| poeTV | Submit | Login   |

Reddit Digg Stumble Facebook

Help keep poeTV running


And please consider not blocking ads here. They help pay for the server. Pennies at a time. Literally.

Comment count is 40
jangbones - 2015-07-17

this forum will soon be filled with respectful disagreement and intelligent discussion


EvilHomer - 2015-07-17

Sovereign Palestinians Getting Owned!


SolRo - 2015-07-17

baleen, re; Russia/homosexuals/Israel is better; 39:30


baleen - 2015-07-18

SolRo, mindless Putinista and handmaiden to Hezbollah.


SolRo - 2015-07-18

Heil Zion!


Maru - 2015-07-18

I do give some thought to being a "useful idiot" or a "fellow traveler", but I decided that even if it were true, which I really don't think it remotely is if you're being half-way objective about it--but for the sake of argument--If that were the case, I still don't think it could possibly be any worse than being a useful idiot for American and Israeli imperialism.


Hazelnut - 2015-07-19

I like SolRo and EvilHomer, when they comment outside politics they're good natured and funny. I find SolRo a bit... funny on Russia. But I've never heard ANYTHING from SolRo so divorced from humanity as "Palestinian Genocide is a meaningless term."

It's a sad fact that a human being can be delightful in most ways and vile in another, especially when the consequences of their vileness are comfortably far away.


SolRo - 2015-07-17

So...now we're going to probably be giving them a couple billion more every year because of the Iran deal.

(i'll be over here, self-medicating)


Void 71 - 2015-07-17

I was actually going to bring that up. They're now asking for a 50% (!) increase in military aid. The Justice Department is also talking about releasing Jonathon Pollard later this year. I guess that's the price of doing business with Iran rather than dropping bombs on them.


SolRo - 2015-07-17

I don't believe that was a part of the Iran deal, so there's no reason for it to be a "price" other than American politicians wanting to keep radical jewish American voters happy.


Void 71 - 2015-07-17

There's still a chance that Obama will flip them the bird. It all hinges on how important that pro-Israel PAC money is to the Democrats in 2016. The Israel lobby has always contributed more heavily to the Republicans, but they still give plenty of money to the Democrats. Still, I think the Democrats are finally in a strong enough position to tell Israel to pound sand without worrying too much about the political fallout.


memedumpster - 2015-07-17

We give a hundred billion to Israel, they give half of it back to us and Britain by buying weapons from both. So, really, we're giving Britain foreign aid through a very clever accountant!

A wily Jew accountant! Teehee! Teehee! Get it?

Israel then goes on to sell those weapons at a profit to several African and Latin American "interests" "behind the scenes."

Not that every single country we sell weapons to doesn't do that, they all do. Also, lots of countries piss weapons all over the world, like Italy, Germany, China, Sealand...


baleen - 2015-07-18

God I hope we give them billions more.
This lecture man is surprisingly handsome and rugged for a terrorist.


EvilHomer - 2015-07-18

Perhaps unsurprisingly, my esteemed colleague Mr Memedumpster's figures are completely false, and I suspect, were likely made up by him on the spot.

As of 2015, the US gives billions of dollars in economic foreign aid to Arab nations. In the near vicinity of Israel alone, we give out over billion a year to Muslim Arab nations which are hostile towards the embattled Jewish state: 1 million to Jordan, 0 million to Iraq, 5 million to Lebanon, .5 b̲i̲l̲l̲i̲o̲n̲ to Egypt, and nearly 0 million to the Palestinians allowed to reside in the West Bank. When we include aid to anti-Israeli nations somewhat further afield (such as Yemen, Morocco, and Afghanistan) the sum total at least doubles. {1}

We don't give economic foreign aid to Israel. We have not done so since 2007. {2}

Rather, what we do is give them military aid so that they can buy weapons from us - roughly billion worth, or dollar-to-dollar, about half the amount which we give to their enemies. Some might argue that this is evidence we are playing both sides of the conflict, and that, contrary to what terrorist leaders like Arafat and bin Laden have claimed in the past, the United States has no real interest in either the demise of the Palestinians or in Israel's longterm well-being. You, the reader, should draw your own conclusions.




{1} http://beta.foreignassistance.gov/explore
{2} http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/U.S._Assista nce_to_Israel1.html


memedumpster - 2015-07-18

I never mentioned anything except weapons, you obviously just decided to lie and attention whore to oblivion another conversation.

You know, there's autism, and then there's a large shard of plastic genetically birth defected right into the brain.

I suspect you owe autism an apology.


EvilHomer - 2015-07-19

>> I never mentioned anything except weapons, you obviously just decided to lie

>> We give a hundred billion to Israel


Your very first sentence, Memedumpster.

As I said, completely incorrect, and in all likelihood made up by you on the spot.


Meerkat - 2015-07-17

I wonder what would happen if the Palestinians were White Christians. I really wouldn't place any bets either way.



(or what if they were Jews with weird haircuts?)


memedumpster - 2015-07-17

Star Wars is better than Palestinian genocide.


EvilHomer - 2015-07-18

Ok.

Right from the start, Mr Blumenthal's lecture runs into a serious problem: "Palestinian Genocide" is a meaningless term.

"Palestinian Genocide" is meaningless term, on the grounds that, technically-speaking, there is no such thing as a "Palestinian" people in the first place. "Palestinians" are a postmodern social construct, created decades after the formation of the Israeli state by right-wing Arab nationalists, who were beginning to realize that they could not annihilate the Jews through conventional military means. {1}{2}{3} Most of those individuals who are currently labelled as "Palestinians" are in fact Jordanians {2}, and even the most authentically "Palestinian" of these still-as-yet non-assimilated refugees (that is to say, those few Palestinians whose families have been living on ancient Jewish land for at least a century) had considered themselves to be indistinctly Arabic, NOT Palestinian, until well after the fall of the Ottoman Empire - even then, the locals Arabs adopted this assumed identity slowly and hesitantly, only as a reaction against Zionism, and without any sort of political or cultural authority to back them up. {3}

A better term to use here might be the "Jordano-Syrian-ArabIsraelite Genocide".



{1} --- "[t]he creation of Palestinian identity in its contemporary sense was formed essentially during the 1960s, with the creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization" --- David Seddon (ed.) 'A political and economic dictionary of the Middle East, Taylor & Francis', 2004. p. 532.
{2} https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Zuheir_Mohsen
{3} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Palestinian_people


PegLegPete - 2015-07-18

Since you're using wiki, look at the Palestinian wiki page, look at the "British Mandate for Palestine" (which was written July 1922) wiki.

You've been a troll all along haven't you?


SolRo - 2015-07-18

it's the only way he can get people to talk to him


EvilHomer - 2015-07-18

Pete - what of it? The "British Mandate for Palestine" did not refer to, and had nothing to do with, the Palestinian p̲e̲o̲p̲l̲e̲. The word "Palestine", in that context, referred merely to a part of the territory which the British had annexed from the Ottoman Empire following the First War War. You're inappropriately conflating terms.

That, in itself, is enough to undo your objection to my argument; however, let us examine the matter of the Palestinian Mandate a bit more closely, for understanding the nature of British Palestine (the geographic area) will help you to understand the artificiality of that later political construct, the Palestinian people. Now Mr Pete, if you go and read up about the British Mandate, you'll discover that one of the most notable aspects about British rule, was that at the stroke of a pen, they created artificial unions and divisions where none had existed previously. This was fairly common practice within European colonial empires; what it meant in this case, was that all of a sudden, people who had (and still) considered themselves to be Ottoman Arabs, were divided on paper into residents of the European territories of "Jordan", "Lebanon", "Palestine", "Syria". How *could* a people self-identify as "Palestinian", if the very concept of "Palestine" itself didn't even exist prior to July, 1922?! (and NEVER existed as a separate, non-Colonial, self-governing legal entity, which has always been the true test of statehood) The absurdity of such claims beggars the mind.



Look, you and SolRo must understand: there is nothing to debate here. Every reputable scholar on both sides of the issue (be they pro or anti-Israel), as well as the leadership of the PLO itself, freely admits that the term "Palestinian" is a contemporary social construct, with no direct precedent in the historical record, which first appeared in the 1960s for the express purpose of facilitating a pan-Arabic propaganda war against a Jewish nation which, at that time, had successfully resisted nearly two decades of genocidially-minded Arabic invasion.

Wh̲a̲t̲ ̲y̲o̲u̲ ̲m̲a̲k̲e̲ ̲o̲f̲ ̲t̲h̲i̲s̲ ̲f̲a̲c̲t̲, is another matter entirely! That is something we might discuss. You might, for example, agree with *my own* position, which is that the unassimilated Arab-Israeli and Jordanian-Israeli population of the sovereign state of Israel has every right to life, liberty, and economic freedom, *in spite of* the fact that they are not Palestinian.

What you may NOT do is ignore facts. Facts are facts, and your position on the issue, if it is to be rational and therefore worthwhile, must first take these facts into account.


Maru - 2015-07-18

Facts are not facts when they're not true. Finkelstein and Chomsky put all this shit to rest decades ago.


Maru - 2015-07-18

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Time_Immemorial#Norman_Finkelst ein.27s_analysis_of_the_book_as_a_fraud


memedumpster - 2015-07-18

Jesus, guys, you're talking to a houseplant and expecting it to read hyperlinks. Sure, SolLeen and BalRo are militant radical nationalists, but at least they're literate and know what words mean. Stick to them.


Maru - 2015-07-18

What kind of nationalist is SolRo?


Bobonne - 2015-07-18

The most entertaining sort.


SolRo - 2015-07-18

I'm internationalist, since I cant honestly be fully Russian after living here for over two decades, but at the same time I don't like being called American either.


Hazelnut - 2015-07-19

Five stars for EvilHomer pulling one of the oldest justifications for persecution in the book, presumably with a straight face: "They're not a REAL ethnicity."

In last year's Gaza cleansing more than 400 dead Palestinian children -- little boys and girls -- had to be stacked up in a freezer meant for ice cream because the morgues were already overflowing with corpses.

Picture EvilHomer standing by that freezer -- or in front of the children starving there today who may well envy the dead -- and declaring with that pride he takes in his own opinions that "Palestinian Genocide is meaningless term."


EvilHomer - 2015-07-19

That is classic ad hominem, Hazelnut. {1}

Furthermore, the one actual proposition you raise {2} is materially incorrect. Pointing out that the Palestinians are not a "real" ethnicity (which is an objective fact - no-one here has yet challenged the veracity of this claim) is no way a "justification" for persecution!!! I mean, why would it be?! Do *you* think it is? Is it right to persecute a group of people, merely because their ethnic "identity" is a modern fabrication? Arab-Israelis are people too, and I've already argued - in this very comment string - that they have a right to life, liberty, and economic self-determination. If you dispute this - if you really believe that losing their "Palestinian" identity would somehow make the unassimilated Arab-Israeli population less than people - then please explain why this is the case.


What the true nature of the Palestinian construct DOES mean, is that there is less justification for their claims to statehood; at the very least, statehood within the geographic area of Israel. Not that there is NO justification, of course - as a pro-Palestinian myself, I still argue the case for a two-state solution - but less justification.

It also means that there is NO justification - none, zilch - for the original argument which drove the late 20th-century manufacture of the Palestinian cause: that the state of Israel was built on the sacred and inviolable homeland of a specific indigenous people, and therefore, the invading Jews may be justly "driven into the sea" by it's violently anti-Semitic, Nazi-Gemrany-supporting neighbours.

Again, if you - or anyone else - has a specific objection to anything that I say, then you are more than welcome to point out exactly where I was in error, and present evidence to the contrary. I would welcome this, please do so if you can. *I am not saying anything controversial here* - at least, not controversial in the sense that its factual accuracy would be disputed in an academic setting. My position on this specific matter is based both on the professional opinions of scholars on every side of the issue, as well as on the historically-verifiable statements of the early Palestinian leadership itself. But if you think you know more about the Palestinian cause than the founding members of the PLO did...

Honestly, I hate to go all baleen here, but it's really hard to maintain my faith in the Palestinian cause, when it is abundantly clear that many people on my side are more concerned with propaganda and emotional hysteria, than with reason, logic, and well-cited sources. This is a serious issue, people; treat it seriously.


{1} http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-hominem.html
{2} "They're not a REAL ethnicity"... (is) one of the oldest justifications for persecution in the book. -- hazelnut, above


Hazelnut - 2015-07-19

EvilHomer, whenever someone calls you out on something unusually vile you always pick something from the Internet Logical Fallacies list, "strawman" or "ad hominem" or "false dichotomy". It's not an ad hominem fallacy to point out when someone is being a shit.

In your case, your shittiness is apologizing for genocide in the classic matter of denying a victimized people its identity. The Turks did it to the Kurds, claiming "Kurd" is a made-up ethnicity and the people they were locking up and torturing were really "Mountain Turks". Russia claims Ukraine is just "Little Russia". Hungarians called Slovaks a made-up people "without a history". Go to one of those White Power web sites and you'll see fringe theories about how Jews aren't "real Jews" but actually Khazars.

That is shitty of you. It is an aspect of your character entirely composed of excrement.

"Ad hominem." You vile, ugly, awful person.


SolRo - 2015-07-19

Don't waste your breath.

EH doesn't hold any opinions, he's just a desperate shut in that picks the most contentious/infuriating side in an argument just so people interact with him.

It's also possible he's some sort of advanced chat bot and he's being tested on us.


Hazelnut - 2015-07-19

Aha, that makes sense. Thank you. I was starting to feel hot under the collar there.


EvilHomer - 2015-07-19

>. It's not an ad hominem fallacy to point out when someone is being a shit.

Yes, it is.

More specifically, it's an ad hominem fallacy to point out that someone is being a shit i̲n̲ ̲l̲i̲e̲u̲ ̲o̲f̲ addressing their argument directly, with logic and evidence. You may point out when someone is being a shit, but only IF you are willing to take that extra step and demonstrate why said-shit is actually *wrong*.

For example, at this point, I think I could safely say that Hazelnut is being "a shit". Over the course of his last few posts, Mr Hazelnut has demonstrated both a lack of understanding about the deeper issues underlying the Israeli occupation, as well as an uncalled for level of hostility, and an over-reliance on logically-fallacious rhetorical tactics, despite the fallacious nature of these tactics having been pointed out to him already. He either lacks the capacity, or is unwilling, to directly address the specific arguments which I have raised over the course of this video's comments section; in short, he has failed to demonstrate my error.

Those are logical, well-supported propositions. The propositions in the second sentence establish why you are a shit, while the propositions in the third sentence establish why you are wrong. Now I am not saying that you are wrong *because* you are a shit, nor am I saying you are a shit, and because of that I'm going to ignore everything you say! I'm saying that you are wrong, AND you are a shit. Your shittiness and your wrongness are not causally linked, and thus, no ad hominem is involved (however! It is still an abusive and intellectually shady practice, which is why in general, I tend not to stoop to personal attacks. Being hurtful is not the Pony Way!)



> The Turks did it to the Kurds, Hungarians called Slovak etc

More ad hominem. It doesn't matter who did what to whom; what matters is whether A) the claim in this one specific instance is true, and B) what the broader implications of this claim might be.

It is ENTIRELY possible that the Turks, the Russians, the Hungarians, and the Skinheads were correct in each of their own respective instances. It is also entirely possible that each one of them were wrong. It could be that the Turks were right and the Russians wrong, or the Turks and Skinheads wrong, the Hungarians right, or any possible permutations thereof. The truth-functions of any of the examples which you raise are completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not the Palestinians have a legitimate, distinct ethnic identity, which separates them from the rest of the Levantine Arab world. Implying that such a thing is relevant, THAT is ad hominem. Furthermore, even if all of the claims which you cite were true, it still does not follow that genocide was justified, nor even typical for all situations involving vaguely constructed ethnicities.

Consider the following proposition, commonly cited within the Arabic world: "the Jews" are not, in fact, a true ethnicity. According to the pan-Arabic propaganda narrative (which again, I have to stress, is different form the narrative accepted both by the Arab leadership and by mainstream academia), the Palestinians are the "true" ethnic group within the state of Israel. In fact, they claim, it is THE ISRAELI JEWS who are the "constructed identity", formed in the 1920s by European Zionists and their Euro-colonial allies. Now let me be the first to admit that this counter-claim IS true, to an extent! (it's certainly much less true than the primary claim which we are discussing) **But does it then follow that the Arabs, merely by virtue of this argument alone, are evil Nazi child-killers who have been washed in the same blood as the savage Russians and heartless Turks?** Does it follow that we need NOT examine the claims of Arabic partisans - maturely, rationally, without name-calling - because, well, fuck the Arabs, they say the Israelis aren't a real ethnicity, so obviously they're murderers.

No! Of course not. Why? Because ad hominem. You illogical, mean-spirited, propaganda-addled old fool.


Honestly, if you want me to stop calling you on logical fallacies, t̲h̲e̲n̲ ̲s̲t̲o̲p̲ ̲u̲s̲i̲n̲g̲ ̲l̲o̲g̲i̲c̲a̲l̲ ̲f̲a̲l̲l̲a̲c̲i̲e̲s 18;.̲ Play the argument, not the man!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sw4z-RJ-oc


EvilHomer - 2015-07-19

You know, there was a comment made once, I believe it was by Master Ashtar, in regards to an academic who appeared on some trashy news-entertainment program, possibly airing on Fox. Anyway, the academic approached her subject matter politely, rationally, and thoroughly, only to be promptly shot down by a barrage of non-sequiturs and abusives hurled at her by the dim-witted host. The commenter in question stated that the poor academics confused reaction was probably a direct result of her lack of familiarity with the world of lesser discourse; that she was expecting reason to be met with reason, rather than reason to be met with idiocy.

I wish I could remember which video that was, because the comment was great and extremely relevant to situations such as this one.


EvilHomer - 2015-07-19

Also, Mr Hazelnut, please don't listen to SolRo. He's only half-correct, and at any rate, he's one of the least willing (least capable?) regulars when it comes to having a good, healthy debate.

You are an intelligent person, Mr Hazelnut - wrong, in this case, but nonetheless quite intelligent, and I believe, very capable of having a sincere discussion about controversial issues.

Do not be tempted by the Dark Side, Mr Hazelnut my friend. Do not give in to SolRo. He is a master of abusives, willful ignorance, and of ts;dl - Too Short, Didn't Learn.


Maru - 2015-07-19

I challenged the veracity of your claim directly, you fucking dope.


memedumpster - 2015-07-19

Oh my god, I have a joke about a Klondike bar, but I can't quite frame it in words. Dammit.


PegLegPete - 2015-07-20

This is where you're wrong Homer. Your claim that "'Palestinians' are a postmodern social construct, created decades after the formation of the Israeli state by right-wing Arab nationalists" is demonstrably untrue. Some people from Palestine considered themselves Palestinian before the formation of the Israeli state, and even before the British Mandate. Here's something just from the British Mandate, horribly imperial as it was:

"Article 7
The Administration of Palestine shall be responsible for enacting a nationality law. There shall be included in this law provisions framed so as to facilitate the acquisition of Palestinian citizenship by Jews who take up their permanent residence in Palestine."

Even if it were true - which it's not - that the British Mandate "created" Palestinians, this document is still older than "...decades after the formation of the Israeli state..."

You can write paragraphs and paragraphs about whatever the fuck you want, but your wrong on that point of fact. "Palestinian" was a legit identity for people from that area of the world before the period you claim it was created.

For the introduction to one of the latest books concerning these topics:

http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i10398.pdf

Also "Palestinian Identity" by Rashid Khalidi

Both indicate that "Palestinian Identity" came about around the late Ottoman period, if not a bit before.


Maru - 2015-07-20

He's just going to pretend you never wrote that.


Register or login To Post a Comment







Video content copyright the respective clip/station owners please see hosting site for more information.
Privacy Statement