But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a very complex one...

    No it isn't. The Israelis have tried for decades to live in peace with the Palestinians. They have given all sorts of crazy, unheard of concessions; shit that no country on Earth would be expected to do if it wasn't populated by Jews.

    Meanwhile, the Palestinians have one, single goal: eliminate Israel. There is no compromise that can be reached--for 50 years the rest of us have been brokering peace accords between the Palestinians and Israelis, only to see the Palestinians renege almost immediately, and return to violence and terrorism.

    The funny thing is, I don't think a single European country would show the restraint that has been shown by the Israelis, let alone what has been asked of them. If Germany spent 50 years firing rockets into residential Paris, killing hundreds or thousands a year in suicide bombings, acting as a base for all sorts of terrorism against the French people, France would have rolled tanks in and taken them the fuck out. And nobody would have said "Oh, France, why are you picking on little old Germany?"

    My only consolation is that Europe is in the process of being turned into a Caliphate. At the rate you're importing Muslims, many of your countries will be Muslim majority in a few decades. You can stop, of course, but then you'll be facing severe demographic problems with your workforce. Meanwhile, the immigrants you've got are already refusing to assimilate and are causing all sorts of problems.

    My prediction: within 50 years at least one western European country is going to "ethnically cleanse" it's Muslim population. Because, seriously, that's what you people do. Europe has considered itself the center of civilized society since Rome fell, even while you all were descending in serfdom, depravity, violence and illiteracy. You have this odd ability to convince yourself you're so good, that's it's quite alright if you exterminate an ethnicity you've determined are not good.

    Fuck, you people act like you're some kind of non-violent saints who can criticize anyone who doesn't respond to things the way you think they should (which, of course, it not at all the way you'd actually respond to things if you were in the same situation.) But for the first half of the 20th century you basically did everything in your power to destroy humanity. You started war after war, killing a hundred million people, and nearly destroyed civilization. Fuck, it wasn't until the much-reviled United States Armed Services took over defense of your pathetic countries that we even managed to stop you from slaughtering each other.

    And now, of course, you're the perfect projecting pacifists--you think everyone else should refuse to fight back, even if they're being attacked by an aggressor. Of course, you would never do the same if you were in that position; you'd probably overreact so horrifically again that you'd end up having to build a dozen more Museums to your crimes.



  • @Severity One said:

    powerful Jewish lobby

    Oh, and I always love hearing Europeans talk about our "powerful Jewish lobby"..

    "Hissssss!! How dare you let the Christ killers ask your government to help prevent the extermination of their country and people! They use the blood of Christian babies in their Satan-worshiping rituals, you know. It's all here in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is what passes for a history textbook in our shitty, illiterate countries. Hissssssss!!!!"



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    I am continually amazed by the restraint the Israelis have shown in the face of overwhelming violence, aggression and terrorism. If it was me, after the first round of terrorism I would have given 48 hours notice to get the fuck out, then bombed the whole fucking shithole until it was nothing but dust.

    Yeah! Let's fucking nuke those rag-head bastards!

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Newsflash, asshole, Islam gave Islam a bad name. It's a violent, misogynistic, retrograde cult that's not even up to Dark Ages Europe in terms of morality. Now, of course, there are some good Muslims who have been moderated and pacified by Western Civilization (the same thing that happened to Christianity, in fact), but unfortunately they are not in the majority in many Middle Eastern countries (nor in most European ones, for that matter..)

    I'm with this guy. It's time for us to do what we all know needs to be done about these people. I think it's high time we went ahead with a Final Solution to the Muslim Question in the western world, isn't that right morbs? An entire group of billions of people is exactly as you generalize them in a sentence: misguided, violent, somehow less worthy or worse than you and yours.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    My only consolation is that Europe is in the process of being turned into a Caliphate. At the rate you're importing Muslims, many of your countries will be Muslim majority in a few decades. You can stop, of course, but then you'll be facing severe demographic problems with your workforce. Meanwhile, the immigrants you've got are already refusing to assimilate and are causing all sorts of problems.

    Those stupid rag-heads! They're so violent and misogynistic that they can barely even stagger to their local Halal supermarket to chat about Jihad with their terrorist brethren! Just the other day I was walking down the road here in Europe and I saw a group of immigrant muslims who weren't even wearing Europe flag pins on their clothes to signal their new-found European patriotism. Do you know, I don't think they were even a little ashamed of were they were from!

    @morbiuswilters said:

    But for the first half of the 20th century you basically did everything in your power to destroy humanity. You started war after war, killing a hundred million people, and nearly destroyed civilization. Fuck, it wasn't until the much-reviled United States Armed Services took over defense of your pathetic countries that we even managed to stop you from slaughtering each other.

    You're right, Europe is the problem, but only because it's so full of so many of these degenerate sand beasts you were talking about earlier. Hopefully some good old-fashioned paternalistic American foreign policy will save us from ourselves yet again as it has done so many times across the world in the last hundred years. I do enjoy a good lecture on not destroying humanity from the only nation ever to use nuclear weapons in combat.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Fuck

    Your intense, crazy, warmongering paranoia is unsettling.



  • @boomzilla said:


    Aside from their whole existence being a fight against a particular kind of racism, yeah, you totally have a point.

    Yeah, they're fighting racism, alright, by taking a page out of the playbook of the Nazis and sterilizing Ethiopian Jews... Not to mention that, as muslim, you're not very secure in Israel's streets. You're not secure either if you happen to only have a muslim friend while being a Jew yourself.

    Yeah, they really have learned from the past. Although they have seem to drawn the wrong conclusions.



  • Wait, you guys are literally arguing that any decision that is bad for Israeli* business interests amounts to Nazism? Let us know when you return to sanity.

    __

    * Or to be more precise, for businesses operating in territories occupied by Israel: a status pretty much universally recognized, including by the US.



  • @Severity One said:

    I don't expect people like you or Boomzilla, who've repeatedly shown to have entrenched opinions about this, that, and the other, to change your point of view. But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a very complex one, and can't be brushed off with "these are the good guys and those are the bad guys". You may choose a side, sure, but you'll accomplish nothing.

    No, it's not a complex conflict - there are no "good guys", both sides are just as bad. The Israeli should not occupy foreign territory and call it its own, and the Palestinians should not fire rockets at another state. And so on.

    My preferred solution would be to just move everyone to an uninhabited island somewhere, and pave the entire area. If someone tells them that "Here, this is your new country, it's a gift from God, promise!", they'll go for it and not even put up a fight. It's been done before, you know.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    nosliwmas is in England, a nation that, last time I checked, is occupying several territories, like Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales..

    At least part of that is wrong: really it's Scotland that's occupying England. Anyway, I have a compromise between those arguing for the status quo and those arguing for pre-1000 borders: how about Britain goes back to its pre-1776 borders?



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Yeah, no shit. I'll support Israel returning to its pre-1967 borders when the fucking nations of Europe return to their pre-1000 borders. Also, you can hand over $1 trillion in gold as reparations for perpetrating the Holocaust (obviously with the guilt lying more heavily with some countries than others.) And they can sign a pact providing military assistance should Israel ever again be attacked by any of its neighbors.

    Until then, Europe can shut their fucking hypocritical mouths.

    Oh, and Israel: holding Jerusalem isn't worth being annihilated over. Just move your people to some nice, unsettled area far away from the Middle East, then turn the entire fucking shithole into glass. Seriously, there's a time to stand your ground and a time to realize the best revenge is living well and setting fire to the whole joint on your way out the door.

    I'll assume you're affecting ignorance because it makes you slightly more amusing, eh?

    If the nations of Europe were returning to their pre-1000 borders, how about the USA returns to an appropriate state of non-existence? That'd solve about half the worlds problems, right there. And 99% of the worlds obesity problem.



  • @eViLegion said:

    how about the USA returns to an appropriate state of non-existence? That'd solve about half the worlds problems, right there. And 99% of the worlds obesity problem.
     

    He already posted that.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @boh said:

    No, it's not a complex conflict - there are no "good guys", both sides are just as bad.

    Perhaps the most dangerous sentiment expressed in this whole thread.



  • @boomzilla said:

    @boh said:
    No, it's not a complex conflict - there are no "good guys", both sides are just as bad.

    Perhaps the most dangerous sentiment expressed in this whole thread.

     

    It's factual, though.

    I basically gave up on the whole conflict when Israel started building their ridiculous concrete wall.



  • @dhromed said:

    @boomzilla said:

    @boh said:
    No, it's not a complex conflict - there are no "good guys", both sides are just as bad.

    Perhaps the most dangerous sentiment expressed in this whole thread.

     

    It's factual, though.

    I basically gave up on the whole conflict when Israel started building their ridiculous concrete wall.


    It's not factual, because there aren't actually any sides, just people behaving entirely predictably given their circumstances they were born into - because for everyone alive today the conflict is a fait accompli, not something they had a part in creating. If you swapped Palestinian and Israeli babies at birth, they'd each grow up behaving exactly like the other would normally.

    You want to know what really makes me angry about the whole mess? That we do actually know how to end it, and it wouldn't be expensive, but no-one on the outside gives a flying fuck. All we need to do - literally, the only thing - is spend a few billion dollars on construction projects in the Palestinian territories, raising their economy out of the shits and giving them something better to do with their lives than throw rocks at tanks. Then we just wait a decade or so, and we'll have peace and co-operation, just like in Ireland and so-on.

    You can draw your own conclusions about why people don't want to see an end to a conflict in which lots of Jews and poor brown people die, but when you see the PotEoZ-style lies trotted out by people like Rhywden in this very thread, I think the motivations are pretty clear.

    @Rhywden said:

    Yeah, they're fighting racism, alright, by taking a page out of the playbook of the Nazis and sterilizing Ethiopian Jews... Not to mention that, as muslim, you're not very secure in Israel's streets. You're not secure either if you happen to only have a muslim friend while being a Jew yourself.
    I have no idea if Rhywden is a neo-Nazi himself, or just the idiot dupe of neo-Nazis doing their work for them, but those are just plain old anti-Semitic lies. You can find much the same thing about the Palestinians as well.



  • @dhromed said:

    @eViLegion said:

    how about the USA returns to an appropriate state of non-existence? That'd solve about half the worlds problems, right there. And 99% of the worlds obesity problem.
     

    He already posted that.

    Oh no... for he is a jealous god.



  • @Rhywden said:

    Yeah, they really have learned from the past. Although they have seem to drawn the wrong conclusions.

     

    this.

     


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @dhromed said:

    @boomzilla said:
    @boh said:
    No, it's not a complex conflict - there are no "good guys", both sides are just as bad.

    Perhaps the most dangerous sentiment expressed in this whole thread.

    It's factual, though.

    I basically gave up on the whole conflict when Israel started building their ridiculous concrete wall.

    ZOMG! A wall! That's totally as bad as encouraging children to kill themselves. I cannot believe that all the people who whine about proportionate responses think that building a wall is such an awful thing. It's about the least violent thing they could possibly do to defend themselves.

    It's true that in a war, bad things happen on both sides. That's not an excuse for moral equivalence.



  • @morbiuswilters said:



    The funny thing is, I don't think a single European country would show the restraint that has been shown by the Israelis, let alone what has been asked of them. If Germany spent 50 years firing rockets into residential Paris, killing hundreds or thousands a year in suicide bombings, acting as a base for all sorts of terrorism against the French people, France would have rolled tanks in and taken them the fuck out.

     

    No, they wouldn't. It's France, after all ;-)

     



  • @boomzilla said:

    It's about the least violent thing they could possibly do to defend themselves.
     

    Israel is not in the defensive position here.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @TDWTF123 said:

    You can draw your own conclusions about why people don't want to see an end to a conflict in which lots of Jews and poor brown people die

    Let's start with the fact that other Arabs don't want to lose their easy scapegoat. "Hey subjects...your life sucks? It's because Jews! Palestinians!" But Palestinians are treated better in Israel than in Arab countries.

    @TDWTF123 said:

    That we do actually know how to end it, and it wouldn't be expensive, but no-one on the outside gives a flying fuck. All we need to do - literally, the only thing - is spend a few billion dollars on construction projects in the Palestinian territories, raising their economy out of the shits and giving them something better to do with their lives than throw rocks at tanks. Then we just wait a decade or so, and we'll have peace and co-operation, just like in Ireland and so-on.

    I don't think this would work. Right now, especially in Gaza, they have a super sweet deal. They get large subsidies from the US and other rich nations so they can focus on fighting Israel. This is in addition to whatever below board stuff comes from places like Iran or Muslim "charities." Why work in a factory when you can be a glorious martyr for Allah? Plus, the Israelis have tried to surrender with very generous offers, and the Palestinians aren't even really interested in negotiating. They are really focused on destroying Israel and killing all the Jews there.

    They even have their own sick version of Mickey Mouse, Farfour, to make sure the kids grow up brainwashed to hate Israel.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @dhromed said:

    @boomzilla said:
    It's about the least violent thing they could possibly do to defend themselves.

    Israel is not in the defensive position here.

    I cannot quote this enough:

    @P.J. O'Rourke said:

    What the fuck? I mean, what the fucking fuck?

    I guess you mean to say all of the attacks on Israel are simply the Palestinian's, et.al., defending themselves from the "attack" that was Israel's creation in 1948?

    Or maybe you think that because they are technologically, militarily, economically superior, the Israelis cannot be defending themselves against the primitive, dirt poor Palestinians? Like how some people think black people cannot be racist? Either way, I refer you to the quote above.



  • @boomzilla said:

    I don't think this would work. Right now, especially in Gaza, they have a super sweet deal. They get large subsidies from the US and other rich nations so they can focus on fighting Israel. This is in addition to whatever below board stuff comes from places like Iran or Muslim "charities." Why work in a factory when you can be a glorious martyr for Allah? Plus, the Israelis have tried to surrender with very generous offers, and the Palestinians aren't even really interested in negotiating. They are really focused on destroying Israel and killing all the Jews there.
    It doesn't require the willing cooperation of the Palestinians - and no solution to the problem can require that, because part of the problem is that you won't get it. Make their economy better, and they will, quite literally, find better things to do with their time than hating Israel. Despite your scepticism, history shows clearly that people would in fact rather work in factories (or the equivalent), as long as it's well enough paid that they can just get on with their lives, than become terrorists or similar.



  • @TDWTF123 said:

    All we need to do - literally, the only thing - is spend a few billion dollars on construction projects in the Palestinian territories, raising their economy out of the shits and giving them something better to do with their lives than throw rocks at tanks. Then we just wait a decade or so, and we'll have peace and co-operation, just like in Ireland and so-on.

    If only it were so simple. The problem is that it's not just an Israel/Palestine conflict, it's a West/East conflict. As long as Israel and Palestine are fighting, the US and Europe won't have to fight the Middle East.

    For the West, an economically stable Palestine would be yet another Islamic nation calling for an end to the infidel West; yet another base for al-Qaeda and friends to stage from.
    For the Islamic countries, an economically stable Palestine would remove the main point of contention that allows them to keep quietly piling on anti-Western rhetoric and imposing harsher and harsher laws upon their citizens. Those citizens would probably turn their gazes inward, which could lead to another Arab Spring, which is bad for dictators.

    I'm not saying either position is morally right - as two World Wars have already shown us, a conflict deferred is a conflict that's all the more bloody. In the end, West and East will fight; it's merely a matter of time.

    @TDWTF123 said:

    You can draw your own conclusions about why people don't want to see an end to a conflict in which lots of Jews and poor brown people die, but when you see the PotEoZ-style lies trotted out by people like Rhywden in this very thread, I think the motivations are pretty clear.

    As per my reply above, I don't believe that people don't want to see an end to the conflict; rather, they want to delay the initiation of a much larger conflict. As Neville Chamberlain showed us, that's a policy always doomed to failure.



  • @TDWTF123 said:

    @boomzilla said:
    I don't think this would work. Right now, especially in Gaza, they have a super sweet deal. They get large subsidies from the US and other rich nations so they can focus on fighting Israel. This is in addition to whatever below board stuff comes from places like Iran or Muslim "charities." Why work in a factory when you can be a glorious martyr for Allah? Plus, the Israelis have tried to surrender with very generous offers, and the Palestinians aren't even really interested in negotiating. They are really focused on destroying Israel and killing all the Jews there.
    It doesn't require the willing cooperation of the Palestinians - and no solution to the problem can require that, because part of the problem is that you won't get it. Make their economy better, and they will, quite literally, find better things to do with their time than hating Israel. Despite your scepticism, history shows clearly that people would in fact rather work in factories (or the equivalent), as long as it's well enough paid that they can just get on with their lives, than become terrorists or similar.

    By any chance, do you remember what happened in 2005, right after the Jews were kicked out of the Gaza Strip? Among the assets left behind were greenhouses and a flourishing trade in lettuce and other vegetables.

    And what was the first thing done with them after the Palestinian Authority took over? The greenhouses were destroyed.

    Tell me again about them "finding better things to do with their time"?



  • @The_Assimilator said:

    As per my reply above, I don't believe that people don't want to see an end to the conflict; rather, they want to delay the initiation of a much larger conflict. As Neville Chamberlain showed us, that's a policy [b]always doomed[/b] to failure.

    Cuz of the multitude of times he appeased Hitler, right? I mean, he was ALWAYS appeasing Hitler. In fact, I'd bet that on the day of his birth he screamed for someone to bring him a Hitler to appease.

    Lets list the times:

    Czechoslovakia, 1938.



  • @spamcourt said:

    And what was the first thing done with them after the Palestinian Authority took over? The greenhouses were destroyed.

    Tell me again about them "finding better things to do with their time"?

    A few greenhouses don't really affect the greater Palestinian economy. The point is simply to give some relatively well-paid work to a large proportion of the Palestinian working population so, over time, they stop choosing terrorism and mob hatred. Simpy improving the economy slightly doesn't lead to an immediate brainwashing of an entire population, obviously.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @eViLegion said:

    @The_Assimilator said:
    As per my reply above, I don't believe that people don't want to see an end to the conflict; rather, they want to delay the initiation of a much larger conflict. As Neville Chamberlain showed us, that's a policy always doomed to failure.

    Cuz of the multitude of times he appeased Hitler, right? I mean, he was ALWAYS appeasing Hitler. In fact, I'd bet that on the day of his birth he screamed for someone to bring him a Hitler to appease.

    I think there's an important distinction between deferring a conflict by actual appeasement and deterring the enemy. For instance, we're not terribly worried about Putin sending his army through the Fulda Gap these days. But encouraging your enemy by giving him what he wants and not preparing to meet force with force is asking for it. I suppose you could go full pedantic dickweed and point out that if Britain had only kept on the course of Chamberlain, WW2 in Europe would have been over pretty quickly and Germany would never have needed to worry about offending Israel.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    So if people were suicide bombing your home, launching rockets into your cities and trying to murder you, your reaction would be? To walk over and ask them to be nice? Yeah, they've sent in tanks, because it's a dangerous fucking situation and because they shouldn't have to risk their lives any more than necessary to stop someone who is assaulting them. And if someone is dumb enough to throw rocks at a tank when that tank is there to hunt down terrorists, they fucking deserve to be blown to fucking hell.

    I am continually amazed by the restraint the Israelis have shown in the face of overwhelming violence, aggression and terrorism. If it was me, after the first round of terrorism I would have given 48 hours notice to get the fuck out, then bombed the whole fucking shithole until it was nothing but dust.

    The little detail that you're forgetting is that people had been living in Palestine (the historical region) for nearly 2000 years when the Jews came and kicked them out of their villages. It's not like there was an Jewish majority; the Romans took care of that. Jews lived all over the world after 70 AD, particularly in eastern Europe, where they were more or less systematically persecuted. Until 1939 and Operation Reinhard began, and the progroms of old all of a suddenly looked relatively benign.

     What you're claiming is that the European settlers into the New World were absolutely right to kill the natives, because land-grabbing is absolutely no reason to get all upset about. Just move your village up the mountain, right?

    As for the restraint, Palestinian casualty figures tend to be a factor of 20 to 40 higher than Israeli ones, so this "restraint" you're mentioning isn't all that obvious.

    Israel has a right to exist and to defend itself. Israel does not, however, have the right to continue grabbing areas on the West Bank, just because it's written in their Holy Book. Once they stop doing that, there might be a chance of normalising relations somewhat.

    Oh, and they must hope that there won't be another Arab Spring. Because that would be very bad for them.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @TDWTF123 said:

    The point is simply to give some relatively well-paid work to a large proportion of the Palestinian working population so, over time, they stop choosing terrorism and mob hatred. Simpy improving the economy slightly doesn't lead to an immediate brainwashing of an entire population, obviously.

    I think you'd also need to take out at the least the higher ups in Hamas (and probably a lot of not so higher ups) who would be violently opposed to ideas like this. That relatively high paying job doesn't look so good when you're branded a tool of the Zionists and shot in the head and dragged through the streets by goose stepping thugs in fancy pajamas.



  • I regret posting in this thread.



  • @TDWTF123 said:

    @spamcourt said:

    And what was the first thing done with them after the Palestinian Authority took over? The greenhouses were destroyed.

    Tell me again about them "finding better things to do with their time"?

    A few greenhouses don't really affect the greater Palestinian economy. The point is simply to give some relatively well-paid work to a large proportion of the Palestinian working population so, over time, they stop choosing terrorism and mob hatred. Simpy improving the economy slightly doesn't lead to an immediate brainwashing of an entire population, obviously.

     But we're not talking about "simply improving the economy slightly"; we're talking about infrastructure that was already there. What's the idea, then - that employment for some is worse than employment for none?



  • @TDWTF123 said:

    just people behaving entirely predictably given their circumstances they were born into - because for everyone alive today the conflict is a fait accompli, not something they had a part in creating. If you swapped _____ and _____ babies at birth, they'd each grow up behaving exactly like the other would normally.
     

    That is true of every conflict.


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