Lets hold the American people collectively guilty for all the chaos and disruption they have caused throughout the world since its inception, from coups to wars to indiscriminate drone strikes to invasions. Lets hold the American people collectively responsible for the decision to not punish Saudi Arabia for the murder of a journalist. Lets hold the American people collectively guilty for the historical attempts at genocide of indigenous Americans. Lets hold the American people collectively responsible for the detention and separation of families at their borders.
You voted for these immoral monsters. You put them into power. DrDeth: you are responsible for the deaths of thousands. You are as responsible for the actions of your government just as much as the Palestinian people. When are you going to take responsibility?
The Palestinian territories rank #119, well below Iran, Turkey, Algeria, Jordan, Tunisia, and more. It’s comparable to Iraq (obviously still recovering from a decade of war), India, and Indonesia (both of which are very large with rampant poverty). It’s ahead of several sub-Saharan African countries.
If you feel I insulted you, click the little red triangle.
I didn’t make a claim one way or the other about it. You did.
By the way, I know I haven’t said this in a while, but then I haven’t needed to. But apparently I do now.
You are making an argument. When you cite a source in support of that argument, you need to quote the material at the link that supports your point.
If you don’t do that, I have one of two options:
Click through to your link, and then:
a) Find what I think is the part that you think supports your point.
b) Restate what I assume your argument would have to be, given the text I found.
c) Rebut that restatement.
d) Quite possibly get told by you that no, you meant this other part of the article at the link.
e) Then have to rebut that, instead.
Or:
Say to myself, “fuck that shit, he’s asking me to do his own work as well as mine in this debate. Seriously, screw that.”
Yeah, I’m going with #2. Do your own work. Quote the text that supports your position, or I’m just gonna roll on by, because there’s nothing here at the Dope to rebut.
You didnt “insult me” you perpetrated a Ad hominem fallacy.
or in your case, option f which is dismiss my argument and cites based upon “Also, the standard of living is just one measure.” and a ad hominem attack.
My cites simply said that Palestine doesnt have that bad of a standard of living. Refute *that.
*
Ok, I asked for standard of living, not Human development Index, but that’s not too far off. Palestine falls in the upper third of **Medium human development nations. **Not bad- but not good either. Palestine has a rating of 0.686, the Arab states have a average of 0.699, which is pretty close, in other words, Palestine is very close to the average for a Arab state.
Below Palestine are: Morocco, Afghanistan,Mauritania, Iraq, Yemen, Djibouti, Syria, Pakistan, and a couple others.
So, i think that shows that Palestine is about average for a muslim state.
It arbitrarily cherry-picked a few metrics to make its case. One of those metrics was “the network of fresh water sources grew by 50 percent”: but without context that statistic is meaningless. Does that mean the network increased from 100 fresh water sources to 200, or does it mean that it increased from one fresh water supply to two sources? Well we can’t find out from the article because the article DOES NOT CITE A SOURCE. The article that it does cite (a few sentences later) is an article titled:
“Gaza’s water shortage worsening, no easy solutions seen”
And the first paragraph of the article says:
“Marwan An-Najar, a Palestinian from the south of the Gaza Strip, says he has not tasted sweet tap water in 10 years. Every day, he travels four kilometers (2.5 miles) to fill a 20-litre plastic jerrycan at a local desalination station.”
Later in the article it states:
“In a study published in 2012, the United Nations said Gaza would become unlivable by 2020 and its aquifer unusable by 2016. Sheikh said that was almost the case — according to international standards, the aquifer is 96.5 percent unusable.”
Just a reminder: that article was cited by the author of the Weekly Standard article to make the case that “Actually, Palestinians Are Doing Pretty Well Under Israeli Rule.” It cited that article because the Weekly Standard used it to make the case that the current “challenges” were the result of “Hamas’s reckless sewage management and over-pumping from Gaza’s aquifer” even though that allegation isn’t even broached on in the reuters article.
Propaganda.
It follows that statement up by stating “By 2004, 641 Palestinian communities—accounting for 96 percent of the population—had running water, even in seasons of low rainfall.” By putting that statement side-by-side to the first statement it makes it look like the two are related: but how do we know that? Its deliberately misleading. Its propaganda. And even then: its talking about 2004. What is the situation now? The article “Gaza’s water shortage worsening, no easy solutions seen” was written in 2017. So why talk about what happened in 2004?
If you include the ones suffering from or recovering from devastating wars, perhaps. Right now, Palestine is under the control of the government of a country with a “Very High” HDI. Palestine’s HDI has not improved, relative to other neighboring countries, in the last year.
Right now, Palestinian children do not have a decent chance for a decent life, in general. This is not the fault of most Palestinian people, since most of them similarly had no decent chance at a decent life. Humans without a decent chance at a decent life might take desperate action, including possibly supporting organizations that commit violent acts against the state whose policies restrict their chance at a decent life, just like the desperate people opposing apartheid did.
When the Palestinians are assumed to be normal humans, behaving as normal humans typically do under similar circumstances, the situation isn’t that hard to understand, IMO. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to fix – it’s obviously not. But these are just humans, doing what humans generally do under similar circumstances. There’s nothing unusual about humans in the Palestinian territories.
However if it makes you feel better I also used iiandyiiii cite from the Human development Index which shows that Palestine is about average for a Arab state. Not good by any means, but not that “Desperate, impoverished”.
Sure. Hardly good, I agree. Much room for improvement, definitely. But again, your own cite showed they were about average for a Arab state. So, not that “Desperate, impoverished”, and certainly no grounds for Terrorism.
That is not actually my argument, but feel free to declare victory if that’s what you’d like. I was hoping for an actual discussion and exchange of ideas; I’ll be here if you’re still interested in that.
…LOL. You’ve hit on a winning debate tactic here. Just respond with “Ad hominem” and declare victory!!!
I did a thoughtful deconstruction of your cite. You demanded a refutation and I gave you a refutation. Now you refuse to address that refutation. I would say that I am surprised, but I’m not really.
That article was pure propaganda. Its purpose was to mislead. Its purpose was to advance a very specific narrative and it twisted statistics to make its case. And it worked. You believed it without question.
I commend you on your well declared victory! Discussion can be challenging, but declaring victory is definitely an alternative – congratulations! Truly you have declared victory like few others!
Yet another awesome declaration of victory! Sure, we could discuss whether being better than some of the most dysfunctional, impoverished nations in the world really makes a group not “desperate” – and maybe you think anyone better off than Pakistanis and Yemenis isn’t “desperate” or “impoverished”. We could have that discussion… or we could bask in your well-declared victory. We could talk about whether the Palestinian people are just intrinsically bad, and deserve to be kept in conditions such that their children don’t have a decent chance at a decent life, or we could enjoy your awesome declaration of victory. We could actually try to have a discussion, or if you’d prefer, we could not do that. Decisions, decisions…
Its that I read your cite and discovered it was propaganda.
I’m not convinced you read past the headline. You certainly didn’t check out the veracity of the statistics that it used.
Except you didn’t prove his point. From the article that **you **cited we hear the story of a man who has to walk 2.5 miles every single day to get 20 litres of water. From the article that **you **cited I found out that “90 percent of the water in the aquifer (is) unfit for domestic use.” I found out that things are so desperate that “desperate Gazans (are) trying to tap into the underground reserve via homemade wells.”
I think the characterization of “desperate, impoverished people” is entirely supported not only by iiandyiii’s cite: but by the cite that you provided as well.
What **your **cite shows is that things are really fucking bad in Gaza. And what iiandyiii’s cite shows is that even though really fucking bad in Gaza, things are even fucking worse in other places around the world. They do not prove your point.
Yep. If you are about average in the world you are not particularly “Desperate, impoverished”. I did concede “Hardly good… Much room for improvement, definitely.”
But not so desperate as to NEED to use terrorism as the only way out.
I have tried to have a discussion. You wont even agree that the palestinians use of terrorism is wrong. Your whole points are “Palestine= noble and good, Israel= evil and wrong”. There no room for discussion with you, even when your very own cite proves you wrong so you go into childish rants of “I commend you on your well declared victory! Discussion can be challenging, but declaring victory is definitely an alternative – congratulations! Truly you have declared victory like few others!”
So admit that things aren’t so “Desperate and impoverished” in Palestine that it is Ok for them to use Terrorism or you arent trying to have a discussion. When you try to justify terrorism, you are wrong. Period. Open & shut.
Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians certainly has much room for improvement. But as long as Terrorism is justified & accepted, there really no way to have a reasoned discussion.
Most of this has nothing to do with my actual arguments, and I’ve never attempted to justify or defend terrorism (nor would I), and I’ve never called Israel “evil and wrong” or anything close. Some of my distant relatives escaped the Holocaust and ended up in Israel, in fact – I have blood interest in the long term safety and security of Israel. If you want an actual discussion, feel free to respond to my actual, specific words, not this sort of straw-man silliness, and I’d be happy to post my thoughts.
…good grief. iiandyiiii had defended Israel in this thread. He holds a very nuanced position on the debate. This characterization of his position is disingenuous in the extreme. You should withdraw this claim apologize.