Israel / Palestine News Thread

[Leo Gura]

10 minutes ago, Raze said:

I know, but by funding the islamists bin Laden and others rode their victory to fame which later allowed him to form Al queda and spread extremist ideology, and some of the  Islamists turned into the taliban 

The US was fighting a Cold War against the spread of Soviet Communism. That was mostly done by funding local opposition. That was pretty smart strategy overall, given how disasterous communism was. I don't fault the CIA for that. The spread of communism was a major problem. It was spreading like a cancer.

13 minutes ago, Kokorec said:

Hey @Leo Gura curious about this appreciate if you could give your perceptive?

I could say "they did it first" but that doesn't feel right.

Then what do you do when you are in this situation fight,war,divorce etc. and the other side plays it dirty and doesn't care about truth(or less than you)?

It's hard to give a general answer.

But in general what you do is deescalate by not making aggressive moves, and very importantly you have to be open to genuinely hearing their perspective, you have to really want to understand their greivances, rather than just insisting that that you are good and they are evil. Once the other side feels heard there can be genuine compromise.

This is exactly what Israel refuses to do.

Edited September 20 by Leo Gura

[Raze]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

The US was fighting a Cold War against the spread of Soviet Communism. That was mostly done by funding local opposition. That was pretty smart strategy overall, given how disasterous communism was. I don't fault the CIA for that. The spread of communism was a major problem. It was spreading like a cancer.

US officials admitted they funded Islamists in Afghanistan to trigger a soviet invasion to kill Soviets and weaken the Soviet Union. This resulted in over 2 million Afghani civilians dying.

The idea that communism was spreading was a theory called domino theory that has been debunked. It also lead to the Vietnam war.

The CIA’s behavior was catastrophic. 

[Leo Gura]

46 minutes ago, Raze said:

US officials admitted they funded Islamists in Afghanistan to trigger a soviet invasion to kill Soviets and weaken the Soviet Union. This resulted in over 2 million Afghani civilians dying.

Yeah, but the Soviets were spreading communism to Afghanistan. The Muslim locals did not want to live under a secular communist puppet regime. It is proper for Islamists to be in charge of Afghanistan. Most of the population are Islamist there. Soviet communism is out of place there.

It was the Afghans' choice to fight for their independence from Soviet influence. Just like how Ukrainans choose now to resist Putin's influence. If Afghans wanted communism they could have just accepted it peacefully. But obviously that would have been a bad choice for them.

Quote

The idea that communism was spreading was a theory called domino theory that has been debunked.

Debunked?? It literally happened in dozens of nations. Communism was a global movement that spread like cancer, infecting dozens of nations like North Korea, Cuba, the Middle East, Asia, Eastern Europe, etc.

Lenin's whole thing was international communism, gaining a foothold in Russia and then spreading to cover the whole globe. That's what the whole Cold War was about. Stalin tried to inflitrate every nation he could with his commuist influence and stage communist revolutions across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Many of these revolutions failed, or were stopped with the help of capitialist powers.

Edited September 21 by Leo Gura

[Heaven]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

That was the whole purpose of the Oct 7th attack.

The #1 purpose of all terrorism is to raise global awareness to injustice which would otherwise go ignored and unrecognized. Terrorism is basically a marketing strategy.

That’s a naive statement. The #1 purpose is to kill Israelis and cause as much damage as possible. They thought it will show an example and others will join and they were right(Iran, Hizbualla and Yemen).

This victim mentality is unbearable about how poor Palestinians are and how Israel is the oppressor. 
 

If Iran and Lebanon would finance Gaza as much as they finance war. Palestine would be the next Dubai.

 

[Leo Gura]

10 minutes ago, Heaven said:

That’s a naive statement. The #1 purpose is to kill Israelis and cause as much damage as possible.

No, that underestimates how strategic and intelligent terrorists are. Hamas is very calculated in its strategy, it is not about random aimless violence.

There are even quotes of Palestinian leadership saying stuff like: It is better to kill 1 Jew in the city where everyone can see it vs killing 10 Jews out in the desert where no one will see.

The purpose of the violence is to create as much public attention as possible. Because they know they cannot kill all the Jews with terrorist attacks. They aren't stupid about that.

Terrorism is a rational policy, not an irrational one.

Edited September 21 by Leo Gura

[Karmadhi]

@Leo Gura Why is USA still supporting Israel so much?

I am not American but if I was, I would want USA to stop supporting Israel so much.

All they do is take money from the US and make them look bad for supporting Israel without question.

I saw Bernie (he is also Jewish so being Jewish is not an excuse to shamelessly support Israel) has a pretty objective view on the matter.

Half of Democrats skipped Netanyahu speech on Congress in 24th of July.

So there is a lot of will within the democrats party to change the situation and stance of the US towards Israel.

Why dont they act?

A first step would be to half all weapon shipments to Israel (perhaps with exception of systems Israel needs purely for self defence).

Harris seems pretty liberal person, but here she seems like your typical Zionist conservative.

I do not understand.

Edited September 21 by Karmadhi

[Nemra]

45 minutes ago, Raze said:

The idea that communism was spreading was a theory called domino theory that has been debunked.

Then I must be delusional to hear religious people whine about why they couldn't preach. Lol.

Edited September 21 by Nemra

[Leo Gura]

13 minutes ago, Karmadhi said:

Why is USA still supporting Israel so much?

Because Israel is a "Western" nation and all the Arab nations are not.

The US wants a Western foothold in the Middle East. Religious alignment is also a huge factor. Christians are more aligned with Jews than with Muslims. So in a sense this is a war of religions. The US also has a big population of wealthy powerful Jews who have outsize influence in US politics. Israel is also an important ally to the US for hunting down Arab terrorist networks. US and Israel probably share a lot of sensitive intelligence.

Edited September 21 by Leo Gura

[Atb210201]

35 minutes ago, Heaven said:

If Iran and Lebanon would finance Gaza as much as they finance war. Palestine would be the next Dubai.

 

Lol Iran can't even be the next dubai itself

It's under lots of sanctions we are dying in terms of ecology here and under lots of pressure just to make a living what are you talking about

Edited September 21 by Atb210201

[Karmadhi]

9 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Because Israel is a "Western" nation

How so? I thought Jews are semites, not Europeans. Israel does not respect human rights or international law like most of the West does in general. So value wise they are worlds apart. Especially with the current Israeli government which is basically fascist.

10 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

eligious alignment is also a huge factor. Christians are more aligned with Jews than with Muslims. So in a sense this is a war of religions

I thought Christians hate Jews more than Muslims due to the Jews being believed to be the ones that betrayed Christ. This is shown in action by the fact that 95% of Jewish oppression came from Christian countries, not by Muslims countries which were much more tolerant of them. But I am not an expert on this issue.

11 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The US also has a big population of wealthy powerful Jews who have outsize influence in US politics.

That is why I brought up Bernie, he is also Jewish yet does not support Israel. Being a Jew is not an argument. Or you mean most Jews there are very biased while Bernie is less biased?

12 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Israel is also an important ally to the US for hunting down Arab terrorist networks. US and Israel probably share a lot of sensitive intelligence.

The paradox is that the whole reason USA needs intelligence from Israel is due to the climate that Israel created in the region which involves the USA.

USA had no enemies in the Middle East before their support of Israel.

If they did not support Israel so much, they would not even need Israeli intelligence since no terrorists would want to bomb the USA.

Israel helps USA with the problem Israel itself created for the US.

Imagine MC Donalds serving you medicine to combat the obesity that you got from eating MC Donalds food.

[Leo Gura]

4 minutes ago, Karmadhi said:

How so? I thought Jews are semites, not Europeans. Israel does not respect human rights

"West" is not a geography, it is a value system and mindset. That's why Japan is considered "West".

Israel is a Western secular liberal capitalist democracy. It does respect human rights of its citizens within reason.

Most Israelis immigrated from Europe and brought with them European values and norms.

Edited September 21 by Leo Gura

[Atb210201]

2 minutes ago, Karmadhi said:

How so? I thought Jews are semites, not Europeans. Israel does not respect human rights or international law like most of the West does in general. So value wise they are worlds apart. Especially with the current Israeli government which is basically fascist.

I thought Christians hate Jews more than Muslims due to the Jews being believed to be the ones that betrayed Christ. This is shown in action by the fact that 95% of Jewish oppression came from Christian countries, not by Muslims countries which were much more tolerant of them. But I am not an expert on this issue.

That is why I brought up Bernie, he is also Jewish yet does not support Israel. Being a Jew is not an argument. Or you mean most Jews there are very biased while Bernie is less biased?

The paradox is that the whole reason USA needs intelligence from Israel is due to the climate that Israel created in the region which involves the USA.

USA had no enemies in the Middle East before their support of Israel.

If they did not support Israel so much, they would not even need Israeli intelligence since no terrorists would want to bomb the USA.

Israel helps USA with the problem Israel itself created for the US.

Imagine MC Donalds serving you medicine to combat the obesity that you got from eating MC Donalds food.

There is a conspiracy theory in Iran specially from those who are enemies with Zionists which says America is controlled by Jews basically they say Jews are in the power in America 

I don't know the truth just thought to share this conspiracy theory

[Raze]

51 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Yeah, but the Soviets were spreading communism to Afghanistan. The Muslim locals did not want to live under a secular communist puppet regime. It is proper for Islamists to be in charge of Afghanistan. Most of the population are Islamist there. Soviet communism is out of place there.

It was the Afghans' choice to fight for their independence from Soviet influence. Just like how Ukrainans choose now to resist Putin's influence. If Afghans wanted communism they could have just accepted it peacefully. But obviously that would have been a bad choice for them.

Debunked?? It literally happened in dozens of nations. Communism was a global movement that spread like cancer, infecting dozens of nations like North Korea, Cuba, the Middle East, Asia, Eastern Europe, etc.

Lenin's whole thing was international communism, gaining a foothold in Russia and then spreading to cover the whole globe. That's what the whole Cold War was about. Stalin tried to inflitrate every nation he could with his commuist influence and stage communist revolutions across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Many of these revolutions failed, or were stopped with the help of capitialist powers.

There were large secular and religious groups in Afghanistan, the Soviet Union funded communism there while the US funded religious fundamentalist. The militant Islamist ideology wasn’t popular and formed from the militias the US funded.

It was there choice to fight, but in the end it killed millions and destroyed Afghanistan as a state which caused further bloodshed for decades. Had the US left well enough alone it wouldn’t have ended nearly as badly.

See Vietnam, the US also funded Vietnamese who wanted to fight communists and even fought with them, but hundreds of thousands died, in the end the communists one, and Vietnam isn’t even that bad a place to live, it accomplished nothing but suffering.

I didn’t say communism spreading was debunked, the idea it spreads from country to country like dominos was.

[Raze]

44 minutes ago, Heaven said:

If Iran and Lebanon would finance Gaza as much as they finance war. Palestine would be the next Dubai.

Except we can see how Israelis treat Palestinians in the West Bank when the PLO pretty much works with the Israeli government now, so no it wouldn’t.

[Karmadhi]

9 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Israel is a Western secular liberal capitalist democracy. It does respect human rights of its citizens within reason.

 

Come on Leo. Do you really believe that? Cant you see how they bully and oppress Palestinians which they occupy.

A Liberal democracy does not act like that.

The demonization and downright Nazi attitude they have towards Palestinians is anything but "liberal".

Liberals treat all humans equally, Israel does not.

https://www.btselem.org/publications/202408_welcome_to_hell

From an israeli newspaper.

A "liberal" democracy does not act like this, it finds this behaviour totally unacceptable.

Plain and simple.

Israel is a democracy in way they organize elections and choose leaders but they do not care about universal human rights.

Would not be suprised if Russia treats occupied Ukrainians better than Israel treats Palestinians.

Edited September 21 by Karmadhi

[Leo Gura]

1 minute ago, Raze said:

There were large secular and religious groups in Afghanistan,

Everyone in Afghanistan is religious. There is no meaningful secularism there.

[Raze]

22 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Because Israel is a "Western" nation and all the Arab nations are not.

The US wants a Western foothold in the Middle East. Religious alignment is also a huge factor. Christians are more aligned with Jews than with Muslims. So in a sense this is a war of religions. The US also has a big population of wealthy powerful Jews who have outsize influence in US politics. Israel is also an important ally to the US for hunting down Arab terrorist networks. US and Israel probably share a lot of sensitive intelligence.

There weren’t anti American Arab terrorist networks in the Middle East until the US backed Israel. 

The biggest factor is the lobby. The US supports a lot of countries but no other country to the point where it’s afraid to even pressure it at all.

[Raze]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

Everyone in Afghanistan is religious. There is no meaningful secularism there.

They had a large communist party. They may be personally religious but they can have secular political ideology.

[Leo Gura]

1 minute ago, Karmadhi said:

Come on Leo. Do you really believe that? Cant you see how they bully and oppress Palestinians which they occupy.

Don't conflate what happens inside Palestine with what happens inside Israel.

1 minute ago, Karmadhi said:

A Liberal democracy does not act like that.

Of course they do! Liberal democracy is about how you treat your own citizens, not foreign minorities.

[Leo Gura]

3 minutes ago, Raze said:

They had a large communist party. They may be personally religious but they can have secular political ideology.

No they can't, because Islam is not compatible with Marxist communism.

You can try to astroturf it for a while, but it will fail, as it did.

Edited September 21 by Leo Gura