zazen

@lina True, why is it shocking that people resist? Over intellectualising and using spiral dynamic labels to paintball and colour code groups of people can trap us in making us think resistance is unique to a stage of development. People resist - their strategy, tactics and how they resist differ but they resist nonetheless. When we get back to basics of survival humans are more alike than they are different - differences in ideaology, lifestyle and tastes appear once people have enough prosperity and peace to indulge them. A family in the same house can differ vastly in their diets, media and ideas they have. But put them or even a collection of different people of different backgrounds and stages of development under Palestinian or Gazan type living conditions and they will come together to be preoccupied with trying to resist their shared oppression despite their differences because that’s just a human thing to do, not a less developed or stage red thing lol. The same way Israeli society have come together for the time being after October 7th for security reasons. Western countries are debating and complaining about an influx of immigration today. So we can imagine similar tensions with an influx of Jewish migration into Palestine which was majority Arab. What could have amplified it is the Balfour declaration being announced by the global power at the time which the Arabs felt threatened by and the subsequent state of Israel being realised. Also a nuance that matters is what type or strand of Zionism people are talking about. One can easily support the right of a persecuted people to have a safe haven for themselves, but that support stops when it comes at the cost of displacing and persecuting people already existing there only to continue the cycle. You can support the sentiment but disapprove of the strategy in achieving it or in simpler terms understand the why but dismiss the how.

@Twentyfirst @Karmadhi

@Vrubel @Nivsch Agreed theirs plenty wrong within Arab societies and they need to do their own work. The external environment amplifies this. But it’s difficult to know whether a certain group is truly developed or ‘civilised’ or that certain groups are just wealthy enough to pretend to be. If Americans were put in Gazans situation would it be any different. Even Ehud Barack said “If I was [a Palestinian] at the right age, at some stage I would have entered one of the terror organizations and have fought from there.” Even if they are less developed and it’s not entirely Israel’s fault for how they are - it doesn’t justify or make Israel’s actions right. Stages of development doesn’t make one group or person a different species that are inherently evil. It just means one group has developed more but those elements of other stages are still there lying dormant. Culture evolves faster than biology, and whilst we are in biological form we are chained or grounded by biology. Stage yellow and turquoise sages are still susceptible to biological reality as Osho was to his ill health despite being awakened or ‘developed.’ Developed groups still have the ancient instincts we finger point less developed groups for acting upon, and the more developed groups can just pull at those instincts in different ways. You can be a stage green eco terrorist for example - growth can also be a cancer. Is a broken orange/green society still better than a healthy red/blue society? Possibly, but a more developed society has more powerful tools with more leverage and potential for destruction which could make them more of a threat. A stage red primitive tribe might be sick and dangerous but their destruction will only be localised to their village surroundings whilst a stage orange techno-capitalist superpower though having more inclusive and broader values including democracy and science can inflict a negative global impact if this stage becomes sick, pathological or unhealthily manifest. A highly developed society generally has more powerful instruments / tools, but if the individuals of that society become unhealthy their potential for chaos is greater. The individual and wielder of the tool needs to be just as developed - a parrallel match because the stakes are higher. A sick red society may only cause ripples on the world stage due to their limited tools of power but a developed orange society with more powerful tools will cause a tsunami of damage. We can use spiral dynamics to make sense of the world or make our sense of self more righteous in relationship to others lower on the spiral. In the past it was whoever can defend the land keeps it - rights to land are based on the might of those fighting for it. With a national consciousness spreading and bordering up of the world including the Arab regions this would have eventually trickled to the Palestinians, they just didn’t get there in time for the nationalising party which kicked off in the mid to late 1940’s. Obviously nationalising can be taken to an extreme where every group, tribe or sect want their own nation - I’m not sure where that starts and stops and what a healthy amount is to be honest. For example now even Barcelona want to separate from Spain. If this Israel Palestine scenario was happening in the past people wouldn’t make such a deal of it as the unspoken word then was whoever had the might had the right but today we live in a post expansionist world - at least when it comes to geography. Powers now expand through commerce and capital. The board game of geography is replaced with the board rooms of corporations - but that’s another conversation.

God gave Aladdin a flying carpet but blessed giga-Zionist by carpet bombing onto him a hairy chest, back and long side curls to whip goyim. Chosen one. Giga-Islamists got blessed with black burqas to liberate their women from the male gaze so they can eat all the baklava they want.

The audacity lies in considering it acceptable for one group to take the land of another, with whom they lived mostly well for centuries, and were even protected by from European pogroms and persecution. To then engage in negotiations regarding the land they seized from that group, determining how much they will claim and then gaslighting any resistance as barbaric savage terrorism and making them feel guilty for the sins of the Holocaust which weren't theirs to begin with. They are then further gaslighted and labeled anti-Semitic for this when they themselves are semites. The anti-Semitic label is used as a verbal shield against any criticism and to muzzle rational voices. The actual crime that Palestinians are being punished for is refusal to submit. That’s all this conflict has ever been, from the very beginning. Palestinians refused to accept being thrown off their land and killed and forcibly displaced at the creation of the Israeli state in 1948, and that refusal has seen increasing violence and oppression under the premise that it’s possible to bomb and tyrannize a population into obedience. Nothing will radicalize you toward violence faster than seeing your neighbors and loved ones ripped apart, and your dignity shredded on your own soil. How dare the Palestinians resist, the Palestinians should just be peaceful in their blockaded strip of land where they were once given a controlled amount of calories as to be fed just enough to not die but not in excess as to be strong to resist. And the other Palestinians in West Bank should be at peace with the encroachment of their land via settlement expansion. They should be at peace with their subjugation and humiliation, we should give them the power of now so they can learn the first step to peace is accepting the moment and so they can ascend to stage green. The Zulus of South Africa, the Mau Mau of Kenya, the Vietnamese, the Afghanis, the Algerians - all should have just been at peace with settlers and imperialists who they resisted against successfully instead. The way spiral dynamics is misused is when it’s used to create a colour apartheid and discriminate between one group of people who on average orients around a certain colour and another. Palestinians are primitive and stage red which is impulsive, primal and fights back but when Israel fights back its deemed as noble defence of a noble people higher up on the spiral dynamics ranking.

Words such as occupation incite a allergic reaction to the ideologically captured because any discussion going forward from accepting this fact favour the ones being occupied to be more legally right and morally legitimate in their defence, even armed defence. The lack of intention for a two state solution is clear from the Likud parties founding documents and Bibis speech at the United Nations general assembly just this year in September before this conflict kicked off. ''The Right of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel) a. The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty. b. A plan which relinquishes parts of western Eretz Israel, undermines our right to the country, unavoidably leads to the establishment of a "Palestinian State," jeopardizes the security of the Jewish population, endangers the existence of the State of Israel. and frustrates any prospect of peace.''

Certain words like occupation incite a allergic reaction due to the fact that once acknowledged, any discussion forward inadvertently favours the one being occupied in his legal rights and moral legitimacy to defence, even armed defence. The intention not to have two state is made clear as stated in the Likud parties founding documents and as showed when Bibi addressed the united nations general assembly just this year in September. ''The Right of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel) a. The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty. b. A plan which relinquishes parts of western Eretz Israel, undermines our right to the country, unavoidably leads to the establishment of a "Palestinian State," jeopardizes the security of the Jewish population, endangers the existence of the State of Israel. and frustrates any prospect of peace.'' Source - https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/original-party-platform-of-the-likud-party

So majority of the world including relevant institutions and governments who are actual allies with Israel must all be insane then. The only reason to present Jews who actually speak on Israel is because if a non Jewish opinion or critique is given its labelled anti-semitic. These are people who have every reason possible to be one sided due to their lineage directly being executed by the Holocaust - if they speak on the situation it deserves a listen with a open mind. Many Jews have spoken against the situation and call it for what it is. Everyone needs to put truth above their egos to the best of their ability and in order to discuss solutions agree upon some basic facts and the definition of words. Otherwise, we expand and shrink the definition of words according to our biases to fit in or take out what we want or don't want to associate them with. For example, I've said in another thread that there is debate around whether it is a genocide according to the international definition and by looking at Israel's actions and talking points to confirm or infer their intent. Say it isn't a genocide, don't Israel's actions and talking points at least point to ethnic cleansing? The definition of which is 'the mass expulsion or killing of members of one ethnic or religious group in an area by those of another.' That is bad enough to need to be called for what it is. If we fail to even see that then it can be called the next worst thing which is a massacre. Looking at the actions of settlers in the West Bank and how their using the massacre of October 7th to wipe out Gaza shows this. The Gazans have moved south and now after the ceasefire Israels plan seems to be to start targeting the south after making the north unlivable with nothing to return to. Where are they supposed to move to or escape to then? The sinai desert or force Europe to take them in so Israel can have its holy land. I can only assume these Gazans will not be given the right to return as Palestinian refugees aren't even given the right to return to land they or their parents lived in a generation ago but some New Yorker who has a loose connection to Israel or claims from a 2000 year ago history is given the right of return. Can we really say this is targeting Hamas: And beside the many other statements by Israelis in positions of power that show ill intent, here’s just one of the latest by which we can infer the intent to displace / ethnically cleanse Gaza: It's probably in Israel's best interest to not keep giving Palestinians a situation in which radicalisation is so easy to occur by the countless deaths of their loved ones and control of their freedom of movement and then to have to tackle the stain on their reputation world wide through pouring millions into a propaganda machine to tackle the anti-Semitism that comes from it. Even the Western media outlets who have generally taken the side of Israel aren't able to keep on being impartial as social media dismantles and shreds the propaganda in real time.

You can’t even accept the occupier/occupied dynamic between Israel and Palestine. Saying Gaza isn’t occupied because Israel withdrew is like saying a prisoner is free because the warden isn’t technically inside his jail cell. How can anyone move on to discuss solutions if the facts of reality can’t be agreed. Is the UK government and US state department who are both Israel’s allies good enough sources to confirm firstly that Palestinians are occupied? https://www.state.gov/reports/2016-report-on-international-religious-freedom/israel-and-the-occupied-territories/israel-and-the-occupied-territories-the-occupied-territories/ https://www.gov.uk/world/the-occupied-palestinian-territories/news Isreal apologists will claim any critique coming from a non jew as anti Semitic and claim Jews like Norman Finkelstein, Gabor Mate or Gideon Levy are traitors and self hating Jews if they give any critique.

“One thing the empire is about to realize is that the western public has lost all its appetite for war. All the careful sanitising, video-gamifying and propagandizing that has been put in place since Vietnam in order to build a platform of consent for “humanitarian” wars has cratered into nothing over the course of mere weeks. You can’t have an up close and personal relationship with the reality of bombs and all the things they do to human flesh and then go back to the way you were ever again. Millions of western eyes have been changed forever. “War” is not abstract any more.“

@jaylimix Maybe your heart and empathy aren’t real as you wrote this on another thread: ‘Israel is NOT evil, they do care about civilians, asking them to mouth south, calling off airstrikes if there are too many civilians around. The same cannot be said about me, I don't care about dead Palestinian children.’

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/israel-and-the-occupied-palestinian-territories-opts-country-of-concern/israel-and-the-occupied-palestinian-territories-opts-country-of-concern#torture From the UK governments website on Israels use of torture: There are continued allegations by NGOs of mistreatment of Palestinian detainees by the Israeli authorities. Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradat died in Israeli custody in February 2013; Israeli authorities denied allegations that his death was a result of torture. The UK has made clear to the Israeli authorities the importance we attach to a full investigation into the circumstances of his death, including the allegations of mistreatment. Whilst noting that acts of torture are criminal under Israeli law, we called at Israel’s UPR for “necessity” to be removed as a possible justification for torture, and for all allegations of torture and ill-treatment to be promptly and effectively investigated, with perpetrators prosecuted. In December, the NGO Public Committee Against Torture in Israel reported that, following arrest, Palestinian child detainees were being held outside in iron cages for hours overnight. Justice Minister Tzipi Livni has publicly confirmed that, on hearing the reports, she immediately instructed the Israeli Prison Service to stop this practice. Further: https://www.omct.org/en/resources/blog/its-now-even-more-official-torture-is-legal-in-israel https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/11/israel-opt-horrifying-cases-of-torture-and-degrading-treatment-of-palestinian-detainees-amid-spike-in-arbitrary-arrests/

@DocWatts Well put. Its's important to agree on definitions as everyone stretches the definition of words to fit more of what they wish to associate it with. Even if it isn't genocide which some people claim it isn't, it sure is ethnic cleansing as that by definition includes the expulsion of a people. From what I can infer by actions and statements of prominent members from the Israeli side the target is not only Hamas but Gaza itself to be unlivable. No wonder they've been going at it to destroy even Hospitals that are sacrosanct.

It starts as metaphorical but often becomes literal and less often radical interpretations are drawn from religious texts. People die more for fiction than facts. The fiction of flags and nationalities, religion and ideologies. Islam's concept of martydom and jihad for example have been perverted for sick causes. Likewise being proud of ones heritage, nationality or ethnicity can and has been perverted for sick causes. Religions often believe in paradise after death, and they go about sick ways in order to achieve it and get there, often creating hell on earth. But so can atheists and the non religious create hell on earth in trying to bring about paradise on earth such as the communist regimes which a estimated 100 million people have died because of. Radical religion creates hell on earth for paradise in the here after, radical communism creates hell on earth for a utopian paradise on earth.

H

I get it if people are just too busy or don't feel knowledgeable enough to make a judgment and take a stand on issues. Rationality allows for relativity - to understand the other. But it also allows for discernment of what values/actions are more legit than others. We can understand others values but don't have to value their values in the same way or to the same degree. Mature rationality is not just understanding but discerning - one could further say a even higher level of rationality is not to even play the game itself and be lost in moral discussions all together. The enlightened types like to be detached from the disputes and dichotomies of the common man, looking down at it all from a lofty place of transcendence. As Ram Dass said, part of awakening can be playing the role of form we are in - that is human. To be human, we've got to get down in the muck where the humanness is happening. Moral relativity is about understanding both sides but moral legitimacy is about determining and discerning the rightness of each side. Pluralism doesn't always mean neutralism. It's possible to see both sides of every contentious issue - that's a sign of intellectual maturity. But just because we can see both sides doesn’t mean we should live our life as though they both have equal merit. If we don’t further grapple with the rightness of each side we neglect a whole dimension of understanding by simply leaving it at “well I can see both sides which means both are equally right”. It’s good to understand that all concepts are relative and that none contain absolute truth, but this necessarily means that some concepts are more relatively truthful than others and by extension some actions are more relatively right than others. None of us live our lives as though all things are the same and all concepts are equally true - men can't have babies and I can't identify as something I'm not. We don’t drink bleach to wake us up, we order a coffee. When we want to go to somewhere we take a specific route, we don’t walk in a random direction and hope for manifestation to do its magic. Our daily choices reflect our reliance on relative truths as a fundamental aspect of our everyday life. I can understand why a robber had to rob to feed his family but I can still claim it not to be right. I can understand why Hamas did what they did and still claim it not to be right. I can understand why Israel feels entitled to the land of Palestine and still claim it not to be right. Where a rational society malfunctions compared to a irrational one is that it doesn't mature past the stage of understanding towards discernment. It gets stuck at the subjective level playing the game of moral relativity which is like a windmill able to go in all directions and see all perspectives but which keeps us going round and round, dazed, dizzy and chaotic. As opposed to graduating to also having discernment which implies a hierarchy of values and thus a compass to guide us towards betterment. Deciding our direction with the windmill of moral relativity and not a compass is what keeps us lost and disillusioned. I feel this is one of the reasons a lot of people in the West are returning to religion or tradition as a way to feel anchored in something with direction. But, religion and tradition can be a shortcut to thinking as can be the liberalism of moral subjectivity - that all perspectives are fine so we don't have to wrestle with the tougher beast that is discerning which perspectives are better or worse.

@lina That's what's frustrating, the hypocrisy of the Western elite. It causes cognitive dissonance among Westerners and distrust from non Western allies. Not to say hypocrisy doesn't exist in other parts of the world, but in the West it's magnified at a state level making it visible for those who can see through the propoganda. The West are supporting Ukraine that's full of neo-Nazis who hate Jews and then go on to support Israel in the name of supporting the Jewish people. Western imperialists don't actually stand for what they claim to stand for, and their framing of where they stand in these conflicts is a cloaked lie. The empire just supports who it supports because that's where its interests happen to be at the time. Peak hypocrisy is inflicting violence and destruction throughout the world in order to pursue planetary hegemony while lying about your reasons for doing so. The global south knew this from past experience (they paied the blood price for the lesson), but its only become more and more clearer today since the war on terror from 2001 and the advent of social media which debunks main stream narratives. The global south have developed some economic strength are more in a position to speak against and oppose the West now collectively with China in their corner. Concepts like democracy and human rights are not values they wish to promote as much as they are political sticks used against adversarial nations - these nations are aggressively criticized for human rights violations and lack of democracy. Paying lip service to democracy and human rights is just one tactic in their playbook to create the façade of moral authority, all the while tactfully undermining governments that go against them.

I agree it definitely isn’t that simple. There are toxic elements on both sides. The protests for the most part are positive. I was at the London protest with almost a million people and majority were fair and little to no arrests or violence. There are a few bad apples for sure but that shouldn’t stop people from supporting a just cause to end a conflict that see’s civilians dying. The same way in more right wing protests which are anti-immigration you get completely racist people among them that de-legitimise the whole thing due to their extremism. Marginalisation leads to radicalisation and racism is extreme otherising and marginalisation. Here’s a good talk between Sam Harris and Yuval Noah Harari. He mentions how a two state solution and peace are undermined from the Israeli side by Bibis government. Listen to time stamps ( 13-15 min ) and ( 16:30 - 18:30 ). In fact by supporting and having a more extremist party like Hamas in power it de-legitimises the Palestinian cause the same way extremist racists de-legitimise the right wing and their valid concerns for unchecked immigration. Hamas gives a reason to not establish peace or offer a state - and if a state is offered it’s done so with concessions favouring the Isreali side. Hamas is not the target but the excuse. A good video on why and how Israel offer of a two state solution and any peace hasn’t worked:

Great interview. Here are two very good videos also:

@kenway Social media has played a big part in it. The support for Palestinians has a generational gap. From an article Head of ADL: “But I also wanna point out that we have a major, major, major generational problem,” Greenblatt complains to his cohorts. “All the polling that I’ve seen — ADL’s polling, ICC’s polling, independent polling — suggests this is not a left or right gap, folks. The issue in the United States’ support for Israel is not left and right, it is young and old.” “We really have a Tik-Tok problem, a Gen-Z problem,” In reality, what Greenblatt and his associates have is a morality problem. They have a large group of people who have not been indoctrinated into accepting madness and amputating parts of their own conscience over the years, and so are able to look at the mass murder of civilians in Gaza with clear eyes. Israel’s problem is not that people are being propagandized into hating it, it’s that people are not being successfully propagandized into supporting it. There’s only so many ways you can spin the murder of thousands of children and the existence of an oppressive ‘security’ apparatus over people. All the media obfuscation in the world is not enough to pull the wool over fresh eyes that are ready to see.

.@Vrubel I didn't mean you are dehumanizing Palestinians, just generally those that do. I wasn't equivocating toddlers being taken hostage to thuggish teens but rounding up teens or children even if they have 'misbehaved' without charge, trial or access to their parents or lawyers is bad enough in my books to be called out. You mentioned the silent majority are turned off at Pro-Palestinian protests and talking points. I don't like to see it as Pro one side or the other but I do clearly see that if the root cause of suffering that is the occupation ends that will be pro both sides. Palestinian liberation will liberate the Israeli's of having to play prison guard on watch and dedicate resources to immense amounts of propaganda to hide the truth and continuously wash the stain that is occupation in a post-occupation, post colonial world - and that they get a bad image for. I'd say to that any individuals expressing anger towards pro-Palestinians are, at best, comical and at worst, pitiful. Criticizing those who advocate for freedom from a long-standing oppressive regime is absurd. The atrocity of October 7 reflects the accumulated violence imposed by Israel on Palestinians for decades. It's similar to foolishly resenting an echo for responding, or a man being angered by his own shadow darkening the floor.

Blatant hypocrisy? The West are supporting Ukraine that's full of neo-Nazis who hate Jews and then go on to support Israel in the name of supporting the Jewish people and their homeland. Remember when the Canadian parliament applauded a man who fought for the Nazi's just last month then backtracked once it got media attention and backlash. Western imperialists don't actually stand for what they claim to stand for, and their framing of where they stand in these conflicts is a cloaked lie. The empire just supports who it supports because that's where its interests happen to be at the time. What is hypocritical is inflicting violence and destruction throughout the world in order to pursue planetary hegemony while lying about your reasons for doing so. Concepts like democracy and human rights are not values they wish to promote as much as they are political sticks used against adversarial nations - these nations are aggressively criticized for human rights violations and lack of democracy. It also appeases domestic Westerners as it gives us a sense of righteousness - that our states are going to instill great values and democracy to those nations. It allows us in the West who are comfortable and not used to harsher realities to stomach our empire going around the world dick swinging its power and causing carnage. Paying lip service to democracy and human rights is just one tactic in their playbook to create the façade of moral authority, all the while tactfully undermining governments that go against them.

I'd struggle to imagine being at the mercy of terrorist captors, maybe we can ask Gazans though. Not sure how the hostages have been treated but just to point out that some view them as completely barbaric and wanting to kill Jews (and some of them are and did on October 7th) and they haven't gone and killed the hostages all the while being bombarded to an absurd degree. Can you imagine having 25'000 tonnes of bombs dropped on where you are in Gaza - equivalent to 2 nuclear bombs. Hiroshima's bomb was 15'000 tonnes for comparison, and Hiroshima is about 3 times bigger than Gaza. And you have to try keep hostages safe in this situation with your life on the line doing so - apparently people you utterly hate. Whats vile is the attitude towards Palestinians and the dehumanization of them. Whilst this whole hostage swap is going on people are wondering 'hey, how come Israel have women and children prisoners.' to begin with. Even the liberal leftist opposition party in Israel claims that most of the deaths in Gaza are just terrorists hamas fighters.

The irony is that Hamas are portrayed as barbaric Jew haters but have done their best to protect their hostages despite being bombarded by the hostages host country who is their adversary. Lets see if these hostages will be allowed to speak on their experience as the two ladies did and the media had a melt down at them speaking of their positive experience - with the one lady shaking hands and saying bye to the Hamas guy even lol.