The Off Topic Topic

[CountDeMoney]

Carbonated water can be an effective explosive device, if properly deployed. 

[LaCroix]

Wait.  Sodastream had a factory in Palestinian territory, along with a few hundred Palestinian employees, a pro-Palestinian group gets them all shitcanned and the factory moved somewhere else, and they call it a win?

How the hell does that work?

it's a win for the anti-settlement group because it gets an israeli factory out of an israeli settlement. the number of lost jobs (which don't seem stellar in the first place) is pretty negligible

[Capetan Mihali]

I see my "cause" as broader than mere Zionism, but whatever: the issue isn't simply having a cause, it is with presentation of evidence. Having a cause should not lead to a one-sided presentation of evidence. Even if all you are committed to is a particular "cause", presenting evidence in a one-sided manner isn't going to convince any but the decided to support your cause.

Take this debate as an example: presenting the maps, without acknowledging the "small details" (the UN partition plan, the '48 war, etc.) leads to an unconvincing case.

It's the difference between persuasion and propaganda. 

And I see my "cause" as broader than Palestinian liberation, but whatever.  I admit that I'm not very well-versed in the series of events between 1946-1948 that led to the institution of the Israeli state.  I do intend to read up on it.  But what I see and hear about Palestine right now is enough to make it part of my "cause" (since we're using scare quotes for that, too).  The manner in which Israel was formed is important, but the condition of the Palestinians in the hands of the Israelis at this moment is most important to me.

Not sure what the scare quotes around settlers implies, but nevermind that.  The difference between the scandalous things Canada has done is that those are long in the past; Israel is doing those scandalous things now -- I can't go back in time and denounce the Trail of Tears or the Mexican-American war. I see it as a moral obligation to object to those things, just as I object to the things I think are scandalous that the US is currently doing.  And I feel a special obligation to resist Israel's deeds because billions of dollars of the money of US citizens is enabling them.

I strongly disagree.

Take the example I gave: residential schools. If the Israelis did anything like that to the Israeli Palestinians, you'd have pretty good proof that the Israelis were utterly amoral: the "residential schools" took native kids, moved them away from their families, and forced them to learn the culture and language of the dominant majority (a deliberate policy of cultural extinction) - while subjecting them to all sorts of abuse.

Imagine if Israel took Palestinian kids away from their families en mass, forced them to abandon Arabic language and culture. I bet you would not approve! 

Do you know when the last "residential schools" finally shut down in Canada?

It was in ... 1996.

I do not consider 1996 to be "long in the past". And that's just one example: native Canadians still, in many cases, live in 3rd World-like conditions today.

Now, opinions differ as to what causes that and what can be done about it, but most people agree: that's scandalous. Yet it does not utterly "de-legitimize" Canada. A country can do bad stuff, but on the whole, be better than the alternatives.

Okay, last residential school closed: 20 years ago.  Last time Israel massively bombed Gaza: 2 years ago.

The US had very similar institutions for Native Americans, and for God's sake we held millions of people in chattel slavery that was only eradicated after a massive war ending in 1865, and then 100 years of segregation.  That's all pretty bad.

And we have millions of African Americans (among others) living in desperate poverty subject to unbelievable police brutality right now.  That makes it imperative that we figure out a way to ameliorate this situation.  African Americans, as a whole, continue to have an inexcusably poor quality of life in America.  And I'm willing to take your word for it that the same is true for First Nations people in Canada. 

But that in no way excuses Israel's treatment of the Palestinians in 2016, which -- and I guess we may differ on this -- vastly exceeds the US and Canada in its level of brutality and oppression.  If we want to judge Israel by the standards of its neighbors, they're doing a pretty great job.  Then we should relegate Israel to the status of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.  But Israel wants to be considered in the same cohort as Canada, Spain, Italy, etc.  They can't have it both ways.

[MadBurgerMaker]

E:  Okay try this:  Pro-<group> gets people from <group> fired and sent away to live with little to no other prospects for income, people cheer and say their jobs sucked anyway.  Remove "Israel" and "Palestine" from it.  What does that look like to you?

[Malthus]

I gotta say I do agree with Mihali in his critique of Israel as the "Jewish state" especially when you consider the religious component. Israel gets away with it only because everybody else in the region is much worse. The pragmatist in me says it is fine, the idealist disagrees - both are valid positions to hold.

Most Israelis I know are utterly against the religious types who often make life difficult there. The religious types have excessive power because of Israel's wacky electoral system - most Israelis resent that as much as you would.

The "Jewish state" thing means basically the same thing as Turkey being a "Turkish state", Germany being a "German state" or Poland being a "Polish state" - it's basic ethno-nationalism, no different from other states founded on ethno-nationalist principles. The founders of the "Jewish state" were mostly socialist Atheists, many from your part of the world originally. 

I would hope that as history progresses ethno-nationalism can be left behind, but unfortunately that requires everyone else to leave it behind, too - the whole point of having a "Jewish state" was that others would not leave ethno-nationalism behind and, historically, refused to consider Jews to be "real" Germans, Poles, Turks etc. The exceptions being in NA, the UK and Australia.

Again, look at the timeline.  Most ethno-nationalist states are founded around populations that have lived in the area for centuries.  Of course there was conquest, but the Turks, for example, conquered Byzantium in 1453, not 1953.  And Russian conquest of the Caucasus was objected to even during the 19th Century, and certainly the Soviet Union's domination of the Baltic States, etc. was used critically against them as "Soviet Imperialism" by the West; I believe that underwrote a lot of the outrage against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Palestine had Jews living and prospering in it under Ottoman and British rule, but the region was essentially Arab.  It is only in living memory that the region was declared a Jewish State, with a massive influx of Jews from Europe.  Of course the Holocaust played a major role in creating that influx, but as tragic as it was, it is really neither here nor there for the people who had been living in that area for centuries (and who did not participate in the extermination of Jews during the Holocaust) only to find that they now lived in an ethno-nationalist state that was not of their ethnicity or nation.

Much of the same sort of thing happened in exactly the same "time line" as the formation of Israel.

Population transfers following WW2 (to name just one example) uprooted "local populations" by the millions to make ethno-nationalist states conform with newly-created borders. How could it be otherwise, when (for example) Poland was bodily moved 200 miles to the West? Ancient settlements of ethnic Germans, for example, were removed; settlements of ethnic Ukrainians and Poles were displaced (leading to much bad feeling in some quarters, to this day).

You specifically mention Turkey as an example - Greece and Turkey had a major population exchange as a result of a war they fought - ancient Greek and Turkish communities were uprooted. That happened rather more recently that 1453! Try 1922: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Turkish_War_(1919%E2%80%9322)#Atrocities_and_claims_of_ethnic_cleansing_by_both_sides

According to the population exchange treaty signed by both the Turkish and Greek governments, Greek orthodox citizens of Turkey and Turkish and Greek Muslim citizens residing in Greece were subjected to the population exchange between these two countries. Approximately 1,500,000 Orthodox Christians, being ethnic Greeks and ethnic Turks from Turkey and about 500,000 Turks and Greek Muslims from Greece were uprooted from their homelands.[134] M. Norman Naimark claimed that this treaty was the last part of an ethnic cleansing campaign to create an ethnically pure homeland for the Turks[135] Historian Dinah Shelton similarly wrote that "the Lausanne Treaty completed the forcible transfer of the country's Greeks."[136]

A large part of the Greek population was forced to leave their ancestral homelands of Ionia, Pontus and Eastern Thrace between 1914–22. These refugees, as well as Greek Americans with origins in Anatolia, were not allowed to return to their homelands after the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne.

The Greeks were hardly innocent of that sort of thing, expelling thousands of "Chams" in 1945:

Following the Italian occupation of Albania in 1939, the Chams became a prominent propaganda tool for the Italians and irredentist elements among them became more vocal. As a result, on the eve of the Greco-Italian War, Greek authorities deported the adult male Cham population to internment camps. After the occupation of Greece, large parts of the Muslim Cham population collaborated with Italian and German forces. This fueled resentment among the local Greek population and in the aftermath of World War II the entire Muslim Cham population had to flee to Albania. Most Chams settled in Albania, while others formed émigré communities in Turkey and the United States, and today their descendants continue to live in these countries. Since the fall of Communism in Albania, Chams have campaigned for right of return to Greece and restoration of confiscated properties.

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

The point is that the 20th century was full of "ancient communities of X ethnicity getting uprooted as a result of ethno-nationalist conflict". It was bog standard. Yet only one example appears to attract world attention.  Have you ever even heard of the Chams and their quarrel with Greece? Probably not. 

[Capetan Mihali]

Wait.  Sodastream had a factory in Palestinian territory, along with a few hundred Palestinian employees, a pro-Palestinian group gets them all shitcanned and the factory moved somewhere else, and they call it a win?

How the hell does that work?

Having an Israeli-owned factory operating in the West Bank was detrimental to Palestinian cause, i.e. that they shouldn't be ethnically cleansed from the West Bank, and yes unfortunately some factory workers in the West Bank lost their jobs, while some Palestinians at the new factory in "Israel proper" presumably gained those jobs.

It doesn't matter to me since I still avoid Israeli goods wherever they're made, but the Occupied Territories has more resonance with the general American public.

For what it's worth, the whole BDS movement was started by Palestinians in 2005 who called for the rest of the world to do exactly this (with Israel entirely, not just the West Bank). 

Some black South Africans probably lost their menial jobs once the boycott and divestment movement got going in the 80s, but it was ultimately a very effective means of pressuring the South African state to end apartheid.

[Capetan Mihali]

Much of the same sort of thing happened in exactly the same "time line" as the formation of Israel.

Great.  A lot of terrible things happened after WWI and WWII.  They were tragedies.  The difference with Palestine is that it is an ongoing tragedy.

Have you ever even heard of the Chams and their quarrel with Greece? Probably not. 

I'm no Spellus, but for the record, I have.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Having an Israeli-owned factory operating in the West Bank was detrimental to Palestinian cause, i.e. that they shouldn't be ethnically cleansed from the West Bank, and yes unfortunately some factory workers in the West Bank lost their jobs, while some Palestinians at the new factory in "Israel proper" presumably gained those jobs.

It doesn't matter to me since I still avoid Israeli goods wherever they're made, but the Occupied Territories has more resonance with the general American public.

FYI, the whole BDS movement was started by Palestinians in 2005 who called for the rest of the world to do exactly this (with Israel entirely, not just the West Bank). 

Some black South Africans probably lost their menial jobs once the boycott and divestment movement got going in the 80s, but it was ultimately a very effective means of pressuring the South African state to end apartheid.

No, they don't have any Palestinians anymore, or at least not any from occupied territories.  The last ones were let go in February because they were denied work permits.  Sodastream apparently hired local Bedouins instead.  Congrats on the glorious victory. 

E:  But hey, then again, maybe they have since hired more who were able to get their work permits!  So.....they just go back to doing what they were doing in a new location...and the settlement of 40,000 where it was located will continue to exist because there are 40,000 people there...more glorious victory?

[The Brain]

Now I think that Canada should be pushed back into the sea.

[Malthus]

Okay, last residential school closed: 20 years ago.  Last time Israel massively bombed Gaza: 2 years ago.

The US had very similar institutions for Native Americans, and for God's sake we held millions of people in chattel slavery that was only eradicated after a massive war ending in 1865, and then 100 years of segregation.  That's all pretty bad.

And we have millions of African Americans (among others) living in desperate poverty subject to unbelievable police brutality right now.  That makes it imperative that we figure out a way to ameliorate this situation.  African Americans, as a whole, continue to have an inexcusably poor quality of life in America.  And I'm willing to take your word for it that the same is true for First Nations people in Canada. 

But that in no way excuses Israel's treatment of the Palestinians in 2016, which -- and I guess we may differ on this -- vastly exceeds the US and Canada in its level of brutality and oppression.  If we want to judge Israel by the standards of its neighbors, they're doing a pretty great job.  Then we should relegate Israel to the status of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.  But Israel wants to be considered in the same cohort as Canada, Spain, Italy, etc.  They can't have it both ways.

I have no interest in "excusing" Israeli actions; I'm pointing out that there is some sort of perspective here. Focusing on the doings of a tiny country on the other side of the world is just an oddity. Sure, thy do and have done some bad things; but hardly different from (say) most other nations on the planet.

Sure, Israel is a nation founded along ethno-nationalist principles. That sucks. But then, so are most other nations world-wide. It simply strikes me as bizarre in the extreme to single out one of the multitude and only criticize that one. It's like a pacifist who only criticizes Belgium for having an army.

If your claim is that Israel right now is as "bad" as Canada 20 years ago - well, I was an adult in Canada 20 years ago; that's not exactly ancient history.

[The Brain]

I don't buy any products that are made in Communist China.

[Malthus]

Great.  A lot of terrible things happened after WWI and WWII.  They were tragedies.  The difference with Palestine is that it is an ongoing tragedy.

How are all the others not "ongoing tragedies"? The land was lost and with it all the possessions; the people from ancient communities were (and remain) uprooted and sent to live in other countries far from their ancestral homes.

[CountDeMoney]

Watch your step, CM...Malthus has littered this thread with Burmese Fallacy of Moral Equivalence tiger traps.  They're everywhere! 

[Eddie Teach]

I don't buy any products that are made in Communist China.

Do you buy any products made in autocratic, capital-friendly China?

[Capetan Mihali]

Happy Constitution Day, Norway.



There is an enormous parade raging right nearby me, since I live near what used to be a rowdy Norwegian fisherman's neighborhood, with a main drag full of saloons and brothels, not a sedate homestead like those Minnesota emigrants built. The fleet is still active, but most of the Scandi residents of the area have aged out or moved to the suburbs, plus a lot of houses are being torn down to build multistory condos.

But every syttende mai it's time to commemorate Norway's success in dodging Danish and Swedish tyranny.



EDIT:  Though I guess you'll never see so many Vietnamese high schoolers dressed in Norwegian traditional garb as you will at a Seattle syttende mai parade.