Right; the "Israel has no negotiating partner to solve this conflict" line. Well, it would be easier to answer this question if there could actually be democratic elections without external interference in Palestine. In the closest thing to a free democratic election the Palestinians were given the chance to run, in 2006, Hamas won despite having many of its members imprisoned, or refused the right to campaign. And then, it turns out that the whole US and Israeli (mainly) training, arming and readying the opposition (Fatah) for a coup, doesn't do much for democracy either. But, long story short, Hamas have so far been the representatives of the Palestinian people in Gaza, while the Palestinian Authority have been the representatives of the Palestinian people in the West Bank - with recent events however, the new unity government is the true representative.

Still, what does representation, or lack thereof, have to do with the need for Israel to comply with international law and provide Palestinians with basic human rights? And if you want to stop seeing terrorists firing rockets, it's easy (I've said this before): stop forcing Palestinians to live in horrible, sub-human conditions, and the support for extremist tactics will disappear.



Is Israel above international law? Also, why do they ask for a peace settlement that seems fair to practically everyone except the US and Israel - is that what you're asking?

Also, see the following point:



Actually, it might surprise you to know that no, from what I've gathered so far, land isn't the main issue to Palestinians; it's their basic human rights, also known as, not being treated like animals. And there is an assumption in your post that Israel wants peace: well, with the continued expansion of settlements (even during peace talks, effectively sabotaging them), demolition of Palestinian homes, building of permanent checkpoints well inside occupied territories, appropriation of farmland and water resources vital for the survival of the Palestinian population, interference with internal Palestinian politics, and the separation and isolation of Gaza and the West Bank, I see no reason to believe Israel is interested in peace in the form of a two state solution. It seems to me to be more interested in keeping the illusion of a peace process, while continually stalling its progress, and pushing for additional settlements and land grabs.

Further, even if both parties would agree to such an arrangement, with current land divisions it could lead to a nonviable Palestinian state, perhaps like the Bantustans in South African Apartheid - in other words, a deeply impoverished population, with limited access to basic resources, heavily dependent on the outside, rife with corruption and a source of "guest workers" (read, pretty much slaves). Of course, if you're paying attention, this is already close to what the conditions Israel is imposing on the occupied territories resemble (except the part of the slaves I guess; last I checked, they use Chinese "slaves" now, not Palestinians "slaves" anymore). And in the end, I don't see how this would weaken extremist positions among Palestinians, since their living conditions wouldn't really improve - a continuation of the conflict would be the most likely outcome. For this to work, it would have to form two viable states; not necessarily along the 1967 borders, mind you, but certainly with that starting point, which in a sense is already a previous Palestinian concession, I should add.

Now, assuming Israel could actually respect Palestinian rights, a one state solution could be a possibility; Israel takes complete control over the whole territory and the Palestinian population is fully integrated into the society. Unfortunately, Israel is unwilling to take this path, claiming it conflicts with the "Jewish nature" of their state - so much for democratic principles.



Right, the antisemitic card now - I was wondering when that would come up. I shouldn't really have to say this, but for the record, I couldn't care less if you're a Jew, Arab, Martian or whatever; what Israel is doing is wrong, and I'm calling you and others here out for defending it, without bothering to try and understand the situation first. And then, there you go again, dismissing the position of practically every other country without understanding it or even looking into it, for the simple fact that it doesn't conform to your views. This isn't a logical stance, and there is no massive international conspiracy against Israel either - Israel is digging that hole as we "speak", the longer it violates the rights of Palestinians.

See the previous point, as to why the current borders are not a likely scenario, if not for violating international law, at least for posing a threat to the survival of an eventual autonomous Palestinian state - even if Israel would accept it, which is unlikely in my view, as expressed above.



It isn't China that will cancel anything - it's Israel under pressure from the US. Do you really think the US would let either weapons sales it didn't approve of to go through, or control over the Middle East to erode further? Don't kid yourself: the US is only interested in Israel as long as it does as it's told; if it refuses, at the very least, Israel would be immediately placed under sanctions and the US' support in the region would shift to another more willing client state, to help enforce its will in the region. And this is another reason why it's so important that Israel settles its differences with its neighbors as soon as possible, if it has any intentions of ever being truly independent in the future, instead of a glorified American military base.



Is the way Israel treats the Palestinian population in the occupied territories linked to how other countries treat them? This is again a fallacy - but alright, I'll indulge you.

The conditions of Palestinian refugees in other countries vary considerably. In Jordan at least, they have mostly been assimilated into the society and most given citizenship, though there are still Palestinian refugee camps which seem to be mostly slums at the moment. However, there is still discrimination against Palestinians there. In other countries the situation is worse, in my view largely because of the refusal of authorities to give the possibility of citizenship to the refugees; so they are under very poor social and economic conditions, no doubt, and mostly limited to refugee camps.

Unfortunately, this doesn't even begin to compare to how bad the situation in the occupied territories is. Perhaps it didn't register with you on the many other times I mentioned it, but I'll repeat it here nonetheless (I mean, at some point you might actually read about it and look into this): Israel's policy towards the occupied territories has been to keep the Palestinian population at a level as consistent as possible with an humanitarian crisis, without pushing it over the edge completely. The documents containing Israeli officials asserting this intention are now public thanks to Wikileaks, so it should be fairly common knowledge.

Among many other things, this translates to the majority of the population subsisting at poverty level, often with no more than one daily meal; malnutrition and anemia are common, in some cases leading to stunted growth in children. Access to healthcare is also poor in many cases. Then in Gaza, there is open sewage and contaminated water thanks to Israeli attacks on infrastructure, and the population is effectively forced to rely almost exclusively on foreign aid so they don't starve.

And then, there is actual violence. When you're not killed in a military operation for being a suspected Hamas supporter or the family member of one or unlucky to be near enough to one, you're still subject to more or less arbitrary beatings by security forces, sometimes murder, imprisonment (many of whom children), sometimes under administrative detention, which means they can make up any reason whatsoever to keep you in jail, and even torture.
 


Both Egypt and Jordan renounced any claim to the territories in favor of the formation of an autonomous Palestinian government. Well, it turns out Hamas was democratically elected by the Palestinians, so like it or not, it appears they are the legitimate government - with recent events, if the new unity government survives, it in turn will be the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. As to why Egypt and Jordan don't protect the Palestinians, it might be relevant to point out that Egypt, for example, receives over 20 billion dollars every year from the US and would most likely want to continue receiving it - in short, mostly economic and political reasons. As I said, there is plenty of blame to throw around; but it's still Israel doing the most harm here.

And again, call the conflict by whatever definition makes you feel better about it, but at the end of the day, it's a slaughter in which suspects and their families are being killed by Israel as an occupying power, and the rest are kept at a bare minimum level of survival.

There are still people complaining about not having been paid, either at all, or in full; so, I'm not sure he is getting away without being marked as a scammer by the community. Whether or not that will affect his "business model" at all however, I'm not so sure.

I don't know about it being the best ratio, but it certainly has become the most common nowadays.

And then, you have people like bluefirecorp with his 4 or 5 monitors.

The total time won't continually increase just from keeping the forum open in a tab; the timer only increases for some time after your last action (be it posting, or just viewing a thread or so).

Banned for being judgmental about others' sexual preferences.

Well, I think it depends on the method the 3d printer uses, but at least some are capable of producing models in different colors. That said, I kind of doubt the variety of colors and details required by these models would be easy to print; so, the safest bet is, you'll probably still need to paint them afterwards. But I could very well be wrong on that.

Well, part of the problem there might have been due to the way PD and Ritz were working at the time UpDown showed up; anyone could just go to those threads, post the required details, and start working on their post count. So, I guess people just assumed this would work much the same way (I know I did). Of course UpDown's almost constant absence and lack of clarification of doubts as they showed up, did nothing to help the situation, though I'm sure he profited from the publicity nonetheless.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not supporting Hamas' actions here; as I've told you in the other thread, there is plenty of wrongdoing on every side.

But if you want to eventually find an end to this conflict, you have to look at the broader picture, and evaluating both sides here as being on equal footing is unrealistic. Israel is a far more powerful state and the occupying power here; it has far more choices at its disposal than the Palestinians. Even when it comes to the use of force, it's completely disproportionate; just look at the number of casualties on either side for example - and that not considering the victims in day to day life in the occupied territories. Basically, Palestinians don't pose an existential threat to Israel; but Israel poses an existential threat to Palestinians: for the nth time, Israel is purposefully keeping the Palestinians' situation just slightly above the level of humanitarian disaster (by their own words). This is why I'm criticizing Israel's actions; because they can actually do something to stop this conflict. On the other hand, what do you expect the Palestinians to do exactly? What can they do if they're already barely surviving day to day? The best some of them can do is launch rockets and hope to actually hit something; it's that pathetic.


As I wrote just in the previous post, Israel doesn't need Hamas to make it look bad, when it comes to killing civilians: "[...] again contrary to this idea that Israel does its best to avoid civilian casualties, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has put out a statement saying that 'the targeting and destruction of residential properties in Gaza is the main cause of civilian casualties'. [...]". Also, as I said in the discussion we had in the other thread, there is no other country that doesn't want peace except Israel and the US; practically every other country considers the 1967 borders as a fair starting point for the peace talks. Israel is the occupying country here, in violation of international law.


This isn't a war, it's a slaughter; the distribution of forces is almost completely one-sided. Also, I guess I haven't stressed this enough: they aren't killing enemy combatants; they're killing people they suspect of being combatants, along with everyone nearby, which more often than not translates into family members dying as well.

Further, you continue to ignore that there are other possibilities to dealing with this, other than killing people. Remove the circumstances that give rise to the violence, namely, the occupation and the horrible conditions forced on the territories, and you'll be a lot closer to a peaceful settlement. Remember, Israel is the occupying power here.

I've never said that Hamas tries to avoid Palestinian victims, but rather that this isn't the main issue here. As I've just posted, these attacks don't happen in a vacuum; there are underlying causes to them which need to be addressed if you want peace: namely the occupation and the terrible conditions in which the people there are being kept (by Israeli officials' own words, just slightly above a humanitarian crisis).

Plus, the argument you're making there is that it's fundamentally right for Israel to kill suspects and their families; whether or not Hamas helps increase the number of victims, that's the reasoning there. Well, the UN has the following to say about this, which I had previously posted (in the post you've refused to answer):

Perhaps it is a fairy tale, perhaps it isn't. And on the Palestinians' side, they would also complain that there is no way that the Israeli leadership is going to be held accountable for their crimes. But what you have to ask yourself is, what alternatives are there? Killing more civilians by bombing houses of suspects, or killing a whole lot more civilians in a ground invasion? This is insane; it will never end.

That's fine of course, but remember that if you're answering without taking those things into consideration, it's hard to take you seriously.


The two options that are implicit there aren't the only possible alternatives: it isn't only either kill them, guilty or not, along with anyone nearby; or invade the territories, causing even more deaths, so that you can capture them and determine their guilt. That's a fallacy.

These attacks don't happen without there being a context to them, an underlying set of problems; so address those problems first and perhaps there will be a way to reach a peaceful settlement. As I said in previous posts, the way I see it, the best alternative would be to stop expanding settlements immediately; retreat from the occupied territories as much as possible; stop the blockade of the occupied territories to avoid an humanitarian crisis; stop these largely one sided military offensives; and return to the negotiating table.

After a peaceful settlement has been reached you can hunt for the criminals in either side to your heart's content.

Because he wanted a 4:1 or something like that.

Anyway, what do you need those two for bluefirecorp?

And you guys are just avoiding the issues; the main problem here isn't where Hamas has it's forces (not saying I like it), as I've just gave examples of, Israel doesn't care either way and is more than capable of attacking civilians on its own, not to mention the conditions it forces on the occupied territories.

If you're serious about this, address my previous comment:

If you mean the 100.000 that were apparently told to leave their homes in Gaza, perhaps a prelude to another ground invasion, you're missing a couple of things there. The vast majority of those living there are already refugees; they are already displaced. Also, there are no shelters in Gaza, and Egypt will almost certainly not let them leave; there is nowhere else for them to go. It makes for nice propaganda to say that, but it serves no practical purpose.

Also, again contrary to this idea that Israel does its best to avoid civilian casualties, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has put out a statement saying that "the targeting and destruction of residential properties in Gaza is the main cause of civilian casualties". And notice, Israel is targeting the homes of people suspected of being involved in attacks. Again I stress, these are suspects that they are killing; maybe they're guilty, maybe they're innocent, but they die either way, sometimes along with their whole family in the process. And then there are other attacks like the one on Tuesday in which an Israeli missile hit a busy intersection near the main market, or the attack on a cafe by the beach in which people were watching the world cup, which killed I don't know how many civilians needlessly. And this to say nothing of the day to day lives of Palestinians, when the cameras aren't there.

These are war crimes. And so is intentionally keeping the economy of the occupied territories on the brink of collapse, or if you will, according to Israeli officials themselves, just slightly above a humanitarian crisis.

Do us both a favor before you answer; see this video (it's 8 minutes long): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DX6XWwnago. My sentiments mirror his: I'm not saying these things because I don't like Israel or some such; I'm saying it because I see that this can't possibly end well for either side, and would really like to not see that happen.

Actually, it seems that most historical scholars agree that Jesus did actually exist, though there is disagreement to what extent the events recorded in the bible reflect the actions of the man. After all, that part of the bible started being written several decades after Jesus' death (some 40 to 80 years after he died), and most importantly, it was never intended to be an historical record as it is understood today: it deals with something called sacred history. That is, instead of focusing on recording events as they happened, it records what they believed the persons involved were like, if necessary then creating a story around them to illustrate it.

I probably butchered the explanation though, so here is Reza Aslan in an interview in The Young Turks, which explains it all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL6E4eMX-4k

So, in your view people should keep the signature indefinitely if they wanted to get paid; and that is assuming UpDown would actually return to make the payments, of which there was no real guarantee. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. If UpDown was unable to take care of the campaign by himself, he should have hired someone to do it for him.

Agreed, and I'd say Mars Attacks is probably better than a lot of the other movies mentioned in the thread so far, though it's kind of an unfair comparison; it's a comedy after all, not a sci-fi movie.


I have to admit I haven't seen Transcendence yet, but both the plot summary, and the votes and reviews on imdb aren't that great. Is the movie really worth the 2 hours?

Or rather, this thread was dead until you resurrected it to the top again; it is now a zombie thread.

What do you mean? As far as the aspect ratio goes, you just have even more stuff to the sides.



Yours is the yellow, and a 2:1 would be in-between the green and the orange. (I'm not sure there are monitors with a 2:1 ratio exactly)

I might be wrong, but I'm under the impression that at least some people who are complaining didn't remove the sig until after the month had passed, so they effectively have every right to be paid. I mean, the alternative would be them having to keep the sig for an undetermined amount of time, until UpDown remembered to step by; that doesn't make sense. Also, there seem to be people who still have not been paid the full amount for the posts they did before this switched to monthly payments.