Has The Israeli Goverment BecomeThe Monster?

[Argent Stonecutter]

Which book is that in? I'm still new to his work. Currently reading Equal Rites.

It's not in Discworld, I think it's in the Johnny series. Yes, Johnny and the Dead...

Blackbury Pals - Discworld & Terry Pratchett Wiki

wiki.lspace.org

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

I don't think so. The problem, from what I've read, is that no one wanted a war, but everyone was worried one might break out, because every major European power was nervous about at least one of the others, and Wilhelm II was thought to be a bit of a loose cannon, so everyone entered into increasingly complex defensive alliances with the intention of deterring everyone from fighting.

When Ferdinand was assasinated, most countries -- and certainly the British -- saw it as a comparatively minor incident that would soon blow over precisely because they didn't think anyone would be crazy enough to go to war over it. Even as late as June 1914 the British thought the situation in Europe was more stable than it had been for years. Then there were a catastrophic series of misjudgments on all sides.

Of course no rational person wants to be in a war, but the tension in Europe was building like crazy and the paranoia that somebody would start a war had been growing and many were ready for it to explode at any moment. I also think that Ferdinand's assassination was a comparatively minor incident, but that's all it took. Europe was ready to go to war!

And there are some sources about people cheering and being excited when WWI broke out:

Voices of the First World War: Outbreak – 4 August 1914

Episode 2: After weeks of speculation and mounting tension, Great Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914. Hear how people reacted to this news in episode two.

www.iwm.org.uk

I think it's very likely that if Ferdinand wasn't assassinated on that day, something would have triggered it anyway.

 

[Cristiano]

Or move the whole Jewish state to Southern California.

We could just given them Palm Beach County, FL. Boca Raton has 16 synagogues in a city of 100,000 people.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

We could just given them Palm Beach County, FL. Boca Raton has 16 synagogues in a city of 100,000 people.

Also legit. The only downside is Bibi would probably be governor of Florida by now.

 

[Essence Lumin]

We could just given them Palm Beach County, FL. Boca Raton has 16 synagogues in a city of 100,000 people.

Mar a Lago is in Palm Beach county too. Maybe they could share orangey's place.

 

[Soen Eber]

If I had a time machine, I'd go back to 1914 and tell the Archduke Ferdinand not to visit Sarajevo.

It wouldn't have worked. The Black Hand was determined to start an incident leading to war, and they had the full plausibly deniable support of the Serbian military and government. Aristrocrats were dying at unprecidented levels from anarchist attacks so this was mostly a convenient trigger coupled with Wilhelm II's inherent racism against the Slavs and with the Germans. Russia had already backed down three times during various Serbian crisis and it's reputation as a reliable ally was on very soft ground.

The balance of power was starting to tilt against Germany, thanks to the French committing to help modernize Russia's military. If that had gone through Germany would have been surrounded by enemies on two fronts, as the imbalance would lead to the break down of the secret treaties Germany had signed seperately with Russia, and, IIRC Austria.

It also didn't help that Defense Minister Moltke smashed his telephone so he wouldn't have to deal with the Kaiser backing out, and that his opposite in Russia did the same to dodge around Tsar Alexander doing the same. Both were total nutters.

 

[Soen Eber]

...and Wilhelm II was thought to be a bit of a loose cannon

Trump with manners, and a prediliction for inflicting German brass band marching music on Queen Victoria. He also invited himself to sailing regattas and redesigned the British fleet to make it more ... more something.

When Ferdinand was assasinated, most countries -- and certainly the British -- saw it as a comparatively minor incident that would soon blow over precisely because they didn't think anyone would be crazy enough to go to war over it.

This is where Wilhelm II's anti-Slav racism stepped through the door, and Russia having caved three times over Serbia had to man up or leave the great game. It could have been in 1906 but someone "bought off" Kaiser Wilhelm with an ornate British Marines uniform and an ornate British Naval uniform. He had contests with Tsar Alexander over uniforms, they both collected them like Pokemon cards.

 

[Noodles]

I really can't bring myself to get excited or really care about this entire conflict. People dying is bad, but it also feels like it's been going on forever and depending on which day of the week it is, the "bad guys" and "good guys" flip flop back and forth.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

We could just given them Palm Beach County, FL. Boca Raton has 16 synagogues in a city of 100,000 people.

Actually the Jewish capital of the USA is New York City with around 1.54 million jews. Jerusalem has around 966000 people living in, with around 63% of them being jews. So the city in the world with most jews living in is NYC.

 

[Cristiano]

All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present, not to say what they did then, rather look what we do now. Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It’s shaped all of our past and present. Right now, we stand here as men who refute their ‘Jewishness’ and the Holocaust being hijacked by an Occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel, or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization. How do we resist?

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

There is a famous quote from Nietzsche - "Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you". That said, what the Israeli government continues to do at the behest of Benjamin Netanyahu is now genocide. They have become the monster I fear.

I believe that Israel's Likud governments have taken too many ideas and cues from South Africa's Apartheid governments. Back when they were chummy, they each saw themselves as "the chosen people" surrounded by "the others". What are Gaza and the West bank other than Bantustans? There are Israeli settlers and Israeli military and police in zones that they are absolutely NOT supposed to be in according to the Oslo agreement.

I hate that the US and other nations do not do more to stop Israel from what they are continuing to do.

Various Israeli governments have been using the "The Holocaust Get Out of Jail Free" card for decades. The western powers feel guilty about not stopping the Holocaust at the very beginning and so let various Israeli governments get away with things other governments cannot. Like having nukes and not being honest about it. Or settlements where there aren't supposed to be any. Or treating the average Palestinians as untermenschen. Or violating Lebanon's sovereignty every chance they get.

Hamas is a terror organization, but at this point, the IDF is becoming one.

I disagree on the IDF as a terror organization. They're just the patsies of the Likud fascists.

but I do think Netanyahu clearly doesn't really give a crap about Gazan civilian deaths. He needs to go.

I think ol Benjy is the Likud equivalent of the leaders of South Africa's "National Party" that implemented apartheid

Sadly, I think you're right. Any chance at a two-state solution has been blown right out the window.

Benjy's been sabotaging the two state solution for years with his "we can't deal with the Palestinians, they're all terrorists who want to do another Shoah on us." schtick. Yeah Benjy, some of them are terrorists, but so were Menachem Begin and Dr. Ruth Westheimer....oh wait....you call them freedom fighters. (Seriously, Dr. Ruth was literally a terrorist)

If I had a time machine I would go back and tell them to put Palestine in the north next to Lebanon instead of creating this ludicrous patchwork of unworkable enclaves that are the West Bank and Gaza.

The Israeli's wanted the enclaves because that ensured there would NEVER be a contiguous Palestinian state. Me, I have always wanted a ONE secular state solution. No jewish state, no Muslim state. But the wannabe theocrats on each side would never have agreed to it, and even if they did, they'd be encouraging their respective people to have lots of kids and take over with sheer numbers.

Or move the whole Jewish state to Southern California.

Or give them a piece of nevada, New Mexico, Utah (where they can hang with wannabee LDS theocrats)...or Alaska.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yiddish_Policemen%27s_Union

If I had a time machine, I'd go back to 1914 and tell the Archduke Ferdinand not to visit Sarajevo.

That might not be enough to prevent WW2 and the Holocaust. Or Pogroms in the Russian Empire. But preventing the founding of Israel would be one of my goals. I understand why it happened, but it was a horrible horrible idea that shouldn't have happened. When I'm in a dark mood, I think every nation from Tunisia to Burma east -west, and the Caucasus (Turkey, Armenia and so forth) on south through the Arabian peninsula should be back under domination by the British Empire. Rule Britannia!...I mean League of Nations mandate....I mean UN mandated territories under FULL UN authority...until everyone in those countries fucking grows up and gets over religion and starts getting along with "the others"

I sometimes think another solution would be for all 5 million Palestinians to emigrate to the US, assimilate into NYC, start a "Reform Muslim" movement, americanize their names to things like "Miller" or "Mason" or Thomas. Build summer resorts in the Catskills, become influential in various ways in US culture, finance, law and government. Hey, have a Palestinian play a 1950's "hoodlum" in Milwaukee or a Mexican Bandit in a Western.......and basically take advantage of the US system the way Likud's allies in the US do.

 

[Casey Pelous]

We could just given them Palm Beach County, FL. Boca Raton has 16 synagogues in a city of 100,000 people.

Comedian Ron White (who is, I admit, what one might call "an acquired taste") suggested we sell Florida to Israel, then use the money to buy Mexico, fix it up, and flip it. "Sell it to some country we know can't make the payments, then repossess it and sell it again."

 

[Soen Eber]

Comedian Ron White (who is, I admit, what one might call "an acquired taste") suggested we sell Florida to Israel, then use the money to buy Mexico, fix it up, and flip it. "Sell it to some country we know can't make the payments, then repossess it and sell it again."

Ron White understands the world.

 

[Aeon Jiminy]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Of course no rational person wants to be in a war, but the tension in Europe was building like crazy and the paranoia that somebody would start a war had been growing and many were ready for it to explode at any moment. I also think that Ferdinand's assassination was a comparatively minor incident, but that's all it took. Europe was ready to go to war!

The Black Hand was determined to start an incident leading to war, and they had the full plausibly deniable support of the Serbian military and government. Aristrocrats were dying at unprecidented levels from anarchist attacks so this was mostly a convenient trigger coupled with Wilhelm II's inherent racism against the Slavs and with the Germans. Russia had already backed down three times during various Serbian crisis and it's reputation as a reliable ally was on very soft ground.

That might not be enough to prevent WW2 and the Holocaust. Or Pogroms in the Russian Empire.

I don't mean to drag the thread off-topic, but I think this is unknowable. It's probably natural to assume that hugely significant events must have been caused by powerful historical, social and economic forces that made them almost inevitable. However, at each stage in the process of events between the the assassination of Ferdinand and the outbreak of war, particular individuals had to take particular decisions, and at each stage they had a more or less free choice about what decision to take. Once the decisions were all taken, we can look back and see how each decision seems to follow from the previous ones in a seamless narrative, but that's not how it must have seemed at the time.

If we think of a more recent assassination -- that of President Kennedy -- who can doubt that the history of both the USA and the world would have been very different had the President survived? How different it would have been, we can't know, but it seems impossible to believe that the President's death made no difference at all to the course of world history.

Had the Archduke not been killed at Sarajevo, would tensions between the various European powers nevertheless have at some point during the next ten years resulted in armed conflict of some sort? Very likely they would have done. However, we can't, it seems to me, say anything at all about the possible scale of the hypothetical conflict, nor about its course or eventual outcome, simply because all the other variables would have been so different.

My favourite example of this is what might have happened had, when the USA declared war on Japan in December 1941 following Pearl Harbour, Hitler decided to remain neutral. Had that happened, it seems very unlikely the USA would have declared war on Germany, at least not until Japan was defeated. This would have denied US supplies to both Britain and the Soviet Union, with the result that the war in Europe would likely have taken a very different course.

 

[Soen Eber]

I don't mean to drag the thread off-topic, but I think this is unknowable. It's probably natural to assume that hugely significant events must have been caused by powerful historical, social and economic forces that made them almost inevitable. However, at each stage in the process of events between the the assassination of Ferdinand and the outbreak of war, particular individuals had to take particular decisions, and at each stage they had a more or less free choice about what decision to take. Once the decisions were all taken, we can look back and see how each decision seems to follow from the previous ones in a seamless narrative, but that's not how it must have seemed at the time.

If we think of a more recent assassination -- that of President Kennedy -- who can doubt that the history of both the USA and the world would have been very different had the President survived? How different it would have been, we can't know, but it seems impossible to believe that the President's death made no difference at all to the course of world history.

Had the Archduke not been killed at Sarajevo, would tensions between the various European powers nevertheless have at some point during the next ten years resulted in armed conflict of some sort? Very likely they would have done. However, we can't, it seems to me, say anything at all about the possible scale of the hypothetical conflict, nor about its course or eventual outcome, simply because all the other variables would have been so different.

My favourite example of this is what might have happened had, when the USA declared war on Japan in December 1941 following Pearl Harbour, Hitler decided to remain neutral. Had that happened, it seems very unlikely the USA would have declared war on Germany, at least not until Japan was defeated. This would have denied US supplies to both Britain and the Soviet Union, with the result that the war in Europe would likely have taken a very different course.

I'm pretty sure Roosevelt would have found a way to get us in a European war, Hitler didn't fool him at all and he knew the U.S. would get involved, prosibly the same way as in WW I via sending supplies to Britain. He was popular enough in the country to be able to navigate a path towards war with Germany.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

I don't mean to drag the thread off-topic, but I think this is unknowable...

No. I know. We would have been in WWI and then WWIII anyway! only the timing may have changed. I can prove this with first or second order Model logic. I'll attach a proof....

But seriously, of course it's unknowable! I'm just sharing what I think is probable... If he wasn't assassinated, things would have been different, but exactly how different? We don't know...

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Benjy's been sabotaging the two state solution for years with his "we can't deal with the Palestinians, they're all terrorists who want to do another Shoah on us." schtick. Yeah Benjy, some of them are terrorists, but so were Menachem Begin and Dr. Ruth Westheimer....oh wait....you call them freedom fighters. (Seriously, Dr. Ruth was literally a terrorist)

The two state solution is dead, it's been dead at least since 2007. The reason why is because the majority of Israel's population doesn't trust the Palestines to be peaceful over a longer time period even if there would be an own state of Palestine.

Aside that two states is the last thing organisations like Hamas do want anyway. They want an all muslimic state replacing Israel under muslimic rule, where Jews are somewhat tolerated, as it is clearly stated in its founding charter which still is in action nowadays.

Anyone in the west who still believes that this will be the possible outcome of this war or short term solution will have a rude awakening once it is over. The most likely outcome of this war is that Israel will kick out Hamas as ruling body in Gaza, and an external state like Egypt (so far said no) or other will rule it. With the IDF ready to invade anytime once is brewing up again.

The two-state solution is dead. Why pretend anymore?

Israeli attitudes toward Palestinians are hardening and there’s no clear path to a peaceful future.

www.politico.eu

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Isabeau]

Over One Million Gazans Are Estimated to Be Starving

(Non-paying link from Washington Post)

Both in absolute numbers and per capita, Gaza is currently experiencing the most acute hunger crisis anywhere in the world, according to the IPC. The speed and scale at which the situation there has deteriorated has no recent precedent, food-insecurity experts say. In northern Gaza, around 30% of children under two years old are acutely malnourished, according to the IPC report, compared with 0.8% before the war.

“People in Gaza are starving to death right now. The speed at which this man-made hunger and malnutrition crisis has ripped through Gaza is terrifying,” said Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Program, which contributed to the IPC report. “There is a very small window left to prevent an outright famine, and to do that we need immediate and full access to the north. If we wait until famine has been declared, it’s too late. Thousands more will be dead.”