Quote from: J. J. Phillips on April 23, 2015, 10:34:59 AM

Quote from: jaysabi on April 22, 2015, 09:45:46 PM

Quote from: J. J. Phillips on April 20, 2015, 03:42:22 AM

Quote from: jaysabi on April 19, 2015, 11:10:16 PM

You were on the verge of being reasonable for several posts, then you left for a few days and came back with BS like don't got time to read, so here's a bunch of strawmen and garbage diatribes. It's disappointing this thread turned out like this. I was hoping for something far more enlightened.

I mean, you could really call me out for saying "don't got time to read" by quoting such a post, but you can't because it's not there.

Quote from: J. J. Phillips on April 18, 2015, 10:39:06 AM

I'm behind on this thread, so I'll just assume the past few pages is a lot of "Gee I wish the U.S. didn't have a veto so the U.N. could kill the Jews."

I was paraphrasing of course, but there's what you requested: You indicating you were dismissing everything without reading it.

You modified my quote. Here is the original:

Quote from: J. J. Phillips on April 20, 2015, 03:42:22 AM

Quote from: jaysabi on April 19, 2015, 11:10:16 PM

You were on the verge of being reasonable for several posts, then you left for a few days and came back with BS like don't got time to read, so here's a bunch of strawmen and garbage diatribes. It's disappointing this thread turned out like this. I was hoping for something far more enlightened.

Your critique would be more convincing if there were a post somewhere in the thread stating, for example, some relevant action the U.N. could take if it weren't for U.S. influence. I mean, you could really call me out for saying "don't got time to read" by quoting such a post, but you can't because it's not there.

To me it's quite clear that when I wrote "quoting such a post" I was referring to a hypothetical post by someone else giving some "relevant action the U.N. could take if it weren't for U.S. influence." Instead you took away the first sentence to make it look like I was asking for you to quote a post in which I was dismissing without reading. If you did this on purpose, that's some A+ dishonesty. If you really didn't understand what I was asking for, then we are -- quite literally -- writing in different languages.

Yes, I thought you were speaking of two different topics, and I didn't understand how the first sentence applied to the second, so I edited out the part about the UN because I hadn't said anything about the UN. For that matter, I still don't understand your point there or how it is a response to what I said, but in the interest of getting back to something more meaningful, am willing just to chalk it up as my loss.

Quote from: J. J. Phillips on April 23, 2015, 10:34:59 AM

Quote from: jaysabi on April 22, 2015, 09:45:46 PM

Quote from: J. J. Phillips on April 20, 2015, 03:42:22 AM

A useful discussion about this issue would involve making a sequence of clear, unambiguous true-or-false style statements and having people who disagree indicate which they think are true and which they think are false. That's the first step to determining the nature of a disagreement. I tried to do this. Most of the participants on the thread ignored these statements and ignored clarifying questions I tried to ask. They continued to simply assert that there was some country called Palestine (there wasn't) that was "illegally invaded" by Jews (rather than there being waves of immigration) and that there was some kind of unspecified "agreement" that Israel made and is not holding to. I challenge anyone to simply count the number of clear statements I've made and clear questions I've asked that have been completely ignored. The people expecting me to respond to them when they're not responding to me are the ones being unreasonable.

In the end things will probably work out for everyone. The Jew haters will get their dead Jews and I'll get to exterminate the Nazi human species.

So are you contributing to a useful discussion here, or are all those posts I quoted from you not constructive? You have very good points when you're following the advice I bolded above, so let's get back to that and cut out all that shit you keep posting.

I already did my part by putting a number of labelled clear true-or-false style statements and either indicating whether I believed them to be true-or-false, often with explanations as to why. If other people were interested in having a useful discussion, they would take some of these statements and say whether they believe them to be true or false and give some explanation. Their explanations could involve new true-or-false statements to consider and discuss. The fact that no one is doing this supports my belief that this thread is not really about discussing the conflict. The thread is about demonizing Jews.

There are apparently a lot of people on bitcointalk who think it's very important to keep Jew hatred threads high on the Politics and Society forum, from this one to the "Jews did 9/11" one. Something is rotten here.

Yes, I am disappointed in the lack of response to those instances. At the same time, look what does get responded to: intentionally inflammatory posts which make it easy to ignore the quality ones. The same way you get caught up on the idiot who posts garbage like "International Zionism Did 91123 facts." If someone is clearly an idiot, don't even engage them, their ideas certainly aren't worth validating as something that needs to be defended against.

Hopefully getting back to something useful, I would like to ask a few questions to get your views on them:

1) Do the Palestinians have any legitimate claim to an independent state or should the state of Palestine never exist?

2) Do Jews have the ultimate right (as in it can pre-empt all other claims) to Jerusalem? (I understand the city to be claimed by Palestinians and Israelis as a capital.) That is, does either group have a sole claim to the city, or should/can it exist as a capital of two independent nations?

3) Do you believe the expansion of Jewish settlements into what the Palestinians claim is Palestinian lands is justified? (Or do you believe Palestinians have no legitimate land claims, so the question is moot?)

4) And finally, if there should be a two-state solution, what border should Israel occupy now? Was the 1947 plan that was devised by the UN inherently flawed or biased against Israel, or was it only the Arab wars against Israel that made the original plan unworkable?

I'm just looking for brief responses initially and we can get into more color and the justification of the answers after that (if we hold different views on something). Mostly I'm asking because I'm trying to figure out what I think, but I don't know the things I don't know.