The real apartheid state.

[Mouthwash]

Cool.

That was immature.

To be fair, I don't see how Israel can possily justify it's existence unless it claims all of the lands which according to Judaism God gave the Jewish people. Either they have the God-given rights to those lands or they don't.

How can Israel justify the posistion that it has the right to exist on it's current lands in such a way as to not give it the rights to all the lands once part of King David's kingdom?

I'm gonna do you a favor and not respond.

 

[Masada]

That was immature.

Yep, I agree. Ethno-nationalism sucks.

 

[Neverwonagame3]

I'm gonna do you a favor and not respond.

Please respond. I'd be curious to hear it.

 

[Borachio]

That was immature.

I don't agree. I think you're coming across more and more as a rabid racist and fascist. (Which is strange, considering the circumstances.)

Do you realize it? Perhaps you do. And perhaps it's deliberate.

 

[classical_hero]

Various. But, as a religious focal point Jerusalem is probably unparalelled, being a holy city to no less than 3 world religions.

I fail to see how Islam can lay claim to Jerusalem, when there is not one mention by name of Jerusalem, whereas both the OT and NT name the city numerous times by name.

 

[Borachio]

http://www.pij.org/details.php?id=646

It [Jerusalem] derives its religious prominence from being the first Qibla, the initial direction toward which the Prophet Muhammad and the early Muslim community turned their faces in prayer.

Jerusalem also derives significance from its association with Prophet Muhammad's miraculous nocturnal journey to the city and then his ascen¬sion to Heaven. This event is mentioned in the Koran in the first verse of chapter 17, "Glory be to Him, who carried His servant by night from the Holy Mosque to the Further Mosque (al-Masjid al-Aqsa), the precincts of which We have blessed, that we might show him some of our signs."2
In the nocturnal journey (al-lsra'wal Mi'raj) , according to Muslim tra¬dition, Muhammad was transported one night on a winged horse from Mecca to Jerusalem where he led Abraham, Moses, and Jesus in a prayer. Afterwards, Muhammad ascended to heaven accompanied by the archangel Gabriel. In this journey of ascension, Muhammad passed through the seven heavens where he encountered earlier prophets. The Dome of the Rock is the site from which Muhammad ascended.

I could go on.

But those pesky Muslims, what do they know, eh?

How much more convenient if they just came to their senses, realized their mistake, and converted to Christianity!

 

[JollyRoger]

I fail to see how Islam can lay claim to Jerusalem, when there is not one mention by name of Jerusalem, whereas both the OT and NT name the city numerous times by name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_in_Islam

 

[Tahuti]

Note that I opened a special thread for all things Israel-Palestine.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=517066

I definitely believe everything related to the Israel-Palestine conflicted should be quarantined there.

 

[Borachio]

Maybe you should build a wall round your special thread. And only let people in through a checkpoint.

Or is it the other way round, and you should only let them out through a checkpoint?

 

[Tahuti]

Maybe you should build a wall round your special thread. And only let people in through a checkpoint.

Or is it the other way round, and you should only let them out through a checkpoint?

The latter one.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

This has become a wonderful thread in oh so many ways.

 

[Symphony D.]

No, their displacement is Israel's responsibility. Of course it isn't "rendered irrelevant by time," it's rendered irrelevant by geopolitical necessity.

When we expelled the Palestinians, it was because there was simply no way to accommodate them. We did leave those who were loyal to the state (and plenty who weren't), but it really should have been more thorough, in my opinion.

Morris argued that ethnic cleansing is justified, and I think it doesn't need an argument because of course ethnic cleansing is justified.

Since nobody really called any of these three out other than a block quote of the entire post containing them, I thought I would isolate them for posterity.

 

[Tahuti]

This has become a wonderful thread in oh so many ways.

[Are you not entertained?]

I guess we should make this the official Israel-Palestine thread then.

 

[Mouthwash]

This has become a wonderful thread in oh so many ways.

Ignore the troll. Dialectics with him is not a productive effort for him, me, or third parties, because he is absolutely incapable of critically examining arguments. Once he sheds some of his cowardice, he is free to respond at his leisure to the extremely long and more than substantive response waiting around on page 9. Until then, he will continue to revel in and be proud of being a tumor to society.

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide that proves they should value evidence? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument would you invoke to prove they should value logic?" --Sam Harris

Since nobody really called any of these three out other than a block quote of the entire post containing them, I thought I would isolate them for posterity.

I've literally never heard an argument against ethnic cleansing. Ever. The biggest Pro-Palestinian commentators just recycle a bunch of worn-out appeals to emotion, cite international law, and generally rebut nothing that Morris actually says or argues.

The closest I've heard is an empirical argument about the Nakba causing famines in the countries that took them in. Which was a response to Morris's claim that the entire Cisjordan should be cleansed, not to the ethics of ethnic cleansing itself.

The only thing I see to distinguish ethnic cleansing from simply kicking a bunch of people out of their homes (which is hardly unjustified in wartime) is the racism. Which has already been conceded to be nonsense in this particular case.

 

[Borachio]

I can think of several arguments against ethnic cleansing. Let me concentrate on one aspect of it, though.

Just who is doing the ethnic cleansing? And for whose benefit?

 

[Hygro]

I've literally never heard an argument against ethnic cleansing. Ever. The biggest Pro-Palestinian commentators just recycle a bunch of worn-out appeals to emotion, cite international law, and generally rebut nothing that Morris actually says or argues.

So to argue against ethnic cleansing one has to first accept the parameters chosen by this Morris fellow. Otherwise you have literally been unable to hear them.

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide that proves they should value evidence? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument would you invoke to prove they should value logic?" --Sam Harris

Interesting.

 

[timtofly]

I guess we should make this the official Israel-Palestine thread then.

No, cause then we would have to post about Liberia in that one.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Ignore the troll.

Don't worry, I intend to.

 

[Symphony D.]

I've literally never heard an argument against ethnic cleansing. Ever.

Isn't this self-evident in the existence of historical cosmopolitan empires and the current existence of large ethnically diverse multicultural democracies, such as the United States and Canada (which, for whatever their many faults, inconsistencies, hypocrisies, etc., cannot be described in any way as monoethnic)?

Like, yeah, a lot of countries are ethnically homogeneous or wish they were, but not all, and the ones that aren't aren't necessarily worse for it. The counterexample is itself an argument against ethnic cleansing, without going into the moral aspect. Meanwhile, from the response at the top of the link:

(4) Ethnic conflict comes from "concentration," not "fractionalization." Here's where Saideman really shows off his expertise. "The one consistent finding for ethnic conflict is not about fractionalization but about group concentration," he writes. "That where ethnic groups have distinct areas apart from each other within a country, there is more conflict. Why? Well, partly because it facilitates separatism. Partly because groups that are separate have a secure base from which to launch attacks. Partly because intermingled groups may be deterred from attacking since they themselves are vulnerable (kind of like mutual assured destruction)."

Sounds familiar.

 

[Hygro]

Anyone who has studied how markets work or how crowdsourcing works of course understands the intrinsic value of having diversity in a social unit. And I don't mean studied like studied, but studied like, read a short article explaining the idea.