The Off Topic Topic

[The Minsky Moment]

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..

Turkey is a democracy, they've been oppressing the hell out the Kurds for decades now, and just recently kicked off another bloody offensive.
Where is the mass BDS campaign against Turkey?

[Razgovory]

I guess I should also point out that the US and Britain mandated the population transfers of Germans in 1945 as part of the Potsdam agreement.

[Eddie Teach]

or who refused to offer sanctuary to said population - namely, NA.

I think we've done ok by the Jews, even if it did take a little prodding by Japan. 

[Josquius]

Turkey is a democracy, they've been oppressing the hell out the Kurds for decades now, and just recently kicked off another bloody offensive.
Where is the mass BDS campaign against Turkey?

Agreed.
Though to be fair Turkey has an iffy history with democracy.

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.

No we weren't.

Why couldn't the Arab states take the Palestinian refugees?

Because they're not refugees. They still live in the Palestinian Territories.

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.

Except the nations of the west don't speak out against Israel much. They let them do their thing with only a few token words of "We hope there'll be a peaceful solution...."
A strategy of condemning Israel isn't working because there isn't one.

[Malthus]

Except the nations of the west don't speak out against Israel much. They let them do their thing with only a few token words of "We hope there'll be a peaceful solution...."
A strategy of condemning Israel isn't working because there isn't one.

Really? No Western nations speak out against Israel? 

This is so easily disprovable, with the most basic of searches. To give but one example:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-france-idUSKCN0WI1LS

The impact on the Israeli public of criticism?

Well, I have some proof of that:

One of the fascinating phenomena concerning the way the Israeli Jewish public views world criticism of Israel and Israel's low status in the international community is the perception of a weak connection between Israel's actions and attitudes toward Israel. In other words, it is assumed that no matter what Israel does, it will always incur foreign criticism. The guiding assumption of the majority is that "the whole world is against us" (56%). Yet an even larger majority (77%!) asserts unequivocally that it makes no difference what Israel does in the Palestinian context and what policy it adopts; the world will continue to be very critical of Israel in any event. In other words, these numbers show that while a significant number of respondents (42.5%) disagree with the maxim that the whole word is against us, many of those same individuals believe that Israel's actions and policies are not the main source of the criticism directed at the Jewish state.

http://peaceindex.org/indexMonthEng.aspx?num=56

In the face of that, what's the point of 'more criticism'? It is the very definition of futility to keep doing the same thing that failed, in the hope that doing more of it will succeed.

[Josquius]

Really? No Western nations speak out against Israel? 

Who said that?

They don't do it much != it never happens.

[Eddie Teach]

Really? No Western nations speak out against Israel? 

Who said that?

He linked to statements by the French and German foreign ministries.

[Jacob]

Really? No Western nations speak out against Israel? 

Who said that?

He linked to statements by the French and German foreign ministries.

He wasn't asking about who spoke out against Israel. He was asking who said "No Western nations speak out against Israel."

[DGuller]

Here is another obvious problem with "treat all democracies by the same high standard":  how many other democracies are one military disaster away from annihilation and likely genocide?  Not too many that I can think of.  Existential threats do have an impact on everyone's behavior, WWII kinda showed it.

[Malthus]

Really? No Western nations speak out against Israel? 

Who said that?

They don't do it much != it never happens.

You clarified your position as follows:

They let them do their thing with only a few token words of "We hope there'll be a peaceful solution...."

Again, easily disprovable. As the link shows.

[Razgovory]

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.

No we weren't.

Why couldn't the Arab states take the Palestinian refugees?

Because they're not refugees. They still live in the Palestinian Territories.

I'm sorry, but Captain Mihaili explicitly referred to Nakba day, the day that Israel declared independence or what the Arabs call "the Disaster".  What did you think we were talking about?  I'm pretty sure the Palestinians are refugees, they live in refugee camps and are typically called refugees in the press and history books.

[Malthus]

I truly pity the plight of the Palestinian refugees who ended up in Syria.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_refugees

[Capetan Mihali]

But some of the posts are just too provocative and I'm weak, so I can't help responding.  I'll try to drop it.  I'll note that my commemoration of Norway's constitutional independence hasn't seemed to attract the same onslaught.

All right. Judging by the yet not so fresh from the boat imported Green (Khmer) nutcase from Norway (Eva Joly) advocating a national holiday in French politics à la Norway instead of the July 14th we all know in France, I'm not too keen on celebrating a PC national holiday. 
But then, French Greens are a disgrace in general.

PS: I must say i like the way colonies were redefined ad hoc earlier in the thread.

Thank you, Duque.   I sure was hoping that inflammatory, trolling commemoration of Norwegian Constitution Day that I posted in obvious bad faith would provoke the same kind of heated reaction.

[Josquius]

Here is another obvious problem with "treat all democracies by the same high standard":  how many other democracies are one military disaster away from annihilation and likely genocide?  Not too many that I can think of.  Existential threats do have an impact on everyone's behavior, WWII kinda showed it.

Its not 1967 anymore.
Israel as the underdog is a very outdated POV.

I'm sorry, but Captain Mihaili explicitly referred to Nakba day, the day that Israel declared independence or what the Arabs call "the Disaster".  What did you think we were talking about?  I'm pretty sure the Palestinians are refugees, they live in refugee camps and are typically called refugees in the press and history books.

OK. You're an idiot. You know nothing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_territories
4 and half million in the territories.

Really? No Western nations speak out against Israel? 

Who said that?

They don't do it much != it never happens.

You clarified your position as follows:

They let them do their thing with only a few token words of "We hope there'll be a peaceful solution...."

Again, easily disprovable. As the link shows.

Which cannot be disproved as it obviously wasn't a literal statement of what people say.

[Razgovory]

OK. You're an idiot. You know nothing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_territories
4 and half million in the territories.

Okay, as an idiot you are going to have to explain to me what you mean by that.  Why did you link me to a wikpedia site on Palestinian territories?