Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[ibshambat]

The biggest claim made against the Jews is that they killed Jesus. I for one did not kill anyone. I refuse to be blamed for the actions of Herod or Caiaphas; I had nothing to do with these people's actions.

So we have people claiming that the sins of the fathers are set on children. By that standard most Western civilizations are greater of guilty sins than the Jews. The Jews tried - and failed - to kill Jesus, who resurrected, whereas Spanish and English colonialists killed millions of people who did not resurrect. Of whatever wrong they are blaming the Jews, their wrong is far greater.

Civilizations are judged by the balance between what they created and what they destroyed. By this standard, the Americans and the Jews are the greatest civilizations in history. Probably the worst civilization is the Spanish, who destroyed three of the world's greatest civilizations - the Moores, the Aztecs and the Incas - without contributing much of anything to mankind. The English, the Germans, and any number of others have done some of both. It is valid to be proud of one's civilization; it is not valid to accept things that have been done wrong in its name.

So we have people going on about imperialism of the Jews in Israel. The proponents of that kind of thinking - both in Islam and in the West - are guilty of much greater imperialism. That is as much the case with English or Germans as it is with the Palestinians. Jews are only reclaiming the land that had been promised to them. Whereas both Muslims and Europeans lay claim to lands that aren't theirs.

Is Zionism all correct? No. But it is a much lesser sin than is had by its enemies. Israel is much less imperialistic than Spain, Germany or the Arabs. And it is important that this be reminded, as many people tend to forget.

[Mo_reese]

Comparing what Israel is currently doing, their genocide of the Palestinians of Gaza to what has happened in the past is not a rational justification.

[Sy Borg]

Hamas could stop it all tomorrow. The killing is 100% Hamas's choice. Israel would prefer that they handed over the hostages so they can return to some sort of normality. It's obvious that Israel won't stop attacking until the remaining hostages are returned. It's not a genocide - it's a Hamas tactic to discredit their enemies, and that's been the case throughout this war. Every death after 8 October 2023 is due to Hamas's choice not to return the hostages.

[Mo_reese]

Israel was warned about the Hama attack but welcomed it as it gave them justification to begin the extermination of Palestinians from Gaza. Like the West Bank, they want the land to sell to Europeans. If the hostages were released it would ruin their plans for expansion. At the time Hamas attacked Israel held about 5,000 Palestinian hostages. Now I think it's 9,000. So it isn't about hostages. If Hamas wants genocide why is Israel obliging them. It's obvious that genocide isn't the answer re. the hostages. For Israel it's about expansion just like in the West Bank.

[Sy Borg]

Hamas took hundreds of hostages. Israel wants them back. It's pretty simple. China is biting off pieces of Bhutan in much the same way as Israel is taking pieces of Palestine (noting that Jerusalem and Bethlehem - major parts of Jewish history and culture were ceded to Palestine). If Bhutan were crazy enough to do to China what Palestine did to Israel, the results would be much the same. What powerful nation would allow a weaker neighbour kidnap, rape and torture their people?

Hamas knew what would happen, and they did it anyway because their strategy is to induce Israel to kill enough people to create a political backlash. It was largely driven by the upcoming commercial deal between Saudi and Israel because Hamas/Iran wants to maintain the hatred rather than cooperate.

As for Hamas, their rule in Palestine is wicked and inhumane. Why would anyone support such a group? This video shows the evil system that you support.

[Thomas3333]

There is no axis here of comparison. The Israel Palestine "conundrum" is not a means of comparison, which in passing is not an allusion to history.
The state of Palestine, should not be verified and created, because it is condescending to the populace consisting the hypothetical thesis.
The UN, ought to enact a global registrar, in which the thesis of the registrar is whether people all across Earth can deem it worthwhile being known as the universe.

Yes, the derivative is highly accentuated in this context, ergo a betrayal of sorts of the no comparison ideal. The left-wing transcendence project, a presumed follow-up to the globalism of the universe documentation thesis, would presumably enact a physics of socialism across the uniformity, that would create physics as the new revolution, instead of reality being hijacked by the matter of imagination.

Imperialism; it is the bane of civilisation, and yet, in the most ironic turn of events, the globalism of knowing people as the universe would be the final straw of the territory thesis.

[Sy Borg]

Anyone who thinks it's better to live under Islam or socialism needs to ask themselves why people from those systems flood into capitalist nations but there is no flow the other way. China is rich, powerful and imperialistic (just ask Taiwan, Philippines, Bhutan, Nepal or Australia) but people are not desperate to join Xi's recreation of Mao's administration. Saudi Arabia and Iran are wealthy and powerful nations, but people are not flooding there in search for a better life.

"Imperialism" is just a Marxist notion - and we know that almost all societies based on Marxism have done badly.

The world is evolving and changing. To blame imperialism on dynamics that have been present in humans for millennia is short-sighted and a notion tainted by political biases.

[Mo_reese]

The biggest claim made against the Jews is that they killed Jesus. I for one did not kill anyone. I refuse to be blamed for the actions of Herod or Caiaphas; I had nothing to do with these people's actions.

So we have people claiming that the sins of the fathers are set on children. By that standard most Western civilizations are greater of guilty sins than the Jews. The Jews tried - and failed - to kill Jesus, who resurrected, whereas Spanish and English colonialists killed millions of people who did not resurrect. Of whatever wrong they are blaming the Jews, their wrong is far greater.

Civilizations are judged by the balance between what they created and what they destroyed. By this standard, the Americans and the Jews are the greatest civilizations in history. Probably the worst civilization is the Spanish, who destroyed three of the world's greatest civilizations - the Moores, the Aztecs and the Incas - without contributing much of anything to mankind. The English, the Germans, and any number of others have done some of both. It is valid to be proud of one's civilization; it is not valid to accept things that have been done wrong in its name.

So we have people going on about imperialism of the Jews in Israel. The proponents of that kind of thinking - both in Islam and in the West - are guilty of much greater imperialism. That is as much the case with English or Germans as it is with the Palestinians. Jews are only reclaiming the land that had been promised to them. Whereas both Muslims and Europeans lay claim to lands that aren't theirs.

Is Zionism all correct? No. But it is a much lesser sin than is had by its enemies. Israel is much less imperialistic than Spain, Germany or the Arabs. And it is important that this be reminded, as many people tend to forget.

The United States was/is an imperial nation. The US colonial expansion across the North American continent was nothing less than genocidal as they are credited with the deaths of tens of millions of North American indigenous peoples. Many indigenous tribes wiped out entirely.
In addition by the Civil War 4 million Africans were enslaved in the US. About 1.5 million Africans died in transport to the Americas. US imperialism took it's toll.
After World War II imperialism took a new look, neo-imperialism, as colonies were no longer common. The US took control of many countries in South America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East by either bribing the countries' rulers, or assisting in the replacement of rulers with those “friendly” to the US. This gave the US access to resources and land for military bases. Even today, the US is trying to blackmail Ukraine into giving up mineral rights for protection.

[Sy Borg]

Africans enslaved and slaughtered each other for many millennia. Even today the Bantu are crushing pygmies. Mo says nothing.

The Ottomans engaged in slavery for centuries, more than the west. Mo is silent.

All major civilisations did incredibly brutal things but Mo says nothing about most. Mo just attacks Jews and Americans. She expects US taxpayers to fork out many billions to other countries with zero return or gratitude. I'm not American, and even I am irritated by the sense of entitlement and double standards.

Trump has every right to turn off the tap for Ukraine. How dreadful of the US to want something back for the many billions spent! How terrible of the US to care about itself (for a change), rather than hating and harming itself as so many academics and graduates think is right and proper. None of them will ever say a thing about the Arab world's more extensive use of African slavery than the west.

[Count Lucanor]

The biggest claim made against the Jews is that they killed Jesus. I for one did not kill anyone. I refuse to be blamed for the actions of Herod or Caiaphas; I had nothing to do with these people's actions.

The Jews from where, from when? Who blames them? The terms seem too vague to give that sentence any meaning. In any case, many people, including myself, don't even think there was a real Jesus in 1st century Palestine, so...

So we have people claiming that the sins of the fathers are set on children. By that standard most Western civilizations are greater of guilty sins than the Jews. The Jews tried - and failed - to kill Jesus, who resurrected, whereas Spanish and English colonialists killed millions of people who did not resurrect. Of whatever wrong they are blaming the Jews, their wrong is far greater.

Again, your statements seem to imply the existence of a monolithic, unchangeable group of people throughout history, named "the Jews", which is evidently impossible. One can see the practical use of those labels to refer to an identifiable Jewish culture with common attributes (religion, language, etc.), but as a general category it is of very little use to explain anything, either in positive or negative terms.

Civilizations are judged by the balance between what they created and what they destroyed. By this standard, the Americans and the Jews are the greatest civilizations in history. Probably the worst civilization is the Spanish, who destroyed three of the world's greatest civilizations - the Moores, the Aztecs and the Incas - without contributing much of anything to mankind. The English, the Germans, and any number of others have done some of both. It is valid to be proud of one's civilization; it is not valid to accept things that have been done wrong in its name.

Among general categories, the one of civilization doesn't seem to apply to Jews. There's no known "Jewish civilization" as such. Doesn't seem to be the case either for "American civilization" (which I assume you refer to the USA, because America is the whole continent), nor the Spanish, the English and Germans. There are much better ways to refer to the cultural and political entities you seem to be pointing at.
In any case, the idea that the USA as a country has some merit for being a better "civilization" than others, is absolutely laughable. That shows complete ignorance of history. Placing Spain as "the worst" is also questionable, since such judgement is merely a reflection of the "black legend" against Spain, the propaganda carried out by Spanish rivals when Spain was a world power.

So we have people going on about imperialism of the Jews in Israel. The proponents of that kind of thinking - both in Islam and in the West - are guilty of much greater imperialism. That is as much the case with English or Germans as it is with the Palestinians. Jews are only reclaiming the land that had been promised to them. Whereas both Muslims and Europeans lay claim to lands that aren't theirs.

Let me clarify this for you: criticism against Israel is not criticism against Judaism, it is criticism against Zionism, a political movement born at the heart of colonial powers in Europe. It is criticism against a national state born from that ideology, it is criticism against its original colonial occupation of a land that belongs to others, it is criticism against its current illegal occupation, it is criticism against its genocide against the Palestinians, and against its ethnic cleansing and its apartheid system. There are many anti-Zionist Jews who also oppose these actions, so it has very little to do with being Jew.

Is Zionism all correct? No. But it is a much lesser sin than is had by its enemies. Israel is much less imperialistic than Spain, Germany or the Arabs. And it is important that this be reminded, as many people tend to forget.

Zionism is plain old colonialism. Those are Europeans that moved to a foreign land to occupy it and expel the indigenous population. And unlike many imperial wrongdoings, it is actually happening right now.

[Sy Borg]

Colonialism was, and is, a great thing for the humanity. It is the progression of humanity. Without it, how much of Africa would have been wiped out from malaria or, as populations increased, sanitation-related issues? Without technological progress, there would have been foul conditions around the undeveloped world as happened in ancient empires (now, ironically, the foulness is being generated today, through overpopulation). The inventions of colonising Europe dwarfed those of other nations. Without colonialism, speaking like this on the internet would not be possible.

It is a good thing to reduce the savagery and violence in societies, which was ultimately achieved by colonialism. I can hear the objections now due to excesses, eg. the Congo, but overall colonialism was a great thing for humanity as a whole. To say otherwise is hypocritical - to enjoy the spoils of colonialism while pretending that those positives don't exist, or matter.

If Israel wins, the people of that area will enjoy women's and gay rights, and the land will be properly cared for. If Iran wins (Hamas is an Iranian proxy) then the land will be degraded, violent and relatively primitive, women will have no rights, queer people will be killed and animal rights will disappear.

[Count Lucanor]

The standard argument from colonialism has always been that the brutal treatment and exploitation of its victims is justified by the material progress and superior culture forced upon the colonized. Progress and superiority are of course defined in terms of the hegemonic ideologies in the society of the colonial power. Implicitly or explicitly, those ideologies have usually avoided equating the humanity of the colonizers with that of the colonized, often resorting to indicators of race, ethnicity, and so on, to reinforce the commanding values of the colonial power. The “other” is then a subhuman, a second class citizen or at best, a good servant to the colonial master. So, for example, it is OK to wipe out a good portion of the population of the subjugated society because savages, the barbaric people, are turned into civilized humans. And “civilized” here includes the particular way the colonial power handles the state-sponsored means of violence. Other forms of violence are deemed barbaric, so if the population being wiped out shows armed resistance, it is immediately delegitimized, catalogued as a crime and rebellion against legitimate civil authority.

While it is somehow inevitable that the values and ideologies of hegemonic powers become the predominant culture in all their dominions, which implies that even those being subjugated will eventually assimilate the worldview of the conquerors, the good colonizer narrative is not exempt of its internal contradictions and the calls against its hypocrisy, given that those same high ideals and values that the colonizer likes to boast publicly and even demand from the rest of the world, are the same ones that can be used to denounce its unlawfulness and brutality. Humans rights, self-determination, sovereignty, democracy, etc., all are standards of a higher stage of civilization actively promoted by the ruling powers of Western society as universal values. So, as it turns out, by the same ideals of progress and civilization, the state of Israel is guilty of crimes against humanity. It doesn’t take an “illegitimate” non-Western organization to denounce it: Humans Right Watch, Amnesty International, the UN, the International Criminal Court, all have shattered any possibility of justifying the actions of the state of Israel, which go from illegal occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, to crimes of war.

The colonialist narrative also loses legitimacy by avoiding to see that when the colonial power imposes its social structures over the indigenous population of the conquered territory, it automatically cancels the ongoing natural development of that society and its potential future as a self-determined cultural and political entity, which is then replaced by the dynamics of the colonial rule. It doesn’t try to bring the colonized to its purported greater stage of civilization, it simply exploits it for the good of its own citizens, so the relations remain asymmetric, unbalanced, making it even harder for the colonized to reach that ideal stage. They can dream of it, but it remains a slippery illusion. It becomes much harder to justify the blaming of the indigenous people for what they have become, especially in the light of oppressive circumstances. As the history of colonialism has showed almost every time, and the case of Israel is no exception, many belligerent radical groups surface as politically relevant with the help of the colonial rulers. It is well-known that Hamas is a creation of Israel to counter the PLO.

Even after formal independence of the colonial rulers, many nations have been already set in a political, economic and cultural course that has no return. Even worse, the dependency ties and weaknesses are not entirely lost, so it has been very common that the former colonial powers intervene in the local political processes, installing regimes, killing its opponents, etc.

Any way you look at it, colonialism is a disgrace.

[Sy Borg]

No matter which way you look at it, colonialism is not only inevitable, but a boon for women. Of course, a percentage of men consider women's rights less important than indigenous rights.

In Australia, for example, there are Aboriginal women successfully working in a range of occupations. In traditional Aboriginal societies. women are routinely raped and beaten. In remote communities, closer to traditionalism, there is rampant rape of women and children. Aboriginals living traditionally were seen to regularly kill infants as a form of birth control, especially those born of young girls, as those babies were considered to b inherently weak. Sometimes these infants were eaten. So, of course, colonisers sought to influence the indigenous people they conquered.

Certainly, in most cases, the conquered would be better off being taken over by Europeans than rival tribes, who routinely slaughtered all men and boys, and took women and girls as sexual slaves and breeders. Note that slavery in Africa had been happening to defeated tribes for millennia before west Asians and Europeans started their slavery enterprises.

Still, in the end, indigenous societies were always going to be taken over by more powerful societies. If not European or Asian, they'd be swamped by larger tribes/gangs. Some in academia still subscribe to the "noble savage" myth, that these people were pure and perfect before evil white people took over (funnily enough, there is never any objection to the massive and especially cruel colonisation and slavery engaged in by Arab cultures).

Colonisation is not the black & white issue that revisionist historians of today claim:

[Count Lucanor]

Colonial powers, though, don’t occupy territories and rule over their population to practice philanthropy. That’s the last of their preoccupations. What they want is to rule and exploit the indigenous people for their own economic and political interests, that is, purely for greed and power. If that takes stepping over women, children or men’s rights, so it will be. If it takes installing a dictator that protects the colonial interests, while denying basic human rights, so it will be. If it takes to actually hinder any internal process of democratization, education, and advancing human rights, so it will be. England, Belgium and the USA did not hesitate to assassinate Patrice Lumumba, the democratically elected leader in Congo, to install the bloody regime of Mobutu Sese Seko, heavily supported for decades by the USA, Belgium and France. Examples like this abound and contradict the narrative of moral superiority of colonialists, if what counts is not what is written in declarations of good will, but what is done in practice. If you can’t live up to your own standards, that’s called hypocrisy, even though your standards may be praised.

In any case, it makes no sense at all to pretend that ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide are good and necessary steps, the price to pay to advance the cause of human rights for the victims of such actions. I suppose that the justifying rationale of colonialists is that in the long run, several generations after these crimes have taken place, the surviving descendants of the decimated population will finally share the values of the colonialists and their lives will be worth something more, although still subject to the racism and social discrimination that plagues Western societies. That argument will be as worthy of serious consideration as would be the claim that, in general, it was good for the Jewish people to be ethnically cleansed by the Nazis, because in the long run they got better lives.

[Sy Borg]

Count says that "it makes no sense at all to pretend that ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide are good and necessary steps, the price to pay to advance the cause of human rights for the victims of such actions".

In truth, groups of humans have been taking over other groups of humans for over 200,000 years. In that time, humans have progressed from stone age primitivism, high infant mortality (including deliberate killing), cannibalism, enslavement of the women of the losing parties, extreme commonplace domestic violence - and much more - to the cities and the space age of today.

Personally, I'm grateful to live in an age of germ theory, general anaesthetic, and where tribal warfare is mostly restricted to outlaw gangs. Maybe you wish to return to a violent stone age existence with a short life expectancy?

History stands as a monument against Count's postmodern claims. His idealistic words are dwarfed and humbled by reality.

Life is competitive and rough. Societies either compete well, or they are taken over by someone who competes better. We can pretend that that's not the case, and we can pretend that societies aren't effectively still being invaded via "peaceful" political and economic means, but such idealism is at odds with reality.

Also, racism and social discrimination are far worse in the Middle East, east Asia and Africa. It was the west that did away with slavery, not the Middle Eastern and African slavers. England did that - no one else at the time. In fact, the Arab world still has widespread slavery. In South Africa, huge mobs openly call for the death of whites. Or try being a black person in China or Japan, and see how you are treated. Try being a Jew in most Middle Eastern countries ... and stay alive. Prejudice is widespread around the globe, and the west is far further down the road of accepting human diversity than most other cultures. The claim that the west has any special issue with prejudice is simply a lie by those who dislike the west for political or ideological reasons.

In the meantime, Jews have already been ethnically cleansed in the Middle East, aside from the tiny pocket of land called Israel. However, they still exist, which is testimony to their competence. Still, I'm pretty sure that, eventually, Israel will eventually be taken over, and the lands once again will host extreme Wahhabism and oppression like Afghanistan. Is that something to aspire to? To see women and gays on that land reduced to chattel and garbage, respectively? Apparently, some think that is the ideal.

If the Jews - or any other group - fail to compete well enough and are wiped out, then that's just how it is, how it has always been. Many peoples have been wiped out since the emergence of H. sapiens. It's not pretty, but that is the hard reality. Societies either compete effectively or they will be dominated.

I say this as someone who is a weak competitor, and I only survive by luck and a relatively safe society. I'd rather the world be full of cuddly bunnies too, but I can observe that this is far from the case. It's a bear pit out there. C'est la vie.