It's quite a long (and dreary) thread by now, but i believe that Italgato's last post constitutes the first invocation of Godwin's Law in this thread.
InfraBlue wrote:
...
Where have I equated Israeli discrimination of Arabs with proven Arab killing of Israeli non-combatants?
The inescapable logical implication of your using alleged Israeli discrimination against Israeli Arabs as justification for ending the state of Israel, while not using proven Gaza Arab killing of Israeli non-combatants as justification for ending the state of Gaza, is evidence of your equating such.
And, what is the alleged nature of that alleged Israeli discrimination against Israeli Arabs? Its the proven fact that Israel prohibits those running for office in Israel to advocate the end of the state Israel.
Oh my goodness! Shame on 'em; 
the haughty snobs want Israel to survive. Disgusting!
...
Where have I equated fanatic killing of Israeli non-combatants with Israeli self-defense killing of both Arab combatants and Arab non-combatants harboring Arab combatants?
The inescapable logical implication of your criticism of Israel for the nature of its response to Arab combatants, but lack of your criticism of the Arab rocket attacks on Israeli non-combatants, is evidence of your equating fanatic killing of Israeli non-combatants with Israeli self-defense killing of both Arab combatants and Arab non-combatants harboring Arab combatants.
You are what you do and don't do!
Ican wrote:
Quote:You are what you do and don't do!
Thank you for your response to Infrablue. It was excellent.
And your 'you are what you do and don't do' summation really is the pertinent part of this whole issue of Israel vs its neighbors. Some condemn Israel because of its perceived imperfections and use those perceived imperfections to justify anything the Palestinians or Hezbollah or anybody else does to Israel. And then they further condemn Israel for any measures it uses to defend itself while I have yet to see any comparable criticism (by the anti-Israel group) of the Palestinians or Hezbollah for what they do to Israel.
The anti-Israel camp screams PROPORTIONALITY as the basis on which Israel is apparently supposed to defend itself.
But where is the proportionality in the criticism of Israel?
Foxfyre, you are welcome!
I think the underlying notion governing the leftist-liberal hangup on PROPORTIONALITY is their notion that those who excel, offend those who do not. Therefore, if you insist on excelling, do it only a little bit, and apologize for it to minimize resentment.
ican711nm wrote:Foxfyre, you are welcome!
I think the underlying notion governing the leftist-liberal hangup on PROPORTIONALITY is their notion that those who excel, offend those who do not. Therefore, if you insist on excelling, do it only a little bit, and apologize for it to minimize resentment.
Yes. And add to that the weird liberal notion that nobody should have much more than anybody else no matter how the parties involved conduct themselves. Thus it isn't fair that the Israelis are more prosperous, more free, better educated, better fed, better dressed, or have more opportunities than the Palestinians (or any other Arab peoples)do. Never mind that all were there long before the Jews returned to Israel and everybody had pretty much a level playing field to start with. There was absolutely nothing preventing the Arabs from prospering as the Israelis have prospered other than the Arabs themselves.
Many among the Arab terrorist leadership come from privileged backgrounds, however, are quite well educated, quite wealthy, and have all the opportunities in the world available to them. The ones exploiting and misusing the Arab poor are them, not the Israelis.
ican711nm wrote:The inescapable logical implication of your using alleged Israeli discrimination against Israeli Arabs as justification for ending the state of Israel, while not using proven Gaza Arab killing of Israeli non-combatants as justification for ending the state of Gaza, is evidence of your equating such.
Gaza is not a state. Your argument is a non sequitur.
Quote:And, what is the alleged nature of that alleged Israeli discrimination against Israeli Arabs?
According the to Or Commission report, the nature of the Israeli discrimination against Israeli Arabs is that the government failed in a lack of comprehensive and deep handling of the serious problems created by the existence of a large Arab minority inside the Jewish state. The Israeli government has been primarily neglectful. The establishment did not show sufficient sensitivity to the needs of the Arab population, and did not take enough action in order to allocate state resources in an equal manner. The state did not do enough or try hard enough to create equality for its Arab citizens or to uproot discriminatory or unjust phenomenon.
Quote:Its the proven fact that Israel prohibits those running for office in Israel to advocate the end of the state Israel.
In the state of Israel's by laws, a citizen of the state of Israel cannot run for election to the Knesset if he negates the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people (7A(1) of the Knesset's Basic Law).
Quote:Oh my goodness! Shame on 'em; the haughty snobs want Israel to survive. Disgusting!
They want the ethnocentrically discriminatory and oppressive state to survive.
Quote:The inescapable logical implication of your criticism of Israel for the nature of its response to Arab combatants, but lack of your criticism of the Arab rocket attacks on Israeli non-combatants, is evidence of your equating fanatic killing of Israeli non-combatants with Israeli self-defense killing of both Arab combatants and Arab non-combatants harboring Arab combatants.
Because I haven't criticized Arab rocket attacks on Israeli non-combatants in this thread does not mean I do not criticize Arab rocket attacks on Israeli non-combatants. Yours is a logical error based on an assumption. One thing is fanatic killing of Israeli non-combatants, another thing is Israeli self-defense of killing both Arab combatants and Arab non-combatants harboring Arab combatants. Yet another thing is collective punishment of Arab combatants, Arab non-combatants harboring Arab combatants, and the majority of Arabs who do neither. It is your faulty logic which attempts to equate the aforementioned.
Quote:You are what you do and don't do!
Like the assumptions you make upon which to base your faulty logic.
Foxfyre wrote:
...
Many among the Arab terrorist leadership come from privileged backgrounds, however, are quite well educated, quite wealthy, and have all the opportunities in the world available to them. The ones exploiting and misusing the Arab poor are them, not the Israelis.
This in your post inspires me to again post the following:
George Orwell in NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR, published June 1949, wrote:
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79n/
Part II, Chapter IX
The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought. There are therefore two great problems which the Party is concerned to solve. One is how to discover, against his will, what another human being is thinking, and the other is how to kill several hundred million people in a few seconds without giving warning beforehand.
Part III, Chapter II
Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that you have got to relearn, Winston. It needs an act of self-destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble yourself before you can become sane.
Part III, Chapter III
The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?
That is where IT, "the Party," are headed.
IT = Islamo Totalitarians (e.g., Fatah, Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, Taliban, Baathists, et al).
How do I know that?
I know that because IT have repeatedly said so.
Ican writes
Quote:That is where IT, "the Party," are headed.
Though I think Marx by nature was not a violent man, there is nevertheless an element in his writings that are similar to Orwell. But the comparison between what you call the IT and Orwell's description of the goals and methods of the Party are indeed rather chillling.
Utter nonsense . . . Orwell was satirizing the Soviet state, what he wrote was simply an allegory for Stalinist Russia. That international terrorists adopt what has been historically proven to be an effective program ought not surprise anyone who pays attention. In most instances, however, acts of terrorism are organized locally by desparate and deluded men. There is little of system or organization in events such as the London subway bombings or the Madrid train bombings. They work because they were unique events at the instant of their perpetration--security agencies don't and likely aren't able to protect us from what may happen, and concentrate on preventing what they have learned can happen.
The one truly Orwellian aspect of the terror hysteria is the resemblance to the program of Big Brother's government to justify all its measures by reference to an external threat. That is the sort of stuff on which the dreams of men like Ashcroft are made.
1984 was written in 1948, and reflects Orwell's vision of what post-WWII would become. Earlier Orwell was a dedicated Socialist with strong Marxist leanings, but he had progressively become disillusioned with all Utopian schemes. In 1948 he was cynical and saw the future as one of unending war. Total war, he believed, required total commitment of the State, and that in turn makes the State so powerful that it would crush all individual liberties. The world of 1984 is nicely balanced between Airstrip 1, Oceania, and (oops, an old mind refuses to render the third power representing the Soviets. Was it Eurasia, no I think something similar though. Set will remember, his brain seems to be standing up to the ravages of time better than mine has of late). While warfare is continuous, it is also ritualistic and never really conclusive. This harkens back to many of Englands wars during the 17th and 18th centuries.
Airstrip 1 is ruled by Big Brother, who is only a personification of the Socialist Oligarchy. England in this tale is dreary, dreary, as it was during the Socialist years following WWII. Language is reduced to the minimum, so that with no words to express freedom or liberty, those concepts almost vanish. History is constantly refurbished and revised to meet the day-to-day needs of a State artificially at war.
Winston begins to question the realities of his world after doing the unthinkable ... falling in love. The lovers try to find privacy, but even the open parks are "bugged" by mechanical song-birds. The lovers are totally without tradecraft, and are soon apprehended.
Winston is taken to Room 101 for re-education. He is resolved never to betray his love, nor deny the truths he believes he has discovered about the inner workings of Airstrip 1. He fails, because behind the door of 101 lies his greatest fear. He crumbles, and is returned to society as essentially a burnout.
Orwell's dystopica is good reading, but not really very good prophesy. He completely leaves the U.S. out of the equation. Britain after the War was in sad shape, and full recovery was slow. Britain lost her Empire ... probably a good thing all things considered. War didn't break out between the Allies and the Soviets as Orwell expected, though the Cold War bears some resemblance to his vision. Oh well ......
Animal Farm is much more the biting satire on the Soviet Worker's Paradise. Down and Out in Paris and London, written earlier is a pretty good book for understanding Orwell's flirtation with Socialism/Marxism.
Asherman wrote:The world of 1984 is nicely balanced between Airstrip 1, Oceania, and (oops, an old mind refuses to render the third power representing the Soviets. Was it Eurasia, no I think something similar though.
<snip>
Orwell's dystopica is good reading, but not really very good prophesy. He completely leaves the U.S. out of the equation.
The three powers are Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. Airstrip One is part of the superstate of Oceania (presumably the United States, with Britain as Airstrip One).
The boarders between Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia are clearly defined, though, as perpetual war moves them back and forth.
In case i post this before he realizes his error an edits, OE meant to say that the borders are not clearly defined.
Ash, i think OE has read the book more recently than either of us, and is better able to supply detail than either of us. Down and Out in Paris and London is a wonderful book, although i read it as a young man, and don't know that i'd be so impressed if i were to read it now.
A great generation of writers in Merry Old in those days, though, no doubt of it.
ican711nm wrote:InfraBlue wrote:Gaza is not a state. Your argument is a non sequitur.
Gaza has an elected government not self-declared part of or subservient to any other state. Therefore Gaza is a state.
As usual, Ican't makes it up as he goes along. Gaza is a city, and is a part of the Gaza strip, which is a part of the Palestinian state. I have already linked more than once the General Assembly Resolution which created within the borders of the Palestine Mandate the states of Isreal and Palestine. Gaza was simply a part of the Palestinian state--not it's totality. The Palestinian Authority is an elected government, and therefore a state, Gaza is not.
Setanta wrote:ican711nm wrote:InfraBlue wrote:Gaza is not a state. Your argument is a non sequitur.
Gaza has an elected government not self-declared part of or subservient to any other state. Therefore Gaza is a state.
As usual, Ican't makes it up as he goes along. Gaza is a city, and is a part of the Gaza strip, which is a part of the Palestinian state. I have already linked more than once the General Assembly Resolution which created within the borders of the Palestine Mandate the states of Isreal and Palestine. Gaza was simply a part of the Palestinian state--not it's totality. The Palestinian Authority is an elected government, and therefore a state, Gaza is not.
As usual Setantary makes a big distinction out of a little difference.
First, Gaza is damn near the totality of what Setantary calls the
Palestinian state. I did not mention Gaza's subsidiary real estate (e.g., part of Jerusalem) elsewhere in the geographical area, and not the state, called Palestine. The Palestinian Authority is no longer the elected government of Arab Palestine. Hamas is the elected governent of Arab Palestine.
Britannica wrote:1947 AD: UN resolution partitions Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab State.
1948 AD: State of Israel declares independence
................Civil war breaks out between Jews and Arabs.
................State of Israel conquers part of Arab Palestine.
But Setantary alleges "the General Assembly Resolution ... created within the borders of the Palestine Mandate the states of Isreal and Palestine."
After many efforts by Arabs and others to conquer Israel, Israel conquered part of Arab Palestine. That which is left in Arab Palestine is the area generally known as Gaza plus other areas Israel several years later voluntarily returned to Arab Palestine such that Arab Palestine is more than Gaza, but not much more. I'll now call it Gaza+ in deference to Setantary's nit.
ican711nm wrote:Britannica wrote:1947 AD: UN resolution partitions Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab State.
1948 AD: State of Israel declares independence
................Civil war breaks out between Jews and Arabs.
................State of Israel conquers part of Arab Palestine.
But Setantary alleges "the General Assembly Resolution ... created within the borders of the Palestine Mandate the states of Isreal and Palestine."
After many efforts by Arabs and others to conquer Israel, Israel conquered part of Arab Palestine. That which is left in Arab Palestine is the area generally known as Gaza plus other areas Israel several years later voluntarily returned to Arab Palestine such that Arab Palestine is more than Gaza, but not much more. I'll now call it Gaza+ in deference to Setantary's nit.
Got a problem with geography, ican?
The Palestinian Territories include the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Since 1994, the Palestinian National Authority controls civilian issues in all and security-related issues in some of the territories. Not included are Israeli settlements, the Jordan Valley region, and bypass roads between Palestinian communities.
Here's the UN partition plan from 1947:
Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank today:
As you can see, the Palestinian Territories are significantly more than the city of Gaza or the Gaza Strip.
old europe wrote:
...
Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank today:
...
As you can see, the Palestinian Territories are significantly more than the city of Gaza or the Gaza Strip.
Much of the West Bank is today controlled by Israel. Israel conquered the West Bank quite a while ago. So today that leaves Gaza a little of the West Bank and a little of Jerusalem to be governed by the Palestinian Arabs.
That's not oppressive unless the Israelies were to forbid the Arabs to leave Israel and they do not do that.
