Lots of people I've always thought of as reasonable and rational have, frankly, lost their damn minds.
You thought of HP, Geras and Aaronovitch as reasonable and rational? Dude, wtf, etc.
Gaza 2008/09 and Lebanon 2006.
Achieved?
Two Own Goals.
If only they could be said to be something as healthy and enjoyable as an own goal, really.
Funny how the oil and gold prices have gone up as a result?
Funny how the oil and gold prices have gone up as a result?
Cow mutilations are up too, I heard.
You thought of HP, Geras and Aaronovitch as reasonable and rational?
No, not really, although I always harbour a vague hope that Aaro will have a reasonable response whenever this kind of thing happens. Even I'm surprised by just how much of a prick he is in his latest offering, though.
Never trust a decent to obey logic.
FR, you say you're not going to comment and then you do, accusing Israel of bombardment but not Hamas of the rockets.
Doesn't work, old mate. Need not to comment on the issue at all, as you said you wouldn't. 
(Comment deleted - let me try that again without being a dick about it)
I was saying that I usually don't comment on I/P, largely because it turns everyone, myself included, apparently, into a loony.
Doesn't work, old mate.
It works fine, if you realise that the strategy here isn't "stopping the rockets" - it's "throttling the Palestinians and forcing them to accept less of Jerusalem and the West Bank than they would without the overwhelming violence".
This is entirely obvious to those willing to look with wide-open eyes, and I'm swiftly running out of patience with people who crap down my neck and tell me it's hail on this issue.
see harry's place today for another 'check'. there was one 'we are hamas' banner ergo...
Had I been knocked out in the summer of 2006 and woken up today
You mean you weren't?
This is entirely obvious to those willing to look with wide-open eyes...
If it's as simple as a land grab, why did Israel withdraw from Gaza in 2001, and Hebron before that?
Yes, it is entirely obvious that Israel are trying to clobber Palestine has hard as posible before the peace negotiations kick in and force their withdrawal, and they are probably fully aware of how much time they have.
On the other hand, Hamas could recognise Israel as a sovereign state instead of openly declaring their desire for Israel's total annhiliation, inshallah. Perhaps then some meaningful and lasting peace negotiations could start leading to a two state solution. Until then, Hamas will continue to launch missiles over the wall indiscriminately and send in 14 year old suicide bombers to blow up pizzerias. Israel will continue to subjugate them with their superior military power. Happy days.
If it's as simple as a land grab, why did Israel withdraw from Gaza in 2001, and Hebron before that?
A few reasons suggest themselves -
a) Because it's difficult to claim you're a liberal democracy while denying a vast swathe of the population in the territory you control the vote, and while the world can see you with your boot on their necks;
or
b) Because it was a good faith attempt to advance the peace process.
You're not going to get any quibbles from me about the nastiness or stupidity of Hamas, but let's not pretend that their election hasn't been a Godsend for the wingnuttiest section of Israeli politics and the Let them eat cluster-bombs wing of the IDF. While the rest of the country was reeling in horror from that election result, these jokers were rubbing their hands in glee.
The Israelis are facing crazy fundamentalists Hamas because they've spent decades shouting We have nobody to deal with. Call me cynical if you will, but I strongly doubt whether an reinstated Fatah administration will get anything other than the shittiest deal the Israelis can think of, offered at gunpoint.
This is all pretty clear, I'd say, and I'm not going to be amenable to the arguments presented in the post trying to sell me shite in a Shinola tin.
Not big or clever - http://www.newgrounds.com/portal...l/view/476393?
=
On the other hand, Hamas could recognise Israel as a sovereign state
In the way that Israel recognises Palestine, for instance. Rather than, ah, spending sixty years working for its annihilation.
instead of openly declaring their desire for Israel's total annhiliation
As Hamas specifically omitted from its election manifesto, you mean? A democratic election they then won, thereby winning endorsement for this policy from a majority of the Palestinian people.
Re: the recognition of Israel question:
"Until Israel says what its final borders will be, Hamas will not say whether it will ever recognize Israel, [Mahmoud al-Zahar] said. "If Israel is ready to tell the people what is the official border, after that we are going to answer this question.""
Why does the question of Israel recognising Palestine never arise in wingnut discussions of Israel's "right to exist"?
Gaza 2008/09 and Lebanon 2006. Achieved? Two Own Goals.
Number of rockets launched into Israel pre 2006 - Lots. Number after - zero. Sounds like a result. Hezbollah spins the Israel withdrawal into a decisive victory. Hamas will do the same. The population will feel empowered to continue to attack Israel rather than Hamas preparing its population for the necessary concessions required for peace. They will launch a few more suicide attacks and it will all begin again. Israel will be blamed as the aggressor by the liberal media.
Why does the question of Israel recognising Palestine never arise in wingnut discussions of Israel's "right to exist"?,
Here, problem fixed http://www.independent.co.uk/new...ood-
539071.html
Hamas are not supported by moderate Islamic states like Egypt (only fundamentalist militant states like Iran and liberal wankers who romanticise their terrorism as some kind of David and Goliath struggle). Israel have a right to be nervous about giving this murdocracy a state.
In the way that Israel recognises Palestine, for instance. Rather than, ah, spending sixty years working for its annihilation.
That plan wouldn’t take 60 years. Unless, of course, it wasn’t a plan.
"Until Israel says what its final borders will be, Hamas will not say whether it will ever recognize Israel,
You seem to be cherry picking from this article http://www.ynetnews.com/
articles...3207845,00.html , which also says
"We can accept to establish our independent state on the area occupied (in) '67," and
“But when asked about Hamas' call for Israel's destruction, Zahar would not say whether that remains the goal. "We are not speaking about the future, we are speaking now," he said.”
That should make Israelis feel warm and fuzzy. Give them their state now and we’ll tell you later about our annihilation plans.
… and the 6 day war. Arab nations launch an attack to destroy Israel and are utterly humiliated. They will never get over that one. Now they demand the land back that they lost in that war. Perhaps we should also redraw the European borders back to WWI?
Rod,
Read.
http://exiledonline.com/the-war-...ezbollah/all/1/
I think that the tendency for the decents to get a bit hysterical and accuse people of saying what they're not is pretty evenly matched by the tendency of t'other side to get hysterical and accuse the decents of saying what they're not. And both sides do a very good job of ignoring when the other side has a point. I fondly imagine that HP, Geras, D2, Flying Rodent, John Band are all reasonable people with worthwhile things to say, all of whom are wrong from time to time and blind to certain arguments. There's a fantastic amount of talking at cross purposes that goes on (A: "what the Israelis are doing in Gaza is bad" B: "OMG! what about Hamas" and B: "what Hamas is doing in Gaza is bad" A: "OMG! what about the Israelis!") and I thought this all through the Iraq blogkerfuffle too. I appreciate I am in a minority on this, possibly of one*. I actually think that the real disagreements between the more sensible individuals on boths sides are fewer and smaller than the kerfuffle suggests.
* every time I try to suggest something along these lines, I am met with derision, which perhaps ought to tell me something. Come to think of it, on a recent HP thread, after everybody but the lunatics had gone home, I tried to suggest you might all disagree less than you think - I'd like to think, Flying Rodent, you will suddenly see the light after reading my words of wisdom, and everybody will hug and admit how much the love each other really. The thread is here (my comment right toward the end - 7Jan 10:39)
weird, I seem to have managed to link back to this post. Try again. this post
I fondly imagine that HP, Geras, D2, Flying Rodent, John Band are all reasonable people with worthwhile things to say, all of whom are wrong from time to time and blind to certain arguments.
I think that's more than fair, since I can be an appalling bullshitter prone to ill-tempered tirades when I put my mind to it. In a fit of vanity though I often think of myself as a bit more broad-minded and less inclined to the Argumentum ad Hitlerum than 90% of the Decents, but I suspect pride is about to come before a fall.
Just copy and paste the URL and it'll work, I gave up fighting with haloscan ages ago.
onward to fraternity then!
my comment is toward the end of this
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009...ths-in-jabalya/
I know HP have an open comments policy, but I wish they'd run an edited comments mirror site for those of us that can't take the deluge. Funny to have started the new year doing something I'd forsworn (commenting on HP), not how it's supposed to work. I'm at it again here
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009...#comment-
279720
There's definitely some good points in there Luis - I think Brownie's position is pretty reasonable, i.e. willing to give the benefit of the doubt, but ready to withdraw it if contrary evidence presents itself.
On the facts of the incident, it's pretty damn obvious that somebody somewhere has goofed badly, or just not given a shit, and a lot of people have died as a result. It's not so much the bombing itself that bugs me, though - it was entirely obvious that this would happen sooner or later - it's the bare-faced hypocrisy. Neither Gene nor his fellow posters are slow to throw about insults like apologist, but no sooner have the IDF blown up a lot of civilians than we've all got to understand it in context. In anyone else, that kind of behaviour would be ideological blindness or mindless anti-Americanism or some such, but not when it's Our guys we're talking about. To Gene, posting relentless puff pieces about half-detonated Palestinian kids being kissed better by IDF doctors, while in reality the IDF blasts even more kids to bits, is an entirely accurate picture of the conflict.
There's more to go into here than space allows - suffice to say it's the Decents' habit of picking the most one-eyed, illiberal, ideological standpoint on any incident or issue* that really gets my goat. Sometimes they even have a good point to make, but just can't resist being total dicks about it.
For now, just imagine how that post would've gone if it had been a Russian artillery shell blowing up a Georgian school, and think how anyone quoting the Russian military in their defence would've been treated.
It'd have been a different story, I suspect.
I guess the fraternity's going to have to wait a while yet - sorry if that's disappointing.
*Check out HP's coverage of the latest batch of anti-war protests for more of this kind of thing.
You're right: often they are guilty of exactly what they accuse everyone else of. That works both ways. Part of the problem is once you see yourself as providing a corrective, as HP does, in this case against the Gallowayesque tendencies of the left (or something like that), and hence always (usually) arguing in one direction, it's hard to avoid ending up being inconsistent, to put it politely.
And no I'm not disappointed, that's more than enough fraternity for me - and I am comforted to find myself, you and Shuggy in more or less agreement over that latest post by the Z Word guy.
Well, he's obviously one of HP's biggest fruitcakes, which is quite an achievement these days.
On seeing yourself as providing a corrective, I forget the exact term for it, but the Police get training on how to avoid the mindset that, since they're the good guys, everything they do is necessarily good. When they fall into that trap, that's when you get them setting honey traps for Colin Stagg and swearing to the judge that they did it in good faith.
I wish everybody would take a vow of silence until this particular crisis is over. It's really disgusting, people keeping political and moral scores, points lost or gained depending on whether their side has performed an atrocity or not.
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