Really? Do you really need me to cite sources that argue that the "settlers" are an obstacle to peace by their very existence? It would be a herculean task to cite a single source that doesn't make that argument.

I apologize for taking so long, because I thought it was so obvious I didn't need to say it.

The point of posting that article was to highlight an example of co-operation between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, of peace, mutual respect, something that should be lauded on both sides equally, that contradicts the usual narrative we see in newsmedia and on this website - namely, that israeli settlers are a major obstacle to peace and that Arabs do not want them there out of sheer racism.

i simply can't believe you turned that into an opportunity to post a criminal act, that (truth be told) you posted only because an Israeli Jew did it.

How you turned my post into "ISRAEL GOOD ARABS BAD" is simply beyond me, and your hatred is beyond rational.

Ah right you are just a pure post-partisan who only identifies the lovely cooperation between both sides, the reason you posted it surely had nothing at all to do with it making your side look good as every other post in this thread has done. Hold on, I will let your own words identify the salient part here:
Ah right, see it burns down that ludicrous strawman about jewish settler. Nothing here about it burning down the "arabs dont' want to cooperate out of sheer racism" strawman, the only thing you identified was the jewish side. Thankfully we have you to give us examples of good and lovely jews who can cooperate with palestinians and give them candy. Thank you thank you for this illuminating example, I for one had no idea that a single jew has ever been nice before.

However, you have now just committed yet another gross false equivalence. There is an entire world of difference between those who think that the settlements are obstacle to peace or that settlers collectively are, and that every single settler are "evil murders distributing obviously-poisoned candy to unsuspecting Arabs in an attempt to steal their land". Even if you make the ridiculous strawman less ridiculous, there remains a huge distinction between thinking settlements are an obstacle to peace and that all settlers are intrinsically bad or horrible people. And don't worry, you don't need to defend that all on your own. If there was actually someone on the forum so incrediably stupid as to say that, I would have your back 100% in telling them they were an idiot.

Could you...uh...like stop this at some point? Do I really have to inform you I don't hate jews? I find this unending reductionism of other people's points to obvious hatred and anti-semitism to be stifflingly stupid.

Especially since I have been nothing but non-partisan in this thread, and litterally a few posts back you just apologized for mistaking me (pre bump) with someone else after going on a rant that painted me as a hating partisan when sorry buddy it just aint true. I find your posting to be ridiculously partisan and idiotic in your arguments and don't mind saying so. But that doesn't make me some irrational hater.

You don't have the excuse of confusion this time, but you certainly do owe me another apology.

warm up your keyboards, ladies and gentlemen:

Paul D says "Jewish settlers inflame the situation!"

Bill Haywood says "Settlers are zealots!"

Howard Beale says: "Settlers make it hard to be an American Jew!

champstark says (via appeal to journalist): "Settlers are water stealers!"

That should help get you started.

ALL settlers aren't bad or horrible people, but I stand by the fact that they are huge obstacles to the peace process and ideally they would be removed from the West Bank.

Please don't put quotes around things that are not actually quotes. If you must make up your own (inaccurate) paraphrases, then do it without quotes.

When you read what these people said, not one of them implied that ALL settlers are these evil candy-poisoning murders, or anything like that. It is clear they all disagree with the policy of settlement and think that settlement is an impediment to peace or that the settlements result in water being taken from palestine or the like. But I doubt any of them (and champstark has just confirmed for 1/4) would think that every single settler was bad nor would they at all deny that some settlers ARE good people and do things like give out candy.

Nonetheless, there remains a stark difference between thinking settlers in general are an impediment to peace and thinking all or even the vast majority of settlers are inherently bad people. Ironically, you have made statements earlier ITT where you blurr the distinction yourself and make comments that appear as if you are criticizing all the individuals, even though you assure us after the fact that this is not what you meant. Yet you don't seem to apply the same sensitivity here and just assume the worst.

I agree with this. It is sad that Gamblor wants to throw all the onus to one side. It is this kind of thinking or beliefs that will prevent the two sides to coming to peaceful solutions. If a Palestinian was on this forum trying to make their side look completely innocent I would think the samething.

Israelis fret over "lynching" of Palestinian

This is obviously disgusting and I hope the perpetrators are tried fairly, and assuming their guilt, given sentences that fit their crime.

Just in case uke_master is reading, I'm going to assume he won't go off on champstark for partisan posting, for highlighting the worst of Israelis. More important, I'm also going to assume that champstark doesn't bring everyone's attention to incidents of racist idiotic violence when they happen in the US, or South America, or China, or Europe, or anywhere else (I've never seen him do so). Either that, or the news he reads doesn't write about the regular racist violence anywhere else (unlikely, but possible). None of those is acceptable to me; there are racists everywhere, and there is no reason the despicable racists in Israel are any more despicable or newsworthy than any other violent racists worldwide.

What is truly noteworthy about this sickening incident is the unanimous disgust and revulsion the overwhelming majority of Israelis - including the Prime Minister himself - feel at it, and that is the real takeaway message.

In any event, I'm going to go ahead and take this as an invitation to post every incident of Arab violence against Jews, as well as any information I can find about Arab reactions to that violence.

For comparative purposes.

For science.

Since apparently neither you nor champstark actually read this thread, it is the same story I posted yesterday:
But yes. Champstark posting this story of jews being bad is about as stupid and meaningless as your story of jews being good. Now he may respond "hey with gamblor posting all these pro jewish/anti arab stories I have to balance it out" or something along those lines which is exactly what you have done, taken this as license to go on (as if you didn't before) posting things that support your hyperpartisan view.

What I reject is this entire us vs them mentality. Yes, if there are people who are actually making the kind of ridiculous claims that all jews are angles or all jews are evil then stories that are examplese of some specific jews being good or bad can be counterexamples. But one hardly even needs to supply a counterexample to someone acting so stupid. And we certainly shouldn't preemptively and unprompted just go around supply these counterexamples under the assumption that the strawman exists from someone somewhere.

Gamblor, IDK if I've made it clear that it is the religious zealot settler that makes it hard on me, not the family that moves into a settlement bec they can't afford to live in Israel proper. From what I read of the religious zealots they are mean and nasty and will not compromise an inch. If they gain control there will never be a peace deal.

And I abhor the settler violence. They are lucky that I'm not in charge.

come on now, if I don't get mad at this gamblor will come in here and get mad at me. Consider this your first warning.

Read treppenwitz's blog.

Somewhere in one of these threads I related a quick story and I'll repeat it here:

I used to buy some of my heating oil from a Hasidic Jew and at lunch one day we unfortunately started talking about Israel and the West Bank.

He started:

'Some day the Arabs will realize that Judea and Samaria belong to the Jews and they will leave.'
'I don't think so.'
'Someday they will realize that Judea and Samaria belong to the Jews and they will leave.'
'It doesn't look to me that they are going to realize that and leave, ever.'
'Someday they will.'

And it went on like for maybe a minute more until I got to the point that if my attempt to change the subject didn't work I'd have to jump over the table and strangle him. But I don't hold a grudge and kept buying oil.

I'll also repeat one of my father-in-law's favorite sayings:

'The biggest mistake the Arabs made was to attack the Jews. If they'd left them alone the Jews would have argued themselves to death by now.'

heh, there's truth in there.

Unless you have a link to a different treppenwitz that's more impressive than the one google found for me, why? Besides, what's a blog anyway? Just one person's thoughts. Am I to get some sort of minor 'tit' v. major 'tat' out of it? I don't get it. Settler violence is bad, no excuse, and I dread the day that I hope never comes when they decide on major 'tit' from then on.

Is your point that there exists idiots on this planet? Because if not I am confused as to why you are telling me this.

Oh yes this actually is a productive angle for this thread. Where do you get your news/opinion from? I don't pretend to be much of an expert on this, so most of my sources come from reading Jpost, Haaretz & Al Jazeera on igoogle and watching various people that pop up on bloggingheads or democracynow on this subject. I could definitely add a few more feeds if you had good ones.

its just a personal blog.

let's be honest, all you know about "settlers" is, well, nothing. you really don't. all you know is that a lot of people blame them for a lot of things. and of course, you pay close attention when there are things to blame them for.

his blog is just about his life, family, work, life in the territories. it's not for news. its for perspective. if youre happier with your blanket judgments and uninformed positions, don't read it. if you want to know the thoughts of some of these people you think are so terrible, read it. he doesnt post that often, maybe twice weekly.

i get it from my life experience in israel, and my family and friends there, the people ive met, arab and jew and other.

i circulate between israeli papers yediot (centre-left), maariv (left), haaretz (intellectual, hard left), ysrael hayom (right), walla (centre), rotter (centre), and occasionally makor rishon (religious nationalist right), the marker, globes, and calcalist (business papes) well as channel 2 and 10 (if it survives). most of those have english versions available on the internet.

i read arab media translated in google translate but some english ones too, like maan. palestinian arabic news sites like al quds and al hayat al jadida. other papers like al ahram (egypt), the daily star. i try to stay away from the english ones because there's no real point - they're sanitized for western consumption.

blogs i dont have much use for. but memri and palestinian media watch are especially useful. they're obviously pro-israel, but again, the sheer volume of primary-source material they post is unbelievable.

It's not all about you. There are many readers hanging on my every word. You are fortunate that I used the opportunity your reply gave me to post my story.

You obviously haven't seen the myriad of posts I've made on this forum when the police do something awful to minorities here in the US. I was prob in the top 3 in posts in the Trayvon Martin thread for quite some time. Nice try to set up a strawman that is actually the opposite of the truth.

ALERT

The reason I posted this article was because of the Israeli reaction to it! I posted it without saying something because I thought it would be better to leave it open to thoughts from others before I commented.


Sorry to have missed your post, things get lost in the shuffle here sometimes.

Again, I posted this article because I thought it was a decent representation of how things are never as one-sided as they seem and that most Israelis actually abhor these awful things. A decent percentage want the settlers gone as well so they can live in peace, imagine that.

*******

While we are flinging **** in each others' faces, both of you guys are awful at misrepresenting what others think and/or say. I have lost track of the number of times you two have put opinions on me, each other, other posters, etc. that are completely incorrect. This doesn't solve anything. I'm not going to post in this thread for a bit unless there is a major event that requires discussion as this has basically just been going in a loop for over a year now and seems pretty pointless.

meant to quote and respond to this too--

I have friends both in Israel and the West Bank, both Israeli and Arab, Jewish and Muslim (and Christian). I have spent extensive time (months) in both locations and I can read and speak Arabic so I can read a fair amount of Arab news without translation. Unfortunately I don't know Hebrew, so I have to rely on English Israeli news sites.

On another note, my dad's family is all Jewish and he self-identifies as such, but I wasn't raised in a religious environment at all. If someone asks me if I'm Jewish I always say yes, but it's just a part of who I am as my family comes from lots of different places. Like many others, I had a significant portion of my family wiped out in eastern Europe in the Holocaust.

Why do I post this? I think it's important to realize that there are people of Jewish background who don't just automatically stand behind everything Israel does, despite experiencing loss and having been told the importance of a Jewish homeland since they were young.

Oh, I know that you are honest and at least make fair attempts to understand the real picture. I knew exactly why you posted it.

I tried to make clear that that rant was directed entirely at uke_master, who seems to think that an honest search for truth necessarily means you have to remove any that has even the slightest apprehension of bias - i.e. Anything that changes his pre-existing opinions.

you seem confused. My criticism is not towards some "slightest apprehension of bias" but to an unrelenting, unwavering, staunch hyperpartisan ship exuding out of every single post that defends Israel at every venture and criticizes Palestine at every venture stooping to the lowest of lows (like accusing me repeatedly of hating Israel) while doing so.

This is hardly an accurate characterization of the conversation.

The list of accusations against Israel, her people, her government, her defence forces, and her supporters is long and varied. Accusations made in this forum (and by authors and journalists that people in this forum have felt fit to cite as legitimate sources of research) ranges from apartheid to inherent racism, massacres, genocide, running "concentration camps", demonstrating immorality by violating international law and ignoring UN resolutions, unduly influencing foreign goverments to act against their own interests, and preferring war to peace.

These accusations are thrown around by posters here and their sources of information as a matter of course, as the framework for interpretation of any and every event that concerns Israel.

All I've done here is show that every single one of them is either based on 1) outright lies, 2) flawed logic, and 3) deliberate misrepresentations of fact.

On the other hand, you come in and declare all of what I write as null and void because it leads one to conclude that one side deserves your support (in whatever form it takes) or trust more than another.

You dismiss it because you have a narrative in your mind as to how conflict works, especially this one, which informed in many ways by the above accusations, and its likely you're facing a lot of cognitive dissonance in light of the factual evidence I've provided over the last few weeks.

The facts and logic don't always support complete impartiality. And peace doesn't necessarily come from impartial abstentions from influential third parties.