Subject:
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Re: Sheikh Yassin
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 25 Mar 2004 06:02:27 GMT
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Viewed:
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539 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richard Parsons wrote:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
> > > There is [NOTHING] Israel can do to stop them from terrorizing short
> > > of killing them first. This isn't exactly rocket science.
> >
> > Mmmmm.
> >
> > The same is said of the Israelis.
>
> More BS moral equivalence.
I wasn't actually saying that at all, although I'd happily agree that you could
a sense of moral equivalence.
But I wasn't commenting on your odd morality, or even the American revived
doctrine of pre-emptive self-defense.
I was simply pointing out that with all your passion for hard-line rhetoric and
killing, you only sound so much like so many failed devotees of the black v
white persuasion of the past.
> > The same was probably said of the Russians, the Japanese, the Catholic
> > Irish, before that the French and the Scots, and an illustrious list back to
> > the Saracens and beyond.
> >
> > No doubt there are some who read this sort of thing and think the same of
> > the Americans.
>
> Specious. To my knowledge, none of your examples had ever categorically
> sworn as the foundation of their existence the complete destruction of a
> particular enemy.
Mmmmm. I have no doubt that there were radical elements in all these groups who
had just those goals. There were those in the American administration who
fervently argued for an unavoidable need to duke it out with the Russians at the
earliest opportunity on numerous occasions in the past. Thankfully, there were
cooler heads who recognised in the Russians a common humanity.
> Let's cut to the chase, and let me ask you straight on
Just give me a second to assume a similarly belligerent posture.
Ok, ready...
> Would Hamas still be terrorizing Israel if Israel returned to
> '48 borders and ceased any/all military interventions?
>
> Would Hamas still be terrorizing Israel if each and every
> Palestinian in a country called Palestine were a millionaire?
>
> If you answered "no" to either of these questions, you don't get it.
<<chuckle>>
And you do.
Its so temptingly easy and self-gratifying to hate and hold someone else
responsible when you're in pain or can't be bothered to think too hard. Its a
kind of mental masturbation, only with real (not illusory) negative
consequences.
Messages in that for both you and Hamas on different levels.
Its equally easy and unhelpful to respond to hatred in kind.
And before Bruce starts tearing his hair out agin thinking I'm preaching
universal love or harping on the need for hope, my point is only that
historically, attractive and enjoyable as some find hate, the hateful inevitably
lose.
These issues need thinking and building, not killing and destroying.
In the Israeli case here, there's some talk that the strategy is to reduce the
settlement activity, and in order to sell that to the settlers, the Israeli
administration needs to come to it from a position of strength, and that means
killing some more Hamas leadership and demonstrating that the iron fist has
delivered a new platform. An admirable goal with and ugly to do list. I guess
if the Israelis can move to the cessation of the settlement activity, and maybe
even a winding back, it needs to come soon. That activity holds out something
for the Palestinians, and goes to reduce their enthusiasm for violence. But if
it doesn't come soon (before the Palestinians can properly respond, and they
will, its only a matter of time) then we have only plumbed new depths of
terrorism (for both sides).
Richard
Still baldly going...
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Sheikh Yassin
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| In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richard Parsons wrote: (snip) (...) So what? Doesn't mean anything. (...) Say again? We "fought" them on every front imaginable- Korea, Viet Nam, the Cold War. Nobody recognized any "common humanity" in the USSR, only the (...) (20 years ago, 26-Mar-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Sheikh Yassin
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| (...) More BS moral equivalence. (...) Specious. To my knowledge, none of your examples had ever categorically sworn as the foundation of their existence the complete destruction of a particular enemy. Let's cut to the chase, and let me ask you (...) (20 years ago, 23-Mar-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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