Israel-Palestine Moratorium

[Alyeska]

So you want to ban half the Senate.

[Stark]

If you're saying half the Senate would break the rules and engage in unacceptable behaviour requiring moderator attention in a thread regarding IvP, yes. What's so odd about that?

Are you saying the IvP moratorium exists to protect Senate members from their own inability to not break the rules? Like I said, we ban people for being rulebreaking irrational morons on OTHER topics; why not this one? And don't try to shift this onto what 'I want'; there are rules, and people break them. If you honestly believe half the Senate are irrational rule-breaking vendettopaths on the IvP topic, what the fuck are they doing here?

[Alyeska]

Stark. Mods have broken the rules when it came to IVP.

[Stark]

I wasn't aware of that. However, while I appreciate this is a difficult case rules-wise, if people can't control themselves and remain rational, they deserve what they get. That's the philosophy that drives SDN. I can argue either side of the IvP thing and not go nuts and break the rules; if someone else can't, they either get to ignore the topic or go through the discipline system. While I can see that this would be pretty difficult in the case of mods etc (particularly since more/heavier moderation is the answer I'm suggesting) I doubt the kind of firestorms we had back in the day would recur if people knew and understood that they'd get banned just like with any other issue.

Since I don't really care about this issue, my attitude is clearly different from that of others - but I think Spyder's idea that if people can't live up to the standards of debate here they don't belong here is sound. There are *plenty* of topics I avoid on SDN for reasons like this; either because I'm not sure I want to be posting emotionally or because I'm aware of the kind of discussion that happens in them (like any thread even peripherally related to guns or gun control, for instance).

[Mr Bean]

Correct me if I'm wrong but the original reason the IvP moratorium was put in place because there simply is no point. Let me play a little hypothetical with everyone here and then we can see the issue.

Today's hypothetical matchup will be between the Israel Jew and the Palestinian Muslim here-in referred to a J and M respectfully. (Please note do not respond to this or try to debate this here, this as an example match based on a discussion I once attended at a Duke University forum back in the 90s)

M:J you must give up that house, for it is my father's house where he lived all his life.

J:This is our land M and given to us by God, it is sad your father had to move but this was our land long ago.

M:And that was our land not long ago but just recently. We have spent hundreds of years living there, improving it. I have seen my fathers farm it is houses now.

J:We needed that land for the settlers from Europe after the end of the second world war. You could not expect us to remain in Europe could you?

M:What happen to your people under Hitler is a tragedy. But you do not understand, my father lived there all his life. He had Jewish neighbors even then. He was friends with many of them. It was not until your West friends forced him out that he stopped being a friend.

J:And it is sad, but it was necessary, we need a homeland.

M:Why OUR land, this was our homeland until you stole it

J:We have given you new land

M:New land which is a tenth the size and I notice you did not give us houses

J:We could not afford it, what with the wars.

M:Yes the wars, some of which were your own fault.

J:We had to defend ourselves

M:That is what you say about the wall, about the restrictions, you treat us like second class citizens at best.

J:And your government has pledged to finish the work Hitler started!

M:That is because for every one Jew Setteler who dies you kill ten Palestinians in retribution, sometimes twenty!

J:What else can we do, we have tried negotiations, you break every agreement

M:You offer us nothing!

J:We offer you your own homeland!

M:You offer us what we already and ask us to thank you for it.

J:We offer you peace, friendship and assitance

M:You offer us subservience, and your friendship is false. Will you offer recompense for my fathers lost farm or better yet give it back?

J:You know that is impossible

M:Which means you offer us nothing. We suffer indignity after indignity and say it is all for "safety"

J:It is for safety, where the checkpoints not there, were the guards not there, if we did not inspect every one to cross the line our country would have been like Iraq with bombs going off every other day.

M:Maybe they should for they go off on our land now from your Army.

J:Those are target killing of terrorist, we must do them to defend ourselves

M:How many terrorists were in that school? Or are you bombing future terrorists now?

J:It was an accident, you know that!

M:So you say! You say the same thing about the hospital last month.

J:How can we discuss this rationally when you say that all we say is false?

M:When have you ever trusted us?

J:When have you proven worthy of trust?

M:You see! Again it is our fault

J: You think it is ours? You know when those men strap on vests and come to kill Jews but you allow it, even cheer it on, celebrate it!

M:Because we will not give up, you will not crush our spirit.

J:Crush your spirit, we want no such thing.
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I'll cut it off there, but where exactly in sixty years of blood, violence, broken promises can we find room for discussion? The English forced the Palestinians out and the day they withdrew the entire ME tried to take our Israel and they have been fighting for their life ever since.

On one side you have extremist Zionists who want to purge the Palestinians from "Holy land" and would start by demolishing the Dome of the Rock so they can rebuild the Temple on the Mount. On the flip side you have Muslim cleric's who openly wish to finish the work of Hitler. In the middle and I do say middle you have the Nationalists who demand full right of return on the Palestinian side and the Israeli side they advocate pushing the Palestinians into Egypt/Jordan and Syria so the whole of the Holy land can be under Israeli control.

Where exactly is their room for discussion before it runs into the hard facts of sixty years of blood, unconventional warfare and occupation?

No the IvP moratorium is in place for a good damn reason. There's no point, at some point you throw up your hands and say both sides are at fault. At best you agree cooler heads need to come to the front, good like finding them.

[Stark]

While I can agree with the worthlessness of the finger-pointing, the IvP moratorium also hits up OTHER threads as well like ethics or history (generally by being hijacked into finger-pointing). Again, it's POSSIBLE to discuss IvP without the blame-game merry-go-round, and if people are disruptive and inappropriate they should be dealt with accordingly. I understand various threads over the years that have been IvP have been allowed to continue so long as everyone played nice, and that worked fine. Thus I don't think the problem is the topic, but the posters, and they can be dealt with or removed.

Note I don't really support a blanket lifting of this moratorium; it's certainly a complex board issue that deserves thought and management when/if it happens. I just don't think 'we'd have to ban some irrational morons' is a good reason to keep it.

[Mr Bean]

Let me reiterate. The standard of discussion work when you have at least two sides which want different things but aim towards the same goal. In the political side we can say both Republicans and Democrats want to say... grow the economy. Both sides have widely different methods of achieving that, and we can debate that. Or we can debate in the scientific method such as old standard Intelligent Design Vs Evolution and come to a conclusion based on standards of evidence and valid theories.


What can of discussion can you have when the topic is, "We want our homeland back/We Want to Keep our Homeland" and both sides claim the same spot. Do you think at the end of the agreement one side is going to give up and agree to move to Siberia to set up a new homeland? Or Agree to live in ghetto's in the shitty part of the country that used to be there? How can you have a discussion when both sides want the same exact same thing. And the way both of them got that thing was through force of arms.

Let me repeat that, Israel and Palestine both came into existence through war. Both sides took it away from the other and other people at some point. Debating the issue is about as useful as debating if the Canarsies Native American's should be given back Brooklin since their descendants once owned it.

[Stark]

So you support the moratorium because you don't see the value in the discussion? Is that your position?

[Alyeska]

Everyone's position is well stated Stark. Nothing has changed.

[Mr Bean]

So you support the moratorium because you don't see the value in the discussion? Is that your position?

That is my position. No meaningful discussion can be made of the Israeli/Palestinian situation, and I'll toss in my agreement as a Mod before the IvP moratorium that it is such a sacred cow of people it will lead sooner later to serious frothing at the mouth style from otherwise good and nice people on this forum. And it was never the person I thought it would be before we started those discussions.

However if said people get banned, that's on them. My main issue as I will repeat again is that IvP is a guaranteed failure topic. It's one of the tiny few in existence. We can debate the Native American mistreatment in America because for the large part it's theoretical and historical it's not ongoing and on every news network. How can you have a discussion on the history of the IvP conflict without discussion what's going on RIGHT NOW?

No you'll find me a form supporter of the IvP moratorium until the conflict there is gone and done with one side the winner.

[Spyder]

So you support the moratorium because you don't see the value in the discussion? Is that your position?

That is my position. No meaningful discussion can be made of the Israeli/Palestinian situation, and I'll toss in my agreement as a Mod before the IvP moratorium that it is such a sacred cow of people it will lead sooner later to serious frothing at the mouth style from otherwise good and nice people on this forum. And it was never the person I thought it would be before we started those discussions.

People that are truely good and nice will pride themselves on having a good and nice reputation. Sometimes our rep takes a hit and we have to look back and see where we went wrong. This could be a good test of character.

However if said people get banned, that's on them. My main issue as I will repeat again is that IvP is a guaranteed failure topic. It's one of the tiny few in existence. We can debate the Native American mistreatment in America because for the large part it's theoretical and historical it's not ongoing and on every news network. How can you have a discussion on the history of the IvP conflict without discussion what's going on RIGHT NOW?

Going the other way would be difficult, discussing the current conflict without looking at the history. Discussing history without current events shouldn't be hard at all, people that have a vested interest in a history of the conflict thread just need to keep an eye out for talk on events after a certain date and use the report button.

[Mr Bean]

Going the other way would be difficult, discussing the current conflict without looking at the history. Discussing history without current events shouldn't be hard at all, people that have a vested interest in a history of the conflict thread just need to keep an eye out for talk on events after a certain date and use the report button.

You can't discuss the present with discussion on the past. Leaving out the past in a situation which I repeat has a sixty year history of blood and broken promises would be like discussion of who's going to the Superbowl next year but your not allowed to site any teams stats or win-loss record or even team makeup reducing the debate to "because I said so".

[Spyder]

Going the other way would be difficult, discussing the current conflict without looking at the history. Discussing history without current events shouldn't be hard at all, people that have a vested interest in a history of the conflict thread just need to keep an eye out for talk on events after a certain date and use the report button.

You can't discuss the present with discussion on the past.

Was that meant to be 'without'? Tying discussion of the past into a discussion on present events isn't difficult.

Leaving out the past in a situation which I repeat has a sixty year history of blood and broken promises would be like discussion of who's going to the Superbowl next year but your not allowed to site any teams stats or win-loss record or even team makeup reducing the debate to "because I said so".

Isn't that what I just said?

You said "How can you have a discussion on the history of the IvP conflict without discussion what's going on RIGHT NOW?" which sounds like you're concerned about people trying to talk about current events where they're trying to talk about the history.

Then I said discussing the current conflict without looking at the history would be difficult.

Then you said "Leaving out the past in a situation which I repeat has a sixty year history of blood and broken promises would be like discussion of who's going to the Superbowl next year but your not allowed to site any teams stats or win-loss record or even team makeup reducing the debate to "because I said so"." ...which seems to agree with me.

[Simplicius]

I chucked this in the Commons thread:

The moratorium - taken together with the presence of the debating rules, and Darth Wong's statements back when we were discussing being more civil to each other - seems more likely to be in place to avoid unproductive and bad debating, not incivility or hurt feelings. The IvP flame-fests would just be icing on the shit cake, demanding a lot of moderator attention and work for a totally unproductive result.

As far as I and my advisory vote are concerned, lifting the general moratorium requires a convincing argument that IvP debates would generate productive results, whether they were civil or not.

Also:

I'd be fine with lifting the moratorium but if and only if a shitstorm was unlikely, or if the debate was going to be so productive that the shitstorm would be worth it. Since I don't think either of these are the case, actual IvP debates should be restricted to the Coliseum, where in-depth, focused debate is easier, and without a commentary thread, to keep the noise down. If such a debate turns out to give the board an informed, authoritative base for future discussion, then it would be worth discussing lifting the ban.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Well, there are a lot of new people who might debate it; I ceased caring about the issue maybe two years ago, so it's just not relevant to me anymore, and I'd avoid threads involving it like the plague if it was ever restored as a debating topic to the board. Nothing healthy could possibly come out of IvP returning, but then again that doesn't necessarily mean, I admit, that we should ban the discussion.