Israel - Hamas War X

[Kalbear]

Wait...I've got it! So the problem is that either Jews would be a majority or Muslims would be a majority. What we need is a way to make it so that neither is a majority. 

What we should do is forcibly emigrate the entire white evangelical population of Alabama to the area. This would be about 3 million Christians. This would ensure that no single group could be the majority, and that everyone could hate everyone in turn in a nice balanced tripartite way. I'm sure that at no point that people would get together and team up to hate the Jews, because that never actually happens. They can kick out the settlers in the West Bank and also settle in Israel, pissing everyone off equally. Bonus - they'll come with their own guns, so Israel doesn't have to supply them. 

This has the added bonus of making Alabama a majority black state which I think we can all agree would be a remarkable improvement to the current setup. 

I will not be taking any comments at this time

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

22 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

No, they're way too hilly

Os summoning attempts are well beyond the pale.

 

Edited November 13, 2023 by Ser Scot A Ellison

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, Daeron the Daring said:

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

I stand corrected - I had read that they were also only like 47%, but it looks like it's closer to 55%. 

Albania is a pretty weird counterexample though. It's certainly a valid one, but having multiple generations of people grow up in a state that expressly forbade ANY religion means that Albanians are a lot more secular than many other states. But sure, that works. 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. 

4 minutes ago, Daeron the Daring said:

It's rough to expect 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 to the palestinians, then they might not deserve it in its current state.

I think that's irrelevant to the discussion, honestly. The refugees are not the only reason that Lebanon has started persecuting Christians more, but even if it was - that's a very good argument that Israel should not go to a country that would be majority muslim either. We are going to get a LOT more refugees in the coming decades, especially in the middle east, and having a country that when push comes to shove decides to cleanse those minorities is not a great feeling if you're in that minority. 

[Darzin]

17 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Uh, I hate to point this out but as with other countries in the Middle East, Christians in Syria are a disappearing population. Ten years ago they were 10% of the population, 1.5 M people. Now it’s less than 300,000, less than 2%. I doubt there will be any left in another 10 years.

Can you give me a source for that? I know the Syrian Christian community has been significantly reduced due to the civil war but I don't think it has been quite that drastic. I'd actually be curios for any good sources on post civil war Syrian demographics as I was involved in a discussion about them on another forum. 

Regardless, the Syrian Christian community is not declining due to discrimination from the government if anything the government favors Christians with Christians overrepresented in the Army and Power structure. Christianity is declining in Syria due to the civil war and the fact that Christians have been a target of the rebels combined with Christians being wealthier than the average Syrian as well as having an easier time finding asylum. But the Syrian government which itself is dominated by a small heretical sect does not discriminate against minorities. 

[Bael's Bastard]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Key word. Was. Stop citing shit from centuries ago and deal with the realities of right now.

Really tired of trying to reason with people who can't acknowledge that every Arab Muslim state (including Palestinian Gaza ruled by Egypt and Palestinian WB ruled by Jordan between 1948-1967) ethnically cleansed their entire Jewish communities (nearly 1 million Jews), while more than 25% of Israeli citizens are non-Jews with full civil and religious rights, including about 2 million Arabs. There are literally more Arab citizens of Israel than in the entire MENA and Europe combined.

[Fragile Bird]

@Darzin honestly, I just Googled it. The Wikipedia article is pretty good and there were several other sources listed.

[Relic]

57 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

 

I have family in Indonesia who aren't Muslim, which is where my understanding comes from.

Does your family live in Bali? Cuz that island is Hindu. 

Sad fact - Indonesia barred Israelis from entering the country in 2018 and before that they had to jump through a lot of hoops to get into the country. 

[Daeron the Daring]

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.

Edited November 13, 2023 by Daeron the Daring

[fionwe1987]

1 minute ago, Relic said:

Does your family live in Bali? Cuz that island is Hindu. 

Some do, yeah. And while Hindu's are a tiny majority, they do enjoy freedom of religion. Way more than Muslims do in India, anyway. 

1 minute ago, Relic said:

Sad fact - Indonesia barred Israelis from entering the country in 2018 and before that they had to jump through a lot of hoops to get into the country. 

Yeah. But I'm not saying Indonesia is pro -Israel, or Jews. Just that the notion that Muslim majority nations will never accept equal rights and citizenship for minorities is incorrect from current examples, too, apart from being Islamophibic bullcrap. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 minutes ago, Daeron the Daring said:

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.

We just saw that Indonesia is barring Israeli’s from Indonesia (See, Relic’s post)  How do you square your opinion above with that fact?  

The Two State solution isn’t perfect… but a solution that ends with the expulsion of all Jews from Palestine is worse in my earnest opinion.

[Darzin]

5 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

@Darzin honestly, I just Googled it. The Wikipedia article is pretty good and there were several other sources listed.

Thanks,  I kept trying to Google Syrian Christians and it kept referring me to St. Thomas Christians. I found the source of the 300k which seems like a low estimate, but regardless I wouldn't dispute that the Syrian community is hugely reduced only that it's the result of government discrimination. 

[Relic]

Well, let me be a bit more specific. Israelis can not enter Indonesia on individual tourist visas, as far as i know. They can enter with business visas, and as part of larger tour groups but those visas often get denied. In 2018 Indonesia barred Israeli passport holders from entering the country, but later reversed that decision. 

Bali, being majority Hindu, is quite different from mainland Indonesia. 

Edited November 13, 2023 by Relic

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

3 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

Some do, yeah. And while Hindu's are a tiny majority, they do enjoy freedom of religion. Way more than Muslims do in India, anyway. 

Yeah. But I'm not saying Indonesia is pro -Israel, or Jews. Just that the notion that Muslim majority nations will never accept equal rights and citizenship for minorities is incorrect from current examples, too, apart from being Islamophibic bullcrap. 

Do you not see how your point is contradicted by Relic’s point.

I want a world where all people are accepted and no one is persecuted for their beliefs.  It doesn’t exist… I’m very sorry to say.  Thus pragmatic solutions are what we are left with.

Idealism doesn’t prevent pogroms.

[Kalbear]

6 minutes ago, Daeron the Daring said:

Freedom of movement, and therefore a right to return, is everybody's basic human right.

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. 

6 minutes ago, Daeron the Daring said:

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.

Yeah, good luck with that. On a lot of levels. 

 

3 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

Some do, yeah. And while Hindu's are a tiny majority, they do enjoy freedom of religion. Way more than Muslims do in India, anyway. 

I guess, but I don't know that that's a real high barrier to jump. And freedom of religion in Indonesia is...well, let's say very restricted. For Muslims you can't be certain sects of Muslim, as an example. The law is Sharia law in some of the areas. Laws against women are commonplace, and rights for women are far less. Again, if that's your example of what Jews could look forward to in a Muslim-majority country as far as freedom, I think they'd very much turn it down. 

3 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

Yeah. But I'm not saying Indonesia is pro -Israel, or Jews. Just that the notion that Muslim majority nations will never accept equal rights and citizenship for minorities is incorrect from current examples, too, apart from being Islamophibic bullcrap. 

It's not really islamophobic bullcrap. Islam is kind of special in that it specifically has as part of its religion the goal of having a legal foundation for government built into its holy writings. Not all muslims follow that, mind you, but it is not Islamophobic to acknowledge that. 

And in any case it really doesn't matter because Palestinians don't really support a more moderate form of government. The popular parties for Palestinians are heavily based around Sharia laws and goals. This is what I meant by the vast majority - I mean the vast majority in Palestine. Could that change? Possibly, but it certainly isn't going to be the case any time soon, and it is not reasonable to think that bringing them all together in one country is going to make that change more moderate. 

[Relic]

1 minute 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.

Just because its not something we do doesnt mean it should remain that way. We're not exactly paragons of logic and virtue. The world would be better off without borders, as per John Lennon. I tend to agree with him. Obviously its not going to happen in our lifetime, and probably ever, but we'd be better off as a species if we shed the controlling constructs of our ancestors. 

[Kalbear]

Just now, Relic said:

Just because its not something we do doesnt mean it should remain that way. We're not exactly paragons of logic and virtue. The world would be better off without borders, as per John Lennon. I tend to agree with him. Obviously its not going to happen in our lifetime, and probably ever, but we'd be better off as a species if we shed the controlling constructs of our ancestors. 

Okay, but talking about that as an aspiration is one thing; talking about it as a well-established right that everyone enjoys is very, very different. Especially if you're saying that you should be getting compensation for giving up that right. 

[Relic]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

Okay, but talking about that as an aspiration is one thing; talking about it as a well-established right that everyone enjoys is very, very different. Especially if you're saying that you should be getting compensation for giving up that right. 

Well, sure. Can't really disagree. However, there is no disputing the fact that Americans and Europeans have much greater freedom of movement than many other folks around the world. There's a definite disparity, so its easy to see how someone from say....Syria would look at an American and that they have more rights when it comes to moving about. 

Anyway, im not really sure what you all are discussing here. havent read this entire thread, so ill just leave with that being said. 

[Daeron the Daring]

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.

[Tywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Wait...I've got it! So the problem is that either Jews would be a majority or Muslims would be a majority. What we need is a way to make it so that neither is a majority. 

What we should do is forcibly emigrate the entire white evangelical population of Alabama to the area. This would be about 3 million Christians. This would ensure that no single group could be the majority, and that everyone could hate everyone in turn in a nice balanced tripartite way. I'm sure that at no point that people would get together and team up to hate the Jews, because that never actually happens. They can kick out the settlers in the West Bank and also settle in Israel, pissing everyone off equally. Bonus - they'll come with their own guns, so Israel doesn't have to supply them. 

This has the added bonus of making Alabama a majority black state which I think we can all agree would be a remarkable improvement to the current setup. 

I will not be taking any comments at this time

The football team will still be good though, right? And can't we also send half of the white Christians from Mississippi while we're at it and maybe just every white person from Arkansas? It needs to at least be an option...

46 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

Really tired of trying to reason with people who can't acknowledge that every Arab Muslim state (including Palestinian Gaza ruled by Egypt and Palestinian WB ruled by Jordan between 1948-1967) ethnically cleansed their entire Jewish communities (nearly 1 million Jews), while more than 25% of Israeli citizens are non-Jews with full civil and religious rights, including about 2 million Arabs. There are literally more Arab citizens of Israel than in the entire MENA and Europe combined.

Facts, details, blah blah blah. This is an emotional conversation! 

[Tywin et al.]

48 minutes ago, Daeron the Daring said:

and therefore a right to return, is everybody's basic human right.

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? 

This isn't hard to understand.