Palestinian Crisis: More than meets the eye?

[Winner]

*nauseous from winners post*

the conflict cannot be properly addressed with information from the media. you need to find out for yourself from alternative sources, or perhaps from reading Noam Chomsky, who is a jew and lived in the kibbutz. he will help you understand what israel has done

Noam Chomsky the Marxist, no thanks.

It's rather disturbing how lefties cooperate with islamists, like they were their ideological allies or what. They somehow fail to understand that the islamists have a completely different agenda. They must be excited to see that there are so many useful idiots in the West...

 

[Stapel]

If there is one thing we can easily say about the Israel-Palestina conflict, it is that there is indeed more than meets the eye.

On the one hand, Israel is oppressing Palestinians, clear and simple.
Otoh, civilian-aimed rocket attacks on Israeli villages occur daily and no matter howmany things Israel does wrong, they are a beacon of democracy and free press in the whole area.

That's where, imho, the biggest problem is. Palestinians, just as any Arab people, are not used to press that is not government controlled. It appears to be unthinkable in the Arab mind to have a newspaper or TV-station that is not controlled by the (dictatorial) government. This knife cuts back, because as result, Palestinians do not know how to 'handle' the western journalists.

 

[holy king]

It's rather disturbing how lefties cooperate with islamists, like they were their ideological allies or what. They somehow fail to understand that the islamists have a completely different agenda. They must be excited to see that there are so many useful idiots in the West...

the world must look funny through those black and white glasses...

 

[Winner]

the world must look funny through those black and white glasses...

I am the last one who's acting like the world was black&white.

What I say is that there is a trend. Political left in many Western nations support the Islamists (and notice that Islamist =/= Muslim) and is the main proponent of freedom-limiting political correctness.

I wonder if they're really so stupid or they have some ingenious plan I am unable to decipher.

 

[Stapel]

I am the last one who's acting like the world was black&white.

What I say is that there is a trend. Political left in many Western nations support the Islamists (and notice that Islamist =/= Muslim) and is the main proponent of freedom-limiting political correctness.

I wonder if they're really so stupid or they have some ingenious plan I am unable to decipher.

I see this with more nuancation.
True, there is more and more criticism towards Israel, but this is not per se the same as support for Islamists.

The point is that we (the west) can only influence Israel, because we speak the same democratic language.

In other words: we treat the Palestinians as backward victims and try to persuade Israel to act like the wiser brother.

 

[holy king]

Political left in many Western nations support the Islamists (and notice that Islamist =/= Muslim) and is the main proponent of freedom-limiting political correctness.

criticizing isreal does not mean supporting islamists. pointing out that those who became islamists because they are being opressed are being opressed is neither.
what you suggest is either the "either against us or with us" ideology or you wrongly believe there really is support for islamistic agendas amongst a majority of the european left...

 

[classical_hero]

@Stapel. But what if the annoying little brother refuses to respond to what you say and continually lies abut you, what do you do then?

Edit. Xpost.

 

[Verbose]

If you don't like Chomsky, how about reading the old liberal anthropologist Victor Turner?
"Dramas, fields, and metaphors : symbolic action in human society" (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell U.P., 1974)

Part of his research was about how things are symbolically framed, roles are chosen and acted out by societies.

Is there a theatrical aspect of the Israel Palestine conflict? With things being staged?

You betcha! Both sides are doing it in spades.

The fact that both Israelis and Palestinians have theatrical responses to make their conflict visible to themselves and others in no way, shape or for means that it's somehow "not real".

Lots of otherwise meaningless symbolic action taken, lots of fierce looks, grand-standing, verbal swordplay for the galleries, and a suffocating amount of simply "going through the motions" of appearing at the same time strong and determined, but yet somehow reasonable and approachable for suggestions about a solution.

Welcome to the international politics of symbols.

 

[Stapel]

But what if the annoying little brother refuses to respond to what you say and continually lies abut you, what do you do then?

Nothign. I am 100% sure this conflcit can only be solved when the Arab world turns more towards democracies with free press.

 

[holy king]

But what if the annoying little brother refuses to respond to what you say and continually lies abut you, what do you do then?

islamistic organizations have provoked conflict, israel has provoked conflict in the past, do you really want to tell us who is right?

 

[classical_hero]

Nothign. I am 100% sure this conflcit can only be solved when the Arab world turns more towards democracies with free press.

So how are we going to get them to become Democracies?

 

[holy king]

So how are we going to get them to become Democracies?

stop supporting dictators (for some countries only possible when the west has lost its dependency on oil) and wait?

 

[Stapel]

So how are we going to get them to become Democracies?

Mostly by waiting. I'm sure it will come, especially due to internet. The situation in Egypt today, is a lot better than a decade ago. Eventually, the world goes forward and even the Arab world must turn toward Free economies, with Free speech and Free elections.
Not tomorrow though. But in a few decades? I surely think so.

 

[classical_hero]

Isn't that what America tried with Iraq?

 

[Stapel]

Isn't that what America tried with Iraq?

The US tried to enforce democracy in Iraq. And such even without installing a proper Free media system (a simple prerequiste for democracy), first!

I applaud the Yanks for trying, but it was a miserable attempt.

 

[Bast]

Is there a theatrical aspect of the Israel Palestine conflict? With things being staged?

You betcha! Both sides are doing it in spades.

Not really. I've only seen the evidence for one side doing it--in this thread. If and when you can come up with evidence for the other side supposedly doing it, we'll talk.

 

[Verbose]

So how are we going to get them to become Democracies?

Not by abolishing it every time they elect some people we don't like at least, that's for damn sure.

First time the French held an absolutely free general election, the French public voted Napoleon III into office. This to the utter, utter confusion of the French democratic politicians who had pushed through this idea about the benefits of democracy and general suffrage.

A bit later the Germans somehow managed to end up with Adolf Hitler as Reichschancellor, even if he wasn't the majority vote.

Compared to stinkers like that, Algerians, Pakistanis nor Palestinians have yet to muck up the whole democracy-thing quite to that extent.

Of course, they haven't had the chance, as somehow some "friendly dictator" (to us, the western nations) pops up and this experiment with democracy is over. For now.

Democracy is pretty difficult to make stick. Not that anyone would want repeats of Adolf Hitler, or even Napoleon III, it's just that the process to build a mature democracy in an open and free society, which is also required, is full of pitfalls and dangers.

And it's not really an option to just abolish it for some people every time half-a-risk pops up.

 

[holy king]

Isn't that what America tried with Iraq?

first supporting saddam against iran, then bombing and embargoing the hell out of iraks inhabitants after he went crazy and tried to occupy kuwait for a decade, then marching in under faked premises and expecting to be loved by said inhabitants who will instantly form a western democracy?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

great thread... a bunch of guys try to solve the gordian knot by pissing on it...

Nice.

Not really. I've only seen the evidence for one side doing it--in this thread. If and when you can come up with evidence for the other side supposedly doing it, we'll talk.

Do you think there is a single goverment in the world not staging events?

 

[Bast]

Do you think there is a single goverment in the world not staging events?

So these actors in these video are the Palestinian government?

Can you stop being vague and show me like evidence or talk about specific things?