Israel-Hamas War 2023

[Admiral Yi]

The ambiguity is not in whether it's legitimate. The ambuguity is for outside parties such as ourselves in determining what is happening. Are the Armenians leaving because they just hate the Azeris so much they don't want to stay? Or are they leaving because the Azeris have let them know - subtly but unequivocally - that it would be dangerous for them to stay?

I don't need Armenians to hate Azeris in order to dismiss the charge of ethnic cleansing.  Just that they leave without the threat of violence if they stay.

Dangerous for them to stay sounds like a situation in which one possibility is the Azeri cops are saying we will not stick our bayonets in your backs and coerce you, but we can't speak for your new neighbors and they could get ugly.  Maybe best to pack up.  In that situation I'd say the state is off the hook and the ethnic cleansing is grass roots.  If dangerous for them to stay means we're happier if you leave and maybe I will rape your daughter if you stay, yeah, that's ethnic cleansing.

Incidentally, I would like to point out we began our conversation with you taking up Shelf's position, in which he said intent is not a relevant concern.

[Jacob]

I'm not taking up Sheilbh's position. I'm stating my own, which seems to have some overlap with Sheilbh's

I think framing it in terms of "Azeri cops" doing or not doing something misses the mark when the situation is one of armed forces taking over the territory.

[Admiral Yi]

I think framing it in terms of "Azeri cops" doing or not doing something misses the mark when the situation is one of armed forces taking over the territory.

Replace all references to Azeri cops with references to Azeri soldiers and I don't see what changes.

[Jacob]

Replace all references to Azeri cops with references to Azeri soldiers and I don't see what changes.

Heavily armed soldiers in a warzone carry a heavier implication of potential violence that police officers do outside a warzone.

[Admiral Yi]

Heavily armed soldiers in a warzone carry a heavier implication of potential violence that police officers do outside a warzone.

A soldier with an AK telling an Armenian to leave or die is ethnic cleansing.  A cop with a pistol telling an Armenian to leave or die is ethnic cleansing.

Either one standing on a street and saying nothing is not ethnic cleansing.

[Jacob]

A soldier with an AK telling an Armenian to leave or die is ethnic cleansing.  A cop with a pistol telling an Armenian to leave or die is ethnic cleansing.

Either one standing on a street and saying nothing is not ethnic cleansing.

Sure.

I believe cops and military personnel have other actions available to them beyond the two you have described, but I'm not super interested in beating this particular horse to death.

[Admiral Yi]

Sure.

I believe cops and military personnel have other actions available to them beyond the two you have described, but I'm not super interested in beating this particular horse to death.

Cool.

[Jacob]

Cool.

[viper37]

Heavily armed soldiers in a warzone carry a heavier implication of potential violence that police officers do outside a warzone.

A soldier with an AK telling an Armenian to leave or die is ethnic cleansing.  A cop with a pistol telling an Armenian to leave or die is ethnic cleansing.

Either one standing on a street and saying nothing is not ethnic cleansing.

Depends.

A soldier with an M-16 shoots your brother, then says nothing.  Is there a message being sent?  If so, what is it?

When mafia-types kill one's family, what message is being sent?  All's good?

[Admiral Yi]

Weird.  Lubavitchers in NYC dug a secret tunnel complex under their synagogue, rioted when the city tried to dismantle.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Those are not the "good" kind of Jews, I am generally in favor of suppressing their behaviors where they seem to believe they are exempt from secular laws (which appears to be a common belief this sect have.)

[HVC]

This the same sect that ran a line around manhattan to get around some sabbath rules?

[OttoVonBismarck]

I'm not sure, I have heard of Chabad Lubavitch before, and there is a "schismatic" sect of "Messianic Jews" (they believe the Messiah was a Chabad rabbi who died in the early 1990s) that is an off shoot of them. It appears these tunnels were somehow tied into the long standing drama between those two groups.

But my understanding is the Orthodox Jewish community in NYC proper is actually much more clannish / sectarian than they seem from outside observers. I think Hasidic Jews in general belong to something like 200 different sects, some of which have extremely opposing views and outright enmity with other sects of Hasidim.

[Admiral Yi]

This the same sect that ran a line around manhattan to get around some sabbath rules?

I think that was done by plain vanilla Orthodox Jews.

These are the ones who ran a Jews only ambulance service and didn't pick up a Jamaican dude one of their guys had run over.  About 20 years ago.

[PRC]

The story I read was that there was infighting in the synagogue between one faction of Jews and another faction of Jews.  Police responded to that fighting and discovered the tunnel during the course of their response.