I don't think they have legitimacy as a state, myself.

They have not operated as a state in the sense of gaining recognition from any other state, nor have been able to provide anything like public services on a consistent basis, nor claim a relatively steady area of control or a steady domestic population. Unlike Christian notion of life beginning at conception, a state does not begin until it actually function independently as a state.

(August 12, 2016 at 11:10 pm)Bella Morte Wrote: Israel doesn't want to force me to live under a barbaric legal system or behead me and parade my body through the streets. I don't care what you think of Israel but comparing them to ISIS in anyway is fucking stupid.

I find myself agreeing with this sentiment, and that's why (while I have a lot of sympathy for Palestinians as a people) I'm not sypathetic to the idea of a Palestinian state. The Middle East doesn't need yet another Islamic fundamentalist shithole, got more than enough of those already. Israel is the lesser of two evils.

Overall I see the Israel/Palestine conflict as incredibly petty. This is how low religious conflict has sunk, we have two ideologies battling it out over a barren strip of desert. Label it "The Holy Land" though and suddenly everyone wants it.

(August 12, 2016 at 11:25 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Um... there are degrees, though.

---

http://www.violenceisnotourculture.org/c...ear-israel

Quote:Jewish ‘modesty patrols’ sow fear in Israel

Quote:The unidentified, 31-year-old woman had left the ultra-Orthodox fold after getting divorced, according to the indictment filed by the Jerusalem district attorney's office. The indictment said her assailant tried to get her to leave her apartment in a haredi neighborhood in Jerusalem by gagging, beating and threatening to kill her. He was paid $2,000 for the attack, it said.

A 17-year-old who moved to Israel from New York five years ago said she was hospitalized after being attacked with pepper spray by a crowd of men outraged that she was walking down a Jerusalem street with boys.

The Angry Desert God is a dick, BM.  He brings out the absolute worst in people.

---

And you'll get assholes like that everywhere. What's this got to do with the Israeli government? They even prosecuted the Jewish extremists who burnt down Palestinian homes. They've held their military personnel accountable for abuses.

I didn't say they were perfect anyway, but as Yeaux says, I would rather have a secular state like Israel over another Islamic shithole in the Middle East.

We have some strange allies. There have been reports about Saudi Arabia having a part in 9/11, and they're basically an ISIS that made it, yet they're our allies. Israel is continually invading Palestine, yet the US is supporting it. We even have general Patraus wanting to arm al-Queda, the group that attacked us on 9/11. What we do in the middle east is not for the good of humanity. It's for power and resources.

(August 13, 2016 at 9:12 am)Chad32 Wrote: We have some strange allies. There have been reports about Saudi Arabia having a part in 9/11, and they're basically an ISIS that made it, yet they're our allies. Israel is continually invading Palestine, yet the US is supporting it. We even have general Patraus wanting to arm al-Queda, the group that attacked us on 9/11. What we do in the middle east is not for the good of humanity. It's for power and resources.

Oil.

Simple.

Once Saudi runs out, barely anyone will give a shit about them.

(August 13, 2016 at 9:14 am)Bella Morte Wrote:

(August 13, 2016 at 9:12 am)Chad32 Wrote: We have some strange allies. There have been reports about Saudi Arabia having a part in 9/11, and they're basically an ISIS that made it, yet they're our allies. Israel is continually invading Palestine, yet the US is supporting it. We even have general Patraus wanting to arm al-Queda, the group that attacked us on 9/11. What we do in the middle east is not for the good of humanity. It's for power and resources.

Oil.

Simple.

Once Saudi runs out, barely anyone will give a shit about them.

And when that day comes, they may suddenly discover the virtues of secular government and basic human rights, if only to beg a place at the table of adult nations.

If the U.S. had heeded Jimmy Carter's admonitions to seriously pursue conservation and alternate sources of energy, by now we might have been in a position to tell the Saudis and the other oil-producing states in the Middle East to go fuck themselves, which might have hastened their progress toward 'civilized society'. But like any other junkie with good intentions, we paid lip service to rehab and then lurched right back into the 'hood to get our fix. And here we are nearly 40 years later, still glassy-eyed and scratching our arms. The only difference is that the M.E. is now even worse than it was in the '70s. But that's how things go in the 'hood when drugs are the only stable source of income.

(August 13, 2016 at 9:12 am)Chad32 Wrote: We have some strange allies. There have been reports about Saudi Arabia having a part in 9/11, and they're basically an ISIS that made it, yet they're our allies. Israel is continually invading Palestine, yet the US is supporting it. We even have general Patraus wanting to arm al-Queda, the group that attacked us on 9/11. What we do in the middle east is not for the good of humanity. It's for power and resources.

Uh, no. Saudi Arabia is not an Isis that made it. Saudi Arabia regime and the society may be guilty of extreme, anachronistical conservatism. But it is deeply rooted in the culture over which it rules and with which more or less coevolved over centuries.

ISIS is actually a phenomenon born out of extreme opportunism, and uses dragging societies upon which it afflicted itself several centuries back as a tool to rally desperate elements from OUTSIDE those societies.

(August 13, 2016 at 9:12 am)Chad32 Wrote: There have been reports about Saudi Arabia having a part in 9/11, and they're basically an ISIS that made it, yet they're our allies.

No they aren't! They are quite different to DAESH - they may have started under similar circumstances, but so what? The USA started in basically the same way as well. DAESH is a caliphate, Saudi is a monarchy.

(August 13, 2016 at 9:46 am)Anomalocaris Wrote:

(August 13, 2016 at 9:12 am)Chad32 Wrote: We have some strange allies. There have been reports about Saudi Arabia having a part in 9/11, and they're basically an ISIS that made it, yet they're our allies. Israel is continually invading Palestine, yet the US is supporting it. We even have general Patraus wanting to arm al-Queda, the group that attacked us on 9/11. What we do in the middle east is not for the good of humanity. It's for power and resources.

Uh, no.  Saudi Arabia is not an Isis that made it.  Saudi Arabia regime and the society may be guilty of extreme, anachronistical conservatism.  But it is deeply rooted in the culture over which it rules and with which more or less coevolved over centuries.

So? Suddenly it's respectable?

I don't give a semblance of a fuck how Saudi Arabia came to be. It's a backwards shithole, and it can willingly move into the 21st century or get dragged into it kicking and screaming.