This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Palestinians don't just want peace, they also want independence. We both know that if Palestinians turned Jew-loving overnight, released their hostages and laid down their arms, what happens next is not that Israel withdraws from the occupied Palestinian territories, but rather that Israel will conquer the entire country (as Netanyahu has already said he intends to), and Palestinians will live under Jewish rule forever.
All armed conflicts can be resolved peacefully if one side is willing to give up all of their claims. But would you suggest this in any other conflict? Should the Ukrainians hand their country to Putin for the sake of peace, at the cost of their freedom? Should Taiwan give their country to the CCP? Should America have accepted British rule instead of establishing their independence?
And let's be clear: the source of the conflict has nothing to do with whether Palestinians love or hate Jews. The inhabitants of all surrounding countries hate the Jews just as much as the Palestinians do, but Israel is not occupying them, because Israel does not want their land.
The reason Israel is occupying territories like Jerusalem and the West Bank is that the Jews consider those part of their God-given holy land. It doesn't matter whether the citizens living in that land love or hate the Jews; the Jews want to conquer that land either way.
Ukrainians lost a lot of freedoms while Ukraine fights Putin's Russia. I heard Ukrainian blogger speculating that Ukrainian males would be never let to travel outside, even if Russia is defeated this year, because once they be allowed out, several or more millions will leave immediately. Ukrainians also don't have freedom to say "Let Putin annex all Ukraine, and then we can oust Putin with less human causalties".
More options
Context Copy link
The first paragraph is false, they have been offered numerous peace deals with self-rule. Turned them down. Everything you have said they want they have been offered.
You are really making it sound like they are just Nazis. Nazis too could have just had Germany but wanted other peoples land and more. Palestinians want Israel not to exists and remove them from the Arab world.
All the people now living in Israel and Palestine weren’t even there when all this started. It was mostly uninhabited land. In 1922 a total of 757k people live in Palestine Mandate of which 78% were Muslim. Nobody living there today can claim ownership on what was essentially abandon land.
Also it’s false that the rest of the Arab world hates them. SA sees them as a key ally in the development of the country and essential to their long term plan of not being just an oil state.
I want Leonardo DiCaprio’s gf, that doesn’t mean I get to kill him and kidnap her and lock her in my basement as a reasonable demand.
As long as Palestinians demand is the removal of Israel then Israel has a valid claim to fully evict Palestinians.
If that demand changes Palestinians have legal claims to reasonable divide of territory.
And you did a lot of bad whataboutism comparing Palestinians to other conflicts. The Palestinian claim to all of Israel is much more like the Russian claims to Ukraine that the people on those lands centuries ago were more like themselves and therefore it’s still their land.
Not true. In Oslo, the Palestinians agreed to recognize Israel and accepted only limited self-governance for Palestine, but it was Israel that reneged on the deal, once they realized that it would require actually withdrawing their occupation forces from Palestinian territories.
Again, see the Oslo accords, where the Palestinian leaders agreed to recognize Israel in exchange for partial autonomy in the Palestinian territories, but Israel reneged since they realized they can just keep occupying Palestinian land indefinitely without any repercussions.
So it's clearly not true that all Palestinians want total destruction of Israel, and aren't willing to compromise. That's just a lie spread by Zionists because it makes it easier to justify occupying Palestinian territories indefinitely.
The comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany is a little awkward but there is some truth to what you say: just like Germany could thrive within its 1938 borders, Israel, too, could thrive within the 1947 borders, but just like Hitler felt the Germans were entitled to a larger country, Zionists believed that the Jews had a god-given right to rule Jerusalem and the West Bank, and since they had the military power to take them by force, they decided to just take Palestinian lands by force.
That's more than twice the number of people living in e.g. Iceland today, and I doubt anyone would call Iceland “uninhabited” or “abandoned”. And by your own admission: there was no significant Jewish presence in that area either (166k by your count) so it's not like the Jews have a better claim to the entire territory.
The Oslo Accords ended because of suicide bombings and the start of the Oslo Accord. Obviously Israel stop withdrawing when the bombing started. That was intentional dishonest (there was also a Jewish shooter).
Sorry you are just behaving in bad faith. When your very first paragraph leaves out very key details it’s not worth discussing things at all with you.
I meant the Palestinians as Nazis trying to kill ethnicities they don’t like to remove them from land.
80-100k Jew in Palestinian Mandate. They were both there but both in very low population.
People disagreeing with you, not seeing the world the way you do, even "leaving out key details" that you think are relevant to their argument, does not mean they are behaving in bad faith. Saying someone is "behaving in bad faith" rhymes with "You're lying," and there is a pretty high bar to get away with accusing people of that just because they're taking a position you think is wrong. You are allowed to point out that their arguments are bad or that they "left out key details." You are not allowed to, as you are wont to do, simply fling around accusations that your opponents are liars arguing in bad faith.
Normally a comment like this would just get a warning. As attacks go, "You're arguing in bad faith" isn't that bad. But looking at your record, you have 13 warnings and temp bans, and zero AAQCs. You're just a bad poster who pretty much posts nothing but shitting on your enemies. You contribute nothing useful or insightful, you're not clever, you don't offer an interesting point of view, you're just another pure culture warrior who's here to drop turds in the discourse.
One week ban, expect steep escalation in the future.
More options
Context Copy link
Yes, Hamas tried to frustrate the peace process, but so did Orthodox Jews. You conveniently forget to mention that the PM of Israel was assassinated, not by Hamas, but by a Jewish extremist.
This was the moment where moderates on both sides should have stood their ground and enacted the two-state solution. But Israelis didn't want to do it. They reneged on their promise of withdrawing from Palestinian territories.
This of course completely destroyed the support Palestinian moderates had among the people, because it made it clear to the Palestinians that the Jews cannot be trusted and cannot be bargained with. Israel drove Palestinians into the arms of Hamas. And of course that's exactly how people like Netanyahu like it: the more extreme Palestinians are, and the more they support Hamas, the easier it is to justify killing Palestinians and annexing Palestinian lands.
Don't throw baseless accusations around. I'm arguing in good faith, and if you are too, you should be able to support your position with arguments, instead of personal attacks.
They reneged after a full intifada was started. That is how things work in peace processes your stop when the other side breaks promises.
At this point it would be perfectly fair for Israel to expel Palestinians completely. That is how these things work.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link