Rostere

Surely there's no reason to get angry? I believe indeed that there is a "right" long-term ideal situation. The way there will be very difficult, however. When you say "there is no way to deliver such an 'answer'" I'm afraid you might be thinking in the wrong time-scale, and avoiding action because it makes you feel uncomfortable. How would you "solve" the escalating situation in Asia in 1935 or end WW1 in 1915? Typically, there are never easy solutions which work instantly, nonetheless it's important to move, if ever so slowly, in the right direction. This is the moral imperative - if we fail to take a stance we will have to deal with a worse situation later on, when postponing solving it becomes unavoidable. It's not just a question of being spineless or principled, it's also a question of economy: laxity in the face of injustice will only increase the energy required to eventually solve the problem. We can't ignore the conflict in Palestine, just as much as we can't ignore gangrene in our toes, distant as they may seem (having said that, trying to solve very difficult problems too fast or without a long-term plan will also be harmful). Nevertheless, I recognize that posting without responses is not the point of these forums. Right now it seems that nobody else is interested in discussing this matter. So I guess I'll stay put until something dramatic happens, or somebody else raises the subject (if you want, you can think of it as my Christmas present to you). I'll just post one recent nightmarish video from "The Nation" (Trigger warning: racism):

So, this is very interesting. The Palestinian MK Hanna Swaid (a Christian) proposes to put a Christmas tree at the Israeli Knesset during the holiday, to "celebrate the religious diversity of Israel" and show sympathy with the Christian minority. Hanna Swaid is a member of the leftist Hadash party, a Jewish and Arab Socialist political party whose main platform is equality and removal of ethnic/racial discrimination. This entire proposal is in part a provocation to raise a debate about the steadily increasing influence of far-right elements and the nature of Israel as a "Jewish" state (whatever that means). Naturally the far-right Jewish MKs already have steam blowing out of their ears from the audacity of this proposal. A few of the comments on the article offer small hints about what's going on: "Christians are guests in the land of Israel, as Jews are guests in every other country. As a guest in my home, you are invited, however, you don't bring your furnishings when you are visiting." Which is met with the appropriate retort by an American: "I thought the Christians in Israel were citizens, not "guests." In other countries, America for instance, we don't refer to our Jewish citizens as "guests." They are citizens, and menorahs are displayed in public along with Christmas trees and Kwanzaa symbols. There's something very skewed about your perspective."

I do have some reservations against American General Douglas MacArthur. I must say however that he is the source of many great quotes. "Last, but by no means least, courage - moral courage, the courage of one's convictions, the courage to see things through. The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It's the age-old struggle - the roar of the crowd on one side and the voice of your conscience on the other." "I promise to keep on living as though I expected to live forever. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul." "The powers in charge keep us in a perpetual state of fear, keep us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant sums demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH *cough* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0iTiCHjiNs This must be perhaps the worst -and funniest - political speech I've ever seen. And look at their faces Apparently this was aired on Egyptian national television. Here's Jon Stewart's take on it: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-september-11-2013/two-guys--a-girl-and-a-pita-place They must have no idea of the potential repercussions of this. What if Stalin had went to the US in 1934, making a speech strongly supportive of Roosevelt, saying Communists were 100% behind him. I am simply amazed, no, stunned that this somehow came through whatever process the current propaganda machine in Egypt uses to choose material to send on TV. WHO THE **** MADE THIS HAPPEN AND WHY? It's incomprehensible. Well, now Al-Sisi is going to have a long, hard time washing away the notion that he is bought and paid for by the US. Michele Bachmann has just suffered further public humiliation, although it's doubtful if you can actually sink any lower. If the Egyptians are well-informed enough to understand that these are the political adversaries of Obama, he's going to seem like a shining beacon of intelligence, respect and common sense in comparison. The worst possible thing the US could do to promote democracy in Africa and the ME is to send their most stupid representatives to support a dictatorship. Saying that the Muslim Brotherhood was behind 9/11. Oh wait, are you saying Bachmann also criticized Obama for "just letting the Arabs overthrow Mubarak"? Furthermore, things get even more out of hand: she also sent a crazy article to one of Egypt's newspapers. After a long debate on whether or not they should publish an article by an "extremist, racist woman", they eventually decided to do so, publishing it followed by a piece stressing the importance of dialogue in an open state. Interestingly, this seems to have had a positive and informative effect. In a sort of a happy ending, ordinary Egyptians are quick to note that she does not represent the views of Obama, but she belongs to a faction which could be described as the "American Taliban" .

I thought DX:HR was good except for two things: the (existence of) bosses, and the "choice" at the end.

This sounds SO bad.

Here's a new article from the Jewish Daily Forward. What do you think? When will the drift towards the far-right in Israeli politics make the work of the "Israel First" lobbies impossible?

There was one of those guys a few years ago in Sweden as well. Thought he'd blow up a few shoppers, succeeded only in killing himself.

I don't think you understand the main point of the EU... The main reason to expand the EU is to create a larger, coherent, stable, free market to encourage trade and investment. The fact that people get to vote to the EP is just a minor detail. Ukraine being a large country would only speak in their favour from this perspective. From a business perspective, the fact that they're poor is not necessarily a bad one. If they're poor, this only means they can work for lower pay. They will get higher pay than they have now, and EU business interests can outsource stuff to "cheap" Ukrainian companies.

Mind blown...

Of course it depends of the state of the nation you colonize, but in my opinion bad relations between colonized and colonizer come chiefly from a violent struggle for independence. If there is no such struggle, or if no such struggle has occurred yet, I think a measure of respect for the colonizer among the colonized definitely can exist - take my example of Ho Chi Minh from earlier in this(?) thread for example.

Prosper, have you ever considered acquiring the licence to produce a Sacrifice sequel?

So far you are. This is just a baseless statement. I'm not a native speaker of English, but "no constitutive component"? Even if it was just an appeal to nostalgia (it's not - it's a question of aesthetics) it surely has a constitutive component by definition? Anyway, the only "constitutive component" necessary is your own aesthetic preference of one type of design over another. What the actual ****? This has to do with aesthetic direction, not hardware. Besides, there are no fundamental differences in rendering difficulty between UI suggestions I've seen so hardware has nothing to do with this.

I liked the music in the trailer. Go Justin Bell!

Discussion require civility and mutual respect. Since Sensuki isn't very civil and there is clearly no mutual respect I think it is fairly clear what "this" was. Also the vocal minority is always the last person a designer should listen to. Everyone's opinion should count and has value to a point but when you basically ram your opinion down everyone's throat and admit that you don't care what other people think and feel you are "more important" than other forum users... well... Case in point. My ui mock ups evolved and changed based on feedback from posters. Sensuki's not so much. The fact that you guys have to keep falling back on petty insults and flames to me also speaks volumes. Who is the vocal minority? Based on the poll and discussion here, I think it's clear most people do not want this "modern" (NWN onwards) minimalist UI you keep talking about. But maybe we should make yet another poll.

This should pretty much settle this discussion. Just don't let the hate from Karkarov and all the WoW kids get to you, there are lots of people who are on your side in this debate, please keep posting and stating your views

I loved the UI of the BG games. Excellent, "woody" type of UI. Not this horrible newfangled "tinny", wiry, thin, transparent and too minimalistic type of UI.

Before 1948? Indeed, but having a good relationship with elites does not necessarily make it more unlikely you have a bad relationship with the general populace, right? There are examples of where colonial powers were looked up to, before a violent struggle for independence started. I really wish there was more information on the Internet about Arab opinion on Britain and the US before Israel, there seems to be awfully little written on the subject (in comparison to relations with the Zionists/Israel).

Hmm. Not sure about 'friends' at all. The Brits (and French) had after all promised the arabs independence in WW1 then reneged spectacularly and betrayed their main arab ally after WW1 to boot. And a lot of the ethno religious and other conflicts happening now is because of those lines-drawn-on-maps countries much as it is in Africa. Whether a pan arab state would definitely have been better is unknowable, of course. Once the hodge-podge approach had been decided upon Israel's creation certainly did not help matters. Hmm.. I guess it's only things I've read about this for example which make me think that. Plus, the Zionists certainly thought in 1948 that the British were very Arab-friendly. In fact, I think I might know more about what Zionists thought about the British-Arab relationship than I know about how that relationship actually was. It might have something to do with that initially, the foremost goal of the Zionists was forcing the British from Palestine by acts of terrorism. They certainly believed that the British and the Arabs were on the same side (which I guess they were back then). Here's about Lehi from Wikipedia: Here's from an article detailing the initial Zionist armed struggle (before the transformation of the Irgun and Lehi terrorist groups to Israeli political bureaucracy): What do you think?

In this situation, feel for the nations that donate bodies to that mission. Indeed. But how can we achieve anything without an effort? If anything, the IDF's occupation of the West Bank actually shows that you can police a very large area without many casualties. Now imagine a police/military force whose goal is actually to improve on people's daily life instead of forcefully displacing them. I imagine the West Bank would be less dangerous than several UN missions, the same with Gaza once the initial clashes end. In such a case, I'm much more worried about the Jewish religious fundamentalist settler groups. They make up a fairly large portion of the IDF, especially among officers. It is said that if a two-state (and certainly a one-state) peace deal is ever finalized and parts of the West Bank handed over to Palestinians, they will execute a military coup (similar to the Algiers putsch). It is doubtful that they succeed, but that scenario together with the possibility of far-right IDF elements fighting international peacekeepers is very daunting.

Well, of course it has not changed the entire ME completely (sorry if it came across as that - I just meant that it was very important). But the situation there has been an important factor, since it is so crucial in deciding the relationship between the Muslim/Arab world and the US. I'd say the Cold War (for example) definitely has been more important for shaping the ME, without a shadow of a doubt. Still the situation in Palestine has been one of the most important problems fundamentally changing how "the West" is perceived in the ME. It's possible 9/11 would never have occurred if it were not for the situation in Palestine, for example. Remember before the end of WW2 the British and the Americans were more like friends of the Arabs, the Arab public perception of the British was much different than it is today.

Exactly. Both far-right Jewish factions and extremist Palestinian factions such as Hamas would likely try to sabotage relations by inflicting atrocities on the other side, and perhaps even in the worst case resorting to false-flag attacks on their own side, to shift opinion. I don't think that would be below some of the most brainwashed actors in this conflict. As you say, extremists on both sides are "betting" on having a Palestine free from the other side. For Hamas, this takes the shape of an unwillingness to enter negotiations and peace talks (hoping vainly to eventually secure a final military victory over Israel). For the far-right parties in the current Israeli government, this takes the shape of the continuous strategic house demolitions and institutionalized racism. This is why we need a strong (international and neutral) peacekeeping force in place for a long time, to ensure no atrocities are inflicted on either side. It will also be critical to advance this peace and unification process very slowly, in order to avoid instability. Essentially, the peace hinges on pro-equality Jews and Palestinians choosing to align themselves with each other, instead of siding with their extremist brethren. There are already "peace villages" where Jews, Muslim and Christian Palestinians live side by side, all recognizing each other's right to coexist and the potential of cooperation (in addition to so-called "mixed cities" in Israeli terminology which often consist of a segregated Jewish modern city and under-prioritized Palestinian slums). However these are currently just small projects of "peace hippies", often harassed and derided as being unpatriotic traitors. You've also got to realize that the dynamics of the ME are very much a product of the current situation in Palestine. Because of US payments to Israel to support the occupation and unwillingness to condemn Israeli war crimes, "The West" is easily made a punching bag and portrayed as a malevolent external force by autocratic leaders who need to demonize Western democracy to support their own despotism. Thus the situation in Palestine has slowly but steadily been polarizing "The West" and the Arab and Muslim world. Sadly this is only going to get worse if we don't do something. In the 1970s, with the strength of the Communist ideology at the time, movements and leaders in the ME utilized Communist rhetoric to gain followers by viewing the war crimes in Palestine as committed by "capitalist imperialists". Thus the situation in Palestine was a powerful tool through which Communist movements could gain followers. Today, with the decline of Communism, the same types of autocratic leaders and terrorist cults are blaming the war crimes in Palestine on the entire Christian world for their complacency and complicity (using the ideology of militant Islamism), thus polarizing all Muslims against Christians and Jews (even though Christians were also victims of Zionism - but nobody said these guys were consistent). Exactly like you say Walsingham, the only way out of this is to prevent any future atrocities from occurring, from today onwards. That means using international pressure and international, neutral peacekeeping forces to stop Israeli house demolition and land confiscation, disarm Hamas and similar organizations and prevent all terrorist actions.

No, obviously a story-centric alternate history tank-RPG

I think this text is excellent. We should push towards having UN peacekeepers in Palestine, disarming Hamas in Gaza and making sure no crimes are committed in the West Bank. Then we should grant the Palestinian refugees the same right of return that Jews who haven't ever lived seen Israel have now. Then the long-term goal should be for them to live side by side, just as the whites and blacks do in today's South Africa. This will however also take the same type of sanctions and pressure from the US and the EU as it took for South Africa. First, Palestine didn't belong to anyone before establishment of Israel, there was no Arab state there for hundreds of years. There was no ethnic cleansing, there was a brutal civil war with Jews fleeing from Arabs and Arabs fleeing from Jews. There was no cleansing afterwards, that's just a lie. Israel isn't just going to pick up and go away, any more than Americans or Australians or the blacks in South Africa for that matter. And so long as it exists, it has the right to self-defense, just like any other nation. Edit: I've posted this before, but it's an interesting article : http://www.historynet.com/lashing-back-israel-1947-1948-civil-war.htm There was no Arab state because first they were occupied by the Ottomans, and the by the British. That does not change the fact that those who lived there were predominantly Palestinians, most of the Muslims but some Christians. But then most Palestinians were driven out in a deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing. That includes Christians - see this and this - Christmas trees have become the latest symbol of protest for Palestinian Christians who want to return their ancestral homes which have been demolished by state decrees at different points in history. Meanwhile, in Israel: You who appear to care especially about Christians in various places all over the world: you should read that article and learn how Palestinian Christians are treated in a country which has long since gone off the rails in efforts to "Judaize" itself. The worst part is that far-right nationalism and religious fundamentalism seem to be constantly on the rise in Israel. The ultra-Orthodox Jews are also the fastest growing segment of the population (which has resulted in much resentment towards them from other Jews). The 1948 ethnic cleansing is a fact, however you are right in that people among the Palestinians wanted the Jews gone in the same way. However that was not really what happened at all. After 1967 the Jews could settle freely anywhere in Palestine (using state decree to confiscate land and demolish villages if Palestinians lived there), while the Palestinians were confined to several areas. After this, Palestinian homes and villages have been demolished one by one as part of a deliberate strategy, "dunam by dunam", to drive them from their lands (in the Israeli Knesset, this is called handling the "demographic threat"). Most significantly, this includes ancient Palestinian parts of Jerusalem. If this all had happened at once, it would without a shadow of a doubt be called "ethnic cleansing". That is why I call it a continuous campaign of ethnic cleansing - the intentional uprooting of people of a certain race. Personally I don't want the Jews to leave, in fact I don't even think that it is necessary to destroy the illegal settlements in the West Bank. If international peacekeepers had disarmed all factions in 1948, we could have had a South Africa-like multi-ethnic country there today. With all the aggression that has been built up, such a solution is now harder because it will take a longer time to get there, but I think the most sensible end solution to aim for is the return of all Palestinian refugees, the end of planned house demolitions and a united, democratic nation in the whole area of Palestine, without necessarily the destruction of illegal settlements but with a more even distribution of confiscated land and resources.

So does that make the invasion, occupation and ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine moral? What is your point? Yeah, Christians are having an increasingly hard time down in the Middle East right now. After the whole age of colonialism, Cold War meddling and support of unpopular dictators, the recent wars and US enthusiastic support for Israeli war crimes, they are increasingly starting to think that Christians are the source of all evil. You can forgive them a bit for thinking so when you consider it must seem that way from their perspective. If only all Arabs could go to trips to the US, they would learn that American Christians do not sit all day and plot which countries to bomb next and do high-fives when they hear the Israeli army has shot another child. In fact most American Christians are probably 100% oblivious both about which ME dictators the CIA supported during which years, how many civilians have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and about the situation in Israel. So it would be deeply unfair to characterize them as evil in any way. So now you're justifying the persecution of Arab Christians by Arab Muslims by blaming it on Israel and the US? Truly you've sunk to a new low. Check out what they're are doing, since you're so into righteous indignation, it's a thousand times worse than anything Israel does to Palestinians, which is all done in self defense btw. "Justification" - I think you need to check out what it means. I can obviously understand how people feel or think without agreeing with their actions. I know rather well about the persecution of Christians in the ME (in Egypt and in Syria). I wouldn't say what has happened in Egypt and Syria is worse than what Israel has done to the Palestinians historically speaking. However these last 2 years have seen an extreme peak in violence against Christians in Egypt and Syria, in connection to the revolutions. We get to hear a lot about this in Sweden - we have large Christian community from the ME, for example the fourth highest population of Syriac Orthodox in the world, fascinatingly more than even in Lebanon. I'm really upset about a lot of stuff but frankly I also think it's not an interesting subject for discussion in itself, because all forum visitors will have the exact same opinions. "Self defence"? That's just grand. What about I go to your place, kick you out and blow your house up in "self defence"? Obviously few of the issues I've raised can be adequately explained by self defence, but even if some can be explained by it, the point is moot. If I stole a car and stabbed the police officer who went to get it back from me, it would not be a problem related to my act of "self defence", it's another problem at the core entirely. If you go to a place, make an effort at ethnically cleansing the local population, continuously work at this afterwards, and then find out people are resisting violently, the core problem is not how you should defend yourself. Emphasizing that is just averting your eyes from the real problem.