General politics thread (was: General U.S. politics thread)

fourteenwings

recognition of Palestinian statehood

The funny thing is; what exactly is being recognized? Which part? A "country" that is in two very separate halves? Which government? Hamas? Fatah? I mean, even South Sudan had a decent mock-up of a government before it all imploded.

Anyways, I hold many opinions that are currently and historically unacceptable so I don't super mind whatever is mainstream in ten years (which I'll probably also oppose anyways).

"Everything"

Why are Jewish caricatures always so adorable (or is that a parody)?

There's a lot of inclusivity in the hater community

Well, I'm still pretty sure if you asked them outright if they supported a Jewish state they would say no (unless it was to 'send them back wherever they came from', which would just be a sarcastic response anyways).

glennmagusharvey

fourteenwings wrote: »

clear the land of Palestinians

I don't think that's what Zionism is.

Zionism is the movement for the self-determination and statehood for the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel.

Zionists believe in and support the right of the democratic State of Israel to exist as a Jewish homeland. Israel is the only Jewish state in the world. Being a Zionist is distinct from supporting the policies of the government of Israel.

I purposefully avoided using the term "Zionist" in order to be more specific. That term has something of a fraught and messy definition depending on who's using it.

The funny thing is; what exactly is being recognized? Which part? A "country" that is in two very separate halves? Which government? Hamas? Fatah? I mean, even South Sudan had a decent mock-up of a government before it all imploded.

I'd like to note that Palestinians held more of that territory in the past, and Israel actually took some of that territory well after it was established as a country. Palestinians didn't simply only ever have these tiny and increasingly fragmented bits of the territory.

And there's ongoing efforts by Israeli settlers, with the backing of the government in many cases, to further disintegrate (in the "break into less continguous pieces" sense) the West Bank area with their own settlements.

As douchey as its extremist enemies are, Israel is certainly not without sin in the current conflict. Now, just because people did bad things in the past doesn't mean things can't be resolved peacefully today, but there's also the obnoxious right-wing assholes heading the Israeli government right now and doing things like looking the other way or outright endorsing the land-grabbing settlers; such extremism fuels the fires of conflict and ironically fuels the relevance of extremists on the other side like Hamas.

fourteenwings

This feels like it's getting out of hand, yet again, so I'm going to stop.