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Israeli-Palestinian conflict


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On 5/17/2021 at 8:09 AM, cyanobacteria said:

to be nice and gentle about it, quick fix is to require some hefty percentage of rent payments to contribute towards equity on the part of renters in individually rented buildings, and state-collectivize large apartment complexes.  more importantly, build mass housing to meet any needs and eliminate the artificial demand for dwellings

On 5/17/2021 at 1:09 PM, chenGOD said:

I agree with most of this except I would have municipal level governments manage the apartment complexes as opposed to state-level bureaucracy. 

I would like to here a more detailed plan but generally agree, BUT would add that the demand isn't totally artificial (or financial). We are social beats and like to group together, we are also practical and would prefer to live close to where we work and "live" for other social activities. You could completely remove money from the system and their would still be demand and competition in urban areas for the best location (location, location). Realistically mass housing isn't going to be built anywhere people would actually want to live, is it?

We've tried versions of social housing in the UK. Built, managed and maintained "council houses" owned by the Local government. Until Thatcher (*spit)  in the 1980s I would guess the majority of the UK population lived in them. It was a post war policy of Labour governments. The reasons are complex obviously, despite good intentions mostly, they were just badly designed and had unforeseen outcomes in that they mostly created ghettos in the suburbs of old cities, huge great wastelands of houses and nothing much else. Concrete jungles with minimal transport links to anywhere else, sources of employment or entertainment for the inhabitants all living on top of each other. Its romanticised by some and probably created some wonderful culture, but they were still ghettos. 

I'm sure urban planners have learnt alot since then, I see the evidence in the houses that are replacing these old council estates. Giving ALL people a front and back door and a space to own and be responsible for, such as gardens. As opposed to shared spaces that become abandoned, unowned and lost to trouble makers.

(apologies for further derailing the thread.....maybe if we could remove the politicians and religious crusaders we could hand over the region to urban planners and see what they would create to diffuse the conflict)

 

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On 5/18/2021 at 12:22 PM, Freak of the week said:

ah, yeah. it's interesting stuff, seen/read a bit about it over the last few years but the people claiming it's 'solved' aren't right, most likely. it's directly tied to too many factors we don't understand enough to say it's solved any time soon. 

that idea related to the idea of a soul/spirit is interesting, would make for some good fiction in the right hands i'm sure. but the basis for connection is totally perceptual, the 'information' part of the black hole information paradox is a bit of a misnomer (as are very many names of things/concepts in physics). glancing at the list of possible solutions there at the wiki link i think the 2nd, information is irretrievably lost makes the most sense (violating the unitarity thing isn't that serious imo here because you're talking about a black fucking hole where spacetime itself is in violation of its own goddamned existence lol, so if some aspects related to that get broken then that might track). the last postulate (Information is encoded in the correlations between future and past) sounds interesting too but i'm probably not smart enough to read further on things and really grasp the implications there.

anyway back on topic i thought i saw some headlines that there's talks of a cease-fire as soon as this week so hopefully at least that happens, i guess? but not seeing any info now so maybe that didn't hold

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Chomsky made the point very well in Fateful triangle that those who oppose Israeli aggression in the region and the continued occupation are Israel's friends, and the real enemies are those who continue along the path to inevitable destruction. That was published nearly 40 years ago in the wake of the first Lebanese war and Sabra and Chatila, but it's something I think about a lot in relation to this conflict. The human cost on the Palestinian side is obvious, vile and unconscionable, a sustained crime against humanity, but there's also the cost to the occupier. Israel has more or less succeeded in their strategic aims, the complete destruction of Palestinian cultural, social, economic and political existence, and in the process their own society has become sick, evil and corrupted beyond recognition. We can look at zionism post WWII and of course we reject the ethnic cleansing and terrorism of the Nakba, the occupation of 67 and so on, but you can also see some good in Israeli society, Labour zionism, the Kibbutzim etc... but now, now there is just this twisted, fascistic revenant, a grotesque right wing militaristic parody, a rogue state that is doomed to eternal war and endless trauma for its victims and its citizens.

Somebody once said that Israel can win as many wars as it likes but it can lose only once, and you have to wonder about the long term planning in Tel Aviv.  It's only a matter of time now before the US disengages with the middle east. They don't need the oil anymore, and climate pressure is going accelerate the shift away from fossils and also make the region less stable. The Saudis, Israel and the gulf states are all going to be dropped and left to fend for themselves, and after decades of atrocities who is going to sympathise with Israel when the shit really hits the fan and they face a real war?  

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5 hours ago, Sensitive Outsider said:

 

I would like to here a more detailed plan but generally agree, BUT would add that the demand isn't totally artificial (or financial). We are social beats and like to group together, we are also practical and would prefer to live close to where we work and "live" for other social activities. You could completely remove money from the system and their would still be demand and competition in urban areas for the best location (location, location). Realistically mass housing isn't going to be built anywhere people would actually want to live, is it?

We've tried versions of social housing in the UK. Built, managed and maintained "council houses" owned by the Local government. Until Thatcher (*spit)  in the 1980s I would guess the majority of the UK population lived in them. It was a post war policy of Labour governments. The reasons are complex obviously, despite good intentions mostly, they were just badly designed and had unforeseen outcomes in that they mostly created ghettos in the suburbs of old cities, huge great wastelands of houses and nothing much else. Concrete jungles with minimal transport links to anywhere else, sources of employment or entertainment for the inhabitants all living on top of each other. Its romanticised by some and probably created some wonderful culture, but they were still ghettos. 

I'm sure urban planners have learnt alot since then, I see the evidence in the houses that are replacing these old council estates. Giving ALL people a front and back door and a space to own and be responsible for, such as gardens. As opposed to shared spaces that become abandoned, unowned and lost to trouble makers.

(apologies for further derailing the thread.....maybe if we could remove the politicians and religious crusaders we could hand over the region to urban planners and see what they would create to diffuse the conflict)

 

it's a matter of doing it over and over until it works.  this type of thing is rare and the UK is so lucky it had them in its past.  everywhere else has rejected it entirely, so of course it fails in some ways when tried, it's a new concept somehow because capitalists don't want it to be that way, it prevents them from effectively taking wage labor

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On 5/17/2021 at 2:26 PM, ignatius said:

IDF meme'd a before after pic of the buildings they blew up. 

john oliver hits on most points and is even handed mostly about framing the current violence. 

 

kosher john oliver response. sabat!

 

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16 minutes ago, Nebraska said:

kosher john oliver response. sabat!

 

that guy is funny. seems reasonable. i hope this starts some kind of white guys in a blank void dialogue.. to inform me and to entertainment me.

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12 hours ago, ignatius said:

that guy is funny. seems reasonable. i hope this starts some kind of white guys in a blank void dialogue.. to inform me and to entertainment me.

Dunno, his argument seemed rather weak to me. “It’s not our fault if we are stronger”. Well, no, but that does mean you have to be extra careful. “Hamas does not play fair”. Well, no, but that doesn’t mean you have to stoop to their level.

 

And … that was it. Not a great performance.

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10 minutes ago, rhmilo said:

Dunno, his argument seemed rather weak to me. “It’s not our fault if we are stronger”. Well, no, but that does mean you have to be extra careful. “Hamas does not play fair”. Well, no, but that doesn’t mean you have to stoop to their level.

 

And … that was it. Not a great performance.

the DJ khaled "oral sex" joke made me laugh.  i'm not weighing in on his argument/retorts... if he and last week tonight have a brief back and forth in this format i might be entertained is all i was getting at. and he doesn't seem like a lunatic. 

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2 hours ago, ignatius said:

he doesn't seem like a lunatic. 

Which is the standard Israeli tactic: don't seem like a lunatic. Palestinians run around screaming, waving around their dead babies to the world but Israeli's are different. They're like us, they're Westerners so whatever it is they're doing must be reasonable.

Bombing a prison camp, which is what Gaza basically is, is not cool. Even if it's spewing home made rockets it's just a really, really shitty thing to do.

 

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16 minutes ago, rhmilo said:

Which is the standard Israeli tactic: don't seem like a lunatic. Palestinians run around screaming, waving around their dead babies to the world but Israeli's are different. They're like us, they're Westerners so whatever it is they're doing must be reasonable.

Bombing a prison camp, which is what Gaza basically is, is not cool. Even if it's spewing home made rockets it's just a really, really shitty thing to do.

 

yeah.. i hear you.. but john oliver usually does well in these back and forths and i think that would be useful.. and entertaining. 

the narrative fundamentally needs to change i think. there are people in the media in israel very critical of what's happening and has happened for so many years. one guy even signed off his last broadcast with "Wake up and smell the apartheid" so it sounds like some people in israel are taking a look in the mirror.

obviously some israeli politics happening as well w/netanyahu trying to stay in power. 

I can't unpack the whole history of all of it and can only hope for some rational pragmatic alignment in the future. as it is now people are held captive by agendas not aligned w/their needs/desires/hopes etc.. 

i was thinking this morning how the creation of israel is such a western white thing to do and fits w/history of how imperialism worked and how europeans claimed the americas etc. like.. of course they'd create a country where one already exists and kick people out of their homes because that's what they've always done more or less.  and saying that i know that jews needed somewhere safe to exist and control their own destiny and post holocaust (and the centuries of being chased around the planet and purged) creating a jewish country probably seemed like a good idea at the time. 

idk.. i'm rambling and talking out my ass listening to tinnitus trying to distract myself so take all this w/a grain of salt. i think everyone is crazy and would put kurt vonnegut in charge if i could.. at least for a few fun years. 

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13 minutes ago, Thu Zaw said:

Lesser known trivia: Russia also created a Jewish autonomous region (in the arse end of nowhere, and with my the gayest flag) in the 30s.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast

indeed that's where it has to be.  you can't just displace existing population centers like fascist israel

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9 hours ago, Thu Zaw said:

Lesser known trivia: Russia also created a Jewish autonomous region (in the arse end of nowhere, and with my the gayest flag) in the 30s.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast

In Michael Chabon’s “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” that region is Alaska.

Not a happy place.

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On 5/23/2021 at 3:19 PM, ignatius said:
On 5/23/2021 at 3:02 PM, Nebraska said:

kosher john oliver response. sabat!

 

Expand  

that guy is funny. seems reasonable. i hope this starts some kind of white guys in a blank void dialogue.. to inform me and to entertainment me.

he sucks. dressing up the same old tired excuses on the Israeli side in a boring imitation of the already-boring standard US late show format doesn't work.

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2 hours ago, usagi said:

he sucks. dressing up the same old tired excuses on the Israeli side in a boring imitation of the already-boring standard US late show format doesn't work.

The other thing that pisses me off about him is that he doesn't address a single one of the points John Oliver makes.

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8 hours ago, rhmilo said:

The other thing that pisses me off about him is that he doesn't address a single one of the points John Oliver makes.

john oliver didn't address this guy on last night's episode. seems like he won't or isn't aware. i think it'd be fun for john oliver to do his thing and demolish the guy's argument. but maybe it's beneath him.  i think there's ample room for jokes to be made in a short segment and a follow up on the situation in israel. i'm sure he's gotten feedback from other places. 

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2 hours ago, ignatius said:

john oliver didn't address this guy on last night's episode. seems like he won't or isn't aware

Maybe that’s for the best. If he’d responded, he’d have made it seem as is it was a coherent statement of a respectable point of view, which it is not.

I seriously think that at this point the West should stop engaging with Israel. It is not particularly meaningful to us economically and it is clearly not in any way the Western country it wants us to believe it is.

#IsraelOutOfEurovision

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14 minutes ago, rhmilo said:

Maybe that’s for the best. If he’d responded, he’d have made it seem as is it was a coherent statement of a respectable point of view, which it is not.

I seriously think that at this point the West should stop engaging with Israel. It is not particularly meaningful to us economically and it is clearly not in any way the Western country it wants us to believe it is.

#IsraelOutOfEurovision

yeah good points.. i don't know about totally disengaging.. perhaps.. but id on't know if being isolationist does us any good long term. it's good to be talking to people especially if the balance of power in the middle east changes in some way.  after many long years of sporadic peace efforts by various administrations idk if 'fuck you guys.. going home' is the best way.. it just leaves room for other powers to step in in various places.. idk.. i'm sure chomsky has better thoughts on this than i do.  domestic politics always wants to talk about israel to appease voters. but also probably some fine print commitments made decades ago. 

 

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2 hours ago, ignatius said:

but also probably some fine print commitments made decades ago. 

perhaps yeah. again i'm not terribly informed about the full political details of history re: Israel but i assumed a large part of the calculus was just the US trying to make/have/keep/insure friends (be that 'friends' or enemies of our enemies) in the right places. sure there's plenty of reasons small and large and new and old tho

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