israel attacks gaza bound aid flotilla.

[dum]

if you look at the nationalities of those commenting in this thread, it plays out something like this

irish: incensed with the brutal injustice
british: convinced the problem they helped cause is pegged on an irrevocable red herring.
american: kill em all and let god sort them out
israeli: justifying an illegal and utterly inhumane occupation with inconsistent tidbits of info from the periods 585BC to 1948
german: misplaced and insurmountable guilt, and a world infamous indifference to human suffering.


aren't we a fine bunch of stereotypes.
or did I miss something ?

[leedsquietman]

The Irish are obviously pure bred saints, who never caused a problem anywhere (except the odd punch up after too much stout on St. Paddys day), they sip their Guinness and dance a jig dressed up as merry little leprechauns and have a 'craic' fun old party time with everyone (except Israelis, no jews welcome). Cute and lovable, all of them.

As someone of Irish and British descent, I am therefore conflicted between being a saint and a red herring believing problem causer. Living in Canada, normally tones done the Britishness and is closer to Switzerland politically, but with Harper in charge, that sets things back somewhat.

Better go back to therapy ...

Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign - what a fine organization, so relevant given the tens of thousands of Palestinians living in Ireland, and all the millions of muslims living in that country to unite under Allah with their brother, no wonder there are no more 'troubles', everyone has converted to Islam to help the poor, tortured Palestinians.

[dum]

The Irish are obviously pure bred saints, who never caused a problem anywhere (except the odd punch up after too much stout on St. Paddys day), they sip their Guinness and dance a jig dressed up as merry little leprechauns and have a 'craic' fun old party time with everyone (except Israelis, no jews welcome). Cute and lovable, all of them.

As someone of Irish and British descent, I am therefore conflicted between being a saint and a red herring believing problem causer. Living in Canada, normally tones done the Britishness and is closer to Switzerland politically, but with Harper in charge, that sets things back somewhat.

Better go back to therapy ...

Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign - what a fine organization, so relevant given the tens of thousands of Palestinians living in Ireland, and all the millions of muslims living in that country to unite under Allah with their brother, no wonder there are no more 'troubles', everyone has converted to Islam to help the poor, tortured Palestinians.

quoted for posterity.

[stringtapper]

american: kill em all and let the worms sort them out

fixed

[LoopStationZebra]

if you look at the nationalities of those commenting in this thread, it plays out something like this

irish: incensed with the brutal injustice
british: convinced the problem they helped cause is pegged on an irrevocable red herring.
american: kill em all and let god sort them out
israeli: justifying an illegal and utterly inhumane occupation with inconsistent tidbits of info from the periods 585BC to 1948
german: misplaced and insurmountable guilt, and a world infamous indifference to human suffering.


aren't we a fine bunch of stereotypes.
or did I miss something ?

How is it that you and your ilk come out smelling like rose in all this?

[dum]

american: kill em all and let the worms sort them out

fixed

clever... out of curiosity I'd be interested to know how many atheists are serving in the u.s military
I wonder if it's ''don't ask don't tell'' kind of information.

they used to say there was no such thing as an atheist in a fox hole, but what about cubicles where drones are operated from ?

[stringtapper]

they used to say there was no such thing as an atheist in a fox hole, but what about cubicles where drones are operated from ?

Good question. Also, it's hard to be a good old fashioned war-spawned psychopath with all this drone shit going on. Who even bothers with human ear necklaces in the war on terror?

[dum]

if you look at the nationalities of those commenting in this thread, it plays out something like this

irish: incensed with the brutal injustice
british: convinced the problem they helped cause is pegged on an irrevocable red herring.
american: kill em all and let god sort them out
israeli: justifying an illegal and utterly inhumane occupation with inconsistent tidbits of info from the periods 585BC to 1948
german: misplaced and insurmountable guilt, and a world infamous indifference to human suffering.


aren't we a fine bunch of stereotypes.
or did I miss something ?

How is it that you and your ilk come out smelling like rose in all this?

surely you mean patchouli ?

[LoopStationZebra]

God I hate the stuff. A mere whiff sends me into a rage.

[smutek]

american: kill em all and let god sort them out

Not all of us.

[Machinesworking]

if you look at the nationalities of those commenting in this thread, it plays out something like this

irish: incensed with the brutal injustice
british: convinced the problem they helped cause is pegged on an irrevocable red herring.
american: kill em all and let god sort them out
israeli: justifying an illegal and utterly inhumane occupation with inconsistent tidbits of info from the periods 585BC to 1948
german: misplaced and insurmountable guilt, and a world infamous indifference to human suffering.


aren't we a fine bunch of stereotypes.
or did I miss something ?

Last I checked Seattle was in the USA.

Also, I have friends that joined the military that are definitely atheists. No direct correlation there, mostly the US military is made up of poor people from impoverished "Bible Belt" parts of the states, but also poor from less religious states as well. Not any class of people I would look down upon, unless they're unleashed on innocents, and even then, look further up the food chain for the real assholes. The people that piss me off personally are the highly educated who still believe in this sort of bloody chess playing, who take advantage of the fear and desperation in the working class, world wide really.

Honestly what you really get from most people here in the states is a sort of frustration at the situation, because on the surface for sure the Israelis are far more democratic in their
"way of life", which is frustrating because they keep on looking bad. We really want to believe that western society (Israel is a western style nation), is the "good" side. What this does in online forums is pretty obvious with the way your particular frustration with Israel is perceived by denizens of the US and UK / commonwealth nations, they want to talk more about your "attitude" than the issues. It's convenient to argue with you or me or anybody really about some perceived online slight, than discuss the failure of the occupation.

Plus, as a side note, Palestinian people are more overweight than US/UK etc. just thought it was ironic.
Side side note, it's probably due to mediocre amounts of veggies in a mostly carb and protein diet tho.
Wonder if that would go away with proper import/export trade?

[UKRuss]

Wow, what a thread.

On the point about being familiar with your political inclinations and feigning for incendiary reasons and not being able to state what I stated.

I can and I did.

Despite knowing your political feelings on the palestine issue there is a world of difference between starting a debate removed from your personal emotions and posting something that you hope will lead to a thread building up hatred towards Israel for the actions. Shame, anger, and pity do not lead to strong debate but arguments and, in internet terms, flame wars. I believe you originally posted innocently enough but angry about the attacks, the style with which you did it left no doubt that you wanted the board to rise up in condemnation of israel and its actions but knowing full well there are israeli citizens on the board who may be shamed or feel set upon. To claim you didn't know that is silly since you are clearly an intelligent person.

You have also suggested that you are involved with Irish activist anarchic group Workers Solidarity Movement. (Say hello to Deirdre Horgan for me)

It's not a stretch to imagine the true aim of an anarchist activist would be exactly this type of thread where real debate is, ironically, veiled in a smoke screen of flame wars and side swiping and of course it is easy to conclude that the true aim of the anarchist is not to have a full debate but to encourage revolution. In this case by doing your bit to incite hatred against Israel and the US.

I agree references should be provided where required and wiki rarely provides that, however in itself it is arguable that wiki is a well edited source of information and reasonably reliable in that regard. I am happy to concede that isn't the case, it's not somethign I use much or check at all so no need to post copious examples of wiki fail for me.

The point I wanted to try and get across is that a good reference is one that supports your point of view but the reliability of the sources of that information are only acceptable to the side which uses them. If i claim I heard this on the BBC you will refute the vailidity of the UK media. If I quote an author it is easy for you to research that author and pick holes in their argument and thereby claim they are also an invalid reference. There is no definitive unbiased work on the Israel/palestine conflict to reference!

I do see your point about my logic only being applicable to Israel in this respect and it opens up an interesting debate about the origins of terrorist organisations. For example, do Hamas only exist because of the conflict with israel or would they exxist anyway as an islamic terrorist cell? In reference to the irish trouble, yes I get the point also but again if you go for enough back in history it is ALL about Catholics against Protestants. of course political things occured that ignote the hatred but the reason that Irish were treated the way they were by the British? Religion. Catholics against protestants. You only have to look at British history to understan that one. hundreds of thousands of catholics and protestants (depending on who was king/queen at the time) all burnt at the stake because of their beliefs, nothing else. Guy Fawkes, the original terrorist. catholic plot to kill the protestant king.

It's all there, it may become a political matter later on as we become 'civilised' but originally? These hatreds stem from religious belief.

Your rapist analogy doesn't work for me either because, the rapist would have to recognise his victim as being just that. Regardless of the truth, the israeli state does not see the palestinians as their victims. Therefore the analogy, like you suggest my religious logic, can only be applied to one side.

Desperate people do despreate things. I agree. One of the most desperate things they do is believe in gods and their conviction in that regard can lead them to carry out atrocities they otherwise would not.

Finally, yes, of course the US has everything to gain by ensuring a strategic stronghold in the Middle East and they must pay Israel to do that. But what is it that israel have to gain, I can accept it is probably just about the US money as they have no real natural resources to covet, maybe Jaffa oranges...

But my opinion is it is more than the money, it is about jerusalem, it is about the holy land, it is about ensuring that the holy land is preserved for judaism and judaism alone to flourish and in order to acheive that they must rid the land of other beliefs.

[leedsquietman]

Almost all of the troubles in the world are about money and greed - corrupt individuals or groups use religion as a front for propaganda. They twist this to their own needs, misinterpret passages from Holy Books to incite people and in modern times use the media, edited to perfection, photoshopped images, using inducements of food, drugs, or whatever it takes to get a mob mentality to suit their own ends.

Hence why there usually are fractious religious groups who are all vying for power, with some group of mobsters out to line their pockets. There are different factions of Palestinians who are fighting and murdering among themselves in spite of having a common enemy, just like there were different factions of paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland, who are still fighting and murdering each other in spite of voicing (much of) the same political and religious rhetoric. I doubt very much that many of these paramilitaries actually attend church or read Holy Books at all, it's much more a matter of tribalism and turf wars.

The Americans have plenty of oranges in Florida and California btw

[UKRuss]

I wholly agree.

I am happy to amend my original religious rant to the following:

A lot of political trouble could be avoided if religion was not respected as anything but a supernatural fantasy that some hold dear and the people who hold those fantasies were not given positions of power and government without democratic election. It is clearly not the whole reason for wars to be fought or for the cause of all the trouble in the middle east. It does however play an important part in escalating violence and hatred, and the world would be a better place without it.

There were some pics dum posted not long ago of a man spitting on a woman as she walked by him in Israel, I assume.

The question I ask is, what do you see?

A man spitting on a woman, an israeli spitting on a palestinian arab or a jew spitting on a muslim.

I see the religious angle when I see that picture, he hates her because she is a muslim and he is a jew not because she is palestinian or that she is a woman, but of course it is open to whatever interpretation you want.

[leedsquietman]

I see your point - and I can't speak for the Qu'ran but I don't know of any passage in some other Holy Books I've read including the Bible which say 'thou shalt have seething hate and propel sputum onto anyone who doesn't follow your belief'
or some such similar post.

Although spitting as such does seem to be a more common occurence in Middle Europe and the Middle East and is universally deemed to be an insult in common society, so scores a desired effect. I still remember the Germans and the Dutch (Rijkaard) spitting on each other in the 1990 World Cup and that had nothing to do with religion ! Francesco Totti was also given a ban for spitting on Christian Paulsen.

The worst part of these conflicts is that human life isn't seen as anything but a number. I hope it gets sorted out, although I fear the only way to settle it would be to allow anyone who doesn't want to fight to leave and seek refugee status elsewhere, and give anyone who does want to fight for these territories lots of guns and ammo and let the battle begin. The best political minds and diplomats with serious background knowledge (as opposed to reading a few articles in The Guardian or watching a couple of hours of CNN or Al Jazeera) have tried and failed for 60+ years. I hope there will be peaceful resolutions before it comes to this, but it's a long shot given the positions of the rival powers (and the greed and corruption involved).