Ok, Here's The Real Analogy

[ruggerson]

You've been living in your house for ten years.

Your neighbours across the street can be quiet for months at a time, but they occasionally toss a grenade across the street into your house, killing and maiming your aunt, your cousin, your friend visiting from New Jersey. Occasionally, your neighbour sends a small child from their family across the street, who explodes on your front doorstep, raining nails everywhere killing whomever happens to be nearby.

After ten years, lots of negotiating, and lots of bloodshed, you finally gather up what's left of your family and you storm across the street and start destroying your neighbours house so that, when the job is finished, you can finally live like a human being without the constant threat of terror.

Does anyone in their right mind really blame you for finally taking the fuckers out?

[mmonk]

1. Not a good analogy.

Completely one sided.

[ruggerson]

2. Yes you're right

one sided on the side of reality, instead of this trendy Palestinian spew I see here on a daily basis.

[everythingsxen]

5. Palestinian spew is an inaccurate term...

I prefer the term "Hezbollah talking points".

[ruggerson]

6. Forgive me

how about "exploding child apologists"

[everythingsxen]

11. "Rocket enthusiasts"

:nuke:

[mmonk]

7. You're actually with the trend

of a saintly sinless side being attack by a despicable violent lowly side until they've had enough and finally act. The propaganda only side devoid of the balance of reality.

[Random_Australian]

22. That is about right. Anyone who thinks there is a good vs. evil war

going on, who ignores either the actions of the terrorists or the oppression of palestinians, is not exactly conducive to making the situation better.

And yes, someone will probably yell & scream for my poor choice of words. meh.

[yurbud]

9. Are the Israelis justified in displacing the Palestinians the way we did

the Indians?

That is what they are doing, no more, no less. Sometimes they make treaties that they might even intend to abide by, but they encroach on their land little by little, and when the Palestinians fight back, Israel ignores why they might be fighting, and kills ten times as many of them as they might have killed of Israelis. Ironically, like us and the Indians, the Israelis have the overwhelming military technology and firepower edge, but insist on claiming the natives are a threat because they aren't dying or fleeing quietly enough.

[everythingsxen]

3. You forgot something...

Don't forget that every time the neighbors lob a grenade or send a bomb-kid across the street, you call the cops, who show up, write you a ticket for having your car parked illegally and hug your neighbors, then leave.

[yurbud]

4. you have been living in your house for years, and one morning...

someone is sitting in your living room. You ask him what he is doing, and he says he is just enjoying his new house. You call the police. they kick YOU out. You now live in a tool shed in the alley. Sometimes you get so frustrated, you throw flower pots at your old house. Without prompting from you, your kids are tempted to do worse.

One morning, you wake up, and someone is sitting in your toolshed. You ask him what he is doing, and he says he is enjoying his new toolshed. You punch him. He calls his friends and they kill your whole family.

[uppityperson]

10. I like this analogy.

the situation totally sucks

[SoCalDem]

8. You forgot the part where the house you live in used to belong to the

neighbors across the street, before the guys on the city council said..MOVE and let your family move in.
It appears that the neighbors owned the whole block before they were pushed to one side.

You have lots of running water, and they have to ration theirs. The city council gave you sophisticated surveillance gear and weapons, and always answer the phone when you call.. The neighbors don;t have a phone. They resent the fact that you are living when they used to live, and would like for you to give them back their land.

[ruggerson]

12. Oh, yes, I forgot about that meme

the "it's our land first" meme. Well who was run out of their land thousands of years ago after being used as slaves for generations by the people you're oh so sympathetic to?

Or don't we go that far back in the "it's our land first" game?

[SoCalDem]

19. 1948 was less than 60 years ago.. we celebrate an event

every year..with reverence... for an event that happened 230 years ago..

To the people who "lost" their land less than 60 years ago, it's an open sore.. ..the scab gets picked regularly, so the wound never heals.. and it will take a lot of time if the scab gets left alone...more than 60 years

[ruggerson]

24. Oh I see

There's a time limit to the "It's our land first" game. Forgive me. I didn't know the rules.

[yurbud]

26. 60 vs. 2000? at very least, you should be able to see why Palestinians

won't let it go.

[SoCalDem]

27. I guess we should check Adam & Eve's last will and testament?

anyway.. I'm off to watch Tavis.. have a Kitty

[yurbud]

23. How long can you be gone and still have a claim?

I have nothing against Jews immigrating wherever they want. In fact, I think everyone would have been better off if they just came here to the US.

But taking homes and land that are already inhabited is wrong.

[yurbud]

30. Another timeline hypocrisy like Old South and blacks...

Black people are supposed to forget Jim Crow, which ended about 40 odd years ago, but white racists can still piss and moan about losing the Civil War a hundred years before that.

The game is our wounds count and yours don't.

Or more precisely, we want your shit, and therefore don't care about any wounds inflicted in the course of taking it.

Not all Israelis feel that way, and not all support what Israel has done and is doing to the Palestinians, but you wouldn't know it from the way the issue is covered by the MSM and right wing media here.

[Wonk]

13. biased one sided flamebait

:popcorn:

[ruggerson]

16. Can't have a definite opinion on this one eh?

It's just. not. pc.

[mmonk]

14. Here we go again.

See what hate does? An endless tit for tat thread.

[cynatnite]

15. And if I was claiming part of their yard as mine...

moving in family and friends to live there because I know my neighbor is weaker I shouldn't be surprised that they are pissed.

If I continued to occupy their land, take out a few of their kids who were probably just playing football I still shouldn't be surprised that they fight back in a way they view as equal.

Problem now is, everybody is so goddamn blind they don't care who they kill now.

[NashVegas]

17. There's a Little More To It Than That

"You've been living in your house for ten years."

You been living in the house that you gained by squatting in the neighborhood, and used terrorism and emotional blackmail against the local constabularies to help motivate them to allow you to keep it.

At one point, several of your neighbors ganged up against you and you, with weapons sold to you by the constabularies and a military trained by the constabularies, kicked all of their asses until the constabularies pulled you off, and you took a little more of their land as part of your booty.

"Your neighbours across the street can be quiet for months at a time, but they occasionally toss a grenade across the street into your house, killing and maiming your aunt, your cousin, your friend visiting from New Jersey. Occasionally, your neighbour sends a small child from their family across the street, who explodes on your front doorstep, raining nails everywhere killing whomever happens to be nearby."

Your neighbors across the street, whose water supply you diverted and eventually gained control over, yeah, they're a pain in the ass for some reason.

"you can finally live like a human being without the constant threat of terror.

Does anyone in their right mind really blame you for finally taking the fuckers out?"

Odds are more than likely you'll still be living with terror once this latest skirmish is over.


I don't mind that you're having the skirmish, frankly, but I don't think it's going to resolve very much.

See, your neighbors' rich relatives further down the street, they're riding a gravy train they don't want to stop. But those damn peasants, they don't get no gravy, so they don't really care. So they're going to keep coming, IMO.

[ruggerson]

18. How do you get squatting

when they were there originally? And actually used as human slaves by the neighbours? And then banished in a "diaspora" to far away neighborhoods and ghettoes for many generations?

Who's squatting who, homey?

[yurbud]

20. You are sitting in your house, and some Indians from South America

come to your door with the sheriff, and say they are reclaiming their ancestors' land that they occupied a couple of thousand years ago. You are not offered compensation for your house, but the Indians say there are plenty of other places for Anglos to live like maybe Europe--why don't you go to Europe? If Europe doesn't take you that is not the Indians problem. If you now have no money to start over and live off the Indians garbage or even try to break back into your old house, the Indian shoots your dog, your wife, and your baby.

He also says your violent behavior shows you didn't deserve to have a house in the first place.

[The Stranger]

21. That is asinine.

Is this supposed to be serious, or some Owen Wilson movie?

[yurbud]

25. It's the Owen Wilson defense of Israel...

a guy breaks into your house, rummages around in the fridge, complains that you don't have tomatoes, and when you ask him to leave he shoots you.

You, Me, and Israeli

[cynatnite]

28. I shouldn't laugh...

:rofl:

[uppityperson]

31. now that is good

:rofl:

[yurbud]

29. Your analogy also sounds a lot like the Southern defense of Jim Crow

'Our coloreds can be peaceful fur decades at a time, but every once in a while they git a wild hare to vote or sum sich, and we gotta string a few up to teach 'em what's what, if you git my meaning...'

[Jim__]

32. Yeah, the "real" analogy

Your neighbours across the street can be quiet for months at a time, but they occasionally toss a grenade across the street into your house ...

From another thread on DU a cite from an article:

Let’s go on a brief excursion into pre-history. I’m talking about June 20, 2006, when Israeli aircraft fired at least one missile at a car in an attempted extrajudicial assassination attempt on a road between Jabalya and Gaza City. The missile missed the car. Instead it killed three Palestinian children and wounded 15.

Back we go again to June 13, 2006. Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a van in another attempted extrajudicial assassination. The successive barrages killed nine innocent Palestinians.

Now we’re really in the dark ages, reaching far, far back to June 9, 2006, when Israel shelled a beach in Beit Lahiya killing 8 civilians and injuring 32.

That’s just a brief trip down Memory Lane, and we trip over the bodies of twenty dead and forty-seven wounded, all of them Palestinians, most of them women and children.

Your neighbours across the street can be quiet for months at a time, but they occasionally toss a grenade across the street into your house ...

So, the neighbors who occasionally just kill some innocents deserve to die?

[greguganus]

33. This land is my land....

republican version:

This land is my land, this land ain't your land
I gotta shotgun, and you don't got one
If you don't get off, I'll blow your head off
This land was made for me, not you.

anti-imperialist version:

This land is my land, and only my land
And I just take land if I can’t buy land
And if I spy land, well, then it’s my land.
This land was made for only me.

native american version:

This land is your land, it once was my land,
Before I sold you Manhattan Island;
You banished my nation, to the reservation,
This land was stolen by you from me.

anarchist version:

If this is our land, You'd never know it,
So take your bullshit, and kindly stow it,
Let's get together, and overthrow it,
Then this land will be for you and me.

[cynatnite]

34. The anarchist version sings pretty damn good n/t

[OneBlueSky]

35. all this, of course, many years after the neighbors has been forced .. .

by those in power to evacuate the house so that you -- a complete stranger -- could live in it . . .

[caduceus111]

36. Analogy? More like a fairy tale.

You want analogies...here's one for you.

You live in a house next to a large apartment building. Every once in a while, the neigbor in B12 tosses sticks of dynamite onto your property. When he's really annoyed, he pulls out his rifle and pops a family member of yours. The belligerent neigbor has a few supporters in the building, but the majority that live there can't stand the guy, but put up with him out of fear or weakness.

In "retaliation", you decide to lay seige the entire apartment complex, to punish not only Mr. Belligerent Neighbor, but also those residing in the building for not keeping your neighbor in check.

You barracade the main entrance to the apartment. Then you block all the fire exits. You cut the wires to the power entering the complex, and you break the water main. You kill the milkman and the pizza delivery guy that deliver goods to the apartment, and then bomb the local grocery store and fire department. Then, you systematically destroy the building with a boom crane. You bar the ambulances and aid crew from coming to help. No matter that there are dozens of other families that have no beef with you, or just want to live their lives without any trouble. They're all cannon fodder. And you threaten the neighboring apartment buildings that if they get involved, they will get a taste of "whoop ass" too.

Once you've reduced the neighborhood to rubble, you claim the side of the apartment's property nearest your house to be your own, and send in your family members to occupy your new "buffer zone", just for good measure. Good thing you have a big family. No matter that the guy in B11 was a peaceful guy, and the family in B13 were God-fearing, peaceful stand-up Christians. You're defending yourself, by God, and as long as it's "mission accomplished", collateral damage is just a trivial matter for God to sort out later. As long as you get the bad eggs, the result is all good.


What's happening in Lebanon is tragic. I've seen the lights of Beirut, the ruins at Baalbeck and Anjar, the cedars, and most importantly, the generous, hospitable people of Lebanon, with my own eyes. My in-laws live there, like the family in B13. They barely escaped to Syria with their lives, with the roads bombed in all directions. They hate Hiz'bollah and have no personal quarrel with Israel. Their less fortunate friends, those without the resources to leave are left behind, wondering if it's their last day, or whether they'll suffer a worse fate of starvation or disease.

No one's condoning the actions of Hiz'bollah. There's no doubt they are evil. Anyone who targets innocent civilians is, by definition, pure evil. But the actions of Israel are no less evil. In their recent activities, they've decimated an entire country's infrastructure, resources, economy, and lifeblood, all for exacting revenge on a bad (and much weaker) player in the neighborhood.

=caduceus=

[Ignoramus]

37. The 2 houses analogy doesn't work of course

Because populations are much larger than houses. Populations don't have a uniform relationship between it's members, involving trust. Populations have complex relationships among each other including criminals and different sub-cultures etc.

A better analogy is 1 city. You live in a wealthy area of a city for 10 years, and some gang is in a poorer area a city and has battles with a gang in your area of the city, often involving killing of by standers. A tit for tat goes on leading to escalating violence.

The police get involved, with the community surrounding the gang in the poorer area often being unfairly harassed and increasingly resentful of the police, even though the larger community's relationship to the gang is not at all clear. Some have friends who are in the gang, but don't identify with the gang. Some have relatives who are in the gang, but are not happy about it. etc.

The gang in the poor area is not the bad guys. The gang in the richer area is not the good guys. The people varying relationships with each other are not good or bad guys.

At some point tension breaks and members of the gang in the poorer area make a spectacular display of violence, The tv shows the violence and the echo machine accompanies militarized police rushing in an extremely disproportionate response killing people and destroying houses. People are outraged. In the poorer area the grieving families cry foul. Anyone sympathizing with their grief and opposing the violence of the gang and the police are labeled as gang supporters.

The result of course is seething hatred among the community surrounding the gang in the poorer area, with an inevitable recurrence waiting to happen yet again.

[The Magistrate]

38. Locking

Flame-Bait.