Housing subsidy pushes prices up

[mantra.]

It is also time for the Israeli's to shut the fuck up, and for us to shut that failed state down.

Have I offended everyone yet?

Seriously, I have no time for folks who talk religion and use weapons made possible by science. Jewish fanatics, christian fanatics and Muslim fanatics are equally worthless in my view. Jewish, christian and muslim men of peace are all cool, though I am suspect of anyone who belongs to any religion.

You think god loves you cause you belong to the right club?

I am reaching for my whackin stick when I hear that shit.

This is exactly what many people think - but haven't got the guts to say it. Enough is enough and how many more deaths will result in allowing Israel to thrive as they demand to thrive. So many wars are as a result of protecting the Jews - it's just not PC to say it. I have no personal issue with the Jews singularly - only for the fact that collectively when they want something - they get it at any cost - especially to human life.

[Ethnic]

Hmmm Israel is a tricky one. My only opinion is if everyone stayed the fuck out of the issue between Israel and Palestine then the problems may have been resolved a long time ago. Outsiders just keep butting in with cash, weapons and propaganda, making it so much worse. It's like an ego trip over there. It would be funny if people weren't dying over this insanity.

[cynik]

I agree. Israeli is THE tricky question. Especially for me, given my personal experience.

I mean, I have yet to actually meet a jew i didn't like. As individuals, they have always struck me as polite, well educated, sensitive and open minded.

When I compare that experience with the Muslims I have actually met, it is stark. Since I was a child, Muslims have lectured me, and sneered at me, to my face, whensoever I have shown an interest in their culture. The ones I have met have been hostile and proud, manic and ignorant, cruel and overbearing.

Now I have not met every jew or every muslim, but that is my experience, and I see not point in lying to myself or others. If you ask me who I want to share a lifeboat with, jews or muslims, there is no question. Now this is not to say that the Muslim faith makes people hostile, ignorant and cruel. Far from it. It is poverty which creates the negative characteristics of the muslims I have met, not faith.

But then we must face the thorny question of what cause poverty, and sadly I believe the answer is faith. Overpopulation brought on by the scriptures of the great religions, of which Islam is the least controlled by modern, secular, human rights law.

And then, on the news, we see Israel. A war economy terrorist state that has been abusing the human rights of Palestinians since it's phoney creation.

And I think we can say that, that Israel is a phoney creation. After all, Israel does not belong to the jews, it belongs to us, the WASP christians who created it, and who keep it alive with vast amounts of weapons and cash, and propaganda. So, I don't blame the jews for Israel. Indeed, the leading figures in British jewry were against the creation of israel, and anyone who reads what they wrote at the time must be struck by the uncanny accuracy of their prophecies for the state.

Israel was, to my mind, a military foreign policy exercise that used the jewish community as a front. I think it has been an unmitigated failure, and it must be shut down. I basically put Israel and gitmo in the same basket. They are unjust, and a disgrace on our people. We don't need them, they hurt our reputation, we should shut them down and hold those who committed crimes in their name accountable. We need to walk our talk, if we are going to lead.

And I guess I do see the jews as our people. If a protestant and a catholic and an atheist can sit down together as the same people, why not jews? I think they are just another variety of european christian, and all the hoo hah about them being a special race is just hysterical nonsense. Furthermore, it does them harm, and makes them objects of hate.

Is that how we should use members of our own tribe, as a decoy and a shield with which to soak up anger directed at the culmination of all our deeds? So I have a lot of time for jews, and I feel they have been badly used by their own people, the other European christians.

At the same time, I think there has got to be a reckoning with hate ideologies, and the elitist jews are some of the very worst on earth. They openly preach not only intolerance of other faiths, but divine superiority. I don't care what you call your religion or your god, if you believe and preach that your tribe is special above all others, you are picking a fight.

But as much as I would like to encourage tolerant jews, tolerant wasps and tolerant muslims, i think the collapse of the world's ecosystems is going to dictate the way we come to view religion on earth.

As overpopulation devastates more and more of the world, vast numbers of people will pushed to the very edge of the earth's ability to feed and shelter. And then nature will cause the harvest to fail for a few years running, as she has done in the past with clockwork regularity, and then so many people will die in such horrific circumstances that any survivors will see the great religions as psychopathic breeding programs that are more deadly than anything nature every evolved.

And that is harsh, because although I do believe the great religions did indeed spread and dominate human culture precisely because they out bred their opposition, I have also come to think that the great religions have done some good in the world, and tempered the misery of the mortal coil for a vast number of folks.

It just seems a damned shame that religion is beyond our control, and that science has proven so hollow with regard the protection of human rights and the resolution of social conflict and inequality.

[Jovial Monk]

This discussion doesn't really belong in this thread, but. . .

No one will shut Israel down. As Putin gets more autocratic and Russia goes down like a house of cards due to the global meltdown expect to see a lot of Russian jews moving to Israel.

Would be nice if the Islamic faith could be brought up to say the nineteenth century. . .

[cynik]

Israel is, curiously enough, the most vulnerable state in the world. It depends utterly on the continued goodwill of foreigners who do not share the culture or faith of its inhabitants.

I mean, look at the facts: Without US military support, without American WASPS voting for that support..... how long can Israel last?

Granted, while the USA supports israel, it aint going nowhere.

But if some bright spark (boom boom!) invents fusion power for real, and the USA no longer needs an unsinkable aircraft carrier in the middle east......

How long do you think Israel can last?

People talk a lot of nonsense about the "jewish vote", and the influence of the "jewish media". It is just that, nonsense.

The jews can't even stop the world blaming them for the deliberate economic policies of WASPS. How much power do you think they have if they can't even do that?

No, Israel will end within years of the strategic need for middle eastern oil ending, and indeed it could well end before then. I can think of several scenarios that would spell the end of israel within months. They are all based on US domestic turmoil, and none of them are likely in the short term.

But I can't see israel being viable in the long term, either. Just do not see it. They can't commit total genocide with the world's cameras watching, and even if they do, that whole part of the world is full of arabs who are breeding like self detonating bunnies. Israel isn't an island, and it cannot even guarantee its own water supply. It is, geographically, the worst place on earth to establish a fundamentalist theocracy that preaches intolerance against Islam.

So demographically, economically, hydrostatically and politically, it has no future. Even if it lasts another three hundred years, it will never overcome the fundamentals that stack up against it.

I say give the reasonable jews tasmania, and send the rest of them, and the tasmanians, to live in texas.

[mantra.]

Granted, while the USA supports israel, it aint going nowhere.

But if some bright spark (boom boom!) invents fusion power for real, and the USA no longer needs an unsinkable aircraft carrier in the middle east......

How long do you think Israel can last?

There is nothing at all that I can disagree with in your posts Cynik. In regard to the above statement - many of the zionist clan in Washington and outside, but with absolute power to politically influence Presidents and Primeministers, and who have been largely responsible for the creation of the state of Israel, are quite old now and eventually will die off. Their ideologies may not be passed onto their children's generation.

[Jovial Monk]

Even if all energy tomorrow came from renewable/nuclear sources would still need the oil. used in plastics, fertilisers you name it.

[Hebe]

I say give the reasonable jews tasmania, and send the rest of them, and the tasmanians, to live in texas.

No way - I'm staying. I'm used to living with Jewish people and I like them. And I believe they're entitled to a homeland.

[mantra.]

No way - I'm staying. I'm used to living with Jewish people and I like them. And I believe they're entitled to a homeland.

Of course the Jewish people are entitled to a homeland Hebe, but I can't understand why they were plonked right down in the middle of Arab heartland - their sworn enemies. Because of so much backing from the superpowers, the whole state of Israel has created misery, not just for themselves, but for everyone else. Where was the original Jewish homeland? According to some - they never really had one and originally owned only 2% of real estate in Israel, prior to the Arab mandate. Is that enough of a claim to demand a whole state?

I pinched this off Ozpolitics and you can see why the Arabs are so angry. Place yourself in their situation.

[Hebe]

Of course the Jewish people are entitled to a homeland Hebe, but I can't understand why they were plonked right down in the middle of Arab heartland - their sworn enemies.

I didn't say it should be in Palestine, and they weren't "plonked" there - the Zionists chose it and the aliyahs preceded Zionism by many centuries.

While I sometimes find my support for Israel tested by their actions, I get a bit pissed off when the gains they made by war are criticised, when gains made by other countries in other wars have been accepted. That's history, red in tooth and claw as it were.

My main criticism of it now is that it's used by the west as a presence in the Middle East and it would fall over if not funded by the west - but I can't pretend to know the solution. Well, not an acceptable one anyway. (Personally I wish the Palestinians would just piss off to another Arab country, which they're surrounded by.)

Edit: My views are, a bit like cynik's, based on my experiences, as well as what I believed before I lived there for 5 months. I liked the Israelis and was well-treated by them, and was threatened at knifepoint by an Arab.