Daeron the Daring

57 minutes ago, Relic said:

56 journalists have been killed.

Israel should declare war on the profession of journalism. They do more harm to the state than Hamas.

16 hours ago, Kalbear said:

But it's not 'continually' floated. It's the same plan that was floated a few weeks ago. We just got more details about it. It is the same source, the same person, the same plan. 

It is casual excercise from media to have something put in people's ears continuously, mostly to have people get used to the given idea they 'promote'. 

Not saying that's the intent here, but it's a simple 'trick' to have people time to process the information they are told. If you introduce the idea of something only step by step, you won't have a reactionary force as strong as you would have if you were to suddenly air everything about a given plan of some sort.

Not only because disinterest grows on a daily basis, but also because you can get people feel accustomed to the idea of it. And this, of course, can work in positive and negative ways. Imagine if Russia told on Day 1 that they're straight up gonna annex parts of Ucraine they conquer, but also imagine if the idea of lockdown being introduced the day after it is announced. Both would've provoked a stronger reaction against said actions.

Also, why does provoke have a k, while provocation has a c? The latin origin of the word surely used a c.

1 hour ago, Alester Florent said:

Honestly, I think while there is a fixation on GRRM's comments that he originally planned a time skip, the suggestion that we need a timeskip now is largely redundant because the events of AFfC and ADwD were, largely, the events that would have otherwise been skipped. We're now reaching the end of the long period of "skippable events" and back into more rapid progression of the plot. At least, I think so.

So at this point I don't believe a time skip would be necessary or desirable. Or that GRRM is considering one.

Yes, but it also feels like TWOW would need to move at least at the pace AGOT did to have the story fit into a frame we are told we are getting.

The sample chapters don't indicate anything resembling that. In fact, we should expect a lengthy resolution of events that spen just a couple days. 

And frankly, not many plots feel like shrugging them off with almost nothing is adequate: Meereen, The Wall, King's Landing, Winterfell.

Not to mention George doesn't aim at adequate.

4 hours ago, mormont said:

That analogy isn't at all reasonable. For a start, Hamas actually were the folks who committed the October attacks.

It wasn't necesarilly what I referred to.

While it is true that there's no ambiguity behind who is responsible for October 7 (Hamas), but that the principal goals behind it are similar (Iraq had multiple, among them the alleged existence of weapons of mass destruction): Dismantling the opressive regime and disarming said opresisve regime both for the safety of Israel (USA) and the palestinians in Gaza (iraqis). It's a war against terrorism and the state structure supporting it, in both cases.

But the basis of the comparison was more that the current criticism of the intervention is received in a similar fashion and that we will see this ongoing conflict, say, 20 years, in a light similar to that of the Iraq War. Once the fog of war settles/blows away.

It's more of a prediction than the reflection to what already happened.

11 hours ago, TrueMetis said:

People get angry, yell, but ultimately nothing actually happens? Because that's how it typically works to my knowledge.

Don't you understand it?

Israel had their own 9/11, now they get to do their own Iraq War, just like America was 'allowed' to do it.

13 hours ago, Kalbear said:

And that would mean it's not an established right. Even the UN gives this a right within the borders of their own country. 

I guess it's up to interpretation.

13 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I don't agree that the right to return is an established basic human right. It is a right to return to your country of citizenship, but what if that country doesn't exist any more? The UN has a whole lot of debate about this right now as well. I reject this as a basis for understanding here. 

The current situation of the palestinians is the creation of the wrongs they were subjected to in the past. Saying that they have no right to return because they lack a recognised state (and hence are no citizens of any recognised country) is simly not true. It's not the societal legal framework what makes them human beings, it's them being one.

But the idea/concept of compensation for displacement (which can happen via the right to return) doesn't exist for israeli palestinian citizens either.

That there's no legally binding obligation towards Israel in this matter is probably because it would be impossible to implement such a thing outside the framework of the 'final' peace negotiations, the result of which would be a two separate or one state, with equal rights for everyone.

13 hours ago, Kalbear said:

It is, however, a very weird stretch of logic to say that Jews should have a right to get the property and land stolen from them by Nazis but Palestinians should not get recompense for being kicked out of their homes.

I absolutely agree. I am very much in favor of state-led implementations of reparations towards jews who endured systemic injustice in the past. Not sure who expressed their disagreement towards the idea of it, (certainly not me) altough I've seen this brought up as a counterargument against the right to return. (I honestly may have missed it, altough I read like 90% of the discussion from the first topic)

But two wrongs don't make one right, and nobody can say that palestinians don't have a right to demand such a thing because jews give up on the same thing towards european and middle-eastern countries.

21 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Do you realize many of the people calling for a right to return also don't believe Jews ever had the right to return? Do you also realize part of the call for a right to return is to end the Jewish state of Israel?

No, I have been completely unaware of that until now. Thanks for telling.

11 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I don't agree with that, nor is that a particularly well-understood right of everyone. That's actually a pretty unorthodox idea. Freedom of movement is emphatically not what the entire world is based on right now. Not even remotely, not in the most liberal countries, not anywhere. 

By basic I specifically meant it is an established right of our species, established by the consensus of what one would call the free part of the world (but also the UN). Yes, it is widely restricted today, and that's not something that decides wether it is righteous or not.

Other than that, the right to return is once again, one such established basic right of every human being. That it is not excercised worldwide is a different topic.

But sure, if we want to be cherrypicking, some countries oppose the establishment of the right to water and food as a legally binding principle too for every human being as a basic human right.

20 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Interesting to me, Sunnis are apparently working to make Islam the 'official' religion of Albania, but not sure how well that is going to work. 

I'm not familiar with an overarching movement for that, but I know that muslim albanians are almost all in favor of uniting with Kosovo, all the while only a significant minority of catholic albanians support it, in fear of what the large increase of muslims would mean for them. (since the albanians of Kosovo are almost entirely muslim)

20 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I think that's irrelevant to the discussion, honestly.

Well, so is the fear of palestinian/muslim majority then. 

Freedom of movement, and therefore a right to return, is everybody's basic human right. A two state solution doesn't resolve that, and the only way it would be resolved otherwise is a negotiated compensation for giving up on that, all the while, say, giving up such right would have enough public support from the public to be deemed legitimate.

17 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Bosnia is not a Muslim majority country though they're very close.

I stand corrected in that I tought they are somewhere between 53-55% muslim when it comes to religious composition. 51%, but still a majority. An important factor is that the remaining minorities are divided into two large groups: croats and serbs, between who exist little to no political cooperation, so bosniaks' 'lead' is made a little more significant because of that.

17 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Albania isn't either. In both countries Muslims are the largest proportion but they are still not a majority.

They are, in fact, a majority, not just a plurality.

17 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Lebanon is another excellent example of precisely what Israelis would fear - that an increasingly conservative muslim population would do more and more persecution.

It's rough for a country the size of Lebanon to handle so many refugees. Even much larger countries are afraid of similar numbers of refugees. But I do think palestinians are the responsibility of Israel. If the price of an Israeli state is what happened and is happening to the palestinians, then they might not deserve it in its current state.

1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Are the nations surrounding Israel typically Middle-Eastern countries?

Are the countries surrounding Bosnia/Albania typical european countries?

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Are Bosnia and Albania in the middle-east?  Are they in Asia.

Is Israel your typical Middle-Eastern country?

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

What muslim majority countries are there out there that do this? Serious question. The only one I can think of that might apply is turkiye, and that's stretching things.

Bosnia, Albania.

Lebanon, to some extent, altough the syrian refugee crisis had a heavy effect on the country (which resulted in the deteoriation of religious freedom of the christian population).

Now in particular, Bosnia is not a succes story, but it is important to note that the creation of a single state in principles would not be so different from how the modern-day Bosnia was created. Ethnic and religious lines couldn't simply be drawn for obvious reasons, and despite the recent Yugoslaw wars (which had some real shit happen), the consensus of the arbitrators was to draw those lines you see on the maps, making the country a muslim majority one. The three main ethnic groups all hate the other two, and yet it's a 'functioning' state.  That we cannot apply the same principles in case of this situation rather seems driven by interest to me.

28 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

How are Christian and Jewish Minorities doing in Egypt?  Jordan? Syria? Saudi Arabia? Yemen?

So when I mention that there are a few muslim-majority countries that get along relatively well with their christian minority, these countries come to mind for you as the greatest examples for that? Am I supposed to believe you're answering in good faith then?

Also, let me remind you that the same region endured less religious hostility before the appearance of violent colonial resettlement. Not that it's anybody's fault right now (and I certainly don't meant to shift any sort of blame on the current population/governance of Israel), don't get me wrong, but if you were to dive into it, you'd find out that islam was much more tolerant of other religions historically than the ones it encountered (mainly referring to abrahamic ones) but also that it didn't have religious hostility as it's main principle througout most of its history, unlike today it (mostly) is.

The idea that fundamendalists, zealots, crusaders, and terrorists are the 'real' representation of a certain religion are bigoted in nature, and such viewpoints are mostly targeting judaism and islam these days.

There are secular (and some non-secular) muslim countries with and without significant religious minorities and relatively low religious hostility. They exist, and even if they didn't, it wouldn't mean nothing similar ever could. 

It's more worrying to me if people think they can't live together because of religion.

12 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Looking at this realisticly… do you believe a majority Muslim Arab State in Palestine would respect the right of Jews to emigrate to that new State?  That the Muslim Arab majority State would respect the religious practices of religious minorities in the newly created State?

If yes, why?

Because muslims are human beings as well, hence why they are capable of it like anybody else? And because there are more than enough countries like that to make that argument? And because palestinians, like every other nation/ethnicity, are not a monolith that think all the same, and because such a soultion wouldn't dismantle the economic dominance of a would-be supposed jewish minority?

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I believe, with regret and sadness, that a “two State solution” is the least bad option for dealing with the question of Palestine/Israel.  

Apart from the fact it's inherently meant to maintain the hatred these 2 groups of people feel against each other, it'd also probably mean to blockade freedom of movement, and therefore a right to return for palestinians.

Not to mention that the process of creating two separate states would be arguably much more violent than a process of reconciliation for the two sides, as of now. It used to be not like that, but it's not the case anymore.

And I've seen the argument that it's impracrical because palestinians (as a whole) would rather live in a muslim state dominated by certain levels of religious law than a supposed secular democratic one. While that is true, I'd say it's hardly an argument against a one-state solution, because I don't think the entirety of the palestinian nation, a majority or a significant minority would rather endure their current conditions instead of peace and prosperity in a secular democracy.

5 minutes ago, Ran said:

You lost me by linking to Hasan a long time ago, so very fair.

Well, at least my reasons aren't childish.

1 minute ago, Ran said:

By god, some of you seem to think quoting things out of context is the height of wit. Cringe, as you Twitch bros say.

I sincerely apologize for being uncapable of taking you seriously.

10 minutes ago, Ran said:

The IDF would prefer to not have to make these calculations

Finally, something we agree on.

15 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

As many civilians as Hamas can hide behind.

Ok, but you do find justification for it, no? You must have a metric that's the arbitrator, no? I have one too.

This argument and the idea of nuking Gaza are different in scale, but no really in proportionality. Why not nuke Gaza? Bombs and bombs. Different in scale, but you'd have no more of this Hamas shit. 

So hey, how many civilians are worth 1 Hamas member in the bombing campaign? What is the portion you'd think is not okay?

4 minutes ago, Ran said:

The IDF does not deliberately target civilians. It targets military objectives or hostiles, and attempts to mitigate civilian harm as far as its practicable within the laws of warfare.

How many civilians do you think died for every Hamas militant in the bombing campaign? 

24 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

It's because we all agree that children can't be held responsible for anything

More like children and Israel these days.

-you see a mistake here-

3 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

Has Israel considered taking out that leadership rather than killing loads of civilians in Gaza (which is going to radicalise people into joining Hamas or Hamas 2.0 and so the operation is defeating its own aim)?

It was a joke. Mainly because it's something some people said before in these threads to me, specifically, when I made the same argument.

I was trying to express how ridicoulous the opposing stance is.

1 minute ago, Craving Peaches said:

I think a rather callous attitude is being displayed, and it would change if one were in the hospital. 

Have you considered telling that to Hamas officials in Doha?