Discussions on Israel and Palestine Returns

Frustrated Mess wrote:

I think it is important, remind. This whole argument...is part and parcel of a logical exercise to blunt opposition to the occupation and the dispossession of Palestinians.

me too,  and I understood/stand completely that "valid argument" advancement, as I have heard pretty much non-stop over the last few years, as I noted prior, a thought terminating cliche if there ever was one.

But you have given a quite clever reparte analogy, that I am definitely going to use.

Frustrated Mess wrote:

Pants-of-dog translates for Yiwah:

So Yiwah agrees the occupation is wrong and that Israel is responsible for the occupation. But Yiwah asserts that Israel ought not to be viewed only through the prism of the occupation.

Now Pants-of-dog tells us what Yiwah is really trying to say, when not calling people assholes. Fair enough. So here is my question:

In what way does a rocket flying out from an open air concentration camp lessen the oppression of Palestinians or mitigate Israel's role as the oppressor? If a rapist is scratched during a sexual assault, is it less of a rape? How so?

It doesn't lessen the oppression of Palestinians or mitigate Israel's role. Nor is that the topic of discussion. You seem to be confused about the subject under discussion.

But it does disprove staments like "the only victims in this situation are the Palestinians." And that is the topic of discussion: how we approach discussions. If we look at it from a simplistic, black and white paradigm, we will not be able to address the situation realistically.

Frustrated Mess wrote:

I think it is important, remind. This whole argument advanced by Yiwah is part and parcel of a logical exercise to blunt opposition to the occupation and the dispossession of Palestinians.

.....

You are mischaracterising Yiwah's argument. Yiwah could have made the exact same argument about residential schools, globalisation, GMOs, union-busting, or any other progressive issue. It is a discussion about how we approach these subjects. It is not an argument about Israel and Palestine. Israel and Palestine is merely being used as an example.

Lard Tunderin Jeezus wrote:

Bullshit.

 

If it is incorrect, then explain how it is incorrect.

Feel free to continue using profanity, if you wish. I am fairly thick-skinned.

Lard Tunderin Jeezus wrote:

Yiwah made no argument. An argument arises out of discussion, and for discussion to occur, there must be interaction. Yiwah regards babble as a soapbox, not a roundtable.

Your claim is inconsistent with the fact that Yiwah interacted with other posters such as maysie, milo204, KenS, and 6079_Smith_W about the actual discussion topic, and not Israel.

You know, I still cant figure out exactly what Yiwah was doing.

But I also dont know where people get their certainty its just a soapbox for another way of mitigating criticism of Israel.

At the very least he said its the kind of meta discussion Pants is talking about. [Which Maysie called a meta-meta.] That doesn't mean in the least that people should accept that it was really a meta disussion, and not a sly slide into the soapbox he is accussed of mounting.

But you all act like that subterfuge is self-evident. I'll leave it that at least for a few of us your making assertions only, not making a case.

And to be more accurate, my not being able to figure out what Yiwah was doing really has as much to do with wondering what the point is.

Pants-of-dog wrote:

Your claim is inconsistent with the fact that Yiwah interacted with other posters such as maysie, milo204, KenS, and 6079_Smith_W about the actual discussion topic, and not Israel.

Your 'fact' is but a claim itself. Do any of said posters feel their attempted input was addressed, rather than dismissed or ignored?

If you don't mind, I'll take that one as a qualified "who the fuck knows?", and await a few more responses.

Its not "who the fuck knows"?

You asked whether some of the posters in question felt they were addressed or ignored. And I said, definitely they were addressed, definitely not ignored.

I went on from your question- way beyond. If you want, you can apply who the fuck knows to what I said. But it clearly does not apply to the question you asked.

But I would say that Pants is reaching too far: there is some room for claiming meaning or word disputes, but I think LTJ is right, that some of us were particpating with what you was called the "actual topic" is an inference rather than an observation. Because who is to say what the "actual topic" is? That may be especially murky in this case- but what the topic is, is always at least in principle open to question. And asserting what it is amounts to calling someone off base when you don't have the mandate

It was a legitimate inference. But equally legit for LTJ to ask us ourselves what we thought.

Mind you, since people are being so imperious in not just questioning Yiwah's intent, but asserting as fact her "hidden agenda".... I wouldnt be pointing any fingers at Pants.

Please stop speculating about Yiwah's intentions and stick to the thread topic.

ETA. Cross-posted with FM

May i make an observation about methods of approaching a contraversial subject? Only in general, not about anyone here!

I see one of the huge problems of the left as being too fair, balanced and moderate. When you are already a minority, being pushed daily farther into the shadows and silences, insistance on seeing both sides puts you at ever greater disadvantage. The other side isn't constrained by such scruples!

A right-winger - let's call him Mr. M - will respond to a statement of fact (cutting in half-way through your carefully-crafted exposition) by calling you a liar at the top of his lungs, and then proceed to go on prime-time tv to add that you have 'terrist' connections, your mother wears falsies and your grandfather was a horse-thief - without a scrap of evidence, but with perfect conviction. Next day, a left-sympathizing commentator might say: "Don't you sort of feel like, ah, Mr. M doesn't , er, always back up his accusation?"  

I think it's okay to have clear convictions and to state them frankly. If someone can prove that your conviction is based on incorrect or incomplete information, you can revise. But you shouldn't have to make his argument for him - he certainly won't, for you!

These comments of KenS bear repeating:

I think the seige mentality is internalized and operative whether there are concrete immediate threats or not. And operative in issues where they virtually never come to Babble- not that this is one of those. Its just one of the realities of the place.

KenS wrote:

And its not like you can just pull up "why the rockets" and be done with it. Because once the discussion goes there, its endless in forums like this. Unless the prtaganists of the lines are made unwelcome, there will be at least one person who will rag it endlessly. 

Clarification. When the "why the rockets" discussions went on and on here, nobody was learning anything.... except how much time you can waste with people who have a stake in ragging an issue endlessly.

I must be certifiable for doing this, but I've decided to go look at the original thread opened by Yiwah, and reflect on what happened to it.

Before that, here's the impressions I ended with.

** It didn't end well, and was unpeasant most of the time. Tat much I expect there would be universal agreement on.

** I really disliked the presumption that Yiwah's real purpose was to get in some 'moderated criticism' of Israel instead of what goes on here. It was a baseless presumption. People are entitled to whatever presumptions they want to make. But its another matter when the collective process is dominated by attacks rooted in baseless assumptions. That said, if you look more closely, there arent that many individuals who are doing that kind of attacking based on perceived intentions of Yiwah. A number of others, possibly more, are simply expressing that they don't like what they see. Their effect tends to be rolled in with that of the dominant tone of attacking Yiwah.

** I started out being one of those who didn't like what I was seeing, and not being able to figure out what Yiwah was trying to do. A lot of that not liking what I was seeing can I think be chalked up to Yiwah getting off on the wrong foot. And more than once. And I will get to that. But the general point I want to make now is that I came to the conclusion that Yiwah was just trying to start a conversation and see where it went. It doesn't speak well to the Babble dynamic if people cant be nudged into something else after starting on the wrong foot.

With that preamble, here are some excerpts from that thread:

Yiwah wrote:

Is the Israel/Palestine issues one of those (thankfully rare) topics that is simply not one that can be discussed from a moderate (re: not either/or) stance?

I ask this here, because the 'anti-Zionism' of leftists is relentless.  Hysterical, almost.  Then you have the rabid pro-Israel crowd who also won't budge.  I can count on one hand the number of individuals I've ran into over the years who can discuss the issue from both sides.

Given the context, and what looking for 'moderation' tends to mean in it, thats going to raise eyebrows, but maybe not so bad in itself. But calling people hysterical is bound to get a reaction. While I can see saying that in the spirit of just making an observation, its equally legitimate, and almost to be expected, that people aren't going to take it that way.

Yiwah wrote:

So it is not possible to look at the entire history of relations in that area and discuss the topic as the clusterfuck (pardon my language) that it is, rather than addressing it as cut and dry, one side wrong, the other side right?
Because I cannot countenance such a black and white view of a situation that is particularly complex.

One gets rather tired of trite phrases like "You'd think after they Holocaust they'd have learned a thing or two" etc.  That kind of lack of intellectual rigour is something you expect on the comments section of cbc.ca.

That question is I think what Yiwah was trying to get at. And would have made a better start.

Yiwah wrote:

I cannot in all honesty be simply 100% pro-Palestine, 100% anti-Israel, and I certainly want nothing to do with the type of people who spout "omg Zionism" over absolutely everything.  I certainly hope that the perception is not that holding all or nothing views and believing in centuries old conspiracy theories is something the left should aspire to.

And, in the same vein as that: " It's just one of those topics that you so rarely (if ever) see approached from a non-extremist position."

This is going to play into the doubts created by the opening post [first quote here], including the puzzling reference to old hoary and really anti-semitic notions of "Zionist conspiracies".

I was going to continue with some quotes of people responding to Yiwah, but this is running on and I don't have time.

So I'll cut to some observations that I think may have some utility beyond this thread.

One problem that was noted by a few people, and Yiwah even said first I beleive, is that she was debating tendencies of discussion that dont or didnt happen hear. So intentionaly or not, a lot of the worst habits of the left from everywhere get presented as something to discuss. There is plenty of reflections of a lot of that here. But its still not the same thing. So the question gets asked a few times- and this is before it gets snarly- who is it you are debating?

And then the inevitable happens, and it usually happens quicker: the inflamatory types jump in. People who are the most likely to shoot first and ask questions later for perceived ideological crimes, people who throw around labels like Zionist the most loosely. Etc.

And its teminal downhill from there.

So that was a pileup on Yiwah. And here is something I just recently noticed about pileups, from looking more closely at who said what in one that was done to me. I've been under plenty of them.

If you look more closely, there is a lot of difference among what is being said by different people in the pileup. And if you isolate a lot of those comments you'll see that those individuals are just as much disagreeing with the substance of what the pileup victim has been arguing, but are not actively, if if at all, particpating in the villifying.

But there is no such distinction when you look at the whole conversation: its one big nasty pile-on, and all the critics appear to be fully part of the pile-on. And it just doesn't [understandably] appear this way to the victim. I've looked at it this many times this way just as an observor.

So this might be useful, given that the phenomena is so common in Babble: if you mostly disagree with what someone has been saying, but you don't think the way are being treated is called for, then consider dissassociating yourself from the attacking. Its probably the right thing to do, and even if you arent aware of it, the aggressive discussants may be carrying you along as one who approves of the tone.

Bump, my patootie.  Yiwah portayed those on the left who support the human rights of Palestinians as extremists who believe in a worldwide Jewish conspiracy to control the planet, coyly framed as a question regarding "the form, not the content"of the discussion.

Fork that noise.

One of the issues is how we define a balanced discussion. Some people believe that means we have to show both sides of a debate. This is not always good. For example, when discussing abortion, I do not think we even need to debate the right of  a woman to control her own body. But people can also mean other things when they speak of having 'balanced' discussions. It could mean that the discussion is as objective as possible. For example, we should be clear that abortion is not based solely on the oppression of women by men. Women oppress women too.So, we should be careful about tossing words around like "moderate" or "balanced".

However, being able to look at the situation from an opposing viewpoint is also often useful. For example, fishing. There are union jobs in fishing that would be gone if the environmentalists among us had everything they wanted. Now, if our labour activist colleagues are unable or unwilling to see things from our environmental activist colleagues' viewpoint, and vice-versa, no reasonable solution will be found and the fish will all be eaten and then the jobs will be gone anyway. Or, they could make an effort at discussion and organise some sort of collective solution involving sustainable business practices.

A moderate conversation on Israel and Palestine is impossible on Babble, IMHO. Babble probably isn't the place for such a discussion. It seems only one lens is used to examine 1948. As long as that is the case then discussion is difficult.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Is there some reason why you can't explain politely that an issue is not up for discussion, without leaping to conclusions about the person raising it?

Thank Jah someone finally came up with a sure-fire solution. Why hasn't anyone tried this before?

Oh, yeah. Lots did...

...and received abuse for their efforts.

Juat a thought: Perhaps you should try experiencing this place for, let's say ... a whole month before you sit in judgment or dictate new rules of moderation.

@ Lard Tunderin Jeezus

I wasn't actually chomping at the bit to bring this up again either, and you might notice I was not one of the people who revived - yet again -  this topic that we don't want to talk about.

Believe me. I understand that it is off limits, and unless I see something which I feel is really unfair I have no desire to come back to what I see as a pointless exercise.

In fact, I said nothing about moderation. I also don't think fair comment about perception, intent and politeness should be interpreted as a call to change policy - especially when my comment is in response to what seems to be mis-perception. It would be very odd to sit by silently and have people wonder and speculate about what Yiwah meant when it is in fact very clear.

And I don't think anyone who disagrees with me now is going to think any different in four days, or in a year.

oh yeah, part of what was lost  was  my commentary on your commentary about Yiwah's words being clear.

"you are correct 6079, Yiwah's actions/desires were  quite clear, just as clear as yours and pants are..."

remind wrote:

...pants of a dog, we here are under no obligation to discuss things from your deficient viewpoints. And we definitely do not have to tolerate them....

I never suggested that you would be under any obligation to partake in any of my discussions or viewpoints, and since I am not, nor ever will be, a moderator here, it would be impossible for me to do so even if I wished.

However, I would like to know how my viewpoints are deficient or intolerable. As I have limited my interaction on these forums almost entirely to discussions on the WTC collapse, and therefore I have not had the opportuntiy so far to air my allegedly dirty laundry, I find it difficult to believe that you or anyone else has had the time to critically analyse my viewpoints.

@ 6079_smith_w

&^%$#^&% and your passive aggressive inference that; 'yes indeed we are paranoid here', with your; "We weren't allowed to know each others names in the cell meeting" Your compatriots are those who are of LIKE MIND to you, who, like you, apparently come here to pontificate. ...as ya'll apparently believe your someone special, as that sense of privilege you hold allows you to believe, erroneously I might add, that you have a right to natter at the lefties about how we do not tolerate your lack of ....well....any leftish or humane thought whatsoever. Just like your freakin rant about how Mormons were none of our business, ffs, who do you think you are fooling? Times slow at freedumbminion?

Edit: not sure if commenting is actually helpful.

The only non paranoid babbler is one who is not paying attention.