the USA, Israel, and national interest

they were elected... you know... Democracy.

Like Hamas were, you mean?

Some cultures suck. Some aspects of some cultures suck. We have no obligation to tolerate them.

That's funny, I know someone who insists on believing that about another group mentioned in this thread....

Some cultures suck.

e.g., that fucking your inferior wife thru a hole in the sheet while illegally occupying land cuz God gave it to you 5,000 years ago stuff.

e.g., that fucking your inferior wife thru a hole in the sheet while illegally occupying land cuz God gave it to you 5,000 years ago stuff.

Cute. Asshole.

Again, I'm not saying anything challopsy here. I hate large swaths of Charedi culture too.

I think I could take Israel a lot more seriously if they granted Palestinians living within Israel the same rights as Jews.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, January 13, 2009 5:28 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

im pretty sure they do tbh but i am open to persuasion if my perception is wrong.

im no challops expert but "i hate all fundamentalist religion" + "a lot of human culture sucks" + "israel should consume palestine" is kind of a challops trifecta

The third one is more challopsy than the first two - but I don't see what is challopsy about not liking certain cultures.

can you not see the distinction between "i have no respect for palestinian culture" and "Muslim fundamentalism is appalling in many ways"? also many people believe the latter without calling for actions that are tantamount to exterminating Muslims (good luck with that, by the way.)

Wow. I never called for exterminating anyone.

But nice strawman, I guess??

i believe you didn't mean to but you basically did.

there has to be a mechanism by which the better culture consumes the worse one, see?

on a syntactical level you did call for exterminating muslims

Uh, yeah. Acculturation? How do you think my ghetto great-grandparents' became Americans?

That's totally bullshit, btw. I didn't call for extermination on any level.

louis is suspiciously absent from this thread.

i just mean--you want them to not be muslims anymore, right? just palestians, or arabs

he doesn't want them to be palestinans in any meaningful sense if he abhors their culture.

i.e. the Australian 'stolen generation' was an act of cultural genocide.

I don't want charedi Jews to be charedi anymore. That doesn't mean I don't want them to be Jews anymore.

Honestly, I don't know what you're arguing anymore. I think it's pretty clear what I believe. I think that religious sentiments on both sides have gotten in the way of a lasting peace, and I'd like to see those ideologies excised.

Maybe I'm just too Marx influenced - but I don't see any inherent value to being /anything/. If it doesn't hurt anyone, then go for it. But I think in most circumstances, religion+culture are methods by which people are kept from having self-determinacy.

i don't really know why i'm in this damn thread, so fair enough. i think there are some implications to your rhetoric that you're not examining, but you seem like a good dude and go Eagles and everything.

oh god xpost please stop

what the hell do you even mean by 'culture' anyway

their food? their holidays? their backwards religious beliefs? what? saying that a 'culture sucks' sounds to me like a cutesy t-shirt way of freighting some pretty hateful shit, imo

xp late to the party

what do (any of) you mean by culture here? it's sort of irrelevant, not completely, but you don't need to 'respect' either culture particularly to want the thing to be resolved.

xpost!

i.e. the Australian 'stolen generation' was an act of cultural genocide.

― dowd, Tuesday, January 13, 2009 5:46 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

illustrating what i mean. why not just 'genocide', which seems less redundant?

RELIGION IS THE GAZA OF THE MIND

i keep using "culture" because Mordy used it, but it's obviously so vague as to be useless. my point is just that you can't wish facets of people's ways of life magically away and if you do you're basically advocating killing them.

ayo mordy i usually feel u on this thread i got famz in israel too and ilx's jewhate is pretty fucked up but this is some national union talk.

Does ILX hate Jews?? Why is that not in the FAQ??

no, i agree HS! my comment was directed to mordy (who does generally seem like a good dude go eagles)

but yeah, saying that an entire people's ethnic identity 'sucks' and deserves to be overrun by that of the regional superpower (except, like, the religion part) is tacitly in favor of cultural genocide, whether that's what you meant or not

xp ok "ilx's jewhate" what the hell

lol @ lamp

israeli culture is secular and western?!

― 8====D ------ ㋡ (max), Tuesday, January 13, 2009 11:20 AM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark

Israel was essentially founded as a secular, quasi-socialist Jewish state but with a powerful religious government "office" of sorts (the Rabbanut). Most Israelis are still secular but there is obviously a vocal and active ultra-religious minority that is growing in size and influence. In Tel Aviv (and many other places) you do not get any real sense that you are in a religious country.

sorry evan, that explanation was directed at enrique, not you.

'serious' threads always make me have second thoughts about my screenname :-/

ilx's jewhate

LOL. Pathetic.

Let me try to explain what I mean. I'm also going to mostly talk about right-wing religious Jews here, since I'm more familiar with them than right-wing religious Palestinians.

I don't explicitly mean their music + food + holidays, though I believe that those things emerge from more deep-set economic/ideological considerations (not trying to separate economics and ideology at the moment). I think it's possible to divorce those superficial cultural accruements from the deeper culture, and it happens over a process of acculturation so that Jews in America can eat kishka, but don't necessarily believe in a God-given revelation. (Ie: Kishka emerged during the European ghetto period, partially as a response to the inability of Jews to cook during the Sabbath. So it was intrinsically linked to the religious beliefs, but now has become separated from them. It's a remnant.)

So we have deep-set historical/ideological beliefs which I think are heavily tied to economic ones. Israel of course becoming a non-labor, more Capitalist country over the last few decades, partially as a response to foreign affairs (the fall of the USSR, the participation of the US in their country, etc). This combination has led to a lot of reprehensible events - the assassination of Rabin, the settlements in Gaza, arguably the current war by which Likud/Kadima, attempting to continue a power hold over the country, go to war to reassure the citizens that they'll be protected. Now, I have no sympathy for the ideologies and politics that lead Israel to this point. I prefer labor because in general I prefer Socialist programs. I think labor would also have a better relationship with the Palestinians. To that end, I think Israel's treatment of S'derot is endemic to the treatment of the Palestinians as well. They aren't racist (ie: They act just as shittely to their own poor people) they're just Capitalists.

Now, I assume Palestinians have a similar issue. Hamas is a religious fundamentalist organization which cares more about power and asserting said power through religious ideology than through economic liberation. They won their initial victory because the Palestinians thought they'd do more for them economically than Fatah, but outside some early successes, they are just as shitty. So if you want to be religious, and have your special food and special holidays, go for it. But I think that food and those holidays are currently inextricably linked to the ideologies that are fucking up the region. I'd like to see a secular Socialist government take hold in Israel and in Palestine. I think a lot of these issues would start to disappear if that was the case. In the meanwhile, I reserve my right to be disgusted by the current Palestinian culture and the current Israeli right-wing culture. The only difference is that in Israel there is a large left-wing movement. So I see more hope there.

That's about it, I think. Feel free to attack me again.

horseshoe, it's cool, i got you

http://rosenblumtv.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/switchboard.jpg

since I'm more familiar with them than right-wing religious Palestinians.

okay, i sort of suspected this. the shots you were taking at Palestinian culture made it sound like you weren't super-familiar with it, which made your rhetoric that much harder to take

I'd like to see a secular Socialist government take hold in Israel and in Palestine.

this is nice, but you might as well wish for a pony while you're at it.

I don't think it's a fairy tale. Israel potentially could go back to labor. At the moment, it seems unlikely, but that's mostly due to the Gaza situation and US involvement. If Israel more closely aligned with Europe (which I could see happening, especially if the dollar continues to weaken and US support lessons), then they'll go labor again.

i think yall are forgetting jews did 9/11
http://www.trueorthodox.com/pictures/implode1.jpg

Chances of a Socialist government anywhere pretty remote

I'd like to see a secular Socialist government take hold in Israel and in Palestine.

But not a one-state solution?

At the moment it seems more likely to me to have a two-state Socialist solution than a one-state solution. I think the economics need to be worked out and then we can make progress on the hatred Arabs + Jews have for each other.

© Real Jew News

Isn't it kind of antithetical to socialism to have a nation predicated on an ethnicity/cultural-religious background?

I feel this way in America too, btw. I think economic leftism is much more important than social liberalism. I think once people are fed and educated, they'll naturally come around on the social stuff. That's why I think promoting Unions, for instance, is much more important than fighting for gay marriage. (Of course, I'm not gay myself, and I can totally understand the urgency behind it for those who are...) I think the latter will come naturally with the former.

(that was a lol from that pic, not a thread commentary, btw, in case i am misunderstood)

Max, when you are the target of anti-sentiment, it is not very easy to distinguish between rational and irrational reasons for it.

― ^likes black girls (HI DERE), Tuesday, 13 January 2009 16:11 (40 minutes ago) Permalink

much OTM

Isn't it kind of antithetical to socialism to have a nation predicated on an ethnicity/cultural-religious background?

Yes and no. Socialism isn't incompatible with religion/ethnicity. Tho it's rare.