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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 6, 2024

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Except it's not a few months, it's 76 years.

Immaterial. The moment you deny the claims of the Palestinians to the land, you implicitly deny the much older and less substantial Israeli connection to the land. If the Palestinians don't have any claim after 76 years, the jews definitely don't after several thousand.

I'm not sure what you'd consider morally acceptable action on the part of the Israelis, unless it should be to just commit mass suicide to save the Palestinians the time?

One state solution with full democracy, or a two state solution. This would also have to include a tallying up of the damage caused by each side to determine if reparations have to happen too, not to mention trials for some of the more egregious acts - every single use of white phosphorous on civilian populations deserves criminal investigation at the least.

Leaving aside the fact that the Palestinians didn't control the region before 1948

I don't care to rehash the tired old argument about how the Palestinians didn't really exist, if you want to have that discussion go talk to somebody else and simply accept that I disagree.

If 9 million people who didn't choose to be born where they were accept getting slaughtered,

This isn't actually something that I said - please don't put words into my mouth. I in no way suggested that the Israelis accept getting slaughtered.

I'll repeat my question about whether you think Jews with central European ancestry are entitled to the land in Germany or Poland their ancestors lived on?

Depends on the individual context. There's a big difference between someone having their home stolen by the nazis, and someone selling off their property at the height of the Weimar republic and moving to America. That said, I was under the impression that Germany essentially already did this.

Immaterial. The moment you deny the claims of the Palestinians to the land, you implicitly deny the much older and less substantial Israeli connection to the land. If the Palestinians don't have any claim after 76 years, the jews definitely don't after several thousand.

Good thing I already stated that the original claim to the land is irrelevant. The original European claims to the new world weren't justified, but their descendants are still justified in living there.

One state solution with full democracy, or a two state solution.

Glad to hear you support a two state solution, although that sounds rather at odds with your previous comments such as:

If destroying their homes to make way for Israel is acceptable, destroying Israeli homes to make way for Greater Palestine is equally acceptable.

If I break into your home and kick you out, I don't get to call you the aggressor when you return in a few months and try to retake your home.

So are Hamas not the aggressors? In any case, if you support a two state solution I'm not sure why you would take Palestine's side when the majority of Palestinians don't want a two-state solution, but continued massacres of Israeli citizens. I also wouldn't expect you to be so dismissive of Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. As acts of good faith go, it's significantly more encouraging than this latest example of Gazan diplomacy.

This isn't actually something that I said - please don't put words into my mouth. I in no way suggested that the Israelis accept getting slaughtered.

So then I'm unsure why you would hold the fact that Israel exerts influence in Gaza post-2005 against them, given that it's pretty much only for the purpose of preventing Hamas continuing to fire rockets at them and commit atrocities.

Depends on the individual context. There's a big difference between someone having their home stolen by the nazis, and someone selling off their property at the height of the Weimar republic and moving to America. That said, I was under the impression that Germany essentially already did this.

I'm pretty sure the ~6 million Jews who were final solution'ed had their homes stolen by the Nazis. Nevertheless, it does seem a bit more complex than I thought, with Germany having gone to impressive lengths to recompense Holocaust survivors. The point doesn't change though - we can talk about Jews who can trace their heritage to people who were expelled during earlier central European pogroms, or Native Americans whose ancestral lands are now covered in cities full of Europeans they had no choice in allowing the development of.

Terribly sorry for the late reply, but I came down with the flu and had to bail from the internet discussion (contentious internet debates are the first things I drop when I'm unwell). I'm happy to continue talking, but it has been so long that I'd rather ask if you want to continue first.

Glad to hear you're feeling better. You're welcome to DM me if you want to keep chatting.