Zompist Bboard Again

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 8:39 am

To some extent, it is, but I've got the impression that Israel, in practice, can only exist by keeping millions of people as disenfranchised subjects. That makes its "right to exist" a different thing from the existence of many other countries.
(...)
See my previous comment in this post. At some point, you can't support a country without supporting that country's actions.

Let's follow that argument logically -- what happens to the 10 million Israeli then?
(Leaving aside Jews around the world who feel they need Israel if only as a last resort.)

Personally, I believe an end to the state of Israel means genocide. I believe people generally don't realize that or don't understand the full implications of what they're arguing for. (More darkly, there certainly are people in the pro-Palestinian movement who do realize all the implications.)

No disagreement. You might remember that I got in some trouble on this board a while ago when I said that, while I don't support Israel, I can't support the pro-Palestinian movement while it includes the people it currently includes. But "listening" does not always mean "agreeing". It's a tricky balancing act, but I think most people on the ZBB are pretty good at balancing this.

I'm inclined to agree myself. Many people here would agree that we should trust women when they talk sexism, or Black people when they talk about racism; by the same reasoning I'll trust Jews when they're talking about antisemitism.

Not that there aren't people wielding accusations of antisemitism as a political tool... but that's something different.

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 7:25 am Oh, and bradrn: If, as you say, you hate Netanyahu and oppose the war, then - and you probably know that - there are people in the world who would accuse you of antisemitism if they were here now. You might want to keep that in mind when you're about to make the same accusation against other people for the same reason.

I am completely aware of this. I would strongly disagree with them. Likewise, anyone here is free to disagree with me.

But also, more importantly: I am not accusing any people here of being actively antisemitic, in the sense that they have hate Jews as people or Judaism as a religion. That does not describe zompist or Linguoboy or almost anyone else here.

I am, however, saying that people’s arguments here often — without them necessarily being aware of it — express bias against Israel or against Jews, or make excuses for something which is antisemitic. (Example: not recognising when ‘Zionist’ is a dogwhistle.) It’s like that saying that ‘everyone’s a little bit racist’: by living in a Western society we are continually exposed to an undercurrent of antisemitism, which isn’t often recognised.

(This is the problem with words like ‘antisemitism’ or ‘racism’: they have so many different meanings. I should have been more clear from the start what I meant, and I apologise for that.)

I personally have an issue with those who think that opposing what the IDF is currently doing is anti-Semitic and automatically supportive of Hamas. Simply recognizing that the IDF's conduct of war has been grossly disproportionate and indiscriminate does not make one an anti-Semite or does not mean that one supports Hamas and what they have done. Same thing goes with highlighting things such as killings by settlers in the West Bank. Killing Hamas militants is a legitimate act of war, I don't think anyone here is disputing that; carelessly killing massive numbers of civilians, aid workers, and, in the case of Lebanon, UN peacekeepers is not.

And yes, I recognize that there certainly are anti-Semites amongst those who oppose what the IDF has been doing, but that does not make one an anti-Semite for opposing the IDF's conduct of war in and of itself. I feel dismay at those who have used anti-Semitism amongst opponents of the war to paint all those opposed to Netanyahu, the IDF's, and the settlers' actions as anti-Semites. This seems akin to those who accuse Jews of dual loyalties, of supporting genocide, and so on, simply for being Jews, but in the opposite direction.

In a change of topic, I figure this is the best place to introduce myself. I'm Lērisama*, and, in a not so surprising twist, make conlangs, and have, with some others, a conworld for them.


* In case you were wondering, it is (not particularly ideomatic) LZ for I make languages. Gloss available on request

Lērisama wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 12:13 pm In a change of topic, I figure this is the best place to introduce myself. I'm Lērisama*, and, in a not so surprising twist, make conlangs, and have, with some others, a conworld for them.


* In case you were wondering, it is (not particularly ideomatic) LZ for I make languages. Gloss available on request

Welcome!

Thank you !

bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 4:53 am

zompist wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 2:20 am Don't pretend that this loathsome war is "defense".

I think this is the crux of our disagreement. This war is defense, or at least it was when it started. To deny that is… well, it’s quite simply baffling to me. What else was Israel supposed to do? Sit and wait for Hamas to commit another atrocity?

(Note that I said ‘when it started’. I can’t support the war as it continues now. And now that Sinwar is finally dead there is no reason for it to continue.)

Honestly, if that is the disagreement, I'm baffled by why you endorse a long-gone member coming back and personally attacking me and linguoboy for antisemitism.

But if you think that's a disagreement, you're mistaken. I've never said Israel should have done nothing. There is a such a thing as proportionate response– which frankly neither side is very good at understanding or implementing. And there are such things as conventions for dealing with civilians in wartime— ditto.

Look, the US was justified in responding to the 9/11 attacks and killing bin Laden. You don't have to ignore terrorism. But the US was far from justified in using the attacks to overthrow two governments, occupy one for 10 years, one for 20 years. A case can be made that Iraq is better off, but a better case can be made that Bush didn't know what the fuck he was doing and who he was ultimately facilitating. Iraq was partly occupied by the worst Islamist group for awhile; Afghanistan was handed over to one only marginally better. And bin Laden was not in either country.

You can't support the war now. OK, great, how far back does that go? It's a moot point as neither of us can influence the past or present there. But at least you have the notion that, uh oh, it went bad somehow. That's fine so far as it goes, but being vague in your own mind about these things is trouble, like communists who deplore Stalin but can't explain precisely what he did wrong. You don't have to figure it out in public, here, but I hope you'll figure it out.

The antisemitism comes in with the things I mentioned earlier — ‘the systemic downplaying of any action opposed to Israel, while magnifying Israel’s faults’. Israel is not above criticism (far from it!), but people say things about it which they would never say about any other country doing the same actions. Even beyond that, I’ve seen people repeatedly endorse antisemitic behaviour, especially regarding student protests but also elsewhere.

You haven't seen it from me. But anti-Palestinian bigotry has been stoked too, and it's just as ugly. (To be clear, I haven't seen that you personally are anti-Palestinian. But this selective outrage business goes both ways.)

What are you talking about here? I’ve seen no reports of rape by IDF soldiers, although I suppose they must exist, simply because such horrors happen in every war.

You haven't been looking, then. I googled some reports and they are not hard to find. I feel it's not my job to do your research into gruesome atrocities for you. It's your job, when you dwell on the atrocities committed by the other side.

Lērisama wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 12:13 pm In a change of topic, I figure this is the best place to introduce myself. I'm Lērisama*, and, in a not so surprising twist, make conlangs, and have, with some others, a conworld for them.

Also, welcome. Don't worry, it's not usually this way.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 9:05 am

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 8:39 am

To some extent, it is, but I've got the impression that Israel, in practice, can only exist by keeping millions of people as disenfranchised subjects. That makes its "right to exist" a different thing from the existence of many other countries.
(...)
See my previous comment in this post. At some point, you can't support a country without supporting that country's actions.

Let's follow that argument logically -- what happens to the 10 million Israeli then?
(Leaving aside Jews around the world who feel they need Israel if only as a last resort.)

Do peoples need states though? Would you say the same thing if you replaced "Israelis" with "Basques" or "Catalonians" or "Sikhs" or "Tibetans" or "Sri Lankan Tamils" or "Western Saharans" or "Karens" or "Native Hawaiians" or whatnot? (If you support Israeli ethnoreligious nationalism as legitimate, these other groups certainly deserve their nation-states, right?)

Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 9:05 am Personally, I believe an end to the state of Israel means genocide. I believe people generally don't realize that or don't understand the full implications of what they're arguing for. (More darkly, there certainly are people in the pro-Palestinian movement who do realize all the implications.)

I disagree with the assertion that the one-state solution means genocide, but the matter is that the actions of the Israeli state and the settlers have rendered the two-state solution infeasible, leaving the one-state solution as the only choice. That Israel and the West Bank are separate entities is essentially a legal fiction at this point.

Lērisama wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 12:13 pm In a change of topic, I figure this is the best place to introduce myself. I'm Lērisama*, and, in a not so surprising twist, make conlangs, and have, with some others, a conworld for them.

Welcome! And apologies that the discussion became so heated just as you arrived… zompist is correct, usually it’s a lot more pleasant.

zompist wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 4:03 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 4:53 am

zompist wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 2:20 am Don't pretend that this loathsome war is "defense".

I think this is the crux of our disagreement. This war is defense, or at least it was when it started. To deny that is… well, it’s quite simply baffling to me. What else was Israel supposed to do? Sit and wait for Hamas to commit another atrocity?

(Note that I said ‘when it started’. I can’t support the war as it continues now. And now that Sinwar is finally dead there is no reason for it to continue.)

Honestly, if that is the disagreement, I'm baffled by why you endorse a long-gone member coming back and personally attacking me and linguoboy for antisemitism.

I consider it antisemitic to suggest that Israel uniquely has no right to defend its people, which is what that line of argument does.

(And in any case it’s not the only point of disagreement, just a very important one. And not even as important as I thought, since you clarified that you agree with me.)

But if you think that's a disagreement, you're mistaken. I've never said Israel should have done nothing. There is a such a thing as proportionate response– which frankly neither side is very good at understanding or implementing. And there are such things as conventions for dealing with civilians in wartime— ditto.

Look, the US was justified in responding to the 9/11 attacks and killing bin Laden. You don't have to ignore terrorism. But the US was far from justified in using the attacks to overthrow two governments, occupy one for 10 years, one for 20 years. A case can be made that Iraq is better off, but a better case can be made that Bush didn't know what the fuck he was doing and who he was ultimately facilitating. Iraq was partly occupied by the worst Islamist group for awhile; Afghanistan was handed over to one only marginally better. And bin Laden was not in either country.

Thank you for clarifying. I agree with all this.

You can't support the war now. OK, great, how far back does that go? It's a moot point as neither of us can influence the past or present there. But at least you have the notion that, uh oh, it went bad somehow. That's fine so far as it goes, but being vague in your own mind about these things is trouble, like communists who deplore Stalin but can't explain precisely what he did wrong. You don't have to figure it out in public, here, but I hope you'll figure it out.

It’s not really a question about ‘how far back’. It now seems clear that it was mismanaged from the beginning, for the simple reason that Netanyahu refused to create any plan which would account for ‘the day after’. And after the first couple of months he lost interest in a ceasefire deal, too.

That being said, even if it had been planned better, I’m not sure that it would have been significantly less brutal (except in being much shorter with ceasefires). Hamas has been doing its damnedest to make civilian casualties as high as possible, and there’s only so much an opposing army can do in that circumstance.

The antisemitism comes in with the things I mentioned earlier — ‘the systemic downplaying of any action opposed to Israel, while magnifying Israel’s faults’. Israel is not above criticism (far from it!), but people say things about it which they would never say about any other country doing the same actions. Even beyond that, I’ve seen people repeatedly endorse antisemitic behaviour, especially regarding student protests but also elsewhere.

You haven't seen it from me. But anti-Palestinian bigotry has been stoked too, and it's just as ugly. (To be clear, I haven't seen that you personally are anti-Palestinian. But this selective outrage business goes both ways.)

I do feel confident that I’ve fought against anti-Palestinian bigotry as much as anti-Israel bigotry. But I haven’t seen much anti-Palestinian bigotry here. (The only name which comes to mind is xxx, and even then he was mostly talking about France rather than Palestine.)

The matter about this war being "defense" or not is that it has been sheerly disproportionate in its conduct. I don't think that any of us are disputing that Hamas started the war in a most horrific fashion. But since then the IDF hasn't even tried to not kill civilians and aid workers indiscriminately. War crimes have been committed by both sides, but the fact is that the vast majority of these have been committed by the "defensive" side. (Yes I get that Hamas has been deliberately trying to cause civilian deaths, but things like using computer algorithms to select which buildings to bomb, using logic like that a single Hamas militant happens to sleep in a given apartment building, can't be excused with the "human shields" refrain.)

zompist wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 4:03 pm Afghanistan was handed over to one only marginally better. And bin Laden was not in either country.

Are you sure? I remember the Taliban offering to put Osama bin Laden on trial for the attack on the WTC. And this was despite the debt of gratitude they owed him, not least for Al-Qaeda killing the leader of the Northern Alliance a few hours before the attack on the WTC. (At least, I heard of the killing on the morning of the day of the attack.)

Richard W wrote: ↑Sat Oct 19, 2024 6:43 pm

zompist wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 4:03 pm Afghanistan was handed over to one only marginally better. And bin Laden was not in either country.

Are you sure? I remember the Taliban offering to put Osama bin Laden on trial for the attack on the WTC. And this was despite the debt of gratitude they owed him, not least for Al-Qaeda killing the leader of the Northern Alliance a few hours before the attack on the WTC. (At least, I heard of the killing on the morning of the day of the attack.)

According to Wikipedia, he arrived in Pakistan in January 2002. So yeah, for almost 20 years the US was fighting in Afghanistan and he wasn't there.

zompist wrote: ↑Sat Oct 19, 2024 8:00 pm According to Wikipedia, he arrived in Pakistan in January 2002. So yeah, for almost 20 years the US was fighting in Afghanistan and he wasn't there.

And for the last 10 of those years, the US government was convinced they has already killed him. So there must have been more reason for staying in Afghanistan. One likes to think that the reason was to establish and maintain a better government there than the Taliban. (The Taliban was already a favoured candidate for 'regime change' when 9/11 provided a casus belli.) Sheer bloody-mindedness probably also played a role.

Richard W wrote: ↑Sat Oct 19, 2024 9:33 pm

zompist wrote: ↑Sat Oct 19, 2024 8:00 pm According to Wikipedia, he arrived in Pakistan in January 2002. So yeah, for almost 20 years the US was fighting in Afghanistan and he wasn't there.

And for the last 10 of those years, the US government was convinced they has already killed him. So there must have been more reason for staying in Afghanistan. One likes to think that the reason was to establish and maintain a better government there than the Taliban. (The Taliban was already a favoured candidate for 'regime change' when 9/11 provided a casus belli.) Sheer bloody-mindedness probably also played a role.

20 years of "regime change" only to end up with a regime worse than the one they started with... it's not a good look.

(I'm not sure if we're disagreeing. Sure, there were justifications-- governments hate to admit that a war is a failure. But it was increasingly evident that they were failing, and were fooling themselves.)

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 6:57 pm Do peoples need states though? Would you say the same thing if you replaced "Israelis" with "Basques" or "Catalonians" or "Sikhs" or "Tibetans" or "Sri Lankan Tamils" or "Western Saharans" or "Karens" or "Native Hawaiians" or whatnot? (If you support Israeli ethnoreligious nationalism as legitimate, these other groups certainly deserve their nation-states, right?)

Those independantists I'm aware of from your list have a point, yes, though with quite a bit of variation in severity -- the situation for Tibetans is a great deal more severe than for the Catalans.

There is, also, a very long history of antisemitism which I think provides quite a bit of justification for Zionism.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 6:57 pm I disagree with the assertion that the one-state solution means genocide, but the matter is that the actions of the Israeli state and the settlers have rendered the two-state solution infeasible, leaving the one-state solution as the only choice. That Israel and the West Bank are separate entities is essentially a legal fiction at this point.

Agreed on your second point; the future is de facto a one-state situation (I hesitate to call this a solution). I believe it's among the worst of possible outcomes for everyone involved, but there we are.

Lērisama wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 12:13 pm In a change of topic, I figure this is the best place to introduce myself. I'm Lērisama*, and, in a not so surprising twist, make conlangs, and have, with some others, a conworld for them.


* In case you were wondering, it is (not particularly ideomatic) LZ for I make languages. Gloss available on request

Welcome! And I'd be very happy to hear about your conwold and conlang(s).

Thank you. (And I probably will, when I the documentation is more organised)

Dang, it's not every day I get called "antisemitic" for saying that ordinary Palestinian (and now Lebanese) citizens shouldn't be indiscriminately murdered in their homes, starved, and traumatised by an actual criminal regime with no respect for international norms such as humanitarian law and territorial sovereignty.

(Ha, I'm kidding. Of course it happens every day, because the first rule in the Zionist playbook is always always to equate any criticism of your ethnostate with antisemitism.)

But, hey, thanks for conceding that I don't actually hate my Jewish friends, relatives, or "Judaism in general". That's real white of you, buddy!

ObRandom: Happy Sukkoth, everyone!

Going back to an earlier question:

Raphael wrote: ↑Wed Oct 16, 2024 6:22 am 1) Can you talk with tubes in your nose?

2) If the answer is "yes", how would the voice/accent of someone talking with tubes in their noses sound different?

I had a nasogastric tube (running into my nose and down my throat to my stomach) for five days when I was hospitalized last year for an intestinal blockage. I could definitely talk with the tube in, although my wife says that I sounded like I had a stuffy nose, and I didn't talk much, because it was painful for my nose and throat. I hope that this information is helpful!

Also: hello, everyone! I have been lurking, but I have not done any posting for quite some time. There are several threads that I planned to post in at one time or another, but they range from one month to several months old, so I suspect that they might all qualify as necroposting at this point.