Well, I suppose a fancy-pants elitist snob like yourself feels pretty good about taking it away from the most American writer ever and giving it to some snotty rude cheese eating surrender monkey! But its written in English, now isn’t it? The very same English that God used to write the Bible! Pascal wrote in English? No.
So spread that on your croissant and bite it!
I’ll chime in if only to say that I support Israel in a general sense and find **FinnAgain’**s posts to be informative, as there is much information regarding the issues/facts surrounding the whole situation in the ME WRT Israel that are confounding in their complexity/rigidity/violence. And repetition.
However, in the most recent GD thread “Israel: Why Does This Farce Continue” or whatever its titled, I asked FinnAgain a couple times about his opinions, humanitarian concerns, etc regarding the Israeli side of things and he rebuffed me, saying I needed to PM him to get an answer, saying essentially that “This is about facts, not about me”.
I wasn’t trying to make the thread about him, I was genuinely interested in his personal opinion on what Israel has done wrong/right in the midst of this mess since he is such an ardent supporter of Israel, and I also felt it would shed some light upon the thread.
I also felt that if he expressed his opinions writ large in front of the Dope community that it might shed some light on his positions and how he comes to his conclusions.
I wasn’t trying to call him out or anything, I was genuinely curious. The fact that he wasn’t willing to do so was…kinda annoying, given his vehement defense of the state of Israel.
I wanted to see if he felt that Israel could do anything wrong, at all. Based on his positions and without his clarification on the issue, I guess I have to assume the answer is “no”, which is disappointing, because Israel is a nation not a God, and certainly makes mistakes.
Given his obvious historical knowledge of the facts, I thought that his personal opinions would be enlightening, instead he won’t share it, instead choosing to handwave it away.
I don’t doubt that was your intention, but by the same token you have to realize that once I allowed the thread to become about “what does FinnAgain believe about the every event in the 100+ year history of the conflict”, the thread would be all about me in a way that I did not want.
As I said, I’d be happy to answer any of your questions, as I did for kimstu, in PM.
That’s a rather silly thing for you to think though, isn’t it? Because I disagree with folks on one topic, or twelve topics, or whatever that I think the nation under discussion is Divine and can do not wrong? That’s not a logical conclusion. If you’re still curious, check my most recent post to LHoD in this thread for a link, if you’re curious about a broad overview of the topic from my view.
This Pit thread happens to be all about me (obviously) so I guess if you really want a public forum instead of just asking me questions, use this for all it’s worth. I am not, however, going to provide an itemized list. Yes, settlements expansion is needlessly provocative. No, not all land in the West Bank is Palestinian by ownership rights. Yes, demolishing houses of relatives of terrorists is collective punishment under the 4th GC. No, interning people for security/military necessity is not apartheid and is specifically authorized under the 4th GC. Yes, targeting civilian areas with cluster munitions is wrong. No, targeting valid military targets that are using human shields is not a war crime and is specifically authorized by the 4th GC. Yes targeted killings are much, much more moral than full scale war. No, white phosphorous is not banned by international treaty. Yes… No… Yes… No…
That’s part of my point too. The situation is far too complex and I’m not going to play Gotchya! games because I left something out or happened to not provide enough caveats “Yes allowing the Phalangists into Sabra and Shatilla was a horrible move that HQ should have known better than to engage in, but it apepars to me to be an act of stupidity rather than genocide. Yes Sharon was held personally responsible but no that doesn’t mean he acted with malice but that the fact finding commission found that it was his policy rather than general ministerial policy that caused the atrocious loss of life. Yes the US was right to send in non-combatant troops to try to stabilize the situation. No Iran was not justified in founding, arming, financing and training Hezbollah in order to spread Khomenism and dominate Lebanon, or in attacking US non-combat peacekeepers or kidnapping US citizens or attacking the US embassy. Yes… no… yes… no…”
None of these issues lend themselves to simple, pat answers, and I generally resist making GD threads all about me because no good will come of it.
I didn’t handwave anything away. I told you straight out, truthfully, that I’d happily answer your questions in PM but since I was already been the subject or more than a little personal attention in the thread I did not want to feed the flames.
Well, Pascal was a really smart guy, so he probably thought of it in English and then did his audience the favor of translating it into the lesser, albeit other popular, language of the time.
You know, I wasn’t sure it was Pascal at first, but then I thought, I have nothing to lose by believing it is, so why not?
I certainly appreciate that. And for me, Israel-Palestine is just one of the many fucked-up issues on a very fucked-up planet (to put it in elegant language); it’s a conversation I’ll participate in occasionally, but only for specific, targeted points, and not something I’ll spend hours on. Education is my issue, given my profession; I’ll spend much more time on that.
One specific thing that would help, from my perspective, is to swear off line-by-line rebuttals in almost all cases. In my experience, those are more satisfying to write than they are edifying to read: it’s much better to find the other person’s thesis and respond to that than it is to dissect their post sentence by sentence.
Again, I appreciate your thoughts on the subject. And given that I haven’t participated in one of these threads lately and am writing only about my memories of past threads, I may be out of line to say anything. And FWIW, Ivan is coming across like a real dick here, although he may be a clueless antitheist rather than an outright antisemite; I can’t really tell. In any case, whether I agree with him on any particular issue or not, I do wish he’d shut the hell up.
Thanks for the clarification, Finn. But again, why do you keep thinking that if someone (me) asks you a question like I did that i was making the thread about you? I wasn’t.
Are you concerned that your personal opinion may be at odds with historical/factual evidence, or somehow open you up to undue criticism?
I kind of like to think that you, Alessan and Capt Amazing are sort of our resident experts on Israel (which I think is a monumental issue that puts the world at odds with itself), and I also believe that your opinions (beyond the historical/factual accounts) would further enlighten discussion.
But hey…nobody can make you.
Its all good.
The problem with responding to only a ‘main thesis’ and ignoring dissecting their post isn’t that I do it sentence by sentence, but claim by claim (in general). I find it much easier to keep everything organized that way than huge paragraphs of text that will (invariably) be met with responses that I was paraphrasing or ‘distorting’ or ignoring the important weasel word in sub-clause three of sentence two or…
And sometimes it’s just easier and simpler to quote what they’ve said and respond instead of saying “and you say ‘blah blah blah’ but really it’s yadda yadda yadda and you uses nyeh nyeh nyeh as your support but it’s incorrect on points alpha, beta, and gamma, and…”
As for Ivan, he doesn’t strike me as an antitheist at all. Else his ‘joke’ about Jews being money grubbers makes no sense, nor does his claim that all the crimes of the Mossad should be laid at the feet of the Jews as they’re the Jews ‘most representative organization’. I think he’s just a weasel who refuses to own up to his own prejudices, and when cornered on them, tries to worm his way out of it. “I don’t hate Jews, I just hate all those religious people, or Jews who mention they’re Jews, or Jews in general because they use the phrase ‘Chosen People’ and even though I’ve been told it’s not about superiority at all, I’m going to pretend it is…”
It’s odd, but recently (post, oh, mid 1990’s) I’ve found that most racists act shocked and offended if you call them racists. Even David Duke now claims he doesn’t hate Jews, he’s just warning the world against the dangers of Jewish Supremicism. Our recent and unlamented hardcore Christian Identity racist (in a truly hilarious thread) claimed that he didn’t hate Jews. He just hated the “fake” Jews, who are what all other people today call Jews and who are descended from Satan, are money grubbing, have hooked noses, are all secret billionaires and rule the world, but he’s okay with the “real” Jews, who are white Christian Europeans. For some reason , and I’d wager it’s the societal shift over the last decade or so, racists can’t get rid of their racism, but they can try to spin it for all it’s worth.
That anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism thread was one of the funniest threads I’ve ever read.
I love this place.
And I think my kitty’s still looking for the Ratichrist.
You didn’t mean to be, but that would have been the consequence as I saw it.
I wanted to discuss the issues. Once the thread got into a discussion of my beliefs, if they were justified, if I thought that Israel was wrong enough, or not wrong enough, whether I was a threat or a menace or just a general traitor…
I mean, look how the thread was going up to that point. It had the standard “Finn always supports everything Israel does, or even if he opposes some actions he doesn’t oppose them enough!” , and I responded with enough snark to the point that we actually had to have a ‘no personal jabs even if not against the rules’ Mod action put in.
I didn’t want to fan the flames further by making the thread a discussion about all my views.
No, I base my claims on factual evidence always and I can support them with cites. It’s more the personal attacks and opinions that get lobbed my way. Things along the lines of “you claim that the 4th Geneva Convention supports the general measures of the occupation, whether or not you’re right on that, you’re a fascist inhuman monster who hates Palestinians!!!” (like the OP of this thread)
I’ve recently made a thread about Where We Should Go From Here and why an evenhanded approach was necessary. It had one participant, and all he did was repeat that I was too much of a zealot for him to post to me (which he repeated in each and every single post he made to me). I was… unimpressed.
I’d be happy to participate in another “where do we go from here” thread. Not sure I’d start another any time soon, but I’d try to participate in one.
Fine. I’ll take you at your word and start one…I guess in GD. I want you to be honest (like everyone else, for good or ill) about what you deem necessary for the liberation of not only Palestine, but Israel too. Truly, I don’t think Israel can be liberated from the Palestinian issue (and I suspect at this point most Israelites think of them as “niggers”, and vice-versa) until some kind of solution that provides some kind of equal separation can exist. I’m honestly not convinced that it can, despite the best efforts of various governments.
I honestly feel that the “to the blood” hatred that seems to exists on so many levels that any possible peace between the Palestinians and Jews is doomed from the start.
I hope I’m wrong. On second thought, maybe I’ve said all I have to say and won’t start that thread. While I’m keenly interested in what you have to say, I’m not certain it will matter at this point in the game.
I have to say I just lied to you, Finn, not that you would care. I did in fact start a GD thread about this. I’m no brainiac at all, but I hope I worded it in a way that you can answer.
Thanks,
FGIE
To be honest, I’m a bit disappointed that it’s phrased more along the lines of “list what you see as Israel’s crimes” and less “so what do we do to solve the problem from here.” But okay. I’ll try to take a stab at it in the next 48 hours(ish).
@Mr Dibble - “Some of whom do come across like racist troglodytes of the worst sort.”
What, up there with the likes of stuff you’d see on Stormfront?
Let me just address what seem to be FA’s 2 main beefs about me - my jewish “joke”, and my “Mossad are your most representative group”, claim.
Here is the “joke”. As I made that up in response to the line from the previous poster, “It usually is about the money some way.”, I thought the timing was good, even if I did pander to “money-grubbing” stereotypes. So, deduct points for my content and delivery, but don’t make out like I’ve said the most hateful thing about jews EVAH!
As for Mossad, it is my belief that as they are authorised by the govt. to commit crimes in its citizen’s names, it is at least representative of the Israeli power structure.
@Finn Again - “That’s a rather silly thing for you to think though, isn’t it? Because I disagree with folks on one topic, or twelve topics, or whatever that I think the nation under discussion is Divine and can do not wrong?”
Not in this case, because The Divine has a relevant bearing on the matter - you know, with that Wailing Wall and other Holy sites you’ve dedicated to it, and which you demand eternal access to. Unlike say, in a discussion about cricket, where there is no need to mention its influence.
Oh, and despite what you may think, I am far closer to an antitheist, than an anti-Semite.
See, my issue with you is that you say stuff like this, but never seem to apply it to non-Jews. What about the Dome of the Rock that Muslims “demand eternal access to”? You seem to hold Jews in a special regard for the things their religion makes them do without holding other religions to the same standard. Thus, your “I’m not anit-Semitic, I’m antitheist.” argument seems to break down.
I have not searched all of your posts, this is just an impression based on those posts of yours that I do notice.
Yeah, actually–your schtick would fit right in over there. You wouldn’t be the worst of the SF trogs, but you’d be welcomed. You’ve got a set of justifications and rationalizations for your antisemitism, but the more I read them, the more convinced I become that antisemitism is what we’re talking about.
Look. It’s possible to object strenuously to Israel’s policies, or even existence, without being an antisemite. The guy that first introduced me to the issues was a socialist anarchist who despised the idea of nation-states, for example; he was Jewish and proud of it, even though he was a staunch anti-Zionist.
It’s possible to condemn the Mossad’s behavior without finding rationalizations to mock and deride Judaism constantly.
It’s possible to object to the influence of religion on global politics without making constant little insulting references to Jewish holy places.
You ignore those possibilities. That’s what makes you come across as an antisemite. I think you’re unexamined in these attitudes, however; you would benefit from taking a good, hard look at how you post about Judaism compared to how you post about other belief systems and cultures.
Your “oh, so I’m as bad as the worst racists out there, am I?” schtick is nonsense. You don’t have to put on a white sheet to be a bit of a racist, and you can still suck even if you’re not burning crosses. Your denial seems to be that, sure, you think racist things and like racist jokes, but there are worse racists out there. So what?
Nor are my ‘main beefs’ your enjoyment of racist jokes and your criticism of the Mossad. Criticizing the Mossad is fine, but you’re dodging what you actually said (another fact that leads me to doubt the honesty of your denial). You didn’t say that the Mossad had committed certain crimes and therefore the Israeli state was to blame, but that Jews as a group (that is, internationally, from Ethopia to Ukraine to Brookyln) had to have the Mossad’s crimes laid at their feed as the Mossad is the “most representative” Jewish, and not Israeli organization. Most racists are at least smart enough to use code and talk about “Zioinists”, you didn’t seem to have even that level of awareness and laid the actions of the Mossad at the feet of the Jews, as a whole. Nor are those my only ‘beefs’, your recitation of the traditional anti-semitic slur and libel that the phrase “the Chosen People” is about superiority rather than a burden, your claim that “Here’s an idea - stop shouting “I’M A JEW!” everywhere you fucking go. Most of the planet’s 6 billion population who are not one of the 20 million jews, are sick of hearing about your Jehovah-loving bollocks… well, I am anyway.” And those are just the anti-semitic ideas of yours I’ve seen here. I’m fairly certain you’ve either got other posts, or expressed the same views in the real world with like-minded racists.
To say nothing of your stupidity in not realizing that a significant portion of Jews are atheists, especially after Ha’Shoah, and your nonsense about religion ignores the fact that Jews are an ethnic group as well as a religious group.
As for your silly dodge about the Western Wall, I support access to it, just as I support access to the Dome of the Rock for Muslims and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for Christians, because I recognize the role faith plays in people’s lives even though I’m an atheist. I also recognize that the archeological digs that have been going on around Israel, and under the Temple Mount, are vital to an understand of the history of one of Earth’s most fascinating regions. You’re also displaying the traditional racist pattern of rationalizing reasons to hate with a tiny shred of knowledge that you misuse, access to holy sites is only one reason that East Jerusalem was seen as essential to recapture in '67, others included the fact that ancient Jewish cemeteries were being desecrated and their headstones being used to pave Arab Legion latrines, for example and the worry that a militant group such as Hamas would not allow equal access for all people to all religious sites.
If you knew anything about what you’re blabbering on about, you’d also know that many Israeli Jews would also tend to classify themselves as secular or “traditional”, many do not observe shabbat, many do not keep kosher, etc… and that the Orthodox (and ultra-Orthodox) are a comparatively small group of Israeli Jews. Even for those Israelis who do identify as religious, the issue is often one of 'The temple, that I don’t ever attend, is the right one."
But you haven’t taken the effort to puzzle any of this out or rise above the level of “har har, Jews are money grubbers with a superiority complex and they’re guilty of all the crimes of the Mossad and they can’t do anything without screaming about how Jewish they are, which is why I’m sick of them. Not that I’ve got anything against Jews, mind you.”
Things like this thread make me glad that there are more important things in life than arguing on the internet.
In all fairness, the Jews did plant bombs in the twin towers of the World Trade Center, flew holographic images of airplanes into them, knocked WTC7 over with a wrecking ball while no one was looking, and fired a missile into the Pentagon.
Bastard! You weren’t supposed to tell!!!