Rostere

EDIT: actually let me supplement it with several youtube link for context: I'm not necessarily saying I'm for boycotting Israel entirely. Well, I certainly would be if I was sure you would be able to reach results that way, but it's a question of what actually works. Let's give some examples of boycotts: We have firstly the boycotts of SA, which worked wonderfully well in reaching it's stated goal. How come? It's due to two factors: the cultural closeness and the strength of economic ties of SA to the boycotting community. When the boycotts ended, SA was 100% sure they would be eagerly accepted into the Western fold again. Secondly, the boycotts had a great power in striking hard against powerful economic interests. In pretty much all modern countries such groups - most often big companies - have the ear of the politicians in power. This is not necessarily undemocratic in any sense, on the other hand quite important since big companies often create a lot of wealth. So when the pragmatic business-minded people in charge of these economic interests say to the politicians "**** you, I don't care about your race policies or any of that superficial nonsense - either change or this place will be a backwards third-world country in no time". Then we have the boycotts against for example Iraq during the nineties. I think that is the best example of a completely, utterly counter-productive boycott policy. See, in this case both of the crucial factors for the success of a boycott are not there. There are no significant Iraqi (private) economic interests to pressure the state. Secondly, Iraqi culture is far removed from Western culture - they will not perceive the boycott as friends trying to make friends make the right choice. The public will just think the boycott is a harsh and unjust punishment, especially since Iraq was a dictatorship back then. It might make some sense to boycott a democracy (or a pseudo-democracy like Iran), but boycotting a dictatorship is just playing into the hands of the oppressors, who get more external enemies to deflect blame on. A boycott is generally always counter-productive for changing public opinion, but good for creating pressure from economic interests. The awful humanitarian effects of the Iraq sanctions, the support for Saudi Arabia and the biased approach to the I/P-conflict were the original motivations of Al-Qaeda, and the root cause of the existence of the global militant Islamic movement today. So in the case of Israel, let's look at the effects of a boycott. The economic interests certainly are there - a complete boycott would completely annihilate the economy of Israel. All the Israeli export-oriented companies will be standing in queue to the Knesset with death threats if the politicians won't end the occupation. So far, so good. All the people in Israel who already believe in a peace settlement with the Palestinians will get more energy to argue their cause (this can already be seen even with the current tiny BDS campaign), but the ones who don't will be react with anger and estrangement towards the boycotting countries. They certainly won't change their opinions - overall, the public opinion will just be further polarized. So as far as that goes, with the generally nationalist, pro-apartheid occupation current regime things will only get worse. The real question is really whose voice will be amplified the most by a boycott - the pragmatic economic interests, or the angry nationalists. And even as much as I know about the conflict and the current situation, I must really say that I don't know for sure the answer to that. This will perhaps seem counter-intuitive to some, but if this was 1994 I would be very much for a complete boycott of Israel, or at least the threat of it. At that point I'm sure that pragmatism would have won the day. These days, there are so many religious fundamentalists in the Knesset you have no idea how things would pan out. Another point of view would of course be that we must take our chance and boycott now, because if we don't, then things will only get worse. This is the perspective that is increasingly often taken by many pro-peace American Jewish activists. There is a growing divide between the modern, secular American Jewish community (who have all the ethical and humanitarian considerations secularism entails) and the increasingly religious, ultra-nationalist Jewish community in Israel who is now shares power in government and whose most important pillar of belief is that God gave Israel to the Jews (the "Chosen People") with the command to remove whomever happened to live there at the moment. This video is typical of all the cheap argumentative tricks which often figure in Israeli pro-apartheid propaganda. It reads like a textbook of fallacies. Start off by making a point for garnering sympathy, something everyone can agree on: Why weren't these dictatorial regimes condemned more? Well, sure, I wouldn't mind if every UN session would start by condemning North Korea. But North Korea is already ostracized from the international community, so there is little to do there. Everybody agrees on most of the world's repressive countries. On the other hand, there are a lot of misconceptions regarding Israel in countries such as the US where people have a grotesquely distorted picture about what's going on. It's a pity they won't continue this bizarre argument further to show how stupid it is: "You can't prosecute a thief before you have caught all the murderers", "You can't give Christmas gifts before you have helped all the poor in Africa", "You can't boycott Apartheid South Africa before you've brought down Pol Pot's Kampuchea" This is the classic fallacy of relative privation. Then, continue with some facts which paint the picture you want. "COMMUNISTS and MUSLIMS have tried to condemn Israel!". Yeah, sure, but why not mention all the European nations and other democratic nations which have also formulated that criticism? By this point it becomes clear that the video is aimed towards Americans, the only people of which a fraction believe that Muslims and Communists are always necessarily wrong in everything they say. Here's the continuation of that type of argument: "MUSLIMS also revere Jesus! We must reject Jesus!", "MUSLIMS boycott Apartheid South Africa! We must support Apartheid!", "COMMUNISTS want to decrease social inequality! We must strive to increase social inequality!" This is the trite guilt by association as an ad hominem fallacy. The point about the definition of Zionism however, is not as fun to discuss as it is simply based on an outright lie. Zionism is, and has always been, widely defined as something along the lines of "the national movement of Jews and Jewish culture that supports the creation of a Jewish homeland in the territory defined as the Land of Israel". Maybe the video's definition of Zionism is from their own crackpot dictionary which they have written, but really... I'd like to see them talk to hard-line Israeli Zionists explaining that Zionism has nothing necessarily to do with the State of Israel. They would be fuming out of their ears with indignity. Of course nobody sane would argue against Zionism if it meant "anti-racism". But currently it doesn't - it means the presumed right of one people to declare their own state on the land where another people lives. On a logical level, Zionism does not necessarily imply racism. On a practical level however, I personally think it is completely impossible to be a non-racist Zionist if you are aware of all the crimes which are begin committed in it's name. As a side note, I have actually seen that video several times before and as you know... or might have guessed... I spend parts of my free time examining this kind of propaganda as a means of understanding the motivations and the "logic" behind the actors in this conflict.

OK. Sadly I haven't had a lot of time to post lately, but I just saw this hilarious video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBsePXQmMGI The original one was rather quickly brought down, so as of writing the clip I link to only has 161 views.

Okay, I can also "test" your novel. I read a lot anyway so it won't make any difference to my regular routine.

A neutrino can be observed in a similar fashion to everything else there is in the world, it's just that it is much more complicated in practice. You see, there are (to our current knowledge) four fundamental interactions - strong and weak nuclear, electromagnetic and gravitational. It can be said that the definition of something "existing" is that it can have an interaction with something else. Our senses are just a detection device which lacks a lot of precision. Neutrinos, along with everything else there is, can interact with your own body as well, it's just that for the amounts of neutrinos which fly through and into our bodies that interaction is negligible. It's really unnecessary to make a distinction between what our senses can in practice make out "directly" and what they can't. A scientist noting a detection of a neutrino on a computer screen is not fundamentally different from a captain observing a ship through his binoculars, or you reading a book with glasses on. People often unnecessarily obfuscate and complicate modern physics.

Scientific knowledge is a set of laws which make certain predictions, falling with a certain hitherto estimated probability within a certain margin of error. That's all there is to it. It's a codification of things humankind has tried many times under controlled circumstances, collecting and measuring the results. Really, equating science with religion is like equating "from experience, I estimate with probability x that out of the next n rolls with my six-sided die, n/6+-y will be sixes" with religion. If something is testable, ask a scientist. If something is not testable, the scientist knows no more than any ordinary man. Absolute truth does not exist as such in empirical science - if anyone has led you to believe so, they are wrong. Absolute "knowledge" exists in mathematics - where everything is built on certain assumptions (and not necessarily connected to reality in any way) - but not in physics, which describes the physical, real world. Of course you can make logically true statements about science, but they will always necessarily start with "based on these measurements and assuming these theories".

http://publicshaming.tumblr.com/post/75447787843/speak-english-racist-revolt-as-coca-cola-airs

I don't think anyone is accusing the Iranian leadership of being 100% sensible. My point was that it's obvious this is about IRAN having nuclear technology, not about Iran having NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY. It's first and foremost about Iran, not about the exact technology in question, which is relatively common these days. So it's really about the Iranian regime and not anything else. I just wish the proponents of sanctions (which as always might work initially, but might cause more harm than good in the long term, if they are held up...) would be clear about that point, at least those who actually understand the underlying technical questions. In my opinion, Iran would have had nukes by now if they wanted to (although this would also be known by the intelligence agencies of the West). The only other option is what Brazil had suggested - Iran building reactors from which you cannot extract fissile material for use in weapons (although I'm not thinking of Thorium reactors - but now we're getting into the interesting technical stuff!) and them being supplied with fuel for those reactors. The problem here is that if Iran somehow (which is unlikely, but still...) managed to maintain secret nuclear laboratories, we would be handing them what can easily be turned to fissile material for weapons. So that is also problematic. Like I stated before, the only real solution is to make it impossible for them to pursue a WMD program clandestinely. If there was any hard evidence Iran did so, the world opinion would turn against them in an instant.

The hawks are completely right in that once you have the full "production chain" needed to supply civil society with the isotopes needed, going from there to a nuclear bomb is not that hard. However intelligence agencies also all agree that there is zero hard evidence Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. And all this time, nobody has been complaining about all the other countries which have parts of the facilities needed to produce nuclear weapons. We will simply have to assume they are innocent before they are proven guilty of developing a nuclear weapon. Otherwise there are loads of nations which would be much more important to keep our eyes on. Even if Iran should acquire a nuclear weapon, I don't think they would have anyone to use it on, recognizing that such an attack would render them enemies of basically the rest of the world. What's most likely is probably just that some people who want sanctions for the sanctions themselves are exploiting fear of the situation where Iran has the tech and facilities to produce a nuclear weapon in short time, should they want to. This is pretty much where we are now though. Sadly the equipment required to produce the fuel for nuclear weapons is the same, and indistinguishable, as that for producing fuel for civilian purposes. So essentially, the sanctions are aimed at Iran discontinuing nuclear industry altogether (even though their stated purpose is not that - that is what Iran must do in order to completely guarantee they are not able to quickly produce a nuclear weapon). Unfortunately, we cannot hope that any country completely gives up the applications of modern sciences. That is why I think this effort is more than just a bit quixotic. Instead, the international community should focus on spamming Iran with inspectors and utilizing espionage to know for sure when they really are producing nuclear weapons.

This video has circulated on Facebook in Sweden recently:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/01/putin-warns-gays-against-flamboyant-displays-at-olympics.html Where's the Russia thread when you need it?

Well. First off, I think I'd choose the ending cinematic to Snatcher. While originally released in Japan 1988, today's most famous version is the one for the SEGA CD (adding voice acting). Ironically, Snatcher is a very "cinematic" adventure game - while many attribute the failure of the SEGA CD to the over-emphasis on cinematics in the games released for it, Snatcher is one of the best 5 or 10 adventure games ever, while still being a perfectly viable target for being criticized as overly cinematic. It's based in an alternate future (remember the story was written in 1988) where it it took much longer for the Soviet Union to fall apart, and well... I won't tell you the rest if you decide to play the game I must warn about spoilers in the video below, however. The ending sequence is about 30 minutes (which must be considered long with video game standards - something you can really call a cinematic sequence!) and I like to start you off here: The naming of the Youtube videos is somewhat misleading, "Part 1" and "Part 5" don't really belong to the proper ending. Part 1 is really before the ending starts, while Part 5 is just cheese on top. If you like Blade Runner and adventure games, I really recommend Snatcher. This is also a great cinematic, with a great soundtrack: And here is another great intro cinematic sporting both excellent music, graphics and art direction (it's amazing how dark and eerie the Batman universe comes across), that has stuck with me for some reason: Music and timing can really do a lot on its own. I think the full assembly of tools for creating cinematic sequences also consist of language, graphical and artistic direction (both of parts and taken as a whole), so it's a bit hard not to conflate with what you simply think is a great game with a great cinematic. Sacrifice is one of my favourite games but I have to say that even if you remove the components that more belong to the game than the cinematic in question (music, art style et.c.), this cinematic excels in language, voice acting and storytelling: "What a strange and beautiful world I beheld, but dangerous too, I was certain. And I was friendless and homeless. And so I prayed." That is a truly iconic passage in my mind.

To clarify my previous post: you'll notice that I didn't mention anything about whether British commanders were indeed incompetent or not - something I do think we could discuss in another thread ("Performance of WW1 officers" or something along those lines). My main point was trying to argue against people changing things in school textbooks for "patriotic" reasons, which is wrong regardless of what those things changed might be. I think that if you want to change something in a school textbook and you choose not to motivate the changes with them being more factually accurate, but instead argue that your new version is more "patriotic", something is very, very wrong. This is not something that should happen in a modern democracy, and I think we all can agree on that. I think that much of this thread has been about excessive Russian nationalism, and its errors. So the original relevance for this was the fact that the Russians might have been doing their own "patriotic" historical revisionism. Essentially we're comparing the same, or at least similar behaviour, in two different nations. I just wanted to drop into the conversation to say that I think we should condemn "patriotic" historical revisionism, regardless of it's form or which country it manifests in. It might be worth noting that one of the enablers of the disasters of WW1 (everything from the actual outbreak of the war to the "mass charge" tactics employed) was actually "patriotic" sentiments which had been encouraged during the time of imperialism, but which the Congress of Vienna had kept from damaging Europe until then. Even though the war was fought over a ridiculous casus belli consisting of almost literally nothing - whether or not investigators from A-H could enter Serbia in the investigation of the murder of Franz Ferdinand - people flocked to recruiting stations. The leaders of the countries involved were just as inflamed with patriotic fervour. What reason was there for anyone to join the war other than vain attempts to preserve or increase their own pride? This can be said about every country but especially of A-H, the primum movens of the particular state of instability which triggered the war. Germany on the other hand would have been the country that could reasonably have made the most difference in the build-up to the war, considering they gave their far weaker ally A-H a carte blanche for short-sighted expansion and the stupid annexations in the Balkans (you could call it A-H was the "bizarro Israel" of Germany, credits to another forum member for inventing this term in the discussion on Syria). We should not think ourselves inherently psychologically superior to our ancestors or somehow resistant to the nationalistic lures which created WW1. Today we are (virtually) the same human beings as in 1914, with our only advantage being our knowledge of history, our experience regarding the circumstances which created WW1 (and by extension WW2). The only thing which keeps us from doing WW1 again is that benefit of hindsight, and the introduction of humanist principles. We should make the most of that knowledge and not head down the slippery slope of nationalism and so-called "patriotism" again, repeating old mistakes.

Urgh, reminds us that even in countries we view as modern we must constantly fight against the stupidity of nationalism. It really pains me to see that there are efforts to fabricate "patriotic" myths about the UK's behaviour in WW1. A lot of things keep getting better in today's world - reduced global poverty and less diseases - but this kind of reminds us that there are still dangers to steer clear of. Increased nationalism and "patriotic" myth-making is probably by far the largest threat to the EU, and one of the worst to world peace in the long run. If there ever is a WW3 and there are historians alive to analyze it afterwards, they will ask themselves "When did this really begin?" and they would come to the answer that the world had started to forget WW1, replacing the narrative of war as a humanitarian catastrophe in school textbooks with that of your own nation's soldiers being without fault or blame, brave, patriotic, smart and better than the rest of the world.

Continuing the "famous songs similar to italo disco classics" series: http://youtu.be/3XNscCzSL6s?t=43s http://youtu.be/5NV6Rdv1a3I?t=50s :S

I might add that my mother has had cancer twice (breast cancer), but survived - no other incidents of cancer other than that among any relatives though. The last time was six or seven years ago now. So, depending on what type of cancer you get, the survival rates can be very high. Especially the survival rate for breast cancer is very high, at least here in Sweden. But that is only due to proactive measures - spreading knowledge about the disease, doing regular checks, promoting a healthy lifestyle (in my opinion the most important factor), genetic profiling and so on and so forth.

Dude, I hope for your sake you are not serious when you write your posts - that you're either drunk and irresponsible, a compulsive troll or both - but from a bystander's perspective I must say your posts come across as having absolutely zero knowledge at all about the conflict and the realities on the ground, and being completely spineless or even outright racist and immoral. Not only do you arrogantly dismiss criticism of dangerous nationalistic tendencies and ongoing war crimes as "nitpicking" but also you make bizarre statements about the history of Hamas and the Israeli far-Right being pro-peace. How about the standard refugees vs. unique "Jewish refugees"? The problem is that over the decades, instead of living in peace in Palestine or wherever, they have created a never ending problem that has been festering for years now, creating new generations of refugees and homeless Palestinians. Shockingly also, in this endeavour Israel, indeed a "welfare state among states" receive billions in military aid from the US (which also is a guarantor for their loans...), in order to safely continue the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and "Judaize" the area of Palestine. Meanwhile the Palestinians are forced to live in squalid refugee camps, waiting to be able to return to their home land. So what would you feel if the land you was living in was under foreign occupation, and your home was demolished along with a government edict which confiscated your land. What would you do? And what about all the other refugees? Try to think for a moment what you would have done if you were a Palestinian. Around 1878, the Jewish population in Israel was about 5%. From there onwards to just after WW2, more Jews arrived in Palestine with the express intent of forming a Jewish state. Now what would you think if Jews, or Norwegians, or Hindus, or Mexicans, started showing up at your place talking about how they will establish a state of their own on your land? Hell, what would you think if Palestinians showed up where you live with an intent to create a "Muslim" state? Would that be A-OK with you? And to think that this very moment Kerry scuttles around in the Middle East vainly trying to get Arab support for declaring Israel an uniquely "Jewish state". Who the heck think this is a good idea? The Palestinians are not going to disappear. They are going to want to go back to their homeland both in 10 years and in 100 years. The only endgame solution involves the Palestinians moving back to their homeland, while the Israelis preferably get to stay as well. But I've written about this extensively earlier in the thread. The entire train wreck that is the Israel/Palestine conflict builds upon that in the 20th century (or in the 21st century!), some people believe that one people can go to where another people live and declare their own state. For example, the US gives Israel continuous support to the tune of billions of dollars annually and shields Israel from UN sanctions for ongoing war crimes of ethnic cleansing. This is completely mind-blowing to me. There are lots of injustices in the world indeed, but no other like this where the world's sole superpower bends itself over backwards to support injustice, in spite of international criticism, in spite of all common sense, in spite of their own economic and political interests. Would you support Scottish people going to England, demolishing English houses, stealing English land and seeking support for Britain as a "Scottish" country? Would you support Germans going to Poland, demolishing Polish houses, confiscating Polish land, seeking international support for Poland as a "German" territory? Would you support Jews going to Palestine, demolishing Palestinian houses, confiscating Palestinian land, seeking support for Palestine (or "Israel") as a "Jewish" nation? If you don't, congratulations, you are a sane person. It's very hard for me to understand your garbled English here. What are you trying to say? To sum it up more or less, it wouldn't be constructive toward a peace between the two sides. (and IMO those "no-brainer" suggestions show lack of understanding that it takes two sides to make peace and both of them need to compromise and both need encouragement) Yes, Netanyahu needs some form of encouragement, seeing how they have nothing to lose from the status quo, which involves the current government expanding on "Jews only" apartheid settlements on stolen Palestinian land until all the Palestinians languish in refugee camps, dependent on foreign aid. What is it that you don't understand with "winning an election"? Stop lying. Even a quick look on Wikipedia would have revealed that you are wrong. Hamas has never seized control of Gaza by violence. What are you going to claim next? Obama took control of the White House through an armed coup? If you want to discuss your own schizophrenic crackpot fantasies about how things happened, you can do that in your head, with yourself, and not in this serious discussion on this forum. On the other hand, Hamas have certainly oppressed other political parties, but that's when they already were in power. No - of all the refugee problems since the end of WW2, Israel/Palestine is the only place where the problem has been solved by giving a privileged class of refugees a "country of their own" - where another people already lives. Maybe you should offer the Israelis your country instead if you're so horny for ethnic cleansing? Or why not to the Palestinians, since they are the ones currently without a country. There can never be a peace without a Palestinian right of return. That's crystal clear. As long as these people do not get to return to their homeland, they will remember. And the world will remember the atrocity which made them refugees in the first place. Considering the free housing and various incentives certified Jews get who migrate to Israel as per Israel's current race policies for migration, I have zero doubt Israel could economically provide for the Palestinian refugees. I'm sorry, but just what the heck are you talking about here? The West Bank is "flourishing"? And "compared to Gaza"? This line of reasoning is just so insane I don't even know where to begin. First, Gaza is a hell-hole which has been bombed to smithereens ever since Israel withdrew from there, and even before that with the policy of house demolishing. Gaza is smothered under sanctions, largely deprived of the fishing industry which was the most important food source, and the smuggling tunnels which were the only hope for homeless Palestinians wanting to live in a house and not a tent are now largely sealed. Think this. Only with way tighter security. You can be shot by an Israeli sniper for walking within a kilometre of the separation wall. So if any place is better off than Gaza... Well, that doesn't say much. I'll give you the list of the typical income sources in the West Bank: Working as uninsured, unprotected labour in Israeli factories over the green line Working with aid organizations Working with construction of Israeli apartheid settlements Working in the Fatah administration, typically as a police The West Bank is a place where any day you might wake up to see your land has been confiscated, or your house is to be demolished, your property has been destroyed by rampaging settler zealots. It's certainly better off than Gaza, but a place where the population lives at the whim of occupation authorities with that awful human rights record can never flourish. The new city is being paid for by foreign aid (what else? lol), but would you please link to me anything about new infrastructure?

This is completely ridiculous statement and you know it. Do you always do this when you argue with people on the Internet? "You're a radical, you know, and I don't care exactly what your opinions are I just wanted to tell you that since you're a radical you're impossible to argue with!" Please. Let's try - for our sake and for the moderators of this forum - to keep this discussion above "You're stupid" arguments. Please do go through the entire thread if you are indeed interested in this discussion, and not just trolling this place by telling me I'm a radical in hackneyed English. Secondly: PLEASE do not attempt to oversimplify the situation again. You can't talk about "the Palestinians" as one political entity. I also don't take a "firm stance" against "the Israelis" (or whatever you are insinuating), I take a firm stance against nationalism, violence, dispossession and political extremism by all parties. Like I have said before, please read through the entire thread so you can understand where the discussion is at instead of bumbling in and accusing people of being "radicals" for no reason at all. (If anything, it will only make you yourself akin to a monkey hurling feces, lacking any actual arguments for your stance.) We are talking about the ongoing continuous ethnic cleansing of one people from their homeland. We are talking about pure, blatant racism fuelling a conflict that whether we like it or not involves the entire Arab and Muslim world and whose consequences have an astounding effect of burning away political capital and goodwill for the world's only superpower at an alarming rate. And you have the lack of perspective to dismiss complaints about this ongoing catastrophe as "nitpicking"? Truly, this is a new low, even considering the generally abysmal quality of your previous arguments with gems such as "You're A Radical And I Can't Argue With You". You seem to have missed all I wrote about Israeli parties with whom I largely share opinions (I'm slowly starting to believe you're intentionally trolling here...). Just this other week several constructive pro-peace parties in the Israeli Knesset introduced a bill which would have prevented any additional Israel land grabbing - illegal seizure of Palestinian land (for the purpose of establishing "Jews only" apartheid settlements) in the West Bank, which currently is the biggest obstacle to peace. However this quixotic effort was of course voted down by the largely Nationalist majority currently in government. Nevertheless, this is an important signal to the outside world that peace efforts could be going forward at a much faster pace, if not for the current Israeli government. Nevertheless, Israel controls almost every aspect of Palestinian life. It's not like the Palestinians could change something at all on the ground, even if they wanted. It's not them who are continuously stealing land from Israel, demolishing Israeli homes, and so on and so forth. It's very clear this is not a struggle between two equals. Currently the balance of power and control is similar to the one between Canadians and Native Americans in Canada, with the important exception that Palestinians are more numerous (even more numerous than the Israeli Jews if you count refugees in nearby nations). This has already been pointed out, but please stick to the facts and don't invent things like Hamas taking Gaza by force (when it's really the other way around - Fatah took the Palestinian-controlled West Bank with violence) if you want to remain in this discussion. Hamas certainly is a run-of-the-mill aggressive religious fundamentalist group, there's no arguing with that. "their state building is basically based on hate and hatred" I'll have to hand that passage to Shakespeare when I see him. Again, you should take care to NOT OVERSIMPLIFY my statements. When I talk about the Palestinians in Gaza being "slightly less friendly toward" a solution, I'm not talking about my personal assessment of Hamas, I'm talking about an opinion survey asking Gazan people about peace discussions with the 1967 lines + land swaps as initial parameters. So this is what the population of Gaza thinks. Which consists of people with many different sympathies, just like in every other country. Damn it, would you stop and think for a minute instead of just replying with a garbled mess of nonsense. Think about what you are writing. You say I "associate" Israel with right-wing (or far-right) parties. Well. Why could that be? Think for a minute. Might it be that right-wing and far-right parties are currently holding the government, and I'm reporting what they're up to? Might it be so? Yes, of course it is so. I say that they are averse to constructive peace discussions, or something roughly along those lines. First I need to add a disclaimer - I don't think the Yesh Atid or Hatnuah parties who are part of the government are averse to peace discussions. Yesh Atid are just trying to sweep the entire Palestinian problem under the rug and ignore it (otherwise having fairly constructive thoughts on peace), while Hatnuah at least try to look like one of the most constructive parties for peace, but it's hard to judge such a small and new party. Sadly, these are the junior partners in government to far-right Habayit Hayehudi - which is essentially like Jobbik in Hungary or Golden Dawn in Greece - plus Likud and Yisrael Beitenu, two right-wing parties where settler interests are dangerously overrepresented. When I say these latter three do not constructively work for peace, it's not talking randomly about them, it's firmly based on what they say and do. The current leader of Likud, Benjamin Netanyahu, was agitating furiously during the Rabin years to sabotage that peace process. The terrorist who eventually shot Rabin likely attended at one of Netanyahu's far-right rallies where effigies of Rabin were burned as the crowd chanted he was a traitor to the state (which has certain implications considering the punishments for treason...). Another previous leader, Ariel Sharon, was as a military commander, among other (mis)deeds the enabler of the Sabra and Shatila massacres (read more on the excellent Mondoweiss blog here). Their idea of peace is built on relentless land grabbing and extending any negotiations in perpetuity while the Palestinians are evicted from their lands while Kerry travels around the Middle East seeking support for his never-ending carousel of humiliation of American diplomatic power. I encourage everyone to read this excellent op-ed in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz discussing this issue. This is a short excerpt: If you want to learn more about Israeli politics, what the different parties believe, who is currently in charge and so on I'd recommend you start on Wikipedia. Then read newspages and blogs, preferably Israeli newspapers (I recommend Haaretz). Personally I also read the Mondoweiss and Tikun Olam blogs. Tikun Olam is basically a... well, I don't know how to describe it, but a "news device" for Israeli journalists. Whenever a gag order is placed in Israel - a legal order forbidding journalists from covering certain unsavoury news items - the Israeli journalists leak what they know to Tikun Olam, because they can sometimes get away with citing what foreign news outlets have to say. But maybe you don't have that much of a capacity or not so high ambitions - if you feel you're interested in foreign politics and what the "big boys" of the world are up to but start at such a rudimentary level of understanding, maybe it is more fitting you should start from the very basics with something like this first.

I agree 100% with this, we should make the most out of modern methods in order to be able to work pro-actively against diseases, preventable and otherwise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTwFs99iGXg Strikingly similar!

Number 10 is my favourite, the one with one soldier pushing another one's butt. This is also great: There are simply so many ways you can make fun out of Nazis. Although I guess that statement can be extended to include all people who pathologically take themselves too seriously.

Harp darp

In the news recently from Israel/Palestine: From gay Jews down to goys - the hierarchy of the human species as told by Eli Ben Dahan "Goy" plural: "goyim" is a derogatory Hebrew term for non-Jews. Eli Ben Dahan is the current Minister of Religious Affairs in Israel, who decides over matters regarding implementing Judaism in the law. Naturally, stances such as his are fiercely opposed by the waning largely secular Israeli Left, however the current Nationalist-dominated government have taken a conservative turn in thinking about this, only partially held back by the Yesh Atid party. Currently, homosexual couples are not persecuted actively in any way, although the state does not recognize homosexual marriages officially. This development is very sad and shows the deepening divide between the progressive, modern cosmopolitan class in Tel Aviv and conservative, nationalist settlers and their supporters who are increasingly dominating the political scene. Here's from another article about the same dude: So a Jew who unofficially marries a non-Jew or a Jew of the same gender in Israel can now be thrown into jail. I wonder what these conservative nutjobs will come up with next. Well... This certainly is a funny "what if" scenario. Parts of the Israeli Right consists of a lot of Russian emigrants, and there are definitely cliques which would like to gravitate closer to Putin's Russia. At the time however, (49% of Israelis believe Israel should seek other allies than the US) official efforts are much more oriented towards China than Russia. What exactly would Israel have to offer Russia or China? By and large nothing, except for military technology, which is in turn largely either 100% American, or created through scientific collaboration with the US (the sharing of technology between Israel and China is already taking place, much to the embarrassment of US leaders - also here). So if Israel was to steer too close to China or Russia, that "selling argument" would be moot, because Israel's technological edge hinges on scientific and economic (especially the latter) ties to the US. Not that Russia or China WOULDN'T want a friendly-aligned state in the ME, it's just that it wouldn't be worth any particular effort - we've got to remember that in the context of global politics, Israel is a piddling statelet with a mere 9 million inhabitants. I'm surprised you say that it would be a "nightmare" for either the US or the Palestinians. For the US, such a development would only be close to a "nightmare" if this new state went amok, attacking Lebanon or Egypt. Naturally, Israel has zero hope of winning a military conflict aligned against the interests of NATO, but such a conflict would nevertheless be costly. The mere fact of an Israel not aligned with the US would not even be a liability for the US - I bet the stability gains and investment possibilities in Arab or Muslim countries would far outweigh the loss (but in either case, we're talking small pros and cons here). For the Palestinians, things can't really get much worse than the current situation, short of outright genocide. But that's already too much time spent with fantastic speculations. The situation you describe is simply NEVER EVER going to happen. Here's why: economics. Almost all of Israel's exports go to Europe or the US. All big Israeli employers are completely dependent on the American and European market. Without American bizarrely one-sided support for Israel in international affairs, things would have gone the way of South Africa long ago. Already the threat of European boycotts loom over them if the current peace talks fail. If Israel would be cheering Putin or Communist China along, I think American politicians' support for Israel would fall like a house of cards. Imagine Israeli economy without US and EU companies, and without US and EU exports. What would remain? Election consultants in Zimbabwe, the non-Western (and non-Muslim) diamond market and shechita-slaughtered meat? The Israeli economy would be completely annihilated.

Indeed, a democratic one-state solution would be ideal in the long run. Sadly, a single democratic state is currently the political territory of the Communist and crypto-Communist parties in Israel and Palestine . I guess I can only blame nationalism again for people wanting their own state. But this is all really beside the point, the most important issue is that Palestinians inside Israel live in a country which considers its Jewish character more important than its democratic aspect, and that Palestinians in the occupied territories live under a de facto fascist colonial regime, where their land is confiscated, their homes demolished, where they have no freedom of movement (making "Papers Please" look like a rosy fantasy), where they have "Jews only" roads and towns and where they can be detained for any amount of time without criminal charges for protesting against this. FIRST this has to end, then we can afford the luxury of a discussion about whether we want a one-state or a two-state solution. No, but I'm not talking about collective punishment. I'm talking about a group of politicians in Israel (and in the US) who actively support the ongoing war crimes. I know as well that you don't advocate collective punishment, you would rather not want to punish all the Iranians (for example) because their government might want to obtain nuclear weapons (right?), and I don't either. In the same way, we don't want to inflict collective punishment on the entirety of Israel because their current government violates the Geneva Convention in the ongoing continuous ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. We both prefer to avoid collective punishment, but I think the least we can do is to NOT SUPPORT ongoing war crimes. Right? So my list of no-brainers if I was the President of the US would be: End all military support to Israel Boycott all companies and goods which are active in illegal settlements or who utilize unregulated labor from the Palestinian ghettoes End tax exemptions for donations to US organizations which fund illegal settlements Support parties which advocate a secular (not Jewish or Islamic), democratic state in the entirety of Palestine These are all simple actions I think we all can agree on. Personally, if I was American, I'd also want to end tax exemptions for donations to political lobby groups (I can't believe this exists in a democratic nation in the first place, it's a wonder the US isn't more ****ed up than it is). What? That couldn't been further from the truth. In fact, I've said that I don't think the settlement housing itself forms that of an obstacle for peace. Collectively, the houses of Jewish illegal settlers in the West Bank take up less than 1% of the area. The long-term problems are (that is, not counting the immediate problems I've stated above) the sharing of arable land, and of water.

Hello Mor, and welcome to the thread. I have absolutely no idea what makes you think I'm a "right-wing radical". I understand that I must take into account you don't know me personally, but even people here on the forums who don't know me IRL would likely roll their eyes at the description of me as a "right-wing radical". In every situation, I take a firm stance against nationalism, a firm stance against every type of racism, and a firm stance against social conservatism in general and for equality, feminism, HBTQ rights and so on. So I'm really at a loss for words regarding why you perceive me as a "right-wing radical". You might read through the thread again in the light of these statements, thoroughly and carefully this time. Regarding "smear posting" - please stick to more concrete accusations - do you think I have posted anything that is not factually true? In that case, please give me such an example. It might be that you feel that I'm posting only awful stuff about Israel. That has to do with two things - one, that tolerance and pacifism in Israel is pretty much going down the ****ter in every way imaginable right now, because of their current policies and government. Two, the image of Israel in most American mainstream media is extremely distorted (ironically Israeli media is generally much better), so if that's what you're comparing to, no wonder you're confused. Please do not try do simplify this very complex situation. On both sides, there are multiple actors taking the forms of political parties, NGOs and external (based in another country) organizations. So there's no way you can just generalize like that. If you read through my posts, you will find references to "far-right parties", "far-right government members", "far-right MKs" and so on. These are the culprits, it's them and their supporters I'm trying to implicate regarding the current developments. Polls have shown that regarding a two-state solution, Israeli Jews living in Israel and Palestinians living in the West Bank are about as inclined towards a solution based on the 1967 borders with land swaps (the UN consensus). Palestinians living in Gaza are slightly less friendly towards this solution, and Israeli Jews living in the occupied territories of course generally prefer no kind of peace process. Palestinians living inside Israel are typically the ones who are most in line with the UN consensus. Sadly, recently all voting groups' interest in constructive peace talks seem to have dwindled. This in spite of Israeli terror casualties being virtually nil, so the cause for that is a very interesting debate in itself. That being said, the foremost proponents of any constructive peace are typically parties and NGOs open to both Palestinians and Jews - in Israel we have Hadash, Meretz, Balad, Hatnuah and Ta'al, arguably the United Arab List, and depending on current leaders Kadima and the Israeli Labor Party. Excepting the latter two, these parties control only 23 out of 120 seats in the Israeli Knesset, and most have never been in government. If these parties were in power for one term or two, boy would we have serious peace discussions. That's however about as unrealistic as me suggesting that you want the next president of the US to be from the Green Party, or George McGovern with Barry Goldwater as VP. On the other hand, if the Israeli Labor Party gets enough votes, and those are not "stolen" from the other pro-peace parties, we'll have a very interesting and promising situation. This is essentially what happened in 1992 (an election with the largest ever Arab participation), but shortly afterwards then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was killed by a far-right Jewish terrorist, other politicians took over and the peace process was killed. We also have the NGO B'Tselem which keeps track of all the human rights violations in the West Bank, effectively the best ally the Palestinians there have got. So in short, none of the sides is particularly homogeneous. I'd rate Fatah as historically being as open for peace as the Israeli Labor Party, however their current leader is very much interested in constructive talks. There is a group of several smaller Palestinian parties which are even more progressive, however these are even more marginalized than their counterparts in Israel. Would you kindly like to elaborate on this? The international community is not single actor, you know.

OK. You know, when you think about it, the source of almost every injustice is the righting of a perceived injustice. I know you believe in the possibility of objective evil. Personally, I would like to formulate that differently - I believe in the possibility of doing objective harm. Both Mao, Lenin and Hitler were doing nothing but righting wrongs in their own minds. So the intent of anyone is not interesting when we're discussing a single issue. I don't intend to judge the British administration, just criticize the results of their actions. This is incomprehensible to me. If there is one lesson you could learn from the rise and fall of the Nazis, it is that we must fight nationalism and all try to live together. Forcing a certain people to move to make "lebensraum" for others is a sign of BAD things. And yet the entire existence of Israel builds on the massive immigration wave after WW2 and the forced displacement of Palestinians who lived there before 1948 - otherwise the Jews would never have been a majority, not even inside the 1948 borders. If you're saying that the Jews need a country of their own you're essentially saying the same thing as Hitler - different peoples cannot live in the same nation, but must live ethnically separated. That is extremely dense and short-sighted, I'll give the US as an example of a very successful nation which consists of more ethnicities than I can count. I don't think that being a heterogeneous nation has been harmful to them, do you? So even if we discount the fact that the British were giving somebody else's nation to the Jews, it's long-term waste to give any ethnic or religious group their own nation. Even then, the Sikhs would stand first in line for having a nation of their own, since they are almost double as many as the Jews and have also been historically persecuted (also, from the British perspective they have served loyally in the British Army). Well? This is a practical instance now. Not really since I'm not really trying to look at it from anyone's perspective in particular, but it doesn't matter. Indeed. But since you believe in objective evil, you'd be a hypocrite if you would say there was not certain better ways of solving these issues.