nationalism?

[LordRahl2]

Yup.  At the end of the day a state that commits genocide is simply not equivalent with one that does not.  Pretty simple really and would not have required you to try to argue a failed point for 6 pages.  Sorry that you felt you had to defend an indefensible position.

 

Now then:

 

 

Declaring the state of Israel against the will of the people living there for far more consecutive generations, disregarding their opinions (as well as every one of their neighbors)......

Sounds more like people defending their homes than Israel being attacked. Once again, if Israel were actually a true democracy, they probably wouldn't have to be killing their own people who have disagreed with the states existence from day one (for over 60 years). 

Fact is, the declaration of Israel was a declaration of war on the more consecutive population. What happens next? War! Who would have imagined that could possibly happen in such a democratic and fair, totally secular state that certainly doesn't alienate it's minorities? 

 

Ahhh, you want to go back to the beginning or first conflict.  Cool.

 

Pre-948, as we already established, the people (Jewish people in this case) purchased the land from the land owners and had moved their and were farming the land.  Most of that land was not tilled at the time although some of it was and displaced the people living there. 

Then the United Nations technically declared the State of Israel:

In 1948 the UN declared the State of Israel comprising at the time (as has been pointed out to you) a strong Jewish population living on Jewish owned land.  Population distribution at the time is an interesting topic which lead to some very irregular borders.  Anyway, the attempt to create two States based on who actually owned and lived on the land (UN resolution 181) led to an almost immediate decent into violence with both sides participating in "mass killing" as you would call it on both sides.  There is no clear moral ground here particularly regarding jus ad bellum (both violated jus en bello).  I would submit that considering each element of jus ad bellum leads to a confused understanding of who held the moral ground to engage in this war.  Morally both sides violated multiple parts of the jus ad bellum aspect to varying degrees.  At best it was "two wrong not making a right".  So indeed you have some footing to decry the initial conflict although the counter argument that the Arabs were also morally suspect is equally valid.

 

Really then the moral considerations of the initial phase are basically a wash.  Israel had a moral justification as did the Arab population.  There are also clear violations on both sides of the conflict.  I know you would like to believe or frame this as black and white.  However, it is almost the definition of a "grey" moral argument.

[Fox Fire]

Yup.  At the end of the day a state that commits genocide is simply not equivalent with one that does not.  Pretty simple really and would not have required you to try to argue a failed point for 6 pages.  Sorry that you felt you had to defend an indefensible position.

 

Now then:

 

 

Ahhh, you want to go back to the beginning or first conflict.  Cool.

 

Pre-948, as we already established, the people (Jewish people in this case) purchased the land from the land owners and had moved their and were farming the land.  Most of that land was not tilled at the time although some of it was and displaced the people living there. 

Then the United Nations technically declared the State of Israel:

In 1948 the UN declared the State of Israel comprising at the time (as has been pointed out to you) a strong Jewish population living on Jewish owned land.  Population distribution at the time is an interesting topic which lead to some very irregular borders.  Anyway, the attempt to create two States based on who actually owned and lived on the land (UN resolution 181) led to an almost immediate decent into violence with both sides participating in "mass killing" as you would call it on both sides.  There is no clear moral ground here particularly regarding jus ad bellum (both violated jus en bello).  I would submit that considering each element of jus ad bellum leads to a confused understanding of who held the moral ground to engage in this war.  Morally both sides violated multiple parts of the jus ad bellum aspect to varying degrees.  At best it was "two wrong not making a right".  So indeed you have some footing to decry the initial conflict although the counter argument that the Arabs were also morally suspect is equally valid.

 

Really then the moral considerations of the initial phase are basically a wash.  Israel had a moral justification as did the Arab population.  There are also clear violations on both sides of the conflict.  I know you would like to believe or frame this as black and white.  However, it is almost the definition of a "grey" moral argument.

Which all goes back to Balfour and doesn't do anything to delegitimize my claim that Palestinians were defending themselves. Most people would do the same thing. I would. You probably would. 

Regardless, the west still supports Israel as some kind of democracy, disregarding the fact that they are blatantly killing their own people that disagree with the existence of their Jewish state, because let's face it, Palestinians are Israelis and vice versa. As long as the "institution" refuses to recognize Palestine as an actual state with the same sovereign rights as Israel, then Palestinians are just Israelis with no rights. Further more, whether we like it or not, Hamas runs Gaza. And it's Israels existence that makes that so. Palestinians, rightfully so, want someone to represent them, but specifically stick up for their rights. They don't seem to mind loosing people for that fight, as any people is such a desperate situation would. Israels treatment of Palestine will never lead to a real 2 state solution. It will absolutely never work. Ever. 

Now once again, I'm not advocating a Muslim state in Palestine. Perhaps maybe numerous decades ago, but today's situation makes that virtually impossible. But it's nice to see you actually do acknowledge the legitimacy of both sides here. At least in a moral sense.

Anyway, I still say Israel is a Jewish Nazi Germany. No, they don't commit genocide, but they realistically can't. Many of the extremists on both sides would happily commit genocide if possible and I think we can both agree on that. And regardless of the fact that most people on either side may not be extremist asshats, neither were most Germans, or even Nazis. Yet, it's those few psychos that made the holocaust happen. Everyone else was just caught between a rock and a hard place. The reason neither side commits genocide is simple inability. Israel is powerful, but not even they could withstand the PR retaliation of a blatant holocaust. You also just can't hide things these days like the Nazis did. ISIS for example knows this well and chooses to embrace it, rather than hide it. The price they pay is war with virtually the whole world. I think your sole focus on the holocaust, an incident from decades ago without modern tech, clouds your judgement when considering all other factors, but alas, I really don't think we're going to convince each other either way here.

Edited March 4, 2016 by Fox Fire

[Clarke]

The unfortunate truth is Muslims in those regions aren't your friend and don't share your moral values, giving even a little space they would bring about the destruction to Israel. 

Edited March 4, 2016 by Clarke

[LordRahl2]

Your fascination with Balfour is interesting but not explicative. It has nothing to do with the morality of the choice the Arabs made to attack the Jews. Like at all. So maybe rethink that line of argument. Would I attack my neighbor if the UN carved out a State for them next to me? Maybe. Would I be morally justified in doing so? Maybe but maybe not.

 

You next discuss the "west" supporting them. I wrote a whole bunch about that if you would like to read it. But anyway, the morality of the initial situation is far from as clear as you would like it to be.

 

You are correct that the path to a two state solution is basically impossible to see. The "fault" for that lies with both Israelis and Palestinians as well as geography, foreign powers, religion, etc etc. Are the Israelis solely at fault as you seem to claim? No, clearly not. Nor are they blameless. I again apologize that we live in a complex world that does not conform to your balck/white outlook.

 

I don't really care at this point to convince you that we have already resolved the argument about Israel =/= Nazi Germany. We have resolved it. You were shown to be wrong, and again...that's OK. Deal with it and move on.

 

It is interesting in your latest foray that you find Israel incapable of conducting genocide. Israel is immensely powerful regionally and could easily actually kill millions of people. They do not because they chose not to. Maybe they chose not to "because they cannot hide it". Proving motivation behind not taking action is a futile argument and I will leave that to you.

Edited March 4, 2016 by LordRahl2

[Lord of Puns]

Just because of the lack of genocide? We already had this discussion just ten times over now. I can't make myself more clear and you're just insisting on using the same rebuttle while expecting me to respond to the same exact piss poor excuse every comment. No.. I'm tired or repeating it.

 

 

I want you to make me a sandwich but I suppose that;s not happening. 

Gaza is an internment camp. It's specifically isolated from the entire world by Israel. Not allowed to have it's own economy by Israel. Any infrastructure they build is blown away in a year. It's people are indiscriminately massacred frequently. The people have nowhere to flee. Nowhere to feel safe. All they can do is rebuild every year or two and keep fighting every day for the sake of their existence. It's one giant, very densely populated internment camp. Israel likes to claim that if they stopped fighting, it would be genocide. The same can equally be said for Palestinians. Difference is, it's not Israeli civilians taking the brunt of this disagreement. It's Palestinian civilians. 

Israel is consistently occupying more and more Palestinian land. Gaza is growing because they reproduce faster than the Israeli Jews. It's certainly not because of Israel bombing the shit out of UN schools, the tunnels they depend on for any kind of foreign trade and their one, primary power source for virtually the entire city. That isn't helping at all. Unless you're some delusional Fox News watcher who buys into the idea that Israel, land of democracy that slaughters political opposition, is the symbol of freedom in the middle east. Are you out of your mind?

I've researched this more than you have, I can quite definitely tell. The government of the west bank is not Hamas, although Hamas enjoys quite a bit of support from people in the west bank. Ever wonder why?

War is a keen interest of mine and I make a very, very solid attempt to understand both sides of any conflict. I don't even speak about a conflict unless I've studied it to an extent which I feel I understand both sides. If you prefer, I can own you in a debate about why ISIS exists, what exactly their ideology is, what makes it different from others and why it's Americas fault they exist.

 

I suggest you do some research, buddy. I know my shit. My anti-zionism is not anti-semitism. That's what's called the "Jew Card". Accusing someone of being an anti semite just because they questions the state of Israel. If that makes me anti-semitic in your eyes, then we have nothing to talk about. I'm not having this debate with such a closed mind. 

 

 

^Holy shit! Those Jews are anti-semites!! What a bunch of !@#$! 

 

EDIT: Moar pics.

 

You have, over and over again, alluded to the issue that Jews are the root of the problem in Israel. Over and over again. It's not the Jew card when you're actually being an anti-semite. I do not think that anti-zionism is anti-semitism in any form. I've tried to distiguish the difference between the two repeatedly. And if you've done so much fcking research I don't understand how you could not know anything about the Gaza-Israeli relationship.

 

 The Palestinian Authority. Led by Abbas. Partakes in infrastructure projects there regularly. Israel's relationship with the Palestinian authority is a hell of a lot better than most people give them. The Government of the West bank is the Palestinian Authority yet they do not partake in any other form of aid other than packages of food and water. Why is that? Because Gaza is !@#$ controlled by Hamas. Abbas has admitted it, Hamas knows it. They may not be "the official government of the West Bank" but they sure as hell are the only ones controlling Gaza. How can you have done research and still not know that the West Bank is not Gaza at all nor does it have all that much control over it.

 

 The Israeli army is sloppy and does a number of problematic and humanitarian conflicts in Gaza, I don't support it and I'm aware of the number of unjustified killings and disproportionate uses of force. But you're comparing it to an Internment camp. The infant mortality rate in Gaza is 105th ranked in the world (that's very good). The Gaza strip's death rate is the 5th lowest in the entire world! Their population below the poverty line is higher than Greece and about another quarter of the world. Which seems very comparable to internment camps. Totally. Yup.

 

Is Gaza a fun place to live? No. Is it a internment camp? Not by any means at all. 

 

EDIT: Quoted twice

Edited March 4, 2016 by Lord of Puns

[Fox Fire]

The unfortunate truth is Muslims in those regions aren't your friend and don't share your moral values, giving even a little space they would bring about the destruction to Israel. 

Yes, no doubt. But all of the middle easts problems are the doing of foreigners. 

 

 

Your fascination with Balfour is interesting but not explicative. It has nothing to do with the morality of the choice the Arabs made to attack the Jews. Like at all. So maybe rethink that line of argument. Would I attack my neighbor if the UN carved out a State for them next to me? Maybe. Would I be morally justified in doing so? Maybe but maybe not.

 

You next discuss the "west" supporting them. I wrote a whole bunch about that if you would like to read it. But anyway, the morality of the initial situation is far from as clear as you would like it to be.

 

You are correct that the path to a two state solution is basically impossible to see. The "fault" for that lies with both Israelis and Palestinians as well as geography, foreign powers, religion, etc etc. Are the Israelis solely at fault as you seem to claim? No, clearly not. Nor are they blameless. I again apologize that we live in a complex world that does not conform to your balck/white outlook.

 

I don't really care at this point to convince you that we have already resolved the argument about Israel =/= Nazi Germany. We have resolved it. You were shown to be wrong, and again...that's OK. Deal with it and move on.

 

It is interesting in your latest foray that you find Israel incapable of conducting genocide. Israel is immensely powerful regionally and could easily actually kill millions of people. They do not because they chose not to. Maybe they chose not to "because they cannot hide it". Proving motivation behind not taking action is a futile argument and I will leave that to you.

Maybe? IDK, man. Driving people off their own land is pretty morally wrong to most people. The reaction to defend said land is a defensive response, no? 

I'm not looking at this in black and white. It's kinda stupid how one cannot criticize Israel without being accused of anti-semitism or a terrorists apologist. I'll again say to you all that I'm not in favor of a Muslim state in Palestine. It would be just as terrible as Israel. 

I wasn't shown to be wrong about my comparison. You simply brought up genocide. That was the whole argument. Nobody was proven right or wrong.

Israel could start a genocide, but I highly !@#$ing doubt they would get very far.

 

 

You have, over and over again, alluded to the issue that Jews are the root of the problem in Israel. Over and over again. It's not the Jew card when you're actually being an anti-semite. I do not think that anti-zionism is anti-semitism in any form. I've tried to distiguish the difference between the two repeatedly. And if you've done so much fcking research I don't understand how you could not know anything about the Gaza-Israeli relationship.

 

 The Palestinian Authority. Led by Abbas. Partakes in infrastructure projects there regularly. Israel's relationship with the Palestinian authority is a hell of a lot better than most people give them. The Government of the West bank is the Palestinian Authority yet they do not partake in any other form of aid other than packages of food and water. Why is that? Because Gaza is !@#$ controlled by Hamas. Abbas has admitted it, Hamas knows it. They may not be "the official government of the West Bank" but they sure as hell are the only ones controlling Gaza. How can you have done research and still not know that the West Bank is not Gaza at all nor does it have all that much control over it.

 

 The Israeli army is sloppy and does a number of problematic and humanitarian conflicts in Gaza, I don't support it and I'm aware of the number of unjustified killings and disproportionate uses of force. But you're comparing it to an Internment camp. The infant mortality rate in Gaza is 105th ranked in the world (that's very good). The Gaza strip's death rate is the 5th lowest in the entire world! Their population below the poverty line is higher than Greece and about another quarter of the world. Which seems very comparable to internment camps. Totally. Yup.

 

Is Gaza a fun place to live? No. Is it a internment camp? Not by any means at all. 

 

EDIT: Quoted twice

No, the problem in Israel is the west. That's the root of the problem.

When the actual !@#$ did I say that the west and Gaza were governed by the same people? Stop throwing words in my mouth.

Gaza is sealed off and any time violence breaks out, Palestinian civilians are indiscriminately bombed. The casualty comparison is entirely one sided.

 

 

There is no freedom of movement. Nobody is allowed in or out for any reason with very few exceptions. The comparison of Gaza to a prison camp is not my idea. Numerous people, mostly westerners, including a French president, have made this comparison. So what happens when bombs start falling? Israel drops stupid little leaflets telling people to flee. Flee where? There is no refugee status for people in Gaza. 

 

Afghanistan is not a fun place to live. Gaza is an internment camp. 

 

As for the west bank, there is a wall, most of which is in legally Palestinian territory. Israeli annexations over the years are internationally illegal. However, this is not stopping them from taking more and more land. Israeli settlers continue to settle in more areas of the west bank and there is no sign that it's going to stop. In 2014 400 hectares of land was taken by Israel for the purpose of housing Israeli settlers. Israel basically demolishes and builds any infrastructure they want in the west bank. The west banks government tries to get along with Israel because they have no other choice. The Palestinians are being ethnically cleansed but, yeah, their relationship with Israel is just A+ because of some minor cooperation. Just ignore the far larger disagreements. That's nothing.

[Clarke]

Yes, no doubt. But all of the middle easts problems are the doing of foreigners. 

Which problems specifically? 

The root of all of the problems in the middle east is bigotry towards other religions including their own and that has being present since its inception.

They biggest issue now in the middle east is that their religion hasn't reformed, if that happened so much would change.  

Edited March 6, 2016 by Clarke

[Big Brother]

Which problems specifically? 

The root of all of the problems in the middle east is bigotry towards other religions including their own and that has being present since its inception.

They biggest issue now in the middle east is that their religion hasn't reformed, if that happened so much would change.  

 

Right, every single problem in the Middle East is caused by religious bigotry. Because that's totally not a gross over-generalization at all 

It's not like any of their problems whatsoever derive from the fact that European colonial powers drew up arbitrary borders dividing people who were of the same culture and religion whilst grouping together people who didn't share the same culture and religion, and expected them all to get along with each other.

 

I hold some pretty strong anti-religious views but to put the blame of the entirety of the Middle East's problems on religion is just inaccurate and pure oversimplification. There's plenty of other things religion can be blamed for, if you're going to criticize religion at least be accurate about it. There's no need to make it a scapegoat for all of the Middle East's problems.

[LordRahl2]

Maybe? IDK, man. Driving people off their own land is pretty morally wrong to most people. The reaction to defend said land is a defensive response, no? 

I'm not looking at this in black and white. It's kinda stupid how one cannot criticize Israel without being accused of anti-semitism or a terrorists apologist. I'll again say to you all that I'm not in favor of a Muslim state in Palestine. It would be just as terrible as Israel. 

I wasn't shown to be wrong about my comparison. You simply brought up genocide. That was the whole argument. Nobody was proven right or wrong.

Israel could start a genocide, but I highly !@#$ doubt they would get very far.

 

To whom are you referring the Jewish farmers being driven off their land and fighting back or the Arab farmers?  I would agree that defending your land is justified so...neither side and both are justified.

I called you something?  Could you show me where I did such a thing?

Anyway, you are in fact looking at it from a very black and white perspective and sorry to point that out.  You could scroll back through a few pages and point out where you consider any grey area.  You will not have much luck iirc.

You are correct .  You made a flawed comparison and I pointed out why it was flawed.  You agreed with me but refused to back off your initial assertion.  Which is silly really.

And again, I will leave the contemplation about why a State chooses not to do something within its capabilities to you. 

[Fox Fire]

Which problems specifically? 

The root of all of the problems in the middle east is bigotry towards other religions including their own and that has being present since its inception.

They biggest issue now in the middle east is that their religion hasn't reformed, if that happened so much would change.  

Every problem. You know all this terrorism we've been dealing with? Do you know what it's based on? Do you know the ideology that they believe in? Do you know why that ideology exists?

I suggest you look into it. Start with reading about Salafism/Wahhabism. The problem is not that Islam isn't converting to more modern ethics, but exactly the opposite. The problem is that the more the west tries to convert Islam, the more people fight it, viewing modern Islam as corrupt and desiring a return to ultra conservative, traditional practice. The more we meddle in the middle east, the more people are inspired to follow this Salafist ideology. The ideology itself is basically designed to reject western "innovations". It's sole purpose and reason for existence is to reject the west or changes to Islam. It's western interventions that created this ideology and in fact, it's the existence of Israel that made it become popular. Before Israel, it was a very unpopular idea. After Israel, it's very popular. 

The invasion of Iraq caused an explosion of support for Al-Qaeda all over the middle east. That's why ISIS exists. 

[Fox Fire]

To whom are you referring the Jewish farmers being driven off their land and fighting back or the Arab farmers?  I would agree that defending your land is justified so...neither side and both are justified.

I called you something?  Could you show me where I did such a thing?

Anyway, you are in fact looking at it from a very black and white perspective and sorry to point that out.  You could scroll back through a few pages and point out where you consider any grey area.  You will not have much luck iirc.

You are correct .  You made a flawed comparison and I pointed out why it was flawed.  You agreed with me but refused to back off your initial assertion.  Which is silly really.

And again, I will leave the contemplation about why a State chooses not to do something within its capabilities to you. 

I've made it clear this whole argument that I'm not taking sides. In case you haven't noticed, I'm attacking Israel in this thread because that's what you were challenging. 

Would you feel better if I also wrote about how an Islamic State is disgusting? 

Edited March 6, 2016 by Fox Fire

[LordRahl2]

I've made it clear this whole argument that I'm not taking sides. In case you haven't noticed, I'm attacking Israel in this thread because that's what you were challenging. 

Would you feel better if I also wrote about how an Islamic State is disgusting? 

 

Ummmm, you were talking about Israel and Palestine.  You have taken a pretty clear "side" there despite the ambiguous moral considerations.

[Fox Fire]

Ummmm, you were talking about Israel and Palestine.  You have taken a pretty clear "side" there despite the ambiguous moral considerations.

No, I'm arguing against Israel right now because that is what you challenged me on. I can make just as strong of an argument against either of Palestines governments. The opportunity to do so has not presented itself here. So apparently I'm an anti-semite, because everyone who questions Israel is by default, a Jew hating Sharia lover....

I can could also tell you about how Christianity is bullshit but that doesn't mean I'm promoting Islam. I could tell you why BLM is stupid but that doesn't mean I'm racist. I could tell you why feminism is stupid but that doesn't mean I'm sexist. 

 

According to you it does though. So I think we're done here.

 

(FYI: My stance on the Israeli-Palestine conflict is and always has been: The only solution is a single, secular state. Though I've already said that. Please continue to ignore it).

Edited March 6, 2016 by Fox Fire

[LordRahl2]

No, I'm arguing against Israel right now because that is what you challenged me on. I can make just as strong of an argument against either of Palestines governments. The opportunity to do so has not presented itself here. So apparently I'm an anti-semite, because everyone who questions Israel is by default, a Jew hating Sharia lover....

I can could also tell you about how Christianity is bullshit but that doesn't mean I'm promoting Islam. I could tell you why BLM is stupid but that doesn't mean I'm racist. I could tell you why feminism is stupid but that doesn't mean I'm sexist. 

 

According to you it does though. So I think we're done here.

 

(FYI: My stance on the Israeli-Palestine conflict is and always has been: The only solution is a single, secular state. Though I've already said that. Please continue to ignore it).

 

Good call.  Show me where I called you an anti-Semite.  Oh?  Cannot do that now can ya.  I guess we are not done here then?

I might not have ignored you but simply agreed with you.  What I really challenged you on was your dumb assertion that Israel is the equivalent of a genocidal aggressively expansionist State (Nazi Germany).

[Clarke]

Right, every single problem in the Middle East is caused by religious bigotry. Because that's totally not a gross over-generalization at all 

It's not like any of their problems whatsoever derive from the fact that European colonial powers drew up arbitrary borders dividing people who were of the same culture and religion whilst grouping together people who didn't share the same culture and religion, and expected them all to get along with each other.

 

I hold some pretty strong anti-religious views but to put the blame of the entirety of the Middle East's problems on religion is just inaccurate and pure oversimplification. There's plenty of other things religion can be blamed for, if you're going to criticize religion at least be accurate about it. There's no need to make it a scapegoat for all of the Middle East's problems.

 

I was referring to the main problems but yeah you can't blame the lack of water on religious bigotry. That said I did say what problems and you answered with precisely none. 

European power dividing up the Ottoman Empire is related to the religion of Islam because from what I understand it was to prevent an empire rising up again in the region and being a threat. An empire wouldn't be that different than ISIS now.

Arguably an empire would have even more religious bigotry on a brutal scale. 

Cultural Diversity is a good thing. 

 

 

 

Every problem. You know all this terrorism we've been dealing with? Do you know what it's based on? Do you know the ideology that they believe in? Do you know why that ideology exists?

I suggest you look into it. Start with reading about Salafism/Wahhabism. The problem is not that Islam isn't converting to more modern ethics, but exactly the opposite. The problem is that the more the west tries to convert Islam, the more people fight it, viewing modern Islam as corrupt and desiring a return to ultra conservative, traditional practice. The more we meddle in the middle east, the more people are inspired to follow this Salafist ideology. The ideology itself is basically designed to reject western "innovations". It's sole purpose and reason for existence is to reject the west or changes to Islam. It's western interventions that created this ideology and in fact, it's the existence of Israel that made it become popular. Before Israel, it was a very unpopular idea. After Israel, it's very popular. 

The invasion of Iraq caused an explosion of support for Al-Qaeda all over the middle east. That's why ISIS exists.

 

I'm not talking just about terrorist groups, its the culture and societies itself that is the problem because it is barbaric. 

 

[Big Brother]

 I was referring to the main problems but yeah you can't blame the lack of water on religious bigotry. That said I did say what problems and you answered with precisely none. 

European power dividing up the Ottoman Empire is related to the religion of Islam because from what I understand it was to prevent an empire rising up again in the region and being a threat. An empire wouldn't be that different than ISIS now.

Arguably an empire would have even more religious bigotry on a brutal scale. 

Cultural Diversity is a good thing.

 

I wasn't aware the question was directed at me. I can only assume the problems we're talking about are sectarian/religious violence, basic human rights violations, poverty and a whole bunch of other socioeconomic problems I can't even think of. There is no single determinate cause for these problems, rather a variety of causes.

 

European power dividing up the Ottoman Empire did have something to do with Islam, this is true. But don't fool yourself, these European powers were driven by imperialism and capitalism and saw the weakened state of the Ottoman Empire as an opportunity to strengthen their own empires, not to prevent an empire barely keeping itself together in the first place from rising. In the immediate years before the Ottoman Empire was split up, it was not in a position of power to actually threaten European powers, which is why they made friends with them, which is why they relied on the Germans, the British and the French for railways, industrialization, weaponry, and so on.

 

As for the Ottomans becoming similar to ISIS, that is just speculation, I don't see why there's any reason nor do I see any proof for why this would be a likely outcome. You cannot possibly sit there in front of whatever device you're using and claim that it's true that the Ottoman Empire would end up being like ISIS is today. There's simply no way of knowing that.

 

The Ottoman Empire allied itself with and had positive foreign relations with European powers, while ISIS wages war and commits acts of terrorism against all of Europe and any "infidels" they come across. In fact, in the Ottoman Empire they had something called a millett or milletts, which was a separate legal court that provided legal protection to religious minorities and allowed them to rule themselves under their own laws and systems. Does that sound like ISIS to you?

 

It seems to me that you are so set on painting an image of Islam as somehow more bad, more oppressive and barbaric than other religions that you're willing to let your own preconceived notions cloud actual empirical facts. Why is it so easy for you to see evil in non-European forces and so difficult for you to accept that Europeans and the West are no better than anyone else? Europeans have done just as much harm to the world and its people as anyone else, perhaps even more.

 

Cultural diversity can be a good thing if people want cultural diversity. If people have reached the point of social development where pluralistic societies become accepted and desirable. You cannot honestly look at the state of the Middle East today and say that cultural diversity did them more good than harm. By dividing and grouping people together like the European powers did you end up with situations like Rwanda, where some unknowing European leaders decided to draw up some borders and then suddenly you've got two groups of people being forced to work together to create a nation that doesn't actually exist anywhere but on paper. That's how you end up with hundreds of thousands of people being chopped up and murdered by machetes and who knows what else. It's the same in the Middle East, except they have more guns and bombs.

 

Islam was at peace with itself and much of the world for decades upon decades, if not centuries. It's just not as simple as saying that Islam is violent and causes violence. It could just as well be peaceful, just like Christianity can be both violent and peaceful.

Edited March 6, 2016 by Big Brother

[Clarke]

I wasn't aware the question was directed at me. I can only assume the problems we're talking about are sectarian/religious violence, basic human rights violations, poverty and a whole bunch of other socioeconomic problems I can't even think of. There is no single determinate cause for these problems, rather a variety of causes.

You took it upon yourself to reply so its fair you should answer. 

 

European power dividing up the Ottoman Empire did have something to do with Islam, this is true. But don't fool yourself, these European powers were driven by imperialism and capitalism and saw the weakened state of the Ottoman Empire as an opportunity to strengthen their own empires, not to prevent an empire barely keeping itself together in the first place from rising. In the immediate years before the Ottoman Empire was split up, it was not in a position of power to actually threaten European powers, which is why they made friends with them, which is why they relied on the Germans, the British and the French for railways, industrialization, weaponry, and so on.

 

As for the Ottomans becoming similar to ISIS, that is just speculation, I don't see why there's any reason nor do I see any proof for why this would be a likely outcome. You cannot possibly sit there in front of whatever device you're using and claim that it's true that the Ottoman Empire would end up being like ISIS is today. There's simply no way of knowing that.

 

The Ottoman Empire allied itself with and had positive foreign relations with European powers, while ISIS wages war and commits acts of terrorism against all of Europe and any "infidels" they come across. In fact, in the Ottoman Empire they had something called a millett or milletts, which was a separate legal court that provided legal protection to religious minorities and allowed them to rule themselves under their own laws and systems. Does that sound like ISIS to you?

 

The point is we can't really say dividing up the Ottoman Empire are the source of the issues since the issues have being present for over a thousand years and still going strong. ISIS hold Islamic values, I don't think it would be all that surprising if an empire held the same sort of extreme values as it gets its value from the same source. 

And it was barely keeping itself together as you say so dividing the lands up probably prevented civil wars and the like. 

 

 

It seems to me that you are so set on painting an image of Islam as somehow more bad, more oppressive and barbaric than other religions that you're willing to let your own preconceived notions cloud actual empirical facts. Why is it so easy for you to see evil in non-European forces and so difficult for you to accept that Europeans and the West are no better than anyone else? Europeans have done just as much harm to the world and its people as anyone else, perhaps even more.

 

 

Islam was at peace with itself and much of the world for decades upon decades, if not centuries. It's just not as simple as saying that Islam is violent and causes violence. It could just as well be peaceful, just like Christianity can be both violent and peaceful.

 

I'm only interesting in talking about Islam in the modern era. The Europeans powers aren't barbaric in the current age and have human rights which makes it difficult to think they're worse than those who don't adhere to human rights. The Europeans were a major part in bringing the world into the current age and the advancements that came as a result benefit all. 

Ottoman expansionism was defeated defensively by Europe and it then slowly decayed, I guess an unrecoverable defeat is an extended period of peace. 

 

 

Cultural diversity can be a good thing if people want cultural diversity. If people have reached the point of social development where pluralistic societies become accepted and desirable. You cannot honestly look at the state of the Middle East today and say that cultural diversity did them more good than harm. By dividing and grouping people together like the European powers did you end up with situations like Rwanda, where some unknowing European leaders decided to draw up some borders and then suddenly you've got two groups of people being forced to work together to create a nation that doesn't actually exist anywhere but on paper. That's how you end up with hundreds of thousands of people being chopped up and murdered by machetes and who knows what else. It's the same in the Middle East, except they have more guns and bombs.

 

 

Why wouldn't they want cultural diversity? 

I don't think anyone forced them to live side by side, the people existed there for a long time and borders were drawn well into the existence of their people. Just because borders were drawn doesn't mean they have to kill others within those borders. 

Edited March 6, 2016 by Clarke

[Rozalia]

Which problems specifically? 

The root of all of the problems in the middle east is bigotry towards other religions including their own and that has being present since its inception.

They biggest issue now in the middle east is that their religion hasn't reformed, if that happened so much would change.  

 

If people don't even want to accept reforming the religion here (gotten a lot of flak for talking of reform here, and of the crimes of Muslims against apostates) why should we even talk about them reforming in the middle east? It's pointless. Until it is reformed in the west, if not by Muslims themselves then through government action then it is pointless to talk of reform in the middle east as it simply will not happen if there aren't a great deal of Muslims who are reformed already putting pressure on them. However to the liberal types that is Islamophobic, racist, and blah blah blah.

[Clarke]

If people don't even want to accept reforming the religion here (gotten a lot of flak for talking of reform here, and of the crimes of Muslims against apostates) why should we even talk about them reforming in the middle east? It's pointless. Until it is reformed in the west, if not by Muslims themselves then through government action then it is pointless to talk of reform in the middle east as it simply will not happen if there aren't a great deal of Muslims who are reformed already putting pressure on them. However to the liberal types that is Islamophobic, racist, and blah blah blah.

That's a pretty good point.

[Big Brother]

The point is we can't really say dividing up the Ottoman Empire are the source of the issues since the issues have being present for over a thousand years and still going strong. ISIS hold Islamic values, I don't think it would be all that surprising if an empire held the same sort of extreme values as it gets its value from the same source. 

And it was barely keeping itself together as you say so dividing the lands up probably prevented civil wars and the like.

 

Actually, we can really say that the division of the Ottoman Empire was the source of some of the issues that are now present. You are simply wrong in stating that these issues have been present for over a thousand years, the issues of the modern Middle East have predominantly been caused by the interference of outside powers, most notably European powers, and even more recently North American powers as well.

 

The values and ideology of ISIS are not common to all of Islam nor all Muslims. Again you're trying to inaccurately criticize religion and attribute the acts and beliefs of one group to all Muslims. You're playing into a narrative meant to portray all followers of Islam as extremists and fundamentalists, which is just so obviously and completely wrong I'm surprised you're falling for it. Religion is interpreted differently by different people. I am absolutely sure you already know this. So why do you so blindly believe that Islam is inherently bad? Surely you can see that this doesn't make any more sense than someone saying all Jews are bad or all Christians are bad?

 

And no, it didn't prevent civil war, it caused war, as history has very, very clearly shown.

 

I'm only interesting in talking about Islam in the modern era. The Europeans powers aren't barbaric in the current age and have human rights which makes it difficult to think they're worse than those who don't adhere to human rights. The Europeans were a major part in bringing the world into the current age and the advancements that came as a result benefit all. 

Ottoman expansionism was defeated defensively by Europe and it then slowly decayed, I guess an unrecoverable defeat is an extended period of peace.

 

What, you think the fact that Europeans contributed to massive technological advancements and that they are now staunch human rights supporters somehow erases their history of oppression and slaughter? It doesn't. As a European, I believe we should be proud of the good things we have provided to the world and that we now have reached a point where we can provide good lives for a lot of people, but we should never forget the terrible things our leaders and countrymen were responsible for in the past. How else are we supposed to learn from history? How else do we keep ourselves from making the same mistakes, if we don't remember the terrible things they led to before?

 

We aren't better than anyone else, we can be just as vile and others can be just as good.

 

Why wouldn't they want cultural diversity? 

I don't think anyone forced them to live side by side, the people existed there for a long time and borders were drawn well into the existence of their people. Just because borders were drawn doesn't mean they have to kill others within those borders.

 

Because they don't like each other. For the same reason why a lot of Hungarians don't want Syrians in their country and the same reason a lot of Americans don't want Mexicans in their country. Seriously Clarke, are you completely unfamiliar with humanity? Are you not aware that a lot of people have a hostile group mentality that pits different groups against each other? Are you blind to all the violence that has been committed by different groups of people against each other?

 

When people who don't want to work together are forced to, the results are extremely rarely good. Look at what happened to Yugoslavia for example, they were kept together by their leader and as soon as he died, they all fell to murdering each other because they didn't want to be part of the same nation. You're right, no one forced them to live exactly where they happened to live, but they were forced together to create a nation, to share an educational system, language, infrastructure, leaders, and everything else. Doing this, creating arbitrary borders caused a lot, not all, but a lot of the post-Colonial world's problems, especially in the Middle East and Africa.

[Abu Haddad]

Assabiyah is not necessarily bad but it does create conflict between muslims since the ummayad caliphate

[Clarke]

Actually, we can really say that the division of the Ottoman Empire was the source of some of the issues that are now present. You are simply wrong in stating that these issues have been present for over a thousand years, the issues of the modern Middle East have predominantly been caused by the interference of outside powers, most notably European powers, and even more recently North American powers as well.

Which issues exactly? Are you sure those issues didn't exist prior in some form? 

 

The values and ideology of ISIS are not common to all of Islam nor all Muslims. Again you're trying to inaccurately criticize religion and attribute the acts and beliefs of one group to all Muslims. You're playing into a narrative meant to portray all followers of Islam as extremists and fundamentalists, which is just so obviously and completely wrong I'm surprised you're falling for it. Religion is interpreted differently by different people. I am absolutely sure you already know this. So why do you so blindly believe that Islam is inherently bad? Surely you can see that this doesn't make any more sense than someone saying all Jews are bad or all Christians are bad?

What do you mean not common?

I said ISIS get their values from the same source, ISIS themselves quote exactly from the sources which inspire them which also happen to be the foundation of Islam and why it spread in the first place. 

If I thought all 1.6 Billion Muslims were murderous barbaric rapists I would have a very different tone, but instead they simply need to reform their religion. You literally made a point about nothing for the last few sentences, I shouldn't have addressed what you said but no not all Muslims are murderous barbaric rapists.

 

Why is Islam the way it is still? I think it may have to do with the fact the main factor in spread of Islam was via conquering of people who followed a different religion and oppressing them. In Islamic countries today forms of that same oppression still exist trying to get people to convert to Islam. 

 

And no, it didn't prevent civil war, it caused war, as history has very, very clearly shown.

That's an opinion on what could have happened.

That said wasn't a lot of the wars caused by intolerant bigoted Muslims. I don't think we can blame others for intolerance. Did we really know Muslims were so intolerant. You apparently think Muslims are just like us and we coexist with Muslims so obviously Muslims should be able to coexist with others too. 

 

 

What, you think the fact that Europeans contributed to massive technological advancements and that they are now staunch human rights supporters somehow erases their history of oppression and slaughter? It doesn't. As a European, I believe we should be proud of the good things we have provided to the world and that we now have reached a point where we can provide good lives for a lot of people, but we should never forget the terrible things our leaders and countrymen were responsible for in the past. How else are we supposed to learn from history? How else do we keep ourselves from making the same mistakes, if we don't remember the terrible things they led to before?

 

 

The past doesn't define you, the present does. 

I have no problem with anything you said, just don't use the past of someone else to justify atrocities carried out in the present.

 

We aren't better than anyone else, we can be just as vile and others can be just as good.

This sounds a lot like the sort of language used to justify atrocities in the present.

 

 

Because they don't like each other. For the same reason why a lot of Hungarians don't want Syrians in their country and the same reason a lot of Americans don't want Mexicans in their country. Seriously Clarke, are you completely unfamiliar with humanity? Are you not aware that a lot of people have a hostile group mentality that pits different groups against each other? Are you blind to all the violence that has been committed by different groups of people against each other?

 

When people who don't want to work together are forced to, the results are extremely rarely good. Look at what happened to Yugoslavia for example, they were kept together by their leader and as soon as he died, they all fell to murdering each other because they didn't want to be part of the same nation. You're right, no one forced them to live exactly where they happened to live, but they were forced together to create a nation, to share an educational system, language, infrastructure, leaders, and everything else. Doing this, creating arbitrary borders caused a lot, not all, but a lot of the post-Colonial world's problems, especially in the Middle East and Africa.

 

No, I just wanted to see you talk about cultural diversity not working, I find it humorous considering. 

Edited March 6, 2016 by Clarke