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BrickHorn

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BrickHorn last won the day on November 10 2020

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  1. The guy on the far right is the inventor of the big dick toilet and former acting attorney general of the United States.
  2. Well, I certainly hope it’s not yours.
  3. Oh you are still following the thread. I assumed you were busy or offline, since you hadn’t responded to my request that you explain your theory. But it seems you’re just ducking the question. So I’ll ask again: can you explain how “the origins of [the modern Israel-Palestine conflict] go back three millennia” (as you claimed in an earlier post)?
  4. You’re literally talking about ancient history. Things that happened over 1,000 years ago. The question isn’t whether those things happened; it’s whether they demonstrate a sustained conflict between Jews and Arabs of which the modern Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be understood as a mere continuation. That idea is ludicrous. It ignores the fact that the founders of Israel were European immigrants whose ancestors had lived outside the Levant (and thus had minimal to no contact with Arabs) for centuries, and the reasons those immigrants came in the first place. If you’re looking to explain the situation in Palestine as a consequence of conflict with a rival religious group, 20th Century Christians are far more relevant than 7th Century Muslims.
  5. Too late to edit my last post, but I wanted to add: the canard that any two groups of human beings are eternal enemies is defeatist bullshit, based on a weird assumption that hatred is a genetic trait. Peace is possible, but not if we assume animosity is encoded in our DNA.
  6. That’s all hand-wavy bullshit. There’s no substance to this idea that Jews and Muslims have always been at odds, vying for control of the Middle East. Jews were replaced as the majority in Palestine in the 5th century AD, by Christians. Christians were, in turn, surpassed by Muslims. For centuries, Jewish people formed a tiny minority in Palestine, amounting to somewhere in the range of 1-3% of the population. They just weren’t a significant part of the region’s demographics or history during that lengthy period, which only began to change in the late 1800s. It would be like if Aztecs had fled en masse to Europe, established themselves as Europeans, intermarried for centuries, but kept worshipping Quetzalcoatl and speaking Nahuatl as a second language. If their ancestors started immigrating to Mexico in 2400 and violence broke out between Aztecs and Spanish-speaking Mexicans, would it be fair to justify the situation with a shrug and a cliche like “Well, the Aztecs and Spaniards have been fighting back and forth forever, so whaddya gonna do?” That would be stupid, right? I mean, hell, you could use the same argument to justify war between Israel and any Western nation, since certainly Christians committed grave atrocities against the Jews throughout history (and far more recently than any Muslim-perpetrated aggression). It’s bad history and bad logic, and it ends up causing otherwise intelligent people to stop thinking critically about current events.
  7. In the 90s, I regularly watched Late Night for the post-monologue sketches. Actual Items and satellite TV were a goldmine of random comedy genius.
  8. Okay then. Why don’t you explain to us how this current conflict has roots in events in Palestine that occurred three millennia ago?
  9. And I stated that your claim is 100% bullshit which, in any meaningful sense, it is.
  10. Your understanding of the history of this conflict is fucked. The idea that Jews and Palestinians have always fought and always will is a lie. I can’t put it any more politely than that.
  11. It’s a thought-terminating cliche. An attempt to stifle debate and inspire “What are ya gonna do?” shrugs, rather than dig in and understand the conflict. The biblical connotations make it extra effective at shutting down any critical thought. And yeah, I thought twice about calling out @UpperWestside specifically on this because his views on the issues seem generally reasonable. But he has repeated this particular canard and it’s a dangerous one.
  12. That’s 100% bullshit.
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