Israel and Palestine

I am no issue with Israel being criticised, in fact I'd guess that probably all the times the UNHRC has criticised have been valid, which means it's not so much an anti-Israel bias as a pro-anyone-who-isn't-Israel bias.

The problem I have is that I don't think the UNHRC should (or actually does) operate on the basis of what the otter UN institutions are doing with there time, it should operate on the basis of if human rights are being abused, nations that abuse humans rights should be dealt with by them as well as by others, it's there job to deal with human rights abuses, they shouldn't be farming of the worst cases to elsewhere.

And you still haven't explained why when the UNHRC does deal with human rights abuses by worse nations its givers them lighter punishments for worse actions than it does for Israel. How is that not a bias?

On this point: I would be willing to bet my career, my car, my life savings, and my beloved collection of books on WWII that Mossad could not give a flying fig about what the TV Tropes forum thinks of the present situation and that every one of the pro-Israel commenters here is sincere. This should go without saying.

What one will see is new pro-Israel forum profiles posting almost exclusively to this thread, but what they usually are are longtime lurkers who have only recently been motivated to post by the present emergency. A similar thing happened on the Ukraine thread.

I'm not even that. I posted in this thread a long time ago and I'm an active member of the site, just not in OTC. (RPs are more to my liking.)

I've already answered it, thats why. They get sanctioned. Israel doesn't. Thus, on balance, Israel doesn't get the worse punishment. The UNCHR doesn't have the mandate to offer much worse than the Strongly Worded Letter.

The UNHCR is a department of the UN, so it will operate according to how other departments act, simply because that is how large bureaucracies work. Whether it should is a different debate. But if you want it to act on its own accord, it should be a seperate and independant organization. Those already exist, however.

edited 26th Jul '14 2:08:45 PM by FFShinra

several times...

False Dicothomy: I'll Take a Third Option and hold off on assuming in either sense.

It's not a matter of bad faith, though. I will tell you this: if I was paid a decent amount to defend the Palestinian cause (or that of my own government), I would do it happily and without a shred of guilt, as long as I'm not asked to be actually dishonest (i.e to argue in bad faith). In fact, I would feel less guilty about spending time I doing that when I should be studying.

edited 26th Jul '14 2:05:48 PM by TheHandle

I'd assume, though, that you'd be upfront about it?
EDIT: Not assuming bad faith basically means assuming good faith, y'know?

edited 26th Jul '14 2:09:36 PM by desdendelle

wait, I could get paid for being here? why nobody told me that?

look, handle, here something you need to understand about Israelis. we actually believe that what our government is doing is right. We all have access to foreign media, we see the same pictures from Gaza that you see, we hear the condemnation from around the world and yet we support our government. We are not doing it out of ignorance or cruelty or because of some kind of payment. We are doing it because we honestly don't believe that Hamas would settle for anything less that the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state and we don't believe that kindness would kill Hamas

X4 I guess that's our fundamental disagreement, I think it's cheep and irresponsible for the UNHRC to pass the buck on dealing with humans rights abuse onto others, that's their area of expertises and they should be dealing with the abuses, not passing them on to other departments.

@Handle, I just don't see why any assumption should be made about Israeli troopers when there's no evidence (that I've seen) to back up the idea that they're receiving benefits to defend Israel. You've defend the Palestinians in this thread plenty, Shinra has defend Russia in other threads, nobody is suggesting you guys are getting paid by the relevant governments, so why suggest that Israeli troopers are getting paid?

edited 26th Jul '14 2:11:15 PM by Silasw

No it doesn't.

and I would like getting paid, though. I don't see why you'd assume that just because someone is paid, that they'd be insincere or fraudulent. I wouldn't begrudge you getting paid, it just would be nice to know if yau had an extra incentive that would make you argue just a little harder, stay just a little longer. Ain't nuffin wrong in getting paid to serve ones' country's interests, within limits.

Can anyone find the original Haaretz source?

Also does Haaretz mean Guardian?

edited 26th Jul '14 2:16:27 PM by TheHandle

Here's what The Handle's talking about, by the way.

We're not on Facebook or Twitter though...

Though I agree that that's a stupid plan. I still don't see why we should assume anything of the Israeli troopers here, both the Russian and Chinese governments run similar programs, but we don't assume pro-Russia or pro-China posters are in the pay of the relevant governments.

edited 26th Jul '14 2:19:53 PM by Silasw

No, it means "The Land", as in "The Land of Israel" ("Eretz Yisrael"). It is not affiliated with the UK's Manchester Guardian (now just Guardian), but the two newspapers do have a somewhat similar left-liberal editorial stance.

edited 26th Jul '14 2:21:25 PM by Achaemenid

Not That There's Anything Wrong with That, per se.

[triangulation with Arabic complete, equivalents found]. I say, I'm going to have so much fun learning Hebrew, once I get around to it.

edited 26th Jul '14 2:22:27 PM by TheHandle

You're dodging my question. Why are you assuming that Pro-Israeli posters may be in the pay of the Israeli government and not that pro-Russian or Chinese posters might be in the pay of those governments?

Personally, I would never argue against my own beliefs for money. I love representing the other side in a debate as an intellectual exercise, but for actual cash, to serve the ends of someone dishonest enough to pay me for that? Fuck. No. As George Orwell put it in Tribune on 1st August 1944:

What makes you think I wouldn't? I don't hang around those threads, and didn't know about the Israeli programs for sure until today, so I had no evidence that would bring the hypothesis to my attention. Now, however, like here, I won't assume either way, I'll just remember that it's possible.

Again, I would defend my own side for money, because I would do it for free. I would not defend my opponents for money, because that would make me physically sick. I might have to learn that skill in the future, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Or not.

Also, Slut Shaming is wrong. Whores are perfectly fine people.

edited 26th Jul '14 2:37:09 PM by TheHandle

I have a question, fellow Israeli tropers:

In terms of coverage of Palestinian civilian casualties (both dead and wounded), is it the same as in the West, or are there victims which are not talked about in the mainstream media, individually or in terms of groups?

And a question that is difficult. If someone can answer me, that'd be great:

In terms of the West and the East talking about casualties (both Israeli and Palestinian casualties, civilians, soldiers or others), are there any notable differences in terms of numbers of said casualties?

But how much do you identify with "your side"? Being a paid actor means owning the actions of your paymasters. If you're taking cash from someone, that means they decide what is and isn't acceptable. Plenty of British intellectuals would have said the same during the Cold War - "well, I'm a democratic socialist and Stalin's Stalin, but at least we're both socialists, and isn't that the important thing?"

Just because you would do something for free doesn't mean you should start taking cash for it - indeed, some things have to be done for free.

Iunno about the numbers, but I've seen some things in Facebook that I haven't seen in the media (last thing were two Arab dudes from Beit Hanina who were beaten to an inch of their life by a few guys from a settlement, if the poster's to be believed).

I think that's the case in the West as well. I've seen things shown on FB and other websites which are not reported by the media (with the exception of a few small companies).

I'll just be a Prima Donna and demand a satisfactory level of freedom with my services, before accepting the money. I would accept getting paid for doing more than I normally do, working harder than I normaly would, not for doing things differently, and certainly not for compromising my intellectual integrity. If I'm told to do something that I feel is wrong, I'll quit.

Round and round and round we go...

Hamas has resumed firing on central Israel after the ceasefire, rejecting an extension. The Israelis, who had signaled they would extend the ceasefire, have already responded, with one Palestinian reportedly killed by tank fire.

(sigh)

I'm not the least bit surprised.
EDIT: Sylvanas Windrunner has it nailed:

edited 26th Jul '14 3:14:00 PM by desdendelle

I'll go to sleep now.