Iran - Israel - Gaza Conflict

[Xerxes]

10 minutes ago, Castanza said:

What bias do I have? I’ve supported many of your views on US vs Arab nation engagement in this forum for a long time. I think in general most cultures should keep to themselves because mixing of some simply doesn’t work. The Middle East has its problems, but I understand their reasonings or origins of hatred of the west etc. 

 

I just think with this current conflict there isn’t much to stand on for Palestine. I don’t think Israel is an occupier or committing genocide. I think it’s a shitty situation with some bad feelings on both sides that will never be easily resolved.
 

I try hard to understand both sides of the coin (hence my view on Russia/Ukraine I share with you) 

Apologies. I am not on my best behaviour in these type of threads.  

in fact a while back we agreed to forgo political discussion. lol. Looks like Sanjeev resurrected for I don’t know what. 
 

In my own twisted logic and way of thinking, I associate waiving off Israeli extremist in their government as “ignoring” and “bias”. That is just me and my Achaemenid bias.  
 

Israel is not committing genocide. War crimes perhaps. But it doesn’t mean it cannot or will not.

 

Was Hamas committing genocide. Yes. 

[mcliu]

Bill Maher said something like:

Hamas will wipe out Israel but can't.

Israel can wipe out Palestine but won't.

 

It's a war and full of shitty choices and collateral damage, especially against an enemy that uses human shields.

Allied forces also killed a lot of civilians fighting Hitler. Maybe by today's standards that would be a genocide and war crime too?

 

The US and Israel have both done some real questionable shit over the last 50 years. But if you had to pick teams and it's USA or Taliban or Israel or Hamas, the choice is pretty obvious.. 

Edited May 8 by mcliu

[Parsad]

10 hours ago, Xerxes said:

Apologies. I am not on my best behaviour in these type of threads.  

in fact a while back we agreed to forgo political discussion. lol. Looks like Sanjeev resurrected for I don’t know what. 
 

 

 

Wasn't me who started this thread.  But once it was started, I was hoping to contain politics within it, rather than spreading to other posts. 

 

So far, the political posts have been contained to this thread and the Russian/Ukraine thread.  Cheers!

[Sweet]

I admit to be to be angered by this pricks comments.

 

Referring to the Holocaust he claims “no nation came to our aid”.  

 

It’s an astonishing attempt to rewrite history.

 

 

Edited May 11 by Sweet

[Eldad]

1 hour ago, Sweet said:

I admit to be to be angered by this pricks comments.

 

Referring to the Holocaust he claims “no nation came to our aid”.  

 

It’s an astonishing attempt to rewrite history.

 

 

I see your point, but from their prospective Poland went from 3.5 Million Jews to about 100,000 by the time the Calvary came. I think he is making an accurate statement. 

[Sweet]

15 minutes ago, Eldad said:

I see your point, but from their prospective Poland went from 3.5 Million Jews to about 100,000 by the time the Calvary came. I think he is making an accurate statement. 

He’s not making an accurate statement.  
 

Millions died slowly clawing back territory from the Nazis and he’s in a podium claiming nobody came to help them?

 

How many European Jews would be if not for the effort of the allies?
 

It’s ungrateful and downright disrespectful to the cemeteries full of brave men:

 

[Eldad]

1 hour ago, Sweet said:

He’s not making an accurate statement.  
 

Millions died slowly clawing back territory from the Nazis and he’s in a podium claiming nobody came to help them?

 

How many European Jews would be if not for the effort of the allies?
 

It’s ungrateful and downright disrespectful to the cemeteries full of brave men:

 

European Jews were basically completely annihilated. They lost all of their rights, property, and then their lives slowly over a decade. No one came to save them in that respect. They were all dead. The Allies came to destroy Nazism and of course helped the few Jews that were left. The reason for fighting for the USA , USSR, UK etc. was never to save the Jews. 
 

As a modern leader of the Jewish people what he is saying makes perfect sense. Do you want to hold out hope for outside help like our ancestors (the polish Jews were always hoping the British or Russians were coming in 1939 and 1940), or do you help yourselves? The great lesson of the Holocaust for them is help yourselves. 
 

 

Edited May 11 by Eldad

[Sweet]

3 minutes ago, Eldad said:

European Jews were basically completely annihilated. They lost all of their rights, property, and then their lives slowly over a decade. No one came to save them in that respect. They were all dead. The Allies came to destroy Nazism and of course helped the few Jews that were left. 
 

As a modern leader of the Jewish people what he is saying makes perfect sense. Do you want to hold out hope for outside help like our ancestors (the polish Jews were always hoping the British or Russians were coming in 1939 and 1940), or do you help yourselves? The great lesson of the Holocaust for them is help yourselves. 
 

 

I’m all for promoting the idea of helping yourself but not by shitting on the memory of the allied soldiers that saved what was left of European Jews from extermination.

World War Two had already begun when the Holocaust started in late 1941 and when the Final Solution was a policy of Germany in 1942.  

 

Prior to that, when the Jews were being discriminated against, many left Germany and came West as refugees to the UK or the US.

 

Whatever the motivations for WW2 beginning, claiming that there was no party coming to their aid is wrong.  There were millions coming to their aid.  There was no Holocaust when the war started.

 

 

[Eldad]

7 minutes ago, Sweet said:

I’m all for promoting the idea of helping yourself but not by shitting on the memory of the allied soldiers that saved what was left of European Jews from extermination.

World War Two had already begun when the Holocaust started in late 1941 and when the Final Solution was a policy of Germany in 1942.  

 

Prior to that, when the Jews were being discriminated against, many left Germany and came West as refugees to the UK or the US.

 

Whatever the motivations for WW2 beginning, claiming that there was no party coming to their aid is wrong.  There were millions coming to their aid.  There was no Holocaust when the war started.

 

 

Imagine your house was burning down and you kept calling the fire department. Finally they come because the fire is about to spread to your neighbors house. They put out the fire and nothing remains but some chard wood and the brick chimney. What is the lesson learned? If we say next time we need to be able to put out our own fire we are being mean to the firemen that saved our heap of ashes? 

[Sweet]

25 minutes ago, Eldad said:

Imagine your house was burning down and you kept calling the fire department. Finally they come because the fire is about to spread to your neighbors house. They put out the fire and nothing remains but some chard wood and the brick chimney. What is the lesson learned? If we say next time we need to be able to put out our own fire we are being mean to the firemen that saved our heap of ashes? 

 

That’s not what happened.  The timeline was World War Two started in 1939 and the Holocaust began in 1941.  
 

War therefore had already begun.

 

Unless you believe the allies could have performed a miracle and rapidly won what more could have been done?
 

Without the war waged by the allies few European Jews would have survived because it was the allies that stopped the Holocaust.

So sure, keep believing nobody came to the Jews aid, the fact is that many are alive today only because of those ‘untrustworthy’ gentiles (Netanyahu’s words) in WW2.

 

Edited May 11 by Sweet

[Eldad]

Kristallnacht happened in 1938 and was widely reported all over the world. British didn’t declare war until invasion of Poland 1939. USSR didn’t declare war until they were double crossed and attacked in middle of 1941. USA didn’t declare war until Pearl Harbor almost 1942 (100,000s of Jews had likely been shot before that as Germany invaded USSR in the 6 months prior) 

 

None of them fought Nazis to save Jews. Any saving of Jews was completely coincidental to killing Nazis. 

[Sweet]

1 hour ago, Eldad said:

Kristallnacht happened in 1938 and was widely reported all over the world. British didn’t declare war until invasion of Poland 1939. USSR didn’t declare war until they were double crossed and attacked in middle of 1941. USA didn’t declare war until Pearl Harbor almost 1942 (100,000s of Jews had likely been shot before that as Germany invaded USSR in the 6 months prior) 

 

None of them fought Nazis to save Jews. Any saving of Jews was completely coincidental to killing Nazis. 

Kristallnacht, which I admit I had not heard of, is not the Holocaust.  I said earlier that many Jews found refugee in countries like the UK and US (and others) before the war began - is that not aid?

I didn’t say the war was started to save the Jews - it couldn’t have been since the Holocaust occurred after the war began.
 

The claim Netanyahu made was in reference to the Holocaust (from late 1941), of which he said ‘nobody came to our aid’.  Yet it was the Allies who liberated the Jews from concentration camps, ended the Holocaust, and saved what was left of the European Jews.

 

As I stated, Netanyahu’s comments are ungrateful and disrespectful of those ‘gentiles’ who laid down their lives to defeat the Nazis.

 

 

Edited May 11 by Sweet

[Eldad]

31 minutes ago, Sweet said:

Kristallnacht, which I admit I had not heard of, is not the Holocaust.  I said earlier that many Jews found refugee in countries like the UK and US (and others) before the war began - is that not aid?

I didn’t say the war was started to save the Jews - it couldn’t have been since the Holocaust occurred after the war began.
 

The claim Netanyahu made was in reference to the Holocaust (from late 1941), of which he said ‘nobody came to our aid’.  Yet it was the Allies who liberated the Jews from concentration camps, ended the Holocaust, and saved what was left of the European Jews.

 

As I stated, Netanyahu’s comments are ungrateful and disrespectful of those ‘gentiles’ who laid down their lives to defeat the Nazis.

 

 

I think America did a great thing in WW2 and I can see your point.

 

But if I’m putting myself in his shoes, after what happened in WW2 plus what Hamas did, plus this latest crap Biden pulled, I can totally understand where he is coming from. You have a point and so does he I believe.

 

 

[Sweet]

27 minutes ago, Eldad said:

I think America did a great thing in WW2 and I can see your point.

 

But if I’m putting myself in his shoes, after what happened in WW2 plus what Hamas did, plus this latest crap Biden pulled, I can totally understand where he is coming from. You have a point and so does he I believe.

 

 

I do think a lot of this is coming from the current difficulties with Biden.

[Ulti]

“There is no question that Israel will be better off, Palestinians will be better off and the Middle East will be better off if Hamas is totally defeated. And if it takes Israel going into Rafah to do that, then so be it. Hamas invited this war. Many, many Palestinians in Gaza will feel liberated by its defeat — not only Israelis. But that is if and only if Israel partners with non-Hamas Palestinians to build a better Gaza and create the possibility of a new dawn for Palestinians and Israelis. Biden is justified in using U.S. leverage to insist that Israel operate with that goal in mind — because Israel’s prime minister is not.”
 

Sweet and Elda the quote above is from Tim Friedmans latest op ed

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/10/opinion/bidens-real-mistake-in-pausing-military-aid-to-israel.html

Please read it if possible… Bibi is a total piece of s$&&…

“This crazy lurch to the right in Israel — combined with a can’t-win strategy in Gaza combined with the fact that, as Harel wrote, “for almost a decade, Netanyahu purposefully wore down the civil service, weakened it and transferred the centers of power from the gatekeepers in the judiciary, treasury and defense establishment to a small group of” incompetent cronies — is hurting not only Israel’s interests but also America’s.”

 

From weakening the judiciary to his many moves to undermine democracy in favor of his right wing nut jobs who helped him get elected… to allowing Oct 7th to happen as well as having no plan for Gaza the day after ( or maybe the right wing nut jobs want to annex)…..He needs to go asap.. And , just my opinion here … nothing that MFer says is worthy of a quote or to pay attention to except this:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-1st-pm-accepts-some-responsibility-for-oct-7-i-hold-myself-and-everyone-on-this/

[Xerxes]

Not disrupt this debate (i think my opinion of Bibi are well known here; so nothing to add here); a politician does what a politician does. 

 

----

 

But just on World War 2, Sept 1939, the historically acknowledged start of WW2 was in fact the start of the European War and not the "World War". To me it became really a world war, with entrance of United States, Soviet Union and Japan.  

 

If one wants to take the position that the start of the "world war" as the first military action that led to that war, then Sept 1939 is in fact not correct, and perhaps start of the war between China and Japan is the correct trigger point.

 

Now that could either the initial invasion of Manchuria in 1931, when feeble Henry Pi-Yu was installed as Emperor of Manchukuo (see the movie The Last Emperor), ... or 1937 full scale invasion of China by Japan.

 

Going by my own logic of rejecting Sept 1939, than I must also reject July 1937, therefore the start of world war was really 1931, as the hostility broke out between two warring nations with the invasion of Manchuria.

 

But, this logic does not make sense either, how could a "routine" local invasion in 1931 be the start of World War 2; therefore, we should go back to designate the end of 1941* as the start of World War 2, when the war truly became global as the last of great industrial powers of the day entered the fray.

 

But to make matter confusing, Tokyo and Moscow kept their non-aggression pact intact till August 1945. So by that logic, World War 2 started in August 1945, and ended in the same month on the deck of U.S.S. Missouri. But did it really ? 

 

Russia and Japan never signed a peace treaty and are technically still at war !

 

So the war really started in August 1945 and still continues to this day.

Sept 1939 is highly misleading.

 

 

* contrary to the popular belief, it was not Pearl Harbor that brought U.S. and Germany into war with each other on Dec 7th, 1941, but rather it was the formal declaration of war by Germany to the United States on Dec 11, 1941, which unleashed the unrestricted submarine warfare. Too bad, Japan didn't reciprocate by declaring war against the Soviet Union. 

 

 

[RichardGibbons]

2 hours ago, Eldad said:

None of them fought Nazis to save Jews. Any saving of Jews was completely coincidental to killing Nazis. 

 

I think this is the key point for why Jews would say that.

 

Canada and the USA turning away refugee ships is pretty telling.  And it's pretty telling that, when asked how many Jews would be allowed into Canada, the response was, "None is too many."

With things like that, how could one not believe that the western world largely abandoned European Jews to genocide?

[adesigar]

https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/

 

 

[AzCactus]

1 hour ago, adesigar said:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/

 

 

 

 

This is part of the reason Netanyahu should lose his job.  This and the fact that he has never taken responsibility (I am aware of for 10/7.  

[Sweet]

9 hours ago, Xerxes said:

Not disrupt this debate (i think my opinion of Bibi are well known here; so nothing to add here); a politician does what a politician does. 

 

----

 

But just on World War 2, Sept 1939, the historically acknowledged start of WW2 was in fact the start of the European War and not the "World War". To me it became really a world war, with entrance of United States, Soviet Union and Japan.  

 

If one wants to take the position that the start of the "world war" as the first military action that led to that war, then Sept 1939 is in fact not correct, and perhaps start of the war between China and Japan is the correct trigger point.

 

Now that could either the initial invasion of Manchuria in 1931, when feeble Henry Pi-Yu was installed as Emperor of Manchukuo (see the movie The Last Emperor), ... or 1937 full scale invasion of China by Japan.

 

Going by my own logic of rejecting Sept 1939, than I must also reject July 1937, therefore the start of world war was really 1931, as the hostility broke out between two warring nations with the invasion of Manchuria.

 

But, this logic does not make sense either, how could a "routine" local invasion in 1931 be the start of World War 2; therefore, we should go back to designate the end of 1941* as the start of World War 2, when the war truly became global as the last of great industrial powers of the day entered the fray.

 

But to make matter confusing, Tokyo and Moscow kept their non-aggression pact intact till August 1945. So by that logic, World War 2 started in August 1945, and ended in the same month on the deck of U.S.S. Missouri. But did it really ? 

 

Russia and Japan never signed a peace treaty and are technically still at war !

 

So the war really started in August 1945 and still continues to this day.

Sept 1939 is highly misleading.

 

 

* contrary to the popular belief, it was not Pearl Harbor that brought U.S. and Germany into war with each other on Dec 7th, 1941, but rather it was the formal declaration of war by Germany to the United States on Dec 11, 1941, which unleashed the unrestricted submarine warfare. Too bad, Japan didn't reciprocate by declaring war against the Soviet Union. 

 

 

 

People from New Zealand, to India and Canada were involved the in the war before the US joined.  The theatre of war was also multi-continent before the US joined.  I get what you are saying but your arguing that we refuse a date well agreed upon.

[mcliu]

https://holocaust.com.au/the-facts/the-outbreak-of-world-war-ii-and-the-war-against-the-jews/what-the-allies-knew/
 

As early as May 1942, and again in June, the BBC reported the mass murder of Polish Jews by the Nazis. Although both US President, Franklin Roosevelt, and British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, warned the Germans that they would be held to account after the war, privately they agreed to prioritise and to turn their attention and efforts to winning the war. Therefore, all pleas to the Allies to destroy the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau were ignored. The Allies argued that not only would such an operation shift the focus away from winning the war, but it could provoke even worse treatment of the Jews. In June 1944 the Americans had aerial photographs of the Auschwitz complex. The Allies bombed a nearby factory in August, but the gas chambers, crematoria and train tracks used to transport Jewish civilians to their deaths were not targeted.

Edited May 12 by mcliu

[Sweet]

3 hours ago, mcliu said:

https://holocaust.com.au/the-facts/the-outbreak-of-world-war-ii-and-the-war-against-the-jews/what-the-allies-knew/
 

As early as May 1942, and again in June, the BBC reported the mass murder of Polish Jews by the Nazis. Although both US President, Franklin Roosevelt, and British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, warned the Germans that they would be held to account after the war, privately they agreed to prioritise and to turn their attention and efforts to winning the war. Therefore, all pleas to the Allies to destroy the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau were ignored. The Allies argued that not only would such an operation shift the focus away from winning the war, but it could provoke even worse treatment of the Jews. In June 1944 the Americans had aerial photographs of the Auschwitz complex. The Allies bombed a nearby factory in August, but the gas chambers, crematoria and train tracks used to transport Jewish civilians to their deaths were not targeted.

 

What’s the argument?  That the allies should have diverted bombers to bomb the concentration camps?

[Dinar]

16 minutes ago, Sweet said:

 

What’s the argument?  That the allies should have diverted bombers to bomb the concentration camps?

The argument is that Allies did not give a damn about saving Jews, and fought Nazis for their own reason and not for the purpose of saving Jews.  This does not take anything away from the sacrifice of millions of young men who lost their lives or became seriously injured.  I and everyone in the West owes them a deep debt of gratitude.  However to say that Allies fought to save Jews when they took every opportunity not to is absurd.

[Xerxes]

20 minutes ago, Dinar said:

The argument is that Allies did not give a damn about saving Jews, and fought Nazis for their own reason and not for the purpose of saving Jews.  This does not take anything away from the sacrifice of millions of young men who lost their lives or became seriously injured.  I and everyone in the West owes them a deep debt of gratitude.  However to say that Allies fought to save Jews when they took every opportunity not to is absurd.

very well said. 
 

But that is not unique to world war 2 or genocide against Jews.
 

There are other genocides as well and West is not there to save everyone. National security comes first. Sometimes stars aligned and sometimes it doesn’t. 
 

It sucks but It is just the way the world is. 
 

Bibi is technically not wrong (as much as I don’t like him). But he punching low (as a politician ought to do) and he knows that he is opening wounds and sowing discord by saying that.
 

But that is him. And that is how a wounded snake behaves. 

[Sweet]

57 minutes ago, Dinar said:

The argument is that Allies did not give a damn about saving Jews, and fought Nazis for their own reason and not for the purpose of saving Jews.  This does not take anything away from the sacrifice of millions of young men who lost their lives or became seriously injured.  I and everyone in the West owes them a deep debt of gratitude.  However to say that Allies fought to save Jews when they took every opportunity not to is absurd.

Nobody said the Allies fought the war to save the Jews Dinar.  Netanyahu didn’t say that either, otherwise I wouldn’t have a quarrel.  Netanyahu said ‘nobody came to our aid’ in reference to the Holocaust.  That is demonstrably false irrespective of the motivation of the allies.

 

My uncle was in the British army and was captured by the Nazis fighting his way up Italy, he spent the rest of the war in a Nazi POW camp.  The Americans weren’t fighting the war to save my uncle, but it was the ‘yanks’ as he called them, who liberated his POW camp and provided food and medical assistance - he was 7 stone and weeks from death.  He was forever grateful to the Americans.

 

And that’s the problem I have with his comments.  Unbelievably ungrateful.

 

You and others have focused on motivation of the war and not the outcomes.  The Jews of Europe were saved by the allies in same way that my uncle was saved from starvation in a POW camp by the Americans, even if the war wasn’t about either of them.

 

Edited May 12 by Sweet