Submitting from phone.
Soda Stream maker, with Gas cylinder, 4 bottles and 2 syrups for $39.50. Amazing price considering to buy a gas cylinder alone is $45. Had about 15 in Big W Penrith, assuming its everywhere if they also have stock.
Let's keep the discussion on-topic about the Sodastream product sold at Big W (e.g. this deal) and not make this a political discussion.
Well, you're supporting an Israeli company that employs Palestinians..
Pretty sure that's not quite the same as what you wrote..
I have no problems with Israel,
But Sodastream are actually in the West Bank itself, occupied territory.
In regards to employment, not much choice for an underclass
You know they could just move those jobs to China, but they are actually employing Palestinians at a decent wage and it's supporting a lot of families.
Hilarious that people would boycott a business that is promoting a peaceful and fruitful relationship between one of the few civil arrangements that promotes side-by-side living.
@mrkorrupt
What rot. The Israelis, whose policies may be misguided to say the least, are not terrorists. They are reacting to terrorism. Why try to twist things to suit your opinion?
There are two sides to every story and when you take one side, you become part of the problem.
Hilarious that people would boycott a business that is promoting a peaceful and fruitful relationship between one of the few civil arrangements that promotes side-by-side living.
@c0balt: exactly
If China were to annex part of northern Australia, but open a factory and provide jobs for the locals, I'd still be a bit miffed.
If Israelis want to employ Palestinians, let them do so legally and pay revenues to the Palestinian Authority rather than simply steal Palestinian land.
Sodastream is a company, not a government. Unless they invent a time machine and change the course of events since 1948 then they can't really do what you want them to do. If they help the Palestinian people by providing jobs then they help the people, it's that simple.
"Hell yeah, I'm happy. We're like family. We have fun,'' said Mohammed Yousef, 22, from the Palestinian village of Jaba. "We are Jews and Muslims here. We are here peacefully. We have no problems. Everyone is complaining about settlements here and everywhere, but SodaStream is different.''
The workers here say they take home about $1,200 monthly–anywhere from double to triple common wages in the territories. The company also provides pensions and some medical insurance."
http://gawker.com/what-sodastreams-palestinian-employees-thi…
To your China example.
Well if we declared war against China multiple times and got our regional allies to also join the fight multiple times, only to be beaten back, then I could understand if once they beat us back that China would want to occupy a part of Australia so we didn't launch missiles after the cease-fires to ensure security for their citizens.
@c0balt: A decent wage? LOL, they are slaves.
I support neither side. They are both lunatics blinded by stupid religious BS.
Religion has a lot to answer for.
Do you have a source for that? Can you find a single source that says SodaSteam pays less than any other business in the West Bank?
I couldn't. I tried. I find heaps of articles with rhetoric against Sodastrean for being in the West Bank, but nothing with a single source saying that their treatment and pay isn't actually one of the best in the area.
I don't think you understand what a slave is. Maybe you should look into the treatment of overseas workers in Qatar to gain a better understanding of what a slave is.
@c0balt: Oh I know about the Bangladeshi's etc in Saudi and Qatar etc. I think I read an article claiming that pro Israeli/Sodastream statement by the Palestinian was a set up.
If I can find it I will sure post it.
As I said, that section of the world is a basket case. Religion is the root cause.
Pretty much anything anti Israel gets hidden or removed, downvoted on reddit by swarms or removed by corrupt mods who don't want any "real news" getting out.
It's hard to make a stance on this product then buy some name brand shoes online. The Israelis are dooing the same thing a lot of people are doing, only they are more active in hiding it.
Well Gawker has been pretty decent source (even though it's a tabloid/blog) that doesn't really take anyones sides. It actually might be a little left leaning overall and therefor should be more critical of Israel than other sources.
If you could find some trusted sources then that would be great.
Religion isn't the root cause. People are the root cause. If it wasn't religion it would be something else.
Remember when you buy Soda Stream it's delicious and extra fizzy
Is that the other way around?
I'm getting myself a SodaStream.
(Moved)
As opposed to the terrorism by Hamas, who just killed 20 palestinians for protesting against Hamas. This is a great deal. The syrups are worth $7 each and the 1 lites bottles are around $10. Add the cost of a cyclinder and we have here a bargain.
You know, my brain filtered out the political content in your post and instead saw it as a joke about Jews inventing a machine to save on buying sodawater.
good on you. Sodastream is built on stolen land.
Israel is a light inside a middle east of darkness!
There is plenty of info out there on the net to educate yourselves about Israel. Try something unbiased. This is pretty relevant now.
but it's ok to benefit from cheap Chinese made electronics at any human or enviromental cost?
Is this a printer-ink type deal where the cylinder that comes with the new one only has enough gas for you to pump a few drinks then need to replace anyway?
I need a new cylinder, but don't want to be caught flat footed.
(On the other hand, if the cylinder comes from the service desk and is full rather than being in the box, this is a great deal to resell the box on eBay and keep the cylinder!)
Was thinking the same… What is the cost of a refill/full cylinder anyway?
Edit: Could look into this if you use it a lot - http://co2doctor.com/australi.htm
This is what I have, have posted it before. A 6kg CO2 refill costs me $20.
Here is the original post if you want more details about using regular CO2 tanks.
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/144992#comment-1999206
AFAIK these ones come with a 40l cylinder. When I got mine a couple of months back there was a note stating that the packages might contain a 40l rather than 60l as advertised and so the price was reduced. I went through a few boxes to check the bottle and they were all 40l.
Great deal anyway considering the price of bottles and the gas cylinder.
I took the empty 40L bottles to BigW and they let you upgrade them to 60L anyway - you just pay the 60L refill price.
It works out to be approximately 35c/litre worth of Soda water
Beware, not sure what size the gas canister is in this offer, but they seem to be phasing the 40L ones out in favour of the 60L - such that it gets much more difficult to actual get the exchange refills for the 40L.
Worth checking which size is included - as the op says, buying a totally new cylinder isn't cheap.
When this 40L canister runs out, they (whatever store you end up in) will happily swap the 40L for the new 60L ones. You just pay the difference in the cost - I remember it to be a ~$4-5 difference.
If SodaStream was profiting from blood diamonds, it would be universally condemned and boycotted. But SodaStream does NOT profit from blood diamonds …it profits from "blood bubbles" [1].
SodaStream profits from the exploitation of an occupied, impoverished and captive labour force in an illegal settlement on stolen Palestinian land. Here's what Oxfam, the international aid and social justice organisation, recently said about SodaStream:
"Oxfam believes that businesses, such as SodaStream, that operate in settlements, further the ongoing poverty and denial of rights of the Palestinian communities that we work to support."
"Oxfam is opposed to all trade from Israeli settlements, which are illegal under international law."
http://www.smh.com.au/world/scarlett-johansson-quits-oxfam-o…
Furthermore, here's what Human Rights Watch (HRW), the international human rights organisation, had to say about SodaStream:
"The very existence of (Israeli settlements) amounts to a serious violation of international law," the New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Wednesday.
"It is impossible to ignore the Israeli system of unlawful discrimination, land confiscation, natural resource theft, and forced displacement of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, where SodaStream is located," the rights group added.
http://forward.com/articles/191861/scarlett-johansson-cuts-t…
[1] SodaStream: Guilt-Free Seltzer or Blood Bubbles?
http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/01/sodastream-guilt-free-seltze…
Problem is if it wasn't there, it'd be in some place in a China sweatshop factory. That's the way the world is going. Ultimately, it's because we want everything cheap and corporations (and their fatcats) are greedy.
""Hell yeah, I'm happy. We're like family. We have fun,'' said Mohammed Yousef, 22, from the Palestinian village of Jaba. "We are Jews and Muslims here. We are here peacefully. We have no problems. Everyone is complaining about settlements here and everywhere, but SodaStream is different.''
The workers here say they take home about $1,200 monthly–anywhere from double to triple common wages in the territories. The company also provides pensions and some medical insurance."
http://gawker.com/what-sodastreams-palestinian-employees-thi…
Here's what other Palestinians had to say about SodaStream:
"Settlements and occupation will never lead to peace," the head of the Palestinian Workers Union, Shaher Saad, told Reuters. "I support a boycott that will lead to these lands and means of economic growth returning to Palestinian ownership."
One mid-level Palestinian employee who spoke to Reuters outside the plant, away from the bosses, painted a far less perfect picture, however. "There's a lot of racism here," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Most of the managers are Israeli, and West Bank employees feel they can't ask for pay rises or more benefits because they can be fired and easily replaced."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/29/us-israel-palestin…
They can't ask for a pay rise because they feel they would be easily replaced.
Yeah, so does half the workers of the Western world. Me included.
I would drink from her Scarlett Johansson's SodaStream machine anyday.
I love the taste of blood bubbles in the morning.
Blood bubbles. Sounds like the vampire equivalent to alcopop! I guess they start of with blood bubbles and then move onto the 'Dracula's teabags' when their palate matures.
'Dracula's teabags'
Also fun for those into blood sports!
I think, based on the writing at the bottom left hand side of the box, it's the Jet Titan, which does take a 60l cylinder (if the pic on soda stream's site is anything to go by).
http://www.sodastream.com.au/auretail/productmoreinfo.asp?ca…
If they are phasing out the 40l in favour of the 60l will this dispenser be able to take the 60l cylinder?
yes. All sodastream units take the 60l Cylinder to the best of my knowledge
looks the same as the one I have and it takes the 60L
Anyone seen this price in Brisbane ?
For those that have a Soda Stream, what are the positives and negatives of owning it?
I've owned 1 for a few months now. Its slightly more healthy then regular softdrink (but in no way healthy at all), its slightly cheaper around 50c a litre & I really like the taste of some of the flavours. All I need to do is keep the 1L tubs in the fridge and I can pick what flavour I like at the time. Down sides is that things like cola are terrible & I find I do drink more softdrink in general
Positives -
Soda water on tap to use with cordial, lemon/lime juice or whatever you like.
Fair selection of flavours and some reasonable sugar-free ones. Most are quite good.
Carbonated Vodka (may void warranty and cause loss of balance and eventually, consciousness)
Carbonated Wine (turn all that bargain white Chateau deCardboard into instant sparkly sham-pain.)
Negatives -
Terrible cola.
Expensive to run. This can be offset by getting a separate CO2 keg and adapter.
Hangovers and diabetes from all the softdrinks and grog.
Really terrible cola. Just don't.
That's assuming you're happy with the CO2 provided to make that 1L .. And 30c just for fizzy water does seem a tad on the expensive side - you can regularly get cheap soft drinks at WW/Coles (~ 70c/1.25L), don't have to worry about how much gas is left in the SodaStream or anything else.
20 bucks for 60 litres of gas which means 30cents for a 1 litre of fizzy drink
Let's crunch some numbers… :-)
A 6kg tank and adapter will set you back $350. Which is a fair chunk of change.
Compare to a 400g(60 litre)Sodastream cylinder for $20, which is cheap.
6kg is 15 refills. Or $300 dollars worth of sodastreams, minus the hassle of nipping down the shops. So the tiny cylinders are ahead right now…
…until I refill the tank. The most convenient is a swap-and-go for $50, but you can save on that too by getting refills elsewhere. Anyway, we'll go with the $50 for now. That's another 15 Sodastreams.
Total cost to date - $400 for the tank, the kit and one refill. Or $600 for 30 swaps. Saving a couple hundred bucks and not a small amount of headache from not hanging around in BigW.
At a bottle or two of soda a day, a 6kg tank will last round about a year, or so I'm told. I could do some more maths about carbonation pressure, ambient temperatures and average consumption to see more precisely, if you like. But a year is convenient. So if you plan on owning a Sodastream for more than 18 months, get a bigger CO2 tank and save.
OzBargain4Life. :D
Carbonated Wine (turn all that bargain white Chateau deCardboard into instant sparkly sham-pain.)
It actually works best with the cheap, tasteless whites that you pick up as clearskins. The bubbles change the taste, enhancing the flavour, so you don't want anything that doesn't start out bland.
Not going to fool anyone who knows what real champagne is like, but for most people it does a reasonable job (as Heston noted) - ideal for those people who insist on adulterating it (or downing it like water).
Why have I NEVER tried this in all the years of owning a machine?!?
MANY MANY thank you's :)
I personally do not own one ( yet ), but have been thinking for some time of the benefits of these. I am surprised that no one has mentioned the environmental benefits of saving plastic ( as well as food miles ). Also handy for the people who have to climb many stairs to get bottles from supermarket to the fridge. Worse still for people with disabilities or the elderly/not so strong, which saves a lot of carting.
The other benefit over soft drinks ( although you can do this with any mineral or soda water ), is to add your own choice of juice or cordial, making it more tasty and maybe a lot less sugary. I find most soft drinks way too sweet, so like to add some fresh/bought juice, cordial, sometimes even some white wine, or red wine with grape juice to end up with a light Sangria/sparkling red/pink refreshing drink. I used to work as a Sommelier at a top restaurant/winery resort and have drunk most of the worlds best wines, but as you can see, never turned into a wine snob. Drink to enjoy.
Heston Blumenthal uses one to turn cheap white wine (Blue Nun) into 'champagne' YMMV ;-)
PROS
It's great for alcoholic mixes :) My favourite drink is:
a. Make up some Xstream/Energy soda (I usually use half a cap-full which is sweet enough)
b. Put ice, vodka, half a lime juice and energy soda mix in a glass.
c. (optional) when strawberries are cheap i freeze them, and then i muddle a few into the drink before adding the soda
I really like drinking carbonated water when I feel a little bored of plain water.
If you like flavoured soda but not too sweet you can put only a small amount of the syrup in.
The bottles actually seal really well and keep the carbonation for a long time
CONS
You have to make up the full bottle size. In my case the minimum seems to be 1 Litre.
Is carbonation good for you? I don't know.
I have read somewhere that drinking carbonated drinks ( even with 100% no additives ), ( depending on amounts you drink and variations in human bodies make up ) is not so healthy because it can cause damage somehow to your stomach lining ( if I remember correctly ). In summer when it's hot, I love and sometimes even crave a fizzy drink, so I limit them to two to three a day with water in between.
Carbon dioxide + water = H2C03 otherwise known as Carbonic Acid. I don't know about you but I don't want acid in my stomach!
I don't want acid in my stomach!
I think you're going to be quite disappointed when you find out how food is digested!
Their syrups have sugar and artificial sweetener together.. not just one or the other like coke and diet coke.
I find the straight soda water proves effective when the stomach is feeling a bit queezy. It's also great for blasting a bit of air on an unsuspecting wife to get her moving.
positive is it is great! Love it and the flavours are nice too. Country style lemonade is the best from what I have had.
The negative, I just cant be bothered getting a new gas cylinder after it ran out haha ~$40 or so each time.
However it mostly plain soda water for me as well that I drink.
Isn't soft drink pretty cheap anyway?
Also you really shouldn't be drinking a lot of it unless you want numerous health problems.
Maybe if Israel had the balls to fight actual soldiers then at that point we may distinguish what war on terror really is. However it seems they are targeting children and women and keep making senseless excuses. There is no excuse for murdering children and women. Israel are the terrorist as it appears.
Actual soldiers?
The best Hamas can produce are the guys in balaclavas shouting "Allahu Ackbar" as they hide behind human shields when they launch rockets from schools and hospitals. Geneva convention prohibits militias from using either human shields or stuctures such as schools and hospitals for storing munitions, let alone firing them from there.
So no wonder so many civilians die. Maybe if Hamas could produce actual soldiers instead of terrorists, then Israel could fight them and not produce the loss to civilian life that it has to absorb to carry out it's mission of security for its populace.
But Israel has a first rate military. They smashed Egypt, Jordan, Syria and others on multiple occasions even when the odds were 10:1, so the guys in balaclavas are all that's left.
had the balls to fight actual soldiers
it seems they are targeting children and women and keep making senseless excuses
The current situation is horrible. But it isn't one that can be solved so simply, and this doesn't seem like a straight out war between uniformed parties on both sides.
The WP has a very illuminating piece on an aspect of the conflict that isn't getting much coverage in Australia.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/31…
It doesn't excuse Israel for what they're doing, but I think it highlights that everyone is doing some pretty awful things and highlights how dreadful the conflict really is.
There is no excuse for murdering children and women.
Totally agree with you here. I'm incredibly disheartened by what both sides (Israel included) are doing to each others' civilians. It needs to stop.
Back to the immediate discussion at hand, I think that companies like SodaStream have recognised that a lasting peace deal might come round quicker if businesses and companies take the initiative themselves rather then waiting for their respective governments to nut the seemingly intractable details out. It kind of reminds me of the philanthropists who paid tens of millions to get Israeli firms to leave their greenhouses in Gaza when they withdrew in '05, in the hope they might foster economic prosperity.
Finally, thanks to the OP for sharing a decent bargain.
Consumers have the right to be informed about dubious businesses profiting from theft, human exploitation and misery (including sweatshop conditions, war profiteering, land and resource theft, etc).
Once informed, consumers can make up their own minds on whether to purchase a product or not.
You buy goods Made in India don't you?
STOP BEING A HYPOCRITE
There's a huge difference between people being exploited in their own country with equal rights and people who are being occupied by a foreign force, removing their right to self determination and then having the occupying force build a factory there, and using their water and resources for their factory, then providing no opportunity to them except to work and live as staff in the factory of their oppressors.
Not to mention the myriad of other issues the occupation creates for them.
What about every item you own in your house that's made in China? What about that 93 electronic item you bought on eBay? How little are they paying their employees to make money on that?
Made in china is pretty concionable from what I've heard. The govt has implemented $1 minimum per hour for sweatshop industries, with safe working conditions. Made in China is fine.
SodaStream is the exact opposite of everything you mentioned.
"SodaStream is the exact opposite of everything you mentioned" ~ The Land of Smeg
Readers can decide: The Land of Smeg -vs- Oxfam and Human Rights Watch…
@1bug: Oxfam took issue with SodaStream only due to the fact that the factory is located in the West Bank and it is an Israeli company, not about working conditions or where the profits go. It is not a state-owned enterprise so the profits go to the workers and the shareholders.
@The Land of Smeg:
Spot on mate.
Akin to saying let's hate all Afghani's because they must be terrorists… so very uneducated and sad.
Every Apple product is made in sweatshops, but for some reason, nobody is complaining about that. The SodaStream factory is a typical example of joined labor by Israeli-Jews and Palestinian-Muslims. By boycotting this company, you'll might sleep well at night, but you're not helping anyone but yourself, since these workers will be fired.
The way to create Palestinian jobs is to end the illegal Israeli occupation – not to build factories & settlements on other people's land without their permission
"It is disingenuous to romanticise settlement enterprises. The occupation imprisons thousands of the Palestinians' young men, gives their land and water to settlers, demolishes their houses and partitions the remaining territory with scores of checkpoints and segregated roads. There are almost no basic foundations for an economy. The way to create Palestinian jobs is to end the occupation and let Palestinians build those foundations – not to build "bridges to peace" on other people's land without their permission." ~ Financial Times Editorial
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:AyTW3l3…
@1bug: SodaStream seams to have created plenty of Palestinian jobs.
@The Land of Smeg,
Apartheid South Africa employed millions of black South Africans.
Should Apartheid have been supported for creating millions of jobs for the indigenous population?
@1bug: Of course not, the fact that apartheid was abolished through boycotts and international pressure is something we can all be proud of, and Mandela and Desmond Tutu are seen as heroes and rightly so. Note that they both strongly support the plight of the Palestinians.
This is no different. Boycotts, sanctions and divestment are a legitimate way of affecting policy and furthering humanity, something which is extremely lacking in Israeli policy as anyone can see
This deal touches on the Middle East and there is another on cyclists. All we now require for a neg-exhausting perfect storm is for someone to post in the forums about an "unfairly" acquired traffic infringement.
All the anti-smites wouldn't agree, it's a great chance for some Jew-bashing.
Disgraceful words from disgraceful people who aren't even involved in the struggle in the Middle East.
I'm sure they wish Hitler was still alive too.
All the anti-smites wouldn't agree,
Arabs are Semites. Far more worthy of that antiquated term than a bunch of inbred European Colonists from Germany, Poland, Ukraine and Russia who changed their last names, adopted a dead language, stood on the graves of their dead countrymen to make a political proposition and now pretend to have a legitimate stake in a part of the world that was handed to them on a silver platter by the reigning, defending heavyweight champions of "divide and conquer": the British, who wanted the Ottomans to piss off from their precious Suez canal and Arabian oil fields.
Most knucklehead commentators on this issue don't even realise that genetically, the Palestinian people are largely descended from the indigenous, pre-Arabian Levantine populations of the Eastern Mediterranean basin, who were Jewish and Christian up until the 7th to 8th centuries AD. There are around 1 million Palestinian Christians in the world today.
Thus their claim to their land is far more unwavering than the European Ashkenazi Jews (who make up a majority of Jews worldwide and who are vastly differently culturally and genetically from Mizrahi & Sephardi Jews from North Africa and the Middle East), who trace their connection to the the Holy Land through some obscure, barely attested migrations from the Roman Era, and who genetically, have significant amounts of European admixture after their 2,000 year exile from Judea.
Amar I would have thought you would know that any claim to any land is baseless without the force and wanting to match it.
As has been every piece of land throughout history.
Are Australian supposed to leave the country because ideally the land belonged the Aboriginals before we came?
No. The colonialists had the wanting and the force.
Guess what? Jews are semites too. Both groups came from the same place. Based on ancestry, both have claim to the land.
@The Land of Smeg: This is actually true, both groups, on a genetic-level show high levels of affinity and similiar paternal ancestry, showing that they originated from roughly the same time and place in the Eastern Mediterranean basin.
A sadly under-reported and marginalised fact in the Arab-Israeli conflict; for obvious reasons.
There are also a whole host of cultural and linguistic affinities between the two groups that place them in many respects, closer than the disparate countries of the Anglosphere, in an ethnic continuum (an ethnogenesis that is also being systematically revised and rewritten).
Based on ancestry, both have claim to the land.
Both got along more or less just fine, post-Crusades, before the British Empire, the French, and the Anglo-American Globalists rolled into town, at the turn of the 20th century. One of history's most textbook examples of Divide and Conquer (or Balkanization).
Amar I would have thought you would know that any claim to any land is baseless without the force and wanting to match it.
You and I are not in the same galaxy on this issue, so I'm going to ignore your delusional Armchair Generalism about a topic you know virtually nothing of.
The colonialists had the wanting and the force.
No, they had nothing of the sort; the Jews had a stranglehold on British and American foreign policy and many sycophantic goyim in the halls of power in Washington and London, which allowed them to pilfer billions in military and tactical aid, without which the Israeli state would have succumbed to the continual warfare provoked since its inception up until the Yom Kippur War of 1973.
The Israeli nation, prior to the Aliyah of many American, Russian and European Jews in the 1970s and 1980s, never had a population of more than 3.5 million. They were on the brink of annexation several times throughout their history before the United States made Israel its 51st state, after the first openly, pro-Israeli President, Lyndon Johnson came to power (thanks to a convenient bullet fired by a "lone nut").
Could you give me an example of a single conflict where force and wanting didn't win the land?
Even Ghandi's revolution had other groups attacking the British. Force and wanting.
Sorry to go all Occam's Razor here, but intellectual conversation never produces results that don't go around in circles where people look back thousands of years at irrelevant information to the present situation to decide what should happen in a perfect world.
Could you give me an example of a single conflict where force and wanting didn't win the land?
Not really…
… apart from the greatest military defeats in known history like Teutoburg Forest, the Persians at Thermopylae, the Romans at Carrhae, the Turks at Vienna, Napoleon in Russia, Stalingrad, the Soviets in Afghanistan, etc.
No I definitely can't think of any examples of mighty nations and empires failing abysmally despite having every conceivable advantage on their side.
Sorry to go all Occam's Razor here, but intellectual conversation never produces results that don't go around in circles where people look back thousands of years at irrelevant information to the present situation to decide what should happen in a perfect world.
Sorry to be a broken record, but do you know anything other than what you are told by talking heads in slick suits?
Because right now, your only argument is that Israel has more guns on its side, so it should have the land.
You know where else that mentality prevails? Tribal, sub-Saharan Africa where people live very much like their mammalian neighbours in the Serengeti. Is that your yardstick for Democracy and progress?
Every one of those conflicts had an enemy with a greater wanting and force.
Tell the Russians they didn't want to push back Napoleon.
Tell the Taliban that they didn't want to get the Soviets out of Afghanistan.
Tell the Polish they didn't want Vienna from the Ottomans.
And tell them all those times that they didn't want the land, that they didn't have the force to act on those claims.
One day ISIS may get the strength to take Israel as they have swathes of Syria and Iraq. Then tell them then they didn't want to or have the force.
My argument is that it doesn't matter what the argument is if you talk about a genuine claim of any land. You can talk about bleeding hearts and black arm bands, but force and wanting is what gets land, and what retains it. As has been history and as will be the future. Sure it prevails in Africa. It prevails everywhere.
Don't tell me that I am speaking what suits have told me to say, just don't. You lose face when you say that.
Deep down you know that Occam's Razor applies. You're clearly intelligent so you should be smart enough to know that any claim to land is BS to getting land, and that force and wanting is what prevails.
@c0balt I'm sorry, it's hard to type when I'm gleefully giggling at this "Survival of the Fittest", Might-makes-Right, supremacist mantra being touted by a middle-class Aussie who has never so much as lifted a pinky unnecessarily in his coddled, suburban life.
One day ISIS may get the strength to take Israel as they have swathes of Syria and Iraq. Then tell them then they didn't want to or have the force.
ISIS is yet again, destructive, Western interests in the Middle East desperately masquerading as something else. You're still chugging the Kool-Aid, as I've expressed before.
Not at all. I don't believe ISIS will last long in the region. They have too many enemies in the Shia camp. Even if they did, I don't believe they would have a chance against a real military.
I don't mean it to be right or left wing. I am just saying that's history. You then replied that the combined militias in Afghanistan won the land without wanting it and the force to back it up, which just isn't true.
Stop saying things like I am drinking kool-aid or I am only saying what I am told by others. Or that because I am a sheltered middle class Australian that I don't know about the issue. You are smarter than that ,and resorting to saying it reduces the validity of your arguments.
Deep down you know that Occam's Razor applies. You're clearly intelligent so you should be smart enough to know that any claim to land is BS to getting land, and that force and wanting is what prevails.
To be honest, I think you're pretending to assume this self-righteous position you actually don't really endorse, simply because you know you can't give me anything that'll convince me that the Jews have a legitimate claim to the land.
Other than this infantile claptrap about basal human nature and natural selection; which apparently is something of a revelation to you, that bullets change borders far surer than votes and paperwork.
To me it's the hallmark of a primitive, bygone brain, one that has no real respect for the use of judicious force and instead treats it with the haphazardness of a child who forces his way even when he doesn't ever deserve it, simply because his simian-like mind cannot reason in any higher plane other than pain and pleasure.
You are embodying a pre-pubsecent outlook of human life and at the same time, wholly simplyifing the 21st century, as if Genghis Khan raped and pillaged his way to Baghdad just yesterday and that we still solve most of our problems in life with the sword.
You can try and spin this sh*t whichever you want: God's will, natural selection, karma for the Jews, the classical mistake of underestimating the underdog, David and Goliath, etc.
You are still lacking in anything approaching a relevant, contemporary, basis for the Israeli state to exist, other than it being willed into existence at the behest of the British Empire, the UN and Anglo-American Globalists for the self-serving purposes of dominating energy reserves and keeping regional aspirations in check.
There was no force, and there was no wanting. The stroke of a pen, deemed that paradigm to be the law of the land, and the men who signed it into existence left the Jews and Arabs to live in the fallout of it's bloody cataclysm, while they busied themselves with the century-long rape of natural and human capital in the Middle East through their tentacles of subversion.
Do you honestly think the British gave two sh*ts about the Jews and their history? They didn't. Their interests just happened to coincide in space and time, momentarily, and they let (keyword: let) them have their land and fulfill their prophecy of the "Chosen People" because it'll induce a stubborn attachment to it in their minds, which will make for ever-lasting bloodshed, that the real powers of the world will exploit.
It was about as 21st century as you can get; the pen was mightier than the sword.
You live in a quaint Wonderland of caricaturish archetypes it seems; alpha-male dominance and effeminate cowardice, strong-arm bullying and limp-wristed servitude. Those romanticized notions have all-but evaporated in modern warfare, where we wage wars to deceive the global audience as to the true nature of our intentions.
Modern wars are little more than a Fortune 500 corporate take-overs by another name and with body counts instead of stock indices.
Try and escape the inevitable all you like with your tough-guy bullsh*t that force and wanting still won the day and Israel have big cojones, but you know full well, you wouldn't support that argument in almost any other context.
"To me it's the hallmark of a primitive, bygone brain"
"you're pretending to assume this self-righteous position"
"You are embodying a pre-pubsecent outlook of human life"
OK.
Well then I will tell you what I think you are saying.
You don't believe the Jews have any claim to the land. You obviously think that strapping a child with explosives and putting him on a bus to have his handler detonate it remotely is a valid tactic of a government that should be allowed control of a state. You think that it's a valid tactic for Hamas to store munitions in schools and hospitals, and then fire from them.
Your obvious disdain for the Jews "you can't spell Ashkenazi without Nazi" was all anyone needed to hear to know where you stand. Your intellectual basis for claims to any land are obviously heavily influenced by your views of the Jewish people.
You are an obvious anti-semite, not just anti Israel by what you have wrote and you think that by spouting intellectual arguments that somehow people will see past what your view is. I really didn't want to say it, because it's an overused cry "anti-semite" when used in discussions, but I it's for everyone to see your comments and decide if your views on the region are influenced by your views of a particular people. I do, I believe that your views and revisionist history approach are influenced by your views on Jewish people.
If it was just a pen stroke in 1948 and not force than Israel should have been wiped off the map in 48', 67' and 73', but they wanted the land and they had the force despite being outnumbered heavily all those times. And don't cry because it was due to international intervention, in 1948 a bunch of ragtag ex concentration camp survivors held off the combined arab armies using arms bolt action rifles bought from Czechoslovakian WW2 surplus and smuggled illegally into the country to protect the new state.
That's a claim. The 1948 war of independence was the claim.
"while they busied themselves with the century-long rape of natural and human capital in the Middle East through their tentacles of subversion. "
Wow, just wow. Your true view could not have been summed up in any better way.
You obviously think that strapping a child with explosives and putting him on a bus to have his handler detonate it remotely is a valid tactic of a government that should be allowed control of a state. You think that it's a valid tactic for Hamas to store munitions in schools and hospitals, and then fire from them.
That actually fits the bill of your "force and wanting" diatribe perfectly doesn't it? Death before dishonour? Bushido? By any means necessary? Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law?
Not that it matters of course, because your words are as empty as the promises of peace that the Knesset makes.
I know you have zero conviction behind your high-faluting beliefs because you would never practice what you preach and you would never follow your arguments through to their logical conclusion; because that would mean admitting your own total inferiority, insignificance, worthlessness and ineptitude in relation to totally accidental trajectory of your own life.
But of course, you see fit to dictate to other human beings on the other side of the world, whom you have zero conception of, what kind of fate is to be destined for them and why they are subject to the whims of oppressive foreign powers; the same kind of powers in fact, that govern your very life in ways you're as oblivious to, as a concentration camp inmate going into the showers for a "delousing".
You are an obvious anti-semite,
You forgot Neo-Nazi, Holocaust denier, Skinhead, Islamofascist, Jihadist sympathsier, traitor, and crypto-Muslim.
Palestine is the least of my quarrels with the Jewish people.
I have a multitude of far more pressing and grievous charges to levy at them but sufficed to say I am able to separate International Jewry from the ordinary men and women of Israel, whom, like most everyone else, are mere pawns on a stage being manipulated against their will.
I frame this conflict not as an Arab-Jewish problem but as a Zionist/Zionist Benefactor-Humanity problem. I also don't see direct military action against Israel as any kind of a solution because if Israel goes down or is cornered, the psychopaths at its helm will take down many an innocent life with them. In fact they are itching for the slightest of provocations to trigger some inter-regional conflict right now. Hell they bombed Syria with total impunity and very little publicity last year.
You're quibbling over small potatoes about Hamas-launched, bottle-rockets and getting distracted with the heart-string-pulling sideshow of emotive media manipulation.
I don't pretend to be unbiased and impartial, unlike you reaching for the top-shelf, AIPAC-approved character assassination slurs like suicide bomber/anti-Semite the moment you loose your cool. Trademarks of a true strawman-peddling shill.
Your confusion over my intentions is due to you thinking that having conviction (something that is very foreign to you evidently, because you seem quite troubled by it; though you can act it) equates to being fanatically steadfast and that's because you're conditioned to see dissent of populism or anti-establishment thought as evidence of hidden diabolical intentions.
I've never proclaimed my views here to be fundamentally accurate, infallible or even fully realised, I merely started this topic with the correct insinuation that the state of Israel did not come into existence by anything other than British Imperialism.
You then went off on a totally irrelevant tangent about "force and wanting", not even bothering to debate my original point and now you're mud-slinging ad hominems around like a hysterical undergraduate activist or something.
really didn't want to say it, because it's an overused cry "anti-semite" when used in discussions,
Oh no, your credibility. It was infallible a moment ago; the guy who channeled Dick Cheney and claimed that superior military force has always prevailed.
If it was just a pen stroke in 1948 and not force than Israel should have been wiped off the map in 48', 67' and 73', but they wanted the land and they had the force despite being outnumbered heavily all those times. And don't cry because it was due to international intervention, in 1948 a bunch of ragtag ex concentration camp survivors held off the combined arab armies using arms bolt action rifles bought from Czechoslovakian WW2 surplus and smuggled illegally into the country to protect the new state.
They were doing so well in fact, that they had to resort to staging a false flag attack on a US warship in the Mediterranean during the Six-Day War, in a half-assed attempt to lure the United States into the conflict on their side.
Clearly they were supremely confident in their military prowess and not desperate for more aid.
Hamas, Fatah, the PLO and the PFLP are all creations of Mossad. Cui Bono? Never-ending justification for Israel military expansion and expenditure.
If Israel wants peace, they could have it overnight. Peace isn't profitable nor strategically-empowering. War and division certainly is. Failing to understand that is child's play and a telltale symptom of an intellectual eunuch.
Even the WSJ already nailed this for goodness sake.
Wow, just wow. Your true view could not have been summed up in any better way.
And there is it is, the mental slide in your mind that dead-ends your critical thinking whenever you stray too far out of the induced bubble of acceptable thought.
"Almost all people of all eras are hypnotics. Their beliefs are induced beliefs. The proper authorities saw to it that the proper belief should be induced, and people believed properly." - Charles Fort
