A New Thread fot the Current Israel/Palestine/Lebanon mess

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I think it's sort of funny that they're airdropping editorial cartoons.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 27 July 2006 03:57 (nineteen years ago)

yeah silly me, i forgot, caricatures are only offensive when they're drawn by arabs. or danes.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 03:58 (nineteen years ago)

I really don't think political correctness is the most important issue at the moment. And even if it was, that cartoon is pretty tasteful as far as political cartoons go.

― starke (starke), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:03 (nineteen years ago)

The Danes - ever victimized by the double standard of world opinion.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:04 (nineteen years ago)

I don't my posts to be interpreted as accusing the UN of bringing this on themselves. I think that the Israeli targeting of a clearly marked UN observation post is a huge mistake. If there was direct fire coming from this position, okay, Israel may have a leg to stand on. However, from the outset of this war I would have hoped that the UN could have predicted how its personell would be caught there. Hizballah, due to its proximity to the UN forces is certainly the beneficiary of the UN's presence. I didn't intend to make is seem like a simple operation to remove all the UNIFIL forces, but why didn't the UN see this predicament coming?

x-post to hstenc!l

― Dan Floss (Dan Floss), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:04 (nineteen years ago)

it's not even about "offensiveness" or not, it's about how incredibly silly israel is if it thinks propaganda like this is going to have any effect on whomever's left hanging around beirut.

y'know hurting there's only so many times you can play the "oppressed people of history" card, since that isn't up for debate here. everybody knows it's true, no one's disputing that the jews have suffered the worst oppression throughout history. but continually making flippant remarks like that makes you seem, um, well about just as much an asshole as the muslims who say all jews must be killed, since you're equating the illegal, oppressive acts of the state of israel with the entire history of jewish suffering. way to play into their hands, champ.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:07 (nineteen years ago)

dan floss, this "war" as you call it is only 2 weeks old, and no one - not even hezbollah - saw it coming. the un is a beauracracy.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:08 (nineteen years ago)

anyway beirut update up there is definitely worth checking out as a first-hand account of what's going on in beirut (and not even a southern suburb or a refugee camp).

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:09 (nineteen years ago)

-- hstencil (hstenc!...), July 27th, 2006.

Can you show me where I'm playing this card?

ps I agree that the propaganda is silly and inept.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:10 (nineteen years ago)

I mean seriously dude, go fuck yourself. I'm not your goddamned strawman. Take your frustrations elsewhere.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:11 (nineteen years ago)

We Jews tend to get a little obsessive about our history of opression. I wonder if Armenians are the same way?

-- Abbadavid Berman (Hurtingchie...), July 13th, 2006 9:02 PM. (Hurting)

Seriously, it's like our version of baseball stats. That and what famous people are Jewish.

-- Abbadavid Berman (Hurtingchie...), July 13th, 2006 9:11 PM. (Hurting)

perhaps you're your own strawman.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:18 (nineteen years ago)

tho i suppose if you're really as acquainted with the jewish history of oppression you might actually not want to make fun of the danes.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:19 (nineteen years ago)

Before I turn this into a shouting match, let me just say that I'm usually the first one to GROAN when a Jewish person brings up "our history of persecution" to justify shit. And I feel about as unpersecuted as can be in Northern NJ, USA. So I don't know where you got the idea that I'm playing that "card." Maybe you misunderstood one of my comments?

The ones you're citing there are me POKING FUN at the Jewish tendency to obsess on this stuff. I generally make a point of not doing it, in fact I find it kind of gross.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:22 (nineteen years ago)

I don't follow how Hurting's Danish comment led to this.

― starke (starke), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:24 (nineteen years ago)

The Dane thing had nothing to do with whether or not Jews are persecuted - you obviously want to pigeonhole me that way though.

I think the Danish cartoon was pretty offensive, and I don't think this one is quite as offensive (though it's pretty ineffective - great, imply that the people you're trying to convince come from a culture of SNAKE CHARMERS!)

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:25 (nineteen years ago)

i am sorry, but i found your comment about the danes pretty offensive given what they did during ww2 to help the jews. it was flippant and dismissive, also, as if to say that any other ethnicity or group cannot be oppressed. certainly the danes are not particularly oppressed (tho obviously their exports to the middle east are down right now!), nor have a history of it, but i don't think ANYONE is served by comparing one oppression to another, or even one to none. what is going on right now in lebanon is one country brutally oppressing another. period.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:25 (nineteen years ago)

yeah i have no idea why portraying a muslim cleric - even if he's an asshole - as a snake would be offensive (second google hit for "snakes allah")

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:27 (nineteen years ago)

What they did to help the Jews doesn't go unappreciated, btw. My father unabashedly loves Denmark and lived there for this reason alone.

― starke (starke), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:28 (nineteen years ago)

Dude, relax. My dad organized a tribute concert and wrote music to commemorate the Danish rescue of Jews when I was in high school, and I ate dinner with one of the rescuers. I harbor no animosity toward the Danes.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:28 (nineteen years ago)

dads4danes

― starke (starke), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:30 (nineteen years ago)

May I say that this exchange has been FUCKING RIDICULOUS?!

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:30 (nineteen years ago)

it still smacked to me of a "they're not worthy because they don't have a centuries-old history of oppression" style insult. which may seem silly of me to assume, at least of you, but almost every ethnic/religious group/whathaveyou says that.

which is crazy since we all know it's the WOMEN who have it bad in this fucked up world.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:31 (nineteen years ago)

xpost - i would only characterize squirrel police's posts as such, mr. hurtin'.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:31 (nineteen years ago)

Not what I meant at all. Clearly a misunderstanding.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:32 (nineteen years ago)

I really doubt that the designers of that flyer were thinking "Gee how can we religiously offend the people who see this?" It's propaganda, not piss-you-off flyers.

― starke (starke), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:33 (nineteen years ago)

uh, hrm, ok well we seem to have different perspectives on how propaganda "works," then.

xpost - sorry for the misunderstanding, hurting.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:36 (nineteen years ago)

I'm reminded of a story I heard about American propaganda for Iraqi audiences that made fun of Saddam Hussein for having a mustache.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:36 (nineteen years ago)

I'm reminded of a story I heard about American propaganda for Iraqi audiences that made fun of Saddam Hussein for having a mustache.

yes, this particular flier seems about as effective as that, esp. given that it was dropped in a predominantly christian, affluent section of beirut. y'know, the part of beirut where, for most of the civil war and occupation, israel had allies.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:37 (nineteen years ago)

and if some people don't get what i'm talking about with that post, in the arab world to insult a man's moustache is quite the offensive. remember that chuckle all us westerners got out of that arab league meeting a couple years ago?

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:38 (nineteen years ago)

Clueless I can buy, purposely offensive I can't.

― starke (starke), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:42 (nineteen years ago)

well the intel as to where hezbollah caches might be as opposed to, say, where dairy farms might be certainly seems clueless. but i am not sure that i buy the argument that the israelis don't have a very keen sense of islamic culture(s).

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:43 (nineteen years ago)

So Israel ran out of bombs and has decided to offend the Lebanese to death?

― starke (starke), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:47 (nineteen years ago)

Is it so inconceivable that not every single thing Israel does is for evil purposes?

― starke (starke), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:49 (nineteen years ago)

no, they are making a half-assed effort at trying to turn christian, secular and moderate muslim lebanese against hezbollah, and it won't fucking work. they've alienated whatever allies they haven't killed.

xpost - vad yashem isn't evil. the wailing wall isn't evil. goa fucking trance on the beach seems evil to me, tho.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:50 (nineteen years ago)

also not to play the second-oldest card next to godwin's law (ha!), but the def. of "propaganda" is:

Main Entry: proÂ·paÂ·ganÂ·da
Pronunciation: "prÃ¤-p&-'gan-d&, "prO-
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin, from Congregatio de propaganda fide Congregation for propagating the faith, organization established by Pope Gregory XV died 1623
1 capitalized : a congregation of the Roman curia having jurisdiction over missionary territories and related institutions
2 : the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person
3 : ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause; also : a public action having such an effect

just ignore that first entry (interesting! the roman catholics invented it, sort of). i'm not a very ends-justify-the-means person, sorry.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:53 (nineteen years ago)

Is turning people against Hezbollah a bad thing?

That's pretty much my only point here. It won't fucking work might be right for a number of reasons, but the motive isn't particularly evil.

― starke (starke), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:55 (nineteen years ago)

i know as an american i have little to stand on when it comes to this, but i personally get a little squeamish when it comes to one country trying to dictate another country's politics to its citizens.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:57 (nineteen years ago)

I called it propaganda myself...so I'm not sure what your point is there. Quite surely, it is propaganda. Still doesn't make it evil.

― starke (starke), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:58 (nineteen years ago)

again, i have no doubt that its intended audience will view it as pretty damn evil.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:59 (nineteen years ago)

Sure. But that still doesn't mean it was done with an evil intent.

― starke (starke), Thursday, 27 July 2006 05:05 (nineteen years ago)

i dunno, call me crazy but war is pretty evil to me!

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 05:06 (nineteen years ago)

you're crazy

― starke (starke), Thursday, 27 July 2006 05:09 (nineteen years ago)

i knew it!

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 05:09 (nineteen years ago)

And yeah, war totally sucks man. That doesn't mean every single thing a country at war does is some heinous war crime. Howbout those fliers Israel dropped warning Lebanese citizens? Surely you can find some angle to fault Israel here?

― starke (starke), Thursday, 27 July 2006 05:11 (nineteen years ago)

Bad for the environment, maybe?

― starke (starke), Thursday, 27 July 2006 05:12 (nineteen years ago)

y'know it's getting late for me to keep being your strawman, but i don't think i've ever claimed that israel or everything the idf does is a "war crime." though attacking a sovereign nation in the midst of peace, targeting infrastructure (and perhaps citizens) and actual food (three trucks delivering vegetables to the south were hit today, way to go!), blowing up peacekeepers and civilians from other nations and forcing the evacuation of some million-odd people seem pretty close. that israel dropped fliers warning residents to evacuate (oddly, some of these were dropped AFTER many roads and bridges were already destroyed) doesn't exonerate any of those things, and i fail to see any reason why you continue to insist that my stance is so "anti-israel" or somehow "faulting" israel for "everything." i have no sympathy for hezbollah, iran, or syria - and not even that much for egypt or jordan, israel's "allies" (when it's convenient for both sides, of course).

xpost - re: environment, would you just read beirut update already you shmiel? you can read about the oil spill there.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 05:17 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.marketeast.com/site_images/39993_large.jpg

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 27 July 2006 05:18 (nineteen years ago)

i have no idea what a "shmiel" is, btw, but it sounds nasty. good night.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 July 2006 05:20 (nineteen years ago)

Shlemiel?

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 27 July 2006 05:22 (nineteen years ago)

I'm faulting you for being knee-jerk anti-Israel because instead of complaining about those things in your last paragraph, you're finding fault in a silly political cartoon which really doesn't offer much anti-Israel ammo in the first place.

― starke (starke), Thursday, 27 July 2006 05:24 (nineteen years ago)

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