Flotilla Update: Israel Attacks Convoy, Deaths Reported (2)

[Simulist]

Neither you nor 17breezes can define "what is and isn't antisemitism" — even though you throw that charge around like a Frisbee.

If you can, please do.

(By the way, your Frisbee is in the tree over there...)

[compared2what?]

Apologies if I missed your responses in the long thread(s).

I really think the troubles are as basic as two people seeing the same scrap of dirt as their holy birthright.

I really, really wish that actually was the basic nature of the troubles. Or even an irreplaceable key factor contributing to them.

But it's not, honey. Practically nothing geopolitical is ever that simple.

I guess I really don't see any solution other than both sides saying, "Fuck it! It's just a bunch of fucking dirt!" ... and both sides walk away. Or learn to share.

Despite which, I agree with you that one of those things -- preferably the latter, afaic -- is a key factor to the only thing remotely like a solution that I can imagine. Jews and Arabs got a common enemy in the west. Very roughly speaking.

I wish there were some way of making that immediate and compelling enough to Israeli Jews and Arabs that they'd stop fighting as enemies and start fighting as comrades. When they had to fight. Which I hope would be "Never." And marginally more realistically hope would be "Neither constantly nor continuously, at least."

Never happen. Whether anyone admits it or not this is and has always been in large part a religious war. Too much hate on both sides.

I'm not very optimistic about it myself.

But -- and I mean this in the most morally neutral sense possible, btw -- since I have yet to see the mildest sign that you're qualified to speak to the subject authoritatively wrt either the present or the events that led to it, I've got even less confidence in your ability authoritatively to predict the future than I'd automatically have just as a function of being aware that no one can actually do that. In the world I live in, at least.

I also don't agree that it's always been in large part a religious war. I mean, even the Crusades weren't in large part religious wars. They were wars of conquest, waged for a wide range of political, social, and economic reasons. IOW: wars.

They just happened to be popularly promulgated as religious wars. And if the assorted Israeli-Arab wars and conflicts have ever -- let alone always -- been religious in a part that's any larger than that, I personally don't know on what evidence a very persuasive case for it could be based.

I mean, I'm not saying that hype isn't a large part of war, obviously. It is. Or that religious hype isn't a common and recurrent feature of the various and assorted Arab-Israeli wars and/or conflicts.

But at the end of the day, religious hype is actually hype, not actually religious. It devalues religion itself to say otherwise.

And I sure as fuck never thought I'd be typing a sentence that reads as devoutly as that one does. But oh well. I do mean every word of it in a way that's not very evident on a prima facie basis. So I guess there's no particular reason not to let it stand, really.

It's a funny old world sometimes, though, I must say.

[barracuda]

My calling her that was simply in jest because of what she had called me earlier and continued to call me throughout the day.

That's some funny jest you've got there. But while I disagree with what you say, I will fight to the death for your right to make an ass of yourself. Well, almost to the death. Right now it's feeling more like a few minutes from now.

[17breezes]

First let have a little discussion.

You called someone a moron, and then you said that "what is and isn't antisemitism is not rocket science."

I'm simply asking you to prove it. Since it's "not rocket science," this should be very easy.

Exactly please, "What is and isn't antisemitism"?

I told you you weren't gonna like it. But you need to answer that question before I answer yours. That's what happens in a real discussion. Ground rules get set so we are both clear about what's going to happen.

Ball's in your court. Sorry I didn't answer earlier but I was called away from the computer until now.

[17breezes]

Apologies if I missed your responses in the long thread(s).

I really think the troubles are as basic as two people seeing the same scrap of dirt as their holy birthright.

I really, really wish that actually was the basic nature of the troubles. Or even an irreplaceable key factor contributing to them.

But it's not, honey. Practically nothing geopolitical is ever that simple.

I guess I really don't see any solution other than both sides saying, "Fuck it! It's just a bunch of fucking dirt!" ... and both sides walk away. Or learn to share.

Despite which, I agree with you that one of those things -- preferably the latter, afaic -- is a key factor to the only thing remotely like a solution that I can imagine. Jews and Arabs got a common enemy in the west. Very roughly speaking.

I wish there were some way of making that immediate and compelling enough to Israeli Jews and Arabs that they'd stop fighting as enemies and start fighting as comrades. When they had to fight. Which I hope would be "Never." And marginally more realistically hope would be "Neither constantly nor continuously, at least."

Never happen. Whether anyone admits it or not this is and has always been in large part a religious war. Too much hate on both sides.

I'm not very optimistic about it myself.

But -- and I mean this in the most morally neutral sense possible, btw -- since I have yet to see the mildest sign that you're qualified to speak to the subject authoritatively wrt either the present or the events that led to it, I've got even less confidence in your ability authoritatively to predict the future than I'd automatically have just as a function of being aware that no one can actually do that. In the world I live in, at least.

I also don't agree that it's always been in large part a religious war. I mean, even the Crusades weren't in large part religious wars. They were wars of conquest, waged for a wide range of political, social, and economic reasons. IOW: wars.

They just happened to be popularly promulgated as religious wars. And if the assorted Israeli-Arab wars and conflicts have ever -- let alone always -- been religious in a part that's any larger than that, I personally don't know on what evidence a very persuasive case for it could be based.

I mean, I'm not saying that hype isn't a large part of war, obviously. It is. Or that religious hype isn't a common and recurrent feature of the various and assorted Arab-Israeli wars and/or conflicts.

But at the end of the day, religious hype is actually hype, not actually religious. It devalues religion itself to say otherwise.

And I sure as fuck never thought I'd be typing a sentence that reads as devoutly as that one does. But oh well. I do mean every word of it in a way that's not very evident on a prima facie basis. So I guess there's no particular reason not to let it stand, really.

It's a funny old world sometimes, though, I must say.

Well maybe I'm not qualified to speak to the subject authoritatively wrt either the present or the events that led to it, except for the fact that I'm old enough to have lived through a great deal of it unlike most of the toddlers around here. I also received my University degree in 1975 before education was poisoned by all this post-modern bullcrap. And it's good enough for me tho your mileage might vary.

[Simulist]

First let have a little discussion.

You called someone a moron, and then you said that "what is and isn't antisemitism is not rocket science."

I'm simply asking you to prove it. Since it's "not rocket science," this should be very easy.

Exactly please, "What is and isn't antisemitism"?

I told you you weren't gonna like it. But you need to answer that question before I answer yours. That's what happens in a real discussion. Ground rules get set so we are both clear about what's going to happen.

Ball's in your court. Sorry I didn't answer earlier but I was called away from the computer until now.

This is why you are accused of trolling so frequently, 17breezes. You make a claim, and then you try to change the subject when you're asked to prove that claim.

It is a simple question.

You seem unable to answer that simple question either directly, or convincingly — hence, a diversion is attempted.

If "what is and isn't antisemitism" is such a simple thing (and "not rocket science"), then what is antisemitism, and what isn't it?

[17breezes]

First let have a little discussion.

You called someone a moron, and then you said that "what is and isn't antisemitism is not rocket science."

I'm simply asking you to prove it. Since it's "not rocket science," this should be very easy.

Exactly please, "What is and isn't antisemitism"?

I told you you weren't gonna like it. But you need to answer that question before I answer yours. That's what happens in a real discussion. Ground rules get set so we are both clear about what's going to happen.

Ball's in your court. Sorry I didn't answer earlier but I was called away from the computer until now.

This is why you are accused of trolling so frequently, 17breezes. You make a claim, and then you try to change the subject when you're asked to prove that claim.

It is a simple question.

You seem unable to answer that simple question either directly, or convincingly — hence, a diversion is attempted.

If "what is and isn't antisemitism" is such a simple thing (and "not rocket science"), then what is antisemitism, and what isn't it?

Oh I can answer the question but not until you answer mine. And THAT ain't rocket science either. Once you answer it, I answer yours. Fair and simple, no diversion at all; just a simple request. Is there some reason you won't answer mine?

[Simulist]

First let have a little discussion.

You called someone a moron, and then you said that "what is and isn't antisemitism is not rocket science."

I'm simply asking you to prove it. Since it's "not rocket science," this should be very easy.

Exactly please, "What is and isn't antisemitism"?

I told you you weren't gonna like it. But you need to answer that question before I answer yours. That's what happens in a real discussion. Ground rules get set so we are both clear about what's going to happen.

Ball's in your court. Sorry I didn't answer earlier but I was called away from the computer until now.

This is why you are accused of trolling so frequently, 17breezes. You make a claim, and then you try to change the subject when you're asked to prove that claim.

It is a simple question.

You seem unable to answer that simple question either directly, or convincingly — hence, a diversion is attempted.

If "what is and isn't antisemitism" is such a simple thing (and "not rocket science"), then what is antisemitism, and what isn't it?

Oh I can answer the question but not until you answer mine. And THAT ain't rocket science either. Once you answer it, I answer yours. Fair and simple. Is there some reason you won't answer mine?

It is clear that you simply do not know "what antisemitism is and isn't," yet you make the claim to know this frequently — especially as you accuse others of antisemitism.

You have been neither honest nor straightforward here, 17breezes, and everyone here can see it.

Quite clearly in fact.

[82_28]

Doesn't work that way holmes. Fuck an A. Just be cool and respect the others who dwell here mang. Be a friend to others or leave.

[barracuda]

First let have a little discussion. I am a white guy. Do I and other white guys get to define racism against blacks, Hispanics? Will our definitions count as much as theirs?

I'll bite. It's a complicated question. The real world answer is that the hegemonic culture always defines the nature and extent of their own faults, and defines them in order to effectively diminish their significance as much as possible, and to benefit from them if they can. The idealised answer is that only the oppressed can know the extent of their own personal feelings of oppression, but they cannot necessarily articulate or even see the parameters of their true oppression. A race-slave, for example, may know he is being used, but that doesn't always mean he knows or can define the actual mechanism of use he is being forced into in the larger picture of, say, the economic or political goals of his oppressors, and so might not really be able to define the reality of the racism he his constrained by, or which he may unknowingly encounter in his day-to-day life.

Of course, the answer you are seeking is simply "no", and to a certain extent, I will grant that in order to hear you proceed with your definition of antisemitism, and get off the fucking merry-go-round.

[winsomecowboy2]

comedy gold,
looks like a troll, acts exactly like a troll but you know if I just give it a chance and try to see things from his perspective, even just as a ridiculous contorted pandering to my own sense of childish optimism then I just know, just as believed as a child I could wish upon a star that by the power of my love and patience I will de-troll him. We will become as brothers.
Kum fucking by arr.
Subject matter successfully derailed by troll in question? yep, as easy as pandering to the ego's involved. Fighting amongst themselves to jump through distractive hoops. Moderator no less.
Fucking infants.

[17breezes]

First let have a little discussion. I am a white guy. Do I and other white guys get to define racism against blacks, Hispanics? Will our definitions count as much as theirs?

I'll bite. It's a complicated question. The real world answer is that the hegemonic culture always defines the nature and extent of their own faults, and defines them in order to effectively diminish their significance as much as possible, and to benefit from them if they can. The idealised answer is that only the oppressed can know the extent of their own personal feelings of oppression, but they cannot necessarily articulate or even see the parameters of their true oppression. A race-slave, for example, may know he is being used, but that doesn't always mean he knows or can define the actual mechanism of use he is being forced into in the larger picture of, say, the economic or political goals of his oppressors, and so might not really be able to define the reality of the racism he his constrained by, or which he may unknowingly encounter in his day-to-day life.

Of course, the answer you are seeking is simply "no", and to a certain extent, I will grant that in order to hear you proceed with your definition of antisemitism, and get off the fucking merry-go-round.

Your on, but tomorrow, it's almost 130 here and I have to go crawl under my bridge for tonight and I have meetings most of tomorrow 7-5 so I'll post it after that.

[barracuda]

Subject matter successfully derailed by troll in question? yep, as easy as pandering to the ego's involved. Fighting amongst themselves to jump through distractive hoops. Moderator no less.
Fucking infants.

And yet, your own post adds such value to the discussion.

Your on, but tomorrow, it's almost 130 here and I have to go crawl under my bridge for tonight and I have meetings most of tomorrow 7-5 so I'll post it after that.

Don't let the cars keep you awake, hon.

[Project Willow]

I told you you weren't gonna like it. But you need to answer that question before I answer yours. That's what happens in a real discussion. Ground rules get set so we are both clear about what's going to happen.

The following are ground rules for discussion to which I subscribe and that is why I will never have a discussion with you. When I sit down with another human to discuss an emotionally charged and divisive topic, I know I won't get anywhere if I approach the other person with disrespect, and especially if that disrespect is born out of blind rage. I can have empathy for people who are so stuck in their own pain, who can not muster the capacity to approach others with an open and initially non-judgmental heart, but it does me or the stuck person no good to tolerate their behavior and avoid setting boundaries. Boundaries teach the transgressor as much as they protect the transgressed.

You have not approached people here with respect. You have sought to find malice and hatred where none is expected, nor, I would assert, exists. You have sought to sow discord as means to mediate ... something. There is no charity in your voice. We have had on the board numerous instances when posters inferred guilt where none existed due solely to their understandable struggles with trust, but there was humility and vulnerability in their voices. There is only hardness and condemnation in your voice, no humble self-consciousness. I am offended by your treatment of people on this board, many of whom I've been reading for 5 years. I feel both angry and protective, whether that be my place or not.

There should most certainly be a venue where someone who identifies with the current policies and agendas of the Israeli Government can enter into discussion, but not in the form you have established, not without the ability to treat others with a basic level of respect, not without the ability to be open and nonreactive, at least on some level.

I think that as long as your approach is defended, the overall integrity of this board is in jeopardy. I will call again here, publicly, on the moderators to take action and set guidelines for behavior that serves discourse rather than discord, that sets a base level of respect upon which we can all then build. There are guidelines against proclaiming another poster to be an agent, could there not be a guideline against assuming and approaching all posters as if they are closet racists?

[compared2what?]

Alice=antisemite.

Not by my definition of "antisemite." Which would be the quite straightforward "one who's categorically prejudiced against Jews as a class, a priori, just because they're Jews."

Zionism looks a lot bigger from where Alice is sitting than it does from where I'm sitting. And I very much doubt she'd claim not to be speaking as someone who's in a position to see what she's in a position to see, although she also speaks as someone who clearly makes a very serious effort to maintain a high standard of due diligence when it comes to speaking from a well-informed position.

On a related note, and I mean this too in the most neutral sense possible:

I dont know what her experience is beyond Egypt, which strangely, itself supports Israel over Hamas in this matter, so even her own people, Arabs and Muslims as they are, recognize the menace that Hamas represents not only to Jews and Israel but to the entire region itself.

First, the regime of Egypt hardly speak for Egyptians, since they are only accountable to those who keep them in power against the people's will, as their reward for kissing zionist ass. Second, what a racist piece of work you are! Are you incapable of seeing beyond narrow tribal categories? "My people" are scattered all over the world and what unifies us is not religion or ethnicity or language, but our deep conviction that justice, equality, freedom and human dignity are indivisible and that they are the birthright of every person regardless of any other consideration. My people are legion, from all walks of life and all countries and all religions and they speak all languages. But Hosni Mubarak, and you, are not among them.

If you don't know that the Mubarak regime's support for Israel over Hamas is what it is, you're definitely not qualified to speak authoritatively about any aspect of contemporary Israeli politics beyond your personal and anecdotal knowledge on a regional level.

And that's not a remote, theoretical, evolution-of-thought-since-the-1800s kind of a thing.

You really and actually can't conceivably be even passingly familiar with contemporary and recent Israeli politics while somehow remaining unfamiliar with the basic arc of political events in Egypt between Nasser's presidency and Mubarak's. That's just a stone impossibility.

How long did you say you lived there? Something like 27 years, including some undetermined period subsequent to 2007?

Giving you the benefit of the doubt wrt maximum youthfulness and a margin of error of +/- a couple of years for the your-birth-to-your-move-to-America period during which you were an Israeli citizen and resident that would mean you were born, at the latest, sometime around 1990. And possibly much earlier.

....I'm sorry. But I honestly don't see how an Israeli citizen born around or before 1990 1983*** who took enough of an interest in politics and war to do some political war reporting could avoid knowing what the score was in Egypt at least in a general sense from death-of-Nasser-in-1970-(plus-what-he-stood-for) through to the present. At an absolute minimum. Under any circumstances.

I mean that's not any more credible than an American who was born around or before 1990 1983*** and took enough of an interest in politics and war to have done some political war reporting not knowing in a general sort of a way what was up and who was on the USSR side of the Cold War between the Vietnam era and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, plus one or two subsequent events of major significance to the United States in the mess that's followed to the present.

At an absolute minimum, a basic grasp on what the score was there under Krushchev-to-Brezhnev through to Gorbachev, plus some hijinks and highlights from the Putin era. Although in the U.S. such a person would be entitled to a bye on either Andropov or Chernenko or both. I mean, they were barely in office for more than a cup of coffee and they were both out of the picture before our hypothetical American's birth, in all likelihood. Confusion about what title the top leader had would also be well within acceptable limits, as would all place-and-name spelling errors.

So I guess you could have a pass on Sufi Abu Taleb, whose name I readily confess I have to look up my own self, and whom I always think of privately as "Wasn't-there-an-acting-head-of-state-in-there?"

But there's quite a bit less latitude for an Israeli when it comes to knowing what the score is in Egypt than there is for an American's grasp of Soviet and post-Soviet politics. I mean, Egypt is right next door from your perspective.

Whereas to an American, the former Soviet Union might as well be on another continent.

Joking. It's very far away, is my point. And Percy, unless I'm remembering your earlier claims very inaccurately, you have something to account for. Either for trying to score borderline disinformational points via rhetorical tricks or for disqualifying ignorance or for something-I-don't-know-what.

But try to play fair, will you? Please?

Alice is not an antisemite. Try reconsidering it. I think you'll agree with me.

Thanks.

***ON EDIT: And the really sad thing is that my attempt at subtraction may still be off by +/- infinity. I used to score high on mathematical concepts. But on math, not necessarily excluding counting higher than three, not so much. It's the numbers, imo. They just don't mean anything.

Why they gotta be like that, I ask you? Why?