i reread this and on every reread, i am even more shocked.

how dare i demonize a person that pumps another person full of drugs, and sends him to go kill himself in a public square, with the express intent to murder as many innocent human beings as possible.

"...after that israeli attack..."

what were the israelis attacking?

First of all your link provided no evidence of such things it was just hearsay from a soldier.

Even if we assume its true, what does highlighting such things achieve? All decent people agree that suicide bombings are an abhorrent act deserving nothing but condemnation. There is no justifying suicide attacks period.

Preaching about how the Palestinians pump their children full of drugs to commit acts they otherwise would not is rhetoric designed to make the enemy seem so morally corrupt that they effectively get dehumaniséd, much like the nazis did to the jews. Once you have dehumanised the enemy more extreme policies can be motivated and argued for.
This kind of dehumanising rethoric goes both ways of course and is a major reason this conflict has bleak prospects of ending anytime soon.

say what? there were 4 links there. read them.


not at all. the average palestinian who isn't one of the refugees is as self-interested as anyone else, and when his own interests align with those of an israeli, he has no problem advancing those interests even if an israeli gains as well.

the palestinian political leaders, on the other hand, have interests that necessarily act in direct opposition. any advancement towards peace is by definition against their interests, because their leadership depends convincing people they must fight against a common enemy, and their personal finances depend on foreign aid they can embezzle. all the same **** you accuse bush and the republicans of, hence the terrorism, rhetoric, and UN stunts. even the leaders know the palestinian institutions as they are aren't feasible to run a functioning state.

the very point of my original post was that they are human, they respond to incentives, they strategize. not to demonize.

i am arguing only against rewarding that behaviour by pressuring israel to make concessions.

you and uke_master both seem to think i just try to make everyone look "bad". Bill Haywood and the fake-moralists love to just call israel bad and apartheid and all the other bs.

look, i think they are the scum of the earth, these killers. but calling them bad won't change anything. there's no good or bad if you want people to stop killing. only incentive, strategy, self-interest, and decision-making. if you want peace, you have to incentivize it. and you don't incentivize it by putting pressure on the party to endanger itself.

I only read your first link as it was the only one about Palestinians. This thread is titled 'Israel Palestine' and your initial post was about Palestinians giving drugs to their children not Pakistanis, Somalis or any other conflict you linked to.

The rewarding part i can agree with, but how much of it is actually rewarding that behaviour? Even if you don't feel its merited, large parts of the international community are united in the critisism and the pressuring of Israel regardless of what Hamas and the corrupt Palestinian leadership have to say.

what's 'the international community"? ive posted twice already in this thread how - save for the odd loudmouth politician that gets more airtime than he's worth - North American, virtually all European, and Asian governments stand firmly with a Jewish State. The BDS movement is a miserable failure that probably hurts the Palestinians more than it hurts Israel at this point; and Israeli exports and foreign investment (outside the US) is increasing every year.

so don't confuse UN lip service to placate commodity (read: oil) trading partners for real action.

and don't confuse directed, single-focused NGO whining and "reports" with impartiality and a real knowledge of international affairs.

and dont start confusing politics for justice.

It's really a simple case of loudmouths screaming and whining just to be heard. The overwhelming, silent majority understands the situation.

I dont understand why our country mainly the republicans are so damn supportive of israel. Israel treats the people of palestine and gaza like cattle and is hated throughout the entire middle east. So if we are so worried about terrorist attacks why continue to pay and fund the jews of israel when they are a tremendously small population compared to muslims of the world. I believe our blindless support of israel throughout the years is the major reason why we are disliked in the middle east. can anyone give me reasons why supporting israel has helped us in the middle east at all? and why we continue to support them?

See the thread on whether U.S. is an empire.

Dems are just as bad, they just use different rhetoric.

Among other reasons, momentum. Although your framing is horrific.

Doncha like how he turns it around and puts it on Marn for bringing up something that was deleted?

They're a reliable ally in an unstable region
They're democratic
IIRC we were pretty helpful back in the day when the state of israel was found
They've been on the right side of a lot of the **** that has gone down in the middle east over the last 60 years.
Israel is a major destination spot for jewish american tourists/religious types.

Isn't there a containment thread for this?

Do you mean like a camp of some sort? like a concentration of these posts into one place?

It's a necessary precursor for the end of days.

There isn't a good reason to support them so enthusiastically. Nobody talks about Canada like that for example. Ideally we should be even-handed in our foreign relations, but instead we're highly biased towards Israel which is troubling.

2p2 doesn't have the proper emoticon for me to respond to this. Imagine an awkward, cringey, smiley face.

This.
Evangelicals believe that the Jews must control Jerusalem and Israel for Jesus to come back. Seriously. And then the world can end.

9/11

0.8181818181818181818181818182

anti-...christianic?

jews are a fine industrious type of white people, of course we support them. they took a worthless stretch of desert and after a few decades of hard work and strong american values it's mother****ing five-star beachfront property; and suddenly everybody wants it.

there is NO WAY america is gonna let a bunch of brown hooka-smokers tear down the only bastion of pseudo-secular american values in the middle east. not republicans, anyway.

+the evangelical christian armageddon propheconspiracy is there to block for safety

inb4 gamblor

good snipe

btw, the answer: the j0000000000s

Israel votes with the US at the UN about 90 percent of the time. Allies gonna ally imo.

Osama bin Laden says he hates American because we support Israel. Why would we implicate ourselves in their conflict over there when we don't need to?