Religion plays a large role in the horrible Hamas-Israel war

Though I'm an atheist, I recognize that wars often don't involve religion to a significant degree. But sometimes they do, which means that rather than being a force for good in the world, religion encourages death and destruction.

Politically, my goal is to be an open-minded progressive. So I embrace the notion being espoused by many liberals on social media that it is possible, and indeed desirable, to simultaneously hold three views about the current war between Hamas and Israel.

(1) Hamas engaged in unforgivable terrorism when its fighters attacked Israeli citizens, killing women and children, decapitating infants, slaughtering young people at a music festival, and taking an estimated 150 people hostage. Now Israel is justified in fighting back against Hamas.

(2) Israel has fanned the flames of Islamic resentment in the Middle East by treating Palestinians in the occupied territories badly and showing little to no recent interest in pursuing a two-state solution to the longstanding conflict. The current right-wing administration of Benjamin Netanyahu has made a bad situation in the West Bank even worse through its oppressive policies.

(3) Most of the two million people living in Gaza aren't Hamas fighters. Israel should do everything possible to protect them during its war against Hamas. This entails complying with generally accepted rules of war to the greatest extent possible. 

It's impossible to separate out the role of religion here because Israel is a Jewish nation and Hamas embraces a form of radical Islam. That said, many Israeli Jews are opposed to fundamentalist Judaism, just as many Muslims in Gaza reject fundamentalist Islam. 

If the reasonable Israelis and Palestinians could get together and discuss a viable two-state solution, likely this could happen. It wouldn't be easy, but absent religious dogmatism, it'd be much more feasible.

What deeply irritates my godless mind is how Jerusalem (and the Holy Land in general) is viewed by all three Abrahamic religions -- Christianity, Judaism, Islam -- as a holy city. That's absurd, that a city can be holy because it contains structures that deserve to be revered.

Get a fucking life, is what goes through my mind when I hear that Jews want to control Jerusalem because it supposedly was the site of the Temple Mount during the reign of King David, and that Muslims are worried that Jews are going to mess with the Al Aqsa Mosque.

How can anyone believe that God or Allah or Yahweh really gives a shit about what happens to some old buildings? Is God that petty, that obsessive, that egotistical, to care about the place where some religious believers did something or other long ago?

It'd be great if somehow only Jewish and Islamic fundamentalists could go to war with each other on some deserted battlefield where only these religious zealots would be harmed. Sadly, that isn't possible.

Unfortunately religious craziness is going to cause more deaths among innocent people in the coming days, weeks, and months as Israel retaliates against Hamas and, likely, that retaliation hardens the resolve of Islamic fundamentalists to battle against the Jewish nation.

Comments

[SantMat64]

I agree that religious fundamentalism is to blame here. But as is invariably the case, religious belief is entwined with issues over civil rights, especially with land ownership.

The Bible and the Quran aren't just about concepts of God, but actually more about possession and control of land. Who controls the real estate was the prime issue on the minds of the Jews of the OT, Jesus, and Mohammed. The battle in the Bhagavad Gita was about land. Joseph Smith and his Mormons were repeatedly persecuted because of controversies over land ownership.

Land rights. It's the issue that gets RSSB in hot water from time to time.

And so it is with the Middle East today. Israelis and Palestinians aren't simply fighting over rival Gods, but are at odds over the mundane but very pertinent issue of who has the right to "ancestral" land.

In my opinion, both sides have valid arguments about who's land is who's. And that's why I so dislike the current full-court press by Western media to encapsulate recent events as the result of one side's hatred.

[umami]

"You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."
~Anne Lamott

[Appreciative Reader]

Excellent analysis, Brian. I agree completely with your assessment, nuanced and balanced as it is. A nuance and a balance that is shockingly lacking in how the world --- which is to say the “West”, and particularly the US --- is reacting to this tragedy.

----------

To be clear, no one of sane mind, who isn’t actually evil, can possibly agree with or condone what Hamas did. That is completely unspeakable, and condemnable in the strongest possible terms. And absolutely, this does call, unequivocally, for the strongest possible retaliation.

But retaliation against whom? Your average Palestinian isn’t Hamas, not by any stretch of imagination, even if it is the case that some/many of them sympathize with their cause and indeed what they’ve done. Blockading those poor souls, already driven to the limits of endurance, further into close to actual starvation and literal death; and not to mention the killing of children and women in Palestine --- and men as well, it isn’t as if killing innocent non-Hamas men is kosher (although the cross-eyed rabbi types no doubt imagine it is, not just kosher but actually blessed, basis the foul dogma many of them literally swallow, and live by, I mean to say the OT Bible) --- are acts of terrorism, no less than what Hamas did. It is shocking that this obvious fact isn’t immediately obvious to so many world leaders. And I am particularly appalled at how the US is reacting to this tragedy, given that it isn’t the lowlife Trump but what we thought was a sane reasonable government that is now in charge. (Although, I can guess many ways in which it could have been much, much worse had the orange grotesquerie been befouling the White House at this time; so I guess let’s be thankful, even if what we have isn’t perfect.)

For a minute let’s ask ourselves: Had we been Palestinians, what would we have done? They’ve seen their lands stolen away by the “Great Powers”, and handed over to the Jewish populace to assuage the collective conscience of Europe, that has shockingly mistreated these poor souls for centuries and millennia, culminating in the horrors of Nazi Germany. I find it ironic at so many levels, this assuaging the conscience thing, which finds expression not in accommodating the object of charity oneself but by foisting them on to unwilling others at point of bayonet. The Palestinians have been reduced to second-class citizens in their own home. And of late, the hardline rightwing politics have seen any hope they may have harbored of arriving at something approaching some semblance of justice completely evaporated away. What exactly are the Palestinians supposed to have done in this situation? (Again, this is not to support Hamas for a single moment, not in the least! But without doubt Israel have been doing to Palestinians what they’ve themselves had done to them over centuries and millennia of their wretched history. That sheer lack of self-awareness on their part, and that complete absence of conscience, is completely shocking.)

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say this again. Auden’s words sum up perfectly Israel’s conduct in Palestine: “Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return.”

----------

I agree with your assessment, Brian, that the only solution to this mess is an equitable carving up of the land into two separate polities, two separate countries. This needs to be done expeditiously and transparently, and in consultation with the Palestinians as to the details of it. And in the meantime, the Palestinians need to be treated as human beings not animals to be hounded and oppressed and driven away --- in short, Israel should stop treating them as the world has treated *them* over the centuries and millennia past.

If after that, after the country is been carved up into two, the Palestinians, and Hamas, persist with their terrorism --- as well they may, I’ve no illusions about what kind of people these are --- then sure, by all means bomb them to rubble if they refuse to see reason even after that. But what is happening now is terrorism, pure and simple, on both sides not just the one.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi AR:

You wrote:

"Had we been Palestinians, what would we have done? They’ve seen their lands stolen away by the “Great Powers”, and handed over to the Jewish populace to assuage the collective conscience of Europe, that has shockingly mistreated these poor souls for centuries and millennia, culminating in the horrors of Nazi Germany. "

There are a couple of missing pieces here. This isn't actually about Religion. It's about making sure that all people have their rights respected to live and be free. But when two peoples make claim to the same land, you have endless conflict.

There was no state of Palestine before Israel was established. They were part of the Arab nations, part of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, but no state of Palestine has ever existed.

In those very same lands there has always been an Arab and a Jewish presence.

There was no state of Palestine long before WWII ended, long before the League of Nations took the region over from the Ottoman Empire. Long before they gave it to Britain, long before Winston Churchill asked The Mufti of Jerusalem to form a conjoint government with the Jews fleeing German persecution.

Only to have the Mufti of Jerusalem refuse, and then join with Adolph Hitler and demand the extermination of all Jews the world over. Not a great start to diplomacy:

"On meeting Adolf Hitler he requested backing for Arab independence and support in opposing the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish national home."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amin_al-Husseini

The war has been going on for a long time.

"The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. It is known in Israel as the War of Independence (Hebrew: מלחמת העצמאות, Milkhemet Ha'Atzma'ut) and in Arabic as a central component of the Nakba (Arabic: النَّكْبَة, lit. 'the disaster').[a][14][15][16][17] It is the first war of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the broader Arab–Israeli conflict. During the war, the British terminated the Mandate and withdrew, ending a period of rule which began in 1917, during the First World War. Beforehand, the area had been part of the Ottoman Empire. In May 1948, the State of Israel was established by the Jewish Yishuv, its creation having been declared on the last day of the Mandate. During the war, around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs were displaced.[18]

"After the war, the former territory of the mandate was divided among the State of Israel, which captured about 78% of it, the Kingdom of Jordan (then known as Transjordan), which captured and later annexed the area that became the West Bank, and Egypt, which captured the Gaza Strip, a coastal territory on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, in which the Arab League established the All-Palestine Government.

"The war had two main phases, the first being the 1947–1948 civil war, which began on 30 November 1947,[19] a day after the United Nations voted to adopt the Partition Plan for Palestine, which divided the territory into Jewish and Arab sovereign states, and an international Jerusalem (UN Resolution 181). Partition was accepted by the Jewish leadership, but rejected by Palestinian Arab leaders and the Arab states.[20] This phase of the war is described by historians as the "civil", "ethnic" or "intercommunal" war, as it was fought mainly between Jewish and Palestinian Arab militias, supported by the Arab Liberation Army and the surrounding Arab states. Characterised by guerrilla warfare and terrorism, it escalated at the end of March 1948 when the Jews went on the offensive and concluded with their defeating the Palestinians in major campaigns and battles, establishing clear frontlines. During this period the British still maintained a declining rule over Palestine and occasionally intervened in the violence.[21][22]

"The British terminated the Mandate at midnight at the end of 14 May 1948. On that day, the last remaining British troops and personnel departed the city of Haifa and the Jewish leadership in Palestine declared the establishment of the State of Israel. This was followed the next day by the invasion of Palestine by the surrounding Arab armies and expeditionary forces.

"The invasion marked the beginning of the second phase of the war, the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The Egyptians advanced on the southern coastal strip and were halted near Ashdod; the Jordanian Arab Legion and Iraqi forces captured the central highlands of Palestine. Syria and Lebanon fought several skirmishes with the Israeli forces in the north. The Jewish militias, organised into the Israel Defense Forces, managed to halt the Arab forces. The following months saw fierce fighting between the IDF and the Arab armies, which were being slowly pushed back. The Jordanian and Iraqi armies managed to maintain control over most of the central highlands of Palestine and capture East Jerusalem, including the Old City. Egypt's occupation zone was limited to the Gaza Strip and a small pocket surrounded by Israeli forces at Al-Faluja. In October and December 1948, Israeli forces crossed into Lebanese territory and pushed into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, encircling the Egyptian forces near Gaza City. The last military activity happened in March 1949, when Israeli forces captured the Negev desert and reached the Red Sea. In 1949, Israel signed separate armistices with Egypt on 24 February, Lebanon on 23 March, Transjordan on 3 April, and Syria on 20 July. During this period the flight and expulsion of the Palestinian Arabs continued.

"During the war, around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs were displaced and most of their urban areas were destroyed. Many Palestinian Arabs ended up stateless, displaced either to the Palestinian territories captured by Egypt and Jordan or to the surrounding Arab states; many of them, as well as their descendants, remain stateless and in refugee camps.

"In the three years following the war, about 700,000 Jews immigrated to Israel from Europe and Arab lands, with one third of them having left or been expelled from their countries of residence in the Middle East.[23][24][25] These refugees were absorbed into Israel in the One Million Plan.[26][27][28][29]"

Diplomacy is the only answer, not Terrorism. But when bombs are fired into Jerusalem from private homes in the Gaza strip, survival demands pursuit right into those very homes. And then you have collateral, innocent lives lost.

You have to take a look at the actual specific history to see how the entire Arab nation has supported Terrorism, using the Palestinians as cannon fodder.

And because that is the land they conduct terrorism from, Jerusalem is forced to carry their battle to those very places.

I'm not a Zionist. I think we should offer to anyone from Palistine or Jerusalem the opportunity to come live here in America. There is no need to live in a place that requires lethal force, including collateral deaths among innocents, for one's own survival.

But so long as there are two peoples there, both backed by very wealthy governments, America, Canada, Russia and Egypt, it's going to be very difficult to build Peace.

And that will require both responsibility and forgiveness.

We can offer the truth, not to blame, but to understand the necessary conditions for progress.

We look at the world to judge, when we ourselves are works in progress requiring attention.

But as for Jerusalem and Palestine, the only solution will be a diplomatic one, with compromise on the smaller issues to protect the larger ones. And such diplomacy will require a process to build trust and reliability. And that will depend, for the time being, on outside intervention and a strong police and military force to enforce whatever is agreed upon.

[SantMat64]

I'm not a Zionist, but I believe Israel owns the contested land of the region, and that Palestinians, ie "the entire Arab nation," should simply forgive Israel, and then get free travel vouchers to move to America, even though they're terrorists.

There is no need for Palestinians to live in a place that requires lethal force, so they should move to the U.S. which funds the country that's responsible for the lethal force. I mean, given that 5x as many Palestinians have been killed by Israelis than Israelis killed by Palestinians, it's clear that the Palestinians are wholly in the wrong and need to surrender already.

Barring that obvious solution, I say diplomacy is the answer in dealing with these obstreperous Arabs. For example, the U.S. took the high road and used diplomacy to deal with Iraq. We could have sent in the full force the of U.S. military at the cost of 3 trillion dollars, 5,000 dead Americans, and 300,000 Iraqis. But no, we talked it out like the civilized race that we are.

Some might say that you can't talk things out with a people following a backward religion that teaches God rewards their warriors with instant access to heaven. Yes, it's true that those Muslim Arabs believe such nonsense! A dangerous dogma indeed, and so unlike what our Christian religion teaches. For proof, one need only look at what our Catholic and Protestant leaders say about the dubious ethics of partaking in killing and dying for one's country and how it puts one's salvation in peril. For example, there's....well, I can't find anything to cite at the moment, but I'm sure it exists somewhere. If you want specific details, there are thousands of Christian and Jewish military chaplains who can explain to you how when we contest land using lethal force against civilians is completely different from Jihad.

[Appreciative Reader]

Not sure what point you’re trying to make with that huge mass of largely irrelevant detail, Spence.

When Israel was formed, the Muslims staying there got included in, as obviously they should have been. Likewise, the Jews staying there also got included in, as again they obviously should have been. But what is key is this: A whole mass of Jews, from all over the globe, from Europe and from the US and from everywhere else, also got in on that land. Why? That is what I was talking about, and what you, with your usual non sequiturs, don’t address (even as you pretend to). …The only reason that whole mass of people got crowded in there was religion. And that’s completely cock-eyed. For one thing, that isn’t history, that’s myth. For another, even had it been literally historical, even then no one gets the right to occupy some land just because their ancestors had that same bit of land some 2500 or 3000 or whatever many years ago. That’s completely asinine, that reasoning, that because my ancestors owned land here 3000 years ago, therefore I have a right to this land today. That’s Europe assuaging its collective guilt by foisting those folks, backed by brute force and nothing else, on people who most emphatically did not want them around.

…And in as much as you try your best to spin this obvious fact, you’re a Zionist, without a shadow of doubt. …That you welcome these folks, along with everyone else, to the US, is a complete non sequitur. As usual. …And in as much as you equate the relocation of people who’d never been part of that land until only a few generations back (not unless you jump back literally two-and-a-half to three millennia), with the relocation of people who’ve been living there throughout, once more you’re very clearly a Zionist. You’re simply lying in claiming that you’re not.

Which is fine. Nothing wrong with being a Zionist (as long as one isn’t inflexible and militant about it). Zionism is fine; unreasonable, ultimately, but all things considered, it is fine, as long as it is not inflexible, and not militant and murderous. What I find completely tiresome is your apparently compulsive need to put this insane brand of spin on to whatever it is you happen to speak about, rather than clearly and straightforwardly and honestly arguing your POV; so that it is simply not possible to take at face value anything you ever say.

-----

For the record, while I find the settlement of Israel, as a land for all Jews, completely cock-eyed; but in as much as it is already decades-old fact, I do not now suggest that they should evacuate that land, not at all. I agree they now have a legitimate right to that land, basis the fact that they’ve been staying there these last many decades. But I do find how Israel has treated Palestinians throughout, and particularly how they’re treating them now, as nothing short of evil. Bibi’s clearly using this as opportunity to cement his right-wing agenda, and actually ethnic-cleanse that place out.

This is nothing less than an outrage, that an entire populace is being sought to be evicted en masse from their own home like this. Ethnic cleansing is exactly what it is. Anywhere else, this sort of thing would have attracted howls of outrage. Amazingly, in this case it is attracting support, not outrage.

Also for the record, I realize that the Palestinians are …not nice folks. The Jews are, in stark contrast, by and large civilized, educated, all of that. But none of that changes the fact that they’re oppressing the Palestinians, and now driving them out en masse.

-----

You suggest that diplomacy is the way forward, with the air of saying something new. But that’s exactly what Brian has said. And exactly what I’ve said, as well. Carve out a sovereign country for Palestinians, as is their right, amicably, diplomatically, whatever. Anything else is simply tyranny.

And Brian is perfectly right in pointing out that it is religion that prevents this happening. While there’s lots of sane reasonable Jews who don’t believe the Bible nonsense, but it is the cross-eyed Yahweh-worshiping loons that are clearly setting the extreme-right-wing agenda there. Add to the mix those Allah-worshiping Jehad-obsessed idiots on the other side, and you have an impasse there’s no getting out of. And it’s all because of religion. Not only religion, obviously. But it is because of religion --- the Judaic religion --- that Israel was settled with Jews from all over the world who had no business being there. And it is because of religion --- the Judaic variety, as well as the Islamic variety --- that there’s zero chance, or so it appears now, of an amicable solution to all of this. Had religion not been a factor, had the people stopped worshiping Yahweh and stopped regarding the Bible as word of God and seen it for the mere myth it is, and likewise the Muslims on the other end of the divide, then while obviously we can’t say for certain that this would all end well, but without a doubt the chances of amicable resolution would have been much higher.

Brian’s right about this, on every count.

[Spence Tepper]

I'm sorry AR but while you make some good points you over reach with the reactive effect of error :

You wrote
"And in as much as you try your best to spin this obvious fact, you’re a Zionist, without a shadow of doubt. …That you welcome these folks, along with everyone else, to the US, is a complete non sequitur."

I'm sorry but you are wrong. Nothing I've quoted or written suggests as much.

I was born a Jew, but in 1961 (when I was four) my parents left formal Judaism precisely because of what was happening in Palestine to the Palistinians. They left in part because they were not Zionists.

They, and our Rabbi at the time, and many other mystic Rabbis and Jews believed the Holy Land is a place in spirit, not any physical location. Our is reached by conquering ourselves.

They pointed out that America was home to nearly ten times the number of Jews as Israel, and could accommodate anyone. The reason for the establishment of the State of Israel as a permanent refuge for Jews who were hunted down and tortured appeared at the time to have become outdated.

America can and is home to many Muslims, many from different parts of Arabia, including Palestine.

Land doesn't really belong to anyone, AR, though people fight and die over it. We are only renters, inherititors. And we should be good renters, respectful inherititors.

Ownership ideas, property ideas are conceptual, dualistic notions of a poor value system, one that is based in subgugation and not equality and respect for all life. Hopefully one day they will be disgarded as humanity continuous to mature, in favor of more humanistic ideals.

But when anyone is attacked they must defend themselves, until the attacker is willing to engage in diplomacy. That is the only step necessary to end all violence. If it is sincere. At this stage building trust will be necessary to establish that sincerity. And that can take the form of a willingness to submit to the decisions of a more objective third party who has already established their good will towards both Israel and Palestine.

Remember, the Palestinians are indeed victims, but victims of the PLO, Hammas, Fatad and other fanatical religious and political organizations who promised to help but only served themselves at the cost of Palestinian lives. Add to this the abuse from Israel and you have a more complete picture.

Be careful of harboring prejudices of any kind, looking for someone to blame, and be willing to reexamine oneself daily to rise above them. Prejudice is like germs. They can be absorbed easily and touch everyone, and a daily internal cleansing, just like washing your hands, can help keep thinking and behavior clean and collaborative.

[Spence Tepper]

BTW AR
If you read the historical account I had posted above you will see that early in Israel's history Britain did offer to both Israel and Palestine a two-state self-rule solution. Israel accepted the offer. But Palestinian leaders rejected it. And they have rejected that offer that has been made repeatedly over the years. Each time it is built with support from within Palestine. But the corrupt terrorist provisional governments in Palestine, who were not elected by popular vote but imposed themselves upon the Palestinians, refused to accept it under any conditions.

Even finding a way to get true elections within Palestine has been a challenge that has never been successfully met.

[Appreciative Reader]

Dear Spence,

Yes, you've recounted your personal history to me in the past, and absolutely, I respect that, and your general pacifism.

But you did try to spin the formation-of-Palestine-and-assorted-verbiage-and-detail red herring to defend, by implication, the Zionist argument. Why else would that be a (presumably relevant) "missing piece" in your view?

And you do try to present an equivalence between relocation of relatively recent interlopers, and the relocation of people native to that place. That also is a Zionist argument.

I respect your personal background and pacifism, but what you've argued there is de facto Zionism.

Which, like I said, is fine, IMV, as long as it isn't inflexible. What I objected to wad your claiming not to be a Zionist, even while espousing Zionist would-be arguments.

----------------

"When anyone is attacked they must defend themselves", you say. I don't disagree, but it is clear what you're implying here, even as you don't directly own that position. You don't defend yourself by ethnic cleansing an entire population. And if the Palestinian innocents now being attacked --- and yes, they're innocent, even if their sympathies lie with Hamas, as long as they don't actively collaborate --- also exercise their right of defense, then whither your diplomacy? You claim to support diplomacy, but de facto argue a position that can only make for violence.

-------------

You quoted from my post the part where I asked what the Palestinians could do, given Israel's tyranny and oppression. Relocate them all to the US? That is your answer? That's beyond risible, sorry.

And if, as you argue, Palestinians are victims of the PLO, well then by that same token the Jewish settlers there, who came from outside that area, are equally victims of orthodox Judaic superstions, and of people like Bibi, and indeed of the Zionist project.

------------

Not to beat this to death, Spence. But what you're arguing isn't just wrong, it is actually incoherent.

[um]

@ AR

Follow the money.
Who, on both sides, pays for that clash between two peoples?

What are THEIR motives?

Are these motives related to the welfare of the people living in that area or are these people just USED to procure what THEY are after, things that are not related to the land let alone its inhabitants.

SHARE-HOLDERS and INVESTERS are rarely interested in the welfare of anybody. They will look after you as long as you produce what they want ..money, wealth and above all power.

The regional powers, once autocrats in their own regional universum, are at stake in the globalization of the world ...they are all fighting with one another to SURVIVE and rescue as much power they once had in that regional universe and what they fear to lose in the globalized war

The evil of wealth and power AR is in the suggestion that without is one can not live and decent human life and that that wealth is only available for some .. not all.

Imagine what remains of the islamic countries if they accept the number one position of the USA? .. on ALL levels. They will be reduced to even less than development countries.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi AR:
You wrote:
"But you did try to spin the formation-of-Palestine-and-assorted-verbiage-and-detail red herring to defend, by implication, the Zionist argument. Why else would that be a (presumably relevant) "missing piece" in your view?"

No, just to explain the land grab by both Israel and Palestine when British occupation ended. There was a mix, as always, of nobility, and corruption on all sides.

By the time of the late forties, over 100,000 Jews had already emigrated to Palestine, since 1920. That's when the British assumed rule when the Ottoman Empire fell, as members of the losing side of WWI..having sided with Germany. So Jews were already in the land for decades before the state of Israel took place.

If you read the history I'd sent you can see that there is no defense of Zionism, simply an explanation of how the land was allocated to a new state of Israel to the besieged Jews fleeing terrorism and persecution. And how the Mufti of Jerusalem sided with Adolph Hitler in his own effort to grab the land that had been under British rule for decades.

I don't think anyone should take innocent lives nor live a lifestyle or demand a location that requires doing so.

That applies to everyone, Israeli's and Palestinians.

Do you disagree?

In the past Israel has elected to support a two-state independent solution to the problem. which BTW, the terrorists have never advocated. They have never stated that Israel has a right to exist. That doesn't give Israel the right to engage in terrorism. Nor does it extend that right to Hamas, the PLO or any others who can't wrap their head around the notion that we all deserve to live in peace with equal rights.

Is this an idea you can accept?

The fact that the Mufti of Jerusalem sided with Adolph Hitler in advocating the extinction of the Jews can be understood in part by the desire to end colonial occupation by the British and also to get in and take the land... Until you see that the position and power of the Mufti were assigned by the British and didn't exist beforehand. And unfortunately, the terrorists hold the same view today, that Israel should not exist.

You wrote;
"And you do try to present an equivalence between relocation of relatively recent interlopers, and the relocation of people native to that place. That also is a Zionist argument."

I don't advocate displacing anyone. But to live that, we must forgive the past and start from where we are today. So, among those alive today there is an equivalence! Today only the children and their children on all sides remain. They are innocent. They have grown and have children of their own, and this is where they, their parents and grandparents have lived their whole lives.

And the only diplomatic solution involves respecting their rights to live as they like where they are, so long as they respect those of everyone else. That applies equally to Israeli and Palestinian and all humanity.

Let me break it down for you...

1. Everyone has a right to exist right where they are, if they do not endanger others.
2. And if they do, then we need diplomacy to restore 1. above.

It's just that simple.

No blame, no credit, no distractions..

[Spence Tepper]

Finally AR:

You ignored my suggested solution, that a third party intervene. That is decidedly not a Zionist nor Terrorist position. It is above both, but protects the innocent and will help create a sustainable, non-violent sovereignty for Palestine and one for Israel.

[SantMat63]

@ spence

"The fact that the Mufti of Jerusalem sided with Adolph Hitler in advocating the extinction of the Jews"

Incorrect. "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked a wave of backlash when he argued that the Holocaust was the brainchild of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who, Netanyahu claimed, suggested killing the Jews (rather than merely expelling them) to Hitler during a 1941 visit to Berlin. As it happens, the full German record of the meeting between al-Husseini and Hitler, on Nov. 28, 1941, was published half a century ago, and is readily available online. It is a fascinating and important document. Not only does it make clear that Netanyahu’s accusation is false, but it also sheds light on the true origins of the Holocaust, and why Hitler undertook it when he did." Source: Time Magazine, Oct 22, 2015

[Spence Tepper]

Hi SantMat63:

Nope you have made an error.
You have confused two things. 1. The Mufti of Jersualem joined with Adolph Hitler in advocating the extinction of the Jews. That is a fact.

Netanyahu exaggerated this by claiming the whole idea of killing the Jews came originally from the Grand Mufti. That is false. He simply joined into it.

The Times article you linked to says...

"As it happens, the full German record of the meeting between al-Husseini and Hitler, on Nov. 28, 1941, was published half a century ago, and is readily available online."

And provides a link to this article:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/full-official-record-what-the-mufti-said-to-hitler/

Inwhich you may read...

"The Fuhrer then made the following statement to the Mufti, enjoining him to lock it in the uttermost depths of his heart:

1. He (the Fuhrer) would carry on the battle to the total destruction of the Judeo-Communist empire in Europe.
2. At some moment which was impossible to set exactly today but which in any event was not distant, the German armies would in the course of this struggle reach the southern exit from Caucasia.
3. As soon as this had happened, the Fuhrer would on his own give the Arab world the assurance that its hour of liberation had arrived. Germany’s objective would then be solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere under the protection of British power. In that hour the Mufti would be the most authoritative spokesman for the Arab world. It would then be his task to set off the Arab operations, which he had secretly prepared. When that time had come, Germany could also be indifferent to French reaction to such a declaration."

"The Grand Mufti replied that it was his view that everything would come to pass just as the Fuhrer had indicated. He was fully reassured and satisfied by the words which he had heard form the Chief of the German State. "

Hence, as I had written, the Grand Mufti was in full support of the extinction of the Jews internationally. Not a great start to diplomacy with Israel.

[umami]

For the record, here's the article SantMat63 quoted...
https://time.com/4084301/hitler-grand-mufi-1941/

True, the Holocaust was already underway, but the Grand Mufti stood with Hitler and waited for the go ahead. "What he wanted, and did not get, was the authorization to proceed immediately to a revolt against the colonial powers in the Middle East and a war against the British and the Jews in Palestine."

[Spence Tepper]

Before Israel took over the Gaza strip, the Palestinians were under a military rule from Egypt, not self-rule, but Egypt used this a base to wage war against Israel, and they lost.

"1950s & 1960s - Egyptian military rule

"Egypt held the Gaza Strip for two decades under a military governor, allowing Palestinians to work and study in Egypt. Armed Palestinian "fedayeen," many of them refugees, mounted attacks into Israel, drawing reprisals.

"The United Nations set up a refugee agency, UNRWA, which today provides services for 1.6 million registered Palestine refugees in Gaza, as well as for Palestinians in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank.

"1967 - War and Israeli military occupation

"Israel captured the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war. An Israeli census that year put Gaza's population at 394,000, at least 60% of them refugees.

"With the Egyptians gone, many Gazan workers took jobs in the agriculture, construction and services industries inside Israel, to which they could gain easy access at that time. Israeli troops remained to administer the territory and to guard the settlements that Israel built in the following decades. These became a source of growing Palestinian resentment.

"1987 - First Palestinian uprising. Hamas formed

"Twenty years after the 1967 war, Palestinians launched their first intifada, or uprising. It began in December 1987 after a traffic accident in which an Israeli truck crashed into a vehicle carrying Palestinian workers in Gaza's Jabalya refugee camp, killing four. Stone-throwing protests, strikes and shutdowns followed.

"Seizing the angry mood, the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood created an armed Palestinian branch, Hamas, with its power base in Gaza. Hamas, dedicated to Israel's destruction and restoration of Islamic rule in what it saw as occupied Palestine, became a rival to Yasser Arafat's secular Fatah party that led the Palestine Liberation Organization."

On several occasions Israel attempted to give self-rule to Palestine and the Gaza strip with negative consequences of persistent terrorism.

"The Oslo process gave the newly created Palestinian Authority some autonomy, and envisaged statehood after five years. But that never happened. Israel accused the Palestinians of reneging on security agreements, and Palestinians were angered by continued Israeli settlement building.

"Hamas and Islamic Jihad carried out bombings to try to derail the peace process, leading Israel to impose more restrictions on movement of Palestinians out of Gaza. Hamas also picked up on growing Palestinian criticisms of corruption, nepotism and economic mismanagement by Arafat's inner circle.

"2000 - Second Palestinian intifada

"In 2000, Israeli-Palestinian relations sank to a new low with the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada. It ushered in a period of suicide bombings and shooting attacks by Palestinians, and Israeli air strikes, demolitions, no-go zones and curfews.

"One casualty was Gaza International Airport, a symbol of thwarted Palestinian hopes for economic independence and the Palestinians' only direct link to the outside world that was not controlled by Israel or Egypt. Opened in 1998, Israel deemed it a security threat and destroyed its radar antenna and runway a few months after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

"Another casualty was Gaza's fishing industry, a source of income for tens of thousands. Gaza's fishing zone was reduced by Israel, a restriction it said was necessary to stop boats smuggling weapons.

"2005 - Israel evacuates its Gaza settlements

"In August 2005 Israel evacuated all its troops and settlers from Gaza, which was by then completely fenced off from the outside world by Israel.

"Palestinians tore down the abandoned buildings and infrastructure for scrap. The settlements' removal led to greater freedom of movement within Gaza, and a "tunnel economy" boomed as armed groups, smugglers and entrepreneurs quickly dug scores of tunnels into Egypt.

"But the pullout also removed settlement factories, greenhouses and workshops that had employed some Gazans.

"2006 - Isolation under Hamas

"In 2006, Hamas scored a surprise victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections and then seized full control of Gaza, overthrowing forces loyal to Arafat's successor, President Mahmoud Abbas.

"Much of the international community cut aid to the Palestinians in Hamas-controlled areas because they regarded Hamas as a terrorist organization.

"Israel stopped tens of thousands of Palestinian workers from entering the country, cutting off an important source of income. Israeli air strikes crippled Gaza's only electrical power plant, causing widespread blackouts. Citing security concerns, Israel and Egypt also imposed tighter restrictions on the movement of people and goods through the Gaza crossings.

"Ambitious Hamas plans to refocus Gaza's economy east, away from Israel, foundered before they even started."

Even Egypt could not control the Terrorism amidst Gaza, even when Egypt was in control.

"Viewing Hamas as a threat, Egypt's military-backed leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who took power in 2014, closed the border with Gaza and blew up most of the tunnels. Once again isolated, Gaza's economy went into reverse.

"Conflict cycle

"Gaza's economy has suffered repeatedly in the cycle of conflict, attack and retaliation between Israel and Palestinian militant groups.

"Before 2023, some of the worst fighting was in 2014, when Hamas and other groups launched rockets at heartland cities in Israel. Israel carried out air strikes and artillery bombardment that devastated neighbourhoods in Gaza. More than 2,100 Palestinians were killed, mostly civilians. Israel put the number of its dead at 67 soldiers and six civilians."

Israel then once again began to offer financial incentives to Gaza workers in the hopes this would encourage better self-rule and stability within the Gaza strip. But under the yoke of Hamas, it was not to be....

"2023 - Surprise attack

"While Israel was led to believe it was containing a war-weary Hamas by providing economic incentives to Gazan workers, the group's fighters were being trained and drilled in secret.

"On Oct.7, Hamas gunmen launched a surprise attack on Israel, rampaging through towns, killing hundreds, and taking dozens of hostages back to Gaza. Israel took revenge, hammering Gaza with air strikes and razing entire districts in some of the worst blood-letting since the end of British rule."

From Reuters:
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/brief-history-gazas-centuries-war-2023-10-13/#:~:text=In%20August%202005%20Israel%20evacuated,buildings%20and%20infrastructure%20for%20scrap.

[Ela]

Why don’t we just blame the Brits for this and agree that that have been geometrically challenged for some time now.

They had such a difficult time with ratios and straight lines that it is almost confounding to accept they were supposedly leaders of the “free world” at one time.

Israel is immensely powerful and it is understandable that they should be extremely upset over what has transpired in the past 7 days or so.

That said, Israel IS powerful and that means they hold responsibility for protecting the weak while eradicating injustice.

Israel must proceed with the utmost caution, understanding that most Gazan Palestinians are themselves victims and ultimately hostages of a cruel regime under Hamas.

Hamas is a disgusting and terrible threat. However, the health and safety of Gazans must prevail first and foremost over the desire for ultimate destruction of Hamas.

I’m with Israel. But I’m also with the Gazan Palestinians. I only hope and pray that all Jewish soldiers are able to differentiate between Hamas and the hostage civilians of Palestine.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Ela!
I really like what you posted and agree 100%.

[SantMat63]

@ Spence

There is no extant quote by the Grand Mufti calling for the "extermination of the Jews."
Certainly, there was none in the link you posted.

That's why Time Magazine saw fit to correct the myth that Netanyahu had been propagating.
I suggest you read the link before replying again.

https://time.com/4084301/hitler-grand-mufi-1941/

and,

"Yad Vashem’s chief historian, Prof Dina Porat, told the Israeli news website Ynet that Netanyahu’s claims were incorrect. “You cannot say that it was the mufti who gave Hitler the idea to kill or burn Jews. It’s not true. Their meeting occurred after a series of events that point to this.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/21/netanyahu-under-fire-for-palestinian-grand-mufti-holocaust-claim

[um]

Quote:
"Man came FIRST
Religions were instituted LATER for the evolution of his soul"

Since man came first, the earth has seen the birth growth and decay of MANY religions.

At any time the clergy, the devotees of a particular religion were convinced that their religion would last for ever.,History tells us NONE survived. Whatever we see in this world is not everlasting.

SO .....

The abrahamic religions too have an will disappeared and forgotten ...sooner or later

And given the globalisation of the world, the end of regional universes, it will be sooner then later. Probably that will be a time of upheaval, just to use low emotional adjectives.

Most people cannot imagine that possibility, but the day is coming that we will remember these religions in the way we do now remember religions of the past.

These three religions are no longer serving humanity, in any capacity, irrespective the form they present themselves .. from the ordinary devotee going to the Synagoge, mosque or church to the mystics.

The waiting is for a WORLD religion to be born .. some messiah that speaks to the heart of all human beings and helps them to grasp that understanding to be true.

Until then ... they will fight their way to hell

[Spence Tepper]

Hi SantMat63

You did not understand.

Your reply gives this quote

"Yad Vashem’s chief historian, Prof Dina Porat, told the Israeli news website Ynet that Netanyahu’s claims were incorrect. “You cannot say that it was the mufti who gave Hitler the idea to kill or burn Jews. It’s not true. Their meeting occurred after a series of events that point to this.”

I agreed with this already..

When I wrote
"You have confused two things. 1. The Mufti of Jersualem joined with Adolph Hitler in advocating the extinction of the Jews. That is a fact.

" Netanyahu exaggerated this by claiming the whole idea of killing the Jews came originally from the Grand Mufti. That is false. He simply joined into it."

I stated the fact that the Mufti of Jerusalem sided with Adolph Hitler's plan to exterminate the Jews.

And I provided a quote from the very article referenced in your article.

And Umami also quoted from the very Times article you originally sided.

The Grand Mufti didn't originate the idea of "destroying" all Jews internationally. He simply agreed to go along with it.

"

[um]

The history repeats itself.

Europeans went to another continent.
Subdued the indigenous people
Started their own nation

YOU Americans and Canadians just think of your own history and what has come from the indigenous people

[Spence Tepper]

Hi UM:

Look back far enough into history and you will see that every square inch is a sepulchre.

Even indigenous people fought and died over territorial rights and many maintained slaves..and after achieving a level of peace over centuries, often on a platform of barbaric sacrifice, in comes the usurpers.

Wherever we are, God has placed us here. Let's get a long in peace, as good brothers and sisters.
Nothing could be simpler than adopting that.
But, quite difficult to achieve in a world where everyone chooses to go their own way and to adopt violence as a strategy.

One lesson I've taken from Trump's first election, is that a solid minority of well-organized and committed individuals (however extreme their zealotry) can move the world. Why not do that for a nobler cause? Peace and brotherhood, freedom and respect? Why leave it to the Terrorists? When simple organization, education and voice can do so much more, over time?

And then our minority becomes a much larger one.

As Asimov wrote so many decades ago: "Violence is the refuge of the incompetent."

[um]

Yes, yes Spence,
There are those that take responsibility for their own acts and others doing the same blame others.

Please do remember Golda Meir and the breaking of bones of youngsters by the IDF soldiers with clubs ... stating that THEY, the palestenians ...FORCE US to do so

Sartre called it "responding and acting if bad faith"

Just delf in that site:
https://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/

What these youngsters should be respected for is just addressing the acting of the IDF without justified these actions with the misbehavior and crimes of the Palestinian people ...their motivation to do so however has NOTHING to do with even the slightest beginning of compassion for the fate of the palestenians that for decades are suffering under and oppressions that has even carachteristics of the Nazi's.

YES, what Hamas did and probably will do is of the same character as that of IS.
YES, they should be stopped in doing so

BUT Spence ... that stopping can be done in MANY different ways,
and
if the way that is chosen is against international war laws, it is just criminal
and
Is in NO way to be justified by the criminal behaviour of Hamas.

It is that simple.

We choose to deal with the use of drugs as a crime and because of that way of attributing meaning we have to face, a disruption of society, many ending up in the criminal world and endless stream of misery,

They simple could legalize

If the israelies do not want to give up their rights on the whole of palestine ..so be it .. but at least see to it that those that were living there can continue living in a decent way .. do not steal their land, do not cut their olive trees, do not steel their water etc etc

Let their be build for every settler family an equal home for an palestenian family
Do so for everything else that is done to make the life of settlers their dream.

BUT reading the old testament and what happened to people living in that area there is little hope. That book is one litany of massacring other tribes and peoples by the abrahamic tribes ...WHY .. because they made themselves believe that GOD , the creator had promissed that land to them and that they are acting upon gods commans when they kill other tribes.

Just listen to what the settlers say in public, without any shame.

They will leave no stone unturned, no olive tree alive, no home errect, no paletenian have a live untel they have the whole of palestine.. great israel.

[um]

P>S>

>>"What these youngsters should be respected for is just addressing the acting of the IDF without justified these actions with the misbehavior and crimes of the Palestinian people ...their motivation to do so however has NOTHING to do with even the slightest beginning of compassion for the fate of the Palestinians that for decades are suffering under and oppressions that has even characteristics of the Nazi's."<<

What i forgot was to mention that their real motivation to denounce their own behavior as IDF soldiers in the occupied territories, is that they fear for the moral corruption of the soldiers as individuals and in the end the morality of the nation as a whole.

We all know what happens when traumatized veterans come home. In your own country, some fear their reactive anger so much that they go live alone in the woods so that their family can live in peace.

Those who have openend the inner door of evil towards Palestinians will find at home that they cannot close that door.

These soldiers of "Break te silence" have understood that ... so from that motivation to denounce their own behavior, one can easily make up ones mind what is going on there for decades.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um

Yes there are other solutions. While military intervention is now required to restore security, it should be based on international agreement and support since it involves invading another country. Let's just start with the Gaza Strip as part of Palestine's sovereign nation.

With that in mind unilateral military intervention is inappropriate.

Just as it was wrong for Putin to invade Ukraine. It matters not the legitimacy of claims of Terrorism. When the next step must be military intervention on another nation's soil, that should be by international consensus among at least a majority of nations.

In this way the path to diplomacy is engaged first and continuous through the dark days of self-defense, where innocent collateral must be minimized.

[umami]

"The waiting is for a WORLD religion to be born .. some messiah that speaks to the heart of all human beings and helps them to grasp that understanding to be true."

um,
Can we look forward to new hairstyles and dress code? That would go a long way.

[um]

@ Umami

hahaha ... it need not but probably will

[um]

@ Umami

And if there is a replacement of look it will be less colorfull probably ... the colorfull dress of the manderins were replaced by the green uniforms .. yes, some of cotton and others of silk.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Umami
Our salvation as a species won't be, I believe, universal consensus on belief.

It will come from the biological genius of diversity somehow not killing each other as it creates; creating absurd solutions that for no good reason work brilliantly, and well beyond more conventional thinkers.

[Really?]

• No-one can have an accurate understanding of a situation if they are starting with certain FALSE premises.
• Anyone spreading an opinion that is built upon false premises and upon DELIBERATE emotionally-manipulative misinformation is an unwitting participant in deception.
• Anyone airing an opinion from such deceits and thereby promoting unethical actions resulting in immense suffering of numerous individuals has become an accessory to an immoral act: one that in this case is a crime against humanity.

1. An attack by one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world using high-tech army, airforce and naval armaments against a captive, defenceless people with NO army, navy or army can not truthfully be called a “war”. Therefore the title “...the horrible Hamas-Israel war” is either an unwitting repetition of a deception OR is knowingly perpetuating a deliberate deception.
Suggesting in a widely read article that a genocidal mass-murder of a captive, defenceless, civilian population is a “war” (i.e.conflict between conflicting armies) is an act of immorality.

2. Repeating an intentionally emotionally-manipulative deceit designed to create support for a racist, genocidal, mass-murder of civilians for having the ‘wrong’ ethnicity — in this case NOT having ‘jewish’ ethnicity — is an act of immorality. No babies were decapitated. Repeating racistly-motivated lies without checking is to be complicit in a hate-crime.

3. Misrepresenting an occupied people resisting a genocidal occupier as a conflict about “religion” is to participate in and perpetuate another intentional deceit promoted by an illegal occupier. “It's impossible to separate out the role of religion here“ is the deception being ignorantly or deliberately perpetuated here.

4. Promoting the morally inconsistent view that the illegal-occupier Jewish state of “Israel is justified in fighting back against Hamas” while suggesting that occupied population are not “justified in fighting back against“ their occupier, is not only illogical and unreasonable, it also gives immoral support to an illegal, racist occupier that for decades has been engaged in slow genocide* (DEFINITION*: “In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group.”)

5. The situation is neither complex nor ‘religion’ based. To suggest otherwise is to believe, repeat and spread what are intentional deceits.
This eight-decades old situation is very simply about abiding by or breaking existing INTERNATIONAL LAWS. The situation can be resolved immediately if those laws are imposed without any bias. So this statement: “If the reasonable Israelis and Palestinians could get together and discuss a viable two-state solution, ...absent religious dogmatism, it'd be much more feasible” is either an argument from ignorance, or a deliberate misrepresentation of the reality.
The illegal occupier nation (Israel) is in breach of more UN resolutions from their breaking of international law than all other countries combined. And that doesn’t take into account the fact that the USA has blocked many more proposed UN resolutions.

Spreading falsehoods that result in death, destruction and immense suffering that will reverberate for generations will incur extremely negative consequences.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Really?
There are two flaws in your argument.
1. Palestine is the victim. Israel is the criminal.
Just a a couple of weeks ago Hammas attacked Israel and murdered innocent civilians as well as took hostages. Every argument claiming Palestine is a victim applies also to the victims in Jerusalem.
2. Nothing but violence will happen unless all sides can do two things:
a. Take responsibility for their actions...that includes terrorism.
b. Forgive and be willing to compromise at the bargaining table.

There is a long history of effort, with some temporary success, along these lines.
Palestine is indeed a victim But a victim of both terrorism from Hammas, the PLO, etc, and a victim of Israel.
And Israel is also a victim of Terrorism, while it is also a perpetrator.

If the Palestinian authority had acknowledged that Hamas actions was terrorism, and offered to help, and did help to capture and extradite the terrorists to Israel for public trial, they would at least demonstrate they are willing to respect other nations, and thereby earn world support.

But we understand they are victims, who, under terrorism, cannot govern themselves. And so third party intervention is needed. That would be a third party trusted by both sides, since that third party would also be determining Israel's police policy and monitoring it for compliance.

Your solution to simply punish, and not to rehabilitate both nations is unfortunately, the fuel of anger, and not answer.

When Simon Wiesenthal hunted Nazis around the globe after WWII, it wasn't to kill them. They were arrested and extradited back to Israel for trial. He didn't lob missiles into the lands of other nations. Both Palestine and Israel have another solution, and they need to be willing to adopt it. They need to be reminded that not long ago peace was more important to both countries than retribution. You can't actually have both.

[Really?]

Spence, your post did not refer to a single thing I wrote. Not a single thing.
Your reply was a classic ‘strawman’ where someone avoids reality and a genuine, honest dialogue by replying to their own inventions.
You did not reply to any of my statements, but merely claimed you did. This is delusional behaviour.

My post pointed to clear deceptions that Mr. Hines either unwittingly or deliberately perpetrated. I numbered them. If you disagree and want to respond to them, please do so. But I suggest you introspect and ask yourself why you felt the need to add further deception to the one’s that I have already pointed out.

I hope we can agree on this much that whether from ignorance or from intention, spreading lies that support and further a course of illegal action that intentionally creates colossal suffering — including making thousands of people homeless, into orphans, into grieving parents, plus includes crippling, maiming, starving and killing of innocent civilians as a form of illegal collective punishment — makes one complicit in that immoral action.

As we both appear to be aware, immoral actions that cause immense suffering DO have karmic consequences.

[Trez]

Religions create hate
Take Radha Soami and Gurinder Singh Dhilion its india based which is known for hate against all caste systems of higher and lower class.

Gurinder Singh dhillon himself calls himself a Jatt meaning I'm upper Sikh class.
He himself spreads a hate underhandly and thinks different to what he shows. Many times in india he has shown this in his Satsangs.

He has married his own children into the caste system too so he doesn't be called a lower caste. Also calculating to them to be married into very tich families only.

A very lying and cunning character Gurinder Singh Dhilion is.

This is what they really teach us look at what they do not what they say on stages.

These so called religious leaders and they're Religions have no place in God's eyes and should be got rid off as these are the very reasons for so much destruction in this world

Shame on you Gurinder Singh Dhilion

[Kranvir]

Gurinder dhillon is the leader of a stealthy terrorist organization, disguised as a religious group called rssb - which is a front and a cover story. The security seva act as thugs and bullies and dance to the commands of their queen bee , gurinder. This bent baba is in bed with political leaders like modi and purposefully makes aquantancies with shady people like the drug barren majeetia, crooked business men and ex police officers. How else can gurinder have been allowed to abuse his position to become a billionaire as a guru, when before he was just a hotel worker.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Really?
Let's go over what you wrote point by point, as you asked.

Then I would ask you to do the same with my original comment to you above.

You wrote
"No-one can have an accurate understanding of a situation if they are starting with certain FALSE premises.
• Anyone spreading an opinion that is built upon false premises and upon DELIBERATE emotionally-manipulative misinformation is an unwitting participant in deception.
• Anyone airing an opinion from such deceits and thereby promoting unethical actions resulting in immense suffering of numerous individuals has become an accessory to an immoral act: one that in this case is a crime against humanity."

This is called propaganda. Almost every political group, including Israel, Hammas, Palestine, PLO, Egypt, Iran etc engages in such tactics. Getting to the truth is more costly because the truth rarely aligns with a single political group or nation.

You wrote

"1. An attack by one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world using high-tech army, airforce and naval armaments against a captive, defenceless people with NO army, navy or army can not truthfully be called a “war”. Therefore the title “...the horrible Hamas-Israel war” is either an unwitting repetition of a deception OR is knowingly perpetuating a deliberate deception.
Suggesting in a widely read article that a genocidal mass-murder of a captive, defenceless, civilian population is a “war” (i.e.conflict between conflicting armies) is an act of immorality."

When terrorists rape and murder innocent citizens, nations respond. To the degree their anger drives retribution, you get innocent collateral. This is the worst terrorist attack on Jews since the holocaust. And yet you fail to mention it all all. I wonder if you are seeing both sides objectively.

You wrote

"2. Repeating an intentionally emotionally-manipulative deceit designed to create support for a racist, genocidal, mass-murder of civilians for having the ‘wrong’ ethnicity — in this case NOT having ‘jewish’ ethnicity — is an act of immorality. No babies were decapitated. Repeating racistly-motivated lies without checking is to be complicit in a hate-crime."

I don't think you have all the facts. Fortunately / unfortunately Hammas televised much of their criminal activity. I agree it's not one sided. But I don't agree that there is any excuse to harm innocent people anywhere. Do you disagree?

You wrote

" 3. Misrepresenting an occupied people resisting a genocidal occupier as a conflict about “religion” is to participate in and perpetuate another intentional deceit promoted by an illegal occupier. “It's impossible to separate out the role of religion here“ is the deception being ignorantly or deliberately perpetuated here."

I think religion comes in to help warp someone's thinking, so that they believe it's ok to hurt innocent people just because they have a different religion / skin color / locality, etc.

But religion can also give solace and inner sanctuary when nothing else can be done to salve the wounded.

So, while I believe this is really just about Hammas and Israel and various other governments using citizens in Palestine and Israel as cannon fodder to get rich on weapons sales, and influencing the stock market, certainly religion is one of the tools they use.

You wrote

"4. Promoting the morally inconsistent view that the illegal-occupier Jewish state of “Israel is justified in fighting back against Hamas” while suggesting that occupied population are not “justified in fighting back against“ their occupier, is not only illogical and unreasonable, it also gives immoral support to an illegal, racist occupier that for decades has been engaged in slow genocide* (DEFINITION*: “In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group.”)"

Your mistake is in claiming the people of Israel don't have a right to live where they, their parents and grandparents were born. They do. They have as much right to live in their home as any inocent human being on earth. Just as do the people of Palestine. Look back far enough and you will find that every square inch of land on earth was taken through bloodshed. Family against family, tribe against tribe. Even right there in Egypt. Palestine didn't exist as a nation eighty years ago. No point and no excuse to deny a people their rights, both Israeli and Palestinian, for any history. Bloodshed is everywhere. Let's put an end to it by honoring everyone's rights to live where they are, as they are so long as they honor those same rights for everyone else.

You wrote

"5. The situation is neither complex nor ‘religion’ based. To suggest otherwise is to believe, repeat and spread what are intentional deceits.
This eight-decades old situation is very simply about abiding by or breaking existing INTERNATIONAL LAWS. The situation can be resolved immediately if those laws are imposed without any bias. So this statement: “If the reasonable Israelis and Palestinians could get together and discuss a viable two-state solution, ...absent religious dogmatism, it'd be much more feasible” is either an argument from ignorance, or a deliberate misrepresentation of the reality.
The illegal occupier nation (Israel) is in breach of more UN resolutions from their breaking of international law than all other countries combined. And that doesn’t take into account the fact that the USA has blocked many more proposed UN resolutions."

No you are wrong, Isreal exists by international, UN and earlier league of nations proclamations. And so would Palestine the moment they accept this fact. Every act of terrorism is also a violation of international law. And unfortunately in every effort to get both sides to respect the sovereign and human rights of the other, someone on both sides violates the agreements. Often it's terrorists. But it has also been Israel. This is why third party intervention is needed. So long as Hammas, the PLO and other terrorist organizations profit by terrorism, the lives of innocent Palestinians and Isrealis will be in danger. And of course this only gives the corruption in Israeli politics, Russian and Egyptian politics, more fuel for violence as well.

You wrote

"Spreading falsehoods that result in death, destruction and immense suffering that will reverberate for generations will incur extremely negative consequences."

That's why terrorism wherever it occurs must be acknowldged, and all sides should work together to eradicate it.

Because terrorism will never bring peace. Terrorists make their millions taking power by force and selling weapons and warfare to industry and foreign nations. They are professionals at it. Peace was never Hammas purpose. But peace is the God given right of the innocent people of Palestine and Israel.

[Really?]

Spencer, you STILL didn’t refute a single point I made. On the whole you just tried to obfuscate them by using the logically fallacious argument known as ‘moving the goalposts’.
This is yet another deceitful tactic. Lies upon lies upon lies. And all to justify an occurring mass-murder of a defenceless, captive, civilian population targeted BECAUSE of their ethnicity.
You appear to be unable to see through your ethno-religious conditioning and are still attempting to defend the deceptions of this institutionally-racist, genocidal nation which you feel an allegiance to.

SUMMARY: Brian Hines wrote an article that promulgated clear deceptions. Lies that aid the mass-murder of a besieged, imprisoned population because of their non-Jewish ethnicity. You can not bring yourself to even honestly address an analysis of those deceptions. Again I suggest you introspect and question why you feel the need to that.

[Spence Tepper]

Really?
Because you are unable to deal point by point with what I've said it is clear that you are not yet ready for dialogue.

Listening must take place on both sides.

I did indeed address every single point you made. I just don't agree with all of them. But I did agree with parts of it. I read it and addressed it all with respect.

Now it is your turn to demonstrate the same patience and replace name calling with real dialogue.

As the Palestinian ambassador to the UN said just yesterday, the answer starts with listening.

And I would add patience, hope and respect.

"Be patient. Even grass becomes milk."
Maharaji Charan Singh

So do as you asked, and as I complied with, please.

Demonstrate you are able to hold yourself to the same high standard you accuse others of falling short of.

You see, there is little purpose to just having an echo chamber of people who agree with you and flatter you. Indeed there is no service in that.

You must appeal to those of opposite view and find commonality. Find and build upon small points of agreement if you are actually serious about peace. Those are the people across the diplomatic negotiating table who really matter now. The ones you want to change. But of course that generally happens only when we change ourselves first. And realize we were part of the problem. Doing that qualifies you to sit at the negotiating table.

"Darkness cannot dispel darkness.
Only light can do that.
Hate cannot end hate.
Only love can do that."
Dr. King

[Really?]

There can be no genuine dialogue if we are not honest. Do you agree?
And honesty requires some degree of self-awareness.

I read what you wrote (“listened” to your point of view). I explained how it has avoided, and/or not comprehended, and/or misrepresented what I wrote.

I made a post and you have replied twice: first by using the strawman’ misrepresentation fallacy, and then by using the ‘moving the goalposts’ fallacy.
Using fallacies to avoid those points is not “disagreeing” with them.

Address my actual points. Only then can there be dialogue. I feel no need to reply to misrepresentations of them, avoidance of them and false claims (e.g. there has been no “name calling”).

The world is now waking up to the fact that Israel is ruled by people who mass-murder and then lie about it, eternally presenting themselves as the victims. The mass-murder of civilians by bombing a hospital is just the most recent example of it.

1. DECEITFUL SEMANTICS: This isn’t a “war”. It fits the definition of ‘genocide’.
2. DECEITFUL ATROCITY PROPAGANDA: There were no decapitated babies nor rapes.
3. DECEITFULLY PLAYING THE VICTIM: There is no symmetry of suffering here. Nor is there any moral consistency when world leaders permit violent ‘retaliation’ or ‘self-defence’ for the two peoples. Jews are allowed to “defend” themselves by terrorising civilians, whereas non-Jews are not. Let us all apply some moral consistency.
4. DECEITFUL ‘RELIGIOUS CONFLICT’’ MISREPRESENTATION: This isn’t an eight decade conflict about religion. Jews, Christians and Muslims co-existed here for centuries. This is about an illegal occupation and ethnic-cleansing by stealth, for jew-only lebensraum, perpetrated by foreign (European), settler ‘jews’ who predominantly are NOT ‘religious’ who have rejected judaism and who claim to be athiests.
5. DECEITFUL ‘RELIGION’ MISREPRESENTATION: this is purely a conflict about basic human rights and about international law. NOT about religion. One set of people are denied both: the non-Jewish set.
6. THE ‘this is a complex situation’ DECEPTION:
the situation is actually extremely simple: we ONLY have to insist that international law be applied here, without bias. There, ...easy.

7. THE SOLUTION:
But to do that (apply law without bias) would mean Israel would have to i.) dismantle its illegal apartheid (hafrada) wall, ii.) vacate its apartheid (racist), jew-only settlements on illegally occupied land, iii.) give up its illegal occupation of Palestinian land and retreat to the 1968 borders, and iv.) allow non-Jews the legal right-of-return.

8. THE PROBLEM: none of above does Israel want to do. And so we have this type of charade where a complicit main-stream-media and jewish-lobby-controlled political-party leaders blatantly lie to us in support of Israeli war-crimes, illegal occupation and eight decades of slow genocide and land theft.

[um]

Israeli victims are each given a name and a story by the media.
Rightly so, writes Ramsey Nasr.

But why doesn't every Palestinian get that? “They are just numbers.”
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2023/10/18/kennen-we-de-naam-van-elk-palestijns-slachtoffer-a4177748
[NRC is a respected proptestand News paper]

He writes:
11 days after the first attacks.
All hostages, all death, Israeli and European, have now been given their names.
Their family and friends have been heard on TV and in the newspaper.
Their lives, dreams, ideals are known to us, forever.
I think that is right.

I do have a question however.
Do Palestinian lives have the same value to us, in an abomination that has continued for them for 75 years?
Do we also know the names of their dead babies, their humiliated grandparents, their murdered children?
Do we know their individual dreams, friends, school reports?

Palestijnse levens worden doorgaans per aantal genoemd: 2.600 doden, 900.000 ontheemden, 2,2 miljoen inwoners. Geen namen maar nummers.

Dit is een indicatie van hoe wij ons mededogen verdelen.
Want ja, ook Palestijnen worden levend verbrand, ook Palestijnse dorpen kennen pogroms, uitgevoerd door kolonisten.
En ook Palestijnse kinderen worden gemarteld en zitten soms jaren gevangen zonder aanklacht of hulp.

This happens generation after generation.
And maybe that's why we've become immune.
To us they are not people, it is accumulated suffering: 'Does it never end?'

P.S>
To show how the above works out here the following.
In the Netherlands we have an organisation to promote Israel by the name of CIDI.
As you can see on the picture on their site they have place billboards alongside the 20 main Highways in the Netherlands with pictures of hostages taken by Hamas and the text "kidnapped by Hamas"

Brothers and sisters ... have you ever seen such a thing for Palestinian children .. thei faces and the text "collateral damage of IDF"

The fact that you have never seen it tells the story ... and that story is not to be confined to palestenian victims.

Yes I do understand how it is related to the world view of the different peoples of the world.
Yes, I also do understand that in one culture, one religion, worldview etc people attribute another and if you like greater value and deeper meaning to individual life than in another.
Yes, I understand also that they are entitled to do so

But why, do we have to share the same v\lues and meaning in public.

You see, Yes in Russia they do to some extent, but why are we not making monuments all over the place with all the names of the 20.000.000 Russians that lost their lives.

Why do we not have monuments in the Netherlands with the names and portraits of the Roma and Sinthy gypsies, the homosexuals, the mental ill, that TOO were gassed and incinerated in the same cammps as those whoes names are to be found on monuments all over The Netherlands.

Why are their names, not calloed out every year, on our national conmemoration days and are they aonly named as depent clause with their group names?

[um]

P.S.
the side with the Billboards:
This happens generation after generation. And maybe that's why we've become immune. To us they are not people, it is accumulated suffering: 'Does it never end?'

[um]

PS
Dit is een indicatie van hoe wij ons mededogen verdelen.
Want ja, ook Palestijnen worden levend verbrand, ook Palestijnse dorpen kennen pogroms, uitgevoerd door kolonisten.
En ook Palestijnse kinderen worden gemarteld en zitten soms jaren gevangen zonder aanklacht of hulp.

This is an indication of how we distribute our compassion.
Because yes, Palestinians are also burned alive, Palestinian villages also experience pogroms, carried out by settlers.
And Palestinian children are also tortured and sometimes imprisoned for years without charge or help.

[Spence Tepper]

Really?

I did address your points, about the abuses of Israel.
But you have not addressed mine, point by point, about the abuses of Hammas, the PLO and others upon the Palestinian people and Israel, and the solution, which must be equal rights and respect for both nations, and the eradication of terrorism and oppression wherever it comes from through third party intervention.

Yes, Palestine has the right to have their own nation as I've said repeatedly. But so does Israel.

Anyone who can't acknowledge this is just part of the problem.

And anyone who stays focused on this solution can help build it.

[Really?]

Spencer, you are quite beyond reason on this topic. You repeatedly want to change the discussion away from the legitimate points I have raised to separate topics. I regard it as shamefully dishonest behaviour.

[Really?]

Here are some videos that refute the deceptive premise that this article by Brian Hines is either unwittingly or knowingly spreading.

The first is a message from 6 hours ago, in Hebrew with English subtitles, from an Israeli jewish journalist who had to flee with his family into hiding to escape jewish death-squads who wanted to harm him for calling for and expressing sympathy for Palestinian victims of Israel’s ongoing bombardment and siege of Gaza:
https://youtu.be/zMKyH4jCnTE?si=dYKjbjEcr1r7Hjzc

The second is from 1 day ago where genuine believers and practitioners of Judaism were speaking at a rally in Manhattan, expressing sympathy to all the victims of the recent outbreak of violence, but STILL standing firmly with the Palestinians and condemning Israelis for their vengeful, illegal mass-murder on top of their 75 years of oppression:
https://youtu.be/WfDmv3VYR_0?si=5ESErgm1S4j-BIjK

And finally here are two ‘news’ videos by British Jews:
https://youtu.be/2gWY_z71qEg?si=44QRm85r54oRV0QG

https://youtu.be/qMpMDzMOjQ0?si=mLOQWkq0quYRzJQZ

I suggest that these videos and the sentiments in them — as expressed by Jews on three different continents — is proof that this is NOT a religion-based conflict. To claim it is, is to misinform and to aid the oppressors in their propaganda campaign which deliberately and FALSELY portray themselves as victims of anti-semitism BECAUSE of their religion. I again suggest to anyone reading, that this is a calculated lie.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Really?

Your point that this isn't religion based is undermined by your one-sided perspective.
For every claim of Israeli misbehavior there is an equally legitimate claim for Terrorist misbehavior.
The two seem linked together.

Brian made a good point about religion. It can blind people to believing they have a right to mistreat others, as a point of self-defense.

Generally speaking, however, just as with Germany, people who abuse others tend to paint themselves as the victims. Be careful of playing that card too heavily.

You have yet to acknowledge a single terrorist act. Unfortunately, being so one sided, dismissing the inconvenient truths that don't support your case, weakens that case significantly.

Just imagine what would have happened had the Palestinian authority condemned the attack of Hammas and offered to help Israel round up the terrorist leaders of Hammas? There would be no invasion. Zero. And Israel would be walking hand in hand with Palestine to their liberation and statehood.

But Hammas wants to use Palestinians as cannon fodder, and needs their deaths. That extremism tends to use and rely upon religion. But not necessarily.

I see what you have claimed, but what is motivating you to ignore the Israeli victims?
And the role Hammas has played in drawing violence from Israel into Gaza?

And what of the rockets they are still firing into Israel, even today?

Yes, there are two sides here. Which is why a third party is needed. Israel has become a bully. Palestine can't govern itself. And the Terrorism of the PLO, Hammas, Islamic Jihad, and others have completely oppressed and used innocent Palestinians, even children. You can blame the hospital bombing on them too, as all the evidence points to it.

The Palestinians deserve real freedom, real democracy, not more terrorism.

[Really?]

To anyone reading, what we see here is a microcosm of the macrocosmic problem.

Here we have an American individual who presumably BECAUSE of THEIR ‘JEWISH’ SELF-IDENTIFICATION and conditioning can not address a single, simple point HONESTLY.
Instead they DECEITFULLY try to move the discussion AWAY from points that undermine their delusional or dishonest narrative. (A narrative that we in the west have been fed for decades.)

My position has been (and still is) that we APPLY INTERNATIONAL LAW WITHOUT BIAS. How can that honestly be interpreted as “one-sided”??

I suggest it can not ‘honestly’ be interpreted so.

It can only be thus interpreted by someone who is not interested in an HONEST, reasonable and fair discussion focusing on unbiased application of international law, BECAUSE they want Israel to be able to break it with impunity.
Which is exactly what has been allowed to happen since 1948.

• Spence ignores every mention of equal, UNBIASED application of law.
• He ignores all mention of the videos by Jews that I posted.
• He ignores all mention of deliberate lies by Israel (the atrocity propaganda, the denial of its recent hospital bombing mass-murder, etc.).
• He ignores all mention of MORAL CONSISTENCY when evaluating the situation.
• He ignores all mention of the ASYMMETRY OF SUFFERING between Palestinians and Israelis..
• He ignores the very simple solution to the conflict I have presented. One that the media and world governments also ignore due to the control jewish-lobby groups exert over them.
• He ignores all mention of the RACISM that motivates Israel’s behaviour.
• He ignores all mention of BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS for all, without bias.

That last one demonstrates who here is really being “one-sided”.

Spence shows he is ok with the decades-long situation where non-Jews in occupied Palestine do not have their basic-human rights.

Spence is an example of the influence American’s have over the problem by their DISHONEST “one-sided” approach that economically and MILITARILY supports ILLEGAL actions of one-side, viz. the Jewish State of Israel’s.

I am suggesting we do not permit ANYONE’s illegal actions.
And I am explaining how that would solve the problem.

CONCLUSION: Only someone who is delusional or dishonest would represent that call for impartial and equal application international of law as “one-sided”.

[Spence Tepper]

Really?
I've repeatedly stated that the simple principle of honoring the rights of all sides must be honored. Palestinians deserve to live in peace and freedom in their own sovereign nation, and so do Israelis.

Do you disagree with this statement?

[um]

@ Spence

>> I've repeatedly stated that the simple principle of honoring the rights of all sides must be honored. Palestinians deserve to live in peace and freedom in their own sovereign nation, and so do Israelis.<<

This state ment Spence is like stateling that two people in the room have an eaqal right to sit on the single chair that is in the room.

As long as there are people with power that believe [1] that the god of Abraham gave the land [chair] to one favorite son of Abraham [2] there are Zionist that are seeking the establishment of a save heaven for themselves [3] mondial powers are interested in the status quo and are backing up the power of Israel etc ... just one person will; sit on that chair.

Even if Israel would bomb all of Gaza, kill all ist inhabitants in the most horrendous way the state of mind of those sitting on that chair and those that make it possible would not change a bit.

Against that realization I lately wrote that the sole solution is that all Arabs etc etc leave the area and accept the fact that these powers are creating their dream of an biblical Israel and that they have that power and that nobody, not even their own god can stop them from doing so ....they would rather destroy the earth in an atomic war than give in.

It is that simple ....I would like to add to this, that it has NOTHING to do with Israel as such but with POWER ...P O W E R and i learned from the late MSC that there are very few people capable of handeling power in a beneficial way for them,selfs and others.

And ...shame on you christians too. your faces are white but your hearts are blakend.

It is said in old Indian literature, that when humanit has found the way to curb the suns energy in kristals, they will use it against one another . The power of the sun is not the problem but the short comings, short seeingness of those that have found way to lay their hands on it.

That inborn mentality that made humans stone one another, never changed but their tools did. In older days it was possible to injur and kill one person a day. Overtime the means are developed to kill and injure thousands in a spilt second and they did it, they do it and they will go on because .. THEY did not change

Long ago the abrahamic tribes copuld have said to their lord ..No thank you Lord, let this coblet be given to somebody else, give the land to others we are happy with what we have.

[um]

people forget that they are HUMAN ...and ...NOTHING ELSE

The rest is imagination, identification with mental fantasies.

Listen to the speech of one of the most powerful men in the world Mr. Biden.
He defines himself as AMERICAN, not as human, at par with all other humans, no not at all, ... and ... of course Americans are "special".

In a sense they are, they are that unique variation of humans

But ....

By becoming,and presenting themselves as American,s attributing all sorts of special values and meaning to themselves, they do by no means become better human beings.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi UM:
You wrote:
"This statement Spence is like stating that two people in the room have an equal right to sit on the single chair that is in the room."

But there really are several chairs in the room, Um!
Look around, see what no one else can see!
If belief can drive all this hatred, why can't a better belief drive love, partnership, family, brotherhood?

It is a matter of being willing to put aside our opinions, what we think we know of HIS story (everyone's is a different take), forgiveness, acceptance and to build on respect.

Palestine IS it's own sovereign nation. All that has happened that violates their rights is wrong. But it is more important to cease and move to what is right, then to dwell on retribution.

Israel IS it's own sovereign nation. All that has happened that violates their rights is wrong. But it is more important to cease and move to what is right, then to dwell on retribution.

Those who already believe the above exist, but they just may not have thought how to make this all work.
And they shouldn't worry about that right now. They should be concerned about reaching public agreement with all concerned on these goals. Not a five year time frame. A TODAY time frame.

All the stoplights in Denmark don't need to be green just so you can drive forward one block. See green? Get moving!

Today is green.

How to assure the safety of Israel and Palestine when some of the key participants are bad players?

Third party intervention. That will happen upon a platform of mutual agreement to the above.

So that agreement comes first. And I honestly believe it is what most folks already want. They just can't imagine how to do it, and lacking that, you get violence. The secret is that they don't need to have all the answers, just the vision of brotherhood, kindness, love, acceptance, peace and forgiveness.

People are getting tired of retribution. It's costly, exhausting and returns more hate than love.

But the past is gone. It doesn't exist anymore. All we get are stories. Sad, sad stories of the failure of the Israelis and the Palestineans, stories that don't build bridges or platforms, or solutions at all. It's time for the people living today to write their own. And they have the experience and wisdom to do it. The young can do this!

"Violence is the refuge of the incompetent."
Isaac Asimov

We just need more competence!

It's there!

"Some people look at the way things are and ask "why?"
"But I look at the way things could be and ask "Why Not?"
John F. Kennedy

[Spence Tepper]

Palestine and Israel can honor and celebrate their diversity, with the smallest effort, the tiniest amount of creative imagination; and then they can show the world a path to peace and brotherhood never before seen among nations. The very diversity that has been misunderstood leading to conflict can be the source of the greatest partnership among free nations the world has ever known.

Let's get started.

Sometimes you need a good journalist.
Sometimes you need a good junk yard dog.
And sometimes you need a poet.
And a good visionary.

[um]

@ Spence
Hahaha
Of course they could if they would see themselves first as human beings.
But they don't and as long as they don't things will unfold along tghe lines I wrote before.

You see Spence, if i remember well [ I have to delve into things I have Almost forgotten due to lack of interest ... hahaha] Marx or Lenin had something to say about ..WHO owns the means of production

In this conflict its all about .. WHO owns the power

It should be clear who has this power and how this power is used, with hat goal etc etc.

Israeli's are only interest in creating their dream of an biblical land, as be given to them for eternity by their lord by means of just ONE human being, SAYING he was the mouthpiece of the lord ...and ... they do have the will AND the power to do so and they are supported by one of the greatest powers of the world.

It is that simple ... and ... in that land is no chair for Palestinians to sit on. They can work if they like for their masters ...if they continue to resist they just will be killed and those that do not want to be killed and do not want to work for a master has to move out.

And ... let us never forget the hypocrite orthodox Christians lisping with their white seemingly devote and peace loving faces, words of brother hood etc et behind which they hide their blackend hearts

It is all about power or ...the survival of the fittest.

Don't fool your self Spence.

[um]

An eye for an eye etc ...

Build an Palestinian house for every settler house
Five all favors to any settler to any Palestinian

And ... Spence ..do not forget the oath of Hippocrates, when you write here and get informed what happens this verry moment with the hospitals in Gaza

It is all simple Spence ... do the same good to others even your enemies, as you want to be done to yourself.

Israel has ever since its birth under the guise of self fdefence done nothing else than making the life of Palestinians into hell and .turning them in that way into terrorists so that they can hunt them down.and can get rid of them

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
You wrote
"Israeli's are only interest in creating their dream of an biblical land.."

But Um, that is a place for all people, where the lion will lay with the lamb and even the serpent will not harm any child, and all creatures will be vegetarian:

" 6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

" 7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

" 8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.

"9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."
Isaiah 12:6-9

You aren't a Jew so you may not be familiar with this from Isaiah.

But many Jews are. They long for peace with all people. You don't know them yet, I guess.

You wrote
" and .turning them in that way into terrorists so that they can hunt them down.and can get rid of them"

You defend terrorism, Um, which is never a good thing.

Understand that each person must be held responsible for their actions, so that when we forgive each other, when we accept each other on a platform of respect, it means something.

It means everything. It is a wealth beyond description.

[Really?]

Wow! The disconnect from reality demonstrated by this Jewish-American Israel apologist is quite astounding. As obviously it is Spence who is “defending terrorism”, the ongoing terrorism of the people of Gaza that is occurring NOW!
It is Spence who is repeatedly doing what he accuses anyone who tries to reason with him of doing.

For anyone wanting an HONEST, impartial and FAIR understanding of the ACTUAL situation, we FIRST have to acknowledge the old adage that in any state-sponsored conflict THE FIRST CASUALTY IS ALWAYS TRUTH!. Always.

So with that understanding we have to acknowledge that Israel are absolute masters of it. As an ex-Mossad katsa Victor Ostrovsky admitted, their motto secretly is “by DECEPTION wage war”!

So here below and in a following post are some recent perspectives that we won’t get on our TVs or in our main-stream newsfeeds. The reason? Because they show Israeli lies, deceptiveness, machiavellian manipulation and control of the main-stream media’s reporting. Lies that Spence is helping perpetuate.

First, did you know that ALL of the deaths of Israelis at the Kibbutz except one were killed by IDF as part of their ‘Hannibal directive’. Hamas did not execute a single one of them. The single death of an Israeli by Hamas was an accident when shooting a locked door. “when they tried to enter, the guy tried to prevent them from entering and grabbed the door. They shot at the door and he was killed. They did not execute him.”

This has been acknowledged by one of the few survivors, Yasmin Porat, who testified that the Hamas militants treated them “humanely”.

https://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-forces-shot-their-own-civilians-kibbutz-survivor-says/38861

In interviews given on the 7th and 12th of October she said Israeli civilians were “undoubtedly” killed by their own security forces. “They eliminated everyone, including the hostages,” she told Israeli radio.
The woman, 44-year-old mother of three Yasmin Porat, said that prior to that, she and other civilians had been held by the Palestinians for several hours and treated “humanely.” She had fled the nearby “Nova” rave.

“They did not abuse us. They treated us very humanely,” Porat explained to a surprised Golan in the Kan radio interview.

“By that I mean they guard us,” she said. “They give us something to drink here and there. When they see we are nervous they calm us down. It was very frightening but no one treated us violently. Luckily nothing happened to me like what I heard in the media.”

“They were very humane towards us,” Porat said in her Channel 12 interview. She recalled that one Palestinian fighter who spoke Hebrew, “told me, ‘Look at me well, we’re not going to kill you. We want to take you to Gaza. We are not going to kill you. So be calm, you’re not going to die.’ That’s what he told me, in those words.”

“I was calm because I knew nothing would happen to me,” she added.

“They told us that we would not die, that they wanted to take us to Gaza and that the next day they would return us to the border,” Porat told Maariv.

In the Channel 12 interview, Porat elaborates that although the Palestinian fighters all had loaded weapons, she never saw them shoot captives or threaten them with their guns. In addition to providing the captives with drinking water, she said the fighters let them go outside to the lawn because it was hot, especially as the electricity was cut.

… … … … … …

[um]

to BRIAN

PLEASE delete my last message
What I wrote shows up completely mixed up

[Really?]

And then all this insistence on having to talk about Hamas ‘terrorism’ by Spence I suggest is part of the hasbara playbook. I suggest readers consider the suggestion it is a calculated, emotionally-manipulative DECEPTION to falsely imply that it is the ROOT of the problem, and not the Israeli occupation.
Spencer is helping spread these lies.
He appears to be neither interested in the truth, nor appears to be capable of discussing this sitation FAIRLY and honestly. I regard it as shameful and dishonest behaviour.

Anyone investigating fairly, honestly and without bias will find the facts show that Israel not only helped create Hamas but WANTED Hamas in power.
… … … … … …

For Years, Netanyahu Propped Up Hamas.
The Times of Israel
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas group. The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state. Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.
… … … … … …

Israel Fostered the Rise of Hamas, Even After It Turned To Terrorism
Brian McGlinchey
https://starkrealities.substack.com/p/israel-fostered-the-rise-of-hamas
In the aftermath of Saturday’s terrorist and military attacks on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, “The forces of civilization must support Israel in defeating Hamas … In fighting Hamas, Israel is not only fighting for its own people, it is fighting for every country that stands against barbarism.” Those sentiments are quite different from ones Netanyahu privately shared in 2019. “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support BOLSTERING HAMAS and transferring money to Hamas,” Netanyahu told Likud Party legislators.
Doing so would help prevent the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) from ruling Gaza and giving Palestinians a relatively moderate, unified voice at the negotiating table.
… … … … … …

And here are some perspectives that you won’t get on main-stream media:

64% of the Gazans the Israelis have targeted are women and children
https://www.newarab.com/news/two-three-killed-israeli-war-gaza-are-women-kids
The death toll from Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip has risen to 2,808, Gaza's health ministry said Monday, as officials said 64% of these casualties were women and children. Around 11,000 people have also been injured as Israel continued its withering air campaign on the Palestinian coastal enclave, the ministry added. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office on Monday denied reports of a ceasefire in Gaza that would enable aid to enter and foreigners to flee to Egypt, 10 days into the war with Hamas. Gaza has been without food, water and other essential supplies for a week.

… … … … … …
Fleeing civilians followed Israeli orders, killed by Israelis anyway

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/16/middleeast/israel-palestinian-evacuation-orders-invs/index.html

Palestinians who followed the evacuation warnings and fled their homes in search of safety suffered the very fate they were running from: Israeli airstrikes killed them outside of the evacuation zone.

The killings underscore the reality that evacuation zones and warning alerts from the Israeli military haven’t guaranteed safety for civilians in the densely populated Gaza Strip, where Palestinians have no safe place to escape Israeli bombs.

… … … … … …
What the media forgets to tell you about Israel and Gaza
Ignore the fake news. Israel isn’t defending itself. It’s enforcing its right to continue ethnically cleansing Palestinians
By Jonathan Cook
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2023-10-15/media-forgets-israel-gaza/
The missing context for what’s happening in Gaza is that Israel has been working night and day to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people from their homeland since even before Israel become a state – when it was known as the Zionist movement.
Israel didn’t just cleanse Palestinians in 1948, when it was founded as a Western colonial project, and again under cover of a regional war in 1967. It also worked to ethnically cleanse Palestinians every day between those dates and afterwards. The aim was to move them off their historic lands, and either expel them beyond Israel’s new, expanded borders or concentrate them into small ghettoes inside those borders – as a holding measure until they could be expelled outside the borders.
The ‘settler’ project, as we call it, is a misnomer. It’s really Israel’s ethnic cleansing programme. Israel even has a special word for it in Hebrew: ‘Judaisation’, or making the land Jewish. It is official government policy.

… … … … … …
Israel’s Culture of Deceit
Israel, which always seeks to blame Palestinians for the atrocities it carries out, is the least trustworthy source about the bombing of the hospital in Gaza.
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/israels-culture-of-deceit

… … … … … …
What Does Israel Expect?
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/what-does-israel-expect
The indiscriminate shootings of Israelis by Hamas and other Palestinian resistance organizations, the kidnapping of civilians, the barrage of rockets into Israel, drone attacks on a variety of targets from tanks to automated machine gun nests, are the familiar language of the Israeli occupier. Israel has spoken this blood-soaked language of violence to the Palestinians since Zionist militias seized more than 78% of historic Palestine, destroyed some 530 Palestinian villages and cities, and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in more than 70 massacres. Some 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed between 1947 and 1949 to create the state of Israel in 1948 … The Palestinians, like all colonized people, have a right to armed resistance under international law … What does Israel, or the world community, expect?
________

[um]

To Spence

I had written an lengthy answer to all your reactions.

As has happened several times before, when I paste and copy text from an other partisipant in order to write a reaction, the whole ends up complete mixed. Pieces of text are not there and or are shown where they should not. I never found what goes wrong .

Anyway .. I do not feel in writing it again .... BUT ... to point me out as a person that supports terrorist actions, did hurt me and i will not forget that you did it.

Things are what they are
often not what they appear to be
let alone how they are shown to be.

[um]

@ Really?

Things are what they are,
seldom what they look like
let alone how they are presented
let alone how they are made seen.

What you wrote is very serious and I hope organisations that have the trust of all of us will [belling cat] shed their light on it and verify or falsefy these facts

[um]

Finally Spence

I look upon these events in the middle east against the background of the history of the different abrahamic tribes.

That history tells of many occasions that preference was given or even taken to another at the cost of the other and the effects were of this preference of one above the other ... a stream of blood.

Just think of how Ezau was deprived of his birth rights

The whole old testament is just an endless story that the good of one can only be had at the cost of misery of the other.

UNTIL this very day

The old testament is a book of black magic ..read the life of Milarepa an you understand.

Our cities in Europe are full of those that brought welfare to Europe. Proud man sitting on high horses. With no word was spoken until recent times about the cost, payed by other humans beings in terms of massacres, slavery, robbing and you name it not to forget the degrading of indigenous tribes.

IF you want to use the word terrorist Spence use it for them .. What they inflicted upon others is such that they are even refused entrance in hell

[Really?]

I posted some links showing the FACTS that Israel created Hamas and that it secretly funds them. Netanyahu was quoted by credible sources admitting that.

It doesn’t appear. Assuming that is a technical glitch, I am posting it again.

IF it was INTENTIONALLY removed by Brian I apologise for reposting it,

…but I take that risk as I think it helpful if this info is more widely known.

____________[• here it is:

…all this insistence on talking about Hamas ‘terrorism’ I suggest is a calculated, emotionally-manipulative DECEPTION. And Spence appears to be intentionally helping spread these lies. He has shown he is neither interested in the truth, nor appears to be capable of discussing this sitation FAIRLY and honestly. I regards it as shameful, dishonest behaviour.

The facts show that Israel not only helped create Hamas but WANTED Hamas in power.

… … … … … …

For Years, Netanyahu Propped Up Hamas.
The Times of Israel
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas group. The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state. Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.
… … … … … …

Israel Fostered the Rise of Hamas, Even After It Turned To Terrorism
Brian McGlinchey
https://starkrealities.substack.com/p/israel-fostered-the-rise-of-hamas
In the aftermath of Saturday’s terrorist and military attacks on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, “The forces of civilization must support Israel in defeating Hamas … In fighting Hamas, Israel is not only fighting for its own people, it is fighting for every country that stands against barbarism.” Those sentiments are quite different from ones Netanyahu privately shared in 2019. “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support BOLSTERING HAMAS and transferring money to Hamas,” Netanyahu told Likud Party legislators.
Doing so would help prevent the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) from ruling Gaza and giving Palestinians a relatively moderate, unified voice at the negotiating table.
… … … … … …

And here are some perspectives that you won’t get on main-stream media:

64% of the Gazans the Israelis have targeted are women and children
https://www.newarab.com/news/two-three-killed-israeli-war-gaza-are-women-kids
The death toll from Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip has risen to 2,808, Gaza's health ministry said Monday, as officials said 64% of these casualties were women and children. Around 11,000 people have also been injured as Israel continued its withering air campaign on the Palestinian coastal enclave, the ministry added. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office on Monday denied reports of a ceasefire in Gaza that would enable aid to enter and foreigners to flee to Egypt, 10 days into the war with Hamas. Gaza has been without food, water and other essential supplies for a week.

… … … … … …
Fleeing civilians followed Israeli orders, killed by Israelis anyway

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/16/middleeast/israel-palestinian-evacuation-orders-invs/index.html

Palestinians who followed the evacuation warnings and fled their homes in search of safety suffered the very fate they were running from: Israeli airstrikes killed them outside of the evacuation zone.

The killings underscore the reality that evacuation zones and warning alerts from the Israeli military haven’t guaranteed safety for civilians in the densely populated Gaza Strip, where Palestinians have no safe place to escape Israeli bombs.

… … … … … …
What the media forgets to tell you about Israel and Gaza
Ignore the fake news. Israel isn’t defending itself. It’s enforcing its right to continue ethnically cleansing Palestinians
By Jonathan Cook
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2023-10-15/media-forgets-israel-gaza/
The missing context for what’s happening in Gaza is that Israel has been working night and day to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people from their homeland since even before Israel become a state – when it was known as the Zionist movement.
Israel didn’t just cleanse Palestinians in 1948, when it was founded as a Western colonial project, and again under cover of a regional war in 1967. It also worked to ethnically cleanse Palestinians every day between those dates and afterwards. The aim was to move them off their historic lands, and either expel them beyond Israel’s new, expanded borders or concentrate them into small ghettoes inside those borders – as a holding measure until they could be expelled outside the borders.
The ‘settler’ project, as we call it, is a misnomer. It’s really Israel’s ethnic cleansing programme. Israel even has a special word for it in Hebrew: ‘Judaisation’, or making the land Jewish. It is official government policy.

… … … … … …
Israel’s Culture of Deceit
Israel, which always seeks to blame Palestinians for the atrocities it carries out, is the least trustworthy source about the bombing of the hospital in Gaza.
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/israels-culture-of-deceit

[um]

@ Really

It seems to me that from the oncet the goal has been to expel the palestenians from what Iwsrael considers their historical, biblical land.
They will do it in such an way that it is not seen to others ast etnisch cleansing.

To day I happened to see an documentary on the birt of Turkey out of the Ottoman empire in 1923 .. there they it was called ..."exchange of residents" meaning that christians and greek at to go to one place and turk and muslim had to go to the opposite side and that the whole quater were Greek happened to live in Izmir was burned to the ground.

In the documentary it was said that these exchanges were orginazized in order to stop the tensions. Something that has also happened in India where it was called the partition and the previous British colony was divide into pakistan, India and later Bangla Desh.

It seems that these partisions resulted in many previous BRITISH colonies .. strange enough.

Anyway .. there was an interview with an gentleman that operated as negotiator on behalve of the UNO to sto the previous 3 conflicts between Israel and palestine. He did not say it buut on being asked he doubted if the so called "2 state solution"that all politicians TALK about is impossible as there live by now 500.000 Israeli settlers on the west bank and their number will only grow and they are NOT going to leave.

So yes against what the man said .. in the end all Palestinians are left with the 3 options as lately put forward by one of the ministers from the Israeli cabinet:
[1] be killed
[2] leave
[3] do the menial work for us.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Really?

I had offered you a very simple, and basic ethical truth:

"Really?
"I've repeatedly stated that the simple principle of honoring the rights of all sides must be honored. Palestinians deserve to live in peace and freedom in their own sovereign nation, and so do Israelis.

"Do you disagree with this statement?"

And your answer was that you don't agree.

Nothing more need be said.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um;
You wrote:
"The old testament is a book of black magic ..read the life of Milarepa an you understand."

I make it a point not to indulge in racism. It helps no one. Certainly not the innocent who are more than happy to engage in change, if it brings peace and respect to all concerned.

Looking to the past will never solve any problem.
Yet people solve problems all the time, every day.
They look forward, and are willing to try, to invent new things.
They are willing to reach out and attempt teamwork, and connections with others.

These are the people who will bring peace. They can be found in all lands and religions.
The ones who are alive to today, and not buried in the past.

[Ella]

Religion is more personal than politics, yet both play an indisputable role in shaping our psyche.

We’re all here man. We’re all wrong much of the time and occasionally right about things.

That said, we’re all connected by a billion invisible strings. So, we should criticize with caution and complement with care.

[Spence Tepper]

Jordan and Egypt are refusing to take refugees...

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-jordan-egypt-say-no-to-refugees-from-gaza-experts-2023-10

No one wants to risk letting Hamas in.
The last time they did so Hammas attacked Jordan.

https://apnews.com/article/palestinian-jordan-egypt-israel-refugee-502c06d004767d4b64848d878b66bd3d
Hammas isn't good for Palestine, Jordan, Egypt and Israel.

[Ella]

We’re all here “now” 😂 (“man” must have been subconsciously intentional)

[Really?]

Oh dear. Yet another racist-motivated comment from this ‘jewish’ person here engaged in ‘hasbara’ trolling. (sigh).
No neighbouring country wants to be swamped eternally with refugees!
Why would they?

They understand what Israel is doing: viz. creating what they call “facts on the ground”.

Please remember that Israel and its workdwide ‘sayanim’ has just executed a mass-media campaign of LIES about decapitated babies, rapes, women paraded naked and indiscriminate executions as ATROCITY PROPAGANDA to get the world’s sympathy for them as victims of race-motivated terrorism. It was a LIE! A calculated deception. The testimony of Yasmin Porat PROOVED THAT!!!!

It is deliberate emotional manipulative misinformation that — with their ‘sayanim’ in positions in world governments and in the media — they have flooded the world with.

This situation is NOT about protecting Israel from anti-semitic terrorism.

It is about protecting Israel from criticism as it enters the end-game of its ILLEGAL OCCUPATION and GENOCIDAL ETHNIC CLEANSING.

As part of that, it is a LIE to say they want to save civilians so have warned them to evacuate the whole of northern Gaza.
BECAUSE if they really wanted to SAVE THEM, they would let them CROSS THE BORDER INTO ISRAEL!!!
Yes, into I-S-R-A-E-L.

But they don’t want to spare civilian casualties.

They want to ethnically cleanse them from LAND that they have fir decades wanted ti have as jew-only ‘lebensraum’ (living-space).

Which fits the definition of GENOCIDE!!!

The Israelis know that once these people LEAVE, they will NEVER, NEVER, NEVER be allowed back. There is no LAW of ‘right of return’ where Israel is concerned.

So this is why Israel has created this situation.
- They created Hamas. And they have funded Hamas. (Bibi admitted that)
- They ALLOWED Hamas operatives to break their hafrada (separation or ‘apartheid’) wall. (There is no way even a fox could get through undetected. Let alone armed men with bulldozers, etc.)
- They then LIE about the deaths and ill-treatment of Israelis to the world.
- They use the moral outrage thus created in the easily manipulated masses to justify their bombing and mass-murder of predominantly WOMEN AND CHILDREN. (They know this will make these poor people flee).
- They keep THEIR own BORDERS CLOSED so that these poor, oppressed, beseiged, targeted people HAVE nowhere else to go but to another, arabic neighbouring country.
- They destroy their homes so they have NOTHING to return to.
Job done!
They have ETHNICALLY CLEANSED the land and jewish settlers can move in once the dust has settled. The non-Jewish people of northern Gaza are no longer THEIR problem.

THIS, THIS THIS is why their neighbours don’t want to have an eternal refugee problem to deal with.

They know the racist, genocidal Jewish state of Israel will NEVER let those people return home!! Israel has been doing this FOR DECADES. Check if you doubt it.

Understand that their are millions of people around the world who self-identify as ‘Jewish’ and are part of a misinformation campaign called ‘hasbara’ to assist Israel in its racist ethnic cleansing to create ‘Ersatz Israel’ — which means jew-only territory from the Jordan river to the sea. This is what we are witnessing here on this blog page from this one individual: viz. misinformation and “one-sided” pro-Israeli apologetics

Look these terms I have used up and check this analysis if you doubt it. Check the terms ‘hafrada’, ‘sayanim’, ‘Ersatz Israel’, etc.
Check the testimony of Yasmin Porat of her humane treatment by the Hamas kidnappers and how it was the IDF who actually “murdered” her partner and the other Israelis at the Be'eri kibbutz.
Check what the IDF’s ‘Hannbal directive’ means.
Get better informed.
Don’t BELIEVE what the biased main-stream media is telling you nor allow yourself to be manipulated emotionally by DELIBERATE, CALCULATED Israeli lies.

If there is karmic consequences for our actions, then supporting a genocidal mass-murder and thereby condoning and permitting all the suffering from those killings and driving people from their homes will be upon US!!!

[Really?]

As proof of the above analysis, I ask readers to notice that Spence has just written another BLATANT LIE.

He claimed this: “And your answer was that you don't agree“.

That is not true.

Which anyone can check for themselves.

The truth is that I have stopped replying to him as in my opinion he clearly is not interested in engaging in honest dialogue.
Instead he appears to be engaged in an attempt to obfuscate the referenced FACTS I have provided. Facts that anyone can check for themselves using the links given, or by doing their own research.
Which I strongly encourage anyone reading to do.

[Really?]

The REALITY that jewish people engaged in hasbara trolling don’t want us to know is that as of today 3,793 Palestinians have been “murdered” by Israel state-sponsored TERRORISM.
More than 1,500 of those “murdered” victims of Israeli terrorism are Palestinian children.

That is just deaths. 12,500 have been wounded, many permanentky deformed, blinded, crippled, FOR LIFE!

The morally bankrupt behaviour that Spence is trying to defend here is the deliberately murderous targeting of Gaza’s population, employing the ‘Dahiya Doctrine’.
Please do look it up and do your own research.

The ‘Dahiya Doctrine’ is the Israeli policy of state terrorism which uses disproportionate and indiscriminate force against the civilian populace through the targeting of schools, religious institutions and government infrastructure.

If anyone here doubts that this tragedy unfolding NOW is deliberate, genocidal, murderous ISRELI terrorism for RACIST motives, be aware that under the ‘fog’ of this murderous ethnic cleansing in Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank are ALSO being targeted, murdered and terrorised BY ISRAELI and BECAUSE they are not JEWISH.
Yes, in the West Bank!! (Check if you doubt it.)
So that clearly has NOTHING to do with Hamas.

I am writing all this as I hope my replies here will help people to gain a more accurate and impartial understanding.
I want that in order to help people avoid UNWITTINGLY becoming COMPLICIT in the ongoing, RACIST-MOTIVATED, Jewish-Israeli crime-against-humanity of quite horrific proportions.

[um]

Yes, Yes ...

THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL

There is no better way than to summarize colonialism.,

[manjit]

Well, what a tragic, heart-breaking few weeks it's been for planet humanity. Even by our sorry standards.

Such a difficult subject to discuss. I personally find the whole geo-political, propaganda-driven, in-humane, profoundly hypocritical situation deeply sad & troubling, and it is difficult to know how to act in positive and constructive ways which lessen the fear, hatred, anger, divisiveness etc that we see in the world which cause people to act in ways which perpetuate endless future cycles of unimaginable suffering.

I personally feel paralysed by sadness, and feel guilty in finding no other recourse but retreating into my own inner heavens, where ceaseless, boundless joy, love, compassion and empathy freely flows, but is powerless to affect the world in any other way than prayer.

There has been some really great comments I found myself mostly agreeing whole-heartedly with, from Appreciative Reader, Really?, Um and maybe a few others. I appreciate Spence's measured comments and general sentiment, though I feel the strained attempt at balance does belie ego or person-centric identifications and biases (I guess all that shabd doesn't quite shake off all the egoic i-dentifications!), perhaps.

I don't quite know what point or benefit there is talking about such things on forums like these. Or, anywhere, hence my sadness. We as a society are totally fractured, living in increasingly isolated bubbles of artificially constructed narratives.

I mean, for example, the current blog owner is a relatively intelligent person, an author of books, who clearly isn't a racist or bigot, or somebody who advocates for the killing of anyone, let alone women and children, and who has a predilection for watching lots of mainstream news channels.

Yet his ignorance of global politics, like many US citizens, is truly staggering to behold. There are vast swathes of western civilisation who think merely uncritically absorbing whatever propaganda and narrative their state's media is feeding them makes them knowledgeable or insightful about geo-politics.

We saw it with the Russia Ukraine war - our esteemed blog host wrote at the time such gems as: "Then there's been U.S. involvement in a bunch of military actions. Can't remember much about them." or "And to those who may be thinking, What about the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq?, I'd respond that those situations are quite different from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Afghanistan harbored those responsible for 9/11 and was dominated by the repressive Taliban. Iraq was ruled by a cruel tyrant, Saddam Hussein.
True, Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction, as the Bush administration wrongly alleged. But the United States set a goal of making Iraq into a democracy, which was to our credit. Putin has no interest in democracy. He only cares about the raw exercise of power and re-establishing the old Soviet Union to the greatest possible extent."

Western folks, like Brian, are told by their media influencers, CNBC, CBS, FOX, SKY etc, that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was the most horrific, insane, evil and unprovoked act of aggression of all time, and that because the Ukrainians were "like us" (euphemism much?), this was like an attack on all western society. (as somebody who is European & lives in metropolitan London, and has know around a dozen or so Ukrainianians over the past 30 years, I have known a little about Ukranianians, rather than becoming an expert overnight like the news-watchers.....and I would not recommend any asian or black people go over to Ukraine to study or visit, or watch a sporting event, horrendous rates of violent racism there towards non-white folks).

Seemingly intelligent western folks can swallow this propaganda so wholly, that they can, with a straight face, believe and state that Russia's invasion of land adjacent to it's own, which was in the past century part of it's own country, is somehow exponentially more "evil", unjust, horrific, un-righteous, in-humane etc than the US's invasion of a oil-rich country half way round the globe which resulted in the completely UN-IMAGINABLE deaths of between 250,000 and 500,000 CIVILIANS, which must include many tens of thousands of children and women. That this ugly oil and blood-thirsty plunder of a country's natural resources - itself undertaken after decades of meddling which resulted in the deaths of more than half a million during the Iran-Iraq wars (after the US installed Saddam as the country's cruel tyrant, oops sorry, glorious leader and hope for the West....) can be justified with a "Iraq was ruled by a cruel tyrant" shows how utterly one-dimensional and infantilised western audiences can be when it comes to the complexities of geo-politics, how easily brain-washed they are by obviously absurd narratives.

I personally am a fan of truth, transparency, integrity and non-hypocrisy. That said, I can understand the western media's propaganda, half-truths, absurd demonisation, unprecedented re-actions to Russia and various Russian oligarchs......if it can shorten the horrors of that ugly war and stop the bloodshed by galvanising western opinion and hitting the oligarchs where it hurts (their pockets). But what I think is unconscionable is the complete lack of awareness of the hypocrisy in western media's coverage. The two-fold message western media is presenting is clear, even if not overt.....and it risks deeply fracturing our multi-cultural societies; a white baby's life is worth more than dozens of a black or brown baby's life, and "They killed some of OUR children, let's go kill much, much more of THEIR'S". Actually, if the western media's headlines were as honest as this, I probably wouldn't be as saddened and upset as I am by the thin veneer of lies this truth is hidden behind today.

But I guess, like the quote somebody posted, truth is one of the first causalities of war (much like the story of the be-heading of Israeli children by Hamas, posted on the front page of several UK papers and all over the internet.....but turned out to be untrue, a lie....none of those papers will publish an apology, and none will show the same horror at the 500 - 1000 Palestinian children killed by US & UK supported weaponry.....we all have blood on our hands). This is how people are brainwashed and manipulated with fictional, constructed narratives, which obscure our own inhumanity, and manufacture inconceivable inhumanity in the "other".

Furthermore, the blog host here has only recently commented on Sam Harris and his so-called "rationality" as a tool for dealing with the world's problems (I won't even comment on the palm-face suggestion he is a "mystic" :).

This is an influential "intellectual" who pushes pseudo-scientific, racist and bigotted views that, for example, give weight to the bold-faced lie that it is the Islamic religion that creates terrorists and terrorism, as if in a vacuum......and excuses, absolutely, the actions of the West in bei the actual cause and breeding ground of terrorism. This dangerous and bold-faced lie excuses the west from talking any part of the blame for the global situation.....that is despite it being without question the biggest killer of children on the planet, with the most weapons, global involvement in wars etc, by far, and seeks to portray the actions of, for eg., the 300 Hamas fighters who went on a killing rampage as if occurring in a vacuum, driven by nothing other than some intangible "evil" and Islamic doctrine.

This kind of simplistic, one-dimensional "us Vs them" mentality merely perpetuates the divisions amongst humanity.

Here are some links to Sam Harris's ugly absurdities. They speak for themselves. I know he has many fanboys, many of whom like Brian and David Lane who are clearly relatively intelligent, non-racist etc, but are utterly unable to defend this pseudo-scientific, pseudo-intellectual, racist bullshit:

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/10/being-mr-reasonable

https://www.wired.com/story/sam-harris-and-the-myth-of-perfectly-rational-thought/

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2013/4/2/scientific-racism-militarism-and-the-new-atheists

Etc etc.

What hope do we have when the intelligentsia of the west, and folks I would never imagine fall for this kind of pseudo-intellectual bullshit, like Brian or Dave, put people who peddle these kind of ugly, inane and naive ideas on a pedestal? :(

Anyway, this post itself probably has ugliness within it too. Something I very much don't intend. But, we are all human.

At the end of the day, love, peace, joy, happiness, compassion, empathy, understanding, laughter, smiles, this is what life should be about......for all of us, all over the globe.

I don't have any solutions for the world's problems, but I do have some links to pass the time whilst we burn:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdatGhm_WE4

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8170481/

SHALOM / SALAAM !!

[um]

Yes, Yes, Manjit all who ingest the events of live today, cannot but experience sadness.

The narrative the saints have developed hundreds of years ago as to how to deal with the events of life, is probably the best to deal with the events of today.

Not that the narrative is true, not that it can be proven true but in attributing meaning and value, it does its job. The narrative sees to it that one can [mentally] escape the events and put them in a "higher" perspective, from where they are more digestible.

The dictum:
Live in the world, do not become the world .. tells it all

[um]

And ...

Reading the history books, the abrahamic religions have proven to be a curse for humanity
and
they will remain so,
until
they are seen by humanity as a curse
and
that will only be possible when this curse will be undone by an other narrative.
until then humanity has to suffer and probably the worst has still to come and one can wonder if and how humanity will survive that disaster.

Thank you scientists for developing nucleair boms. ..@#$@#%$#@

ALL abrahamic, religions are based upon conquering, inclusion and exclusion,
Wherever they appear they create misery and streams of blood. These religions are the mental source of concepts upon which humans feel a divine command to kill one another or be killed.

[manjit]

Israel has indiscriminately slaughtered around 200 children, per day, for 2 weeks, and continues to do so at this very moment.

This disgraceful and genocidal behaviour is not just being watched silently by our great, righteous and just western democracies, and brilliant politicians like Biden...it is being proudly defended, praised and supported with INCREASED finances, weapons and political support. Yes, American and British weapons are killing poor, powerless and disenfranchised children and babies who have lived their entire, short, lives under oppression. Right NOW.

But, thank god we have no free will and are completely unable to think for ourselves....CNN and CNBC aren't telling me to be concerned, so who gives a fuck.

It is interesting to see the reaction of western audiences to global conflicts.

This is the strongest argument for no free will that has ever been made on this forum, at least when applied to Brian.

A complete inability to THINK for oneself, absolute robots, easily programmed by their media.

One is reminded... and it is truly remarkable this was not made a more fundamental aspect of the narrative either at the time or since...in fact I would not be surprised if large parts of American society never knew this.... and again this is an insane thought... but Bin Laden only stated 2 reasons for the 9/11 attacks, and 1 of those was the continued financial, military and political support for the brutal, genocidal policies of Israel towards the Palestinian people for decades upon decade. (It is insane to think many Americans just think the motivation for these attacks was the Koran, madness and evil, as Sam Harris would have it!).

People are dumb. Very very dumb.

If we can't do it out of love, compassion and empathy, a realisation of all our interconnectedness and perhaps even oneness (and, none of the actions our UK or US governments are doing is based on these, obviously), we should at least find enough intelligence to intellectually understand that these murderous actions IS what creates future generations of "terrorists" , future cycles of violence. Nobody is being helped by killing children who already have known nothing but a life of oppression, by the hundreds, every day.

This is an absolutely astonishing and insane situation that our populations just sit by whilst our political leaders high five the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent people. Absolutely insane. Next week, they'll be telling us how evil Russia is again. Fuck off. More Palestinian children dead, killed by US munitions, in 2 weeks than in Ukraine if the Ukraine war goes on for another 20 years. Yeah, MORE US bombs dropping on MORE dirty towel head babies half way round the globe is definitely not as evil or unjustified as Russia invading one of it's former territories. I've been told to think that and I have no free-will sooo.....

Biden is such a weak, cowardly and ineffectual President he actually makes Trump seem plausible.... and that is as true as it is insane!

Bring back Trump. Something. Anything. Nobody can be worse than the spineless are-they-even-theres currently in charge.

Until we realise an atrocity is an atrocity, regardless of the colour of your skin, your religion, your politics or where you live, we will perpetuate these cycles of horrific violence, sadness and grief.

And stop believing everything the propganda box is telling you!

For fucks sake, wake up you self-less, free-will-less automatons, WAKE UP!

Now, back to your regular programming oh non-existing and insentient automatons, back!

[manjit]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/24/israel-gaza-palestinians-holocaust

Important insights by Raz Segal, Israeli historian, urgently needed to be understood.

[Appreciative Reader]

Agreed, what's happening in that unfortunate land is beyond horrible. Both what's actually happening there; and also, and more shockingly, how the "Free World" is not only not protesting, as it is wont to do at times like this, or unlesahing blockades and sanctions and worse, but actually doing everything to support that outrage.

I'm not sure, though, why people are protesting Brian's stance on this. Both Really?; and in the last comment and by implication you as well, manjit. ...Yes, Spence has been unconscionably supportive of Israel in his comments; but Brian's analysis was nuanced and fair and completely apposite, I thought.

For what it's worth, my views on what is happening there is completely sympathetic with the Palestinian's plight. That is, Hamas's outright terrorist attacks are completely reprehensible; but what Israel is responding with now is ...completely unprecedented, in sheer scale, in sheer magnitude of the destruction, and also the sheer brazenness with which it is carrying out with its murderous, genocidal "operation". I've already said as much in my comments here; and of course, since then what's unfolding there has gotten progressively worse.

-----

Really?, while largely I agree with what you're arguing here, for what that is worth; but I'm afraid on two counts your comments seem just a bit off. First, your inability to squarely criticize Hamas's terrorist attack that set off this round of carnage, kind of reflects Spence's inability to squarely and in so many words criticize the destruction now being wrought by Israel. And two, your claim that that original outrage is a false-flag attack authored by the IDF, and that Hamas itself is actually a puppet of Israel, that I'm afraid reads like an out-and-out conspiracy theory. Not entirely implausable, but no question of subscribing to that sort of an idea without clear evidence. And we needn't descend to such conspiracy theories in order to sympathize with Palestine; what is happening there is, even seen in straight terms, horrible beyond belief.

(Also, and again for what it is worth, I agree that Spence's attempted defense of the indefensible falls completely flat here. Although, knowing him like I do since long via his comments here, I think his obstinate refusal to straight-and-directly criticize Israel's genocidal actions stems less from some Zionist instinct, than simply his curious tendency to keep defending whatever position he's started out arguing on some issue, completely impervious to reason, apparently completely unable to change his mind ever. That's ...irritating, and frustrating as well, particularly if one's taken the time to engage with him on some discussion; but that's just how he is, and just what he does. While his views are actually effectively pro-Israel here, in as much as he refuses to directly and plainly criticize the Israeli atrocities; but his slithering and sliding away from reasoned argument by resorting to non sequiturs and shifting goalposts and other such verbal tricks is just what he does, I don't think it's particularly to do with the Israel thing. In general he actually is a generally good soul, peacable, pacific, and gentle, at least in my reading.)

You criticize Brian for throwing in religion as one of the causes of what is happening there. But it's true, isn't it? Sure, it's a geo-political issue, not a mono-chromatic religious matter; but that's always the case, isn't it? After all, even the actual and unholy Crusades, all those centuries ago, were not just religious matters, they did have a great deal of geo-political and plain-political-power-play interlaid in there with religion. It's seldom a pure-black-and-white monochromatic issue, ever.

In this case, without a doubt it is religion that played a large part in the Israelis' persecution across centuries and millennia; and in their wanting to flock back to Israel in the last century; and also in the support of Europe and the "West" in setting up the state of Israel. Likewise, the current support that Israel enjoys, also owes, in no small measure, to religion (although obviously that's not the only issue there). Likewise, Hamas's terrorism has also, without question, been fuelled in large part by religion, and particularly by Jehadic elements; although obviously that's not the only factor, and maybe not even the primary factor at play here, but still. ...And further, it does seem completely obvious that it is religion that is one of the factors --- not by any means the only factor, but without doubt one of them --- that comes in the way of an amicable peacable solution to all of this.

While sympathetic of the overall slant of your arguments, but I don't see how you can completely exclude religion as one of the significant factors at play here. And I don't think you're being at all fair in criticizing Brian's stance on this, given how balanced and nuanced had been his own article analyzing the situation.

-----

manjit, I sympathize with your outrage over what's happening in that place. As how could one not. Truly shocking, the scale of destruction there. And completely ...shocking, the enabling by the "Free World", the Anglosphere, call it what you will, of this outrage.

Read the article you linked. Yes, there's quite a few Israeli journalists and thinkers who are fair in their views, and outspoken in their criticism of Israel's policies. Another one who does not mince his words is the celebrated Israeli journalist Gideon Levy. You may already be familiar with his work; and if you aren't, then you might like to look up some of his views, he's very articulate, and completely outspoken.

(Ironically, though, it is journalists like these that emphasize the difference between Israel and Palestine. Although it isn't as if they aren't opposed and even vilified, but by and large they are able to continue with their outspoken views right in the midst of Israel. A Palestinian thinker publicly espousing similarly (anti-mainstream-Palestinian) views in the midst of Palestine, is, well, unlikely to have a very long career, no? Or a particularly long life? ...But again, to say that is not to defend the outrage being perpetrated by Israel here in any shape or form. I've made my views on that clear enough already.)

You criticize by implication Brian's role in commenting on this issue, by remarking on his abstract discussions on free will at a time like this. I don't know that that's quite fair. Have you, after all, just because your heart bleeds for what is happening there --- as every human and compassionate and empathetic heart indeed should bleed --- stopped doing everything else in your life? Have you stopped thinking all other thoughts, and have you stopped every other discussion, have you ceased every other engagement? I know I haven't.

And world affairs are a funny thing. There's much that we tend to not see at all. The Azerbaijan-Armenia thing, for instance? Ukraine and Israel have so dominated the news in recent months that that outrage, in that part of the world, has largely gone completely unnoticed.

As for "bring(ing) back Trump", I realize that was just rhetoric, but careful what you wish for! That things are bad, does not mean that things might not have been much much much worse! I'm not going to spell it out, but a Trumpian (mis-)administration would probably have wrought far far greater damage than what is happening now. ...Again, to say that is not to exonerate Biden's shocking cravenness in giving in to realpolitik considerations, not for a minute. I completely sympathize with your outrage with how what everyone thought was a reasonable government led by largely sane reasonable people, is dealing with this situation there.

-----

Even CNN's starting now to show bits and pieces of the other side of the story. Only bits and pieces, but still. For a more balanced coverage, there's BBC. But if you want an unvarnished, and completely gut-unsettling coverage of what's actually happening there, Al Jazeera is the channel to watch. Ignore their analyses and discussions, by all means, if you think they are one-sided; but simply their raw coverage of the sufferings the Palestinians are being subjected to, it cannot fail to move anyone with a beating heart.

(Again, to say that is not to exonerate Hamas's original outrage, I've already criticized that unqualifiedly. I keep saying this, given how one-sided discussions on this issue often tend to be. ...And again, it is precisely because of how one-sided people's reactions on this tend to be at times, that I waded in with this comment to defend Brian's balanced and nuanced stance on this situation.)

[um]

@ AR

Many months ago by now, Spence wrote something about debating at the diner table in his elderly home.

Find it, read it, read it again, digest it have some coffee and everything will be alright..
You will understand

Hahahaha

[Appreciative Reader]

I remember it, um.

I hadn't quite understood, then. I'd taken it, at that time, to refer to an insistence on critical thinking inculcated from a very early age, which is very admirable indeed. I see now that it referred merely to picking one side of an issue, and "debating" away in defense of that side of the issue, completely unmindful of what is the actual truth. ...Although even that is probably an admirable thing, if viewed as training wheels for a child with which to start navigating the waters of critical thinking. However, if stuck to beyond the training-wheels stage, then it ends up becoming exactly the opposite of critical thinking, and becomes a tool for obfuscating and suppressing the truth from oneself rather than a tool with which to arrive at the truth as best one can.

But my point, as far as that much, was that this is probably not Zionist zealotry per se, as Really? seems to think it is, but merely more of that same old curious thing. I only wanted to point out to Really? that Spence is actually far more balanced and far more gentle than anything like that, at least in my reading of him over these years.

[um]

@ AR

I do not want to go into detail but let me add this much.

Besides how was conditioned at home in debating, you could have noticed overtime that he stresses in almost all and every answer ..."change for the better"

Have some coffee and ask yourself, why he does that ... why does he want to be a light to the world for betterment.

[Appreciative Reader]

Hahaha, do you mean that he's trying to set himself up as some kind of a prophet, or a guru, or something like that, um? That's actually a cool thing, really, I myself wouldn't mind setting up a cult with me at the head of it, if the cult had lots of hot young girls in it! ...But nah, if you meant that seriously, than I don't think that's the case. I mean, it's risible, the very idea, completely entirely far-fetched!

In any case, let's not discuss the man himself any more in the third person like this, right? Not the politest thing to do!

Apologies, Spence, hadn't wanted to make this about you! I shouldn't have put in that reference to you at all in my comment addressed to Really?. Guess I did that without really thinking it through.

[um]

@ AR

Let me tell you an incident:
One day one of the children of a good friend graduated at university. Between the ceremonies my friend said that he wanted to go to his car at the parking place to get something ... hahaha, his way to slip away ... hahaha i just liked his box of social tricks, tricks that most people would not notice. I said to him that I was coming with him. Turning around the next corner I asked him what he helt from the fact his son had done so well .... hahaha even today it makes me laughing, as I could read him as myself and knew his impeccable judgement having no mercy on anybody ...hahahaha The answer cam sift and was no surprise ... he said ... well he is still a XXXX and this graduation is not make an difference.

We would never say these things aloud to others as they would not understand that love for one near and dear doesn't mean that one could not be aware of an character flaw

Next ...
Something said by one person can be just an opinion, the same thing said by another can be stating a factual truth. To have and express an opinion is not a problem but not to see the difference between an opinion and a truth is however. So much that one has to seal one's lips in order to prevent unnecessary problems.

How much do I miss him. People like him are rare, people that can love without being blinded by the facts. We had so much fun and joy walking together and sharing frankly with one another whatever wanted to come out without any fear ..

For me looking at what others do and say is like looking at the crows in the tree.

[manjit]

Dear Brian, I just wanted to apologise for clearly singling you out for my rage/sadness for the current situation.

This was unfair, nasty, uncalled for, small minded etc of me.

Sorry.

Manjit

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Really?

So long as anyone uses the terrorist attacks from Hammas to excuse the deaths of innocent civilians at the hands of Israel hey are in the wrong.

So long as anyone uses the oppressive attacks from Israel to excuse the deaths of innocent civilians at the hands of Hammas, they are wrong.

When an individual chooses to go into someone else's neighborhood and murder innocent people, or to send missiles there killing innocent civilians, they are wrong.

You can't agree to this, apparently.

And that is because you have chosen, with your free will, to participate in it through your support.

[Spence Tepper]

Condemning evil is not the same as advocating peace.
Advocating peace is looking in an entirely different direction.
Let's just say that teaching children it's OK to kill innocent civilians, or that this is the price of peace is not OK. It's bad.
When all parties involved have been doing this, then finger-pointing isn't going to get us anywhere. It doesn't raise the dialogue to any solution.
And that is where third party intervention becomes necessary.
Not only intervention just at the beginning, to get a piece of paper signed. But intervention throughout the entire process of helping two nations learn to respect one another, respect their territories, and to live in peace with one another.
Once you focus on the solution, then you become aware, immediately, of others in both nations, Palestine and Israel, who have longed for this all along. They are not the bad players we see today. But they are there, in numbers. They want peace, and the know that peace can only come through bi-lateral respect.

These are the people who need air time, who need to be brought forth. The innocent civilians on both sides who already know killing innocents of any race, color, nationality, lifestyle is wrong. People who have already been teaching this to their kids. They are there. The success of the process for peace will rest on the foundation of third parties who bring these folks to the table, and find a way to move the bad players to the sidelines.

Peace is the only answer. But the bad players, and many commentators who identify with them, simply don't understand or believe that peace is possible. They have been caught up in the anger and emotion, and can do nothing but enable and inflate the problem.

Peace is possible. It is the only solution. And it is the inevitable solution. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we avoid further magnifying the problem and the damage.

[Really?]

Oh dear. 😕
Spence is STILL lying.
He is still imagining things I am supposed to have said.
He is still practicing deception by assuming he can read my mind.
He is still misrepresenting my opinion.

And he is still misrepresenting the situation in Gaza by repeating Israeli lies.

I ask anyone still reading this back-and-forth to ask themselves why would anyone need to do that?
Why would someone GENUINELY interested in ‘peace’ be repeating one side’s increasingly transparent deliberate lies and atrocity propaganda (which Spence still hasn’t acknowledged yet)?
Why would someind feel compelled to do that when there is a genocide occurring NOW? One that is predominantly murdering innocent, civilian women and children by the thousands and permanently scarring and crippling many thousands more? I suggest it is disgustingly unethical behaviour.

I suggest what is now occurring is that Spence wants to make this a personally attacking conversation with me as a way of obscuring facts that are becoming increasingly clear and which I suggest that he — as a person self-identifying as Jewish’ — is in denial of.

BACK TO WHERE THIS CONVERSATION STARTED:
Brian wrote the situation in illegally-occupied Gaza is based on religion.
I AGAIN suggest to him and to anyone still reading this that THAT is a calculated DECEPTION! One that Israel has promoted for their own benefit and strategic advantage.

It is not about ‘religion’.
Israel wants people to believe that because then they can pose as being victims of ‘anti-semitic’ racism.
They can then demand the world stand with them to protect them.

The REALITY that this calculated deception is designed to obscure, is that muslims and jews lived together for centuries in harmony UNTIL the ethnic cleansing of non-Jews started, beginning at the end of the 19th century. Ethnic cleansing thatvwas planned and executed by Ashkenazi zionist Jews from Europe and America.

If anyone reading doubts this is NOT ABOUT RELIGION, consider what was written yesterday by an anti-zionist who is the son of a Rabbi:

“The Zionist perception of humanity is that human beings are divided into races which retain their distinctive attributes. Zionism is a racial not a religious doctrine. Hence in Israel Jews can be registered as having no religion but they are Jewish as a nationality.”
~ Tony Greenstein

He went on to point out this indisputable FACT:
“If anyone was allowed to convert to Judaism then everyone could join the ‘[jewish] master race’ including the Palestinians, the untermenschen. That is why the Israeli Conversion Authority automatically bars Palestinians from converting to Judaism. There is no RELIGIOUS reason for this, it is entirely racial. Nothing in Judaism excludes a whole ethnic group from converting to Judaism. But with a state based on ‘race’ where being ‘Jewish’ comes with privileges it is a paramount necessity.”

SUMMARY:
Brian Hines has been duped.
He has accepted as true what in reality is pro-Israeli misinformation. (What used to be called ‘brain-washing’.)
It definitely is NOT a religion based conflict.
It is instead PURELY about an illegal occupation and left-theft based upon zionist RACIST IDEOLOGY.

[Really?]

The main deception being argued here by this American Jew (whether he is knowingly promoted ‘hasbara’ lie or is suffering from a self-deception based on pro-zionist, Israeli cnditioning/misinformation/propaganda) is the lie that we can ONLY have peace in the middle east when we bypass the ‘bad’ people on both sides and bring forth ‘good’ people who want peace, harmony and respect from both sides.

The REALITY that this naive and delusional viewpoint (or — more accurately — pro-Israeli, biased misinformation) denies is that you can NEVER achieve ‘peace and harmony if you refuse to correctly understand the CAUSE of the conflict.

And the CAUSE of it is the ILLEGAL OCCUPATION.

It is the illegal land theft and illegal, racist, apartheid settlements built on that illegally stolen and ethnically cleansed land, that is the ROOT-CAUSE of the problem. And therefore ADDRESSING THAT is the only way to have a fair, and just solution.

Spence — and ALL pro-Israelis — never can bring themselves to acknowledge this core fact of ILLEGAL OCCUPATION.
That explains why Spence has not once acknowledged it.
That explains why he prefers to discuss everything but that.

When we correctly identify the root cause and problem, then the SOLUTION becomes INSTANTLY OBVIOUS. I.e. impartial, unbiased APPLICATION and implementation of INTERNATIONAL LAW!

There. So simple.

But liars for Israel — and people duped by those lies — regurgitate the calculated deception that it is a complex, nuanced, intractable problem. It is NOT. That is another zionist DECEPTION. A LIE!!

Just apply the pre-existing international laws without bias. Simple. Fair. Impartial.

I have stated this simple truth before. And Spence has ignored it totally.
He instead keeps misrepresenting my position.
Which I suggest is proof he is either:
a.) in denial or
b.) is deliberately engaged in promoting pro-Israeli misrepresentations of the ACTUAL SITUATION in order to further a genocide for jew-only state on Palestinian territory.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Really?

You mention repeatedly
" ILLEGAL OCCUPATION"
But the facts are different. The League of Nations, the United Nations, and Britain all conferred onto Israel statehood. They were granted this legally by the international community

Winston Churchill had his emissary approach the Mufti of Jerusalem to work together on a new Democratic nation that would share power equally with residents of the region, and assure a homeland for Jews fleeing persecution.

At the time Palestine was not a nation.

But the Mufti of Palestine sided with Adolph Hitler, adopting Hitler's plan to eradicate Jews all over the world.

You seem to be in league with Hitler on this one, just as the Mufti was..

And so the Mufti turned down Winston Churchill's offer. The Mufti was betting that Germany would win the war.

And he lost. And the people of Palestine also lost. Lands were carved up among nations, in the same way the Muslim Ottoman nation grew, through conquest, and then was curtailed by defeat. Like every nation on earth.

But instead you try to make a special case out of the Jews. You refer to me as a Jew, not as a fellow human being.

But I appeal to you, not as a Jew, but as a human being. Let's find a way to advocate for peace among all peoples, without having to displace anyone. Let's advocate for democracy.

Otherwise, what is left but racism, religious bigotry, and hatred? How will that solve any problem.

You may feel very privileged and special, Really, but do not abuse it. Understand what it was intended for, that you work for peace and teamwork, and mutual respect for all our differences, on a platform of helpfulness, and protecting each other's rights.

Yes, there are bad players on both sides.

But as I pointed out earlier, whenever an individual makes a plan to murder innocent people, that individual must be caught and dealt with, to assure the safety of everyone else. Whether found in the Israeli government, or Hammas.

You can't remove personal responsibility from anyone, without in fact, supporting terrorism from either side.

That is a universal requirement of safety, and a platform for peace as well.

Once you calm down you will realize what I'm saying is the truth, and that you have allowed the hatred and anger of murderers to infect and influence you. It isn't your natural state.

As for the middle eastern nations we have today, they were also formed, over time. Sadly they are not true democracies at all.

Where you have failed is in your ethics. When a Jew defends killing innocents, they are wrong. And so is a member of Hammas.

Under the label of defending Palestine, you are actuall

[Spence Tepper]

...Actually supporting Hammas' terrorism.

So now each side blames the other and no one takes personal responsibility for what they have done.

You see, more blame is just more irresponsibility at this point.

We need third party intervention to restore personal responsibility and basic ethics.

[Really?]

When anyone brings Hitler into a discussion then we can KNOW they have lost the argument.

And Spence is STILL lying.
The League of Nations, the UN and Britain did NOT give all the territory now occupied by Israel to the zionist Jews.
This is another ‘hasbara’ lie and deception.

Spence is deliberately LYING or is in self-delusional denial.

Spence doesn’t like his lies being exposed. THAT is why he is still trying to make this personal by falsely implying I am upset and need to “calm down”. He even suggests I am “in league with Hitler”.
Oh boy! 🙄🤪

Why would a person who is looking at the situation fairly and honestly, repeatedly use such deceitful tactics?

Check out these links that exposes this Jewish American’s biased, pro-Israeli deceptions seeking to deny the ILLEGAL OCCUPATION:

Here is an article on UN resolutions that Israel is in breach of. It details the ILLEGAL settlements:
https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2017/50-years-illegal-settlements/index.html

Here is a map that shows the stolen, ILLEGALLY OCCUPIED territory:
https://me-confidential.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/palestine-e1453479943364-1024x701.jpg

And both those articles presuppose that Britain, the UN and the League of Nations had a right to give the land to people from Europe and America.
In reality they didn’t.

Regarding Palestinian statehood in 1948:
https://www.passport-collector.com/the-history-of-the-all-palestine-government-1948-59/

Finally, I don’t regard ANYONE as ‘Jewish’ unless they believe and practice Judaism.
So that is another deception from Spence. It is he himself who made known that he self-identifies as “jewish”.
I regard him as a human being who has sadly been conditioned by a profoundly racist and self-delusional, ideology.

Many will remember that when there were many terrorist acts being committed by ISIS, the MSM began to insist that ALL muslims worldwide condemn it.
Muslims could be —and were — arrested and expelled/deported if they did not.

The implication was that ALL muslims favoured violence and that Islam itself promoted violence.

It wasn’t considered enough for normal, law-abiding muslims to just live in peace in the West. They were expected as communities and as individuals to vocally distance themselves and to VISIBLY CONDEMN the violence of a TINY minority of the worldwide Muslim Ummah.

I suggest that because of the campaign of atrocious lies and calculated deceptions of an army of social-media hasbara combatants, it is now appropriate to require all human-beings who self-identify as being ‘jewish’ to condemn: i.) ILLEGAL OCCUPATION, ii.) racist ethnic-cleansing of Palestinians from their ancestral homes and to declare once and for all if they iii.) support INTERNATIONAL LAW FOR ALL, and iv.) the RIGHT OF RETURN regardless of race.

Let’s start with Spence 🙂
1. Do you support equal application of international law for all?
2. Do you CONDEMN the illegal collective punishment that Israel is NOW commiting in Gaza and the West Bank?
3. Do you condemn the indiscriminate and illegal depriving of basic necessities (water, fuel, electricity, etc.,) to a captive population of 2 million people by Israeli Jews in Gaza perpetrated by Israel BECAUSE those people are not Jewish?
4. Do you support the legal ‘right of return’ of ALL people displaced in time of conflict to the Palestinian people?
5. Do you condemn the illegal indiscriminate bombing and mass-murder of a captive civilian population by Israeli forces?
6. Do you condemn the illegal ‘DAHIYA DOCTRINE’ of Israel which deliberately targets and destroys civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, schools, electricity-power plants, sewage plants, etc.?

[manjit]

Hi Appreciative Reader. Hope all is well.

Whilst it seems futile and grossly insufficient to discuss this subject here, at this time whilst our governments are committing genocide, this is an important subject and I wanted to respond to your fair comments.

You wrote: "Have you, after all, just because your heart bleeds for what is happening there --- as every human and compassionate and empathetic heart indeed should bleed --- stopped doing everything else in your life? Have you stopped thinking all other thoughts, and have you stopped every other discussion, have you ceased every other engagement?" & "And world affairs are a funny thing. There's much that we tend to not see at all. The Azerbaijan-Armenia thing, for instance? Ukraine and Israel have so dominated the news in recent months that that outrage, in that part of the world, has largely gone completely unnoticed."

With all due respect, I had grappled with questions like these - the role of selective outrage & indignation, the fact of near infinite forms of unjust and inhumane oppression, suffering and cruelties occurring in the world right now towards humans, animals & the environment, regardless of whether or not one is consciously aware of them or not, and the role of the selective (and almost always ideologically driven, as opposed to driven by universal values such as love, freedom, justice, peace etc) outrage of media in manufacturing narratives & narrow reality-tunnels which manipulate the emotions of their civilian masses, which in turn enables their governments to continue to, etc - when I was a teenager. I have spent many hours pondering over these very questions, and how to live a life of integrity following universal values such as love, tolerance, freedom, peace, etc

I have long since both intellectually and experientially resolved this seeming conundrum to my own complete satisfaction. The mystical experience is the greatest teacher in this regard. All reality, all the infinite varieties of suffering......as well as all the infinite ecstasies and heavens, oceans of boundless love etc....are compressed into every fiber of our being. Everything, everywhere, all at once. I have no real interest in discussing these things nowadays, as ineffable as they are, and certainly not on this forum. Read the Ayahuasca experience excerpts posted in the open comments thread to get a flavour, though of course these cannot even begin to convey a tiny fraction of the reality of the experience.

The reason I even posted here regarding the situation in Palestine & Israel specifically, and not the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict (for eg., there are plenty of others) is because it is OUR OWN DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED governments of the US & UK which are enabling a genocide RIGHT NOW. If the UK & US were not politically, economically and militarily supporting the genocide of a poor and powerless populace, already imprisoned within a culture of deep and unrelenting oppression enabled by the West for decades, and shown nothing but silence and disregard as Israel murdered thousands of Palestinians over the past dozen years or so alone (and decades more than that)...then I would not comment at all on it. What right would I have to do so?

The truth is, to remain silent during this time is to be complicit.....there is no difference between the masses of UK, US & Israeli citizens who are remaining silent during the genocidal actions of our governments and armies, to those Germans who remained silent whilst Nazi atrocities were going on, imo.

It is too damn easy to sit in our nice comfy houses looking down with righteous anger & judgement on Russia, Hamas, ISIS, Iran, Syria etc etc whilst watching our huge widescreen TVs. It is also pointless.

Our governments, RIGHT NOW, are enabling war crimes & genocide, shutting down the global community's attempts at reaching a humanitarian ceasefire, assuming their civilian masses are so lacking in intelligence and free-thought that they are attempting to manufacture the narrative the brutal massacre of a poor and powerless peoples is similar to the fight against Nazis, that Israel's openly stated desire to eliminate the Palestinians, which they have pursued stealthily for many decades, is an act of "self-defence", or that it is Hamas which is causing this genocide, reframing any humane person's opposition to the indiscriminate slaughter of children and genocide as "supporting terrorism", regardless of how absurd that is (like in the UN secretary general's case). Etc etc. So many plainly absurd, ugly lies. Up is down, the earth is flat, and the moon is made of cardboard. And if you don't believe these absurd lies, you are a "terrorist sympathiser".

We are living in absolutely insane times.

"As for "bring(ing) back Trump", I realize that was just rhetoric, but careful what you wish for! That things are bad, does not mean that things might not have been much much much worse!"

Of course. One is reminded of Trump's absolutely disgraceful - and fully in step with the US's history of unequivocal, biased and unjust support of Israel - act of moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. What an absolute fucking moron.

But still. I go back to my point above.

History may well deem what is going on right now, the actions of the US, UK & Israeli governments, as one of the great inhumanities of the 21st century. Perhaps similar to how the holocaust is viewed today?

And if this turns out to be true (bearing in mind vast swathes of the globe ALREADY believe this is a grossly inhumane or "evil" atrocity or war crime being committed) - a question arises; how do all these so called "liberal" Americans who railed against Trump for years and voted for Biden feel about voting in somebody who is complicit with war crimes far, far worse than anything Trump ever did?

And that is my point of commenting about this here.....we absolve all our own responsibility when atrocities occur.....and so very easily leap to the judgment of "others", even when their atrocities pale into comparison compared to our own.

I guess a deeper question is, what are we driven by? Universal values of love, compassion, understanding, tolerance, equality, freedom, justice........or tribalism, which in the West masquerades itself as holding these values when defending and exporting "democracy" all across the world, bomb in hand, when in reality it clearly, clearly doesn't hold these values at all, and is just as tribal as the Taliban, ISIS, the Russian oligarchy, and with not just as much blood on their hands, but much, much more.....

Facts above narratives.

"Again, to say that is not to exonerate Biden's shocking cravenness in giving in to realpolitik considerations, not for a minute. I completely sympathize with your outrage with how what everyone thought was a reasonable government led by largely sane reasonable people, is dealing with this situation there."

You wrote to Really? about "conspiracy theories".....I have presumed you are an American citizen? If you are, also presumably you voted for Biden. Biden recently, and horrifically, questioned the numbers killed in Palestine, even as it is bombed into dust in front of our lying eyes, and even UN workers, aid workers and journalists from around the world have been killed in the hundreds. This is the most despicable type of conspiracy theory - one you probably don't believe in yourself, and one that is used to justify genocide.

What a disgrace Biden is. If anyone here voted for this weak, cowardly, scumbag of a president, perhaps they should examine their own actions, and complicity in genocide, rather than worrying about alleged conspiracy theorists on obscure online forums?

In regards watching videos of the current war crimes & atrocities being perpetuated by our own democratically elected governments, I actually haven't seen any. I don't watch video footage of wars, am pretty much unable to do so, and I don't see the point. I didn't watch any of Ukraine war, the Hamas attack, or the current attacks by Israel. I don't feel I would learn anything by doing so.

I already know war is hell.

That said, I unintentionally saw about 5 seconds of a clip of Israel's brutal bombardment of Gaza yesterday. There are no words to describe the sadness one must feel. If one has a human heart untroubled by fear, hatred, ignorance, bigotry, ideology, racism etc etc, or course.

[Appreciative Reader]

Dear manjit,

As always, pleasure to read what you have to say.

Absolutely, I agree with the broad thrust of what you’re saying. While there are some specifics in your comment that I kind of differ with, but I don’t see any point in going to town all over-analyzing those differences. After all, and like I said, I do agree with your broader message, and also with most of the specifics you bring up (bar those few on which I differ); and more importantly, I find myself empathizing overall, with the pain and compassion and the palpable sincerity with which I can sense you speaking here.

I will, however, briefly touch on one point, on which you disagreed with me, and which, on reading your comment, I too find myself agreeing with now. I agree, we do carry greater responsibility towards those things that are within our powers to influence --- even if at an individual level influence only nominally, even then. So that there’s nothing inconsistent or incongruous in your feeling far more strongly about Israel than you do about Azerbaijan. Fair point, and I find myself agreeing completely with you.

I do, myself, often find myself at a bit of a …quandary, dilemma, uncertainty, about engagement in the public sphere. As far as integrated living, I do manage, in my personal life, to live as …harmlessly, as non-malignantly, as I know how, and to the best of my abilities --- not to make some grand statement to the world at large, but as simply the kind of life that best gels with my own bent of mind, with who I am. But it’s true, there’s a great deal that I see that is wrong in the public sphere, that I completely stay away from. Part of that is cowardice plain and simple, not wanting to subject myself to the potential difficulties that might arise from engagement in the public sphere. But part of that is also an understanding, both intellectually and also at the gut level, of the pointlessness ultimately of these larger issues to our puny individual existence, which burns on falteringly until one day, soon enough, it will simply flicker off dead. Regardless of the nature of consciousness and so forth, the sheer ephemerality of our individual existence points, in practice, towards living a …a more personal life, a life essentially limited to the essentials as far as its external manifestations. On the other hand, the suffering of people around us is real enough, in whatever context; and the inequities one sees plainly, are iniquitous enough. Which does, sometimes, in fact far more often than merely sometimes, prick one’s self-contained individual ethics, and does sometimes point the way towards a more public expression of those ethics, regardless of the costs involved. So far I’ve not ventured there, but your words did bring to the fore that …struggle, that quandary, that …unrest.

The world is clearly not a fair place. What’s happening over at Israel, in the teeth of all that is fair and just, and in the teeth of international (read UN/Amnesty) opinion, underlines that fact. But then we don’t really need Israel to tell us that; Iraq did that just as well. (As does Ukraine, as does Tibet, as do the Uighurs, all of that; but those are the “bad guys” after all, the cartoon-villains sporting nasty sneers and black eyepatches and given to loud theatrical laughter. That inequity we kind of expect, from people like those, so that their being evil and acting in evil ways doesn’t really throw us, even as it does disturb us. But even on the side of the good and right, as we like to think of it, and even today, clearly there’s a lot that’s …completely unfair, completely wrong. There can be no defending that, at all.

[um]

The "evil of wealth" and its consequence as described by Lao Zi.

https://www.taoistic.com/taoteching-laotzu/taoteching-53.htm

In older days when the world was divided in many regional universes, the people in each individual region was contented with what they had achieved.
That [ dream, narrative, illusion, that window on the future] has been destroyed by the globalization of data, and the TV.
They all found that their xxxx was just one among others ...AND .... that theirs were looked upon as inferior ... without .... having the means of changing for the better.

They all came to hate THAT REGION that claimed to have the best of all
AND ....
That they could forever stand in that shadow ... if even allowed to stand there

THAT, my friends .created the raise of the "angry Islam"
and they are with many
and they will come to demand their share

[um]

YOU.
YOU have all that is daily worldwide seen on TV

THEY know that they can never have it,
and that YOU
are not ging to share with them, not even the bread crums of your table.

THEY have the WORDS OF GOD given to them by their prophet.
WORDS only given to THEM.

THAT is their weatlth, wealth they use to balans the lack of YOUR wealth.

P.S.
Try also to understand that most of YOUR wealth is relate to the circumstance of living in the moderate climate zone.

Much of what you have and consider as NORMAL, is impossible in other climate zones and you do nothing to bridge that gap and make it more detestabel what they see you consuming on TV day in day out.

You live as slave masters in the great mansion ....and you think you are safe there

[manjit]

https://www.savethechildren.net/news/gaza-3195-children-killed-three-weeks-surpasses-annual-number-children-killed-conflict-zones

Axis of Evil

[um]

The only thing WE can do Manjit, is to give the people of that organisation, what ever money we can spend so that they can do their work.

May the lord bless them

[um]

The story goes that prince Gautama, lived within the enclosure of his parental castle as in the garden of Eden, or as the imperial Chinese family once did in the forbidden cty.

Those outsiders were not allowed in but the insider were not allowed out.

The story tells us about what happened when the noble Prince once managed to escape the guards and went outside ... he was shocked at what he saw .. so shocked that he finally laid the foundation that came to know as Buddhism ... based at Compassion

The TV and internet has the same affect ... could one live in ones bubble for decades ago that is forever over ... when you eat at your dinner table ...you will know that the way you live is not NORMAL ...it was the norm in your bubble ... but now you KNOW that your bubble and what goes on there is an EXCEPTION and that you have lived in an sea of misery ...endless misery

To think that one can create artificial lands of honey and milk in such a world lives in a fantasy world

[Really?]

BOTTOM LINE:
Contrary to the heading of this essay by Mr. Brian Hines, I argue that:
1. ”Religion” does NOT “play a large role” in the conflict in occupied Palestine:
occupation does!
It is chiefly about illegal occupation and zionist, anti-Arab racism, not ’religion’. Zionism is not a ’religion’. Most zionist Jews are athiests.
As proof that from the Hamas perspective ‘religion’ has literally NOTHING to do with their resistance, please watch this:
https://youtu.be/_2eXDd6liG0 *

2. What is happening now in Gaza is NOT a “Hamas versus Israel ‘WAR”.
The word ‘war’ is not appropriate.
The non-Jewish inhabitants of the West Bank are also facing increased harrassment, persecution and murder and there is no Hamas

I hope we can all agree that a literally genocidal mass-murder of non-Jews in Gaza for the goal of jew-only lebensraum from the River Jordan to the sea (what is called by zionist jews ‘ersatz Israel’) can not fairly be called a “war”.

———————————

We are ALL of us being subjected to psychological warfare.
In that ’war’, words and language have been weaponised to subconsciously mould and influence public opinion. This misuse of the word ’war’ is a part of that.

Getting people to unthinkingly refer to an obvious targeting and mass-murder of a defenceless, captive CIVILIAN population — that has no army, navy or airforce — as a “WAR”, when it is being pulverised without any way of resistance or defence by a highly sophisticated military that is the fourth largest in the world, is an example of the SUCCESS of this psychological warfare. In that ‘warfare’, Israel and zionist diaspora Jews are targeting us: you and me!

.. .. .. .. .. ..
*[The youtube link is to words spoken by Sheik Ahmed Yassin about the reason for the armed resistance of Hamas. He was a quadriplegic who was nearly blind, and had been reliant on a wheelchair due to a sporting accident at the age of 12. He was the founding leader of Hamas. He was murdered in 2004 for resisting the land-theft and racistly motivated ethnic-cleansing of him and his compatriots from their ancestral homes.
Not only him, but in the process of killing Ahmad Yassin, eleven other humans were murdered in that attack by Israel. That ‘collateral damage’ was justified and permitted because the bystanders were inhabitants of Palestine who were not Jewish, and so were regarded as being of lesser human worth by the Jews who murdered them.
They were all murdered by an Israeli helicopter gunship missile as they were leaving Fajr prayer at the mosque in Gaza City. Another twelve were seriously injured in the attack, including two of Yassin's sons.
The attack, which killed him, both of his security personnel and nine bystanders, was internationally condemned. But apart from words of condemnation nothing was ever done to the perpretrators.]