New discussion thread for Israel/Gaza/West Bank (Hijacks tolerated)

[Babale]

@MrDibble

@Babale

or apartheid

If they converted, as they clearly did, they wouldn’t be subject to dhimmitude, any way. So why would it come up?

OK now you’re not even trying.

If religious based apartheid successfully forces people to convert then there’s no more apartheid? That’s cute.

What you’re whitewashing is that these people converted to Islam because the Caliphates successfully forced people to convert.

Hey, if the Native American kids stopped speaking their native language, the Catholic Church stopped beating them, so clearly, no discrimination was going on

@MrDibble

That’s why Rome continued to have synagogues and a substantial free Jewish population after 70 AD, because the Romans just hated them so much…

So now we’re not just whitewashing the Caliphates but also the Romans? Nice.

@MrDibble

So many rebellions leading to population displacement, I was picking the first major one. It continued to have them after 136 CE, as well.

It’s quite telling that you brush off what the Romans did to the Jews as “a rebellion leading to population displacement”. So in other words, the Romans tried to remove the Jewish population of Israel “in whole or in part”? Hmmm… And they actually did it, too, unlike a different conflict you’ve been going on about for years where you claim a “population displacement” is desired despite it never materializing… Interesting…

@Charlie_Tan

Anti-semitism has a long and tragic history in Christian Europe (Hey, @Babale, white people blaming going on, you should pounce on that).

It’s absolutely true that anti-semitism has a long and tragic history in Christian Europe (and pre-Christian Europe, despite MrDibble trying to whitewash Roman treatment of Jews). What are you expecting me to pounce on exactly?

The problem with MrDibble is that he whitewashed antisemitism done by people who aren’t European.

@Charlie_Tan

Yet there is, to my knowledge, no movement to grant the Romani a homeland in Punjab.

The Romani absolutely deserve self determination as well.

@MrDibble

What if they were a mix?

What if they were? It’s 2026, no one gives a shit about a little race mixing except racists like David Duke or Darializa Avila Chevalier.

@Smapti

I guess I’m just some sort of stateless bastard, then.

I think the term people who think this way about Jews use is “rootless cosmopolitan”. You know, people who engage in race mixing and adopting cultural traditions from their neighbors. Horrible stuff, that.

[Babale]

@Charlie_Tan

You know of course that you will never convince him of anything, as he constantly dismisses cites, changes position and goal posts, accuses any opponent of being [insert Nazi, Self-Hating Jew, anti-semite, anti-zionist etc.] He sits in SoCal (AIUI) and claims to know the inner workings of everything that happens in Israel.

That’s quite a funny post. I’m not the one who has been throwing the Nazi term around in this conversation; that would be MrDibble. I’m not the one dismissing cites I don’t like with a “Naaaah”. I’m not the one who lives in a country that has fuck all to do with this conflict while claiming to speak authoritatively about it. More projection than a megaplex is going on here.

[Charlie_Tan]

@Babale

Palestinians, who were descended from Levantine Arabs but are now Palestinian.

@Babale

Much like Palestinian, which is an ethnic group whose name derives from the Peleshet, a word that means “to raid” and once described an entirely different ethnic group.

So, are they Arabs (i.e. from the Arabian peninsula) or “sea peoples,” i.e. those that supposedly raided the levant at about 1200 BCE? Or are they simply Canaanites, as are most of the other groups describing themselves as distinct people in order to boost their own tribe and justify smashing their neighbor’s heads?

@Babale

So in other words, the Romans tried to remove the Jewish population of Israel “in whole or in part”? Hmmm… And they actually did it, too,

In part or in whole?

[Babale]

@Charlie_Tan

So, are they Arabs (i.e. from the Arabian peninsula) or “sea peoples,” i.e. those that supposedly raided the levant at about 1200 BCE?

Huh? What do the Sea People have to do with this? That’s where the NAME Palestine comes from, via the “rename your land after your extinct historical enemies” thing the Romans did that @Smapti mentioned. But the Philistines were long gone by the time that Alexander conquered the region.

Palestinians are Arabs. Arabs today aren’t the same as, say, Nabatean tribesmen; the Arab empires ruled over most of the MENA and facilitated admixture and migration (along with the aforementioned forced conversions). Arab hasn’t just meant “people from the specific Arabian peninsula” since the Arab armies exploded outwards in 700 AD.

@Charlie_Tan

Or are they simply Canaanites, as are most of the other groups describing themselves as distinct people in order to boost their own tribe and justify smashing their neighbor’s heads?

I can’t really parse this at all. What are you asking?

Canaanites are extinct, like most other groups from that time and place.

[Charlie_Tan]

@Babale

I can’t really parse this at all. What are you asking?

The pre BCE Philistines were probably partly descendants of the Sea Peoples, the raiders then that you mentioned upthread. I don’t know what purpose identifying them as raiders has, but then I cannot know your reasoning.
The Judeans before the Babylonian exile and most probably after, were mountain people. The Philistines had the coastal area (Gaza). I say that they probably were mounytain people after the exile, since only the elites were sent off. Conquerors, not only in the levant but elsewhere as well, had no interest in uprooting the people working the land, providing food and labor.

Which brings me to the Canaanites, who are no more of course. But the Canaanite people of Judea became the Jews, The Canaanites of Samaria became the Samaritans ASF. There was never a conquest from Egypt, only fighting and mayhem between Canaanite tribes tribes and then the LBAC happened and the whole area fell into a historical abyss with a lot less records for the ensuing few hundrad years. What emerged at the other end were tribes eager to enhance their glorious past and origins, (as with Abram not being native (indigenous even) in the levant but is described as coming from Ur).

Eric Cline’s books on the LBAC are very illuminating, especially the parts where he describes the Ugarit clay tablets. They leave little room for most of the Tanakh narratives.

[Thing.Fish]

Pro-tip: when your conversation about the Israel/Gaza conflict involves the term “Canaanites”, it has become stupid.

[Babale]

@Charlie_Tan

The pre BCE Philistines were probably partly descendants of the Sea Peoples, the raiders then that you mentioned upthread.

The pre BCE Philistines weren’t “partly descendants of the Sea Peoples”, they were a specific group of Sea People called the Peleshet who most likely came from islands in the Aegean Sea, fought a war with Egypt, and settled in what today is Gaza. This is backed up by both Egyptian records and the archeological record.

@Charlie_Tan

I don’t know what purpose identifying them as raiders has, but then I cannot know your reasoning.

Huh? I was pointing out that the etymology of the word Peleshet is “Raider”, because MrDibble tried to claim that an ethnic group cannot be an ethnic group if its name etymologically derives from a profession.

@Charlie_Tan

They leave little room for most of the Tanakh narratives.

Who are you shadow boxing with? No one has brought up the Tanakh narrative.

[MrDibble]

@Babale

How do you imagine that bit changes anything?

Shows they originated in the Netherlands, not Africa.

@Babale

The point is that now that they’ve been there for hundreds of years they are their own unique thing.

Sure. A unique thing with European origin.

@Babale

Yeah, just like someone can be a New Englander, or a Southerner.

Or an Italian, or a Korean…

@Babale

But the idea that this refers to an ethnic group is preposterous.

Ethic groups are never associated with particular regions? That’s an argument you want to make?

@Babale

Also, I think it’s quite telling that you want to say that Palestinians were their own ethnic group hundreds of years ago, but refuse to acknowledge that Afrikaners are their own ethnic group now.

Afrikaners are their own ethnic group. Just one that originates in Europe.

[What_Exit]

Moderating:

While hijacks are allowed,

@Babale

Your mask is slipping.

Falls into personal attack. Not allowed. Stop it.

Attack or challenge the content of the post and not the poster. This is not the Pit.

[Babale]

@MrDibble

Shows they originated in the Netherlands, not Africa.

They became Afrikaners in the Netherlands?

@MrDibble

Or an Italian, or a Korean…

No, those are polities with an associated ethnic group. Unlike New England, the Bay Area, or the part of 10th century Syria that was on rare occasion referred to as “Falastin”.

There’s an ethnic group associated with that area today, but there certainly was not in the 10th century.

@MrDibble

Ethic groups are never associated with particular regions? That’s an argument you want to make?

That’s not the argument I made, is it?

@MrDibble

Afrikaners are their own ethnic group. Just one that originates in Europe.

There were Afrikaners in Europe?

Afrikaners quite obviously originated as a divergent group in Africa after they arrived there from the Netherlands. That their ancestors came from Europe doesn’t change the fact that their origin as a distinct group was in fact in Africa.

If groups are whatever their ancestors came from no matter where the group itself originated than I guess we are all from the Great Rift Valley.

[What_Exit]

Moderating:

Also this:

@Charlie_Tan

@MrDibble I don’t know if you enjoy trading barbs with @Babale. You know of course that you will never convince him of anything, as he constantly dismisses cites, changes position and goal posts, accuses any opponent of being [insert Nazi, Self-Hating Jew, anti-semite, anti-zionist etc.] He sits in SoCal (AIUI) and claims to know the inner workings of everything that happens in Israel.
I realize that your writing is not for his benefit, but for other readers, but I have to say that I admire your tenacity.

Falls into personal attack. Not allowed. Stop it.

Attack or challenge the content of the post and not the poster. This is not the Pit.

[MrDibble]

@Babale

OK now you’re not even trying.

If religious based apartheid successfully forces people to convert then there’s no more apartheid?

How can there be apartheid if the condition on which it’s based no longer exists?

@Babale

What you’re whitewashing is that these people converted to Islam because the Caliphates successfully forced people to convert.

I certainly acknowledge that that’s what happened to some of them. Probably not as many as you seem to think.

Does the fact that it was sometimes forced somehow negate anything about their descendants?

@Babale

So now we’re not just whitewashing the Caliphates but also the Romans?

The existence of substantial populations outside oppression in no way constitutes “whitewashing”, any more than pointing to the existence of free Blacks in the USA constitutes whitewashing of slavery. Especially if you were doing it to counter some narrative that every Black was a slave.

@Babale

So in other words, the Romans tried to remove the Jewish population of Israel “in whole or in part”?

Yes, they absolutely did a genocide in Judea.

Nobody thinks the Romans were nice people. But they certainly knew how to kill.

Just because other groups are less efficient at it than the Romans doesn’t mean they aren’t genocidaires. That’s some “but the Nazis didn’t kill all the Jews” fallaciousness right there.

@Babale

The problem with MrDibble is that he whitewashed antisemitism done by people who aren’t European.

Naah.

@Babale

The Romani absolutely deserve self determination as well.

In Punjab?

@Babale

What if they were? It’s 2026, no one gives a shit about a little race mixing

Cultural mixing. Smapti was saying their cultural practices are all from one side, I’m pointing out that ain’t so.

@Babale

I’m not the one who has been throwing the Nazi term around in this conversation; that would be MrDibble.

Not at anyone in this thread. Only in reference to certain historical Zionists. And actual Nazis as well.

@Babale

They became Afrikaners in the Netherlands?

They left Europe, lived in the Cape for a bit, then trekked inland. At some point they gave themselves the name Afrikaners (well, more properly, stole it from actual indigenes), but that’s not the same as their origin. Or do the Sinti originate in Germany, not India, because that’s where they got their name?

@Babale

I’m not the one who lives in a country that has fuck all to do with this conflict

Hey, now, we do have that court case…

@Babale

while claiming to speak authoritatively about it

My only claim is to back up what I say with data.

[Smapti]

@MrDibble

How can there be apartheid if the condition on which it’s based no longer exists?

“Good news, everyone! Now that we’ve declared the Bantustans independent countries and closed the borders, apartheid is over!”

[MrDibble]

“Pity about all those Blacks still living in our country. And the Coloureds and Indians…”

I’m not saying dhimmi apartheid didn’t still exist in the Caliphate. Not everyone converted (nor did the Caliphate really want them to - gotta keep that jizya rolling in). I’m saying after conversion the ones who converted were no longer subject to it.

[Babale]

@MrDibble

I’m saying after conversion the ones who converted were no longer subject to it.

Because they were successfully ethnically cleansed, converted to Islam, and Arabized.

If Russia conquered Ukraine and successfully Russified the population over a generation to the point that Ukranians were extinct outside whatever number of refugees had left the country, it wouldn’t be hunky-dory just because you could still find Ukranian genetic markers in the Russified population that has equal rights to other Russians.

[MrDibble]

@Babale

Because they were successfully ethnically cleansed, converted to Islam, and Arabized.

Converted (both voluntarily and not) and Arabized, with you. Not so much on the ethnic cleansing, since they were never displaced.

And? No-one’s said it’s “hunky-dory”. It is, however, what actually happened.

Are you saying in your analogy the Russified Ukrainian remnant in Ukraine is now free to be displaced? Have no connection to their homeland? Are in some way tainted by giving in and not running away and keeping the faith? What, exactly, is your point? Remember - the analogy here is to Palestinians, so what, exactly, are you saying in relation to them?

[Babale]

@MrDibble

Are you saying in your analogy the Russified Ukrainian remnant in Ukraine is now free to be displaced? Have no connection to their homeland? Are in some way tainted by giving in and not running away and keeping the faith? What, exactly, is your point? Remember - the analogy here is to Palestinians, so what, exactly, are you saying in relation to them?

Since I have been very clear that I believe that Palestinians have a right to live on the land, this is quite a strange question. I’m not the one insisting the people don’t have a connection to the land.

[MrDibble]

Doesn’t answer my question - what’s your point?