Israel

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Do you have any view on the point made by Gene Simmons when he said that "artists who avoid Israel - such as Elvis Costello, the Pixies and Roger Waters, who joined the movement after appearing in Israel in 2006 - would be better served directing their anger at Arab dictators."



I don't think it's an either/or situation.

There is plenty of opprobrium to be passed around.

My worry is that, since the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the early 1980s, history has made an actual solution impossible. I don't think 1948 or 1967 or 3000 years ago matters much. What matters are the recent images of children ripped to bits by bombs in Gaza or children set afire on a bus in Tel Aviv. The two "sides" have radicalized each other perhaps past the point of no return.


Sent from
 
I don't think it's an either/or situation.

There is plenty of opprobrium to be passed around.

My worry is that, since the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the early 1980s, history has made an actual solution impossible. I don't think 1948 or 1967 or 3000 years ago matters much. What matters are the recent images of children ripped to bits by bombs in Gaza or children set afire on a bus in Tel Aviv. The two "sides" have radicalized each other perhaps past the point of no return.


Sent from


I don't believe the reality and facts support the claim of
Hamas (and other Islamic terrorist) moral equivalency to Israel.
 
I don't believe the reality and facts support the claim of
Hamas (and other Islamic terrorist) moral equivalency to Israel.


does Israel's moral superiority to Hamas give it the right to kill civilians -- wildly disproportionate numbers to the amount of IDF forces or Israeli citizens -- and does this one-sided slaughter reduce any of this moral superiority?
 
I don't believe the reality and facts support the claim of
Hamas (and other Islamic terrorist) moral equivalency to Israel.

I agree. Hamas actually uses the carnage to gain the media's sympathy and win the PR war. There is only less carnage on Israel's side because they care enough about the lives of their citizens to actually defend them. Hamas sacrifices Palestinian lives to achieve their objective. I'd call that moral opposites.
 
I agree. Hamas actually uses the carnage to gain the media's sympathy and win the PR war. There is only less carnage on Israel's side because they care enough about the lives of their citizens to actually defend them. Hamas sacrifices Palestinian lives to achieve their objective. I'd call that moral opposites.



i agree.

but Israel plays directly into their hands and does exactly what they want them to do, every time.
 
You would think Israel would have learned by now not to take the bait. "Fear acts as a retraint against perfect love." They can't win this battle indefinitely.
 
No--Way--Out

There is no way out of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It breaks my heart for Israel's sake. It is a bitter-sweet reality. Either Israel enters into a multi-state resolution with her sworn enemy or the current situation continues, with her enemy gaining strength each time until "the words of god will have been accomplished." Either way, the beginning of the end will be when the "disgusting thing causing desolation stands in the holy place and the temple fortress gets removed" and the physical state of Israel will come to an end, though god will not forsake his chosen ones entirely because god is faithful even when his people are not. There is no way out of this inevitability. The very kings with whom Israel is trusting to have her back will look away as they currently proceed to arm the very ones who seek Israel's annihilation. There is a famous quote, from whom I don't presently recall, which aptly expresses that nations don't have friends, they have interests. "The love of money is the root of all evil." The love of wealth, indeed the wealth of the world, causes kings to dance with nations in distress in order to subjugate their resources and their peoples. Because their quest to control all the wealth is advancing, their first love--Israel-- who was a loyal partner to them in exchange for her own protection, is increasingly looking old and haggard. They will sincerely mourn her death, but they won't stop it, because they do not worship Israel's god--her god which she herself has forsaken. "The stumbling blocks must come, but woe to those through whom they come." It's a Catch 22 for all sides, and all that has been foretold will come to pass. All the kings of the earth will reap according to the way they have sown. There is no escaping it for anyone. There is No--Way--Out.
 
Israel has been using the Samson Option for decades now. The world has mostly turned a blind eye to IDF's insanely disproportionate response to Hamas' rockets until now; partly due to Holocaust induced guilt, partly due to Israeli/Jewish global influence and power, and the rest because no one gives a shit about the plight of the Palestinians (least of all the rest of the global muslim community). The only reason there's been some outrage over what's happening right now is because of Israel's slaughtering of children, and how social media today enables the broadcast of those harrowing images across the globe.

When general Moshe Dayan said, 'Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.', he really meant it.
 
i agree.

but Israel plays directly into their hands and does exactly what they want them to do, every time.

Yes. And so does the U.S. I said this when GWBush retaliated after 9/11; now President Obama is taking the bait.
We will not win this fight either, because our motive isn't justice or humanitarianism, that's just our excuse. Here we go again.:doh:
 
Don't remember hearing anything from the iron horse about the countless children killed by the IDF.
 
Why is it so much different when a child dies? As if the adults dying aren't bad? Every innocent person dying is one too many if you ask me, and it makes zero difference what age or gender they are to me.
 
I was reading an article somewhere that instead of "Palestine" - we (the nations that won WWII) should have given the Jewish people the best lands of Germany - instead some arid land in the Middle East.

I have some issue with this "promised land" and "chosen people" mentality. As a Christian that now completely rejects the Old Testament as canon - I fail to see why so many fundamentalist Christians think they force God into the "end times" by encouraging the fight between Israel and her neighbors.

However, I'm no fan of Hamas or radical Islam either. I just don't see why we give Israel so much more support than we do other moderate Arab countries (or for that matter - small ancient tribes that have been around for thousands of years and are now threatened with extinction).
 
I was reading an article somewhere that instead of "Palestine" - we (the nations that won WWII) should have given the Jewish people the best lands of Germany - instead some arid land in the Middle East.

I wasn't entirely joking earlier on when I mentioned that it would've been better if California had been given to the Jewish people.
 
I was reading an article somewhere that instead of "Palestine" - we (the nations that won WWII) should have given the Jewish people the best lands of Germany - instead some arid land in the Middle East.

That's just naive. Most survivors either wanted to get away from Europe, or they wanted to go back to what once were their home. Not be given something somewhere in the country. Long-term, that also would have created new conflicts.
 
No, like the current situation. The idea that there was some solution and if we had just taken that route we would all be shiny happy people today is naive.
By the European nations, largely, there was no willingness to take in all the Jewish survivors returning. Many survivors, on the other hand, were not eager to return to the neighbours who just a few years earlier bullied them into submission and then took their possessions.
Giving them the "best lands" would neither have been wanted by the survivors nor by the European nations (neither victors nor losers).

The "if only..." is a very moot point to me.
 
The only even remotely 'happy' solution would have been the British hanging onto their mandate long enough to lock in something vaguely tolerable to both sides. But in 1948 the British were ruined.
 
The only even remotely 'happy' solution would have been the British hanging onto their mandate long enough to lock in something vaguely tolerable to both sides. But in 1948 the British were ruined.

That's an interesting point. Do you have any links to more information on that?
 
Well yeah, that. I was just spouting what I thought was vaguely general knowledge, like saying that Britain gave up India because it was, likewise, economically and morally exhausted.
 
Well yeah, that. I was just spouting what I thought was vaguely general knowledge, like saying that Britain gave up India because it was, likewise, economically and morally exhausted.

What I was interested in was the notion that you thought peace between Israel and the Palestinians would have actually been possible....
 
Peace, maybe not. I didn't actually use the word peace. But if they were something like territorial equals in the former Palestine (mandate), that might be a different situation.
 
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