B, you really don't know what you're talking about here. At most Israel conducted limited strikes targeting advanced weapons being shipped by Iran to Hezbollah for use against Israel. This fits pretty easily under legitimate self-defense, so for once can you just calm down and stop acting like Israel is always just itching to start WWIII.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Also, just cause you keep an encyclopedic library of quotes to repeatedly cut and paste into these threads doesn't mean you're informed. For example, as a liberal young American Zionist who's very engaged in what's going on with my peers on this issue I can tell you that that last quote you posted just doesn't get the dynamic right. Yeah, lots of people are upset that Israel seems to be moving away from their liberal values in certain respects, but that doesn't mean that we're abandoning our zionism. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Perhaps our excitement over Israel is dampened somewhat, but that doesn't mean our fundumental committment has just evaporated. That's like saying that every time a Republican get elected president all the liberals in America stop being patriotic Americans.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Also, just cause you keep an encyclopedic library of quotes to repeatedly cut and paste into these threads doesn't mean you're informed. For example, as a liberal young American Zionist who's very engaged in what's going on with my peers on this issue I can tell you that that last quote you posted just doesn't get the dynamic right. Yeah, lots of people are upset that Israel seems to be moving away from their liberal values in certain respects, but that doesn't mean that we're abandoning our zionism. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Perhaps our excitement over Israel is dampened somewhat, but that doesn't mean our fundumental committment has just evaporated. That's like saying that every time a Republican get elected president all the liberals in America stop being patriotic Americans.
Nobody said it had evaporated, or that it had been abandoned. But all of the surveys and studies point to support for Israel and Zionism being in sharp decline.
Oh, and your smug comments and personal attacks don't mean that you're informed either.
B, you really don't know what you're talking about here. At most Israel conducted limited strikes targeting advanced weapons being shipped by Iran to Hezbollah for use against Israel. This fits pretty easily under legitimate self-defense, so for once can you just calm down and stop acting like Israel is always just itching to start WWIII.
If the same had occurred against Israel or the U.S it would have been declared an act of war, would it not?
No universally applied principle justifies the Israeli attack on Damascus. Only self-flattering tribalism does that
Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 May 2013
'...if Syria this week attacks a US military base on US soil and incidentally kills some American civilians (as Nidal Hasan did), and then cites as justification the fact that the US has been aiding Syrian rebels, would any establishment US journalist or political official argue that this was remotely justified? Or what if Syria bombed Qatar or Saudi Arabia on the same ground: would any US national figure defend the bombing as well within Syria's rights given those nations' arming of its rebels?
Few things are more ludicrous than the attempt by advocates of US and Israeli militarism to pretend that they're applying anything remotely resembling "principles". Their only cognizable "principle" is rank tribalism: My Side is superior, and therefore we are entitled to do things that Our Enemies are not.'
Sure, whatever, yes...it's a violation of Syrian sovereignty and an act of war. If you stop to get off the high horse of pure principle what we're talking about is a country in tatters that is serving as a transit way for the shipping of advanced weapons to Israel's enemies. This is a question of power politics, not principle...you just don't sit back and let your enemies get armed to the teeth if you can do anything about it. As for your question about if such an attack were carried out on Israel or the US...that's a red herring because Israel and the US are stable, functioning states that aren't serving as the anarchic hub for the arming of all the regional homicidal malcontents.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Sure, whatever, yes...it's a violation of Syrian sovereignty and an act of war. If you stop to get off the high horse of pure principle what we're talking about is a country in tatters that is serving as a transit way for the shipping of advanced weapons to Israel's enemies. This is a question of power politics, not principle...you just don't sit back and let your enemies get armed to the teeth if you can do anything about it. As for your question about if such an attack were carried out on Israel or the US...that's a red herring because Israel and the US are stable, functioning states that aren't serving as the anarchic hub for the arming of all the regional homicidal malcontents.
So what you're saying here is that Israel and the U.S are superior entities, and that normal codes of conduct do not apply to them?
Interesting that in the piece I quoted above, Glenn Greenwald predicted and preempted your self-serving response:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... NTCMP=SRCH 'The ultimate irony is that those who advocate for the universal application of principles to all nations are usually tarred with the trite accusatory slogan of "moral relativism". But the real moral relativists are those who believe that the morality of an act is determined not by its content but by the identity of those who commit them: namely, whether it's themselves or someone else doing it. As Rudy Giuliani put it when asked if waterboarding is torture: "It depends on who does it." Today's version of that is: Israel and the US (and its dictatorial allies in Riyadh and Doha) have the absolute right to bomb other countries or arm rebels in those countries if they perceive doing so is necessary to stop a threat but Iran and Syria (and other countries disobedient to US dictates) do not. This whole debate would be much more tolerable if it were at least honestly acknowledged that what is driving the discussion are tribalistic notions of entitlement and nothing more noble.'
And as for the country being in tatters, just how and why did that come about? Did you read the Al Jazeera piece I posted above?
Yeah, I really have no problem saying that currently Israel and the US are superior to Syria. Neither one is two years into a civil war, nor has either of them endured roughly half a century of brutal dictatorship. As for "normal codes of conduct" I'd argue that your utopian notion of everybody agreeing to act according to high minded principle, real world consequences be damned is the departure from "normal codes of conduct." We're not talking about a society dinner here. We're talking about state level conflict. It's a particularly European perspective, enabled by American security guarantees and the blessings of history and geography, that allows you to think that what Israel just did is out of the ordinary. What Israel is doing, i.e. making sure that its avowed enemies don't get big fucking missiles to use against them, is pretty normal from my perspective.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Yeah, I really have no problem saying that currently Israel and the US are superior to Syria. Neither one is two years into a civil war, nor has either of them endured roughly half a century of brutal dictatorship. As for "normal codes of conduct" I'd argue that your utopian notion of everybody agreeing to act according to high minded principle, real world consequences be damned is the departure from "normal codes of conduct." We're not talking about a society dinner here. We're talking about state level conflict. It's a particularly European perspective, enabled by American security guarantees and the blessings of history and geography, that allows you to think that what Israel just did is out of the ordinary. What Israel is doing, i.e. making sure that its avowed enemies don't get big fucking missiles to use against them, is pretty normal from my perspective.
Yep, damn that pesky thing called international law. How dare it prevent us from waging endless wars against our neighbours and continue our 45 year illegal occupation.
And as for why Syria is the way it is currently, I'd refer you back to the half century of brutal dictatorship.
Do you think the Arab Spring uprisings in Syria deserve to be exploited by the U.S and Israel, thereby destroying the country and leading it down the same path of sectarian violence and eventual disintegration as occurred in Iraq?
Or are you going to conveniently blame it on the Syrian leadership, as you no doubt blame the destruction of Iraq on Saddam Hussein?
Here, I'll educate you: The whole World supports U.N Resolution 242, which calls for a full and immediate withdrawal of all Israeli's from territories it captured during the June 1967 war. The Whole World supports it, excluding Israel and the U.S.
So, we have the whole World on one side, and Israel and the U.S on the other.
And as for why Syria is the way it is currently, I'd refer you back to the half century of brutal dictatorship.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinio ... 37919.html
When Syrians, swept up in the once-transcendent spirit of the Arab Spring uprisings, undertook their own revolution against the corrupt, myopic regime of Bashar al-Assad, few had any idea it would lead to the dystopian reality of massacres and foreign predations the country faces today. The revolution - a legitimate, democratic uprising against a despotic government - provided a prize opportunity for the country's neighbours to violently exploit Syrian unrest to further their own venal interests.
The tragic result of this situation is the vicious proxy war playing out today in the streets of Aleppo, Homs, Deir ez-Zor and countless other cities and towns throughout the country. A once-proud nation - long recognised as the cultural and historical jewel of the Levant - has been reduced to a grim battlefield between the West and its Gulf allies on one hand and the Syrian government and its allies in Iran, Russia and Hezbollah on the other. The Israeli airstrikes perpetrated with impunity onto Damascus this past week are yet another illustrative example of the depths of turmoil to which Syria has sunk.
As analysts openly discuss the "Somaliasation" of Syria and growing factions within the country call for military intervention to break the state up into small ethnic and religious enclaves - literally, "into pieces" - the prospect of a united Syria grows more remote by the day. Again, just as in Iraq, the benefactors of Syria's dismemberment will be the external actors which seek hegemony in the region and have never hidden their desire to see the country collapse.
As early as 2011, a particularly frank prescription for the future of Syria was given by Lawrence Solomon, who called for a radical redrawing of the country's borders to facilitate Western interests:
"There is a better end game… Syria's dismemberment into constituent parts. US and NATO countries… should confine Alawites to a state in the central Western part of the country where they are predominant… the West has no cause to favour appeasement… over the many gains to be had through a dismemberment of Syria."
I love how you can always be counted on to invoke the talismanic powers of international law.
If you're going to invoke international law could you please point me to the treaty or customary norm that says that countries can't employ military force to interdict strategic weapons being shipped to hostile enemies on their borders?
And how exactly has the Syrian uprising been exploited by either Israel or the US? Best I can tell both Israel and the US are doing their best to mostly stay out of it.
As for sectarian violence in Syria and in Iraq, I blame that on extreme sectarianism, which is a feature of these countries that neither Israel nor the US created. I'd argue that brutal dictatorships in both countries that were aligned with one particular group and that was especially repressive towards the others exacerbated the situations. So yeah, I really don't see how the US or Israel has any connection to sectarian violence in either of these countries except for the US's role in getting rid of Saddam, whose regime was the only thing keeping Iraq's sectarian divisions from boiling over into violence.
Do you mean to tell me that you really think that Iraq and Syria, if left to their own devices, would be stable, peaceful countries, and that they're only in their current state because of US and Israeli machinations to secretly fuck them up? Cause that's really just fucking crazy! :fp: Ok, I guess that is how you see it. I really have no clue how anyone with eyes to see and a brain to think can come to such an utterly unsupported conclusion, but whatever.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Comments
Nobody said it had evaporated, or that it had been abandoned. But all of the surveys and studies point to support for Israel and Zionism being in sharp decline.
Oh, and your smug comments and personal attacks don't mean that you're informed either.
If the same had occurred against Israel or the U.S it would have been declared an act of war, would it not?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... NTCMP=SRCH
Israeli bombing of Syria and moral relativism
No universally applied principle justifies the Israeli attack on Damascus. Only self-flattering tribalism does that
Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 May 2013
'...if Syria this week attacks a US military base on US soil and incidentally kills some American civilians (as Nidal Hasan did), and then cites as justification the fact that the US has been aiding Syrian rebels, would any establishment US journalist or political official argue that this was remotely justified? Or what if Syria bombed Qatar or Saudi Arabia on the same ground: would any US national figure defend the bombing as well within Syria's rights given those nations' arming of its rebels?
Few things are more ludicrous than the attempt by advocates of US and Israeli militarism to pretend that they're applying anything remotely resembling "principles". Their only cognizable "principle" is rank tribalism: My Side is superior, and therefore we are entitled to do things that Our Enemies are not.'
So what you're saying here is that Israel and the U.S are superior entities, and that normal codes of conduct do not apply to them?
Interesting that in the piece I quoted above, Glenn Greenwald predicted and preempted your self-serving response:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... NTCMP=SRCH
'The ultimate irony is that those who advocate for the universal application of principles to all nations are usually tarred with the trite accusatory slogan of "moral relativism". But the real moral relativists are those who believe that the morality of an act is determined not by its content but by the identity of those who commit them: namely, whether it's themselves or someone else doing it. As Rudy Giuliani put it when asked if waterboarding is torture: "It depends on who does it." Today's version of that is: Israel and the US (and its dictatorial allies in Riyadh and Doha) have the absolute right to bomb other countries or arm rebels in those countries if they perceive doing so is necessary to stop a threat but Iran and Syria (and other countries disobedient to US dictates) do not. This whole debate would be much more tolerable if it were at least honestly acknowledged that what is driving the discussion are tribalistic notions of entitlement and nothing more noble.'
And as for the country being in tatters, just how and why did that come about? Did you read the Al Jazeera piece I posted above?
Emoticon
Loser terrorists<death
Yep, damn that pesky thing called international law. How dare it prevent us from waging endless wars against our neighbours and continue our 45 year illegal occupation.
basement boy bullshit eating chicken dipped in ketchup
Emoticon
Do you think the Arab Spring uprisings in Syria deserve to be exploited by the U.S and Israel, thereby destroying the country and leading it down the same path of sectarian violence and eventual disintegration as occurred in Iraq?
Or are you going to conveniently blame it on the Syrian leadership, as you no doubt blame the destruction of Iraq on Saddam Hussein?
Here, I'll educate you: The whole World supports U.N Resolution 242, which calls for a full and immediate withdrawal of all Israeli's from territories it captured during the June 1967 war. The Whole World supports it, excluding Israel and the U.S.
So, we have the whole World on one side, and Israel and the U.S on the other.
Read your cut and pastes if you want to be taken seriously.
Tears on my keyboard
Do you know what 'Troll' means?
Always interested in new things.
Do tell more about the damp conditions.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinio ... 37919.html
When Syrians, swept up in the once-transcendent spirit of the Arab Spring uprisings, undertook their own revolution against the corrupt, myopic regime of Bashar al-Assad, few had any idea it would lead to the dystopian reality of massacres and foreign predations the country faces today. The revolution - a legitimate, democratic uprising against a despotic government - provided a prize opportunity for the country's neighbours to violently exploit Syrian unrest to further their own venal interests.
The tragic result of this situation is the vicious proxy war playing out today in the streets of Aleppo, Homs, Deir ez-Zor and countless other cities and towns throughout the country. A once-proud nation - long recognised as the cultural and historical jewel of the Levant - has been reduced to a grim battlefield between the West and its Gulf allies on one hand and the Syrian government and its allies in Iran, Russia and Hezbollah on the other. The Israeli airstrikes perpetrated with impunity onto Damascus this past week are yet another illustrative example of the depths of turmoil to which Syria has sunk.
As analysts openly discuss the "Somaliasation" of Syria and growing factions within the country call for military intervention to break the state up into small ethnic and religious enclaves - literally, "into pieces" - the prospect of a united Syria grows more remote by the day. Again, just as in Iraq, the benefactors of Syria's dismemberment will be the external actors which seek hegemony in the region and have never hidden their desire to see the country collapse.
As early as 2011, a particularly frank prescription for the future of Syria was given by Lawrence Solomon, who called for a radical redrawing of the country's borders to facilitate Western interests:
"There is a better end game… Syria's dismemberment into constituent parts. US and NATO countries… should confine Alawites to a state in the central Western part of the country where they are predominant… the West has no cause to favour appeasement… over the many gains to be had through a dismemberment of Syria."
Your cut pastes are getting silly
You know, wicked awesome
If you're going to invoke international law could you please point me to the treaty or customary norm that says that countries can't employ military force to interdict strategic weapons being shipped to hostile enemies on their borders?
And how exactly has the Syrian uprising been exploited by either Israel or the US? Best I can tell both Israel and the US are doing their best to mostly stay out of it.
As for sectarian violence in Syria and in Iraq, I blame that on extreme sectarianism, which is a feature of these countries that neither Israel nor the US created. I'd argue that brutal dictatorships in both countries that were aligned with one particular group and that was especially repressive towards the others exacerbated the situations. So yeah, I really don't see how the US or Israel has any connection to sectarian violence in either of these countries except for the US's role in getting rid of Saddam, whose regime was the only thing keeping Iraq's sectarian divisions from boiling over into violence.
Do you mean to tell me that you really think that Iraq and Syria, if left to their own devices, would be stable, peaceful countries, and that they're only in their current state because of US and Israeli machinations to secretly fuck them up? Cause that's really just fucking crazy! :fp: Ok, I guess that is how you see it. I really have no clue how anyone with eyes to see and a brain to think can come to such an utterly unsupported conclusion, but whatever.