Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Thad]

So uh Helen Thomas said something stupid about Israel and then retired.

Rather an inauspicious end to a singular career.

[Shinra]

I like how in this country it's perfectly acceptable (hell, on one network, encouraged) to associate all arabs and persians with terrorism, but saying anything bad about Israel is anathema.

[Thad]

I think there are a hell of a lot of people criticizing Israel right now and it's generally accepted that, hey, killing people on an aid ship is not okay.

On the other hand, saying they should go back to Poland does kinda cross a line.

Here's the difference:

Using the Holocaust as justification for persecuting Palestinians: bullshit.

Using the Holocaust as justification for not fucking living in Poland anymore: pretty fucking reasonable.



...not that you're entirely wrong, of course.  While I think it's become much more socially acceptable to criticize Israel in recent years -- especially in situations like this one --, it's true that people get away with some pretty fucking flagrant bigotry against Arabs.  Greenwald had a good post recently about the EIC of The New Republic saying, offhandedly, "I couldn’t quite imagine any venture requiring trust with Arabs turning out especially well," and pointedly remarking that if he'd said "Jews" he would have been out on his ass before the end of the business day.

[Catloaf]

How to criticize Israel:
1) First acknowledge it's right to exist and do not do anything to imply that you view the holocaust as something less terrible than it was.
2) Criticize the government's actions, not the state itself.

It's not that hard, people.

[JDigital]

How to criticize Israel:
1) First acknowledge it's right to exist

Clarification: While acknowledging the statehood of a de facto nation of millions of people would make lots of sense, this apparently isn't how they do things in the middle east

[Catloaf]

I wasn't stating how it's done, but rather how to properly criticize Israel without being a dick.  Of course it's not how they do things in the middle east!  Every other country there hates Israel.  I mean, on Israel's second fucking day of existence it was attacked by all of its neighboring countries!

[Cthulhu-chan]

"Oh hey, we're gonna take all this land you consider culturally important and give it to these guys you all hate.  Have fun with that!"

Yeah, there might be some friction.

[Catloaf]

To be fair, the land's just as culturally important to us Jews.  And somewhat to Christians.... Although they value it the least of the Abrahamic religions.  Actually, if it weren't for it being sacred to the Jews, it wouldn't of become sacred to the Muslims.  Since, the prophet Mohamed was looking at the Jews when he was hallucinating in that cave and had the acid trip like experience of riding a human-faced horse to the temple ruins where he momentarily ascended to heaven.

[Aintaer]

tl;dr
Did you just say 'we wuz heer furst'?

[TA]

Yes.  And also that a location having religious significance to Muslims doesn't matter as much as that location having religious significance to Jews, because the Muslims are wrong and Mohammed was just hallucinating.

[François]

Israel is a sacred place to everyone who believes that the God of Abraham created the universe. I personally find it abominable that any portion of these people would use violence to claim exclusive dominion over it. Jerusalem should be a beacon of unity and brotherhood for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, not a fulcrum of hate; it represents what we have in common, and lasting peace in that area would be as fitting a monument to Hashem/the Lord/Allah as we could ever make.

[Royal☭]

Truthfully, while it wouldn't be a match made in heaven, the Muslims might better accept Israel if they'd stop the brutal killings.

[Mongrel]

I've read many different articles and diatribes from many points of view over the years, and after all this time, I still find Joe Sacco's Palestine to be among the best comments on whys and wherefores of the whole situation. The modern, current situation anyway.

[Catloaf]

tl;dr
Did you just say 'we wuz heer furst'?

Sort of but not exactly.  The land has been under dispute forever.  I was more saying that while I'm skeptical of religion in general, I'm more skeptical of religions that are based on others but with additional crap written (or taken over to be interpreted) by an entirely different culture tacked on at the end.

Yes.  And also that a location having religious significance to Muslims doesn't matter as much as that location having religious significance to Jews, because the Muslims are wrong and Mohammed was just hallucinating.

No no no.  It matters just the same.  I'm skeptical of all religion.  I'm a Jew because I believe that if there is a creator of the universe, it is a singular, genderless being who does not really care all that much about what goes on inside the universe.  And that's closest to Judaism (also, I just don't like most inherently non-kosher foods ).  I don't believe any of the bits about anyone talking to god or angels or heavenly beings directly intervening, so I just imagine them as exaggerations, allegories, and lack of understanding of normal but uncommon phenomena.

Anyway, I'm again forcefully reminded that there is no funuse of ambiguously sarcastic phrasing allowed in Real World Thad Boyd's panel of death.

[patito]

You do know that pretty much all religions take stuff from other religions right? I'd say especially the 3 major ones.

[TA]

Yyyeah might want to look into the whole Elohim/Adonai thing while you're at it.

Judaism is basically just a crossover between a couple dozen miscellaneous desert tribal superstitions.  There's no great font of originality here, and it changes a lot over time too.  Shit, it used to be monolatrist.

[Misha]

not to mention saying that a religion that's an old one with added stuff is less valid is like saying that someone who believes in the old testament up until kings has less of a valid religion than someone who only believes it up until leviticus or something

[Thad]

Judaism is basically just a crossover between a couple dozen miscellaneous desert tribal superstitions.  There's no great font of originality here, and it changes a lot over time too.  Shit, it used to be monolatrist.

Crumb's Genesis is highly recommended reading.  Partly because it's awesome on its own merits and partly because there's a neat little appendix at the end where Crumb goes into shit like this.  I had to look up "monolatrist", but yeah, that's covered in there; the early books of the Bible don't say "There's only one god", they say "Our god's better than all those other gods."

There's also some supposition that some of the stories were integrated from matriarchal societies -- he puts forth the idea that Abraham and Sarah were both very important people in their respective cultures and their family histories got adapted and integrated.  It's curious, for example, that in a book as patriarchal as Genesis (pages of "begats" that are almost entirely lists of male names, as one example among many), both the story of Isaac and Ishmael AND the story of Jacob and Esau emphasize the mother choosing the rightful heir, not the father.

This should probably get threadsplit but I'm not quite sure where to cut the end off.

[Ocksi]

Even Ishmael, which really isn't as thorough as it should have been for the props it got, deals with all of this

[TA]

Oh and while we're at it

To be fair, the land's just as culturally important to us Jews.  And somewhat to Christians.... Although they value it the least of the Abrahamic religions.

"We are wretched and unhappy, and in us is that prophecy fulfilled: 'God, the nations are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem in heaps; the dead bodies of thy servants have been given to be food for the birds of the heaven, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth. Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them.' Woe unto us, brethren! We who have already become a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing, and derision to them round about us, let us at least with tears condone and have compassion upon our brothers! We who are become the scorn of all peoples, and worse than all, let us bewail the most monstrous devastation of the Holy Land! This land we have deservedly called holy in which there is not even a footstep that the body or spirit of the Saviour did not render glorious and blessed which embraced the holy presence of the mother of God, and the meetings of the apostles, and drank up the blood of the martyrs shed there. How blessed are the stones which crowned you Stephen, the first martyr! How happy, O, John the Baptist, the waters of the Jordan which served you in baptizing the Saviour! The children of Israel, who were led out of Egypt, and who prefigured you in the crossing of the Red Sea, have taken that land, by their arms, with Jesus as leader; they have driven out the Jebusites and other inhabitants and have themselves inhabited earthly Jerusalem, the image of celestial Jerusalem."