Indeed, and for me it goes deeper than that. I believe thought is fear and I try to maintain a distance between a habit of thinking and putting any stock in the truth i might wish
Yeah, you pretty much said as much in a reply during our discussion of whether what Israel's doing is a "genocide." I argued facts, you replied by saying why can't it just be genocide because of my feelings. This is dangerous. It's the same dichotomy of faith v. reason we see in religious debates. The problem with using "faith" or feelings to form conclusions is that once you are unmoored from the requirement of factual proof you can just believe anything then. If I suddenly decide that Muslims are a scourge on humanity and should be wiped out, who is to contradict my opinion when it's based entirely on my feelings? Who is to contradict white supremacists who believe blacks are inferior based on their feels and not on facts?
to imagine it contains.
Your suggestion that you thought your sarcasm was properly functioning made me reexamine my suggestion it might be implying to me what what you refer to as the tone of the board has actually changed since Gaza. I would not say that opinions about Israel have shifted so much as the bombing there has brought the fore both anti Israeli anti Zionist sentiment as well as the usual simmering beneath the surface, antisemitism. I think these two things need to be carefully parsed. Frankly, I have also experienced a sense that you still have suspicions as to whether I am antisemitic despite denying it consistently from forever. However, I do not blame you for being suspicious. And you can't grow up in the US without exposure to such bigotry.
Actually there was only one time I thought that, and it was years ago in a debate about Israel where you suddenly asked if I was Jewish, as if that were at all relevant to whatever point we were debating. One thing that occurred to me was that you would never ask someone about their religion in a debate if it was a different topic and a different religion. And furthermore, I can't recall anyone, in 15 years of posting here, ever asking anyone what was their religion. I doubt you're terribly antisemitic, but you probably adhere to a stereotype about Jews supporting Israel, and it helps you to believe that people who do not agree with you are biased in some manner. Newsflash: everyone has or potentially has biases. Like I said above, focus on the facts and arguments.
On the other hand the support in Israel for the bombing of Gaza is strongest among conservative religious Jews connected very closely, I think, to driving government policy. I strongly oppose your argument that what was done would be done by any other government in the same position. That the world is full of sickness does not excuse it in my opinion. Asa I have said, I see the only hope for Israel to lie in the Jewish people of Israel itself, those who oppose what the government is doing and are willing to work for a two state solution to the problem. That happens, in my opinion, by offering a vision of the benefits not by bombing the Palestinians into submission and gradually annexing their land.
I have been introduced to a psychological personality trait referred to as siege mentality. I wonder if that's a thing in psychological literature. I will see what I can find.
Yeah, I just don't think that's what Israel is doing. I think Israel is responding to terrorist acts the same way any other democracy has. Like I mentioned ad infinitum when I was posting in that cesspool of a thread, the US has killed well over 100K Muslim Arab civilians in the name of responding to 9/11. We actually started a war that lasted 15 years based on lies and false pretenses. And tortured people at Abu Graib. And while that has been criticized, it's never been labelled a genocide. You should think about why one is being labelled genocide and the other is not.
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