The Off Topic Topic

[Josquius]

Those events happened several decades earlier and aren't still creeping forward.
And all the relevant put upon people's still have a country.

The creation of Israel happened several decades ago as well, and there are plenty of Arab states in existence.  Seems to me the real cause for Palestinian suffering is the unwillingness for various Arab states to absorb refugees.

We aren't talking about the creation of Israel.
And not all Arabs are the same.

[Tamas]

The thing that right wingers don't get about Israel is that because it is a democracy we hold it to higher standards than other regimes.
Of course North Korea for one obvious example is worse.But protesting against them isn't going to accomplish anything. They don't care how the west views them. Israel does.
The world isn't a black and white place. Often it's the less nasty bad guys that you should be focusing your attention on as they're the ones you actually stand a chance of changing.

No you hold them to a higher standards because you don't care about dead coloured people unless they are being opressed/killed by white people and/or Jews.

[Malthus]

The thing that right wingers don't get about Israel is that because it is a democracy we hold it to higher standards than other regimes.
Of course North Korea for one obvious example is worse.But protesting against them isn't going to accomplish anything. They don't care how the west views them. Israel does.
The world isn't a black and white place. Often it's the less nasty bad guys that you should be focusing your attention on as they're the ones you actually stand a chance of changing.

Is there any actual evidence that this is true? My own impression of Israelis is that they are recipients of so much "criticism" that it has had a harmful effect - rather than making them reflect on their wrong-doings (of which they have many), it has made most of them reject even reasoned and reasonable criticism. It doesn't help that, of course, mixed in with the reasonable criticism of actual Israeli wrong-doings is plenty of plain old hatred of their existence. 

It's like the "Boy who cried wolf", only on a national scale. Protests only have an effect if the target reasonably believes that, if they mended their ways, the protest would stop. Given that much of the protest is aimed at Israel and Israelis for existing, there isn't any way they can "mend their ways" so as to avoid protest; and like all humans, they naturally tend to lump the deserved protest in with the undeserved. The deserved gets drowned out in the chorus.   

[derspiess]

Bringing things back off topic, for those who are willing to court the ignominy of owning a sodastream, I'm a fan of these guys: http://pittsburghsodapop.com/

I mostly use my Sodastream for fizzy water (and oppressing Arabs), but I may give that a shot. 

[The Minsky Moment]

You can get small sample packs. Price isn't cheap but it is a lot better than the big brand sodas.  Good if you only drink soda every now and then.  I like the ginger beer, the sourball orange, and the grape but it's subjective of course. 

[Josquius]

Is there any actual evidence that this is true? My own impression of Israelis is that they are recipients of so much "criticism" that it has had a harmful effect - rather than making them reflect on their wrong-doings (of which they have many), it has made most of them reject even reasoned and reasonable criticism. It doesn't help that, of course, mixed in with the reasonable criticism of actual Israeli wrong-doings is plenty of plain old hatred of their existence. 

It's like the "Boy who cried wolf", only on a national scale. Protests only have an effect if the target reasonably believes that, if they mended their ways, the protest would stop. Given that much of the protest is aimed at Israel and Israelis for existing, there isn't any way they can "mend their ways" so as to avoid protest; and like all humans, they naturally tend to lump the deserved protest in with the undeserved. The deserved gets drowned out in the chorus.   

Less about directly getting Israel to wake up and realise they're being dicks. More about getting our governments to treat Israel the way you treat a government that is acting like a dick.

No you hold them to a higher standards because you don't care about dead coloured people unless they are being opressed/killed by white people and/or Jews.

That's so far wide of the mark you're not even on this planet.

[Tamas]

Why Tyr? You essentially said the same thing: you hold other opressing countries to different standards because they are not modern democracies. So you don't mind if non-western style countries opress and kill people. How does that contradict what I wrote?

[Josquius]

Why Tyr? You essentially said the same thing: you hold other opressing countries to different standards because they are not modern democracies. So you don't mind if non-western style countries opress and kill people. How does that contradict what I wrote?

Being Jewish has nothing to do with being a democracy or not

[Jacob]

Why Tyr? You essentially said the same thing: you hold other opressing countries to different standards because they are not modern democracies. So you don't mind if non-western style countries opress and kill people. How does that contradict what I wrote?

Holding democracies to different standards than non-democracies does not necessitate "not minding if non-western style countries oppress and ill people."

[Malthus]

Less about directly getting Israel to wake up and realise they're being dicks. More about getting our governments to treat Israel the way you treat a government that is acting like a dick.

That directly contradicts what you said earlier.

Surely if it was about getting your government to treat Israel "the way you treat a government that is acting like a dick", you would, logically, rate each government by an objective scale of dick-ish behavior, and treat them accordingly? Why would them being a democracy matter for that exercise? Why, for example, would you support your government treating a non-democracy that acted like a dick better than a democracy acting like a dick?

Your position, as stated, makes no sense.

[Josquius]

Less about directly getting Israel to wake up and realise they're being dicks. More about getting our governments to treat Israel the way you treat a government that is acting like a dick.

That directly contradicts what you said earlier.

Surely if it was about getting your government to treat Israel "the way you treat a government that is acting like a dick", you would, logically, rate each government by an objective scale of dick-ish behavior, and treat them accordingly? Why would them being a democracy matter for that exercise? Why, for example, would you support your government treating a non-democracy that acted like a dick better than a democracy acting like a dick?

Your position, as stated, makes no sense.

For the same reason I said, better standards are expected of democracies.
A democracy is angry at a dictatorship - dogs hate cats.
A democracy condemning the behaviour of another democracy- that's something.

[The Brain]

I agree, Israel should get rid of democracy.

[lustindarkness]

Most of the world's problems we discuss here in languish could be solved by nukes from orbit. Lately it looks like we may need more nukes.

[Malthus]

Less about directly getting Israel to wake up and realise they're being dicks. More about getting our governments to treat Israel the way you treat a government that is acting like a dick.

That directly contradicts what you said earlier.

Surely if it was about getting your government to treat Israel "the way you treat a government that is acting like a dick", you would, logically, rate each government by an objective scale of dick-ish behavior, and treat them accordingly? Why would them being a democracy matter for that exercise? Why, for example, would you support your government treating a non-democracy that acted like a dick better than a democracy acting like a dick?

Your position, as stated, makes no sense.

For the same reason I said, better standards are expected of democracies.
A democracy is angry at a dictatorship - dogs hate cats.
A democracy condemning the behaviour of another democracy- that's something.

I repeat what I said earlier: there is little evidence that Israel is influenced by having democracies angry at it, for the simple reason that they are used to it, that much of the "anger" has historically been driven by Israel's very existence (and the political desire to appease the Muslim block), and so far it has proved pretty ineffectual in actual practice. It's 'boy who cried wolf'. Not to mention the fact that Israelis are hardly likely to take well to being lectured about historic wrongs of having driven out the Palestinians by the very countries that drove out a goodly portion of the Israeli population in the first place - namely, most of European and ME nations - or who refused to offer sanctuary to said population - namely, NA.

I have yet to see any actual evidence that this strategy of critique has had much impact on Israeli behavior, let alone that Israel is somehow more susceptible to it than the non-democracies.

[Razgovory]

Those events happened several decades earlier and aren't still creeping forward.
And all the relevant put upon people's still have a country.

The creation of Israel happened several decades ago as well, and there are plenty of Arab states in existence.  Seems to me the real cause for Palestinian suffering is the unwillingness for various Arab states to absorb refugees.

We aren't talking about the creation of Israel.
And not all Arabs are the same.

Actually we were talking about the creation of Israel, that is what triggered the population transfers and sure not all Arabs are the same, but neither are all Germans.  There are Swiss Germans, German Germans, and Austrian Germans.  At one time there were Volga Germans, Sudentan Germans, Romanian Germans etc.  Come to think of it, not all Jews are the same, but when the Muslim states forced out all the Jews after Israel became a county all of those refugees were absorbed by Israel.  Why couldn't the Arab states take the Palestinian refugees?