Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
Here we go again. No rest afforded to the victims. If Covid isn't enough, why not add a few misiles and kill civilians. Whatever else will be said about this massacre, Israel cannot be said to be defending itself from territory it is occupying. It's a contradiction in terms.
The US needs to stop sending military support to the only country in the Middle East which has nuclear weapons and is destroying the lives of civilians which lands it is stealing. This issue will not stop until the occupation stops. Utterly horrifying and contemptible behavior from the Israeli state.
For some decent coverage on the topic, it's good to look at Israeli sources instead of US ones.
Haaretz is offering good, careful coverage of the current situation:
https://www.haaretz.com/
Also crucial is B'Tselem The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories:
https://www.btselem.org/
EDIT:
For important recent information on the Israel situation Human Rights Watch recently issued a strongly worded condemnation of the situation of the Palestinians. It's worth a look for those who may not be aware of the extent of Israeli crimes in the Occupied Territories:
https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution
The US needs to stop sending military support to the only country in the Middle East which has nuclear weapons and is destroying the lives of civilians which lands it is stealing. This issue will not stop until the occupation stops. Utterly horrifying and contemptible behavior from the Israeli state.
For some decent coverage on the topic, it's good to look at Israeli sources instead of US ones.
Haaretz is offering good, careful coverage of the current situation:
https://www.haaretz.com/
Also crucial is B'Tselem The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories:
https://www.btselem.org/
EDIT:
For important recent information on the Israel situation Human Rights Watch recently issued a strongly worded condemnation of the situation of the Palestinians. It's worth a look for those who may not be aware of the extent of Israeli crimes in the Occupied Territories:
https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution
Comments (7611)
So now we appear to have competing claims from the two of you regarding what it is that most Palestinians really want, and would accept as a basis for peace.
To refine that a bit, the question may not be what MOST Palestinians want, but what do those with the most guns want? You know, when did majority opinion really matter in the Arab world?
In any case, I don't claim to know the answer, so a debate between the two of you on this subject would be helpful.
And Benkei, please try to act like an adult, like BitconnectCarlos has done.
Because you're a juvenile dickhead. You're like 12 years old emotionally. And I know this for sure, because I'm 13.
Yeah, it's comments like this that disqualify you. It's funny how you like to pretend to be impartial though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Covenant
Here's one section that may merit focus.
What does "liberation of all of Palestine" mean to Hamas?
I read the quote to mean that Hamas will accept the 1967 borders for now, but desires the end result to be the end of a Jewish state.
Is there any chance you could just shut up when you don't have anything useful to say? Again, nobody is interested in your emotional situation.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-13331522
QUESTION: How is the liberation of all of Palestine consistent with the existence of a Jewish state?
This is a first impression, additional discussion welcome.
The bottom line question seems to be, would the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders lead to a real peace? Or just the next chapter of the conflict?
Best I can tell, Israel has concluded the later, and thus sees little reason to agree to a Palestinian state.
People haven't been banned because of their comments on this thread (yet), so it isn't bad.
Yes, people do tend to whip out their crystal balls as an excuse not to work towards peace. Those are trust issues and it should be moved to where it belongs: negotiating.
But really, why should there be a prerequisite on the Palestinians to recognise Israel before entering into negotiations but not the same the other way around? I think any "pre-requisites" to peace negotiations ought to be dropped. The only one is and for both sides : no fucking killing while we're talking OK?
Oooh, you edited it from "Jewish murderers" to "Israeli murderers" -- why did you do that?? Why revert back, I'm interested.
Why not phrase it like this: "Mai Khalid Afana, a Palestinian doctor and lecturer was executed a few hours ago by Jewish murderers during the ongoing Final Solution of the Palestinian people inside of an extermination camp."
You want us to take your questions seriously, but you don't take the topic seriously yourself. You've been asked multiple times to demonstrate that you actually care about innocent Arab victims, and you've never provided that evidence, because it doesn't exist. Your entire engagement in this thread is just a pose designed to serve your own emotional situation.
That's not a crime, but neither is it interesting.
It appears your false claim about Hamas has been dismissed, and so now you're back to the usual dodging and weaving.
Because it's irrelevant and I won't be offering such evidence. Maybe my human rights activism is very extensive, that won't make my arguments suddenly true. Or the converse situation false. It's just a distraction. Maybe figure out what a fallacy is.
I see you have problems with reading their principles. It rejects the Zionist entity and it rejects various treaties, declarations etc. and then it says :
The operative word there being "however".
Oh for crying out loud, cut the crap. You won't provide the evidence because there isn't any, and you're not honest enough to admit that. Here's the relevance. Why should we bother to respond to claims made by someone who is not actually interested in the topic???
Hamas is honest, even if you are not. Now read this....
A formula of national consensus. That is, something Palestinians can agree on. Says nothing at all about accepting the existence of a Jewish state.
Hamas wants a Palestinian state. Which will then be funded and armed by Iran. And then Hamas will continue to attack Israel, from a stronger position than it has today. And then, because Hamas will be more of a threat, Israel will have to respond with even more firepower. And there will be even more innocent victims than is the case now.
Quoting Benkei
Your relentless ego needs have caused you to make a blatantly false claim, and now you are scrambling around trying to clean up the mess, because the one and only thing you care about here is social media victory. This has nothing to do with innocent Arabs being bombed etc. Nothing at all.
I'm not going to divulge my identity you twat. The reason to respond to my claims is because this is a public board, we have a subject, and I make testable claims that can be waylaid or accepted. So far you've done a lot to question me but rather little about the points I made.
EDIT: one can wonder why I would bother to engage in this thread for 68 pages for instance. If you assume that would be for self-aggrandizement that would be extremely telling.
... "as long as the occupation lasts", which ends upon the recognition of Israel which they'll do along the 1967 borders as written in the same paragraph.
You'll notice that Hamas has also accepted the Arab Peace Initiative, which pretty much says the same thing as I'm saying their declaration of principles says. Hamas balked at the inclusion of land swaps in that initiative. And this is consistent with their position; you can only propose land swaps if the land you're giving away is yours. Since Hamas denies Israel exists at this point, admitting beforehand to land swaps would implicitly admit Israel has legal claim to any land in the region.
The important difference between Fatah and Hamas is, is that Fatah is prepared to give away these sorts of points (recognising Israel, agreeing beforehand to landswaps) and this weakens their negotiation position before they even get started only to get Israel at the table.
Nobody asked you to.
If you were concerned about innocent muslim victims, you'd be able to show a series of posts on this forum where you express concern for the victims of the Assad regime, victims of the Taliban, oppression by the Saudis, the Iranian regime shooting it's own people down in the streets etc. Any of that would do.
If you were sincere, most of your outrage would be directed at those doing most of the harm to innocent muslim victims.
It appears you only care about innocent muslim victims when Israel is the cause. That suggests it's not innocent victims you care about, but Israel. Ok, no problem. If you hate Israel, or however you might put it, fine with me, just say that.
I'm helping you clarify what your real concern and interest is here. That's why they call it a philosophy forum, a community based search for clarity.
Which is still irrelevant but you're welcome to use the search function and read my 4,500 posts. I'm not going to do it for you. I'll be here waiting for you to swallow your words.
Right. Hamas denies Israel exists. They are clear minded, and honest about their position. Israel must die.
You want to imply the evidence is there, but you just don't have the time to provide it. To you, this seems a clever strategy. Except that we all know, it ain't there. And you just can't bring yourself to admit that.
It's not surprising really, much of the debate comes down to convincing people there's a problem...
What does that mean? You don’t think there is a problem?
I must have not got the memo that Zionism includes provocative marches and threats. All Zionism is is a commitment to a Jewish homeland in the region.
Quoting fdrake
Are you asking me what if Jews were in the place of the Palestinians? We would not be in this place because we would never refuse to recognize another group. We wouldn't refuse to establish diplomatic relations with them. That's the first step towards any political reconciliation. Nor would we teach our children that they must avenge their history by any means necessary. Jews have been kicked out of Judea several times.
Quoting fdrake
You'll see the same thing on the Arab side -- yes, without the march through Israel but they would if they could -- and this is not intended to serve as an excuse or justification, more of a "welcome to the shit." There's plenty of footage of Arab/Palestinian rallies where they burn Israeli flags or shout death to Israel or Jews and launch rockets. The march might have been in response to rock throwing. It's just an endless cycle. The news covers some events and not others and we never get the complete picture.
I am not currently aware of any Israeli plan or intention to annex Gaza, so when you mention existential threat that's more or less what I think of. It wouldn't even make sense for Israel to annex Gaza - what is it going to do with the Palestinians?
If you haven't noticed, we've begun to discuss this endless cycle business more generically in another thread. Would welcome your participation should it interest you.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11211/conflict-addiction
A great deal of this thread seems fairly described as conflict for the sake of conflict. That is, conflict engaged because we find conflict somehow psychologically satisfying. I'm wondering the degree to which this phenomena helps fuel the endless cycle in the Middle East.
As I picture it, most people on both sides of the MidEast conflict are probably fairly reasonable. They have their positions, but they don't want to live in the endless cycle. A minority on both sides may have become addicted to the conflict more for personal reasons than substantive ones.
And then corporate media gets involved, and feeds a steady diet of conflict imagery in to the population, because conflict is engaging and keeps people glued to the channel, keeps the ratings up, and the ad dollars flowing etc. That's what's happening in the states anyway, not sure about the Middle East.
Here's a question. To what degree is the Middle East conflict endless conflict cycle fueled by the very same psychological needs and motivations etc that have fueled this thread?
I'll admit that there has been that "conflict for the sake of conflict" element in this thread but I don't see my current discussion here with @fdrake as falling under that banner.
I don't know if "psychologically satisfying" is the word I would use. There's also a big difference between a written argument with anonymous strangers and actually going out on the street and doing this type of thing against another group.
Quoting Foghorn
This sounds right, and I just want to add that people change when they're exposed to high levels of stress or trauma over longer time frames. One's environment does change people. I say this as a veteran but not a combat veteran.
Quoting Foghorn
I can just turn off conversations when I get bored or annoyed with a poster. I've already cut off one poster entirely because he was advocating for intentionally murdering civilians and using religious/moral language to justify it. I had the luxury of turning that off, but if I was exposed to that daily I would be a very different person and a lot less amenable to conversation. Repeated exposure to conflict and hate drags one down.
Imho, you're the sanest and most serious person in the thread. You got sucked in to the shit storm a bit here and there, but overall you kept your cool and stuck to reasoning.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Yes, there could very well be a better word. I'm just not sure what it is yet, thus the other thread.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
I hear you, yes, agreed. The endless cycle shit storm is kind of like a disease that spreads throughout the population, infecting the formerly reasonable. Imho, corporate media which fuels conflict for profit is a big part of that.
I know two people in my close life who have never been that in to politics or news. And then they started watching cable news during the Trump era. One on the right, one on the left. And now they argue all the time. Neither of them has a depth of knowledge of the issues, so they're both mostly chanting what the cable news shows push in their face. Neither of them really grasp that they're being manipulated by large corporations in search of profit.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Yes, a sad fact of the human condition. In the other thread we're discussing why we so often seek out such experiences. Like I did in the case of this thread. Others can speak for themselves.
Almost all of your posts on every topic make this same point. You are smart, they are stupid. The fact that you can't let go of this endlessly repetitive refrain is revealing more to us than you may care to share. Your slip is showing. Trying to do you a favor here, though I'm sure it won't be welcomed.
Sorry to pop your bubble again, and I know it's foolish to try. But you don't actually care about repressive regimes. You don't. You sincerely think you do, agree there.
How many people has Israel killed in Gaza and the West Bank over the years. I don't claim to know, feel free to count them up and share the total with us.
Now read this:
Quoting wikipedia.org
400,000. And that estimate is now five years old. And the killing in Syria continues, day by day by day.
Right next door. Just across the border. A day's drive away from Palestine. But too far away for you to see.
And I'll say it once more: the fact that you think Palestinians are just interchangeable with any old generic 'Arab' is a bunch of racist bullshit, which is to be expected from someone who does his utmost to change the subject from Israeli crimes at every point.
Yeah, I did get sucked into the shit storm a bit, and it's interesting to reflect and think back "why did this person have this affect on me?" Thinking about this question helped me define myself and my values a little better. Every once in a while you'll just come across someone who not just manages to push the right buttons, but to also push them in a certain way.
Right. We understand. You wish to chant the same propaganda over and over and over again. Ok, go for it. Nobody can stop you. They're your posts to do with as you please.
Israel doesn't recognise the right to a Palestinian State. No Palestinian group denies the existence of "Israel" as an entity or group of people they have to deal with, some of them refuse to recognise the Israeli state though.
This is a very confusing statement. Hamas has refused, but doesn't any more. Fatah never refused diplomatic relations but Israel has and continues to refuse to recognise the observer status of the Palestinian State in the UN. Hamas is also designated as a terrorist organisation by Israel so it only talks to Hamas via Egypt. The last fair and open election by the Palestinians resulted in an outcome not wanted by Israel, leading to boycotts by Israel and its supporters. Basically messaging that democracy is fine until you elect someone we don't like (eg. can't bribe to sell out their own people).
Says the guy who dredges up conflicts from 400 BC and defending Zionism as a state entity. And if by "avenge" you mean, "resist oppression" than definitely, they should never acquiesce to crimes.
So?
Sadly, I am a veteran button pusher myself, with a regrettable degree of talent for such a pointless endeavor. I call it philosophy to dress it up and make it sound grand, important blah blah blah etc. But jerking off does come closer to the truth.
Perhaps I should spend more time doing the real jerking off, that might help. :-)
That's what the other thread is about. You won't find answers there though, just lots of questions and speculations.
But why? None of us give a shit about what's happening in Syria, or there would be plenty of such threads already. If we cared about innocents in Gaza we'd be using this thread to organize something like GoFundMe donations.
The best guide to what we believe, to what we care about, is what we do.
Not what we say.
We've been through this conversation a billion times and I don't feel like rehashing things with you for a 1 billion + 1 time. Have our discussions on this topic been productive in the past or have they just been fighting? We're way too far apart on this issue to communicate productively. I don't understand why you keep engaging me. Is it because you want to change my mind? Is it because you genuinely want to learn something or understand my position? I don't feel like jumping back into the mud today.
If we are to have a productive conversation on this subject it starts with you condemning Hamas and their methods. Until that happens this discussion is not moving forward.
Given that there is exactly no chance of that happening....
Now what?
They don't either.
And what am I doing here? No idea. We, all of us, united in cluelessness.
It was actually really funny, I gave him an article about how Hamas arrested & imprisoned 3 Palestinian grassroots peace activists for talking with Israeli peace activists over skype or zoom and his response was basically "well it was all done by the books and done very professionally, unlike the Israelis!" :brow:
I guess the "now what" is that we've reached the end of our conversation and we move onto a different topic.
Say they did change your mind. Or you changed theirs. Then what?
Nothing. That's what.
We're all beating our tiny brains against a brick wall, and even if we were successful in achieving the victory we seek, it would accomplish nothing. Nothing at all.
I do believe that would be the rational choice. Maybe we'll get lucky and a mod will lock the thread, save us from ourselves. :-)
Well, if you did wish to continue, I suppose one option could be to find another place to have this conversation. I'm not sure where that would be, or if there is such a place that won't devolve in to more of this.
Hmm..... Is there any non-partisan charity which is funneling funds to both Arab and Israeli victims of the recent conflict? A thread which organized support for such a project would be interesting. But then we'd have to be serious, which seems unlikely, so sorry, just another bad idea.
The folks you're referring to are in lock down mode. There is no evidence or reasoning which will have the slightest impact on their point of view. In that sense, we've done a good job of creating a Middle East thread. :-)
You're right. Unless you wish to have credibility. Otherwise, doesn't matter a bit.
Damn straight, it's all about who you engage. I have had good conversations here with other posters and even some of the posters who I'd consider less than objective will sometimes still bring up decent points or points that I hadn't considered. My discussions with numerous posters have ran their course but I'm still going strong with one.
What's funny is how everybody has such problems with basic reading comprehension. I said in response to your umpteenth tu quoque:
So as an example of how "bad" Hamas was (and I therefore shouldn't complain about Israel), you completely failed to realise Israel is much worse in this respect. It's that context in which I made the comment even ignoring the fact that every time you do that is a fallacy to begin with.
I shouldn't have to say this because it should be widely known but Israel does not arrest non-violent peace activists for trying to make connections with the other side and any regime that does is a terrorist regime and a rotten government inside and out. Doing something like that violates the basics.
This is not about Israel.
Hamas is small potatoes compared to Assad, and they have no interest in him, so why would they be interested in Hamas? Hamas is small potatoes compared to Saddam, they had no interest in that either. Hamas is small potatoes compared to the Iranian despots, couldn't be less interested. Hamas is small potatoes compared to the Taliban, not on their radar. The corrupt Lebanese leaders have crashed a once beautiful country, no outrage. The Saudis slaughter critics on foreign soil, and saw their bodies up for disposal, and then relentlessly lie about who ordered it. Ho hum, who cares?
China is the biggest dictatorship in the history of humanity. Can't seem to find the outrage thread for that.
Are you seeing a pattern here?
:rofl:
Israel will not arrest people for communicating with Palestinians in Gaza. It's not my fault you don't understand anything.
I'm not justifying Israel's actions. I'm revealing that you don't care about them.
Philosophy. A search for clarity.
https://theintercept.com/2021/05/24/israeli-police-round-palestinian-protesters-global-attention-fades/
Quoting Foghorn
Try the Hong Kong thread.
Sorry that you literally have no clue what you're talking about and/or are an outight liar:
https://www.alhaq.org/cached_uploads/download/2021/06/05/210531-final-website-current-escalation-of-israel-s-systematic-arbitrary-arrest-and-detention-campaigns-against-palestinians-1622892678.pdf
And that's just in the last two months.
No it doesn't and it's obvious you just perceive Israel as Nazi Germany or something along those lines and I don't have the time or effort to dispel that notion.
There are good discussions to be found here. Maybe not on this topic, but many others.
It's possible this topic could be addressed constructively somewhere else, but I don't know where. Should you find such a place, I'd welcome an invite.
Not the same thing. These arrests were in response to violent protests and weapons stockpiling.
Yes, and FDR is Hitler and so is Obama and you're the only one in this world who has any semblance of moral decency.
And here's an American Jew banned from Israel, who based on the Law of Return, has a right to Israeli citizenship: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/15/i-am-american-jewish-and-banned-from-israel-for-my-activism
But I'm not interested in making you understand what is going on in Israel as you have demonstrated no interest in the facts on the ground. You have refused to read the various reports I have shared and to either discuss or accept them. Instead you've been on a world-tour of how other regimes and groups also commit crimes, as if that somehow would excuse Israel. A very, very long string of fallacies in reply to facts.
No, the only reason I post is everytime you post falsehoods and mistakes I'll be more than happy to correct it so that less biased people can know what's really going on.
https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution
I've asked a mod to lock this thread, but I doubt that will work. What do you say the two of us run up the white flag of surrender and bail on the thread? All we're doing is feeding their fantasies at this point. Would enjoy discussing anything with you, some place else.
Is it ever hard to function when the entire world around you is so unrepentantly racist and genocidal? Is it difficult being the only good one? Does it ever get lonely or have you just kinda learned to live with it? It must get very lonely up there on the pedestal.
Do your parents think just like you? It must be tough when everyone around you are racist, blood-thirsty genocide supporters.
Yeah we can talk later I'll be over on the other thread you made.
Your focus on factual correctness here is masturbatory. As long as you continue to support (which is effectively the same as refusing to condemn) the deliberate murder of innocent civilians I cannot engage with you, it is that simple. Please come back to the side of humanity here.
It's like if the Netherlands were in a dispute (fine lets call it an occupation) and I told you "oh by the way, I don't have any problems with the opposition running into your house and murdering the lot of you." Now let's proceed! Let's make progress on this issue!
I think you mean Israel. And no, because the idea that a better world than this shithole is possible - and that one day, Israel will no longer be an apartheid state that is up to its neck in blood - keeps me happy as sunshine.
Your own country of Australia is obviously institutionally racist and genocidal. I'm surprised you don't mention that.
Is there any state in history or currently you think was just? If not,is this because any state is intrinsically unjust,or do you have a rough idea of how a just state could be implemented?
Yes, stop trolling. If you’re not interested in the topic or in staying on topic, do not post here.
The topic of threads are found in the OP. The idea there's a debate to be had about that is your fantasy. Anyway, thank you for going away. You've been a serious time-waster. All off-topic posts being deleted from now on.
There's genocide everywhere. There's racism everywhere. The entire world is mud, so why should I go out of my way and take up my own time to try to convince you that Israel is not mud when the rest of the world is? If the Israelis are genocidal then so are the Palestinians. The intention is there. Israelis are murdered in the name of genocide. Both sides, as well as the entire world, are genocidal maniacs (except you.)
What you do or don't do is not my problem.
I'd do the same, black belt nuance is required not to slip into anti-semitic adjacent language. Considering "anti-zionism is anti-semitism" and "if you're against the state of Israel you're against the Jewish people" are a common trope here, it makes it very easy for someone who's criticising the state of Israel's actions to say something which sounds very anti-semitic.
But that's also part of the discourse here - there really are anti-semites, and there really is a political discourse around the idea that Zionist=Jewish=approve of Israel's expansion.
It's an interesting motte and bailey + trojan horse combo really, not of your invention, that the propaganda surrounding the state of Israel equates Jewish national identity with Zionism with Israel's military expansion, so that it becomes harder to persuasively criticise Israel's military expansion without sounding like an anti-semite... The state of Israel's policies invite ethno-nationalist+military expansion flavour Zionism to be equated with Judaism, but when someone else flubs and makes the mistake of equating the three they sound like an anti-semite.
I swear, whatever PR group came up with that nightmarish tangle are geniuses.
Hardline Zionists singing "Shu'Fat is on fire!" Happily praising the actions of sectarian murderer Yosef Haim Ben David.
How long until we see the seal of Islam painted on Palestinians' doors?
Anti-Zionism in 2021 is straight-up bizarre. Zionism is nothing more than the idea that Jews need a homeland in the region, and since this has already happened that means Zionism has already been realized. To be anti-Zionism in, say, 1935 makes sense -- it would mean that someone just doesn't support the creation of a Jewish state in Judea/Samaria. Being an anti-Zionism in 2021 means that you seemingly want the state of Israel (i.e. Jewish security) to stop "being." That is how I understand anti-Zionism. It is very, very suspect.
Quoting fdrake
If we are to call this propaganda, then this "propaganda" that equates Zionism with national jewish identity has been swallowed hook, line, and sinker by the West's Jewish communities if we are to consider it "propaganda."
But let me pose you a question: What role does an outsider have in forging another group's identity? Should we both engage in a discussion about what black people are and what their future ought to be? In practice, one cannot attack Zionism without attacking the vast majority of Jewish communities. I've never been to a temple or a synagogue that was anti-Zionist.
I don't think you understand it in the same way as it's used, then. Either that or you're pivoting between this restricted understanding and the more general one which equates Zionism with Israel's military expansion rather than with its existence.
When people say Zionism nowadays, what do they mean? Is the contemporary support of Zionism really about the boring uncontroversial point that Israel should continue to exist - a fact even Hamas supports, or is it more saucy and about the expansion? The emotive core of the belief is clearly closer the latter - security through control, expansion through disproportionate retaliation... Securing a homeland for the Jewish people - a destined people's lebensraum under the constant terrorist threat.
If it smells like a duck, quacks like a duck, and happily sings in praise of sectarian warcrimes...
It depends on whose narrative we go by. You're talking with me, so you're going to get the Jewish narrative. If we talked to a pro-Palestinian Arab he'd likely say (as Hamas does) that the original birth of the Israeli state was an unjust expansion in the sense that it stole Muslim land. Every inch taken of Muslim land is an unjust expansion according to that narrative. This is a very common view among the Palestinians as well as across the Arab world.
Quoting fdrake
This is not a boring and uncontroversial point at all. If that's how you consider it then you're around decent, civilized company but do not take your experience as the majority one. I'm happy to bring in polls and there's also a popular youtuber as who just walks around asking Arabs and Israelis questions and you can get a decent sample of their opinions from that. Look up Corey Gil-Shuster. Check out the one where he asks Palestinians "If Israel withdrew to '67 borders would that bring peace?" Spoiler: Some said yes, but at least half said no.
Quoting fdrake
I don't think it's fair to equate any country with their far right. I don't do it with the UK and I hope you wouldn't do that with America. Needless to say conflict brings out the worst in people.
I absolutely do do it with the UK and America insofar as I believe it relevant, and would do it more for the UK if the UK's government gave me strong EDL vibes like Israel's government does.
It's fair if it's right.
There is no "the Jewish narrative", there are several. Homeland doesn't mean state in some, nor from the west bank to the sea in others. When talking about anti-Zionism quite early on in this debate I explicated what I understood to be right wing political Zionism and why this should be opposed.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
I have but you haven't been paying attention. I've condemned it but maintain that every atrocity happening to Israelis is of their own making and every atrocity befalling the Palestinians is wreaked upon them by Israel. That's a consequence of the power differential and Israel's treatment of Palestinians in general. In other words, Israel is asking for it by treating Palestinians as animals and as such has no moral standing to be outraged by a bunch of ineffectual rocket attacks while it's state (sponsored) terrorism is many times worse.
The abuse doesn't stop. Then people wonder why "they" hate Israel.
Israel breaking ceasefires more regularly than Palestinians
What "peace talks" bring Palestinians
I gathered pictures for you so maybe you can wrap your head around the facts this way.
Now lets imagine this button in the hands of the leadership of Israel, then imagine the button in the hands the leadership of Palestine.
How do you think the button would be used by either side?
I made no assertion of it being helpful.
So you would say that if either or got the magic button they would genocide the other side? They would both kill every man, woman and child on the other side?
Edit: I assume the question has a purpose though. Maybe you can go into that?
Just a thought experiment, to each their own if you do not enjoy them.
The purpose of the question was to get a sense of peoples opinion on what extreme action they think one side or the other would take if they could.
It is 2021, Zionism has already been realized. It does not matter if other thinkers had other ideas because a state has been established. Borders change and neither side needs to stop building.
Quoting Benkei
How about the atrocity of how gays are treated in Gaza? Or the atrocity of how they treat their women? I guess the Jews really do control everything. I'm sure when Palestinian men beat their wives it is also Israel's fault.
Quoting Benkei
You know Israel is full of Israelis, right? Do individual Israelis have a right to be upset when their neighbors are killed? Is that okay with you? Let's talk about the people now.
OK, I disagree, but let's assume it is. So the illegal settler thing is the de facto view is every Jew as something that should happen? You really want to go there? Because then this
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
You don't get to complain about Hamas in the midst of committing and supporting ethnic cleansing and annexing land, which according to BitconnectCarlos is the interpretation of Zionism that's the only correct one and every Jew holds.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Probably. We don't know what sort of society would've developed if the people weren't being oppressed. A lot of problems like this are a consequence of poverty.
So are WWII & the Holocaust essentially the fault of the Allies because of the Versailles treaty? The Versailles treaty treated the Germans terribly and threw the German economy into chaos making leaders like Hitler more viable. Is every bit of Nazi racism the fault of the Allies who punished Germany too harshly while simultaneously leaving Germany intact as a state? Why give Germany free will? They were punished, they were abused after WWI. Poor little victims abused by the Western powers.
Additionally, is everything that happened in the ghettos in WWII the responsibility of the Nazis? When Jewish leaders collaborating with the Nazis arrested members of resistance movements are those Jewish leaders blameless because they were helpless victims controlled by the Nazis despite taking pro-active steps of their own volition to destroy those resistance groups? How about Jewish who stole food & embezzled funds intended for the general Jewish population? Innocent Nazi victims?
You have a unique view on responsibility here but I don't quite know if I buy it. It seems to be something along the lines of "If a stronger power does something which greatly impacts/hurts a society then every problem that comes from that society is the fault of that stronger power."
It's reasonable to complain about Hamas because if they were to achieve their goals they would most likely dominate all of Palestine in the same way Assad dominates Syria, religious psychopaths dominate Iran, and so on throughout pretty much every country in the region. It's not at all clear that this would be an improvement of conditions for the Palestinians. The evidence suggests otherwise.
The fact that the Israeli government does things I don't agree with (and many Israelis don't as well) doesn't automatically equal Hamas not being a subject of concern.
We have to be realistic about the logical outcome of Israel ending all it's current practices. A Palestinian state, funded and armed by Iran. That's not a recipe for peace, but for a larger conflict, with more victims.
It's not clear to me how many Palestinians would consider the establishment of a Palestinian state to be an acceptable resolution of the conflict. And that probably doesn't matter, because majority opinion doesn't matter in the Arab world. What's clear beyond any doubt is that Iran would not consider the establishment of a Palestinian state to be a resolution of the conflict, and so they will fund whoever will continue the conflict.
If the PLO tries to accept a peaceful resolution, Iran will fund Hamas instead, and with that support they will likely defeat the PLO. And then the conflict will continue. The fighting will continue. The pile of victims will grow ever larger. Nothing will be accomplished. Yassar Arafat knew all this. He knew that to agree to peace was to sign his own death warrant, because powers greater than himself do not want peace.
This whole moralism approach is misguided. It leads to nothing but more conflict. The moralism approach is in service to the moralizers, not the victims.
If there is to be any resolution of the conflict it would come in the form of persuading Israelis that it's not in their interest to remain the Middle East. No amount of guilt tripping will accomplish this. I agree Israelis will not be persuaded of this reality by reason alone. Sadly, it's going to take something much bigger.
The Israelis have nuclear weapons. Nobody is going to guilt trip them out of doing what they perceive to be in their own self interest. The constructive road is to try to change their understanding of that interest.
But that land is not the only thing I care about. I care about my wife. I care more about my wife than I do the land. So if both the land and my wife were at risk, if I had to choose one, I would choose my wife, she's my priority.
That's how this gets resolved, if it ever does.
Valuing people over land.
If the youngsters among us wish to learn how to truly challenge Israeli society, and the governments it keeps electing, here's how kids....
Ask Israelis why they are putting their children in harm's way over a piece of land. Ask them why they are valuing a piece of land over their children. And when they point the finger at somebody else, remind them that putting their children in harm's way is their choice.
Crystal ball thinking. The logical outcome is that it removes all justified reasons for Palestinians to commit acts of aggression. If they would try it then 1. Israel is still much stronger militarily speaking and 2. doesn't lose any allies by doing so and will gain more of them. The idea that Iran can somehow successfully fund a proxy war and Palestinians even being interested in it when they have the peace they want for decades now is pretty laughable and only fueled by paranoia.
It's very likely Hitler wouldn't have come to power if Germany wasn't being bled dry and had land stolen from it after WWI. One of the big reasons why land grabs have become internationally illegal. Which is also why the settler colonialism of Israel is such an egregious crime.
The difference of course is that Germany had a lot of agency despite the crime that was Versailles. As such it couldn't be considered oppressed as opposed to Palestinians who are firmly kept under the heel of Israel precisely to avoid it getting agency. My judgment would be entirely different if Palestinians had agency and weren't oppressed, in which case we could place terrorism squarely at their feet. In this case, the root cause is Israeli crimes.
To sum up my own comments, I'm saying that you shoving your finger in Israelis eyes and yelling that they are warmongers from a position of fantasy moral superiority will accomplish nothing other than your own self inflation. Your tactics have zero chance of accomplishing your own stated goals in regards to Palestine. And given that you are an intelligent person who could see this yourself if you wished to, is what has caused me to question what your goals actually are.
I agree that my plan is very unlikely to work as well. We agree on that. It's just a better plan than yours, that's my only claim.
What may work is that sooner or later somebody figures out how to smuggle a WMD in to Israel. It's tragic that it has to come to that, but that could be the game changer. At that point, my plan may work.
If none of that happens, then it's entirely possible the entire Arab world collapses in to one huge failed state, and disease, migration and social chaos defeats Israel in a manner no Arab army ever could. Like I keep saying, the whole region is an unstable ghetto, and it would be wise to exit while there's still time.
What the fuck is wrong with you.
Who cares about justified? Who cares about majority opinion? You have no understanding of the Middle East. Many or most Palestinians may very well accept a peaceful resolution, as most are decent human beings like anywhere else. That doesn't matter. DOES NOT MATTER. Reasonable Palestinians don't hold the power, just as is the case in all Arab countries. The issue will be decided by whoever has the most guns, as it is in all Arab countries. You're confusing the Middle East with Belgium or whatever nice little neighborhood you live it.
Surely you are aware of what the Saudis did in their embassy in Turkey. That's the Middle East. Israelis get this. You don't. You're some nice little boy from some safe place who thinks you are a geo-political strategist. Your enthusiasm is admired, your wisdom is not.
Yes, good question, why do I keep reading your lazy quips. Honestly, no kidding, what is wrong with me? I don't have a good answer for you. Whatever the problem is, it seems we both suffer from it, so we can be brothers in that.
As has been explained now multiple times, the logical outcome of your plan is a Palestinian state funded and armed by outside psychopaths which will escalate the violence and harm to innocents.
Here's some homework for you. Count up all the Palestinians killed by Israel, and then count up all the Arabs killed by Assad. And then ask yourself why you are laser focused on the smaller number. I will offer no theory on that, it's your homework, and your analysis.
We both agree that the Germans were oppressed, i.e. were victims, which to my understanding means that they are cannot be blamed for just trying to get even according to a certain logic. When did the Germans suddenly stop being victims and gain agency? Which year? How? What would it mean for the Palestinians to gain "agency?"
Is for Israel to stop committing genocide.
For which you will excuse with imagined threats and speculative 'solutions' like 'Israelis leaving' and 'nuking Israel'. Utter batshit insanity.
What happens after that in your view?
How so? They started WWI, and paid a big price. And then they started WWII, and paid an even bigger price. They voted Hitler in to office. The made a choice, and suffered the consequences.
Not EVERY German of course. But the society as a whole. Lots of support for Hitler so long as he was winning.
That's what I've been saying all along Street. You don't care what happens next. Nor are you obligated to. Just dents your credibility on the topic, that's all.
Yeah, I'm not the one justifying actually existing genocide with speculative futures.
I'm just granting him this point that after WWI the treaty of versailles was unjust and unfairly penalized Germany. There are obviously different sides to this debate and I'm not going to dig too much into the weeds but historical consensus is that the treaty of versailles was very harsh and those conditions were considered a catalyst for hitler.
Ok, I see your point. My understanding is that Hitler was on his way out, Germany was coming back and losing interest in radicals, until the 1929 crash revived Hitler's fortunes. Wall Street game players. Dangerous folks indeed.
Ok, I will leave you to quip in peace. No offense meant, none taken. Have a good one.
Go back to my previous post and read it more slowly is it's too difficult to grasp what the difference is you can ask me questions so I can explain it. But no, we're not in agreement Germans we're oppressed.
You called Versailles a crime, so that would make Germany a victim of that crime.
Sure and in the US we had the right to own slaves and steal land from the native Americans. Might makes right because it is obvious the source of that might is God and His will is being done. When the Jews complete the process and rebuild their temple, Jesus will return and prove all the Jews who have not been worshipping Him wrong.
Interestingly at this time in history, our media in the US is hammering away at the wrongs we have done. We can only wonder when Israel's leadership will see their take over of land and prejudice against those who lived there before Zionism as a wrong that needs to be corrected. A big problem is the Jews and Palestinians educate their children separately, each teaching their children a different explanation of history, and last night I watched a program about people of color homeschooling their children, which can evolve into the problem Israel has of opposing cultures pitted against each other.
I would think that being on the receiving end of an unjust sentence qualifies as a form of oppression.
Israel killing Civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
I wonder if there would be some credible way to calculate how many Palestinians have been killed by Israel since 1948. I have no idea, and also have no idea who might be considered a credible source on the topic.
More Israeli terrorist action on children
https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/04/11/palestine-israeli-police-abusing-detained-children
If they never did that. Why did they suddenly start now if the other part is completely innocent and has not done anything to provoke these actions?
I normally ask myself these questions.
Hitler's earlier speeches were all about making Germany out to be the victim and it's that narrative plus his oratory skills that catapulted his rise in popularity. Even if this is true - and there's strong reason to believe that the Versailles treaty was overly harsh and unfair - obviously what came after is unjustified.
This isn't about power either - even if the Nazis were effectively powerless they'd still be evil just like any organization that wants to destroy Israel is evil regardless of size or power. They might think they have good intentions or alternative ideas but in practice it is evil and puts a minority at enormous risk. “A people can be a minority somewhere only if they are a majority elsewhere" - Arendt.
The left repeatedly says that victims essentially get blank checks to deal with their oppressors but somehow you don't see the left defending Nazis burning French villages (why not? The French had a role in Versailles. Or maybe American towns would have been a better target with the prominent role Wilson played at Versailles.) None of it makes any sense to me - they say the Germans had "agency" but the Palestinians don't. I give up trying to understand. When does one truly make the transition from victim to oppressor? I've never heard that question sufficiently addressed and it probably can't be.
Ha, what an excellent question. Yes, what is the historical record? Examining that record doesn't automatically settle any controversy about the current situation in the Middle East, but it's surely relevant. It would for example be considered relevant in a court of law. Examining such an extensive record does help shine some light on intent.
As for current history in our lifetimes, we can examine Jews in the United States who are present in numbers similar to Israel. It should be clear from the evidence that Jews have never been any kind of problem in this country. Again, this speaks to intent. If the Jews were warlike people intent on theft and oppression etc, why are they not engaging in such activities anywhere else?
The only complaint I can offer in response to the post of Iris0, is that this thread is not about logic, and thus logical calculations such as Iris0 was engaged in would be..... Yes, you guessed it. Off topic.
On the other hand, just to argue a point, if the WWI allies had invaded Germany and taken it over, then WWII would not have happened. That is, maybe there should be a harsh response to those who start horror shows like WWI?
Yeah, had Germany been dismantled after WWI there would have likely been no WWII. Russia, if my memory serves me right, advocated for dismantling Germany but the other countries didn't want that and Versailles ended up in an unhappy compromise where Germany was left severely weakened, but not destroyed.
Ah, you're finally starting to get it. The notion that any of this can understood is based on an assumption that there is a logical framework to such ideas which can be analyzed and made more clear. If there is no logical framework, if such ideas are powered by emotion and not reason, then trying to understand the ideas is a fool's errand.
Ah, thank you. I didn't know the part about Russia, that was educational.
My understanding is that in the twenties Germany was recovering from the Treaty and thus interest in radical politicians was waning, posing an existential threat to Hitler's career. What turned that around was the market crash of 1929. This is surely another topic, but in a word, we are still running the very same risk today as we continue to let high stakes game players run wild on Wall Street. We just never learn, do we?
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210609-1500-palestinian-home-face-demolition-in-jerusalems-silwan/
[Quote]The Israeli-run Jerusalem Municipality on Monday issued demolition orders to dozens of Palestinian families of Al-Bustan suburb in occupied East Jerusalem's Silwan neighbourhood.
The demolition notice stated: "We wanted to inform you that we will carry out the demolition according to the court's decision. To minimise damages, you must leave the home without people and items until 21 days after receiving this letter. The municipality is not responsible for property damage if the house is not evacuated as mentioned."[/quote]
It's so hard for me to imagine a Jewish woman of that age, from that background, supporting the murder of Jewish civilians. I tried to find evidence of it but I couldn't. It would make her such an anomaly among that generation.
Bonus question: For those supporting the "by any means necessary" approach would rape be acceptable if it was found to be effective for attaining political means?
Yeah, it's fine for other thinkers to have ideas on the government of Israel and to criticize political parties -- I don't care about that. We can all criticize, but the moment it becomes so venomous that it excuses violence against Israel's own citizens is when that thinker has gone too far. That's always been the major dividing line for me.
EDIT: It was 180 who cited Arendt.
Israel's Einsatzgruppen is automating their apatheid gulag.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/israel-is-sending-robots-with-machine-guns-to-the-gaza-border
https://youtu.be/5myHwY654yY
The PA is obviously shitty, but Hamas is even worse on human rights. But yes, everyone oppresses the Palestinian people.
https://apnews.com/article/ben-and-jerrys-ice-cream-palestinian-territories-d8488b4c9c19dac11e2c253530d63014
Being against oppression is an extreme position and anti-Israeli. So being pro-Israeli means being for oppression then? Ok. Glad we cleared that up.
You keep saying that but Israel is worst on human rights from the three entities now named. Both in numbers and types of abuses. So you keep defending Israel despite it being worse than Hamas, the latter which you apparently find horrendously evil and bad since it's your go-to scapegoat.
I don't believe Israel is objectively worse from a moral standpoint than Hamas. The US might have more human rights abuses than a smaller terrorist group -- is the US the bad guy in this case? Hamas' abuse is pervasive & ongoing towards the palestinian population and there's too many human rights abuses to count and it would be impossible to count them all. Hamas is also obviously a genocidal organization that strives for the elimination (or at least subjugation) of Israeli culture in the region, but I'm sure you know this. Hamas is a genocidal and racist organization but some of us still like to support them as they are the "under dogs."
Yes.
Ok, but presumably you don't think al-Qaeda or ISIS are the good guys. Is there a side that you support in ISIS vs the US? Is there any government or NGO that you actually like? Who are your heroes?
Well the US created ISIS so they're on the same side and objectively the US has enabled and carried out far more terror than ISIS could carry out in a lifetime of existence (and continues to). Its material support for Israel being among those enabling factors.
It's interesting how you have this conception of institutional guilt - the implication with you is that every US administration is seemingly responsible or accountable for every action taken by every previous administration and that all this guilt accumulates and seemingly never decreases (or is there a way?)
So yeah, going by that logic any established country or group is going to be more evil than whatever is newly spawned.
Sure. The US can stop funding terrorist states like Israel, evacuate its imperial presence across the globe, redraw its ridiculous trade treaties which entrench global third world poverty, stop being the Earth's most violent enforcer state of capitalism and so on. Lots of things it can do. The universe is ripe with possibility :sparkle: And considering the US has had a continuity of fucking around and more importantly, fucking up the Middle-East since the idk, 40s without ever stopping, it's basically a straight line of American complicity to American complicity. Even bin Laden and 9/11 were outgrowths of US interventionism, which of course, they used as excuses to intervene more. Now that Afghanistan is going to go to shit (more so), one can only wait in anticipation till some new American dickhead decides it's time for a new invasion down the line in order to perpetuate the cycle.
Even if the US removed itself from foreign affairs entirely there'd still be plenty of legitimate grounds for criticism - from you and me both. My point is that the oppression doesn't stop and even if the US were to make huge concessions overseas we can still hurl any number of names at it for its domestic behavior. The US is just a troubled country, especially now, and I don't see how any politician or administration can immediately step in and solve these issues.
And yes all power should be unrelentingly critiqued, for all time, until eternity.
Ahaha, you forgot about the British empire? But for the Brits, you'd be speaking comanche or something.
But for the US, whose ruthless pursuit of debt-claims in Europe after WWI virtually guaranteed continental depression and political fragmentation across the continent, WWII would likely not have ever happened. To quote the historian Michael Hudson,
"no Act contributed more to the genesis of World War II than the intolerable burdens that the United States imposed on its allies of World War I and, through them, on Germany. Every U.S. administration from 1917 through the Roosevelt era employed the strategy of compelling repayment of these war debts, above all by Britain. The effect was to splinter Europe so that the continent was laid open politically as a possible province of the United States. Private finance capital could not have achieved that end, especially as the United States disarmed after World War I. The division and immiserization of Europe could achieve it, had the world not tumbled into a depression. ... World War II erupted not because of strains created by private finance capital, but because of a world bankruptcy in which intergovernmental [specifically, US - SX] financial claims played the major role. The debt and reparations tangle rendered nationalism the path of least resistance, and made pan-European internationalism impossible".
So, how I really feel? Well since you asked - fuck everything about the US and anything it comes close to even remotely breathing beside.
Quoting tim wood
Side note to side note: Not surprising at all. The 13,000 years (+ or - a millennium) the aboriginal people occupied the Western Hemisphere alone, is plenty of time to develop barely related languages. Indo-European produced languages as mutually incomprehensible as Urdo and Gaelic over 5,000 to 8,000 years, and this in a smaller period of time than passed in the Western Hemisphere.
It's quite possible that the proto-indiginous people carried more than one language group to start with. Though they were native to NE Asia, they had mixed with a well-travelled central Asian people who also mixed with proto-Europeans (all this promiscuous mixing over millennia). Europeans and Indigenous Americans share a large genetic inheritance from the central Asian people. ***
*** A Short History of Humanity: A New History of Old Europe (2021) by Johannes Krause and Thomas Trappe. Krause is a scientist (archeogenetics at a Max Planck Institute), trappe is a science writer.
update:
Sorry, just clicked on the link. Thanks SLX! :up:
The same malady struck in 1865. Within twenty years, the statues started their long rise, the flag again flew, the liberated oppressed were still oppressed, the enemy remained in control of the land, and war still smolders. Sometimes you have to finish the job or your decedents pay the price for your weariness.
Correct. Which is why the Europeans did almost everything they could to be leniant when it came to [I]enforcement[/i] of repayment, knowing very well the utter abyss that lay before them were the terms held to a tee. Which might have worked, had the pig-headedness of the US not demanded payments on an utterly inflexible schedule from its Europeans 'allies' even as it made humongous profits off the interests of its war loans. As with everything the US touches, it all went to shit on its account.
It's pretty eye opening. It also details how US 'aid', along with the post-war trade institutions that it set up - the IMF and WTO - have more or less been a continued fucking of the developing nations, to the financial benefit of the US.
The British could have defaulted. The US wouldn't have been able to compel repayment, so I don't see his point. Was the US just supposed to hemorrhage cash onto the Allies for the fun of it?
"Germany was burdened with a sum calculated to reimburse the Allies for most of the damage wrought during the war, a sum that exceeded the total value of Germany’s corporate assets. It simply lacked the resources to provide the Allies with the funds necessary to amortize their debts to the United States and to each other. As Snowden (Phillip, Chancellor of the Exchequer -SX ) noted: 'When the funding arrangements which America had made with her European debtors fully mature she will be receiving approximately £120,000,000 [$600 million] a year on account of these debts. The most sanguine expectation of the yield of German reparations is not more than £50,000,000 [$250 million] a year, though the Dawes scheme provides for an eventual payment of £125,000,000 [$625 million] a year. But no authority believes that Germany will ever be able to pay a sum approaching the latter figure. Therefore, what all this amounts to is that America is going to take the whole of the German reparations and probably an equal sum in addition. This is not a bad arrangement for a country that entered the war with “No indemnities, and no material gain” emblazoned upon its banners'.
... Despite these facts, the U.S. Treasury persistently refused to consider its scheduled repayments and interest as being in any way contingent upon the receipt of German reparations by the Allied Powers. Britain therefore had to turn to France and Germany to raise the funds with which to pay its war debts to the United States. France had only Germany to turn to, and marched into the Saar in 1921 to take in kind what it could not obtain in cash. It was a period in which the most extortionate of nationalistic acts were inspired by frustration at the economic situation imposed upon the world by the United States."
As for the Young plan, which arrived DOA just in time for the onset of the great depression, it was effectively more diplomatic window dressing at extorting Europe for money it could not conceivably pay. And your own source notes American intransience at tying the cancellation of war debts to financial relief form the US: "After the November 1932 election of Franklin D. Roosevelt, France and the United Kingdom resurrected the link between reparations and war debts, tying their Lausanne Conference pledge to cancel their claims against Germany to the cancellation of their debts to the United States. The United States would not accept the proposal. By mid-1933, all European debtor nations except Finland had defaulted on their loans from the United States". And lend lease for WWII was a fucking joke too, but no doubt you'd have to scrabble to do some last minute Googling in order to know what in the world that was or how to even talk about it. Maybe you can find another propaganda website to copy and paste from.
You mean: was the US just supposed to give up it's cash cow which had yielded over 3 times in repayments on interest than the principal of its loan? And yeah sure, Britain could have just defaulted, it's not like defaulting would have put Britain in a bigger economic hole than it already was despite acting as a pure agent of financial transfer to the US, right?
Moral of the story: the US held Europe financially hostage because it is a shithole country, and WWII was the result of its gangsterism.
Quoting StreetlightX
Hold on. Why didn't these imperialist powers, which themselves had gladly enjoined The Great War that Kaiser's Reich had precipitated, not tell the US to fuck off for this extortion-among-friends (i.e. "gangsterism") by either (1) negotiating much more manageable terms or (2) defaulting outright to let the devil take the hindmost, as they'd say?
Sounds to me like these insolvent colonial Empires (e.g. Great Britain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Russia, etc) had used their American creditor/extortionist as an excuse just to punish Germany and grind their military defeat down further into a crushing depressionary disaster. Yeah, I haven't read Hudson yet but maybe you can summarized how a handful of Empires still flush with colonial possessions and robust navies were "compelled against their sovereign interests" to submit to the comparatively new imperial kid on the block's threat(s?) to 'call their notes'.
I've been a financing & regulatory paralegal in banking for decades (and have read my share of critical economic & financial histories of "empire") but I'm confused as to how the US's apparent lack of leverage or enforceability had made the US the decisive, even culpable, driver to [ ... ] and subsequently WWII. Same as the US being the world's largest debtor state for decades – who the hell is gonna 'call our note' without destroying themselves? It's the old financial adage: don't lend to any debtor so much that you can't afford for him to default (my words, I can't remember how the maxim actually goes, but that's the gist of it going back as far the Medici Bank). Yeah, the creditor took advantage of the debtors' disastrous militarism but I fail see how the ensuing catastrophic consequences were the creditor's fault alone, or even principally. (Besides, it's like blaming China's illicit fentanyl trade for the opioid epidemic kicked-off by Big Pharma here in the US.) :chin:
So what, SLX, am I (& @tim woods) missing?
(I woke up in the wee hours and checked this thread which required a response so I could back to bed. I'll reply to your replay some time later today US east coast time (Atlanta, GA)).
In point of fact they did default - or rather, they simply stopped paying, and the whole issue was held in abeyance, at least until after WWII. But only after having moved proverbial mountains to service the debt, and having implored an indifferent and callous America to do something, anything, to ease the burden. Yet the US did the very opposite: it ratcheted up tariffs which effectively closed the US market - the only market not utterly devastated by war - to European producers ("free trade" my ass), while at the same time allowing both interest rates to rise - entailing massive capital flight from Europe to the US - and the dollar to go into free fall, making purchases out of Europe economically unviable.
And this is to say nothing about the fact that the (1) US loan terms were far more relaxed with Germany than they were with its own supposed 'Allies' in France and England, and (2) the US even entered WWI itself to guarantee continental orders on US manufacturing, and that (3) the Dawes and Young plans that @tim wood copy pasted were effectively restructuring efforts to allow private US capital to get in on the action from which they were not yet a part of. But these are minor details (some of which can be found in Radhika Desai's Geopolitical Economy, along with Hudson's book). In any case, post-default, without an external reason to work together, the European continent fractured as each went into it alone, with every other country raising protectionist barriers on every other, while arming themselves to the teeth as autarky become the order of the day.
Europe is certainly the opposite of blameless - they were both vindictive and stupid in their dealings with Germany and the US respectively - but the point of this digression was to respond to Tim's self-serving, historically fanciful idea that the US somehow stepped into the war out of the goodness of its blessed heart without which I would apparently not be speaking English. Regardless of whether or not Hudson overstates US complicity, it is undoubtable that US actions were a heavy spur to the most destructive war that ever took place on the face of the planet - so far. In any case it's worth remembering the moral of the story which is that the US is a despicable state responsible for global misery on a scale never been seen before with a legacy stretching back for more than a century. And as Niel Davidson put it, the only reason the US were not busy imperializing the globe earlier was because they were too busy genociding its native population as it imperialized its own "local" space.
Hudson is a fan of Jubilee style debt forgiveness. He wrote an article for the WSJ about it. He may be right.
I'm not sure what kind of social apparatus would be required to execute it though.
Yeah, I remember reading that when I came out. I'm pretty sure I even linked it here at some point. They're a great idea, but even then they would be attacks on the symptom, not the cause - which is capitalism.
If you ever come across a book called ”The History of Money" by Jack Weatherford, I'd be interested in your assessment.
He says the invention of money altered human societies and even altered how we think. The invention of money lending amplified the effect because money, which is abstract to begin with, now became virtual. It means that we live, to some extent, off of virtual resources, or rather live beyond our means pervasively and perpetually. It produces booms and busts that wouldn't happen otherwise. It produces super wealthy and debt slaves.
But the world before debt was a stagnant world. We never ventured very far from a baseline.
So which do we want? A volatile story or a stagnant one?
Yes, the US is clearly complicit in creating the conditions that led fascism to prosper in Europe, and I'm glad you've mentioned that other European powers were far from blameless as well. We're on the same page here.
We have to remember that WWII really can't be separated from the Holocaust, so the factors that led to the Holocaust are also complicit in WWII: German religious/cultural traditions, the merger of science and race, historic anti-Semitism, and a host of other factors.
Jewish economic success in Europe is also complicit - if the Jews didn't succeed they wouldn't have made such good targets/enemies for the Nazis.
The key here is to distinguish between one being complicit and one being actually, directly responsible for something. If your boss fires you and you go home and kick your dog your boss may be complicit, but he's not responsible for your dog's injury.
Indeed, in this connection it's worth mentioning that the Nazi's explicitly looked to America as a model of how to implement state racism:
https://www.history.com/news/how-the-nazis-were-inspired-by-jim-crow
Quoting K Turner
I don't think this is a particularly apt metaphor. American indifference and financial callousness was the subject of a more than a decade of policy wrangling and vexed appeals from blocs of nations which fell on deaf ears. Certainly, the Nazis were ultimately responsible for the suffering they caused, but their rise to power was enabled at multiple, decade-spanning points by American blitheness. And again, the point is, anyone with the audacity to say something as stupid as 'but for the US....' ought to know exactly what this 'but for...' entails.
On topic, this legacy of state racism is nowhere more apparently today than the racial terrorism of the Israeli state, propped by by this self-same maleficent American government.
Gosh I have a whole reading list on money backlogged under my bed. Maybe, maybe.
It's probably under your bed, then. Weatherford would just be a simple overview: how money appeared in Lydia (as far as we know, it was invented only once), and how that immediately started changing the world. He goes through the whole history of Rome from the perspective of what was going on with the money.
I think you're like that guy who wanted revenge on a whale. I'm sure at some level you realize it's just a whale.
More war crimes by the Israeli regime, just casually flying under the radar.
Happens very frequently, unfortunately. Just reading Haaretz once every few weeks, some killing takes place, as if expected to happen.
We all already know that this war is just religious and ethnic issues. It does not matter at all which are the facts or arguments of both Israel and Palestinian. The only truth here is all dead citizens. Probably you would be angry at politicians thinking why they do not do anything at all. Well they are just masks and actors so we have to start in the point where we should not expect anything from them. But why they want to divide us afterwards? I think it is an act of negligence from a public representation.
Everything is wrong in this context because there are a lot of lives depending in some buffets or offices. Why the people with this amount of power do not spread empathy and ethics? Since the moment they would not do anything to us, it is time to reach our own path to developing a better educational system. Only in this way we will avoid difficult situations as the war between Israel and Palestinians.
The Israeli army said it targeted launch sites from which three rockets were fired toward northern Israel earlier in the day.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/rockets-siren-heard-on-israel-s-border-with-lebanon-1.10082602
Here we go again. Hopefully things don't continue to escalate...
Quoting 180 Proof
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/
...
Quoting tim wood
:shade:
C'mon, tim. Have, for example, American Indians (on the reservations) "made any substantive efforts to live peacefully with" dispossessing, "Old World" settler-colonists? :brow:
One can be pro-Israel and still acknowledge that the Palestinians have gotten, are getting, and will probably continue to get a raw deal. They are in Israel's way. Israel is strong enough to push them around. Ugly, buy that's how it works. We Americans happily don't experience the effects of America throwing throwing its weight around elsewhere in the world. That's one of the nice parts of being on top.
How does one establish a new nation (even if it is claimed to have existed--and then vanished--a couple of thousand years previously) on already-occupied property? You displace the previous occupants, or you just sort of run over them, give them a good deal or a bad deal, but to a large extent engulf and subordinate them. People generally don't like this approach when they are on the receiving end, and they quite often resent and resist it.
Ideally, the Palestinians would just all disappear like morning fog. They won't / can't. Where would they go? North Dakota or New Mexico (somebody else's stolen land)? There aren't any great places in the world which aren't already occupied.
Next best for Israel would be for the Palestinians to "Shut up, go to your room, and stay there. Be quiet. Don't bother us. Don't call us--we'll call you if we need anything from you." I can understand the Israeli desire for the Palestinians to become obsequious peasants. Were I a Palestinian I would find that to be altogether impossible and outrageous to boot.
I don't know what the future holds. I'm pro-Israel, and the establishment of the State of Israel was "business as usual"--carried out by force against unwilling recipients of imperial policy. That's how these sorts of things get done, pretty much everywhere. Yes, the Jews were were in a dire situation, and one of the countries that could have taken in many Jews, had we not been kind of anti-semitic ourselves, was the United States. We did take in some Jews, but not nearly as many as we could have. The US was never going to be a Jewish homeland, but we could have helped more of them to survive than we did.
We can be pro-Israel without having to make a virtue out of stuffing one group down another group's throat. It will happen again, and it won't be nice. Nobody is going to like it. As global warming displaces more people, more "other people" will be unhappy that strangers are suddenly camped on their doorsteps. Imagine how enthusiastic India and Burma will be when millions of Moslem Bangladeshis are driven from their nation by rising sea water? They will end up somewhere, and nobody will be happy about it.
There's probably a Palestinian restaurant near you. They're a good source for understanding the situation on the ground there.
This is outright insane
If that's not insane, then nothing is. And I'd say that "insane" is putting it mildly; its positively disgusting.
C'mon, man...
Well you are racist scum because you support crimes against humanity. These things work quite nicely together in your case.
Not commit crimes against humanity.
This strikes me as completely disingenuous. We're not talking about the killing of non-military guerilla fighters who qualify as civilians under some strict technical definition, but attacks/murder absent any sort of military target or combatants anywhere in the vicinity. Bombing high-rise apartment buildings and restaurants. The killing of women and children. People minding their own business in their homes. Killed by the Israeli military/security forces, with the funding of the US taxpayer.
There's no justification for any of that, none of these people "earned" such treatment, and making excuses for it is stupid and gross.
I've already stated more than a few times on the thread what I think Israel must do to end the status quo of oppression:
:point:
:point:
:point:
:point:
What should the Nazis have done with the Warsaw Ghetto (besides not creating the need for the Uprising in the first place)? Or what should the US have done / do now with its reservations and urban slums / barrios and prison-industrial-complex? David (oppressed) or Goliath (oppressor)?! – tim wood, the crack'd bell fuckin' tolls for thee. Choose! "The banality" – silence / acquiescence / indifference – of "the good people" is, in fact, always the clear and present atrocity. Do you believe Gandhi, King, X, Mandela, Tutu, Wiesel, ... Ho Chi Mihn ... are wrong? :brow:
This always feels so disingenuous. They were all wrong, some more so than others, but that doesn’t mean that the causes they are identified with were completely misguided.
Siding with the oppressed does not mean losing any ability to be critical of their methods. It also doesn’t mean that every bad act is an existential threat. We are all born victims of history - some of us better off than others, but none of us responsible for the situation in which we find ourselves. Survival depends upon the consumption of resources - resources which were previously possessed by someone else in a world in which all resources are claimed. The entire world is an oppressive system in which each of us must struggle (alone or in community). Your acknowledgement of one group’s claim to oppression does not mean that it is the only oppression that is meaningful.
It doesn’t take much reading of tea leaves to see the rampant anti-semitism in the hand waving about Palestine. Not because it is about the Jews, but precisely because it is not about the Jews - the state of Israel as a proxy for the modern version of the Christendom vs. Islam renders it nothing but an object to be kicked about without any actual acknowledgment of its interests.
You want apartheid? Go to Saudi Arabia. Bigger population, more oppression, vastly worse, and yet crickets. No endless posts here, or anywhere else really, where people go on and on about how the Saudis should just give up their oppression and return what they stole.
There is a massive difference between Israeli apologetics and seeing Israelis as a group with legitimate interests just the same as Palestinians. Both groups cause harm to themselves and others as they struggle against their oppression.
It's almost amusing that you can ask this bigoted question and then complain about being the target of invective.
Ripped this quote or paraphrase from the pages of ... Mein Kampf, I guess. :shade:
Tim, even though lots of people are anti-Israeli, it's OK to be on the side of the Israel. What isn't necessary is to bend over backwards to make a positive of everything they are doing. Occupation does pretty much = oppression. What else would it be? European Jews, with the help of Great Britain et al, claimed, occupied, liberated, moved into, invaded, or otherwise came to possess much of the area of Palestine, called Israel and Judea a long time ago.
Of course the residents of that area, who had been living there for hundreds of years, would resent it.
Quoting tim wood
True enough, the new state of Israel had to fight for its existence from the getgo. It was attacked from within it's newly claimed territory and from without. Just guessing, but the Israelis probably expected this to happen. That's why they built up a powerful military (homemade and bought abroad). Is that how they are "aggrieved?
Quoting tim wood
Oh dear. Tim, when did you stop beating your wife?
Its unfortunate how frequently spurious/arbitrary accusations of anti-Semitism are used as an excuse to wave away legitimate criticisms of the Israeli state/military. I'd say that the victims of actual anti-Semitism deserve better than to have it turned into a cheap rhetorical ploy.
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
Sure. Or to Israel. This is just textbook whataboutism; someone else doing a bad thing (or even a worse thing) doesn't make the bad thing you did any less bad. Israel should not be an apartheid state. They should not be continuing illegal settlements. They certainly should not continue to indiscriminately attack non-combatants and non-military targets. Gesturing at Saudi Arabia isn't a substantive response to any of these criticisms.
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
And there is massive asymmetry between the two groups, since the Palestinian's oppression consists in having the boot of the Israeli military on their throat.
Pretty silly that such a wildly disingenuous post opens with an accusation of someone else (!!!) being disingenuous: my Irony Meter just about exploded!
It sure is: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/
Oops, eh? :grimace:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel#:~:text=Some%2074.24%25%20are%20Jews%20of,religious%20law%20and%20persons%20of
If that is what you meant, then you and I are allies. But, the general view of this topic pits Israel against Palestine as institutions, which is nonsense. Nobody better come telling me I'm responsible for what America's leaders have done in the Middle East. That's my perspective. Cool if you share it.
Ok internet random. I guess I'll take your word over Amnesty International.
I would highly recommend that. These organizations can't be trusted to tell you shit that isn't meant to make you thin how they want you to think. Go with philosophy, it teaches you how to cut through all of the nonsense and verify everything you read in the news, which, sure as I'm typing to you now, is replete with bullshit.
Anyway, terrible about that Israeli apartheid state.
Would be nice if they stopped doing the whole ethnic cleansing thing.
There is no apartheid, and Arabs hold office, property, and professional careers in Israel. There is no ethinic clensing, you've eaten the propaganda. All those involved in arm conflict are guilty of abhorent evil, same for Israeli settling. My position is far less biased than yours.
Word, I dig.
Anyway, Sucks about the apartheid in Israel.
Sucks even more that both combatants are mass murdering relious zealots that justify their atrocities because of flying donkeys and talking asses. Humanity for the win, while you play side-choosing in a game of mass murder like it's watching a fucking football game, good on you.
That's because you're not thinking clearly. Any side where mass murderers reside is no place for any ethical human. But, you know what I think. I bet if Palestine changed their tune and issued a peace statement one of two things would happen: 1. Israel would come to the table and co-operate, or 2. Israel would continue their "ethnic cleansing," and Palestine would thereby garner overwhelming support from the American people as a response to miltary action against a peaceful people. Until that day comes, fuck all murderers.
Quoting Garrett Travers
Cool.
:flower:
The below charts divulge the palpable one-sidedness of the "conflict", the atrocity of which stems all the way back to 1917 with the Balfour Declaration. Disputants can only hide behind aforementioned moral equivocations to mask their historical and contemporary ignorance combined with a general stupidity.
I guess in your mad scramble to see how you could cover your ass through a Wikipedia search to make what amounts to an immaterial point, you missed the second chart showing that between December 1987 - May 2021 87% of the 14,000 dead were Palestinian. Here I'll post it again so you don't miss it
Quoting tim wood
Perfect example of vague moral equivocation. Maybe log off and turn on Sesame Street? Sounds like that's more your speed.
Lmao. This reads: "I have no idea what I'm talking about except for what I've passively absorbed without looking too much into it". Just so happens that this includes blaming crimes against humanity on those humans against whom said crimes have been committed.
Israel has been systematically comitting ethnic cleansing agaisnt Palestinian territories for decades now, but sure, just a bit of defensive ethnic cleansing which they "don't start". You ignorant racist slime.
I don't get it. They do the same to Palestinians as what was done to their antecedents in nazi Germany, so it seems.
It's true that after all this time there is embedded resentment on both sides, mothers who have lost their children on both sides.
But conservative Israelis have never hidden their agenda of cleansing the country of non-Jews. If you don't know that, you owe it to yourself to learn more about the history of the region.
And your suggestion that wife-beating isn't as simple as it looks needs some examination on your part.
I wonder if you know what anti-Semitism is. Without going on a long lecture about it, anti-Semitism is structural and is not about "victims." There is/was anti-Semitism in places that don't even have a single Jew and haven't/hadn't for hundreds of years. We can explore this more, but that would be for another thread.
There are lots of legitimate criticisms of Israel. I make them, you can make them, and 180 can make them. What I was specifically criticizing in 180's posts is the idea that Israel must stop what it is doing entirely before anyone can be critical of what the Palestinians are doing in response to their perceived oppression. It isn't that the Palestinians are wrong, but rather that one must consider Israel to have legitimate interests at least equal to that of the Palestinians. You don't have to stomp Jews in the street to participate in/perpetuate anti-Semitism.
Quoting Seppo
No, it is textbook "Here is the way in which what you are doing right now is emblematic of anti-Semitism". Yes, Israel does bad things. No, Saudi Arabia doing bad things doesn't excuse Israel's bad things. Yes, Israel has done bad, unjustifiable things to Palestinians, should be held to account for that, and should immediately desist from doing those things. If someone is concerned about the welfare of people and they manage to spend a disproportionate amount of energy on Israel relative to the harm caused by Israel, one must ask "Why?" I am explicitly not saying don't be critical of Israel. I am, however, calling the internet sport of bashing Israel out for what it is. Here is an analogy - there is lots of trash music in the world. A white dude in Kansas spending all of his time denigrating the rap scene in LA because it is derivative and listening it to it primarily to negatively critique it is probably not so interested in detached musical criticism if he never spends time engaging with country music in the same way.* One can be racist while still being right in a particular criticism.
Quoting Seppo
Undeniably so. And the grinding of the boot into the Palestinian's throat is gratuitous. But just as a police officer is authorized to subdue a suspect, our expectation is that the least amount of justifiable force is applied and that anything beyond that is worthy of criticism. So yes, Israel SHOULD do something other than what it is doing. That does not mean, however, that Israel has no interest/justification in doing some portion of what it is doing. There is never going to be a time where Israel de-militarize to equalize potential use of force between themselves and the Palestinians. That asymmetry cannot, therefore, stand as an independent criticism of Israel. Yes, that means that Israel should recognize restraint in ways that the Palestinians cannot (Israel has guided missiles, Palestinians do not), but regardless of effectiveness of method, BOTH parties are wrong when they fire those missiles at population centers.
Quoting Seppo
Your irony meter might explode, but the fault is with the equipment. You should talk to the person responsible for calibrating/designing it.
* - I want to be careful here about saying that no one outside of an oppressed community can ever be critical of it and that of necessity such criticism is motivated by bad intent. Intent has nothing to do with the analysis, rather the focus is on the systems which led to doing A over B. Indeed, one can even be supportive of such communities and still be acting in a way that is reflective/supportive of that group's oppression - consider, e.g., fetishism and exoticism.
You're the one mis-using the term, not me (and so we can probably safely pass on a lecture about what anti-Semitism is, from the person who has demonstrated in this very thread that they don't know what it is). I imagine my Irony Meter would be going off frantically right about now, if you hadn't broken it last time.
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
:grimace: Yikes.
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
So, in other words, it was whataboutism, and you are, once again, abusing the term "anti-Semitism" as a way to silence legitimate criticism of a government/military that is committing human rights abuses and operating an apartheid state. False and disingenuous accusations of anti-Semitism undermine and distract from legitimate accusations of anti-Semitism, and actual anti-Semitism is a thing... so you should probably just stop. Seriously. Try to be wrong in a slightly less disgusting and harmful way.
That's sound advice. We should all be careful to be wrong the right way.
being wrong in the right way is an art to which I've dedicated the better part of my life :grin:
You aren’t wrong about that. I hope you finally master it one day.
Tell me, where does Supersessionism fall in your definition? How about otherness and scapegoatism? Just wondering if you are coming at this from typical western ignorance or something special.
I'm doing fine, you need to worry about yourself; I'm not the one attempting to justify/hand-wave away human rights violations and apartheid and trying to dilute the term "anti-Semitism" to meaninglessness by throwing it around without regard to either its definition or the facts of this particular case.
trying to save face, eh? :lol:
or is it that you want people to know that your abuse/mis-use of the term wasn't done out of ignorance, but out of a deliberate attempt to deceive/mislead?
Increasingly you seem to have no idea what you are talking about and just want to put words in my mouth. Not one single time did I say Israel has done nothing wrong or that Israel hasn’t unjustifiably abused Palestinians. What I did say is that 180’s demand of “stop oppressing them now” (a paraphrase) before they can claim any moral standing in the conversation is problematic. It isn’t the sort of advice that is offered to be constructive, but dismissive. And if someone is unwilling to actually engage with someone’s interests to see how they can be addressed within the context of the ongoing situation, one might question whether the “oppressor” is seen in the same human terms as the “oppressed.” In particular, one might question why Israel isn’t the oppressed whose methods can’t be questioned until their oppressors stop.
It would be swell if, on a philosophy forum, you could do some. What makes case A and B similar/dissimilar? What constitutes oppression? Can the oppressed ever be oppressors? How might an oppressed group understand demands that they “play by the rules?” To what extent does history have relevance in understanding current cultural behaviors/power?
Othering either group is wrong. Acknowledging divergent interests isn’t equivalent to approving bad behavior.
You make a good argument for an asshole, but a bad one for a peacnik. Particular Israelis fall on a wide spectrum of how to relate to Israeli Arabs, Palestinian Israelis, and Palestinians. The interest of the state, however, is not usually defined as the politics of a particularly reprehensible bunch of them. When one speaks of the interests of a state, generally they are invoking theories of government and statehood, not a particular agenda. In this specific instance, if one does not deny the right of Israel to exist, it seems like that person must acknowledge that Israel has a right to secure itself against destruction. In the context of the nations surrounding Israel that have made it abundantly clear they wish Israel not to exist and groups within the occupied territories have said the same, why shouldn’t Israel take those threats seriously? And if they do take them seriously, how should they respond to those threats?
If we can’t start the conversation with “the Palestinians should not be oppressed/abused/exploited by anyone, including the Israelis” and “the Israelis have an interest in continued existence which they have the right to forcibly defend”, then there appears to be an asymmetry in how each group is being treated in the conversation. The question is generally not whether that is the case, but how much oppression Israel permitted to foist upon others in order to defend itself in the face of ongoing existential threat. That is to say, we are involved with negotiating the legitimate claims of two parties in what feels much like a zero sum game. How does Israel remain secure while instantly stopping any form of “oppression” of the Palestinians? What do you suppose will happen if Hamas is given free transit across Israeli territory so that Israel is not depriving them of their freedom of travel?
In any case the question of 'defense' is a non-sequitur. Israel is an agressor, and until that agression is addressed it is entirely true that people need to STFU about 'security'.
That's patently false. Cease fires have been broken more often by the IDF than the Palestinians. And we all know where it started. It was Begin himself who boasted there was not an Israeli village that wasn't build on an Arab ruin. Ruins caused by the indiscriminate massacre of Jewish Israelis in 1948. The Jewish Israeli historian Illan Pappe considered it a campaign of ethnic cleansing. All for the purpose of maximising Zionist objectives to conquer as much of Palestine as possible - a lot beyond what was mandated under the UN resolution.
Both the land grabs in 1948 and 1967 are prime examples of aggression and war crimes terrible. And while the Arabs and Palestinians certainly weren't innocent in 1948 the number of innocent victims targeted by the Arab nations and Israel shows a clear difference, with Israel Zionist elites already showing it's true colours in 1948. After 1967 the balance of power in the region had permanently shifted in favour of Israel, or actually before that, 1967 simply was the proof in the pudding.
What is not complicated about the history is that Israel stole land twice and continues to do so through its colonialist settler program, evictions, apartheid rule and stranglehold "occupation". What is not complicated is that there are clear oppressors and oppressed. What is not complicated is that Israeli war crimes far outstrip anything the Arabs and Palestinians have committed combined. What is not complicated, therefore, is having moral clarity as to who deserves our support and who doesn't.
The only reason people think this is complicated is because of misguided guilt, pesonal loyalties or general lack of being adequately informed - particularly if they can't go beyond MSM reports.
You mean Palestinians?
Quoting Benkei
But shouldn't we accept "that regional powers project a sphere of influence in which you cannot fuck around without consequences"? Isn't Palestine, West Bank, Gaza, in Israel's sphere of influence?
It is a regional power, you know. :roll:
Since 180 is not participating it probably makes little sense to focus on what he said and my response thereto, nevertheless, the demand was not for Israel to stop being an aggressor, but to stop being an oppressor. Regardless, “ethnic cleansing” is clearly not an option just as collective punishment is not an option. If you acknowledge that Israel does have an interest in security and you seriously consider how to balance that interest against Palestine’s interest in not being oppressed, you are in the ball game. It would also be great if you have reasonable definitions/criteria around those points, but if you agree that demanding that Israel imperil it’s ability to defend itself is a non-starter, then we are on the verge of a meaningful conversation.
States are not individuals. The circumstances in which states can use violence legitimately (in ordinary discourse) is fundamentally different than when individuals can. We cannot look to institutions to mediate the boundaries of those circumstances. Even ideas like “aggressor” are unhelpful in evaluating such conduct. There are simply interests and populations negotiating those interests. Rights theory is swell and all, but at some point you have to stop denying the obviousness of the fact that populations disagree about what those rights are and the “right” theory is merely the one that is presently enforced.
Sure, one can have moral clarity if one has an impoverished notion of morality. Israel can do things that deserve our support and things that don’t deserve our support. The same is true of the Palestinians. Narrowing the only relevant concern around what we (or anyone else) support to whether Israel oppresses the Palestinians makes for a nice soundbite, but poor analysis. Yes - Israel did/does bad things. At the same time, “… far outstrip anything the Arabs and Palestinians have committed combined” is both untrue and not relevant. Syria, Iraq, Saudia Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Somalia, Sudan, the U.A.E, etc. have each committed atrocities since 1945 that when combined far exceed anything that the Israelis have done, but for some reason get a pass when it comes to discussing Israel. Their horrors are merely forgotten because Israel is big bad meanie and Palestinians are just oppressed victims with no agency and no responsibility for themselves given the meanie.
Palestinians “deserve” “our” support the same as any other people, including the Israelis. Bad behavior does not. The Palestinians themselves do horrible things to one another and have laws/systems that should be offensive to anyone paying attention - do they deserve support in that? It may come as a shock, but Palestinians exist outside of their interaction with Israel. Indeed, Palestinians even oppress people.
Nuance isn’t too much to ask for, Benkei. Bending over backwards to make Israel sound like the worst actor in the middle east/arab world is laughable. Yes, they are shits when it comes to the Palestinians, but let’s be serious. If you need a simple example or two, let’s start with female genital mutilation and rapes in Egypt, Sudan, and Somalia since 1948. If you need a less pervasive and ongoing problem than abuses of women, how about we consider Darfur for a bit and you tell me how that was a trivial bit of war crimes that don’t come close to anything the Israeli’s have done since the start of the 21 century.
The Arabs are no angels. You don’t have to be a good person to “deserve” fair treatment. Palestinians can be bad and be victims of Israel’s bad conduct. At the same time, Israel can do good things (you know, like develop medicine, medical procedures, medical technology, technology generally, advance science, agriculture, expand the rights of women, permit religious pluralism, etc.) while doing bad stuff to the Palestinians. It isn’t so clear how we support the Palestinians and BDS the Israelis without encouraging the Palestinians in their bad conduct and hampering Israel’s ability to do the good things.
And just because women, who are so often utterly ignored in any conversation about oppression, deserve yet another shoutout in a context in which the population of the Gaza Strip has approximately doubled since 2000 and more than 50% of Gazans are currently under the age of 18 despite Israel’s occupation, marital rape is explicitly not a crime.
At what point do we question the advocacy of carte blanche support for a culture that would otherwise be detestable if not for Israel being an oppressor? Yes, advocate for human rights (or whatever you want to call it), but stop sticking your head in the sand.
I don't particularly care about this kind of blather. I just think it would be nice if Israel stopped kidnapping children, destroying olive groves, bulldozing houses, engaging in wonton torture - that kind of thing. If you want to stratify this into some kind of warble about 'interests' you are welcome to, but I also couldn't give a shit. Nor, as far as I can tell, do the Palestinian subjects of Israeli meted suffering.
Condition aid to Israel based on withdrawal from the Occupied Territories.
As they go on fulfilling promises, aid may be given. If not, it can be reduced or taken away.
Please provide the numbers on how many atrocities were perpetrated against Israelis by those states and resulted in how many Israeli deaths. I'll wait while you get acquainted with the history of the area.
Where is that irony meter Seppo was using? This is a philosophy forum. Discussing the Israel/Palestine conflict from a philosophical POV (informed by metaethics, ethics, etc.) in a critical way shouldn’t be objectionable. And yes, we agree, Israel shouldn’t do those sorts of things.
If there is a Palestinian subject of meted suffering on here that would like to offer their view point on whether Israel’s conduct is subject to philosophical analysis, I am glad to hear them out. For my part, I have heard them out in other contexts and have advocated for a secular single state with peace on earth and equal treatment under the law (including reparations). But I recognize I am an outlier in wishing everyone to be reasonable, stop killing one another, and establish a government largely based on the contemporary best practice of a constitutional, western, liberal, secular representative-democracy with related cultural practices of inclusion, non-discriminaiton, accessibility, etc.
Israel stop being assholes! = good.
Israel ignore your own interests and allow the destruction of your government and slaughter of your people before you can respond to rocket fire and fire balloons! = bad
It is that simple. No stratification required.
You may have missed it, but no one has come to the aid of Israel since its independence when attacked. The only reason it hasn’t been attacked again appears to be related to its “undisclosed” nuclear program. The only method the foreign state aggressors have to do harm without Israel lighting them on fire is through the funding/support of non-state actors. Sadly, those foreign governments have decided that the Palestinians and their suffering is an acceptable way to continue their efforts to eradicate Israel from the middle east. Any relations with Israel in the region are predicated upon a particular nation coming to terms with Israel not going away, a reality which so far 5(?) middle eastern countries (states belonging to the Arab League) have accepted. Even “liberated” Iraq doesn’t recognize Israel.
As if right wing political Zionism cares one way or another about those reparations. It's also an idiotic argument since there's absolutely no moral argument to be made that because Jews got shafted in Europe they therefore are free to shaft Palestinians. Even so, reparations have and continue to be paid even by countries that were innocent of the crimes committed by the Germans. So I also, in fact, have no clue what you're talking about. There's an interesting book on this holocaust industry as well. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry
I didn’t say that the atrocities were perpetrated by them against Israel, I said they have done them and are not collectively responsible for less bad acts than Israel. The only country on that list that comes close to not having done more bad acts than Israel might be Palestine, and that is by virtue of its population size. I imagine if you counted the violations of human rights in the occupied territories by Palestinians, you might find that they are equal to Israel, but I won’t make that promise.
As to the Israel/Palestine conflict, and with no consideration of any other factor besides damage inflicted on populations/property, Israel undeniably has caused more damage and killed more people. What does that have to do with whether we support Israel or Palestine? Is it one factor in the analysis or the only? Are there reasons why we should support Israel despite that? Or not support Hamas/the Palestinian Authority? Or support both of them in their respective domains?
Pot, meet kettle.
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
You as well. Not really appropriate to demand serious philosophical replies when all you've posted is silly inanity and disingenuous apologia for the murderous actions of an apartheid rightwing government and its military.
:up:
Your reading is sub-par. I, personally, am anti-zionist and I cannot understand how a religious/ethnic state can claim it is morally defensible. I am not, and have not, even for a single second in this thread said “Israel was justified in doing X.” All of my replies have been aimed at the structure in which we perform our analysis of Israel’s behaviors. It is nice that you want me to say things I have not said, but I’d rather speak for myself.
Why do you start so strong and then fall into oblivion? Unless you were born in 1950 or earlier, you have ZERO responsibility for what happened in 1948 or 1967. If Gaza was sealed off because Israel yet again tore down tents/shacks, you might have a point about why Israeli’s shouldn’t complain when Gazans dig tunnels under their walls and slaughter Israeli families in their sleep. Israel doesn’t get to engage in collective punishment and neither do the Palestinians. When a 10 year old is blown up in the street, it doesn’t matter which side did it, whoever did it was wrong. Why is that so hard to understand?
One of the nice things about philosophy is knowing when someone is hiding behind abstractions in order to distract from rather concrete issues. Like Israeli state sanctioned murder and land grabbing. "Philosophy" is not your excuse to change the subject. Philosophy, among other things, is why your bloviating can be pointed out for what it is.
Stop patting yourself on the back and checking what is in your pants. Go ahead and quote what I said that you take issue with and I will respond. You can even fairly summarize it. Pick any method you want to have a conversation on here that approximates a good faith reading of what I wrote and a response thereto and I am happy to engage.
Again - Israel is wrong when it murders (definitionally) and wrong when it land grabs (definitionally). Israel is wrong when it blows up children and tells us that collateral damage is justifiable because the bad actors hide in population centers and that it shouldn’t be forced to risk its own soldiers in an invasion of Gaza to directly address the bad actors. Israel is wrong, wrong, wrong. Can I be any clearer? What issue would you like me to point at and say “Israel was wrong!”?
The only questions I have been trying to discuss are whether there is ever a time where oppression is justified and whether on oppressor must stop all forms of oppression before it can be critical of how the oppressed behave. Trying to turn that question into approval of specific conduct or Israel’s conduct generally is on you, not me. When done with the assessment, we might find that Israel has never justifiably oppressed anyone and that continued oppression is completely unjustifiable and that 180’s admonition to instantly stop the oppression is well considered.
Either have the conversation or don’t. Stop saying that considering Israel’s interests means approving of their actions.
Present crimes against humanity are not your intellectual plaything.
Or perhaps they are, but then your moral vacuity ought not be anyone else's problem.
Which is all irrelevant within the context of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and surrounding states. I thought that context clear from the post itself which talks about aggression and war crimes. Ius ad bellum and Ius in bello.
Put differently, if I have a fight with you, then the fact that you also beat your wife is of no interest to me.
Quoting Benkei
The context was clear. Who we should support. If our support is predicated upon who has the least dirty hands, why does it matter where that dirt came from if the choice is binary? Who would you rather succeed as a nation Syria or Israel? If you have to support one or another, which do you support?
Clarity on what particular act is wrong is different than clarity on what that means in terms of your/our behavior. I was responding to your claim of desert, not your identification of unequal wrongs within the limited context of Israel/Palestine. The context of my response seems well summarized in this
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
Give support or not give support was the binary. Give Gaza food and non-military resources and give Israel military aid seems to be the situation on the ground.
But I'm sure someone will whine about 'security' or somesuch. Or 'interests'.
Scum.
Israeli 'interests', which anyone who wants to talk about Israeli apartheid is apparently obliged to have to discuss:
So yeah, let's talk about the things Israel is interested in, like ethnic cleansing and wonton murder. Let's use this opportunity to be 'critical' about the 'behaviour' of this man, daring to drive home past Israeli extra-judicial executors.
Abstractions are nothing more than colonial complicity. Calls to discuss those abstractions ought to be ridiculed and treated for the excremental apologia they are.
Do notice how their own maps (karta rossii) look like now. Do notice one peninsula in the west:
Or how in the other country a map in schoolbook looks like:
But for some reason, only one is murderous and aggressive while the other one, well, actually you don't care what happens inside it, you seem to think that it has a right to a sphere of influence and think it's just bullied/provoked by the West or something.
Thinking like this is beneath you. Not least of which because Israel has no independent interests aside from those which we grant it by convention. Some Israelis do bad things. Far too many Israelis support them in those bad things and turn a blind eye. Cruelty is cruelty. One need not fancy it up with talk of oppression and apartheid. Do some Israelis (and elected governments) speak in reprehensible terms? Yes. And they do so as a direct result of their oppression. But as you suggest, being oppressed is insufficient justification for doing awful things.
One could write horrible stories about the Palestinians. Would you call them out for apartheid? Ethnic cleansing? Is Hamas a terrotist organization worthy of international sanction and criminal prosecution? Is your criticism of them blunted merely because they are shitty at their jobs? (You know, can’t equalize the body count).
Pathetic and rhetorical, much like the word “apartheid.” It adds nothing to the discussion and obscures the fact that Israel declared independence from everyone at its inception and was conceived as a reclaiming of ancestral land. You can disagree with the project, but you can’t change the facts. “Dhimmi” isn’t a modern invention and Arab nations are far more responsible for colonization and apartheid than a 70 year old state on nothing piece of land.
Israel does bad things. Misdescribing/miscontextualizing it doesn’t make it worse, it just makes you look prejudiced. Or maybe you want to claim that Israelis have some other state to go back to as they are driven into the sea.
[quote=“ The Palestinian National Charter: Resolutions of the Palestine National Council July 1-17, 1968”]
. . .
Article 7: That there is a Palestinian community and that it has material, spiritual, and historical connection with Palestine are indisputable facts. It is a national duty to bring up individual Palestinians in an Arab revolutionary manner. All means of information and education must be adopted in order to acquaint the Palestinian with his country in the most profound manner, both spiritual and material, that is possible. He must be prepared for the armed struggle and ready to sacrifice his wealth and his life in order to win back his homeland and bring about its liberation. . .
Article 9: Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it . They also assert their right to normal life in Palestine and to exercise their right to self-determination and sovereignty over it.
Article 10: Commando action constitutes the nucleus of the Palestinian popular liberation war. This requires its escalation, comprehensiveness, and the mobilization of all the Palestinian popular and educational efforts and their organization and involvement in the armed Palestinian revolution. It also requires the achieving of unity for the national (watani) struggle among the different groupings of the Palestinian people, and between the Palestinian people and the Arab masses, so as to secure the continuation of the revolution, its escalation, and victory. . .
Article 15: The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national (qawmi) duty and it attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine. Absolute responsibility for this falls upon the Arab nation - peoples and governments - with the Arab people of Palestine in the vanguard. Accordingly, the Arab nation must mobilize all its military, human, moral, and spiritual capabilities to participate actively with the Palestinian people in the liberation of Palestine. It must, particularly in the phase of the armed Palestinian revolution, offer and furnish the Palestinian people with all possible help, and material and human support, and make available to them the means and opportunities that will enable them to continue to carry out their leading role in the armed revolution, until they liberate their homeland.
. . .
Article 19: The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time, because they were contrary to the will of the Palestinian people and to their natural right in their homeland, and inconsistent with the principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations, particularly the right to self-determination.
Article 20: The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.
Article 21: The Arab Palestinian people, expressing themselves by the armed Palestinian revolution, reject all solutions which are substitutes for the total liberation of Palestine and reject all proposals aiming at the liquidation of the Palestinian problem, or its internationalization.
Article 22: Zionism is a political movement organically associated with international imperialism and antagonistic to all action for liberation and to progressive movements in the world. It is racist and fanatic in its nature, aggressive, expansionist, and colonial in its aims, and fascist in its methods. Israel is the instrument of the Zionist movement, and geographical base for world imperialism placed strategically in the midst of the Arab homeland to combat the hopes of the Arab nation for liberation, unity, and progress. Israel is a constant source of threat vis-a-vis peace in the Middle East and the whole world. Since the liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence and will contribute to the establishment of peace in the Middle East, the Palestinian people look for the support of all the progressive and peaceful forces and urge them all, irrespective of their affiliations and beliefs, to offer the Palestinian people all aid and support in their just struggle for the liberation of their homeland. . .
[/quote]
This is a strawman, one I've explicitly denied a couple of times, and a good example of the sort of silly inanity I noted already. This sort of nonsense is why people aren't taking you seriously.
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
Yeah, I did that already.
When people criticize Israel's actions towards Palestine/Palestinian (as many are doing here) they are typically criticizing Israel as a political/military entity- criticizing Israel as a state that is engaging in various violations of human rights and international law... Not criticizing Israelis as a people. Maybe this explains your confusion about anti-Semitism.
Ah, see, I have a problem with actual apartheid, and not just the word apartheid. Your allergy to words rather than actions explains your continued attempts to change the conversation along the usual tired, propagandistic lines of 'what about Israel's security'???. Nah, gonna keep it on track and keep talking about how Israel kills random old Palestinian men - and children - on the street as a matter of systemic and encouraged course, thanks. Write your irrelevant paragraphs of obfuscarory shit, calling settler colonialism 'interests'. I will continue to call out Israel's ethnic cleansing. You're welcome to continue sanitizing crimes against humanity as 'interests'. Which, to be fair, is exactly the case as far as Israel currently stands.
It's very misleading. Putting a long story short, what Israel does, however horrible it is, does not bother the US much, rhetoric aside. Public Opinion is now pushing the US government to be more critical of Israel, and is having some effects. But case after case, the US calls the shots.
Maybe you should read the charter I posted and what 180 said regarding the ability of Israel (or anyone for that matter) to question the methods of the Palestinian. It is right there in the Palestinian charter from 1967 - armed resistance, no legitimate Israel state, absolute liberation as the only acceptable resolution, non-cooperating in resolving the situation in any other way, educating their children to fight to the death, etc. You might also note their plan to escalate into full warefare drawing in the Arab states who have a moral duty to liberate Palestine from the “the Zionist and imperialist presence.”
This is all old stuff, Seppo. There is zero new territory being covered in 180’s comments, the left’s adoption of the Palestinian position regarding their oppression, and the compete erasure of Israel’s legitimacy. You don’t have to take me seriously - the people doing the killing don’t give a rat’s ass what either of us post.
What you seem to miss is that at the root of the problem is this issue of what Jews are and whether they have/had a state. The Palestinian claim that they go back to their state was vapid in ‘67 and has only become more stupid since. Where does a third generation Israeli go?
The criticism is routinely not of the Israeli state as such (though state action is the target), but that the goals of the Israeli state are either a) illegitimate or b) reprehensible. Just take a look at StreetlightX’s latest comment where he yet again makes the claim that apartheid is inherent in the Zionist - I’m sorry, I meant Israeli - project. “ Israel kills random old Palestinian men - and children - on the street as a matter of systemic and encouraged course” He of course will jump up and down about the “current” Israeli posture rather than the historical one, but the only reason Israel wasn’t accused of apartheid in ‘67 is because the world hadn’t popularized the word yet.
The state of Israel exists. They are 6 million people or so people there that prefer that state to the Palestinian one. The Palestinians have vowed to restore Palestine and drive out the Zionists. In 70 years no middle ground has been found, but Israel will remain at eternal fault with no moral standing to question the resistance.
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
(follow link @my handle) Ariel fuckin' Sharon's mea culpa, no? Hardly a leftwinger's "adoption of the Palestinian position". :sweat:
ninja'd ya :point: though, of course, bears repeating to apartheid apologists.
[quote=“The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement”]
… Article Eleven:
The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day. This being so, who could claim to have the right to represent Moslem generations till Judgement Day?
This is the law governing the land of Palestine in the Islamic Sharia (law) and the same goes for any land the Moslems have conquered by force, because during the times of (Islamic) conquests, the Moslems consecrated these lands to Moslem generations till the Day of Judgement.
It happened like this: When the leaders of the Islamic armies conquered Syria and Iraq, they sent to the Caliph of the Moslems, Umar bin-el-Khatab, asking for his advice concerning the conquered land - whether they should divide it among the soldiers, or leave it for its owners, or what? After consultations and discussions between the Caliph of the Moslems, Omar bin-el-Khatab and companions of the Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, it was decided that the land should be left with its owners who could benefit by its fruit. As for the real ownership of the land and the land itself, it should be consecrated for Moslem generations till Judgement Day. Those who are on the land, are there only to benefit from its fruit. This Waqf remains as long as earth and heaven remain. Any procedure in contradiction to Islamic Sharia, where Palestine is concerned, is null and void.
"Verily, this is a certain truth. Wherefore praise the name of thy Lord, the great Allah." (The Inevitable - verse 95).
…
Article Thirty-Two:
World Zionism, together with imperialistic powers, try through a studied plan and an intelligent strategy to remove one Arab state after another from the circle of struggle against Zionism, in order to have it finally face the Palestinian people only. Egypt was, to a great extent, removed from the circle of the struggle, through the treacherous Camp David Agreement. They are trying to draw other Arab countries into similar agreements and to bring them outside the circle of struggle.
The Islamic Resistance Movement calls on Arab and Islamic nations to take up the line of serious and persevering action to prevent the success of this horrendous plan, to warn the people of the danger eminating from leaving the circle of struggle against Zionism. Today it is Palestine, tomorrow it will be one country or another. The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.
Leaving the circle of struggle with Zionism is high treason, and cursed be he who does that. "for whoso shall turn his back unto them on that day, unless he turneth aside to fight, or retreateth to another party of the faithful, shall draw on himself the indignation of Allah, and his abode shall be hell; an ill journey shall it be thither." (The Spoils - verse 16). There is no way out except by concentrating all powers and energies to face this Nazi, vicious Tatar invasion. The alternative is loss of one's country, the dispersion of citizens, the spread of vice on earth and the destruction of religious values. Let every person know that he is responsible before Allah, for "the doer of the slightest good deed is rewarded in like, and the does of the slightest evil deed is also rewarded in like."
The Islamic Resistance Movement consider itself to be the spearhead of the circle of struggle with world Zionism and a step on the road. The Movement adds its efforts to the efforts of all those who are active in the Palestinian arena. Arab and Islamic Peoples should augment by further steps on their part; Islamic groupings all over the Arab world should also do the same, since all of these are the best-equipped for the future role in the fight with the warmongering Jews.
"..and we have put enmity and hatred between them, until the day of resurrection. So often as they shall kindle a fire of war, Allah shall extinguish it; and they shall set their minds to act corruptly in the earth, but Allah loveth not the corrupt doers." (The Table - verse 64).
[/quote]
Amazing how you say that Israel can’t condemn the Palestinians for killing children and think you find moral ground by pointing to someone saying there is an occupation. I’ve never once denied the “occupation” or the oppression. It doesn’t make a lick of difference when discussing whether blowing up children is contemptible.
The left’s adoption of the position isn’t around the occupation, it is around whether Israel has any legitimacy despite it and the extent to which Israel must become defenseless to atone for it.
The parallel is too stark to merely be, as some would have it, a bad analogy / false equivalence: Gaza City (intifada) ~ Warsaw Ghetto (uprising).
The reason for a Likud leader's agreement with the PLO that the need for the occupation / oppression to end is to maintain the long-term "legitimacy" of Israel. How can any state (of emergency) maintained by on-going ethnic cleansing, military atrocities & apartheid be "legitimate"?
Too stark? You mean that the PA and Egypt colluded against their Muslim siblings to starve the Gaza Strip to weaken Hamas and bring the region back under the PA’s control? Or how the Israeli’s aren’t preparing death camps and ovens for their bodies?
The tone deafness of the comparison is remarkable. The Zionist project as the modern Nazi, how convenient. Hitler had two legs… Sharon had two legs….. Connection?
The Palestinians and Isarelis are literally at war and despite Israel having taken the decisive advantage fifty years ago, they still provide essential services, support, jobs, etc. to the populations sworn to destroy them. The analogy to Nazis is willfully cruel and basically contemptible.
Yes, Palestinians are in a shitty circumstance and Israel does things to contribute to that. No, you can’t give Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinians a pass for the way that they perpetuate it to political advantage in their fight against the Zionists. The Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto didn’t have the luxury of conspiring with their friends to make their situation seem more dire so that the United Jewish League would send in the calvary, save them, and kill the Poles/Nazis who had done them dirty.
But again, absolutely none of this has anything to do with whether a) the Palestinians can be condemned for their methods and b) whether any level of oppression is morally tolerable. Your quoted binary that follows the PLO charter should tell you something.
Shut up with these stupid hasbara talking points.
You keep hurling the accusations as if they are new or will somehow fall differently. The question isn’t “is ethnic cleansing” legitimate or are “military atrocities” OK, but whether, given the circumstance Israel finds itself in, must it give up all forms of oppression to be given your leave to say that the Sbarro bombing was wrong?
Put aside Israel’s criticism. Was the Sbarro bombing immoral? Worthy of criticism? Questionable? Tell me how you analyze the methods of the oppressed when a civilian establishment is deliberately targeted and children murdered.
Of course it should be minded. And they should stop doing it absent compelling reason beyond vague handwaving towards the eternal imminent threat. Who has disagreed? Or said that Israel shouldn’t be criticized? How is questioning the legitimacy of the Palestinian method of resisting the occupation an excuse for Israel to be shits?
Of course they don’t, nor is that a moral response to the bombing. Yet again, you conflate saying that the Palestinians did something wrong with saying that Israel is justified in doing any horrible thing. This convulsive “Israel is evil!!! Stop talking about ethics!” grows wearisome.
Let’s say it to gether one last time - Israel has done lots of bad things both currently and historically. Is “stopping all oppression immediately” an ethically required choice for Israel or are they permitted to do something else?
Yes. Next point.
Go ahead and find where I said that. One quote. What crime against humanity (for whatever that means) did I say Israel gets to do? Collective punishment? Right out. Collateral damage? Ignoble. Unequal treatment under the law? Contemptible. Pick your crime against humanity and let’s see where I say “Yup, that is fine because SECURITY!!!…!!!…!!!”
Then you have removed yourself from the conversation of what Israel should do. That is a standard that cannot be met and isn’t even worthy of discussion. So long as you hold that standard and acknowledge that anyone that feels oppressed by you can kill you wherever they find you without moral guilt, I guess you at least aren’t a hypocrite. I strongly urge you to make yourself available to them as soon as possible with atonement in hand so that you can get on with judging other people in good conscience.
Yeah, can't ask Israel to stop doing apartheid without 'removing myself from conversation'. Propagandist clown.
But you didn’t ask that. You said they have to stop all oppression. See the difference?
From the perspective of the Palestinians, the mere existence of Israel is oppression and the vast majority of Jews currently living in Israel need to leave. They aren’t wrong that they are being oppressed in that way - that land was forcibly taken, that refugees were not allowed to return to their homes, that they do not have an Islamic state. Those three things cannot be remedied without Israel ceasing to exist. Stop oppression = stop existing. Or maybe you had some other oppression in mind and you were planning on telling the Israelis and Palestinians when Israel has satisfied your sensibilities.
If your existence as a state is premised upon opression, then you forfeit your right to exist.
In any case, you're abstracting again. "Opression", "Interets". No, just murder, land grabbing, and wonton suffering.
Stop your santising, propagandist.
So there it is. Israel shouldn’t exist. Fine, we’ve established that. And now that Israel shouldn’t exist, should the Palestinians be allowed to kill the Israelis in the street till every last one is gone or is there some limit to their methods of driving the Zionists from their shores?
P.S. For the sake of posterity, StreelightX edited his post after I responded and added the bit about my abstracting again.
So Israel can only exist on the basis of mass suffering of others?
Its called the Nakba for a fucking reason. Maybe the Palestinians got it wrong, too. You tell me. How does Israel exist without causing the mass suffering of others? (Notice your change again from “oppression” to “mass suffering”)
Seems like a problem for Israel.
And every other country, but we are discussing Israel here and we don’t want to venture into accusations of whataboutism by the Australians or Americans. Still waiting to hear from the Danes, though.
So go on, tell us, are the Palestinians limited in their methods of driving the Zionists from their shores because the mere presence of a non-Muslim not born in Palestine prior to 1948 is oppressive or are there limits? The soon to be fleeing Zionists would like to know at what point they can criticize the Palestinians for shooting them in the back.
Anyway, back to Israeli apartheid.
How is that a change of subject. How does apartheid end on your view with Israel continuing to exist?
You keep using the word, so a bit of substance would be nice. Are you just asking for Israel to respect the borders drawn by the non-oppressive British (or the very wise UN if you prefer) and give Muslims equality under the law within those borders? Are you asking for Israel to stop giving preferential treatment to Jews regarding the right of return? Give me a sense for what it will take for Israel to end apartheid of the people who have grown in number from around 1,000,000 in 1947 to 6,000,000 today as a direct result of the Israeli ethnic cleansing that is second only to the Nazi’s purge of Jews in Europe.
There has been a very conveniently published Amnesty report on the issue. You should read it. Very vivid. Not full of obfuscatory bullshit words like 'opression' and 'interests'.
The crime against humanity of apartheid under the Apartheid Convention, the Rome Statute and customary international law is committed when any inhuman or inhumane act (essentially a serious human rights violation) is perpetrated in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another, with the intention to maintain that system. A regime of oppression and domination can best be understood as the systematic, prolonged and cruel discriminatory treatment by one racial group of members of another with the intention to control the second racial group.
Thus, the crime against humanity of apartheid is committed when serious human rights violations are committed in the context, and with the specific intent, of maintaining a regime or system of prolonged and cruel discriminatory control of one or more racial groups by another.
. . .
Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has pursued an explicit policy of establishing and maintaining
a Jewish demographic hegemony and maximizing its control over land to benefit Jewish Israelis while minimizing the number of Palestinians and restricting their rights and obstructing their ability to challenge this dispossession. In 1967, Israel extended this policy beyond the Green Line to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which it has occupied ever since. Today, all territories controlled by Israel continue to be administered with the purpose of benefiting Jewish Israelis to the detriment of Palestinians, while Palestinian refugees continue to be excluded.
Demographic considerations have from the outset guided Israeli legislation and policymaking. The demography of the newly created state was to be changed to the benefit of Jewish Israelis, while Palestinians – whether inside Israel or, later on, in the OPT – were perceived as a threat to establishing
a Jewish majority, and as a result were to be expelled, fragmented, segregated, controlled, dispossessed of their land and property and deprived of their economic and social rights.
Jewish Israelis form a group that is unified by a privileged legal status embedded in Israeli law, which extends to them through state services and protections regardless of where they reside in the territories under Israel’s effective control. The Jewish identity of the State of Israel has been established in its laws and the practice of its official and national institutions. Israeli laws perceive and treat Jewish identity, depending on the context, as a religious, descent-based, and/or national or ethnic identity.
[/quote]
So I guess I was talking about whether Israel can exist as a legitimate state on your view. Huh. Who would’a thunk it. Even Amnesty international agrees with me.
This isn't the winning point you think it is.
Which? That Israel as a non-Apartheid state on their definition is an impossibility? Go ahead, explain how Israel can exist without being an apartheid state. Or maybe you thought I was discussing something else when I told you that the only way for Israel to stop oppressing the Palestinians was for all Zionists to leave (you know, those folks trying to establish a Jewish state).
Again, no one said it was. And again, my criticism of 180’s comment was never about how right Israel was, but about whether Israel could ever critique the Palestinians methods, especially given that Israel is predicated upon the oppression of the Palestinians. You know, that thing that Amnesty International (who you invoked) is saying,
It isn’t enough to simply say, “A religious state that privileges a particular religion and ethnic decent over another and tries to maintain that group to the disadvantage of other groups is illegitimate,” but you must remain silent as the Jews are killed. The Muslims, who are crying foul because they aren’t the ones that get to oppress all of the other cultures within their nationstate, are to be praised for their freedom fighting. So we support the apartheid wanna-bes and make emojis about the real prospect of Israelis being killed. Seems strange, no?
I am happy to discuss Israeli interests. Like ethnic cleansing and settler colonialism. The only one avoiding the issue seems to be you.
Sucks for whom? The Palestinians? Yup. Anyone else? You’ve already seen the statistics about how bad the Palestinians are in extracting blood from the Israelis. You can take to the internet to read about the ineptness of the Arab world at coming to the Palestinian’s aid in that task. So we are back at the beginning - Israel isn’t going anywhere, Palestinians are being abused more than necessary for Israel to preserve its existence and relative safety, and you and 180 have yet to announce a considered policy about how we can get from shitsville to something approximating a moral/desirable resolution that doesn’t involve a whole lot of dead Jews.
P.S. See Seppo? Your reading skills are lacking and the anti-semitism is glaring - Jews get to die and apartheid Muslims get to resume control over the conquered land they lost to the British. Or maybe you think the Ottomans were egalitarian.
Quoting Seppo
Stop apartheid.
Sorry that you seem so morally unclear about this.
You still seem to miss it - Israel cannot stop apartheid and continue to exist. The result of Israel ceasing to exist isn’t the end of apartheid, it is just the end of Jewish apartheid and the resumption of Muslim apartheid. So your solution isn’t about apartheid at all, it is about remaining silent as Muslims kill the fleeing Jews. Sort of sucks that the Muslims were so honest about the violent means to their liberation and the religious duty to drive off the Zionists.
The arsonist blames the bonfire – a circumstance of Eurocentric-colonizing Israel's own making by dispossession of the several centuries-old occupants of Palestine in the late 1940s. Israelis have created enemies which they have ever since been compelled to perpetually scapegoat – to oppress – "in the name of security" because Israel, despite needing to 'justify' itself remaining a heavily subsidized US/NATO client-state, has neither a modern historical claim, international law or demographics on it's side. A tragic catch-22 which, IME, calls into question the "legitimacy" of the State of Israel every day that this apartheid regime (& its US/NATO patrons-accomplices) resign themselves to the status quo.
No one is blaming anything. The Zionist movement can be definitionally apartheid as far as I am concerned. Any nationstate founded on being the state for X to the exclusion of all ~X is of necessity apartheid. Again, Israel exists. Israel ceasing to exist doesn’t end apartheid, it just ends Israel and lets the Muslims become perpetrators of apartheid. The Palestinians have expressly said that. Why don’t you take them seriously?
If apartheid is going to be the case in Israel/Palestine no matter what tomorrow, the next day, or the day after, at what point do we get to say to everyone, “Hey. Killing innocents is wrong.”? When do the Palestinians, who are oppressors in waiting, shift into not getting to complain that the Jews are shooting back?
Have you read the history books? A displaced people (who everyone seems to think are europeans despite 1,500 years of being driven from every place they settled after they were expelled from their “homeland”) starts emigrating to a land with the intent to form their own government which will protect their identity as its founding principal. They acquire arms and resources and declare independence and right to control a territory despite the fact that that land was already occupied by people who didn’t agree with them and outnumbered them 2 to 1. After successfully repelling those that would disagree with them and attempt to defend their 1,000,000 co-religionists from the new government being imposed on them, they go on to increase their numbers, power, and territorial claims.
You tell me how that story ends with anything besides head scratching and dismay.
Right. Because the Palestinians don’t want to be in charge of the entire land and impose a muslim state. That is just an invention of the Zionists.
I never pegged you for being so historically illiterate and overwhelmingly naive. Try to construct a single scenario in which Israel disists from “oppression” and the Israeli state remains. You don’t even have to give a fully fleshed out idea, just like five steps.
1) Israel stops being oppressive,
2) Hamas, the PLO, and every other armed organization refrains from taking any action against Israel,
3) No other Arab state invades Israel or otherwise enacts retribution,
4) Palestinians, now free to X, ???
5) Jewish state of Israel dissolved and the Muslim and Jewish occupants of the area form a liberal secular state because …. ???
Everything else - i.e. all of what you've said - is just so much apologist bullshit.
Just say it. End Jewish apartheid now and restore Muslim apartheid. No one will hold it against you. It is abundantly clear from your position, but it would be refreshing for you to be honest.
You laugh and the Palestinians and Israelis go on dying in an intractable situation that is exacerbated by foreign do gooders that can’t manage to place the blame for the vast majority of Palestinian suffering where it belongs - with the Muslim states who refused to permit the Palestinians entrance and safeguard in their misguided effort to weaken and de-legitimize Israel. The politics of oil have so rotted the brains of people engaged in this discourse that it is revolting.
You want the Palestinians to stop suffering? End Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt (you can throw in Iran for good measure if you like). Sure, they will still be displaced and desirous of returning to their ancestral lands, but they won’t be living in a ghetto between those that they would destroy and those that would see them suffer. The Palestinians could have been engaged in self-advocacy for 70 years from a place of relative comfort, but instead are forced to live in squaller.
But all of this is apologetics, of course. Saying that Israel is founded on unacceptable principles and that they did bad things is some defense of Israel. The Knesset is presently writing me thank you letters and the pro-Israeli lobby is buying me my next computer.
The farcical interpretation you give to what I have written is barely even worth the sarcasm I am now inclined to give it and certainly not worth the time I spent trying to get you past your sloganeering.
Anyway, Israeli apartheid is an unconditional evil and should end immediately.
That's my uncontroversial statement of the day. No obfuscatory faff needed.
As I already explained sufficiently in the previous post, which you seem to not grasp : we're currently not supporting Russia. In fact, there are sanctions in place.
Where are the sanctions against Israel?
My word choice with respect to Russia merely reflects my lack of knowledge about the existence and extent of crimes. I'm familiar with his policy of removing political opponents but I'm not aware of a policy of genocide. There's a qualitative difference between the two though.
An idiotic question. The most obvious being that Syria and Israel aren't at war so there's no need to pick sides.
But yes, in a conflict between two entities, the choice is binary and we (western countries) have and continue to support the wrong one.
Even taking your confused position that the situation is complex that choice is insane. "yeah, it's really a complicated situation and both sides do terrible things, let's support one side with billions!" so, fuck you I guess, for supporting the obvious morally wrong status quo.
This is what happens to someone's brain on Zionism: perpetuating and accepting the most vile shit about Israel, all the better to defend Israel. To defeat anti-semitism, simply become an anti-semite I guess.
Hmm, let's think about this.
There's about two million Chechens of whom 1,2 live in Russia (and Chechnya) and then you have 4,75 million Palestinians in what is now the Palestinian state,over a million in Israel (proper?) and in all 13 million when you count the diaspora, so there is over six times more Palestinians.
In the first Chechen war the Russian Statistical office estimates 30 000 to 40 000 Chechen civilians died while Human rights groups estimate that 80 000 civilians is closer to the truth and about 10 000 Chechen fighter died or went missing. In the Second Chechen war, that was the war Putin instigated, Chechen military and civilian losses estimates range from 50 000 to 100 000.
Add them up and you have what, perhaps from hundred thousand to two hundred thousand killed from a far more smaller population of a few million.
Now perhaps you can correct me with the statistics, but I gather that far more Chechens have been killed than Palestinians since 1948 in the wars. And there are far, far more Palestinians than Chechens. During the war of 1948 about 10 000 Palestinian civilians died. First Intifada, perhaps 2000 Palestinians were killed, in Second Intifada, a bit over 10 000, in Gaza during 2008-2009 about 6 000 killed. The numbers don't come close even to the official Russian stats from the two wars, which extremely likely don't tell the truth. And even if they would come to the same range, then you are talking of one people being 2 million and the other 13 million.
So you just HOW you consider Israel's actions to be genocidal and while Russia's actions against Chechens isn't I really don't understand.
(Of course, such accurate statistics as below aren't available from the Chechen conflict)
No. To defeat anti-semitism, recognize they structures of anti-semitism and try to dismantle them. Combine that with taking personal responsibility for when you perpetuate it and stop doing that.
The creation of a Jewish state for the Jews can only be described as a situation in which one ethnic group (or whatever group) provides themselves with advantages over other ethnic groups. The historic justification was/is the Jews were constantly persecuted and could only ensure their own survival and self determination by the creation of a state for themselves. Given that Palestine had some fair bit of cultural capital, it seemed a more obvious choice than trying to carve a new nation out of other places. The state of Israel was established primarily as a secular object of the Jewish diaspora, not a fulfillment of the ingathering of the exiles in furtherance of the messianic age. There is zero religious significance to the creation of Israel in 1948 and being anti-Zionist is something Jews are free to be.
Sorry if history and political theory intrude on your delusions of an apartheid free Middle East because the Jews have been driven out.
Because despite your general erudition, you have absolutely no answer to the question and the obviousness of the problem imposes itself on you (you know, reality). Take responsibility for your policy positions and the consequences they engender. How do you end Jewish apartheid without supporting and enabling Muslim apartheid? That isn’t special pleading. It isn’t saying treat Jews or Muslims differently. It isn’t legitimizing one form of apartheid over another. It is specifically treating them as equals and identifying the futility of “ending” apartheid to be replaced with more apartheid.
You are better than this. Here, let me say it again, I am an anti-Zionist. I think the existence of Israel as conceived is contrary to my notions of legitimate government and that it needs to be changed away from ethno/religious/nationalism and towards non-secular egalitarianism.
My solution to the problem of apartheid is different than yours and considers more of the features of the situation. Acknowledging that bad things will happen if your solution is imposed, which things should also be avoided, is not to support the status quo, but to say we should change it in other ways. And yes, saying “be patient” to those that suffer smacks of supporting injustice, but that is like saying that a doctor who tells a patient they must get a bit better before they can go into surgery is supportive of the malady.
There are solutions to the Israel/Palestine problem. The solution almost certainly goes through reformations of Israel and not the establishment of a Muslim state on its territory. The solution probably involves demanding various bad actors in Palestine stop acting badly and that both sides accept that neither is going away and both are entitled to kindness and governmental support. It also probably involves inflicting harm on a number on specific, guiltless individuals to make room for the social reconciliation that needs to take place.
Again, the actual people who live in Israel are human beings and generally fall within the scope of moral regarded afforded to all people. Their chosen form of government is entitled to the same regard as any other government and with that, their government is obligated to reform in ways that do not unreasonably imperil fundamental interests (such as life remaining in their homes).
The longterm success of both peoples is through mutual reconciliation and cooperation, not protracted division. The religious-zionism that has come to define Israeli national policy needs to end immediately, further displacement of established Palestinian communities needs to end immediately, and Israeli-Arabs and Palestinians alike must be given equal opportunity to organically grow the same way that Jewish Israelis are.
We could go further into particular issues and policy positions, but the fact that my solutions involve nuance does not mean I support the Israelis being assholes.
2+2=4?
Good demonstration of advocating for a cure that is worse than the disease. Childish but for the fact that most children understand that some initially good sounding ideas are actually pretty bad.
Anyway apartheid is an unmitigated evil and should be stopped immediately.
Just a single sentence. So easy.
Funny, I thought single sentences were for the ordinary language philosophers that feel the need to number them as they blather on. But sure, KISS - great contribution to critical thinking.
I look forward to more of your wisdom packaged into a single sentence. Perhaps we can change this to “Sloganeers-R-Us” or “the Aphorism Forum.” If we manage it right, maybe we can get a live feed to a fortune cookie factory that can just take random excerpts from your posts and put them in their cookies.
That's the one single good thing about apartheid. It is a moral acid which nicely exposes those who would abuse words to support mass suffering. You're the scum left over at the bottom of the petri dish.
Anyway, Israel should stop engaging in crimes against humanity. Sorry that this seems to cause you so much distress that you feel the need spew walls of text at in response.
I intend to keep distressing you.
You haven’t distressed me, you’ve just demonstrated what has been the case for 1,900 years. The West are anti-Semites and incapable of self-reflection on the matter because it so ingrained. You are literally advocating for the establishment of a murderuous aparthaid state that would shit all over your human rights under the guise of advocating for human rights. You can’t even see it for what it is and think anyone pointing it out is supportive of Israel doing bad things. Oppress women? Fine. Kill gays? A O.K. End freedom of speech? Good. Freedom of association? Your stamp of approval. Freedom of religion? Who doesn’t enjoy a dhimmi adding to the coffers?
I’ll do my best to change my way of thinking to prefer the caliphate over the Israelis. The contribution of the other Muslim nations in the past 200 years stand as a shining example of why their form of human rights violations are the way to go. The success of the Arab Spring at brining about structural changes and modernization towards secular liberal democracies is a sight to behold.
E: "You are literally advocating for the establishment of a murderuous (sic) aparthaid (sic) state".
I love it. Keep exposing yourself.
I am just putting things into scale here, when you talk about genocidal behavior. I think countries and their actions ought to be judged on a similar scale.
How you deal with independence movements, secessionist movements or with ethnic tensions do matter. How many civilians are killed does matter. Even your country has "overseas countries and territories", but we don't read about political turmoil or human right violations (or at least, I haven't noticed) in Sint Maarten or Curacao. Perhaps those countries that insist they are democracies and say that they uphold international laws ought to be looked even more critically.
Now as we tend to look at Israel being a democratic state, we can raise the bar for it. I can imagine what would have happened to the Jewish people if they would have lost let's say the Six Day War and they wouldn't have the Samson Option. Yet that was even then quite hypothetical and now days no Arab country, not even them together, do really pose an existential threat to Israel. It's really no excuse what and how let's say Syria would have dealt with Jewish people. (We shouldn't forget that the neighboring countries of Israel were not fighting in 1948 for Palestine, but trying to annex as much territory of the former British Mandate)
No shit. That's a false dichotomy.
Provide your sources and evidence. It isn’t hard. Last government of Palestine that was not the colonialist scum was the ottoman caliphate. Both the PA and Hamas (the duly “elected” governments of the Palestinians) have said they want one given the chance to rule. Who among the likely Palestinian leaders is not advocating for an Islamic government/state?
This is still just a silly strawman. Israel is at fault for human rights abuses (!!!) they have committed and continue to commit. Not for merely existing. If they, you know, stopped violating international law and murdering civilians, they wouldn't be criticized for doing such things- so much for being "eternally at fault".
Like, I understand that you wish you were arguing against fanatical anti-Semites opposed to the very existence of the state of Israel, but you're not, and so you should probably adjust your arguments and rhetorical strategy accordingly. Or you can continue to post this sort of nonsense, and continue to fail to meaningfully contribute to this discussion.
And in case you need some direction, rumour has it that this is something of signifigance in Palestinian circles:
[quote=“Totally non-apartheid people”]
Chapter One
Principles… Goals…. Methods
The Movement's Essential Principles
Article (1) Palestine is part of the Arab World, and the Palestinian people are part of the Arab Nation, and their struggle is part of its struggle.
Article (2) The Palestinian people have an independent identity. They are the sole authority that decides their own destiny, and they have complete sovereignty on all their lands.
Article (3) The Palestinian Revolution plays a leading role in liberating Palestine .
Article (4) The Palestinian struggle is part and parcel of the world-wide struggle against Zionism, colonialism and international imperialism.
Article (5) Liberating Palestine is a national obligation which necessities the materialistic and human support of the Arab Nation.
Article (6) UN projects, accords and reso, or those of any individual cowhich undermine the Palestinian people's right in their homeland are illegal and rejected.
Article (7) The Zionist Movement is racial, colonial and aggressive in ideology, goals, organisation and method.
Article (8) The Israeli existence in Palestine is a Zionist invasion with a colonial expansive base, and it is a natural ally to colonialism and international imperialism.
Article (9) Liberating Palestine and protecting its holy places is an Arab, religious and human obligation.
Article (10) Palestinian National Liberation Movement, “FATEH”, is an independent national revolutionary movement representing the revolutionary vanguard of the Palestinian people.
Article (11) The crowds which participate in the revolution and liberation are the proprietors of the Palestinian land.
Goals
Article (12) Complete liberation of Palestine , and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence.
Article (13) Establishing an independent democratic state with complete sovereignty on all Palestinian lands, and Jerusalem is its capital city, and protecting the citizens' legal and equal rights without any racial or religious discrimination.
Article (14) Setting up a progressive society that warrants people's rights and their public freedom.
Article (15) Active participation in achieving the Arab Nation's goals in liberation and building an independent, progressive and united Arab society.
Article (16) Backing up all oppressed people in their struggle for liberation and self determination in order to build a just, international peace.
[/quote]
Seppo, grow up. The Palestinians who 180 wants to free can speak and have spoken for themselves in this regard. Go read what they have said. Hamas and Fatah. They aren’t hard to find. They are the de facto leadership of the Palestinians along with the “Palestinian Liberation Organization.”
:roll: If you prefer to argue with strawmen rather than the people actually participating in the discussion, why are you wasting everyone's time- surely you don't need our help with such an exercise?
Lol, Jesus tapdancing Christ. :grimace:
"Apatheid is necessary because if we didn't do it to them, they would do it to us"
So we're talking about Israeli murder. Not the Oslo accords. We're talking about Israeli land grabs, not some charter. Don't let this shithead abstract into documents. Destoryed olive groves. Kidnapped children. Torn roads.
Step 1) end Israeli apartheid…
Step 2) …. We are only discussing step one!!!!
Step 3) …. No no no!!!! Just step one!!!
Step 4) Peace on earth and good will towards man.
I envy your critical reasoning skills.
Israeli apartheid must end, and all the rest is trash apologetics. I realize ending apartheid is a joke for you, but then, so are you.
Again, your reading needs work. No one gives a shit if they do it to the Jews (anti-Semitism), they only care if apartheid ends (by whomever on whomever). Apartheid is bad - moral acid test.
My response is not, “But what about the Jews?!” (Again, the audience doesn’t care about the Jews), it is “But when Israeli apartheid is gone, it will be replaced by Palestinian apartheid. The solution to apartheid is not different apartheid. Until you offer a solution in which apartheid ends in Palestine/Israel entirely, you aren’t actually trying to end apartheid.”
180, who to his minimal credit, at least gestures in the direction of how maybe the Palestinians don’t actually mean that they want to create an apartheid state because someone made some promise that has never been honored. For his part that is the best he can do - suggest that it isn’t necessarily apartheid in Free Palestine. He has no real evidence for that, but at least he is willing to cherry pick.
As I said in my very first response to 180, this conversation is not about the Jews because the Jews don’t matter in the popular conversation about Free Palestine. All that matters is that the Palestinians suffer. There can be no excuse for it and no justification. Anyone who causes it is in the wrong no questions asked. The wrongness must stop because the Palestinians. The conversation is wholly self aware that it is focused on the victim and stopping the behavior of the wrongdoer.
Ending a moral evil that is happening right now is obviously more important than preventing a moral evil that might happen in the future. You're basically just saying that there's no point in fighting evil if it's just going to come back in a different way.
If the Israeli apartheid ends and is replaced by a Palestinian apartheid, then the Palestinian apartheid will then have to end. But the current crisis is the Israeli apartheid, the one that is actually happening, the real one.
A perfectly reasonable response, obvious though it may be. It is basically the only defense I know of regarding the end-apartheid folk that doesn’t make them sound like bigots, just naive. If, on the fair weighing of the presently available evidence, you conclude that Palestinian apartheid is mere conjecture and not a likelihood, I might disagree with you, but at least I’d respect the position if well reasoned. People of good judgment can differ, after all.
Frankly, I am highly sympathetic to the “justice delayed is justice denied” line of thought. When it comes to larger group interests, however, I am not entirely convinced that reflexive “do the right thing in front of you and worry about the rest later” is the best choice. At some point long term strategic thinking is required and public policy seems like the place to negotiate present injustice against the value of future benefits.
loooooool
No, the Zionists have to engage in apartheid to create a JEWISH state. It sort of goes with the name. Jews, however, don’t have to be Zionists. And Jews can recognize when other Jews are advocating bad policy, even if seemingly well meaning. Seems you can’t keep your objects of scorn straight.
Mocking what you don’t understand isn’t a good look. Wanting to end apartheid because you read it in a fortune cookie makes you poorly reasoned, but not a bigot. Wanting to end apartheid perpetrated by the Jews, not caring about why they might be doing it and whether it is acceptable in connection with other ethical imperatives, and managing to give not a moment’s thought about whether the people living under apartheid will stop living under apartheid when the Jews stop makes you anti-Semetic.
Plenty of nice people are anti-Semites and have made great contributions to the world. Don’t take it so hard. Hell, lots of those nice anti-Semites don’t even think of themselves as being anti-Semites: they have lots of Jewish friends, have gone to a shiva or two, and can tell a funny incrowd Jewish joke. A lack of bad intent doesn’t make you not a racist.
But you can continue making excuses for it if you like.
I wonder if people thought so hard about Nazi feelings when they argued against throwing Jews in concentration camps. The poor, poor Nazis and their 'interests'.
No, here you were wanting to end Jewish apartheid because you fetishize Jews.
Anyway, Israel should probably stop kidnapping children and beating random old men on the street to death for funsies.
https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/chicago-synagogue-officially-designates-itself-anti-zionist-1.10715005
Yes. 17 or 20 people were hurt in the clashes with the police. Yet I think it's better to look at this from a larger context:
Of course, then on the other hand the mayor of Mariupol estimates that just in his city 21 000 have been killed since the war started. Some 50 days ago.
Yet human suffering isn't a numbers game and of course the attention now (for some reason) is in Ukraine. But I'm not so sure it is because people everybody accepts Israel's policies.
As I've said in this thread in the start, Israel has opted for perpetual war with the Palestinians. The founders of Israel thought that in some time peace should be made with the Palestinians. Present Israel doesn't think so. It's happy with the prevailing Apartheid system and low-intensity war that only sporadically intensifies.
And just to make it clear, Israel's actions and policies are utterly wrong in my opinion.
You see, your average Palestinian just lacks the 'pluck' of your average Ukrainian. That's what it mainly comes down to.
The fact that the world's largest military and economic power are pro-Ukrainian and anti-Palestinian is entirely irrelevant and it's just anti-american dogmatism to even mention it.
They were not 'clashes with police'. They were dehumanizing raids conducted by a violent, punishing state, for no other reason than repression and humiliation.
Quoting ssu
Yeah wonder what they could be. 'For some reason'. Not because the US and the West basically give a free pass to Israeli apartheid while hypocritically heaping focus on issues which are in their material interest.
Well, I'm still not sure about that "radio silence" you refer to.
At least it's in the news. Like for example here:
So why is Ukraine more in the forefront?
How about:
a) The conflict is new. Started 50 days ago. Compared to something that actually is soon an one hundred years conflict because the Palestinian-Israeli conflict didn't start in 1948.
Ever heard about Occam's razor?
Yes, that must be it. After all we can look back at the media frenzy back when the US-backed Yemeni civil war started. Here, for example is the Atlantic's lead at the time...
...and the Washington post lead with...
Is that so?
So what was the latest US talking point? Was it this:
Quoting ssu
Or perhaps it was that I referred to the mayor of Mariupol estimating that 21 000 have died. Oh, those "pluck" Ukrainians as Isaac says. It's not even Ukrainian propaganda, it's US propaganda.
Like the pregnant woman in the Maternity ward bombing being an actress? Right?
A strawman.
But at least your open to thoughts and sometimes do read what others write, have to give credit for that.
Isaac you see has this real fear that the US might seem to be good when it's Russia attacking Ukraine. Hence any support for Ukraine...is support of the US. So anything else discussed than that NATO enlargement caused the war in the Ukraine thread is bad.
Beats me. You're the one who seem to volunteer yourself as the target of my critique despite me not mentioning you at all. Guily conscience maybe? Or maybe just another opportunity for you to white knight for American interests?
[tweet]https://twitter.com/richimedhurst/status/1516015588040220672[/tweet]
Undoubtedly learning from American cops how to treat people.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/richimedhurst/status/1515783563559456775[/tweet]
My point is that the war in Ukraine is obviously in the center of attention. And that those that shed tears for Ukraine wouldn't care about what happens in Palestine. It isn't a sign that people are OK with Israel's Apartheid policies.
But if responding that to your comments is "volunteering to be the target of my critique", it tells a lot more about you than me, StreetlightX.
I've just gotten used to the ad hominems on the forum. Like, "Yes yes, you, like every other liberal shill pays lip service to things when it suits you."
I think some have this problem that if they are against the US, anything the US condemns they cannot similarly be condemned as it gives credibility to the US. It is wrong, stupid reasoning, because it doesn't go like that.
I have no idea what you're referring to here. Probably because you like to make shit up, on the off chance you're not spouting casually racist canards.
It's the issue of not having the US to be seen as this White Knight in the Ukraine crisis. It's so obvious that even people have in that thread openly say it is their goal.
But enough of your typical ad hominems.
These are certainly a grammatical string of words. It would be good if they had any meaning whatsoever.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-arming-neo-nazis-ukraine/24876
Again outright lie from you, but please do continue with neonazi theme! After all, I mentioned Mariupol and where other place is the National Guard regiment (not battalion anymore, FYI) than in Mariupol!
There's a ton of Russian propaganda about captured Azov fighters. After all, the purpose of the special military operation was denazification!!! So go with that.
But do then change the thread before you continue your ad hominem attacks. Because that's what responding to your comments is: volunteering oneself as the target of your critique, as you aptly put it yourself.
Also very cute how your response to an article is "no it's a lie" based on... what, your charisma?
Oh it's true. There are ultra-right people in the Azov battalion. I'm not denying it. That's the brilliance of Russian propaganda in 2014, the whole "but their all neonazis!" trick worked well.
Then again, in Mariupol the mayor has estimated that 21000 have been killed. Many corpses on the streets. What the actual figures are, likely history will tell us. Somehow I won't believe it will end up being 210 killed or 2100 killed.
Quoting StreetlightXAnd that's why I respect you and answer you. It's not all futile to talk to you as you can use your own head in these issues.
Quoting StreetlightX
That's false. I haven't said they don't exist. But give the examples then.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2022/04/ukraine-russia-putin-azov-neo-nazis-western-media
--
Anyway, I will refrain from making this a thread about Ukraine. Just wanted to comment on Israel arming Ukrainian neo-Nazis. Much like their sponsors, the US.
I'll end too.
Israel Intercepts Gaza Rocket After Sirens Sound on Border
2022, huh.
You mean human shields?
According to the article, Israeli intelligence do not believe this will escalate to war.
I hope they are right.
But in a few days, such comments can age like milk.
Well they are bombing Gaza again.
https://twitter.com/richimedhurst/status/1516187116790849540?t=soDqzt6BP2ZjQoGyl6D2Qw&s=19
Can't wait till the virtuous West starts singing songs about the "violation of sovereignty" while changing their little flags to Palentinian ones in solidary against an racist, violent ethnostate.
Hoping it doesn't last long. This really sucks.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/AJEnglish/status/1525072444385636352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1525072444385636352%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthephilosophyforum.com%2Fdiscussion%2F10926%2Fisrael-killing-civilians-in-gaza-and-the-west-bank%2Fp82[/tweet]
https://mobile.twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1525175388892168192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
I feel you're wrong. I know you're (probably) right! :smile: :sad:
There's quite some filth here, above Maw.
Although some identifiable groups have been brutally victimized throughout history a disproportionately large number of times, the victims of one place and time can and sometimes do become the victimizers of another place and time.
People should avoid believing, let alone claiming, that they are not capable of committing an atrocity, even if relentlessly pushed. Contrary to what is claimed or felt by many of us, he said, deep down there’s a tyrant in each of us that, under the just-right circumstances, can be unleashed; and maybe even more so when convinced that, God's on my/our side.
While I don't hold much faith in scriptural teachings, I do give credence to the Biblical claim (Jeremiah 17:9) that base corporeal human nature is “desperately wicked”. ... Meanwhile, many contemptible social-media news trolls internationally decide which 'side' they hate less thus 'support' via politicized commentary post.
So is every other country. Anyone who says they're not racist (or otherwise bigoted) is ignorant, a hypocrite or both.
That was seen as a clear case of European colonialism plus the racial divide. That clarity is lacking in Israel. South African racism was easier to run up a flagpole.
Seems like the Palestinians in the prison camp called Gaza have made a new prison riot (Operation Al-Aqsa Flood) to make their case. The latest build up of rockets are fired Can have become as a surprise to Israel. And the rest likely is a rerun of we have seen again and again. So waiting now for the Israeli inevitable Israeli response.
One can only hope that this powder keg doesn't finally blow, but even so I don't think it's a matter of 'if' but a matter of 'when'.
I don't think that this powder keg will blow out in one huge fireball, it will just continue to rattle and fizz and produce a lot of smoke for a while. Why?
Isreal as enjoying near total dominance of the battlefield isn't actually threatened by Hamas. Hamas in Gaza isn't a threat for Isreal. The only fear (in my view) is that a "strongman" Israeli leader decides it once and for all to end the prison camp called Gaza. Because, why not. But what then?
Now Gaza has been this camp where Israeli security has manned the walls around it, but the inmates have been in charge. In order to take Gaza back would be immensely costly operation. And then what? Have Israeli army patrol the streets? The previous uprisings are costly and basically demoralizing for an army that previously had these astonishing victories in conventional warfare against it's neighbors.
And there isn't Azerbaijani solution for Gaza as for Nagorno-Karabakh. Or would you empty 2,3 million people from the Gaza prison and through the to the West Bank? Or just push them to Egypt? Dramatic solutions are very likely out of the question as Israeli economy is dependant on Global trade and actually the trade with Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) is important. Israel could easily face sanctions from the EU and China if it takes drastic measures that are similar to ethnic cleansing.
Hence the more likely outcome is a military bombing campaign and limited assaults on Hamas infrastructure to tone down the ability for Hamas to fire the rockets. And hope that the media finally forgets the issue (as it usually does). To contain it.
The real question is if Palestinians in the West Bank or Hezbollah in Lebanon would come to the help of Hamas. That's an interesting question.
Israeli television's version of the attack:
An Al-jazeera's version:
Then, Egypt could boast of some impressive initial breakthroughs, and was quite successful until false Syrian reports of their success up north goaded them out from beneath their SAM umbrella. The war ended in disaster. The IDF had pushed the SAA back into the Damascus suburbs in 72 hours, the Syrian MOD HQ was bombed to ruins, the Egyptian army encircled and open to destruction, and the way to Cairo wide open. But, it did open the door to long term peace because Egypt amazingly was still able to make their initial successes into political win. I don't see the possibility of that here.
You see a lot of other things in this echo. Here the early surprising success up from Gaza is a handful of destroyed tanks and shock that those who crossed the border were able to hold for all of six hours. Of course, Netanyahu is playing it up like it's 1973, but the dates are the only analogous part here.
The military situation is hopeless for the Palestinians. They are in many ways blockaded harder by Egypt than Israel for their role in the Sinai insurgency. Their leadership is far more fractured than in 1973. The other Arab states have turned on them, leaving Iran as their main ally. Syria is in ruins and in no position to assist them. Russian support can't approximate anything close to what the Arabs received from the Soviets in 1973, nor are the Russian's particularly willing to support Hamas openly, at best filtering aid through Iran.
If anything, this should underscore Israel's ability to make concessions because the balance of power is so far to their side, but I seriously doubt that's how it will be taken. It's a blunder by Hamas in terms of increasing the bargaining power of their side re independence and peace, but I've long come to the conclusion that a lot of attacks on Israel are more about infighting between Palestinian groups, jockeying for position, then a pursuit of long term independence goals, a sort of focus on being king of the rubble.
This is, of course, exactly what the extremists who rule Israel want.
On a side note, it seems like Hamas may have been given some effective ATGMs. They have a picture of at least one Kornet. The success of their drones early might have more to do with surprise than their ability to defeat AD though.
Just to give perspective, during the Yom Kippur war Israel lost 2800 dead, Egypt 5000 to 15000 and Syria about 3000 dead. That is a pale comparison to the war in Ukraine. But then again, Yom Kippur war went on for only two weeks and five days.
I think in all of the conflicts in Israel starting from 1948 less people have in all died than in Finland lost servicemen during WW2. Or the number is equal. Hence in actuality and it is very grim to say it, but these conflicts haven't been so bloody that people would really feel sick of the wars as happened in Europe after the Word Wars.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I agree.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Yes. It is interesting to see what is the reaction of a) The Palestinian authority in the West Bank, b) Hezbollah and Iran, c) The Arab states.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
The last Isreali-Lebanon war is a good example of this. Actually it didn't go so well for the Israelis as Hezbollah had finally trained it's forces with the emphasis on lower rank officers and NCO's taking the inititiative. This might really be the issue, to be the king of the rubble, as you said. The reason is that both side in the end are accustomed to fighting a limited war. As I stated earlier, there's no reasonable "final solution" type of course for Netanyahu to take (to end this conflict). Especially with Netanyahu being Netanyahu.
The war is kept alive by extremists on both sides with the main intention of staying in power.
That's why I find this hard to credit as "freedom fighting". Of course the oppression is real but this response is neither supposed to nor capable of ending it.
And, as you say, the extremists in Israel have no intention to allow a solution when the conflict is so profitable for them politically.
Not saying either side actually consciously thinks it through in that frame, but their domestic political interests are shaping their decisions, with the result being more useless death and destruction.
If I had to guess the impetus for the timing I would guess that Hamas looked at the approval, funding, and volunteer boost Islamic Jihad got from their recent tangle with the IDF and decided they needed to boost their own credentials.
I would guess that Iran isn't wild about some larger conflict where they have to try to get more aid to Gaza, not when the Russians are paying top dollar for anything they can get their hands on in terms of weapons.
I also read a paper once though that suggested that Israel's highly effective targeting of Palestinian leadership actually created perverse incentives for lower level leaders in those groups to push for attacks. Basically, the groups in many ways operate like organized crime (also sometimes like legitimate states, it's a mix) and your ability to rise is contingent on vacancies opening up, which often only happens through death. But getting a leadership spot means opportunities for wealthy and influence. So younger guys with ambition have an incentive to push for attacks that don't otherwise make much sense because it will result in their bosses getting kocked off and vacancies opening.
This sort of thing gets increasingly noxious as groups get into the drug trade and prostitution, since that attracts another crowd. And this has certainly happened. Hezbollah and other groups has been seen in Latin America working as muscle/training for drug traffickers. Obviously, not everyone is on board with this sort of corrupting influence, but it's a way to make "dark money," the US can't shut down and the type of people who will traffick weapons for you are also the type of people who tend to traffick drugs and people.
What a mess. It does show though what an incredibly good idea it was to force all settlers out of Gaza earlier, back when the Israeli government was sane.
And yes, as mentioned, exactly what the hardliners in Israel want.
Aparently an elder women of a family, being paraded in a golf cart. See video below, 2:48
Yes, but in all the paragliding troops into Israeli settlements, the home made unguided rockets fired into Israel and armed men literally walking to Israel is a sign how weak the Palestinians are. But that's not the way they are going to be portrayed in US media. Of course the special forces mission to liberate the pensioner will be portrayed as a sweeping victory (if the granny is gotten alive). How many Palestinian families are taken out doesn't matter.
The hardliners are indeed happy. Negotiation is weakness, there is no other solution than perpetual war. Because such a weak enemy, confined in prison settlements, the death toll isn't too high for ordinary life to go on... with some fighting every once in a decade.
Surprised that the Mossad did not know about this at least 70 Israelis killed. Now Gaza will feel - for the umpteenth time - the hell of the Israeli military, probably going to be several thousand civilians killed in Gaza.
Appears to be a reaction to Israel's provocation of having that minister walking on the Temple Mount. I suppose that in retrospect one should've expected this reply.
I wonder if Saudi Arabia or Qatar will do anything to try and make this shorter than it would otherwise be. Another bloodbath and worst of all is the loss of civilians...
David attacks Goliath. What other viable choice does David have but from time to time to bleed in order to remind Goliath that he is also mere flesh and blood. Nonetheless, Goliath has far more to gain than it loses and David simply has nothing to lose which keeps oppression's tragic cycle of indiscriminant, reprisal murders going. Goliath savages David.
It seems to me that other oppressed people in history have found other viable choices to make, and occasionally been successful.
Yeah, you are probably right. There's a recent quote by the Israeli defense minister, "We will change the face of reality in Gaza years from now."
This will be horrific. :(
The distance between a point in Gaza to a point in Jerusalem is 50 miles / 80 km. It's 44 / 70 km between Gaza and Tel Aviv. So, a pretty good range for a sort of home-made rockets. Gaza factories probably have to operate for a couple of years, or so, to produce enough rockets to make an "adequate showing".
But then they have more than one model -- some are better than others.
Presumably Iran is the source of the cash / material that goes into the rockets, and I assume the stuff is smuggled in through Egypt above or below ground -- no big ships in Gaza's ports with missiles stacked up on the decks.
I haven't heard (as of 1:00 p.m. Central time) how well the Iron Dome defense system performed. The rockets in that system are said to cost between $20,000 and $100,000.
They're called "Qassam rocket" and the cost ranges from $300-800
https://jinsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Memo_Evaluating-the-Danger-from-Gazas-Weapons-Stockpile-1.pdf
https://www.dailysabah.com/business/defense/israels-push-to-repel-hamas-retaliatory-fire-incurs-heavy-cost
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qassam_rocket
Worth noting that: The introduction of the Qassam rocket was unexpected by Israeli politicians and military experts,[18] and reactions have been mixed.[19] In 2006, the Israeli Ministry of Defense viewed the Qassams as "more a psychological than physical threat."[20]
They aren't very effective, given they don't have access to sophisticated materials. But they can still kill, obviously.
Better to call it a family of different kinds of rockets. Qassam is just one specific rocket, one little one. Qassam-A I think is bigger. There are other rockets too.
What Hamas lacks is simply target acquisition, even if it can have drones. To have a system like the US M270 MLRS (or the M-140 Atacms), you have to need the targeting information. Israeli technology is on a totally different level here. Remember that Hamas operates out of a prison camp and it doesn't have any "safe haven" to train it's troops and safely build and test it's weapon systems. Yet with presumably Hezbollah/Iranian/Syrian support, it can have more advanced weapon systems. In truth these are few if any, and likely more of Israeli propaganda.
Those rockets look like they belong to Hezbollah to me. I don't doubt Hamas has some limited access to a few precision rockets, but not too much - Israel would usually spot more sophisticated rockets.
Yep, I should've added that they likely have more than one type of missile, but they tend to be rudimentary.
Israel is just on another level, though I've read that, when it comes to the Iron Dome, most of it is PR. That that system is not actually that good and you add that to the quality of Hamas' missiles, you'll get a relatively low missile launched to death caused by missiles ratio.
However, this time Hamas has killed 250 Israelis, that's not a trivial number compared to other Gaza massacres, on day 1, no less.
The Qassam can be improved, but improvements require more engineering knowledge and complicated tools, like lathes instead of welding equipment.
There are 45,000 acres of land under cultivation in the Gaza Strip growing fruits and vegetables. I don't know how much fertilizer is smuggled in for growing food and how much is used for bomb making. Sugar too would have to be imported. Then there is the scavenged or smuggled TNT. Sheet steel is used for the body of the rocket. Nozzles are welded onto drilled holes in the bottom plate. The nozzles improve performance, but are not canted to cause the rocket to spin -- which would improve accuracy, but requires much more skill in manufacturing.
Should you know of some some group interested in launching a hostile takeover -- say an artists colony wants the land of a nearby feminist commune -- this should give you some idea where to start.
Interesting article. Makes some good points.
I don't have any information about how much is real and how much is PR, but apparently Iron Dome missiles (several models) cost between $20,000 and $100,000. Even averaged out, each rocket in the defense system -- effective or not -- costs a chunk of change.
Oh sure, it's extremely expensive. And even then, it's not a guarantee against some of the most basic missiles which can be made.
But as long as the US keeps pouring in the foreign aid, why would they care about costs?
I keep seeing the Hamas attack described as "unprovoked," as if Israel has not been occupying, dispossessing, blockading, and besieging a population. The attack is morally wrong but let's be honest about what its causes are.
[/quote]
Yeah, and the justification for a more "mass shooting," less "military objectives" style of attack also rings pretty hollow vis-á-vis the Hamas leadership ordering this from their luxury penthouses in Qatar. They seem to have had an extremely businesslike attitude towards attacks over the last decade +.
I also don't think they expected to have killed this many people. It's a bit the dog that finally catches the car. There seems to have been a massive, systemic failure in the border defenses that had to occur to get to this point. So, a show of force probably expected to result in getting spotted and exchanging fire before breaking contact becomes hundreds of people getting shot in their beds.
By rights, this should be extremely damaging for Netanyahu for leaving the border garrisons under staffed and unprepared, but he'll probably use it to drum up support for himself.
Isn't that sort of the same relationship as Hamas has with Iran (probably involving less cash, however)?
To a small extent. As far as I can recall - it's been several years since I read up on this topic in depth - Iran offers more direct help to Hezbollah, but some of it probably ends up in Hamas' hands.
But yeah, it's one of the few remaining states in which the leadership clearly voices support for Palestine, which is why Israel hates Iran so much and even wanted the US to get out of the Iran deal, which Trump did to spite Obama.
Hopefully others here can tell you more details or correct my statement.
This just seems to be intentionally misunderstanding what people mean by "unprovoked." It's that the attack wasn't in response to an ongoing series of escalations, new border restrictions, a raid on the Al Aqsa Mosque, an assassination, etc., all the things that more commonly precede attacks. I don't think anyone supposes the situation came out of nowhere.
And that's important in what it says about Hamas' goals and reasons were in this case.
Thanks. Generally good points and I agree with a lot of it. Although it's a bit too gushing for my tastes. Running across the border and gunning down people while they wait for the bus or dumping your magazine into a night club crowd isn't exactly "blitzkrieg," or any of the other military superlatives mentioned.
Sure, such language is excessive, and war is horrible. Nevertheless, one can imagine living in Gaza under some of the worst conditions in the world, if you stay long enough in that situation, I know I would do nearly anything, however morally reprehensible my acts may be.
It feels as if, had they not done something like this, they would simply remained ignored as Israel gets peace treaty after peace treaty with traditional enemies. It's no justification mind you, it's context.
Likewise, if I were going to go to work, or having fun with some friends in a club, if they get kidnapped or worse - it's quite likely I'd want my country to do something, damn the consequences.
It would be ideal if only active military personal were targeted by combatants. That's impossible. Made much more difficult by the situation on the ground. Will it pay off in the long run for Hamas? Or will it only be another, much bloodier war, like the one's we see popping up every 4 years or so?
It's just a tragedy. And again, Israel hurts itself and massacres the worlds largest prison, not helped by the fact that, Israel has the most right wing government in its history.
How Hamas will end up, we do not know. Nor if Hezbollah will be dragged in. But we know the people in Gaza are screwed, as are more Israeli civilians than usual.
Quoting Wayfarer
'But I am not brainwashed by the Western press' :rofl:
Given the shifting geopolitical situation and rapprochement between Iran and Saudi-Arabia, I understand the fear.
What hangs as a shadow over these conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah, is the question of whether this will be the time Israel's historical rivals may come to settle old scores.
I don't think Israel getting recognition and treaties with Arab states can be chalked up to Hamas "not carrying out enough attacks." Quite the opposite actually. Hamas, and the Palestinian cause more generally, lost support in the Gulf due to cozying up too much to Iran and doing things to support Iranian interests ("the enemy of my enemy is my friend," being what brought the Gulf states closer to Israel).
I'm sure both sides (Palestinians/Gulf Arabs) can find plenty to blame in the other for the breech, but Gulf support for the Palestinians didn't fall off because "they aren't doing enough to fight." Rather, the biggest cause was a conscious decision to pursue aid from Iran, which was more kinetic-focused, at the expense of aid from the Gulf, which was more political/ diplomatic/ economic. And I'd argue this preference in which type of aid to privilege seems to have more to do with "who rules over the Palestinian population in the occupied territories and how much power do they have over them," rather than "how does that leadership end the occupation?"
The problem goes beyond the relationship with the Gulf states. For example, Egypt blockades Gaza more stringently than Israel, with a lot of bad blood due to support for the insurgency in the Sinai. Not that the Palestinians didn't have good cause for violent resistance in Jordan, Lebanon, etc. They were treated horrendously outside Israel as well, used as pawns, forced into squalid camps, but from a real politick perspective it tended to erode their alliances (Jordan being the big exception to some degree).
So, while I think the Palestinians in general have plenty of reason for violent resistance, it's even more tragic that the resistance doesn't seem to actually be targeting any sort of realistic end goal. It often strikes me as cynical and nihilistic, aimed more at internal audiences. The gushing is bad because it's not only celebrating mass shootings, naked women being paraded through the streets as trophies, etc., but because it has this nihilistic and delusional vision where this will provoke Israel into the "final, apocalyptic, battle," they are fated to lose. It seems far more likely to simply decimate the Hamas leadership again and leave the Strip even more economically ruined before the status quo returns. By comparison, the rocket tit for tat strategy actually did seem to have some deterrent value and had clear aims re direct incursions into the OT.
I somehow doubt that Tehran expected anything of this scale, or Hamas for that matter. It's the sort of incursion that's been tried before and been far less successful. The likely expectation before the incursion would have been for some penetration but engagement by the IDF pretty rapidly, and at the border itself in many cases.
I'm not sure on the timing for the rockets, but if the volume came after the attack has proven shockingly effective, that would say something about the original intentions.
For opsec reasons I highly doubt anyone in Russia would have had an idea about this. Israel and Russia get along surprisingly well and Israel has historically had good humint inside Russia. It's also not necessarily a win for Russia. Israel is selling off a bunch of old Merkavas and they might be more willing to have such sales be part of some package for Ukraine now that Russian Kornets are showing up in Hamas' hand.
Iran and Russia is very much an alliance of convenience and there is plenty of bad history between the two. The Iran, Russia, NK arms alliance doesn't seem like something that will outlive any one parties near term local incentives. If Russia could get Iran to do anything they'd be trying to get them to contain the Azeris continuing to press on Armenia, since it's absolutely discrediting Russia as any sort of security guarantor and Iran has its own potent Azeri independence movement.
Russia wouldn't want it because they want all the weapons they can get out of Iran, who will be busy with this. Iran might want it as a distraction, but they have their own reasons to be reticent given they have at times seemed to be teetering towards civil war, shelling their own cities to deal with unrest. And they can rely on Russia much less as a check on Israel in Syria, making attacking from Lebanon or Syria in support of Gaza riskier.
That's perhaps not as delusional as you may think.
Israel is a tiny country surrounded by historical enemies that have attempted to gang up on it several times in the past. Each time it was saved by its professional military, without which it wouldn't have existed today - it would have literally been erased from the map.
Pretty much the whole Muslim world has a bone to pick with Israel, and even if relations with some Muslim neighbours appear stable now, it's entirely unclear if that hatchet is truly buried.
When one considers that Israel's population is less than 10 million people (for reference, Egypt alone has a population of 109 million), one realizes Israel's dominant (albeit precarious) position in the region is entirely unnatural and cannot last forever. When another nation or nations take over that role, will they be merciful towards Israel? I highly doubt it, and Israel owes that in part to its own conduct and failure to find a modus vivendi with the Palestinians.
I visited Israel and the West Bank in 2019 as part of a research tour. The problems there are complicated and many, and solutions are all but impossible, so don't interpret this as though I am taking sides.
The atmosphere there is fearful and tense, in both Israel and the West Bank. It is a police state. I left with exactly the feeling that, unless it can accomplish some kind of rapprochement with the Palestinians and the Muslim world at large, Israel is doomed when that pendulum swings the other way. The question is when that happens.
You can't keep humiliating and beating people to death, over and over, and expect nothing.
Unfortunately, the Israelis (i.e. post-'67 Zion-über-alles Likudniks) expect continued military & economic support and absolute security guarantees from the US because of Israel's active national policy to keep on "humiliating and beating" non-Jewish populations "to death over and over". Futile, murderous David seems now nothing but American hegemon-backed Goliath's highly profitable atrocity machine's raison d'etre (with civilian casualities on both sides considered acceptable, unavoidable, costs of doing business by "the planners" in Tel Aviv and Washington, DC). I wonder, however, have they planned for a wider war? No doubt Tehran & Moscow want one (though Beijing & Brussels certainly don't due to the coming price shocks in global oil markets and winter just a couple months away).
Don't confuse the nation-states with their populations as official Western media regurgitate ad nauseam. This persistent conflict is like an abandoned depot of boobytrapped, live munitions & WMDs left over from the US-Soviet Cold War. Besides, all the players are still incentivized as client-assets (or legacy operations) in one way or another by either side. The historical geopolitical context matters, sir; "peace" – wanting it or not – is only tactic.
And actually on purpose.
Israeli anti-missile systems are top of the line (not only Iron Dome, but Arrow and David's Sling), hence the way simply is to saturate their ability to shoot down them by launching a mass of rockets. And here the tactical surprise (which is now obvious that Hamas had) helps this.
Quoting BC
They have planned for this for a long time. And now it seems to be right, add to the timing the 50th year anniversary of the Yom Kippur war (and the ugly surprise that was for Israel).
Hamas is something in a similar situation of the Taleban: there was no way to challenge the enemy (the US) with trying to fight a conventional war, hence fight a war with less tech than more of it. Less radio and electronic equipment that can be found. For the Taleban it was simply to a) exist and endure and b) use IEDs and make it difficult for the US and Afghani troops to operate freely.
I think for Hamas the idea may be the same: by launching this attack, they note to their people and to the World that they exist. Now for them it's only the part of enduring the Israeli counterattack. Because ending the open prison of Gaza for Bibi will be a very costly thing, hence likely they will make this retaliatory operation and possible free or get freed the prisoners.
On the Israeli side there are lot's of questions of how the so able intelligence service didn't anticipate this attack. And the last major operation, the 2006 Lebanon war wasn't a success and didn't meet it's objectives.
I think the reason is obvious: Israelis aren't defending their country from an enemy that could destroy their nation. They are defending their country from basically terrorist attacks. The combined conventional armies of Egypt and Syria could have beaten Israel if had they been more professional and better trained (which is extremely hard for a developing country). Both in the Six Day War and in Yom Kippur, the threat was there. Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza aren't an existential threat for Israel, and that has an effect on moral: you are more concentrated on not having losses than you are on fighting the enemy and taking the objective. It's noted that in the 2006 Lebanon war when Israeli troops got casualties the attack many times stopped and turned into an evacuation operation.
Let's see where that number goes to (up or down). But the reality is that Israel was caught surprised just like 50 years ago.
One Israeli civilian in the BBC commented that she was among people close to the Gaza border and she had to flee for her life among others as Hamas soldiers picked them by shooting from two sides. As obviously the purpose of the infiltration attacks have been to cause as much mayhem as possible, the gained tactical suprise has made this quite successful. And as someone already commented, these methods just work for those that are against talks with the Palestinians. Like Bibi himself.
Bibi's response is pure Netanyahu: he is already talking about the "evil city" and how people in Gaza should leave (Uh, were?) and that this will be a long war.
Quoting tim wood
Just as with Americans or with any people, I wouldn't say that people like "Israelis" hold one belief. If you think that Americans are polarized with Trump supporters and liberals, then with Israelis it is as worse or even worse.
The question is what kind of peace? Peace with whom now? For politicians like Bibi it is an eternal struggle because on the other side there are terrorists. Hezbollah and Hamas are the perfect bad guys, because you can literally show them targeting civilians.
The problem here is that there indeed have been Israeli prime ministers and politicians who have truly worked for peace (and then got shot Jewish zealots for that). Unfortunately the withdrawal from Lebanon didn't secure peace, the vacuum just created a place for Hezbollah to fire rockets into Israel. And this is what Bibi argues makes the peace-mongers to be so wrong.
It's a kind of experimental state, in that the US sends cutting edge military technology which can be used on a civilian population and have no repercussions, because the Palestinians have nothing to offer (oil, technology, etc.) but their lives. Yeah, once in a while the US can be embarrassed by Israeli actions, but nothing they can't handle.
Quoting 180 Proof
That's a good question. I am waiting for the obligatory commentary on this topic by Norman Finkelstein, he'll have the best information on the topic.
There are reports of a few minutes ago claiming that Israel and Lebanon have exchanged fire. I know that Hamas has asked Hezbollah to get involved, I don't think they want to, but if an accident happens, they could go in and then all bets are off.
Yes, plenty of times actually, there's lots of examples here, much of it covered in The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World by Avi Shlaim.
As for your question, does it help them? We don't know what will be the long-term consequences of this war, but at the moment, Gaza is going to be destroyed, with overwhelming civilian deaths.
If I were them, I do no know how I would react. The options on the table are all horrendous.
Quoting ssu
I think this is right. It's a high price to pay in terms of lives, but it's a desperate situation. Ironically, I do believe that if the blockade on Gaza was lifted and the people there had a decent life, violence would go way down. Collective punishment just leads to retaliation.
Yes, these threats are not existential. Few of them are actually, despite Israel's constant fear. The one big scare they had was the 1973 war, the other ones weren't particularly existential for them, though of course, things could have gone differently.
If Hezbollah gets involved, it's impossible to guess how this will turn out. I tend to think that the fact that Israel has moved so far to the right, makes compromises or deals more difficult and costly.
This was perhaps true in the 1990s and very early 2000s, and maybe has some truth to it in the median preferences of "people on the street," but those weilding political power in Israel absolutely do not seem to care about peace. I'd say the ruling coalition is quite similar in Hamas in that the war has become more about bludgeoning domestic opposition and building up patriotic support for the ruling government to paper over corruption and failure to deliver on domestic goals.
Both sides have become intransigent and unable to bargain in good faith.
That's not why I think it's delusional and nihilistic though. It's delusional because its believes in some great millenarian struggle that solves the problems. But it's completely unclear how even destroying Israel's military and genociding its people would fix the problem (not to mention the problem posed by their large nuclear arsenal).
What happens next then? Syrians aren't under Israeli rule, and yet when they came out to protest they were met with belt fed machine guns firing into crowds. Cities in revolt were shelled into dust. Egypt has been more stable, but the last time large scale popular protest occured, after the government was deposed by the military, you also had security forces firing indiscriminately into crowds. Abductions, disappearances, and torture continue.
It's nihilistic in the sense ISIS is. Sure, Assad absolutely deserves to be violently resisted, but the ISIS success plan was fairly fantastical and they kept doing things (e.g. all the gorey videos) that obviously hurt their odds of winning, and of setting up a functional peace even if they did win.
There does come the question of: "the men parading naked women through the street in jubilation and who have made their peace with shooting young children, what sort of state do they lead and how do they deal with internal dissent and minorities?"
You see this sort of result in the Taliban now facing multiple renewed insurgencies within Afghanistan. They have the same two fold problem of the career criminal element having been empowered and the true radicals continuing a sort of "eternal war," within the state. But the Taliban, for all its many flaws, is a good deal more pragmatic and visionary than Hamas. They might have an ugly vision of "what comes next," but they had a vision.
I say "nihilistic," because there isn't this focus on "what comes next." [I]How[/I] you win a war matters as much as [I]that[/I]you win it, sometimes more (recall, the Soviets "won" the Winter War). The retreat from any sort of coherent strategy into "the apocalyptic struggle will come upon us, many, maybe most will die, and destiny will carry us through," is nihilistic in that it doesn't seem to ask what comes next or particularly to align to a big picture strategy.
Maybe it's there and hidden? This is one of the problems with running your war in a way that is very opaque, even to your own populace. And Israel has forced this opacity on them to their own detriment.
And this is where I think you see the short term successes of Israel's assassination campaign truly backfiring. They have certainly been successful in destroying Hamas' leadership, but that's resulted in two groups coming to the fore. Died in the wool radicals set on total, explicitly genocidal victory, and your mafioso types. It's a conundrum. On the one hand, more quality leadership could do a lot more to organize resistance, but on the other, quality leadership gives you someone to bargain with who can actually control their own side and has a vision for the future.
But then, Israeli politics have done this same thing to their side, so...
Edit: BTW, it's not just the violence that makes me say this. The PVA did some pretty atrocious things in Vietnam, much larger massacres at times. But the larger actions of Giap an Ho always had a clear focus.
There are extremist elements within both sides.
Certain zionist and nationalist elements such as ones found in Netanyahu's party Likud, view Israel as a strictly Jewish nation state, and see little to no place for the millions of Palestinians that live in Israel. Aggressive settlement policies and discriminatory laws are clear examples of that.
Note for example that on the West Bank Palestinians aren't allowed to move freely through Israeli settlements or areas under Israeli control, and thus Israeli settlements have over time cut off entire Palestinian communities or made life impossible and driven them from their homes by settling near them.
West Bank Map
In the West Bank you will literally find lone Palestinian homes amidst Jewish streets, completely boarded up. These are people who refuse to leave. They're not even allowed to do groceries freely. They're policed by the army, while Israelis are policed by regular police forces.
One could argue that Israel adopted these policies with the express purpose of bullying the Palestinians until they would leave.
Tehran might want a conflict to distract from their domestic woes, but Russia? This seems like nothing but risk for Russia.
What happens if Tehran decides to support Gaza by having Hezbollah or its forces in Syria attack Israel? One obvious way to punish Iran would be to offer more air support to Syria's various rebels, something the IDF has tacitly done to some degree. That could be enough to throw off the stalemate and throw the SAA back on the back foot.
And what does Moscow do then? Deploy scarce air defenses to Syria to inflict higher costs on Israel? But they already don't have enough in Ukraine and when Ukraine gets the F-16 they will be facing a much increased sortie rate. Plus, if the air defenses are destroyed, do they admit defeat at the hands of a nation with a population the size of a large city or do they have to double down?
Already, Armenia is demonstrating that security assurances from Russia don't mean a whole lot right now. A shift in Syria would be an even larger blow.
Plus, weapons Iran sends against Israel can't go to Ukraine. I'd imagine the Russians are actually pressuring Tehran not to attack from Syria quite a bit.
Or perhaps Hamas could get much restock and replenishment for attacking Israel. Unfortunately many good meaning initiatives have backfired. Basically you have to have truly strong politicians that can make peace in the Middle East. Far more easier it is to be there a hawk.
And it hasn't been an all out war. Israeli's do understand that opinion is on their side when Hamas kills civilians. But that can change if the death toll rises to Ukrainian levels in Gaza. Hence still the Israeli Defence Forces do often announce what buildings they are going to destroy (and give minutes for people to evacuate them).
Both understand the punitive nature of the game of escalation: if let's say Hezbollah attacks with mortars, Israel counter-attacks with artillery. If Hezbollah attacks with longer range rockets, Israel does airstrikes. And note I think this has just happened in Lebanon. Hezbollah did strike Israel, but obviously hadn't planned a major assault (otherwise they just lost the crucial moment of surprise). But they don't want to stay as indifferent, hence I can believe the Hezbollah leader that said they did the attack out of solidarity. If they continue fighting, then it's different.
If Hamas really has thought this out, it should have trained well for the natural response from the IDF. To go and kill a lot of civilians will simply make the IDF make at least a punitive operation into Gaza. Now if you now have new tricks in your sleeve (drones, well trained forces, huge IED effort done), then it is a genuine plan (at least purely militarily). If the this was it just, then it was more of a political move. Because this is the time when poorer Hamas could use the advancement of drones etc. to their advantage. The IDF itself is very accustomed to using drones: basically the Bekaa Valley "turkey-shoot" of the Syrian Air Force in the 1980's and the destruction of the heavy air defenses in the valley was much because of extensive use of drones by the Israeli Air Force. But drones aren't yet used in infantry warfare, as they are started to be used in Ukraine.
Hopefully that would preclude any sort of major operation and make them think about the situation they've let develop.
Well, that's the issue. From a military perspective alone, the initial stages of this attack were very successful for Hamas. But if this is all they have that is, if they already played all the cards they have, then the only thing they have to negotiate or pressure anything are the hostages. I heard the BBC claim they have around 30 of them.
If Hezbollah does get involved fully, as in a full-scale war, Israel would still win, but the cost would have been extremely high.
We have to see what Egypt will do and Jordan and Turkey. Most scenarios still look bad for Hamas, unless they have something else.
But given the death toll, will Israeli politicians feel they have any room to maneuver? Israel is used to violence but this attack was on a different level. What other short-term solutions can politicians offer a frightened people?
Reportedly the IDF is evacuating civilians from around Gaza, that could be preparations for a ground assault.
Quoting Manuel
Presumably it's a message to Israel's other enemies to not be getting ideas.
Quoting Manuel
It was successful in creating death and destruction, but if we follow Clausewitz that's not a military goal. If the goal is to lure the IDF into Gaza - either to destroy it there or set up a multi-front war - that would be a military goal. I doubt the latter, there doesn't seem to be much of a realistic chance to defeat Israel even in an all out effort, and the US has already send a carrier as noted above.
Maybe the Hamas hopes to fatally weaken the IDF in Gaza. It makes at least theoretical sense, but it seems very unlikely to work out.
Of course it could be a sort of 3D chess where Israel occupies Gaza and all the long term costs - materially and politically - are meant to cripple it. But that seems a bit fanciful.
It can be interpreted that way. On the other hand it could commit the US military to another war. The aid they get through the US, plus the weapons and the ammunition, more than suffices. Also, if the situation in Lebanon becomes too unstable, Hezbollah may be forced to act. I don't think a ship would be able to stop that.
As a message to Iran though, there, it could be a signal. I don't know. But you have a point.
Quoting Echarmion
It's a mixture of several factors, including the Temple Mount provocation, creating diplomatic relations with Qatar and Saudi Arabia and trying to negotiate with Israel to free Palestinian prisoners.
If you look at the Israeli press, say Haaretz, they're calling it a disaster for Israel. Of course, if Hezbollah avoids getting dragged in, then Israel will eventually pulverize Gaza again.
Even if Hezbollah gets involved, it doesn't mean Israel will lose, far from it. They can flatten Lebanon quite quickly, the issue would be that Israel does not tolerate high civilian loses and in that respect, it could become much worse.
I doubt Hamas believes it can defeat the IDF. It is more a point of principle, of not being allowed to be insulted by the government and of telling other Arab countries outside Iran that they still exist.
The hostages right now are a key point. But if things remains as they are, Israel will win, as is to be expected.
We will see to what extent this US ship does anything. It's still quite surreal to see, despite the point you made, which is a good one.
Reports estimate Israel will launch ground attack in Gaza within 48 hours
Sources in the Biden administration estimate that Israel will launch a ground attack on the Gaza Strip within the next two days, according to The Washington Post.
A spokesperson for the Israeli embassy in the U.S. did not respond to this claim, citing that the embassy does not deal with military issues.
I can't share more, don't want to get into trouble with sharing and all that of paywalled material but, this is important.
That and they go through the Eastern Med anyhow. Following the attack, other Iranian affiliated groups have made threats on US bases "across the region," as well, so it's more a deterrent against other actors in the region.
But it also sounds like they might transfer PGMs to them. Which at least gives the US leverage. Given that Israel has plenty of dumb bombs and artillery, this doesn't seem like the worst thing. This was true with the Saudis too. All else equal, it's better if someone can use one guided weapon to destroy the one vehicle they are after, rather than leveling the block because all they have is dumb fire artillery.
Will the violence stay in Gaza? Or will the region be pulled into war?
Your guess is as good as mine. I would hope cooler heads prevail.
I would think it's more likely that it stays contained to Gaza because Iran's only way to move significant material into the theater would be through Iraq and then Syria, and both Syria and Russia have other things to worry about while Iraq has had tensions with Iran lately anyhow. Hezbollah will fire some rockets, but Hezbollah also governs and has domestic goals and seems a lot less likely to jeopardize those for adventurism, especially since the memory of the civil war and occupation has faded.
For the rest carry on.
If the western media sources accurately display Israeli feeling, this is a watershed moment, and a return to the status quo ante looks less likely the longer the fighting outside of Gaza goes on.
This seems clear evidence for the failure of the "prison camp" strategy. But what could happen next? I think it's likely Israel takes direct control of Gaza, but that in and of itself is not a solution and an ongoing occupation will be costly.
Sometimes prisoners murder jailors.
Sometimes slaves lynch masters.
Snakes in the ashes swallowing their own tales because arming both sides is always more profitable than unprofitable.
Since the Nakba / Shoah, thunder chases lightning....
Praise be Human sacrifices in 'the holy land'!
Yeah- I gave it a brief try, but you are correct. Thanks.
Oh. So it was just retaliation. They don't actually have the ability or desire for war.
I don't think any Arab states forgot they exist. Half the reason Gazans have nowhere to go is that they are blockaded by an Arab country. The shift has been that the Palestinians are no longer geopolitically useful for most of the Arab regimes, and the "Israeli boogie man," has lost its luster due to time, other, more relevant conflicts coming to the fore, and the Palestinians many wars with their ostensible allies over the years.
It's not exactly an issue the Arab elite has any reason to bring up. Sure, the cause might still be "popular on the street," to some degree, but loosing wars to Israel wasn't popular, Palestinian violence/subversion wasn't popular when occuring within the surrounding states, and they don't exactly want to relive a history where they forced the Palestinians into squalid camps in a fairly transparent attempt to keep the conflict alive. The whole affair isn't really a unifying issue anymore, particularly for elites now that a history of secret negotiations on exchanging "people for land," has come out, showing the land was always the target fought over, the people the burden they had to be "paid to accept."
And to the extent the attack is done in the way it was, it's made it much easier for those states, states that quite frankly, see Hamas as an enemy, just an enemy popular with the "street," to continue ignoring them.
I don't see a long term strategy here from Hamas. To the extent there is a strategy it seems aimed at Gaza first, unifying support, and the West Bank second, attempting to increase support in their ongoing rivalry with Fatah.
Israeli messaging seems to look towards a perilous strategy: removing Hamas root and branch. The main question is if they can actually achieve this with losses they would find acceptable and if they can do it without civilian losses that make it unacceptable to the Israeli public and the rest of the world. The other question is if what grows back will be any better.
To the latter question, the answer might very well be positive. If disrupted enough Hamas could lose its grip on power. Cheering crowds in the street only tell half the story. There are Palestinians with families to protect, jobs, loves, who voice angst over the fact that an unaccountable leadership plans their strategy in secret, divorced from the populace, and brings shells and bombs raining down while failing to deliver on real wins or governance (or freedom to speak these grievances) That doesn't mean that Israel is at all popular, just that Hamas does have competition for a reason, decades of failure has political consequences even if there is a unifying enemy.
And maybe that might make things better in the long run. If Fatah ran Gaza and didn't face such competition from more radical elements I think it's obvious that we'd be closer to peace and the Israeli right would be weaker (the radicals of each camp feed on one another). Israeli apologists make much of Arafat walking away from a two state solution but the fact is that part of the reason he did so is because he faced mounting internal threats and was losing control over his own party. This has to do with the way Israel itself handled the Intifada though.
The other side of a "better outcome," would be that Netanyahu is discredited and his coalition ousted. If Hamas is gone and new leadership on both sides emerges, maybe something better will come. I just see the odds being bleak. I don't think the IDF can uproot Hamas and I don't think Netanyahu will lose power, and it's hard to see any positive outcome in that case.
---
BTW, people seem to have a hard time distinguishing between Hamas being justified in violent resistance and Hamas not being justified in pursuing losing strategies that have made their situation worse over several decades. That the Arab states pivoted away from supporting them has reasons that are internal to Hamas, which doesn't operate in a vacuum. The loss of wider support is a Hamas policy failure more than any Israeli victory. But if your fight is worth shedding blood over then failure in that fight is worth critique. A just cause doesn't make you immune to criticism. Stalin was justified in defending against Hitler, but that didn't make his atrocious strategy and lack of concern for his soldiers and populace justified. And like I said, this is where Israel's assassination of Hamas' leadership is coming back to bite them since it has degraded that strategic thinking.
One would have to assume they expected harsh retaliation by Israel, but what do they stand to gain?
Keeping their cause alive could be one reason, but at the same time that's a very limited goal that maybe doesn't warrant such a large attack.
A theory I've heard is that Iran was involved, and that this may have to do with sabotaging Saudi-Israel rapprochement. It's an interesting thought, but at the same time the question is whether such a goal would warrant this type of an attack. Especially considering Iran and Saudi-Arabia have reached their own form of rapprochement recently, and one would assume that countries in BRICS have more subtle ways of settling such matters among themselves.
Anyway, I haven't heard something that makes total sense yet. So any takers?
I recall an essay I read a while back by a Lebanese woman who lived through the civil war. She talked about how attacks simply became a reason onto themselves, the raison d'etre of the armed groups. This seems like a similar situation from what I can tell.
Obviously, wars, at least initially, boost solidarity and support for Hamas, so that could be a goal. But after they are over, if there is simply more death, destruction, and poverty, and their strategy has failed to move the needle, this doesn't necessarily continue.
In this I think it's important to recall that Hamas uses its resources to promote the cheering crowds and rallying moments, while not exactly being a paragon of free speech and openess to criticism. I think at times they fall into the same trap that foreigners do, thinking anger at Israel is equivalent with love of Hamas. The two overlap, particularly during flash points, but even if one supports one's country in a war, that doesn't mean you can't be enraged by an inept command (e.g. conservatives in Russia in 1914-1917.)
They absolutely have the ability for a war. They have a fairly large, professional force. But they also lack the conventional forces, artillery, tanks, aircraft, to challenge Israel in any sort of invasion. Their successes have generally been to bait Israel into attacking them on their home turf to fight essentially an insurgent style war, allowing them to hide in urban areas. This works if you're baiting Israel into invading Lebanon but it won't let you push over the border through open spaces where aircraft and artillery will shred your forces.
But if Israel is focused on Gaza they are unlikely to fall for the bait and Hezbollah don't have the element of surprise anymore for a raid where they take prisoners to force Israel to pursue.
What they might do is fire rockets, try to bait out air strikes, and then use Iranian AA that Iran has previously been reticent to spread to Hezbollah/Lebanon to inflict losses on Israel. However, there are a number of problems with this. Giving weapons that could down commercial airliners to a group widely recognized as a terror organization comes with consequences for Iran and unpredictable blowback if they are used poorly (e.g. an Arab commercial flight being shot down by accident). It also comes with risks to their assets in Syria. And Israel has already shown they can fly literally thousands of sorties through Iranian air defenses without losing a pilot.
In terms of will, I think it's there, just not strong enough to want to risk something like a suicidal head on invasion attempt. That's why I would think it stays relatively contained, but I could easily be wrong.
Edit: also, Hez can't afford to bleed strength. ISIS is defeated but Sunni jihadism is alive and well and the attitude from them is still that Hez and Iran represent heretics who need to be cleansed from the Earth.
I think they might intervene, if Iran intervenes. Or who knows, make a "pre-emptive" attack on Iran or Hezbollah. Of course it's a way to show support to Israel, which is the most likeliest reason: put a carrier close to Israel, send them more weapons.
Israeli Defense Forces mobilizing 300 000 reservists. That's basically the Israeli armed forces making a general mobilization and putting it's strength to wartime strength. Israel has 460 000 reservists, so basically this is all but the second tier replacements. This also has severe effects on the economy with hundreds of thousands of male workers being out from their civilian work and in the military. Hence this kind of mobilization cannot go for years, it has to be an operation that is counted in weeks and months.
Hence it can possibly be a dramatic closure or occupation of the Gaza Strip. At least for the declaration that Hamas has been destroyed. There is at least plentiful footage of the atrocities that Hamas has done, hence why not start a war in a closely inhabited urban area where over 2 million live?
The real worry if this escalates even more. Unlikely, but a possibility. That if it goes so well with destroying Hamas, how about a rematch with Hezbollah too? The 2006 left a sour taste afterwards for Israel.
Is that fed by Saudi Arabia? Just curious.
My belief is that most everyone wants peace on their own terms. If only you slaves would bow and acknowledge my just rule and obey me, I would want peace myself, but since you insist on claiming equality and independence, I am obliged reluctantly to show you the error of your ways.
If they use massive military force to once again attack Lebanon or to occupy Gaza, I think it will be a grave mistake on their part. A new occupation of Gaza would turn into an absolute bloodbath that would probably haunt them for the rest of their existence. But I'm not sure if the current geopolitical situation allows Israel to go on the offensive like that.
It's clear Hamas and Hezbollah, and other actors like Iran, are capable of learning from past and contemporary conflicts and know how to target Israel's weak points. I'm inclined to believe the military balance of power is skewed less in Israel's favor than it has in the past, and given Israel's precarious position in the region we may be looking at genuine fear.
Not sure what you mean by "fed," but you could probably say "yes," in a few ways.
The defeat of ISIS was fed by the Saudis and other Arab states who led the air campaign that defeated ISIS in the field. However, even back when ISIS was seen as a major regional threat, the coalition still kept their efforts and eyes focused on Iran to a great extent. I recall analysts at the time accusing the "coalition against ISIS," of being as much a "coalition against Persians."
But Saudi Arabia is also involved in feeding the jihadi wave that threatens their state to a great degree. Private donors helped the Salafi movement spread and many of the big donors have been from the Gulf. At times the states crack down on it, but they've also tacitly encouraged it too. It's a mix of simply confused policy, owing to different people involved having different beliefs and priorities, Arab states using the radicals as cat's paws against each other, and them using them against Iran, particularly in the context of Iraq.
There is no one group to blame in empowering ISIS. Even Assad was giving them tacit support back when they were AQI, using them as a means to frustrate US interests. Every one involved in the region, the US included, has had blowback from supporting jihadis who later turned on them.
As of late, the Saudis seem to have cracked down on aid to a larger degree. I think this is because of ISIS blowing up.
Seems the most likely outcome when you mobilise this many troops. I don't see a lack of support as a problem. They don't care about a stern talking to from the EU. The US is making bank on Israeli military activity. I'm rather pessimistic this time.
Great post, I agree. It's definitely true the Palestinian issue is a thorn in the side of most Arab governments, in large part because they don't have any value for them in terms of resources. The national issue of the Palestinian people, as you point out, is not a unifying theme for them, though for some segments of the population, not a trivial amount, it is still a fiercely felt problem.
I had more in mind, obviously doing armchair psychology, that Hamas felt that all they were getting was humiliation after humiliation, so this attack is a bit of a point of pride. That issue with the Defense Minister walking on the Temple Mount was extremely gross and pathetic.
Granted, Hamas is far from immune from very harsh criticism - then again, at least when I turn of the news, that's all that is talked about, the whole "unprovoked attack" angle, which is just blatantly false. Unprovoked? Jeez. I'd like to see what a provocation looks like.
But I do agree that killing civilians is not good, it's immoral. And I also don't see what Hamas' long term goal is, getting thousands of civilians killed for some prisoners doesn't look like a price worth paying. Then again, I'm not living in Gaza.
Yes, this is what they are indicating they will do, occupy Gaza, maybe get rid of Hamas for good. Maybe they'll get rid of Hamas, and as tend to happens in these things, something much worse will fill the power vacuum.
The issue which is being pointed out is that, if they do carry out a land invasion, they will lose plenty of soldiers and I'm not sure if Israeli society will tolerate a high number of deaths. They will have initial support, but I think such an operation is time sensitive.
As for the ship, I do see it as a potential deterrent for Iran. But I do not see how this deters Hezbollah, if they are forced to fight. Hezbollah does not want to get involved in a fight, Lebanon would be destroyed again, but if things get out of hand, they will fight back. The US could help Israel here, but having the US and Israel pulverize Lebanon would be sick.
Such a scenario is not likely, but as you say, also not impossible.
Agreed. The number of troops is insane. Put it like that, Hezbollah could be pressured to react. It's a big mess. This whole complete blockade of Gaza is ghastly. Wow.
Look, I understand the reaction to being embarrassed, I do. Starving millions of people is not a good reply in any situation.
A very good reply if you want to kill people. Leave morality at the door when figuring out Israeli calculus.
But in the end where will it leave Israel? Rapprochement with the Muslim world will be impossible if the civilian death toll is high, and it probably will be. The situation on the West Bank will become further inflamed, quite possibly resulting in extreme violence there as well. What of other Arab nations like Lebanon and Iran, who might not sit idly by while this happens?
If this powder keg blows, what is the US going to do? It's got its hands full with Russia and China.
If you reject the views that (1) Israel has a religious right to possess and govern the areas at issue; and/or that (2) the Jewish people have a non-religious right to possess and govern the areas at issue because it is their "homeland," then the creation of Israel was an injustice. That those who were displaced as a result, and that those who must live as its subjects though unwilling to do so, resent its creation and hope for its dissolution is unsurprising. Nor is it clear that its continued existence, from the perspective of the Palestinians, will be of any benefit to them, especially given the relentless "settling" of aggressive Jewish communities and the fact that Israel considers itself a place where Jews are to live.
I hold neither of those views, and tend to think of Israel as a creation of Western powers, primarily the U.K., which was bound to create hostility and has continued to result in violence since it was formed.
That said, Israel exists and is unlikely to go away. So, efforts to annihilate it are futile. I frankly feel a two-state solution is the only viable option, but doubt that is something Israel will accept.
All fascinating information. Thank you. When you say we can probably say "yes" in a few days, do you mean the present situation is likely to wake up Salafi jihadists, and Saudi Arabia will support that?
I share a lot of your view. I personally doubt that it's something Palestinians would accept, but two-state seems to be the only viable solution outside of one side massacring the other
This is wild.
I also don't understand what they wanted to accomplish with this. But it's obvious Hamas doesn't care about civilian deaths. There's a reason they set up their military operations in schools and hospitals. Palestinian civilians are nothing but human shields to Hamas, and at best future recruits.
Ah, took long enough to hear about the human shields argument.
I mean, given how big Gaza is, Hamas is particularly responsible for Israel shooting down hospitals or schools.
It would be better for the whole group to isolate in one of the biggest areas of the massive Gaza so they can be easily killed by the IDF.
The whole of Gaza is a human shield.
Like everyone else in the same situation, right?
Quoting Ciceronianus
An injustice in a long line of injustices. It's not like the British mandate that preceded it was any more just. The region was regularly engulfed by war even before there were Muslims or Christians.
Quoting Ciceronianus
How did you arrive at this conclusion? The UK opposed the creation of Israel, and pointedly refused to implement the UN plan.
Quoting Manuel
Better to add another 100 dead to the list than give the impression you can be intimidated, I guess. Can't say I'm surprised.
Define situation.
Bibi and the Israeli leadership understands that for now they will have the support of those that will support them, but that can change if some "final solution" type razing to the ground is implemented. One thing is rhetoric, another thing is implementin strategies that the Roman Army or the Soviet Army in Afghanistan implemented. They do understand that in the prison camp called Gaza, people don't have anywhere to go in the end. Yet you have a 300 000 strong force, which the majority is land forces. Gaza is small: it's 40 kilometers wide and only 6 kilometers deep. Yes, even 100 000 troops are a large force on that kind of area.
You can go literally check every building and shed there and then have the forces quite close. With a force of 100 000 you have basically one soldier watching over 20 Palestinians. Naturally it doesn't go like this, but it just shows the contrast here. (For example to Ukraine)
Because at some death toll that support that people have for Israelis will turn if the death toll of Palestinians goes very much up.
Egypt:
Jordan:
Even Trump's Abraham accords, remember?
And moreover, Israel has no worries as it has a nuclear deterrence. And it's neighbors don't.
Well everytime you add fear, pride and some kind of othering - be it by religion or somerthing else - morality ends up trampled in the dirt.
What makes this conflict so intransigent is not some special capacity for callousness or cruelty on either side.
Right, if they wanted to kill a bunch of people they could lob artillery shells with impunity and do that from saftey. But there is a recognition that this wouldn't further their cause and isn't the right thing to do in any event (my cynical view of the Israeli leadership is that the former is much more relevant here).
The siege will be justified by the argument that they can't very well allow weapons to flow in during a battle. But it's also likely intended as a form of collective punishment with psychological aims. "Look, Hamas had 20 years, and this is where they have you, starving and hiding." They'll truck food in to avoid criticism and because it's a psychological attack on Hamas as well. "They provoked us, but they can't even feed you." Plus, humanitarian corridors and food trucks coming under attack by Hamas is another propaganda win if it happens.
I'm skeptical of their ability to actually remove Hamas during a siege though, but if they are able to dominate enough of the city, forcing Hamas to "blend in" without offering heavy resistance over wide areas, that's another blow to their legitimacy. It says they exist less as the army and government they want to be seen as.
I would imagine the calculation is that, if they can inflict these psychological losses on Hamas and kill enough of their membership, it might collapse. Which, if that's the strategy, the only good thing is that it militates against rules of engagement that are too loose. Whether the angry people on the ground follow along with the strategy is also a different story.
I can't think up any other goals for a large ground invasion otherwise, aside from being seen to "do something." But they have a professional military so I like to think they've had something on the drawing board more coherent.
That would be a Russian solution, yes. Russians don't say to Ukrainians that they are going to destroy this certain building, so keep clear...
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Of course the current Hamas can be weakened. But simply there is the next generation waiting to stand in the boots of their fathers.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Or hope that for the next 20 years or so, the Palestinians won't have the ability as they have now.
Flawed they may be, Israel's government is quite capable and one would think (hope) they would see the foolishness of such a course of action.
Quoting ssu
I'm not sure how much those nukes count for in the modern age. If some escalation takes place, it's not going to be conventional. It will be 'war among the people', and it can hardly start nuking its own territory.
Israel has referred to the use of its nuclear arsenal as 'the Samson option' - if you understand the symbology you will understand that relying on this would certainly worry the Israelis.
Correct.
If they do go that route, it will be because they've determined that they literally will be in a position where they are being destroyed, so they take down everyone with them.
I think the crucial issue now is what the heck is Hezbollah going to do. That's what may prove to be the key aspect in making this a massive war.
Three Hezbollah fighters killed in Lebanon
Three Hezbollah fighters have been killed in Israeli shelling of the Lebanese group’s positions along the Lebanon-Israel border.
Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV channel named the men killed as Ali Raed Ftouni, Mohammed Ibrahim and Ali Hassan Hodroj.
Earlier on Monday members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group had launched a cross border attack against Israel from Lebanon amid the raging war in Gaza. Israeli shelling set off intense fires on the Lebanese side of the border.
Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem said the killing of Hezbollah fighters represents a “real escalation” at the Lebanese border, noting that the group often retaliates for the killing of its members.
“This would mean that they could launch another attack in the coming hours,” he said. Hezbollah and Israel have not seen a major confrontation since the 2006 war.
Uuhh.... you do understand that arming half a million people, and training half a million people cost enormous mounts of money and you have to have huge resources. Organizing half a million people into a fighting force is an big issue. And Hamas or the Palestinian authority don't the capability to train and arm such forces. Remember that they have had to do everything under the surveillance of Israel.
Hamas has military of what, 50 000 at tops? And the rest can throw rocks as in the old times. Hezbollah has in Lebanon perhaps 75 000 in all. They boast to have 100 000. But they aren't in an prison camp like Hamas. In Gaza they don't have had the ability to train large forces as a sovereign country could do with it's armed forces.
When never knows where one stands with Perfidious Albion, it's true. But there was the Balfour Resolution, announcing support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and I think that's when the existing mess began to take shaper. Certainly, the British shifted support between Jewish and Arab organizations as it felt was in its interests after 1917 and through WWII, but the Resolution was never revoked; it became a question of who got what, and when.
Quoting Echarmion
Yes, as indeed was most of the world. But nobody has ever claimed the creation of Israel was history's only injustice, and resulted in the only wars ever fought in the region, or anywhere else.
The assumption is that Hamas has foreign backing.
I'm actually impressed how Hamas has managed to keep this operation hidden. I wouldn't be surprised some heads will roll in the Mossad and whoever is in charge of border control.
I think internal documents make clear that the British never intended to follow through with the Balfour declaration, since most of their subjects in the region were muslim and they did not want to give them any reason to revolt. Subsequent action by the British (barring immigration, refusing to sanction a jewish state) bears this out. Important context for the Balfour declaration is the "cold war" the British were fighting with the French in the region.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Fair enough.
I think my point, is that it's not really the injustice of Israels creation that has caused the conflict to stay hot for so long. Even though it was a late time for conquering a territory, it wasn't that unique.
I think much more relevant for the current conflict is the specific alignment of political, economic and military power in the region. Israel is rich (relatively), all their neighbors a poor, and the Palestinians most of all. Israel is militarily powerful. But also small, and reliant on a certain international political support to keep it's enemies at arms length. Plus the Palestinian question, as other posters have pointed out, is a useful bargaining chip for various actors.
So no party is in a position to enforce their demands, but also the huge gulf between Israel and it's neighbors is preventing the kind of rapprochement that happens when more equal powers realise that total victory is no longer feasible.
He then talks about the possibility of Hezbollah becoming involved:
https://www.smh.com.au/world/middle-east/think-this-is-just-a-savage-new-round-of-the-israel-palestine-struggle-think-again-20231008-p5eams.html
Unlike the morally upstanding Palestinians. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/10/09/middleeast/israel-hamas-music-festival-aftermath-intl-hnk/index.html
Quoting Tzeentch
As in, now Israel will never get the Muslims to care about them now that they've gone and done this? Seems the strategic angle would be that the Palestinians would try to gain the affection of the Israelies, considering they have the power to destroy them.
Quoting Ciceronianus
The other position is that they needn't justify their right to exist any more than any other nation.
Not all Palestinians are Muslims. Some are Orthodox Christian. Some were Jewish, but I guess all of them were absorbed into the Jewish section of town. Palestinians who immigrate to America say that the Israelis have been abusive on an on-going basis, like collections of Jewish guys beat up Palestinian guys and leave them for dead. None of that ever gets into the headlines and it's been like that for decades.
I wonder if things would be better if the good Jewish people would take over the government. Netanyahu is an asshole, and I think whoever is at the top controls the vibe of the whole community.
Very well put, this whole extremely important context is badly missing, and explains a whole lot.
[/quote]
Say that's true. It's creation would nonetheless remain an injustice.
Quoting frank
Quoting frank
Who are the good Jewish people you would like to see running the country? That's not a rhetorical question -- really, who/how? I've no doubt that there are Israelis who could do a better job than Netanyahu, but I suppose the dominant coalition in power keeps that from happening.
One can be pro-Israel and still admit a difficult, maybe insoluble problem: the Zionist movement and the creation of Israel as a state displaced the people who had been living under the Ottomans for several hundred years, and under the British a while before 1948. Palestine has changed hands every few centuries over the last 2500 years, so the current transaction fits the long term pattern -- a pattern in which absolutely no one is going to find any comfort.
I anticipate that Israel will continue to prosper and will have powerful allies, but I'm not sure the Two-State solution will every come to pass, or if it does, that it will solve many problems.
:100: :fire:
:up:
There are Israelis who are less hardline. I think violence keeps the hardliners in power so they don't have much incentive to make peace.
Quoting BC
Yes. The Palestinians originally welcomed the influx of Zionists, but those Jews didn't want peace with them. They wanted them to leave. After WW2, some Jews wanted to forcibly transport the Palestinians to Jordan, but the memory of being forcibly transported themselves kept them from doing that.
So now it's just a giant mess.
Sort of like life itself!
Yep.
How does that really help? The assumption that Egypt or any other national entity coming to assistance is highly unlikely, basically only theoretical. Hezbollah boasts having 100 000 personnel, but even that is estimated lower. It has already done it's "solidarity" rocket attack.
You talked about many hundreds of thousands to be trained. The amount of 50 000 is likely the upper limit, actually, and more probable is that we are talking about 40 000 fighters that the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades have. In the conditions of Gaza, even to train and arm 40 000 is a big achievement. Gaza is blockaded, surveyed and constantly attacked as above stated. Organizing an effective military under those conditions is difficult.
(Just to give context, in Finland (5,5 million) about 70% of males get military training amounts to a theoretical reserve (all of those, between 18-60 years) of 700 000. The actual reserve that can be adequately armed is 350 000 by an industrialized country. Israel with a larger population (9,7 million of whom 7 million are Jews) and also compulsory service has 400 000 reservists 400 000.)
And that foreign backing can basically only smuggle weapons into Gaza by tunnels. They aren't smuggling people out and in from Gaza to train them at least in the numbers you are talking about.)
(Israeli soldier in one tunnel in the Gaza strip tunnels.)
If Israel moves into Gaza and it turns into a giant massacre, then yes, I assume rapprochement with the Muslim world will be set back decades. Perhaps outright inflame old tensions.
And that rapprochement matters. Israel is surrounded by Muslim countries who have far greater populations than itself. Unless Israel wants to live in fear of its existence forever (as it has done for much of the past), that rapprochement matters.
Quoting Hanover
The hardliners in Israel, many of whom are part of Netanyahu's party Likud, want Israel to be a strictly Jewish nation state.
I'd agree with you, if it were a feasible option. But the harsh truth is that many of the people who control Israel want the Palestinians gone and have consistently managed to implement policy to try and remove them.
Israel's settlement policy, which Netanyahu has steadily increased support for, is probably the most egregious example of such policies.
Quoting Benkei
Quoting ssu
Well, I think it matters.
The scale and organisation of the attacks seem to suggest some kind of foreign backing.
The attacks, while bloody, didn't achieve anything, and harsh Israeli retaliation was basically guaranteed. So if we assume rational actors are behind this attack, we might also assume the attacks themselves weren't the goal of the operation.
So perhaps eliciting an extreme response from Israel, for which preperations may have already been made, was the goal.
In 2006 we saw that Hezbollah was capable of waging war effectively against Israel. There's no reason to assume Hamas hasn't found some way to do the same.
At any rate, if I were the Israelis I would be extremely cautious about sending 300,000 reservists into Gaza. It will be a bloodbath and I don't think it is obvious the Israelis will come out on top without resorting to indiscriminate killing.
Successfully striking against an oppressor seems a good reason to celebrate.
The two-states solution had been made de facto impossible already. It's a good distraction though as everybody can pretend they're still in favour of peace. Which they are but only after the West Bank and Gaza have been bled dry and there's no such thing as a Palestinian any more.
What is your reasoning to argue that? I think of only a political blessing or perhaps Hezbollah showing "solidarity".
I would be very sceptic of the American accusations that Iran is behind this, that somehow this wouldn't be possible for Palestinians to do themselves. There is many reason why the US (and Israel) want to get Iran being the culprit behind this.
The news has said about hundreds of Hamas fighters infiltrating to Israel. That's basically a battalion or two. And note that these happened in small teams. No combined arms, basically. That is something you can organize. For me it looks like an attack that Palestinians could well have planned themselves. If they would have sunk an Israeli missile boat on the Mediterranean, that would surely reek of Iran arming Hamas (just like the Houthis did in Yemen sinking a Saudi warship). Or that they would have had the ability to target specific targets in Jerusalem, Beersheba or Tel Aviv (like military HQs, important structures, Bibi Netanyahu's home). That didn't happen either.
It is quite possible for them to do this as they got tactical surprise. That surprise simply because they had never done this kind of operation. However, it has been estimated that Hamas has had about 10 000 - 14 000 rockets in stock.
Now the IDF is reporting to move four divisions of reservists to Gaza to join already 35 battalions already there. Now the border with Israel is only 51 kilometers (and with Egypt Gaza strip has 11 kilometers).
And btw, the Egyptian response to the war:
If Netanyahu starts pushing Palestinians in the Gaza strip into the Egyptian desert, that might raise tensions to a different level with Egypt.
They don't have to be bled dry. Perhaps the final solution type of answer wouldn't be so great in the minds of Israelis when they have other options.
If Bibi can call Gaza "the evil city" and the Israeli defence minister calling Hamas fighters "human animals", I'm sure that the present policy to keep Palestinians as 2nd class citizens that are violated as being a security threat in the open prison type conditions will endure. There's enough horrific stories on the Israeli side for Bibi and others simply to say "we cannot make peace with people that don't want peace, but want us dead."
Hence Hamas is the more preferable representative for Palestinians than the West Bank Palestinian authorities.
The link wasn't to their celebration, but was to their murder of concert goers by shooting them at point blank range.
They were intentionally killing civilians.
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8r9Pg17/
If only Israeli politicians and civilians would care as much about Palestinians as you're expecting us to care about Israeli civilians. Maybe I'll just care as much about Israeli casualties as Bibi does about Palestinians. Because that seems all the care we need.
Almost any method and any means are acceptable when Palestinians are the ones actually existentially threatened through 75+ years of landgrabs and oppression. If not, then moral equivalence would lead to the absurd conclusion that we should be suing former slaves and their descendants for reparations for killing their slave owners in revolt.
I don't see your position as morally tenable. Surely, the indiscriminate killing of / targeting of civilians has to be condemned unequivocally regardless of whose "side" you're on. Being an Israeli citizen and going to a concert does not make you responsible for the policies of the Netanyahu government. This whole brutal mess reminds me of the tit-for-tat killings in Northern Ireland towards the end of the troubles. Both sides degraded themselves utterly. In this most recent case, it's Hamas who are the animals. Let's call a spade a spade.
This sort of thing is in the headlines though, just not top international news. It's how many previous episodes of violence have started. And Israel's previous major crisis involved widespread riots and communal violence between Jews and Israeli Arabs (those left inside Israel's 1948 borders and given citizenship) within Israel, as opposed to within the Occupied Territories. If you look back to the 90s, there was sort of this idea that the Israeli Arabs, a large share of Israel's citizenry, represented a bridge for negotiating peace. But now they just seem to be sucked into the same vortex.
Previous "wars" and skirmishes have been kicked off by various cycles of "lone wolf," attacks, police brutality, mob violence, and lynchings, which increasingly get caught on camera, often being broadcast by the perpetrators.
That's part of what makes this attack unique. It wasn't carried out in response to ratcheting episodes of communal violence the way past attacks have been. Lately, the violence has tended to start with individuals and crowds, and only later do the IDF, Hamas, and Fatah step in. It's been one of the things that makes commentators even less hopeful, because those with power over their respective groups don't even seem to be leading with any strategy in mind, just reacting.
Although, when people said "the ostensible leaders need to take more control," they probably didn't mean "carry out a bunch of mass shootings with no larger goal," or "invade Gaza just to be doing something."
Agreed. I find it hard to see the justification of these attacks precisely because they don't seem aimed at any goals and seem unlikely to advance any legitimate goals.
People seem unable to decouple "a party is justified in resisting x group through whatever means necessary," and "a party is justified when they engage in violence that is unnecessary and counter productive for their own cause." If you're going to shoot up a peace concert, you should have a justification that relies on how that helps Gaza or larger goals, not "violence can be justified, so all violence is justified."
For example, when Hamas took control of Gaza they purged all resistance to their rule in essentially a civil war. And they continue to ensure their domination. Is it justified for Hamas to kill Palestinians? Maybe. In times of war, discipline needs to be enforced. But just become some infighting might be justified we obviously wouldn't say that Hamas would be justified in carrying out random mass shootings within Gaza because this would simply hurt their own cause, erasing any justification. But it seems to me that the same sort of thing is in play here.
If we were in 1941 the "whatever Hamas does is justified," position would be the equivalent with saying "how can you criticize Stalin's "no step back," policy, refusal to evacuate citizens from sieges, absolutely atrocious leadership, etc., look at all the evils the Nazis have done. Criticizing Stalin is tantamount to supporting the Nazis."
But it doesn't seem to me that, just because Stalin was justified in some of the cruel acts he took to win the war against Hitler, that he was justified in all of them. Many of his choices led, quite predictably, to millions more dead and wounded Russians than would have been the case with competent leadership. And his leadership showed a complete disregard for the well being of those he was ostensibly justified in acting to protect.
And that seems to be the core disagreement. It also seems to suggest that if living conditions in Israel were as poor as Gaza, if both sides had inflicted similar costs on each other, then both sides would be justified in pushing towards some mutual genocide, and that doesn't seem to be a good conclusion to reach.
Further, to the extent that this attack was done at the behest of Iran, with the goal of halting the tacit Israeli-Saudi alliance from being formalized, it seems unjustifiable. We can't know the thinking of those involved and we probably won't have good evidence for a long time. But if a major part of the calculus was the benefit of the benefactor of elite members of Hamas at the obvious expense of your average Gazan, with the goal of the operation focused on securing broader Iranian goals in the region, that simply seems atrocious. The height of cynicism in Iran's aid for its "allies."
I am skeptical. An elaborate operation like this prepared and carried out right under the noses of Mossad suggests to me that highly capable actors are involved.
Why are the Western institutions ready to block Iran financially if they discover that Iran funded Hamas? This over imposing sanctions always creates problems.
Pretty strained analogy, bringing up such things as inherited sin and the duy of reperations and such.
A more apt analogy, although not perfect, would be to hold a slave accountable for going into town and indiscriminately murdering a white person because of the slave's anger toward the priviliged class, even though that particular person was not a slave holder.
I say this is not a perfect analogy because the analogy references a single frustrated individual, whereas in the Hamas situation, the action was the intentional, directed murder by a governmental entity as part of a strategic plan to exact revenge on a civilian population.
And the net result of this plan is to lead a people to greater suffering and misery. What this military operation will accomplish, other than a few moments of elation in seeing their enemy suffer, is greater control over Gaza, less sympathy for the Palestinians, and less restraint by the Israelis.
Like it or not, if you're going to negotiate with a more powerful Western opponent who claims their primary driver is morality and justice, you have to present yourself that way to gain any momentum. I get that's a hard pill to swallow if you think Israel satan incarnate, but Israel will not respond to the murder of its citizens by reflecting upon the moral nuance of its behavior versus Palestinian and then out of a sense a fear of hypocricy change its stance. Hamas is marching Palestine towards its death.
Many young people who aren't radicalized into one side of this decades old (or thousands of years depending on perspective) conflict have been the very ones arguing for a peaceful two-state solution. These people are on both sides and the people in power driving the conflict have been killing these people either intentionally or as collateral damage over many decades.
The only moral stance that is rational in all of this is to condemn everyone who's killing and everyone who's cheering for blood and violence in retaliation. These people are all war criminals, all terrorists. To think that there's a good and bad side based on culture, geographics and ethnicity in this conflict is utterly naive.
The worst part of these past days is that things were indeed getting better. Younger people were getting more traction with a peaceful solution, but this attack has just doomed everything. Hamas has only produced a new generation of people who want retaliation and the massive bombing back at Palestine will produce more Palestinians supporting Hamas.
As throughout the decades, it will just continue on, back at square one. The only thing that would fix things is a Thanos snap to neutrally rid the world of these killers and supporters of these killings, but that's just fantasy.
Second best would be to stop looking at borders and cultures and start looking at who's doing the killing. Fight against the killers and the supporters of killers, that's the only conflict that's worth fighting in and has been for all of history.
Excellent post as always. Thanks!
One reason the conflict continues is that one side is stronger than the other. And when you're stronger you don't have to listen to the weaker party -- you can just push them into submission, as has been Israel's tactic so far.
Then when the colonized inflict something back upon the innocents of the colonizers (which they certainly were -- just as has been the case for many innocent Palestinians) it all gets re-intepreted back into the more powerful's narratives: up to and including people wondering why Hamas didn't think about the electoral game of Israel (this is just what Netanyahu wants!), or wondering if this is a *truly* strategic choice because of the electoral optics, which is just an absurd belief in light of how much death is involved.
Maybe it wasn't, but hell if I know when it's the right time to stop talking even if I know what's going on "on the ground", which I surely do not know well enough here. That's not really the sort of decision I'd be able to feel good about even if I knew the full circumstances, much less so from my comfortable vantage.
But I certainly expect Israel to continue acting the bully as long as they continue to receive military support. Which is why I'd feel better if we'd stop supporting Israel. But even that is a fantasy. The United States will continue to support Israel because of its "special relationship" (strategic place within the world). And Israel will continue to colonize. Given those two truths then the Palestinian has these options: Emigrate, bow, or die. And often times "bowing" results in death -- in which case, barring emigration, one might as well die standing.
Quoting Baden
With the exception that the UK forces, now in hindsight calling a spade a spade and acknowledging that they did fight an insurgency war in Northern Ireland, never applied artillery and fighter bombers to take out homes of suspected IRA leaders. (Although at times they had to resort to supplying their bases with helicopters.) They even have clearly also acknowledged the proxy role that the unionist/loyalist paramilitaries had at times. Yet Thatcher after herself being targeted in a bombing never started a "war" against IRA in the way Isreal (or the US) do. Even if with the Falklands case she did so.
Even if there were indeed excesses and unlawful actions, the UK usually treated IRA members are criminals, that should be tried in the judicial process.
But then the British can keep their cool. The Israeli's as people typically in the Middle East, don't.
The situation in Israel is inextricable from the larger Middle Eastern spaghetti of sectarian conflict. The exit of the US probably wouldn't reduce bloodshed. It would probably increase it.
:up:
Quoting Benkei
That's to play a rhetorical game rather than engage philosophically though, isn't it?
Quoting ssu
True. I was referring to tit for tat between Republican and Loyalist paramilitary groups actually. But I should have made that clearer.
:up:
Nicely put. :up:
I'm sure Hamas expected retaliation. But starving the whole of Gaza? That's genocidal.
The people of Gaza are fucked no matter what they do. Do nothing, keep getting land stolen, people killed, prisoners taken, no job prospects, can't even escape by land or sea.
If they fight back, they are called terrorists.
The first time that Hamas initiates combat, it's called an "unprovoked attack" - which, again, if this is unprovoked, I do not know how provocation looks like.
100% agree that killing civilians is wrong. This reply from Israel is utterly disgusting.
Let's hope it doesn't escalate to include other countries.
I don't think Hamas' rejection of an appeasement strategy is based upon its perceived futility. I think it's based upon their belief they shouldn't have to appease an occupier. I don't think there's ever been a Palestinian leader who was truly ready to recognize Israel's right to exist or who thought they could survive politically if they agreed to a two state solution.
There was a time when the two state solution was very close to being a reality, with Israel agreeing to over 90% of the Palestinian demands, only to have it rejected. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/may/23/israel3
This idea that Israel wants to push Palestine into the sea is a projection of what Palestine wants to do to Israel. If Israel wanted to fully annihilated Palestine, they could, but they don't. On the other hand, if Palestine could annihilate Israel, they would, but they can't.
To the question of whether Hamas could make headway with a conciliatory approach that fully denounced terrorism and advocated a real push to peace, I think they could. It would certainly be a game changer if they approached with an olive branch. That will not happen, not because Hamas doesn't think it won't work, but because they think Israel is satan and not worthy of such kind consideration. In fact, if Hamas went down such a path, I'd expect their political power to drop to zero and they'd get a new terroristic organization in charge.
Palestinians don't want to dehumanize Israelis.
Now war? That's what we're good at. Recent USian handiwork in this area can be seen with Iraq and Afghanistan where we handily won the war, but were terrible at brokering peace after winning. Why on earth would I believe that the US is in Israel for peace among sectarian conflicts, given the outcomes there? And, even if we were, given the outcomes of Iraq and Afghanistan, what reason would I have to believe that we're even able to achieve it?
Seems to me that if peace is the actual objective then we're wasting billions of dollars on a failed project.
But my suspicion is that peace is not the objective, but rather is something which we'd like to have -- but it's not why we're there.
I agree. Look at it from the viewpoint of a Palestinian mother, though. She has a son in Hebrew U, and he has good prospects in Israel, one of the world's technological dynamos. The US, whatever its interests may be, is a stabilizing force in the region. No country in the Middle East would try to destroy Israel. They would destroy themselves in the process. This Palestinian mother can plan for her son's wedding instead of arranging his funeral, as would likely be the case if the US became entirely isolationist and let what happened to Syria happen in Israel.
I guess I'm just saying it's always been this way, whether it's the British, the Mongols, the Romans, the Phoenicians, the Sumerians, etc. Without a power center, civilization falls apart. Every time.
Yes, I think we're beyond morality for some time already but it's taken me until this latest bullshit to realise it. That probably happened around the time when Rabin was murdered.
Yes, I think there is an agreement that one motivation for Hamas to do this was the warming or Saudi-Israeli ties. If Saudi-Arabia would recognize Israel, there wouldn't be any major players vouching for the Palestinians.
That could be the Israelis' main fear/driver. The Palestinians want the Israelis gone, the Israelis don't want the Palestinians gone (to put it in simplistic terms). By and large, the Israelis are surrounded by hostile neighbors (except Saudi Arabia perhaps).
On the other hand, the WW2-goodwill has roughly been spent by now, with what they've been doing. There are plenty of credible reports — gross and disgusting. Sort of a "victims has become victimizers" type story I guess.
I'll just suggest a multinational UN force (again), serving multiple purposes, less warring, more transparency, less apartheid, more safety for everyone, ... It's been going on long enough already, over a generation. With a dampened situation, civilians have a chance to get on with life, send kids to school, talks can be accommodated, etc. And any criminals can be summoned to court for all to see in due time. It's just that both parties seem to plainly reject (even considering) that. "Swallow your dumb pride, you've had long enough now."
Wrong, Hannover.
Mahmud Abbas of Fatah (the guy succeeding Jasser Arafat) has consistently made the case for the two-state solution.
Abbas:
And why this isn't possible?
Hannover, here Bibi and Hamas are the ones who don't want a two state solution. "Strongmen" want war.
Majority of Palestinians don't seem to want it.
Again in my opinion, wrong.
I think the majority of both Israelis and Palestinians would want peace and accept a two state solution. Especially surprisingly many Israelis have totally clear and reasonable understanding of the conflict.
But on both sides have religious zealots that are against it. So against, that one Israeli Prime Minister was killed for making peace. Just as the Egyptian president was gunned down for the same reason. And not only them, but then there are the crazy Christian idiots, who believe that Israel is somehow this holy enchanted nation that has to be supported. And because of them, the US is a staunch ally of Israel. Yet for Bibi and the Hamas terrorist leaders the perpetual war is actually how they stay in power.
Bibi on the two-state solution:
And then he continues to settle the occupied territories, just like with "Trump Heights" on the Golan Heights.
Majority of Palestinians support Hamas, which lists in its charter a goal of eradicating the Jews entirely.
I'm assuming you are talking about Hamas? You don't think every Palestinian thinks like Hamas, do you? Sounds like you might be doing some projecting of your own.
You're also comparing apples to oranges. Palestine doesn't even have a functioning army or police force - they're not allowed that by Israel. Palestine as a state doesn't exist, and even as a political entity it barely exists.
Palestinians are basically powerless and without proper representation. Add a system of apartheid and a slow policy of bullying the Palestinians until they leave and you have a hotbed for hatred and extremism. Israel's policies with regards to the Palestinian territories could easily be regarded as a method of slow ethnic cleansing.
West Bank Map
Here's a quote by Amnesty:
Note that this abhorrent practice has been going on for decades, even during peace processes. Israel has always assumed time is on its side in this regard, and that eventually it will succeed in pushing the Palestinians out. (Rabin was the exception - hardliners had him offed)
There's a significant elite within Israel that wants a strictly Jewish state and sees no place for Palestinians. Netanyahu's party Likud represents part of that elite.
While you're trying to mind read (projecting) what the Palestinians would do if they had the capability, Israel is being actively called out by human rights organisations for actual crimes against humanity. The fact that they've not taken to outright genocide should in no way justify how you've tried to frame the two sides.
And speaking of genocide, Art 2.(c) Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide defines genocide as such:
Israel has skirted that line vis-á-vis the Palestinians for much of its existence.
If that would be true, how would Fatah then have power in the West Bank? Ought to have been overthrown, if the Palestinians so ardently believe in Hamas and the delusional dream of them destroying Israel.
What is the current Palestinian sentiment towards Hamas?
According to a PCPSR survey, 58% in Gaza and 42% in the West Bank support Hamas.
So low?
I mean, too bad for the 42% that now have fear for their lives and their family, as the terrorists have achieved in making a terrorist attack and they have to pay for it. And in the West Bank the majority seem to be supportive of al Fatah.
A lot of Americans also support Trump, but I wouldn't go so far that American = Trump supporter.
Just as many Israelis don't like Bibi's policies either.
No. That's high. How in the world do you interpret those numbers as low?
https://apnews.com/article/hamas-middle-east-science-32095d8e1323fc1cad819c34da08fd87
Fatah, the party you're comparing it to, has 14% support. So no, not low.
In war people rally around their politicians, at the start, typically. And likely Fatah approval is very low: after all, they have had to run a country, not just fight another one now.
But here just as naturally as Israelis want their politicians to give hell to the evil city and the human animals after the terrorist attacks, so will Palestinians support anybody that makes any opposition to Israel. Palestinians were big fans of Saddam Hussein when he lobbed Scuds into Israel when his army was annihilated in the Kuwaiti desert.
https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/video-recording-and-transcript-special
Also includes a transcript below, for quicker reading.
This is a typical argument whereby Palestine is being penalized for what they hypothetically could do, (regardless of any actual objective) while the Israeli government is excused for what they actually do. The Israeli government (and dutiful citizens) has been systemically cutting off population centers in the West Bank by creating illegal settlements that are off limits to Palestinians. Is this not a form of "annihilation" by kosher means?
40% of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are 14 years old and under. 60% are 24 and under. The oldest of this cohort would have been seven years old when Hamas came to power. Besides the fact that supporting a political organization shouldn't warrant death sentence or justify depriving an individual of fundamental human rights or any other form of dehumanization, as I stated early in this thread, what precisely is the onus of responsibility assumed by a territory comprised primarily of minors and young adults?
Granted, that wasn't the sum total of the means of attack. Most of the Hamas soldiers / gunmen arrived on foot. Out of fashion but still effective.
For a two state solution to be viable, Palestinians have to want it.
[quote=Hamas]Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.[/quote]
In my view Likud is the singlemost largest obstacle to peace. Their original party program:
Quoting Likud
The 1999 version:
Quoting Likud
Now for some reason I cannot access the knesset.gov.il website at all (I get 403 errors) to get the latest but the rejection of a two-state solution is still there.
Then there was Netanyahu saying this that was heralded as being open to a two-state solution by media:
But as David Horovitz wrote in The Times of Israel:
Quoting Horovitz
No Palestinian State. Ever. Period. There's nothing to gain but more death as long as Israelis continue to vote in Likud.
Israeli policymakers (or the international community, for that matter) have to ask themselves the question, what sort of state might Palestine develop into over time?
Is that going to be a state favorable to Israel, or one that is adversarial?
It doesn't take ideologically possessed hardliners to see that the answer is probably going to be the latter, given the immense historical grievances present, and no shortage of potential allies that also take an adversarial position towards Israel.
There might be a period of peace, but I think that would be short-lived, and that it would buckle under geopolitical realities and historical sentiments in no time at all.
At that point, Israel's position would be even more strategically compromised than it already is. In its current state Israel already has virtually no strategic depth - with a Palestinian state located (for example) on the West Bank, that would shrink even further.
To illustrate, at its narrowest point the distance between the West Bank and the Mediterranean is only about 15 km. A 15 minute drive.
From a military perspective it is undefendable.
So I agree with some of the sentiments that have already been shared in this thread, namely that advocating a two state solution is so unrealistic that it is basically a way politicians pretend to advocate for peace, while in fact supporting the status quo.
Agreed. It's also not clear to me at all how a two state solution would function economically. How would the economic viability of a state of Palestine, alongside Israel, be ensured?
Here's a two-state solution and how to get there:
1. Israel to unilaterally recognise a right for the Palestinians to have a sovereign state where the 1967 borders will be the basis for the size of Palestine
2. stop all further settlements in WB and evictions in East-Jerusalem, recognise ownership rights in East Jerusalem
3. repeal all discriminatory laws in Israel proper
4. no more collective punishment of Palestinians
5. no more blockade of Gaza and its air space and sea
6. no more mass destruction in response to ineffectual missiles or balloons
7. tear down the wall
8. For the interim period, Gaza and WB remain occupied territories but they will be policed instead of military oppression
9. Palestinians to commit to an indefinite cease fire as long as Israel maintains the above 8 points
10. Palestinians to recognise Israel along the 1967 borders as the basis of the size of israel
In other words, Israel had to stop committing crimes. There's no excuse.
Enter into the transition period where Palestine should be set up:
1. include the political wing of Hamas in talks as well as PA/fatah
2. land-for-land exchanges to arrive at comparable land size
3. Israel to pay Palestine an amount equal to all the monies spent supporting illegal settlers so it has the means to settle the new lands it receives through the land-for-land exchange
4. Palestine to hire their own first and Israeli contractors second (which will lead to "reparations" flowing back to Israel and creating economic interdependence)
5. have religious leaders negotiate the Temple Mount
6. Jerusalem as independent city-state administered by Palestinians and Israelis alike
7. gradually transition policing activities in Palestine to Palestinians
8. Set up a special task force of like minded Israelis and Palestinians to investigate (terrorist) crimes committed by Israelis against Palestinians and vice versa, where jurisdiction will be with the state of the victim
9. retreat from WB and Gaza and set up border controls
10. Declare a Palestinian state
11. Party with your Israeli neighbours
I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of the Israelis. Palestine becomes its own state and a few years after the deal it aligns itself with Iran. What happens next? Would Israel realistically ever take such a risk?
The problem is wanting to solve everything in one go before there's even a modicum of trust between the parties. That's simply not possible.
Palestinians are ostensibly aligned with Iran right now. The current situation is shit though. So that alignment in itself is meaningless. What exactly would the driver be for Palestinians to continue to align with Iran when they are safer and more secure when not being aligned with them? Die-hard ideologues yes but common people do not care - they want a roof and food on the table. The possibility of a better future is much more motivating but there is no such view in the situation they are now in. That's why it's paramount Israel stops committing crimes.
Also this is pertinent to this issues to:
Quoting Maw
Finally, the nice thing about change, is that you can change again or even go back to what it was. If something doesn't work, you try something else. Future risks are not a good argument not to do anything now.
Of course they are. If doing one thing now raises the risk of some other terrible thing happening in the future, that's absolutely something to consider in your decision making. I don't see why it wouldn't be.
Yet it's hard to imagine the Israeli policymakers will see it this way, and they're holding almost all the cards.
Putting pressure on Israel to stop its human rights abuses is something that is long overdue, though. (To be fair, it's not like that hasn't been tried, but alas.)
However, it is unlikely given the huge political clout Israel holds in the United States.
Three Palestinians Killed by Israeli Forces, Settlers in West Bank
Yep. This is going fully to shit.
You understand how hollow that sounds. Perhaps Hamas destroys the Israeli nuclear and chemical weapons deterrence totally and defeats militarily the IDF, then they could start negotiations about all of the borders, not just what about West Bank and Gaza based on the UN decisions done on the subject or the Oslo Accords.
Quoting Benkei
I think the kill-all-Isrealites-including-the-babies Hamas fighters have done their share to raise support for Likud. Both get strength from each other.
I personally despise both Bibi and the Hamas leadership. Neither are for peace and both are a result of the development. We have come a long way from the Oslo peace process that started after the Cold War ended.
It's not hollow but logically consistent. What rings hollow is your "might makes right" argument as a reason to ignore their position.
Quoting ssu
Given what I just quoted as their official position since 2017 this is simply a gross mischaracterization. Nobody actually wants to talk about a solution just have another popularity contest about who is worse.
But peace can be made with Hamas. There's only one party that categorically refuses a two states solution since its inception and that's Likud. Israel needs to be pressured to stop voting for it. BDS is the only way to do that.
Don't they want to annihilate Israel?
How is it logical consistent?
Is it logical to crave for a country that hasn't existed and before the present was a British Mandate and before that part of the Ottoman Empire?
You do understand that logic and ethics are two different branches of philosophy. And they are here too.
If "might makes right" is hollow for you, then you should now live under Spanish rule. Because your ancestors did fight a long war for independence, so "might made right" then.
Quoting Benkei
That Hamas has killed children and decapitated women? The terror attacks were made to a) spread fear, b) seek revenge and give that feeling of revenge for Palestinians and c) make the IDF to launch a large full-scale attack on Gaza.
First their are official positions and then there are the ways how people fight wars.
Quoting Benkei
Or hoped it would happen... not perhaps with so many Israelis being killed, but still. A terror attack is what you need for this kind of operation that they are now starting, which is likely to be the total occupation of Gaza, going through all the parts of it. Too bad if your a military aged man in Gaza then.
The sickening issue here is that Hamas in my view is in the same boat with Bibi and Likud. Neither Hamas or Likud are secular, and base their justification on religion. Above all, Hamas opposed the secularity of the PLO. You can surely try to defend one group of religious zealots and then condemn other religious zealots. I simply hate them both.
And I want to live in another planet. Wishes are very easy, reality is a whole different situation.
Hamas is in a large part a creation of the Israeli state, as a means to weaken and divide the Palestinian opposition and undermine the PLO.
Since then, Hamas are the only ones who can at least fight Israel. They're a barbaric and hateful organization, no doubt about that. Compared to the crimes of Israel, they're a pea.
It's just that this time, they were well organized and managed to hurt Israelis in way no one ever expected. Revenge is expected, though I think the larger historical context of Gaza is sometimes minimized.
But revenge is one thing. Starving a civilian population, mostly children. Well that's genocide. Gaza is now going to be dust.
Knowledgeable people on this issue, like Amira Haas and Gideon Levy, have been warning that if Israel continued its course of action in the occupied territories, this was to be expected. So, lots of blame to go around.
Those images in Israel, but especially in Gaza - much worse, are soul crushing.
:100:
So why doesn't Israel just kill off all the Palestinians and end this interminable cycle of atrocities? Maybe the Jews don't (or haven't yet) for "the reason" whites in America don't kill off all Indigenous Peoples: to keep them dispossessed and under jackboot on 'reservations' – the cruelty must be the point – as a living monument to 'the settler-republic's supremacy', or some such inhumane delusion.
You can’t claim you care about children and civilians and then turn around and kill them yourself.
:up: :up:
Doesn't hurt if they're Muslim. Nobody cares about them, at least in the so called "West".
I'm sounding like a broken record, but what is going on in Gaza is so grotesque, barbaric and vile, that one finds a lack of words. This is monstrous.
It is not about cruelty. It's about conquest - demonstrating their superiority by imposing their dominance. They cannot exterminate the inferior demograchic, otherwise they would not have anything inferior to contrast their superiority against. Whites in America didn't invent it, but they do it best, and Whites in Israel are following this blueprint to the T.
Are you suggesting that the Prime Minister of Israel allowed his citizens to be killed in order to have an excuse for killing Palestinians? That sounds incredibly crass for a Prime Minister of a 'modern nation state' as they say.
1) The air campaign will continue until they find it safe to mount a ground operation against Hamas who are part of a population without food, water, electricity. I believe its called siege, as in siege of Leningrad.
2)Israel will take control of the Gaza strip and occupy it totally, or leave it as a lesson for future generations, as they see it.
Any guesses?
Quoting Lakota Accounts of the Massacre at Wounded Knee
People have evolved since then, since that some primitive societies found these things acceptable.
All I can say is that it is was all made up, not true.
You're hiding in your wardrobe. There's a murderer in your house looking for you. You haven't heard him in a minute, you don't know where he is. You could leave your wardrobe and run to the phone to call 911, or you could try to run to the front door, but you don't know if the killer is still in the house and would kill you if you did those things, or you could do nothing. Why isn't the risk of future death in this situation a good reason to do nothing? I don't understand.
If I'd say Jews are oppressing Palestinians or say they're complicit in the murders of innocents then I'm an anti-semite (even though Israel defines itself as the nation-state for Jews but whatever). So critics have to constantly tiptoe around making sure they're nuanced.
But when I'd confuse a vicious attack on Israeli citizens with an attack on Jews I can drag in the holocaust and play the massive victim cum holocaust industry card and everything is fine and dandy. No nuance needed to approve whatever Jews do to Palestinians, but every nuance needed to criticise the crimes the state of Israel perpetrates against them.
It's another example of another disruption of a level playing field.
I'd say a creation of the overall development.
The crucial issue here is that when the Cold War ended, Israel thought that it ought to make changes as there was no Soviet Union backing the Arab states. Hence the Oslo peace process. Yet for the US Israel wasn't just a regional an ally in the Cold War. The support for Israel was extremely important domestically. It wasn't only the strength of AIPAC, but especially the evangelist Christian support of Israel that drove the US to be a supporter of Israel.
Once Israel's right wing administrations understood this, why not build new settlements on the West Bank? Above all, the situation had dramatically improved from 1960's and 1970's. With peace with Egypt the Arab neighbours weren't an existential threat to Israel. And Israel enjoyed military superiority in the region, especially when enjoying a nuclear deterrent and with the nuclear programs of Iraq and Syria destroyed (in Libya Ghaddafi couldn't get program anywhere). There was no need adapt an other stance once the US gave support to Israel.
And when PLO went from a military force to the Palestinian Authority, it had the problem of going with the Oslo accords, actually running an administration with meager resources and with much interference from Israel limiting everything. And the PLO was secular. Hence in a time when religion surfaced to be an important factor again in the Middle East, Hamas, which is an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya “Islamic Resistance Movement”, took the role of the "active fighting" force for the Palestinian cause. Once elected to power in Gaza, it took control of Gaza.
And hence, we are here.
I'm honestly surprised the media reaction to this, across the spectrum, is so muted. Hamas atrocities are extensively covered, but not one headline piece discussing the murderous rhetoric and actions from the Israeli government?
I guess Netanjahu will try to drown his failure to prevent the attack on blood.
In this specific situation, it might of course be that doing nothing is clearly not the correct answer, but not because of your general principle.
Why not attempt to get back the hostages? That does not rule out later options? Judging by his words, he seems to be a man who feels rather than thinks.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235330077_The_psychological_profile_of_Benjamin_Netanyahu_using_behavior_analysis
There is more, this is not good. Regardless of the situation, when you mix a personality like this, assuming this all accurate, into the equation, it might make it worse.
It doesn't seam to me:
https://www.vox.com/23910085/netanyahu-israel-right-hamas-gaza-war-history
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-10-10/israel-hamas-war-netanyahu-mideast-policies
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/opinion/israel-hamas-.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/11/netanyahu-populism-weakened-israeli-security/
We have to notice that now Israel has a wartime unity government now, hence anything from this on isn't just about Bibi Netanyahu and the Likud. There is no denying that Israel is now committed to this war.
Now the aim is quite simple: the total destruction of the military capability of Hamas. There is no other objective now.
And I would to emphasize the following: this is what Hamas wanted, an all out attack on Gaza.
Hamas is an islamist organization and martyrdom is something that they take very seriously. As they can realistically anticipate that everybody in Gaza won't be killed, they can assume that there will be a new generation of fighters coming, even if they take a severe hit now. We can talk about the politics in attempting to stall warmer relations between Israel and Saudi-Arabia or the competition between PLO and Hamas, but thinking as if these are the driving causes for Hamas is simply Western thinking. What Hamas tells to it's fighters and supporters is crucial.
Well, they got their heroic epic. Fighting first and foremost, for a Mosque.
And it is also the culmination of a systematic policy of apartheid, which was described in this 2022 study by Amnesty International.
It's not really apartheid, though. Jews and Muslims go to school and work together in Israel. The Dome of the Rock is a sacred spot for all three Abrahamic religions, and Israel respects that.
I guess it depends on your definition of "respects." I haven't read the entire 260 page apartheid study, but Chomsky goes into a lot of detail about how the media has long ignored Israeli atrocities in the book "Necessary Illusions".
Those links support what many seem to be saying: the 'politics' has not worked, ethical considerations aside. A failure of intelligence - military intelligence or political?
You have to dig for it, yes. I haven't read Chomsky's book, but the information is available elsewhere. They've systematically made survival difficult for the Palestinians who left Jerusalem to live in Gaza. Whatever the Palestinians did, the Israelis would undermine. If they tried to grow lemons, the Israelis would divert the water supply. If they tried to open small shops, the Israelis would increase taxes until they went out of business. Palestinians would end up in refugee camps and the Israelis seemed to think there would never be a price to pay for that.
Yes, Israel has royally screwed up with the support of the US. I'm just saying, it's not apartheid by the definition we usually use for that.
Any reports about who funds Hamas and how? A recent PBD podcast mentioned an incentive system of some sort, for Hamas fighters.
So I search "Hamas incentive scheme" and come up with this.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-07-01/the-palestinian-incentive-program-for-killing-jews
This may the reason for 1,500 Hamas fighters to embark on a one-way suicide mission (for most of them). There is precedent for this.
The deeper you go, the worse it gets.
OK. Using that word is bound to result in the wrong impression for Americans who use it to talk about what happened in South Africa, but if it's useful for you, :up:
Quoting Pantagruel
:up: My source was an article from some guy who used to work for the State Dept.
The threat of the war escalating would isn't a possibility. Already we saw an Israeli attack on Syria now:
What apartheid is referring to in this case is not the situation within Israel, but the situation between Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Quoting Legal ecyclopedia
There's a giant wall seperating Israel from the West Bank, which has been ruled illegal by to the International Court of Justice specifically because of its character of racial segregation and discrimination.
Further, Palestinians do not have the same rights as Jews within the land of Israel.
For example, Palestinians in the West Bank cannot freely traverse Israeli-controlled areas, which results in communities becoming isolated, life being made impossible, etc.
Palestinians in the West Bank are policed by the Israeli army, while Israeli settlers are policed by the police - this results in Israeli soldiers standing idly by while Palestinians are harassed, humiliated, or sometimes violently assaulted by settlers.
Palestinians can be taken into custody without any basis, and held there indefinitely - sometimes for years.
I could go on.
The list of Israeli human rights violations with regards to discrimination of Palestinians is nearly inexhaustible, so please, when the appropriate human rights organisations like Amnesty talk about apartheid, it shouldn't be taken with a grain of salt. This is real apartheid.
The Israeli's have long abandoned the idea of a two-state solution, the Israeli government including Netanyahu, explicitly so. The idea of a two-state solution has not been serious for decades.
Seems like a lot of Israelis don't want to solve the problem - as long as they're happy, everyone else can go suck a lemon. Very disappointing mindset from them.
After this attack, though, I wonder if the number that support the status quo has decreased. It probably has, but not in a way where they want to find a solution that also works for the Palestinians. Really unfortunate.
Seems like it's just unbridled hate on both sides. People suck.
https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-says-violence-israel-palestine-shows-us-failure-middle-east-2023-10-10/
Disappointing maybe, but also probably the mindset of most people everywhere. "I'm all for helping the poor and destitute so long as it doesn't impact my lifestyle".
:lol:
:up:
Did you read what he said at least? He hasn't said any stupidity:
Whether you like it or not, he is right in this case. It is impossible to reach peace if 'we' - NATO members and the rest of the Western mates - don't recognise the sovereignty of Palestinians.
When was the last time the region was at peace?
Wouldn't the correct solution be to be nuanced in both directions?
"We reject the practices of killing civilians or abusing them on both sides because they contravene morals, religion and international law," was how Abbas put it on Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency.
But, to your point, it is worth pointing out that the median Israeli voter is better represented by their state than your median inhabitant of Gaza likely is by Hamas. Hamas isn't exactly known for their "please, let's have a debate, feel free to oust us and let Fatah or some new group rule Gaza if you no longer want us here," style. So, in that sense it's even worse to conflate Hamas/Gazans. This is especially true for their military operations, which they carry out in secret, divorced from any form of public discourse.
My guess would be around the time before 1914. It was Ottoman territory for about 400 years before then, and I think Ottoman rule was relatively undisrupted before WWI.
:up: That's because they kicked ass.
When the land was ruled by Ottoman Syria until the early 20th century, just before the rise of Zionism, the national movement of the Jewish people seeking to recreate a Jewish state in Palestine, and return the original homeland of the Jewish people.
Ottoman Syria
:up: And it would appear that Israel, the outcome of Zionism, is here to stay, in part because they can't be attacked without attacking the USA.
That they did. Especially after they took Constantinople in 1453.
When it was united under Ottoman rule. So see, Erdogan deserves a Nobel peace prize!
Although, I would point out that it was peaceful for longer under Roman rule, so Berlusconi probably is owed one too for his efforts to bring the old Caligula spirit back to Italy. (And yes, even the Ceasars could admit that "mistakes were made," in Roman-Jewish relations, but there were some long stretches of peace aside from the catastrophic wars).
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
:grin: Any successful warlord deserves a peace prize. That's the great contradiction of war: that it unites and establishes peace.
Quoting Ciceronianus
One of the most important dates in human history. :up:
Well, if we really agree that this is the end goal, it seems that the destruction of everyone else, except Israel, will be a reasonable strategy to follow. This could be a 'solution' to the problem. So, Iraq, Syria, Iran...
Quoting flannel jesus
It is a question of how much hate by how many. Of course there are those who cheer attacks on civilians, I was really amazed by the people who do not show hate, on both sides, sorrow, fear, yes, but the fact that even one Israeli Newspaper prints that "Opinion | Israelis Must Maintain Their Humanity Even When Their Blood Boils" - Haaretz this is exemplary.
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-10-11/ty-article-opinion/.premium/israelis-must-maintain-their-humanity-even-when-their-blood-boils/0000018b-1e18-d465-abbb-1ebe62c80000
Even the United States has expressed concern about cutting off Gaza from water and food supplies. Here is US Secretary of State, Blinken:
Quoting Jerusalem Post
Whoever is in control, it is not the people on both sides, it looks like, and I may be wrong, that it is a powerful minority engaged in manipulating events and opinions. It looks to me like vast sea of ordinary Israeli and Palestinian civilians are pawns and victims of the machinations of outside forces behind the scenes.
Hamas, for example, had some unlikely support:
Quoting The Intercept
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-says-crimes-against-palestinians-receive-response-axis-2023-10-12/
He neglects to mention who funded Hamas, and the Hamas - Fatah war. No matter.
Short memories and short fuses.
Quoting Maw
Reuters is more accessible:
Quoting Reuters
From the above link.
All these governments are very careful how they use their military resources. They will talk, but only Israel has taken any action so far. As usual, the USA is providing ammunition. Iran has its proxies which have not really responded yet. Iran does not have to get directly involved as far as armed personnel. Syria is not going to give another excuse to be attacked.
The most likely outcome I think is for Israel to continue the status quo, however, its position is somewhat disadvantaged now, possibly due to their own errors or strategy whatever you may want to call it. Apparently Israel had the right to defend itself but not the ability. That is worrying.
The real win here for the Iranian side is the re-arrangement of the geopolitical balance in the region.
More strategy ahead:
Quoting CNN
power struggle while people die
Perhaps. But if they're telling 1.5 million people to move to the south of Gaza, in order to render it dust, something might happen. Israel confirmed (via Haaretz) that:
Military advisor: Over six days, Israel dropped more bombs on Gaza than the U.S. did over a year in Afghanistan
If this continues, I do not know about Iran, but Hezbollah may be forced to act. Otherwise, how can they say they represent the Palestinians? I know they are worried about a full scale war in Lebanon, and that they want to take care of the refugees there.
But if they do nothing, the Lebanese supporters of Hezbollah may massively riot.
And sure, nobody there wants an escalation, with the US ships in the area and all that. But motions are being put in place that could light a regional bomb. Very, very dangerous.
Israel could de-escalate somewhat. That's not what they're doing.
We'll see.
It would be very convenient for Israel to cast this as a war between two sovereign nations instead of between oppressor and oppressed (or at least a terrorist org. that apse I from that oppression). I have doubts about Iran or Hezvollah being involved in the original attacks (bad on info that's publicly available) but they might get involved now.
And then when they don't whatever happens to them is their own fault of course. "At least we gave warning" and "that's more than Hamas does" in order to pretend it's not a war crime.
Quoting Manuel
There are lots of things both parties could do and should do. De-escalate, engage in a ceasefire, hostage negotiations, allow humanitarian corridors, but there is the fact that both sides are locked into a course of action that is dictated by their own goals and beliefs, or to be more precise, the powers that be in Israel, Hamas and Iran are committed to a certain set of goals and actions.
We can only watch and hope for new, stable, status quo.
Psychological Aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Systematic Review
There is this: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26511933/
If you are talking about convenience, or opportunism, then it does make sense to say Iran was involved, although it makes sense to assume Iran had some role in some of the training at some point, given their public statements of support for Hams and the of covert operations on their soil. As for the campaign to "exhaust Israeli society" I leave you to judge probable that is. Certainly the Gaza is being exhausted as we speak.
Apparently nations are built on trade, that trade includes human lives as well, I think now.
From the Jerusalem Post:
Quoting Jerusalem Post
We learn
So whom do we blame for these groups barbarity? Unfortunately barbarity is a feature of human society. Or maybe it is a bug.
The problem is that selective amnesia especially about history is not a basis for basing an opinion on. This is distortion of the truth.
The idea of revenge may be an useful motivator for the soldiers and militants alike, military objectives are different from revenge, although it may be factored in. The danger is that revenge may divert from military objectives and may be counter productive in the long run.
Quoting The Guardian
Quoting IHL
Legally speaking, all Israel has to do is make a case for military necessity, and it doesn't even have to be a particularly good one.
IHL is pretty much a paper tiger anyway, but I thought it might be useful to understand how Israel covers its bases.
Nah, that's much more true of the early Empire. After Trajan the boundaries don't really expand, only shrink, but that's 359 years before the Western Empire is generally accepted to have bought it, 1,336 years before the Eastern Empire was destroyed.
The Romans very much shifted from external wars of conquest to endless civil wars to control the current boundaries. They continued to skirmish with Parthia in that period, but aside from that? After the Diaspora they also had a long period where Germans were only a minor issue as well, and they would be an issue as migrants, conquers, and looters, not as peoples to be conquered.
As you can see the boundaries are pretty much set by 117 AD. https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2F3ns316ykoei51.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D68175b728ff078a772e698d2be807caca412e146
Well, he just told reliable facts. I think he wasn't meant to criticise the Western world only.
Quoting flannel jesus
Do you know that Israel is in a territory that never belonged to them? I don't see the Old Testament as a legitimate 'paper', it is not a treaty or convention. Maybe you do...
Interesting. I'm guessing that's a hidden element of militarization, where a society morphs into a war machine.
It looks like it's going to end with no Palestinians in Gaza, in other words, a massacre.
Do they? That doesn't look like that's what's playing out to me.
Meanwhile, we see several countries that were formerly neutral towards Israel putting diplomatic pressure not to go ahead with this invasion - Egypt, Russia, Türkiye, among others.
If this is happening, Gaza won't be the end of it. Gaza will be the start. I think Israel would be massively overplaying its hand (taking after its big brother, the US) and come out of this mess more vulnerable than it has ever been.
In my view, the biggest threat to Israel is if it were to become totally estranged and politically isolated from its regional neighbours. With this plan, it is coursing directly towards such a situation.
Now is not 1973. Israel's conventional army, while formiddable, will simply lose versus a large, well-coordinated unconventional threat.
Especially in an ethnic/religious conflict like this, 'war among the people', the power of conventional armies is very limited and I suspect that is something Israel is going to learn the hard way - if not in Gaza, in the conflicts that will predictably follow this disaster.
When the oppressor Goliath has been (by any means necessary) bled enough by the knives & slings of their oppressed David, (maybe) they will try coexisting without oppression (e.g. overwhelming rejection of Likud's hardline apartheid-terror policies). The tragedy is, however, it may be decades-too-late for oppressed David to give up on Goliath's oppression even if Goliath relents one day and gives it up. Like survivors of genocide, slavery, ethnic cleansing, mass dispossession – "Never Again" (also) means forever wounded, crippled, haunted, cursed ... vengeful. :death: :fire:
No peace, no justice.
Has there ever been a version of "Waiting For God" in which "Estragon & Vladimir" are portrayed by two elderly women, an Israeli (Golia) and a Palestinian (Davi), on a low dusty hill in a refugee camp? Is "Godot" their fathers, husbands, sons & daughters ... ancestors? Were these widows once cousins? step-sisters? in-laws? lovers? Maybe :flower:
Friday prayers. And the children of Abraham are murdering each other's children again. Why?! Well, why not ...
Yes, sadly. And most of the governments of the world are accepting and even backing up the massacre. Only a few condemned this madness and when they do so, the rest treat them as 'enemies'.
I know what you mean. I started a thread once on what's happening to the Uyghurs. I was shocked that people on this forum all acted like culture destroying abuse at the hands of the Chinese was probably for the best. So now they all show up to register shock at what's happening to Palestinians. Looks like selective shock to me.
[quote=Proverbs 22:8]He who sows injustice will reap violence, and the rod of his wrath will fail.[/quote]
The Allies massacred civilians on a level Israel can only dream of in WW2. Yet that did not create a moral equivalence between the Allied and Axis powers.
I'm not sure what you mean.
Egypt rejects calls from Israeli army for Gaza Strip's residents to leave their homes and head south
That's an interesting comparison because the Axis' military situation was about as hopeless as Hamas' well before 1945, before the strategic bombing campaigns even hit their stride really.
But there is a whole complex set of issues to unpack there. I can see though how the simple argument of "Israel has become much stronger relative to their opponent since 1948 and so they must make the concessions," does wear thin in ways here. Germany was ruined in 1945, at the mercy of Soviet and Western armies, and yet we wouldn't say they should have ceded ground back to Hitler at that point on those grounds alone.
Similarly, there is the question of: "do you immediately pull all aid from Stalin as soon as it is apparent that the Nazis won't win?" Another similar question relative to justification for intervention vis-á-vis timing.
How you answer likely depends on if you see the relevant conflict begining in 1948 or even prior, or last week, or when Hamas won a slight plurality of the vote, then axed any competition and made themselves masters of Gaza?
Imho the entire framing doesn't work, because the moral subjects are individual people, not nations.
So we have to take into consideration the reasons people issued these commands / made these plans. Which includes their knowledge at the time etc.
I think people were generally justified in wanting to defeat the Nazi / Japanese state, but plenty decisions for individual parts of this were evil. Notably the strategic bombing campaigns on both sides were often characterized by wilful ignorance, revenge and cruelty.
There also seem to be a number of historians who regard the demand of "unconditional surrender" as a mistake that unnecessarily prolonged the war, especially re Japan.
On the other hand prosecuting any kind of existential conflict clearly requires some risk taking. It's implausible to ask that noone is hurt in war. And that especially goes for the underdog, since otherwise their position gets even weaker.
So I think ultimately there's nothing to be done except to evaluate ends and means, in the traditional fashion. What's your war goal? What means do you have at your disposal? Is a given operation likely to result in robust gains? What kind of collateral damage will result?
For me the core problem with the Israeli response is not too dissimilar from the problems with the Hamas attack. I don't see how it contributes to a long term solution, and it seems to be motivated by the need to be seen as strong as capable at least as much as by actual security concerns.
Well, Germany had nearly 80 million inhabitants to bomb and let's say, for the time and even now Adolf's gang was a bit more better armed than the Hamas.
I'm thinking of the hospitals in Gaza where the back up generators are running out of fuel if they haven't already. That's an atrocity, no exaggeration. I'm an Israel fan, but the people who made that decision are going to have to live with this for the rest of their lives. Their kids are going to have to carry the weight the way the children of Nazis do. It's bad joo joo.
The long term solution for Likud is to ensure a two state solution is not viable. Bombing Palestinians to the stone age is effective.
1) Violating your morals to punish those who violated morals, becomes its own contradiction.
1a) In a state of affairs of extreme violence, no one cares about this contradiction (1). Security at all costs and a response to the violence become default expectation (whether that is the Netherlends, England, France, Portugal, Brazil, Finland, or any country that thinks they are sovereign). No one is going to calmly reflect on the contradictions of using force directly after brutal attacks. No country has reached that state of blissful Buddhist repose (I don't know maybe Bhutan..Ghandistan (non-existent made up utopia)??).
2) Why didn't Hamas focus on making a prosperous Gaza for their population in terms of using support money to go to operations of daily living rather than funneled into military operations?
2a) A response I can see is that people will change the focus to the amount of aid rather than how the aid is being used, but I think this is dubious. For the people who want to make that argument, would you think things would be different if Hamas was known as a para-governmental entity that was known for administering their region properly and funneling energy into building infrastructure, economy, etc. (with whatever aid they get) rather than funneling it towards attacking Israel? Also, isn't the cycle of limited funding because it is known that the funding gets into the wrong hands in the first place, thus justifying not sending the aid in the first place?
3) Israel's problems always stemmed from its very formation. One side did not accept any concessions to the other (this was prior to even the 1948 war, meaning even prior to the "right of return" situation). In other words, one side has always thought the other side illegitimate even in theory.
Gaza has been under a blockade for over 15 years, and the Israelis have in other ways actively tried to prevent Gaza from developing.
Hamas didn't contribute to the prosperity of Gaza either, clearly. But there's two sides to the story.
It's even commonly accepted that at various points in the past the Israeli government low-key supported Hamas in order to reduce the influence of the PLO, and thus make a two-state solution impossible.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Do note the role of the Six-Day War in 1967. That is when Israel annexed the Gaza Strip and Sinai from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria.
A lot has been said about the Israeli claim to self-defense, since it utterly clobbered its neighbours' militaries in a matter of days and went on to annex huge swathes of land. It bit off more than it could chew, and it did so arguably on the basis of lies.
Now, over 50 years after the fact, those things are coming back to haunt them.
I'm not sure that really answered the questions of Hamas' emphasis on para-military (terror) operations above prosperity for its people.
Quoting Tzeentch
Seems one can say the very same for Israel's formation in 1948, no? Didn't they accept the UN mandate (with much less land than after the 1948 war)? In 1967, wasn't there calls to wipe out Israel from Arab neighbor armies or something like this? What was the situation as far as the West Bank after Israel captured it in regards to Jordan gaining possession of it again?
In a sense, yes. But in 1948 the Israelis were very effective at ethnically cleansing the territories they annexed (Nakba). In 1967 they evidently weren't.
But again, that's changing the goalpost, as I was referring to before the 1948 war:
Quoting schopenhauer1
:blush:
Right, but that didn't happen in a bubble either, or without Hamas's very direct involvement. Development used to happen across the boundaries of Gaza. Through 1990, both the WB and Gaza tended to have unemployment rates around 4-5%. Since the 90s they have been more like 26-33%, consistently. Between 1/5th and 1/4th of the Gaza workforce used to go to Israel every single day for work. And at that time both Gaza and the WB were wealthier than many surrounding neighbors. The closure of crossings, particularly for Gaza, crashed the economy, causing it to contract by 30-40% during a population boom.
But that wasn't a decision that came out of nowhere. It was the result of an, in retrospect, obviously counter productive terror campaign that in hindsight, seems to have been more about jockeying for power within Palestine than concrete ideas of how this would make Palestine better off or stronger.
I'd argue that the closing off of the Occupied Territories were a mistake for Israel and the attacks that motivated them a mistake for the fragmented Palestinian leadership. But more cynically, you could argue that allowing Egypt to take the Sinai back without also making them take Gaza back was a bigger mistake.
But we can't say Hamas and their predecessors only act the way they do because of the economic blockade because their actions precipitated, fairly predictably, that blockade. And the pressure for Egypt came from actions that similarly could have been predicted to anger the Egyptians.
Wasn't that all the car/suicide bombings during the peace process during/after the Oslo accords in the 90s you are referring to?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
:up:
Yes, generally measured from 1993-1999. And they were fairly obviously aimed at sabotaging the process. Arguably, one of the reasons Arafat rejected an opening offer that included statehood was because he feared losing control over his own side with the escalating violence, although people also chalk it up to his own ideas about his "revolutionary soldier image."
It did not help that Kuwait deported their entire Palestinian population, a not insignificant 400,000+ in the early 90s, which ratcheted up internal tensions. And then Qaddafi expelled all of Libya's Palestinians because he was upset over Oslo, asking other Arab states, where 3.5 million Palestinians lived, to follow his example and make Palestinians "camp out in the wilderness."
With allies like that...
And of course, just a generation earlier the same states had expelled and expropriated their million or so Jewish residents. So maybe Palestinians and Israeli's can both agree their neighbors are awful, given both have been expelled with "ah yes, but leave your possessions, we'll be taking those."
I bring it up because the timing of both expulsions threw gas on the fire for negotiations. In the latter, be destabilizing internal Palestinian politics, the first instance because the Jewish refugees getting expelled by the Arabs gave Israel an argument for not returning property. And the descendants of the Arab Jews ended up being far more reliable far right wing voters in Israel, so it continues to have effects.
:up: Insightful summary of the history of that period (pre/post Oslo and the resulting actions taken by Arab neighbors against Palestinians). And excellent point regarding Arafat's rejection. Was he ever going to take a deal in good faith? But the reasons you provided make sense regarding his mindset and the possibility that he wouldn't, short of 100% concessions. Even then... you can always find one thing that will cancel the deal.
Less than you'd think. Germany almost collapsed into a war ending rout in 1944 but Western logistics just weren't quite good enough to keep the momentum going. But even as the bombing campaigns picked up it was obvious that Germany couldn't win, only delay the inevitable.
The case against the US destruction of Japanese cities is even better. The US lost hardly any bombers while demolishing hundreds of thousands of buildings and killing as many people.
But could it be justified by the higher cost of a ground invasion of Japan, maybe? That said, the comparable alternative would be to offer a conditional peace, and given what Japan had done and was likely to do again in the future, it's hard to make the case for this either.
So they're more similar than they look at first glance because the Axis was militarily defeated a long time before their cities stopped being destroyed wholesale, largely by the United States and to a lesser extent by the UK.
I'm not even saying the air war wasn't justified, although parts obviously were not. Japan likely could have been forced to terms by a full naval blockade (still forcing it to starve) rather than the incredibly destructive attacks.
[Reply="Tzeentch;845373"]
Yes and no. Yes, they absolutely tried to get Palestinians to flee, ethnic cleansing, but no in that a large part of the Israeli citizenry has always been Palestinian Arabs who didn't leave. That Israel granted them full citizenship and voting rights was one of the things most initially to their credit, and helped create much better prospects for peace (imagine how batshit the government would be without these voters?). But that said, that side of this has clearly soured over time, especially with the unprecedented random violence and sectarian riots lately. I can't imagine we'd be closer to peace without the effects of the Israeli Arabs on the government though, so it's really been to Israel's benefit as a state that they weren't all chased off.
The development of the US bombing campaign is somewhat interesting as a case study in how the wholesale destruction of cities and the burning of their inhabitats ends up justified.
The US did suffer fairly heavy losses initially. They tried high-altitude precision bombing, but just as in Europe the results were never very spectacular. The jet stream made accuracy difficult, and increased fuel consumption. High flying through the jetstream put a lot of strain on the already unreliable engines of the B29s, and they lost many planes to engine fires (yay magnesium engines).
But flying low over the target would improve both accuracy and reliability. Planes would also be able to carry more bombs. Also, Japanese short range anti-air defenses where notoriously poor. And a low approach would be perfect for incendiary bombs. Which, since your target was so large, could also be dropped at night, when japanese defenses would be even weaker. So you had political pressure to justify the enormous resource use, and lots of little practical reasons why this approach would be much easier.
And then, once firebombing had started, the evaluation quickly changed from specific military targets destroyed to acres of cities destroyed for so and so many losses. Once the machinery was unleashed, people started to perfect it.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Though one could argue that, compared to Germany, Japan has managed to turn it's back on that part of it's historiy with remarkable alacrity and also remarkably little cultural change. While Germany did survive as a political entity, it's self-image was mostly shattered and had to be completely remade. I have very limited knowlede of Japanese culture, but it seems far more continuous with the war era, simply channeling their energy in a different direction.
But that's off-topic here.
Discussion of WW2 would be interesting, but perhaps not for this thread. Count von Icarus: the failure of Market Garden and the Ardennes Offensive was actually only a logistics problem for the the Western allies. (Let's stop here) But let's take something a bit actually similar.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Look, the only relatively similar situation to what is now taken place in Gaza in WW2 was the Warsaw Uprising done by the Polish Home Army.
- What is similar that just like the Soviet Union had no intention of helping the Polish Home Army, this battle is as onesided as the Polish Home Army was to be finished. For Stalin an independent large Polish armed entity was the last thing he wanted.
-Similarly here there is absolutely no love for Hamas with the Egyptian regime. Hamas started as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood and the current Egyptian regime is made up of a junta that deposed the elected Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Yet naturally Sisi isn't fighting Israel as the two countries have a peace agreement. The fact is that only Iran is making a fuss about the issue while the Arab League is asking for the sides to cease hostilities.
- The fighting is in a confined to a similar urban environment, where for example sewers in Warsaw and tunnels in Gaza have an important role. Warsaw was also a city with over million people. Gaza strip (made up of many cities) has more people.
- In brutality (from the German side, for instance using units like Gruppe Dirlewanger made up of convicts) and in destructiveness of an urban fighting there can be similarities. At least Hamas has showed already brutality towards Israeli civilians that is similar to SS and other German forces when dealing with untermenschen.
-So let's put into context Gaza and Warsaw in 1944: The Warsaw Uprising held for 63 days. The Home Army had about 20000-49000 fighters (about similar actually to Hamas). That the Uprising did happen and was so successful is a feat, especially when Hitler was planning Warsaw to be one of the "fortress cities" to fight off the impending Red Army. The Germans deployed about 50000 troops to destroy the uprising. The Germans lost perhaps over 10 000 killed, the Home Army everything in killed, wounded and in prisoners.
And the population of Warsaw was . It lost about 150 000 - 200 000 civilians killed and 700 000 people were expelled from the city.
Or let's look at what the Warsaw Uprising looked like.
And of course the Warsaw Uprising is very important to Poles even today. Americans typically have only heard of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which can annoy Polish people. The "9/11" of Israel might be so for future Israel too. Naturally for the Palestinians, it's one chapter in the Nakba.
Israel is the rightful possessor of its land, and its right and duty to protect its sovereign borders and its citizens is absolute. It has an ethical duty not to sympathize with its enemies, especially if that sympathy might reduce the effectiveness of its response to protecting itself. Any ethical theory that requires one endure violence and destruction from another is flawed, and doubtfully created by someone who cares at all for the persons receiving that violence.
This is to say, if the destruction of Gaza is necessary for the protection of Israel, then it would be unethical for Israel not to destroy Gaza.
It is not a particularly good one since civilians were killed in what are now non-precision air strikes without warning. There was no military necessity there. They risked the lives of the hostages in the bombing, not sure what the case for that is.
Urban warfare does not necessitate the removal of civilians, and it is clear that Israel does not care too much, at least in this moment of rage.
If these people move, the move itself will kill some of them.
I guess Hamas could have asked the civilians of the Gaza border to move before attacking, that would have made it alright? Hamas gives Israeli towns 24 hours to move Eastwards. Also the Rave party must change its location again. How would that have been received?
Do what they must, but the honorable thing to do would be to fight street by street without heavy weapons and avoid deaths and injuries. Can the best trained army in the world do this, or are they not interested any more?
That looks like the game plan, to 'exhaust Israel' and then demand some concessions.
For the record, I do not agree with the use of violence to solve problems, I believe the human intellect is great enough to devise a plan, not only to circumvent high tech border devices, but to come up with a peace plan that all agree on. I believe the Palestinians should have chosen the peaceful route, with Palestinian statehood (non-violent), but they cannot control the shifting positions of the opposing camp.
I also do not agree with interference of big powers in regional affairs, which has been a driver for this conflict actually, from the beginning. Israel did not create itself out of nothing. It was created by the powers that be, and then sustained by them, and the conflict has been intelligently managed by surrounding nations and the US, just look at the results.
It will have to be one heck of an intellect to have achieved peace in this age old conflict.
Did your know Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel? He refused.
Could he have done something?
So, by this logic, the Palestinians are forced to destroy Israel, because the oppression and destruction brought upon the Israeli state is incomparably worse than what Hamas does to Israel.
Granted, Israel does have a right to defend itself. But, if they occupy foreign land, do they have a right to steal, kill and murder the owners of that land? Is that even "defense"?
If someone steals your house, locks you in the bathroom and balcony, starves you, randomly kills teenagers and citizens out of spite, builds in your house, and furthermore denies you the right to live in the bathroom and the balcony, don't you as an owner of the balcony and bathroom have a right to defend yourself?
This ethical theory is dubious, in part because it starts from the wrong assumptions. It is Gaza which is defending itself, not Israel.
I have neither served in a military nor been trained in military strategy and tactics, but it's clearly absurd to think that one can carry out urban warfare, fighting street by street, and avoid deaths and injuries. Hamas has dug in (fairly literally -- lots of tunnels). Even IF every civilian had decamped to Egypt, the fight to eliminate Hamas would be bloody for both sides.
Quoting FreeEmotion
It isn't that human intelligence is insufficient to come up with an agreeable peace plan. The problem (in many cases) is that people have interests which may be contrary to other people's interests, and those differences prevent agreement on peace plans. The state of Israel is a successful state. It's not going anywhere. Most likely the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are not going anywhere either. They can not both have exactly what they want.
Here is a long and interesting article. I have not read it in its entirety, however it raises some important moral considerations of minimizing military casualties as well as civilian casualties. The attack on retreating Iraqi army columns troubled me when I first heard about it, and is mentioned here. That is another discussion, however I quote the part related to my statement:
https://academic.oup.com/jla/article-pdf/2/1/115/23562579/2-1-115.pdf
Quoting BC
This is what I mean: any sufficient intelligence could overcome the settling of contrary interests. I think Israel is in a better position to enforce a stalemate or status quo. I do not think peace is an option, given the tendency of extremists to hold positions of power and the foreign machinations that typically go on. Like Europe, the region has to grow up, it took too world wars for Europe to achieve a peace-stalemate but even then we have the Russia - Ukraine conflict. War needs to go out of style, like gun duels, and the compulsory education of the watching thousands of people die on TV might help. The Japanese nation moved from war to 'peace memorials' and 'self defense force', the Germans had to 'remake themselves'.
Maybe war is chemotherapy for the soul. The desire for war is the cancer.
The question remains, if violence is not justified, if violence is eliminated, non-violent means would have to be used, which means that psychological warfare, mind control, false flag operations, bribery, all these are on the table. The argument will then move to which goals are morally justifiable, and in a war of ideas (only) something could be leisurely hammered out over tea, or games a few rounds of golf.
They are living under Israel, that is the point. Hamas has some support, so some may choose to live under its rule.
The question should be: how would you like to be treated, like an Israeli citizen in Israel or a Arab citizen of Israel?
"Every Hamas member is a dead man," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after fighters from the militant group killed 1,300 people in a brutal attack on Israel.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67084141
and the Israelis are capturing Hamas fighters, terrorists? What's with the absurd rhetoric?
Does he mean Hamas the political wing, is he going to kill civilian members of the Hamas organization?
The administration in Washington looks like they are in way over their head. They have no one left who can with some credibility engage in diplomacy, nor does the EU.
They're probably barely on speaking terms with any of the parties involved, and they're scared of the Israelis. Blinken looked like a schoolboy next to Netanyahu.
It's truly shocking to me, and an indicator how far along we already are with regards to the geopolitical shift that is taking place. It looks like there are no adults left in western politics. No one with a cool head, with credibility or any semblance of rapport.
It's as disgraceful as it is shocking.
The security problem in the region goes both ways. And let's not pretend terrorism wasn't a reaction to the illegal occupation and not the other way around.
Would you rather have been African or American in 1700 Or rather a native or a European? A colonist or a coloniser?
We all know being on the wrong side of history is generally easier.
American response: now when have people's desire for revenge, go after anybody, everywhere and make every conflict with muslims part of the fight. That' war on Terror in a nutshell.
Remember just how Cheney was going around right after 9-11 happened that the US ought to attack Iraq, even everyone informed knew it was Al Qaeda.
Do note that the President of Israel is largely a ceremonial role. Would the Israeli politicians listened to him? Not likely.
Quoting Tzeentch
Is something new, @Tzeentch?
The US is the ally of Israel. It comes to help Israel when Israel needs it. (Not the other way around, actually.) Hence the "diplomacy" of the US has always been biased towards the Israeli cause and at anytime when Israel has been attacked or has made one of it's famous "pre-emptive attacks", the US has been there to stand aside it and support it. And that's the role it has now too.
Long have gone the days when some military officer called Nasser asked Kermit Roosevelt (from the CIA) if it's OK to do a military coup against the Egyptian monarch.
If you haven't noticed, the US isn't running the show anymore in the Middle East: all the countries are totally active on their own and not listening to the US.
Problem here is the "foreign land" and the historical legal position of the Palestinians.
The problem is, just like with the Kurds, that there was no sovereign state of Palestine to start with. That in World politics matters hugely: Russia's attack on Ukraine is different of it fighting two wars in Chechnya, even if annexing Chechnya was an imperialist land grab done in the 19th Century. And if you look at what dire situation the Kurds are, it's quite similar. Stateless people are in difficult position in a World where the rules are made for sovereign nation states.
The sad fact, which ought to be brought up here, is that when the neighboring Arab Nations started their war with Israel in 1948, they weren't fighting for the Palestinians or for an independent Palestine. They were they to do a land grab for themselves. And that's why there wasn't much coordination with the Arab states. The only really successful country was Jordan, which had a small, but professional and effective army trained and lead command by a British general, which could secure the West Bank for Jordan.
(The Jordanian king with his British general, Glubb Pasha)
Then Jordan lost the West Bank in the Six Day War and hasn't fought Israel since then. (It has had to fight the PLO later btw.) Now it isn't claiming anymore the West Bank and has announced that the Palestinians in the West Bank are Palestinians, not Jordanian citizens.
Hence the semi-recognized Palestinian state is something that has happened basically only after the Oslo peace process.
(Let's have a Palestinian Authority! Not a sovereign state, but it's a start...)
Hamas practiced in plain sight, posting video of mock attack weeks before border breach
[sup]— Michael Biesecker, Sarah El Deeb, Jon Gambrell, Lori Hinnant, Beatrice Dupuy, Aaron Kessler, Fu Ting · AP · Oct 13, 2023[/sup]
Starting with the false premise that Israel occupies a foreign land, I'm not sure what follows from there.
Israel is the legitimate possessor of its land.
Quoting ssu
Well, yes and no.
The writing has been on the wall for a while, but nature of the war in Ukraine has allowed the Biden administration to play pretend for a while.
There was no real threat of escalation in Ukraine and the Russians weren't intent on pushing the Ukrainians to the brink. Also the humanitarian situation wasn't as dire as in Gaza.
However, with Israel any ideas about Washington being in control are dispelled. They are out of control. There have barely been any diplomatic conversations between Washington and players in the Middle-East - something that would be unheard of 20 years ago.
Of course the fact that the US was going to support Israel was never in question, but the US can't even really support Israel. Vacuous "we stand with Israel" statements are meaningless - in fact, makes Washington look like a bunch of stooges in the way it was presented - schoolchildren. Sending carrier battlegroups is imposing and symbolic, but in pratical terms meaningless for the type of conflict that might enfold and the players involved know that.
This might explain in part why Israel is reacting so extremely - because they realize there's no one at the wheel in Washington. No one to come and save them if the Arabs come knocking.
Honestly, up to this point I had kept the option open that Washington wasn't purely incompetent, but might be playing an extremely cynical game of 4d chess. However, given the role Israel plays in US politics, Washington can't afford incompetence or cynicism here, so what we're looking at is very real.
But what does this mean exactly?
What lands precisely do they legitimately possess? And what about the people they inherited? Can anyone who happens to be militarily superior decide at will who has which rights?
Italy is also the legitimate possessor of it's land. Does this mean it can legally and morally put all illegal aliens into prison camps, until they are dropped off somewhere at Italy's convenience?
Clearly "legitimate possession" is not the end of the question.
And vice versa?
It looks to me as if the alignment of ethnicity and religion leads to the externalisation of negative affect, to the extent that the only solutions become 'final solutions'. The fundament of the fundamentalist is the last battle, where evil is finally defeated and the virtuous attain to paradise. End of. ... everything. The irony that the two sides of armageddon are in total agreement and desirous of the same conflict.
Ok, so you're making a claim about Israel's annexations of Gaza and the West Bank in 1967 - places that belonged to Egypt and Jordan respectively at the time, and where there lived (and still live) primarily Palestinians.
What makes this annexation by Israel during the Six-Day War legitimate in your eyes?
Quoting Times Of Israel
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/state-department-diplomats-warned-not-to-call-for-ceasefire-calm-end-to-violence-report/
Yeah we noticed...
Ha! These Westerners…
According to your own premise, Russia is legitimate to occupy Crimea, Donbas and Donetsk, right?
Oh no no boy... Putin cannot do that, he is evil.
The hypocrisy of these Western lovers and ‘seekers of freedom.’ :roll:
I am very glad that this statement has been made.
Now, does this include Gaza and the West Bank?
Something that Palestine wants too...
I was replying to your reply to RogueAI (one above your Bibi quote) and think RogueAI's original question was silly.
Quoting Hanover
Define "its" land.
According to my reading it was more complex than that, but my point was that this is less like WW2 and more like 9-11.
You didn't grow up to be the fine upstanding American we were hoping for. :cry:
Ha! Ha! You made me laugh, my dear pal.
Ethnic cleansing and genocide seem to be the stated or implicit goal of both. Only Israel has the means to really follow through on that though.
"Ha! Ha! You made me laugh, my dear pal."
:grin:
Genocide:
"the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.
"a campaign of genocide"
https://www.google.com/search?q=genocide&oq=genocid&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57.11650j0j7&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
I understand your need to vent but wiping out cities of millions of people, the vast majority of whom are civilians, could never be justified unless they posed a similar level of immediate existential threat, as might be the case in a nuclear war etc.
One suggestion is that Hamas might decide to martyr themselves in order to become the heroes that brought about the final battle that would drag in all the usual suspects for the end of days. It's hard to make sense of their attack without some such background plan to provoke a response that'll draw in other parties, except as mass suicide by Israeli.
One suggestion is that Hamas might decide to martyr themselves in order to become the heroes that brought about the final battle that would drag in all the usual suspects for the end of days. It's hard to make sense of their attack without some such background plan to provoke a response that'll draw in other parties, except as mass suicide by Israeli.
Either Warsaw uprising is closer to the current situation [I]militarily[/I]. I thought the urban bombing campaigns of WWII were more interesting in that the justification of them in terms of the balance of power eroded later in the war. Warsaw is less interesting from a moral perspective in that everyone agrees that the Nazis were wrong, and the Soviets as well. It's even more obviously that the Soviets invading Poland to aid Hitler's conquest was strategically idiotic in retrospect, so there isn't even a shred of pragmatic justification.
But the Jews didn't end up in Palestine by invading to "defend the oppressed Jews there," after a false flag attack on a radio station (how Hitler started his war). They ended up there in a mix of ways, at first through state supported migration, as the Ottomans were happy to have people move into what was a depopulated economic backwater. And the people that came were largely refugees from either genocidal pogroms or at least official state suppression.
Conflict only began later when the migrant population hit a critical mass. And in some ways the opposition began in quite self-serving ways that we certainly wouldn't accept in the context of say, Mexicans moving to the US. E.g.,
- Demands from Arabs that other, unrelated Arabs not be allowed to sell their own property to Jews because "I don't want those people in my neighborhood," but also because "Jews are bidding up the price and it should be sold at a lower price to me." Imagine this argument re San Diego housing.
-Demands that property sold to Jews be returned to Arabs, without the sale price even being returned, after the land had been significantly improved through cultivation.
-Demands that the government reflect the religious confession of the original majority in all cases and not give consideration to the new arrivals as equal citizens.
-Demands that no more people of the out group be allowed to move into the area regardless of refugee status.
But these demands emerged slowly at first. Later waves of arrivals came because of the Holocaust and later because the Arabs expelled Jews from throughout the Middle East.
Point being, this is qualitatively different from Hitler's invasion and there was no Jewish action on par with the Germans to exterminate the Arab population so that they could settle the lands. Indeed, they accepted a peace agreement that would leave them with far less land than they ended up with, with Jewish ethnic cleansing efforts largely occuring during the 1948 war, at the same time that Arab ethnic cleansing efforts (some actually quite successful) were trying to push Jews out of other areas. This is more similar to the partition of India than Hitler's invasion of Poland. That's where the Warsaw analogy falls apart, "how the Germans got control of Warsaw."
So the interesting part would be that it seems that Israel was far more justified in defending itself "to the best of its abilities," in 1948 than in 2023. And this is because the balance of military power has shifted decisively. But the relation to WWII is if the shift necessities then taking far more risks. Does the winning side in a war have an obligation to pursue different defense strategies as it starts winning?
I'm not claiming the two are perfectly analogous. A key difference is timing. WWII in Europe lasted just half a decade. The Japanese leadership during the US bombings was the same leadership that encouraged genocide in China, not one from 70 years later.
In the Israel-Palestine conflict, all the original participants are long dead, even those from 1948 are dead, and half those in Gaza were born shortly before or after the economic blockade went up. I do think that changes things because Israel increasingly becomes responsible for the attitudes and governance in the areas they occupy through how they have occupied them. And Israel is responsible for Hamas to the extent they at times helped Hamas' cause in their early days, hoping to use them as a way to destabilize the PLO.
But from the Israeli perspective, since "total victory, we will genocide you out of existence as soon as God gives you over into our hands," has remained the unconditional terms of the conflict for some parties, it also seems like there is justification for destroying that leadership since it's unclear how peace can possibly come when they rule through force and are accountable to virtually no one save Iran.
Just for an example, Hamas moving their bases out of urban areas to reduce the threat to civilians was a campaign promise in the one election they allowed. It was, in fact, something people weren't happy about. Hamas won a plurality of the vote, not even a majority, then canceled elections indefinitely and purged all opposition. And in this, the argument that "they need to be removed despite the cost," is one that comes closer to the Allied position re unconditional surrender.
It's also similar in that no strong opposition movement grew up in Germany or Japan during WWII, even as the costs of the war mounted and it became increasingly obvious that they would lose. Similarly, while discontent with Hamas obviously exists, it also doesn't seem like they are likely to lose their grasp on power without having external losses inflicted on them.
And I'd argue that they are similar in questions about "what comes after?" The treaties of WWI laid the seeds of WWII. The blockade if Gaza and terms of peace with Egypt laid the seeds of this war in Israel. Will Israel strike a path more similar to the US after WWII re Germany and Japan? This required a huge investment, but it did work. And it's not like the Japanese hated the Americans any less. Being close allies today's owes to the successful reconstruction and efforts on both sides for lasting peace. But of course, US investment was heavily motivated by the threat of the Soviets, and no similar threat exists for Israel (or Palestine, it helped that West Germany and Japan feared Soviet invasion more than US occupation).
Uhhh... just how many have been killed in Ukraine compared to this little fight? And there are over 6 million refugees from Ukraine now all over the World. That's multiple times the population in Gaza. And how do the deaths compare? In the war in Ukraine 200 000 soldiers in all have perished in the war and perhaps 40 000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed. And the actual figures can be even higher, actually.
So please do notice the huge differences in scale.
Quoting frank
Of course. Yet if we look at WW2 anything that would resemble the current situation, the Warsaw Uprising is most similar.
This is simply based on false assumptions. People arguing against a ground invasion are doing so specifically because a ground invasion will almost certainly mean far more civilian death. In no way would "street by street fighting," result in less damage. This has historically never been the case.
A ground fight requires much looser ROE and significantly increases the risk of a loss of discipline and massacres.
A drone operator can be far more dispassionate in picking targets. They aren't at risk. There is time for the JAG team or its equivalent to vet a strike, something that is done. You have time to select appropriate munitions, lower payloads for smaller targets or for greater risks of collateral damage.
But if you're actively being shot at? If the choice is to let mortars wipe out a squad or to fire shells into an urban area to suppress the fire? You can't just decide "the risk is to civilians is too big," if people are firing anti-tank weapons at you from a building. You're going to die unless you level the thing with a main gun round.
You're also going to get ambushes, people pretending to be civilians and attacking, all the stuff that erodes discipline and makes eroding discipline more likely.
Street by street fighting means a much higher volume of fire in the area, less time to make decisions, more barriers to flows of civilians, less access to areas by rescue and medical teams, etc.
The fact is that even massive scale strategic bombing has tended to produce less fatalities than urban battles.
That's of course terrible, however in the case of Ukraine there is a professional army capable of protecting civilians (and not using them as human shields), and a state capable of sheltering them with wide international support. That's not the case in Gaza. In Gaza there is no food, no running water, no electricity, and the civilians cannot flee even if they wanted to.
So I think it's fair to say that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is much worse - that's not necessarily a quantitative statement.
:up:
But they have been? The media just doesn't focus on them because they are unlikely to mean anything in the current context. The problem is that all the traditional "players" in the Middle East outside of Iran are essentially enemies of Hamas, in some cases quite openly. So what fruit are these overtures supposed to bear?
Second, consider that Hamas has several EU and US prisoners, as well as prisoners from several other countries. I would imagine that rhetoric is what it is because more strident diplomatic support is being held back as a carrot to return the foreign nationals.
I honestly can't see why Hamas would want to keep EU or US nationals given the two fund like 7% of Gaza's GDP and aid payments are crucial to them. It's even less apparent why they would want to hold Russian and Chinese nationals. Unless, of course, you've already treated them so poorly that you don't want word getting out. But it might speak to a broader lack of discipline and coordination that the nationals you'd expect to be released haven't been.
As with all moral questions, the issue of intent is critical. If the intent is to eliminate an inferior or immoral race, then that is genocide.
If it's to protect your own people and nation from destruction, it's a different matter. Israel does face an existential threat that is only reduced by doing the things it is currently doing. I get those from the sidelines think they have a gentler way to secure Israel's security, but others disagree.
The Be'eri kibbutz, for example.
Israel isn't at war over a claim by Israel that Gaza and the West Bank belong to Israel. Israelis presence in Gaza is part of a military operation. I don't think Israel has any interest in occupying and policing Gaza every day.
That doesn't follow.
I'm not laying an Israeli claim to Gaza or the West Bank. That is a Palestinian territory, controlled by Hamas and Hezzbolah respectfully.
But can land be acquired by war? Of course. If not, the world map would look very different.
Acquisition of land by ancient inheritance is no more defensible than by war.
The existential threat to Gaza is Hamas provoking war with Israel.
Terrorism is not a legitimate response. Period.
If you believe Israel isn't occupying foreign territories in Gaza and the West Bank, then what exactly do you believe Israel is doing there?
No, but it's the first question. If the Mexican government continuously lobbed bombs into El Paso and raped and butchered its citizens, it wouldn't be shocking if the US took over a chunk of Mexico. That justification comes from no one remotely questioning the US's right to its land.
Any conqueror can say this, including Nazis. Germans had seen Jewish cultural independence as an existential threat for generations before the Holocaust. Was it really a threat? Who cares? That's what Germans believed. Same thing here.
You don't set your morals by what you think you need to accomplish your goals. You set them by what you know is right and accomplish your goals within those constraints. Otherwise you're going to fuck up.
They're invading it after being attacked. That's what happens in a war. Do you think Gaza is a safety zone that can't be entered into by Israel after being attacked?
Do you think Gaza occupied foreign territory when it arrived at the kibbutz?
George Bush: 'God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq'
[sup]— Ewen MacAskill · The Guardian · Oct 7, 2005[/sup]
:D
By the way
Quoting Ewen MacAskill · The Guardian · Oct 7, 2005
So this is what things look like in Gaza at the moment (google can translate Spanish as needed)...
The complete siege complicates the lives of Gazans in the Strip dodging the bombs
[sup]— Euronews · Oct 12, 2023[/sup]
[quote=Hassan Zidane (Store Owner, Gaza)]What have we done to them? Look at the destroyed houses. Nobody has warned us. We are civilians. What have we done to them?[/quote]
I'm guessing a few feel like Zidane among both parties.
Rubble and debris. No electricity, fuel (e.g. backup generators). Too little running water. Increasingly long food lines. Humanitarian disaster. How many affected? 300,000?
Quoting Mahmoud Abbas · Ali Sawafta, James Mackenzie, Mark Heinrich, Jonathan Oatis · Wafa via Reuters · Oct 12, 2023
That is the critical question. If the threat isn't real, responding to it with force isn't justified.
The distinction between the German justification for slaughtering Jews and the Israeli's justification for invading Gaza, is that Israel's justification is correct and Germany's wrong.
It requires moral judgment. The solution isn't to declare an amorality and paralyze yourself with inaction because you think yourself too humble to decide right from wrong
You really think Hamas was an existential threat that requires allowing the power to go off in Gazan hospitals? I'm not seeing that.
Quoting Hanover
I believe it is and was an occupation, and relevant rulings on this case seem to agree.
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel (September, 2022)
You mean the PLO. Hezzbollah is in Lebanon, remember?
Exactly. To argue that Israel hasn't a claim on the West Bank or Gaza is hypocrisy and basically false.
A lot of Israeli maps show just how Israelis think themselves what constitutes Israel.
Above all, Netanyahu wants the West Bank, or should we say Judea and Samaria. He wants to annex them and perhaps this war will give him the opportunity to do so.
[quote](2020) in a television address after US President Donald Trump’s announcement of the [UAE] deal, Netanyahu said he had only agreed to “delay” the annexation, and that he would “never give up our rights to our land”.
“There is no change to my plan to extend sovereignty, our sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, in full coordination with the United States,” Netanyahu said in Jerusalem, using the biblical name for the occupied West Bank.[/qoute]
This is a philosophy forum, what do you expect?
Quoting Hanover
The way I understand the international law, Gaza is territory of Israel. Unless it's still considered Egypt, but then Egypt doesn't seem interested.
Quoting Hanover
Of course it would be shocking. I'm not sure how you believe it would not be.
To make an ethical argument requires that we eliminate bias and argue "from the sidelines". You can never do that which is why you never come up with anything remotely convincing to an objective observer (if the situations were reversed you would be arguing that the atrocities of the subjugated Israelis in Gaza were justified.). Leaving that aside, Israel is not under an existential threat by the party they are trying to wipe out, the people of Gaza city. So, yes, that would be genocide.
Oh, dear. One way moral rights is a rather old-fashioned look these days. Not that the other side is any different, you understand. But if you can't even see that mutuality of existential terror, then destruction must reign until the final triumph of good. Let the four horsemen ride!
Are you fatally biased? Take the test!
They refuse to recognize even our basic right to exist.
(Fatally biased: 'That's fine'.)(Neutral: 'That's wrong').
We subjugate them and illegally settle their land.
(Fatally biased: 'Cool'.)(Neutral: 'That's wrong').
They respond by killing our civilians.
(Fatally biased: 'Sounds OK to me'.)(Neutral: 'That's wrong').
We respond to that by destroying an entire city.
(Fatally biased: 'Why not?')(Neutral: 'That's wrong').
The point that they are simply helping the Palestinians make a stand by remaining seems pretty dubious:
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/arab-states-say-palestinians-must-stay-their-land-war-escalates-2023-10-13/
Why did they readily participate in the blockade and sealing off Gaza after Hamas took over the region originally?
Why wouldn't the 1967 borders be accepted for peace?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khartoum_Resolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Arab_League_summit#:~:text=The%201967%20Arab%20League%20summit,Israel%2C%20no%20negotiations%20with%20Israel.
Why didn't Egypt want (at least provisional) control of Gaza when they could have had it?
I guess I ask this in the idea that what is the end game here?
Netanyahu is a terrible dictatorial war mongering opportunist. That being said, his election was not in a vacuum. There were a series of things that push a population to the right. He ignored the existential situation.
That being said, Palestine offered no one of substance. Arafat was quite literally a bust. Abbas had potential perhaps if he actually took up the more brave position for peace. As per usual, he fears his own radicals. Also, the whole holocaust-denying doesn't really garner good will.
The inability to compromise will be the utter sticking point. As long as death and revenge is more important than simply living, it doesn't matter. It doesn't help that people on the sidelines encourage it, rather than call for moderation.
:up:
''On 12 October, independent United Nations experts ... condemned the "horrific crimes committed by Hamas" and said that Israel had resorted to "indiscriminate military attacks against the already exhausted Palestinian people of Gaza". They said that "This amounts to collective punishment. There is no justification for violence that indiscriminately targets innocent civilians, whether by Hamas or Israeli forces. This is absolutely prohibited under international law and amounts to a war crime.'
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israel–Hamas_war
I would like to ask you though, being that you are not biased, do you think that if Palestinians had full control of Israel, every Jew would be in danger of their life that stepped foot in that land openly if ruled by Hamas, or other radical groups (and there are plenty of them in that tiny area)?
This is just a hypothetical as I would like to talk end games rather than the usual "war of grievances".
I'm at least not ''fatally biased'', which affords the moderate achievement of not sounding like a crazy person. Anyhow, if that happened right now, yes. Both sides are consumed with bloodlust. What I object to are attempts to dress this up in an ''ethical'' disguise.
Sorry, could you elaborate?
Then your understanding of international law is different from others. Gaza is simply territory that is military occupied by Israel.
Hence the reason why we use maps of Israel like this:
The above one from the US state department. Notice that Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights aren't drawn as part of Israel.
The Israeli gains from the Six Day war haven't been recognized. Just like we don't make maps with Western Sahara being part of Morocco.
If some magic genie gave Hamas full control over Israel right now (an impossibility for them to achieve militarily) they would seek to do to the Israelis what the Israelis are seeking now to do to the Gazans.
They wouldn't need to bomb the Israelis if they controlled the land, no? They would simply call for every in the street to kill every Jew they saw, perhaps? The scenario is that they control all of Israel/Palestine (so I guess it would just be Palestine at that point), and there were Jews left in Israel.
I am wondering if that group (and similar ones. and perhaps even so-called moderate ones), would actually be in the business of not even moderation. That would be laughably naive of us to expect, but I mean that they literally wouldn't call for the murder of Jews on sight.
Spot on. Why is it difficult to be critical about the actions of both sides? Religious extremists have hijacked the stage and people on both sides who would want peace are pushed aside as nearly traitors.
In Europe this bloodlust and militarism got a dent after WW1 and WW2. You simply have to have that amount of blood flowing before people truly start to question things that were unquestionable and have a very negative view about war. Even then a truly long and awful war wouldn't perhaps make it go away. This is because for both Jews and for the Palestinians fighting for existence and the suffering is an important part of their identity. For the Jews it's the Holocaust and for the Palestinians it's the Nakba. So it's really difficult just to "move on".
:up: Honestly, all anyone has to do to touch base with sanity in this conversation is reread this Reuters quote.
Quoting Baden
Maybe I should just periodically post it instead of bothering to debate what should need no debate.
Sure, those are all important factors to take into consideration for the modern-day situation.
Now, the way forward, it seems to me, is that most of the world recognizes Gaza and the West Bank to be Palestinian territory. Obviously, they cannot get the rest of Israel - far many reasons, some of which you have stated.
I understand that Israel is basically annexing large swaths of the West Bank and that there are too many settlements there. But I don't think it's impossible for Israel to relocate them inside Israel proper.
If Palestinians do not get Gaza and the West Bank, the fighting will never stop.
But territory of whom? Territory cannot devolve to statelessness. It would have to be either Egypt or Israel, since a Palestinian state doesn't exist.
Quoting ssu
I don't think recognition is required, what constitutes which state is at least theoretically an objective question.
Quoting schopenhauer1
The current regime in Egypt isn't interested in caring for thousands of refugees, especially not if Hamas fighters are among them, given that Hamas is an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood.
So is that the same moral equivocation of Hamas with the Palestinians? Granted it's realpolitik, but isn't that what everyone in that region engages in when it comes to preserving their interests? Israeli/Arab/Muslim/Jew?
There are no sides. There are only particular perpetrators of violent acts and tyranny, and particular victims of it. This brute fact almost goes unnoticed, however.
To avoid using the same logic as the perpetrators of these crimes, and justifying the same acts, and in a sense becoming like them, a return to the principle of justice should give observers enough of an idea of who to side with, or who to condemn, whatever the case may be. Break up the typical demarcations and one will not fall prey to guilt by association. Afford rights and dignity to the flesh-and-blood human beings before their classifications. Make new demarcations; side only with the innocent and condemn only the guilty.
I agree with the quote, though I'm guilty of suggesting otherwise. There are lines in the sand here that are not easy to navigate, though being a USian I feel the compulsion to speak on them. As a citizen here I'm not directly involved, but I'm not indirectly involved either. My country acts on my behalf.
Another thought I've been struggling with is attempting to frame things in terms of numbers: I think it's important to note in the sense that we make these comparisons, but then there's this more absolutist side to me that believes there's no ethical justification for the act of killing, at least at bottom. Contingency, history, etc. gives us an excuse, but at bottom I'm skeptical that it follows.
I don't know if they would kill literally every Jew in that situation (I wouldn't be very surprised if they would though, sadly) or if Netanyahu would kill literally every Palestinian if he got the chance. Right now, the practical existential threat is towards the people of Gaza. I'm guessing Israel will kill very many of them, including civilians and children, before they're satisfied.
Morality 101, don't bomb civilians. If you're fighting for survival, you're beyond good and evil. That's why people want to picture themselves as facing an existential threat: to allow them to proceed with immoral acts.
:100:
But he hasn’t called for that obviously and you just changed the focus which seems a red herring. Just the fact you “don’t know” seems pretty telling (as I think you strongly suspect too the answer).
I don't think most people here are arguing that civilians ought to be targeted, that is indeed a war crime and is heinous.
Granting that - how would you if you lived in Gaza under those conditions, specifically target the IDF? How can you do it? If I were living in Gaza, I might not care, I don't have a job, nor any future prospects, I can't leave, my people are being killed weekly, nobody seems to care.
If I were an Israeli or in the government, then you should allow the Rafah crossing to open to allow desperately needed aid to Gaza, and then you try "surgical strikes", as much as you can given what Gaza is. I think this is what I would want as an Israeli. I certainly understand wanting payback for the criminals.
But what they're doing now goes way beyond that and comes closer to guaranteeing a bigger war that will be a serious issue for Israel.
So, what could be done? Unless you have different intuitions, which would be interesting to hear.
Shooting innocent concert goers and destroying cities of millions of people are not moral actions in this context, I think we agree. Maybe we'd think they were if we were directly involved, but that's irrelevant to making that judgement. I don't know what the ideal solution is. Your suggestion sounds more reasonable than what's taking place right now. But so would almost any suggestion.
I think there are a few reasons. One is that opening up a corridor would basically allow Israel to go ahead with its ethnic cleansing and annexation of Gaza. Which, besides leading to a humanitarian catastrophe several times worse than the 1948 Nakba, is also something Egypt is politcally opposed to.
It's also not clear whether Egypt can even house this amount of refugees.
Further, among the refugees there are bound to be radical militants. Hamas has close ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, which Egypt has struggled with in the past.
Personally, I feel like it's Israel's responsibility to act in ways that doesn't jeopardize millions of innocent lives.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I'm not sure what this is referring to. I followed the links but didn't find a clear explanation of what you mean by this.
Yes, Hamas are extremists and I'd put nothing past them. Thankfully, they are not and will never be in that position.
Are you Israeli?
What do you do?
Do you talk about moral ambiguity, feel the guilt of your predecessors in putting you in this place, and then set up a meeting with Hamas to discuss your displeasure at their murderous yet understandable behavior and figure out how we can go halfsies on the land so everyone will be happy?
For real, what do you propose in real terms other than the vague platitude that Israel should be careful not to hurt the innocent. Their position is that they will do their best.
So General Baden, protect your nation. What do you propose?
Yes, that is the way.
And Rabin was successful at it - finally some semblance of a start of reconciliation between Jews and Palestinians.
A little too successful. Radicals within Israel had him offed.
Can't have humanism get in the way of nationalism/zionism.
Those same radicals are in charge today, by the way.
Ah. I see, that is obviously an unusual or rare way to get knowledge about this conflict. One of my oldest friends came here through Jordan as refugees of 67' war. He doesn't talk about his history much though.
Worst thing about this is that there is nothing we can do about it, or if so, virtually nothing.
There needs to be a protected humanitarian corridor. I'm sure Israel will put effort into creating that. Unless they just want to do a massive fuckup.
We bombed civilians in WW2. Did that make us the bad guys?
But you would still prefer the Allies had won WW2, right?
This was a giant question for me back in the day. I had a philosophical epiphany over it. Probably off topic though?
Egypt controlled Gaza prior to 1967 via military rule under a military governor. They refused giving Palestinians the right to manage their own affairs over the course of their rule. Of course, in 1948 Egypt had, like the other Arab countries and the Palestinian leadership itself, no plans for an "independent nation of Palestine." Such a thing wasn't on any state's radar because no real distinct "Palestinian" people existed as separate from other Levantine Arabs. There was rather a linguistic gradient across the Levant and questions of local control. The land was to be partitioned between the victorious Arab states if they had won.
The distinct "Palestinian" people of today were created by the Arab states' refusal to accept "refugees," from the lands they had actively wanted to conquer. I put "refugees," in quotation marks because a good deal of these people were in homes their families had been in for generations. Yes, there were those Palestinians who fled the 1948 fighting, but there were also those who has always lived in lands the Arabs had effectively conquered in 1948, e.g. Gaza. But they were not "welcomed into the nation," that had conquered their land, ostensibly on their behalf to give them, "Arab rule by Arabs," but were instead denied citizenship, and even the bare economic and political rights offered by those states.
Why was this done? To keep the conflict alive. "You can have citizenship and be allowed to leave the military camps when you help us destroy Israel and not before."
This initial move by the Egypt in turn made it impossible for them to ever assimilate their Palestinians. Where as Israel has gotten on ok with a third of its citizens being "Israeli Arabs," and Jordan did eventually extend rights to their Palestinians, and so in many ways subsume that identity into the "Jordanian" one, Egypt never made this opening. By 1973 the PLO was its own political entity and Palestinian its own ethnicity and Egypt, being fragile in the way of autocracies, particularly poor ones who haven't provided their citizens with economic development, no longer felt it could risk having the Palestinians in Egypt.
Egypt did not want Gaza back after 1967, but it did at least consider a "land for people trade," whereby Israel would give them land they DID want in exchange for taking Palestinians. They did not ultimately accept this.
Egypt's position on not letting Gazans into Egypt is not about their ability to house refugees. They had the same attitude when they controlled Gaza; they do not want outsiders with an independent power base who could challenge the state. And this is even more true today after Hamas has given support to insurgents within Egypt.
This is more or less why Palestinians have been thrown out of many Arab countries, time and time again, at times in the hundreds of thousands (ethnic cleansing?). In part it has been because of the PLOs machinations in their host countries' affairs, at times openly challenging and supporting or engaging in war against the host countries, at times it has been simple ethnic reprisals. Kuwait didn't expell 400,000+ Palestinians because most were involved in "subverting," the state, but simply because the PLO had sided with Saddam Hussein and they wanted collective retribution. This despite the fact that Iraqi forces also dispossessed Palestinians and brutalized them during their invasion.
This is how some Israelis support a "no Palestine" solution. The claim is that the relevant grouping is "Arabs" or "Levantine Arabs," and that they indeed do have not only one state but many. "So why wouldn't/won't the Arabs accept 'their own people.'"
"850,00 Palestinians lost their homes in 1948 and over the next few years 950,000 Jews lost their property and were driven out of the Arab states. An unfortunate trade."
But this is hardly a morally supportable argument for Israel. That the Arab regimes in the region tend to act atrocious even to their own nationals is fairly well known. Israel pointing to their neighbors and saying "if you weren't so messed up you'd have taken these people," doesn't change the fact that their neighbors didn't take the people and that Israel is now responsible for the conflict they find themselves in.
And this is the crux, what it all comes down to it. In 1967 Israel didn't think it could make the Palestinians in the WB and Gaza citizens they way they had done with the Israeli Arabs because there was already too much bad blood at that point and because it would lead to an Arab majority, or near majority in the "Jewish state." Seeing this problem, they should have withdrawn from the occupied territories.
Granted, I will allow that, had Israel simply retreated to its 1948 borders soon after the Six Day War, I don't see how that would be at all likely to have put an end to the conflict, but it would not put them in the position of being prison wardens to people they cannot accept.
Indiscriminate use of force ? genocide. The US used indiscriminate force against cities in WWII, but I've never seen any good case that it had any intention of commiting a genocide of either the Japanese or the Germans. The indiscriminate bombing was a means to an end, not the end itself.
There are voices in Israel that essentially do advocate genocide, but they aren't the relevant voices for their military strategy and that isn't the policy they've pursued. It's not even clear to me how "indiscriminate" the current attacks are. One would expect the death toll to be massively higher if the goal was "to exterminate the Palestinians."
Having loose rules of engagement is also not genocide. Nor is collective punishment necessarily equivalent with genocide. 9/11 for instance, was indiscriminate and collective in its aims (the planners estimated they would kill 250,000 people by having the buildings topple on impact), but it was not genocide. Nor is "attacking an enemy that has fled into a dense urban area in that area without (much) regard for collateral damage," genocide. When the US and UK destroyed a great deal of all the structures in Fallujah during the Second Siege they were not engaged in genocide. Nor was Russia engaged in genocide when it began shelling residential areas to punish resistance in Kyiv and Kharkiv. Even localized massacres are not genocide; Giap wasn't trying to genocide the South Vietnamese but things like Hue did happen.
That doesn't mean those things are justifiable or acceptable. There are things that militaries can do that are both unjustifiable and not genocide.
I don't think there is currently enough evidence to know how loose Israel has gotten with its targeting, except that it clearly isn't trying to kill as many civilians as possible. It is obviously trying to inflict collective punishment on the Strip in the short term as part of its efforts to destroy Hamas and support for Hamas.
Israel can be justified in attempting to destroy Hamas and not justified in everything they do to accomplish this. In general, I would say Israel has [I]tended[/I] to be good about how it wages its wars but not how it settles things afterwards, which is often more important to lasting peace.
Let me ask you another question: Who would you rather trust with nuclear weapons? Hamas/Hezbollah/Iran or Israel? Of course, Israel.
I don't know. Seems pretty on-topic.
The only "side" that ever nuked anybody was the "Allies". The only side categorically refusing to work towards peace is Israeli right wing political parties. The side that had murdered more innocents: Israeli. The side that broke more ceasefires: Israeli. The idea of marrying "trust" and "Israel" is reflective of your lack of knowledge of the history and recent politics of the region. It would be hilarious if not for the fact 80% of the dimwitted fucks that get to vote have the same myopic view.
Exactly. What you do in the war is in part justified by what your enemy has done and what you can expect them to do in the future/if they ever get more advantage over you.
But even more key is that actions to win a war are justified by what comes after. Would the US have been justified in the bombing it engaged in during WWII if it had gotten Japan and the Germans to surrendered, simply executed some leaders to feel good, then gone home and let those countries starve and the same sorts of people take control over them again?
To my mind, the US was justified more by things like the Marshall Plan, which came after the war, then by the military value of some of their campaigns. The plans that led to lasting peace required total victory, and it's what came after that justified refusing to negotiate a truce that left the original antagonists in power.
And this is where Israel has not been justified in it's more limited military actions since 1973. The entire "mowing the grass," philosophy of counter terrorism they developed was morally bankrupt [I]because[/I] it was counter productive in terms of long term peace. It couldn't reasonably be expected to ever lead to lasting peace. Assassinating leaders might disrupt attacks, but if you also kill anyone who can actually discipline their side then you destroy any ability to negotiate.
Israel was justified in driving settlers out of Gaza at gun point, but their disengagement plan obviously failed. Simply walking away and leaving Gaza to administer itself, shrugging and saying "well lots of countries don't allow traffic across their borders," didn't set up any sort of lasting peace.
Not that I have any great ideas on what an alternative was. If they "disengaged" more by announcing that they would recognize Gaza as an independent nation and left the Egyptian border to Egypt and simply policied their own, we'd be in a very similar situation. Gaza would still be destitute. Both countries still would restrict traffick across the border. Hamas would still have plenty of reasons to justify continued attacks. This is why I am not optimistic about the future even if Hamas is destroyed.
Who you rather have won WW2, the Allies or Axis? It's a really easy question to answer, is it not?
The difference here though is that after WW2 was over, Japan and Germany were done fighting. They were whipped and submitted meekly to the Allies. Would the U.S. have done the Marshall Plan if Germany was still determined to eradicate the Allies?
Depends on how narrowly you define the conflict and if you consider Palestinian organizations under a single umbrella (arguably unjustifiable in recent decades since they are in violent conflict).
Broadly, since the start of the conflict, Palestinian forces have killed more civilians in their actions in Lebanon alone. But note that the IDF certainly could have inflicted higher losses if it wanted to. The PLO in many cases tried to kill as many of their rivals as possible, and that is where I believe what RougeAI is getting at.
You have plenty of events like this at the PLO's doorstep:
Now this is a long time ago, and Fatah has developed into a much saner organization. But could I see Hamas doing these if it was given the chance? Absolutely.
But simply asking, "who would be more brutal if they won," or "which side would lynch you if they could," isn't fair either. It's not a relevant question unless you're actually the one in danger of being lynched.
Because justification of Israel can't come simply from "Hamas would do worse." What Israel [I]should[/I] be doing is answered by the question "what changed such that Fatah would be very unlikely to do this sort of thing routinely anymore? How did that change happen and what IDF policy supports that?" That's where Israel can't be justified. It's not a question of "being better than Hamas."
Was Stalin good if Hitler might have been in some ways worse? Was Stalin justified in his wartime actions because of how bad Hitler was? I would say absolutely not for many of them. You can't say "I am justified because of how bad the other guy is," if your actions don't lead to the defeat of the other guy and replacement with something better. Israel is to blame in that their strategy never had any shot at truly defeating Hamas, just containing them until something like this happened. You're not justified by your opponent's evil when pursuing a losing strategy, particularly not if you're doing many of the same things as them.
And this is what I mean about "winning the peace," and why attacks on Hamas might be very justifiable. Did Lebanese Shias and Christians dispossess the Palestinians of parts of Palestine? No, but once you have a group with a culture of massacre and "anything goes," it doesn't tend to stay contained.
If all the Jews in Israel vanished tomorrow how long would it be before Hamas was at war with Fatah and the Israeli Arabs? I don't think very long, and I think we could easily see the same exact sort of thing enacted on Palestinian rivals.
Same here, and like I said above, the difference can't be what justifies Israel. Although, I do sort of think destroying Hamas might be needed for progress. If the Israeli right is voted out, which seems likely at least for now, and if Hamas is severely weakened, then maybe something good can come.
And that's why I say the strikes [I]could[/I] be justified. It depends on how they are being carried out and we can't know that now. A ground invasion would almost invariably lead to more civilian deaths and I don't think it works to say "if Hamas runs back to Gaza you can't go after them there except in very focused raids," because you will never defeat them that way, and I don't think there will be progress until they are defeated.
This is a group that gets plenty of references for torture from their own people to the ICHR and brutally cracks down on any protest against them. Hamas isn't Hamas because of the blockade. Hamas being Hamas is what led to the blockade in the first place. Their past attacks were specifically aimed at derailing a promising peace process. The idea was "no to independence, it will take the incentive away to push for full victory."
If the shoe were on the other foot, I would allow that Palestine might be justified in using force to remove Israel's far right leadership as well, especially with their efforts to dismantle democracy. But they lack that capability. For now, we can only hope that they are rightly blamed for this situation, which so far, they seem to be.
But why didn't they carry out terrorist resistance?
I'd say this owes to:
-The absolutely decisive character of the allied victory.
- The strong bureaucracy and history of a centralized state with a monopoly on force to constrain would be terrorists.
- The strong threat of living under Soviet dictatorship.
In the Israel situation, only the decisive victory is there. The threat of being conquered by their neighbors DID play a role in the evolution of the PLO, but because the Arabs were never able to master the PLO with the same impunity and iron fist that the Soviets employed in Eastern Europe you didn't have the same sort of effects.
And the lack of a bureaucratic history is probably the key problem here. The entire region is full of conflicts like these, they just lack the same political salience. Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, and then Egypt is in many ways unstable. Even the immense wealthy of the Gulf States has failed to make them stable states.
The Ottomans developed a strong state within the bounds of modern Turkey. This is why it's so hard for Erdogan to subvert. But they merely projected this outwards, rather than growing it indigenously in the foreign lands they administered. It's not unlike how the quality of government collapsed in the Western Roman Empire after the state expired.
And this poses a profound challenge for settling the issue. It's not that different from the sectarian splits in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq actually, except for the religious relevance of the land, Israel's ostensible status as a "developed nation," and the relative power balance. But then there is no easy solution, and narratives that try to boil it down into "wealthy colonizers versus the oppressed," miss this. Iraq's conflicts between the Shia, Sunni, and Kurds is in many ways much more similar than people who want to frame it like the British in India would like to admit. The idea that, "if the whole world began to boycott Israel like North Korea," this would solve the issue is likely mistaken, because it isn't like France in Vietnam, but more similar to Syria or Lebanon.
That's my take anyhow.
Anyhoo, I think Hamas is multi-faceted. It has a terrorist wing, at the same time it's the "authority" we have to deal with in Gaza. There comes a point, if you want peace, that you're going to have to treat with the assholes across the table, irrespective of what they've done. Waiting until they are no longer relevant is basically doing nothing. I also think ousting the right wing Israeli parties will be a temporary thing but you're right that that could give some impetus to improvements.
Or we drop the two states solution - and if Israel insists on the shape it's gotten due to all the illegal settlements it isn't even viable - and we create a single state but then integrate Palestinians into that State. But that has even more issues in my view with respect to the stated Jewish character of Israel and obvious security problems.
But doesn't it all come down to whether the "assholes across the table" also want peace?
Only one facet matters
The "blockade," is sort of layered. There were indeed more restrictions put in place on what could go into Gaza after Hamas was elected, although these were phased in over time based on a number of crises.
I was referring to the catastrophic decoupling of the economies of the Occupied Territories from Israel, which took unemployment in them from 4-5% over prior decades to 23-30% since and chopped a third to a bit under a half off annual per capita earnings. This was the fruit of the consistent terror campaign of the 1990s, which wasn't all Hamas, but they were deeply involved.
Hamas was actually a good deal more rational in their messaging and better in their behavior initially, when they stopped boycotting elections. It seemed like the organization might change after getting a taste of the powers and burdens of administration, and even their attempts to purge rivals could be seen as simply suring up consolidated government, to some degree. That the 9/11 era US and EU policy towards them was so hostile is probably a missed turn in the whole process. But that only lasted so long. After the 2007 war between Hamas and Fatah, there was a shift away from this. Arguably, Fatah was planning to remove Hamas, or Fatah just had contingencies for this and Hamas used that as an excuse for a bloody coup. Hard to say.
And the whole thing is pretty fucking cynical. All those bombings and killings to disrupt the peace process just to say "ah, but now that I'm in control and get the benefits of power, perhaps a two state solution isn't so bad!" But that's part of the problem, the PA was very corrupt, and Hamas didn't change that. Being in power is a route to power and impunity. Real peace would require real reform which challenges the ability to rule like a crime lord.
This sort of dysfunction isn't unique. As soon as the US defacto partitioned Iraq and gave the Kurds quasi independence with the no fly zone in the 1990s they started an extensive civil war. It does make negotiations harder though.
I think it would be something like:
Quoting Tzeentch
Unfortunately, this is an impossibility...complete fantasy. The genie is out of the bottle and nothing can stop what has been unleashed.
Middle East is such a fascinating place with such a vast history of endless warfare. That's why "peace in the middle east" is such a hysterical phrase. Bearing that in mind, im not concerned at all with placing blame on the Israelis or Palestinians, they are simply acting in their eternal nature. Unless a person is actually an Israeli or Palestinian, all this blaming and taking sides is exemplary of the worst human compulsion toward narcissistic self-importance.
Nonetheless, I am very interested to see how this nightmare escalates.
I'm in favor of that in theory, but Gaza is tiny and massively overpopulated and pretty much in rubble. If the citizens could be moved around so that the Hamas infrastructure could be dismantled, then that would be ideal, but the truth is there is no place for anyone to go, and it's not in Hamas' interest to allow the citizens to go safely. Hamas scores points with every Palestinian death because their war can't be won militarily, so their battle is political in trying to win world support by showing Palestinian victimization.
Hamas pokes the bear by firing indiscriminate missles and raping, murdering, and kidnapping. Predictably, Israel's detractors line up and argue justification and moral equivalence and hand Palestine a political victory as the victim. The sentiment pervasive in this forum is what Hamas wished to expand throughout the West with their repugnant suicide mission.
Israel's proper response is full rejection of its detractors, with a focus only upon its own safety. That the anti-Israel world might more firmly become anti-Israel is irrelevant in how Israel should and will respond.
Only in over-intellectualized 21st century liberalism, where the weaker party is the per se victim can it be an effective political strategy to provoke a war and then to lose so badly that that you use your losing to your political advantage.
So jeer from the sidelines. Israel has a population it must protect.
I'm not jeering. I was thinking about being in one of those hospitals realizing the Israelis could supply fuel for the generators and knowing they won't do it because they want all the patients to die.
You answered me like I was just doing a liberal butt-post. :confused:
I think at some point Hanover will realize we are not "jeering from the sidelines" but expressing sane moral arguments that can only be made from the sidelines. That time is not now though. I'm out.
What does it mean to glory in arguments that can "only be made from the sidelines"? Isn't that the objection? The problem? You've swallowed the critique whole without batting an eye. ...I'm impressed. :grin:
[i]Remove Likud.
Evict All Settlers.[/i]
Free Palestine :flower:
There were times pre and post 1967 where Egypt could have kept or took control back of Gaza.
You may have missed my broader point regarding Egypt and Hamas. You sort of got it with your brief and last mention there (of the real issue) which is they don’t want to deal with their Hamas anymore than Israel. In fact, they never wanted to have Gaza “free” it seems being they had control of it and never did anything with it, free it or otherwise.
I suppose Israel should have thought of that before it annexed the Gaza Strip, and before it insisted on its occupation and eventual integration into Israel.
In my opinion, when the Israelis point at the Egyptians they are refusing to take responsibility by asking other nations to clean up the disaster that they created.
Taking in several million traumatized refugees and possibly thousands of Muslim radicals is not something Egypt can be expected to simply take on the chin because Israeli radicals want to be enabled in their fantasy.
The DW interview of former Prime Minister Olmert was quite revealing of some of the alternate views.
There is a documentary about the 2014 Gaza war, needs to be fact-checked, but I think some of it is true.
https://www.journeyman.tv/film/4486/when-saturday-came
I watched the entire video which is Dr. Norman Finkelstein’s address to the UCD Philosophy Society, University College Dublin, on the current state of the occupied territories. Tuesday 10 Feb 2015. ( Note the date.) His final solution is some sort of world-wide non-violent resistance. He says that there was an attempt to intimidate and break the will of the Palestinians in the Gaza strip by the bombing campaign.
I am in line with peaceful resistance, but that does not seem to be a realistic possibility at this stage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmjoCBBHec8
From the transcript at about 21:12:
DW interview of former Israeli Prime Minister Olmertss video, posted earlier, has some very interesting things he says, which bear repeating. Here is the DW summary of the video:
"Netanyahu is history, he's done," Ehud Olmert told DW. He called the current Israeli leaders "violent, messianic thugs" and said that long term, Palestinians must be able to "exercise their right to self-determination."
Ehud Olmert DW Interview 10/11/2023October 11, 2023
Some may say that the terrorists who killed Israeli men women and children, these terrorists should be lined up against a wall and executed. Those who planned the attacks must be killed. Then what? Those who are members of the Hamas militant wing should also be executed because they belonged to Hamas military wing? Or is belonging to Hamas reason enough?
If we follow that reasoning, if an Israeli soldier willful shoots and kills a Palestinian father and child, what should be done to him and the organization to which he belongs?
If the Hamas terrorists had bombed the settlements from their motor-gliders, would that have made it more acceptable?
I am not advocating what 'some say' is correct, but if we are to reason, then we have to be willing to go where reason leads us. These questions must be asked.
Everyone attacking civilians should be brought to justice, that is my view.
I am against attacking civilians, and totally disappointed with governments that cannot protect their civilians and ensure peace between them and the other side. Unless it is totally out of their hands.
Israel has actually evicted settlers. From Gaza and from Sinai too. The following pictures are from settlers in Sinai being evicted in 1982 after the peace agreement with Egypt.
And Egypt could give Israel also what it wanted: safety. No muslim zealots are firing rockets from Sinai into Israel now or ever. The Egyptian army can take care of that. The real problem is that either Lebanon or the Palestine Authority are now so weak that they could not guarantee this. Let's remember that even if Hamas did win elections, the PA couldn't take care of Gaza. Just like the government of Lebanon can do nothing about Hezbollah. Which all just works fine for Netanyahu. He can now say that it's impossible to make peace now.
And let's remember that there are about 600 000 Jewish [s]zealots[/s] settlers in the West Bank. As a Finn, I can honestly say what is the situation a country does accept the forceful removal of hundreds of thousands (440 000 out of 3,9 million in fact) and the handing over large parts of it's territory: when it's either that or losing sovereignty altogether and foreign occupation.
And unfortunately that's the case too here: only if faced with utter defeat and dramatically worse situation would any Israeli government evict over half a million people from the West Bank.
I don't find it easy. I know roughly where we are, but I have little idea of where we would be if everything was different. Probably none of "us" would have been born, but a lot of other people would, because all the acts of procreation since would have been different. Counterfactual history is so much a work of the imagination, that it cannot be a reliable guide to action. And that basically fucks the utilitarian calculation altogether. The defeat of Europe would have seemed bad to "us", but the defeat of Russia, might have seemed preferable to what we have - nobody knows.
Has anyone noticed that analysis in terms of of goodies and baddies is a recipe for continued conflict? Everyone is always a reluctant justified sinner, who will become a saint as soon as circumstance allows, but has a duty to protect the innocent by whatever means necessary, even by the slaughter of enemy innocents.
One ought not to judge from the sidelines, as @Hanover says. But since he is also on the sidelines, he really ought not to judge the Palestinian regime either. We can judge each other though as to our posts. The UK suffered sporadic terrorist acts from the IRA for years, and the government was not full of moral scruple in dealing with them. Governments like to be seen to be doing something in a crisis, but prefer to do nothing when public opinion is divided. All their effort goes into manipulating opinion and then following it, and the rationality and morality that results is negligible.
The most dangerous thing in the world is a man with nothing left to lose, who sees his way to a justice of leaving others in the same place. It would be a brave pacifist that stood in his way. But if you want peace, you have to give the man who has nothing something of what he wants, that he stands to lose in the next fight. Or else kill him. But leaving a million people on your border with nothing is a recipe for trouble.
The West is experiencing an on-going collapse of moral legitimacy. It has been for many years. Many of our elites use support for Israel as a proxy for an unambiguous moral good: preventing another Holocaust. This is why our elites are generally leaping to near-genocidal support of Israel over Palestine.
However, support for Israel is actually not that unambiguous due to the power it exerts over Palestine, and this greatly complicates the moral equation. This would normally preclude full-throated support for any cause, but in the special case of Israel, our elites are completely captured and, in a sense, view themselves (at least project the attitude) of fighting the new Nazis and preventing another genocide.
This full-throated support in favour of an ambiguous cause naturally creates a (large) constitutency who recognise the inherent unfairness in only one side being properly represented in political discussion, especially when it appears that the people this constituency views itself as defending is facing an impending bloodbath.
I would guess that this is radicalising the Islamic world, and shows us to be, in their view, morally backwards and worthy of fighting; more worthy, in fact, of fighting one another. The main problem this presents to the current Western (American) world order is that it is predicated on consent. The West claims to desire a peaceful and stable world in which "human rights" are protected and nations may prosper as long as they respect certain rules. The implication that underpins the legitimacy of said rules is that they are fair and any party should be able to find adequate redress given any wrongs done to them.
When it is demonstrated that the rule of human rights is actually a fiction that is used to keep the rest of the world quiet, then this system comes to an end.
The erosion of this system has, of course, been happening for many years now. Various pretexts have been used many times to justify a breach of the doctrine of human rights, and this has been grudgingly accepted because the benefits of the Western world order have outweighed the damage done by these exercises of power disguised as moral crusades.
However, we have arrived at a position where, in fact, the United States has been economically attacking other states, after deliberately and systematically attempting to erode their standing in the world, based on our own perceived moral superiority. This has created a massive upset in the global economic order and forced the disparate opponents of the West into an economic coalition with one another, whilst massively weakening America's allies.
The short-sightedness of this can surely not be overstated, as the plan to judo-flip the various economies of the opposition to bring them to their knees simply hasn't worked; it has been decades for some of these regimes and they still persist, and have been laying the groundwork for a parallel world economy.
Needless to say, as the world's economic hegemon, the United States can't allow this to happen. However, it seems that it is happening and it probably cannot be stopped at this point.
I think this is really why the political class is gripped with war fervour over a tiny terrorist-run strip of land. It isn't that there is an existential threat to Israel from Gaza, it is that we are looking at the potential to set off a chain of events that shows the West to not have the moral legitimacy it claims to have, which will unravel its own political alliances and put all its enemies into a righteous coaltion against us, whilst destroying the global economic system and throw everything into chaos. The West will need to fight or the Western elites will lose everything.
At this point, I think a world war is inevitable.
The West's lack of moral legitimacy is seen in its own countries; a very large percentage of the population of almost all of them has severe doubts about the legitimacy of the governments and institutions of those countries because the fifth columns that have been allowed to proliferate within our societies have done their work of making said governments and institutions unreliable, immoral, and degraded. The point of the left has been to weaken us from within by sowing moral discord, and they have done a very good job. They have, in fact, undermined our very claims to nationhood, family, and imperium. We do not view ourselves as the legitimate rulers of anything, and the major institutions of every country spend a large amount of their time attacking the majority population groups of that country.
It is well-known that Western militaries have serious trouble recruiting, and that we are struggling economically. To say we are being poorly governed is an understatement and a half and everyone knows it. There is simply no passion to fight for a civilisation that appears to be in collapse, appears to hate itself, and appears to be vindictive to other states on the world stage. Say what you like about Trump, but he actually seemed to be able to respect the nations ranged against the US. This goes a long way.
Now, that time appears to have passed. It seems that, in their desperate bid for moral legitimacy, the dominate faction of Western elites are at once going to drive us into a war, whilst the subversive faction of elites are going to stoke the fires of civil war in our own countries while we do it.
Personally, I think we're in a position of profound weakness. It isn't that our enemies are strong, it is that we are vulnerable and we don't really know what we stand for or why we should do what we do. So we will use Israel as a proxy for the expansion of our power and this will become an intolerable nightmare for our opponents, and they will probably decide that the best opportunity they will get to escape Western dominance has arrived. It is going to be painful, bloody, and ruinous, but if ever it could be done, now seems like the time.
I do hope I am wrong.
Alas, there is nothing I like about Trump. But your analysis of the situation is otherwise about right. The moral vacuum gets filled with poisonous nonsense of various sorts. I think it is no coincidence though, that this global belligerence and stupidity coincides with the birth pangs of a fully automated economy with little need of human labour. The invisible hand is wielding the scythe.
And this is the narrative you had. But who created whom and is it Israel in a vacuum?
A vacuum would be overstating it, but yes, I've seen no indication that Egypt bears responsibility for how the situation in Gaza developed. But maybe you know things I don't. I'm open to hearing another perspective.
Look at the greater history of the region. Palestinians are not generally welcomed in other Arab countries for a variety of reasons. One reason in the past, as far as territory, it was always seen as a concession to not gaining all of Israel/Palestine. Pre Oslo it was Arab nations against Israel. Post Oslo, the sticking points have been more than mere trifles. Hamas represents a destabilizing force in the region to secular (even if authoritarian) regimes. It would want nothing less than complete destruction if given the means to do so.
Egypt conquered Gaza in 1948. They took control of it, ostensibly to "protect and further the interests," of the people there. Their goal was to annex land in 1948 and they did it.
Some of the people in Gaza were refugees from within Israel's 1948 borders. But many also were already in Gaza, conquered by Egypt.
So what did Egypt do when it ruled over Gaza? It didn't set up self governance. It didn't give them citizenship. It didn't let people freely leave. They forced them into squalid camps and said "good, you helped us annex some land. No help us destroy Israel and annex more and maybe after you can have some degree of freedom."
Egypt is deeply responsible, it is also partially their mess. Before Gaza was sealed by Israel it was sealed by Egypt for decades. If anything, Egypt's position is even less supportable because they were always claiming to fight "for" the people they then treated horribly.
And how did Israel end up with Gaza? Could it be Egyptian politicians giving speech after speech about immanent war with the total destruction of Israel as its explicit aim? Could it be that Israel said a naval blockade would be considered the start of an active war and then Egypt put that blockade into effect and began announcing the immanent invasion of Israel?
So, they did to Gazans many of the same things Israel has and they were the main party that precipitated the war in which Israel ended up with Gaza. That seems pretty involved to me. One might ask, planning for immanent war, did Egypt evacuate Gaza, right on the front lines? Oh, but they did evacuate the "real Egyptians?"
And they have to be part of any peace. If Israel declared Gaza independent tomorrow, what does it fix? Gaza's borders are all with two nations that want to restrict access to their country. So what changes? That's why it can't be simple independence, because it leaves the situation unchanged, and indeed Gaza had no settlers and administers itself, so independence would have more to do with aid flows than anything else. The solution has to involve how Egypt and Israel police their border, allowing more into Gaza and more out of it. But at the same time, I get why Egypt does what it does. Who makes a move for open borders with a state whose government is openly supportive of terrorism in your land?
As with the surrounding Arab nations, they should not have used the territories and Palestinians as a pawn. Accepted immigrants/refugees as full citizens and encouraged the formation of Palestine under Gaza and the West Bank. After the 1967 war, they should have agreed to take back the territories for greater peace.
Not ethnically cleansing their Palestinian population as "punishment for the PLO considering a two state peace," would have been nice too. Or not ethnically cleansing them out of their lands in general.
Or not ethnically cleansing all their Jews from communities millennia old and thus creating an extremely bitter electoral bloc in Israel who has consistently voted for more hardline politicians. And of course, in stealing all their wealth on the way out, this was in no way put towards any sort of "reparations for Palestine," but pocketed.
Well put.
No, I was referring to Libya, where Gaddafi was calling for all the Arab countries to expell their Palestinians too, since obviously by accepting negotiations on independence they were giving up on absolute victory and thus betraying "the cause."
Kuwait also expelled 400,000+ Palestinians in the 90s. In Lebanon, there was ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, although this was in the context of the broader civil war and Palestinian massacres of Lebanese civilians as well, making it less one sided.
Egypt just denied their Palestinians basic rights and refused to accept them back after a war they precipitated ended up with them behind an Israeli truce line during a week of fighting. There was bargaining over this, but Egypt not taking back the people they had ostensibly annexed Gaza "on behalf of" was a major sticking point for Egypt.
I remain unconvinced about Egypt's role in the humanitarian crisis, though. In my view that is between occupier and occupied - Israel and the Palestinians living in Gaza. Israel took that responsibility on itself when it annexed the land.
Whether the situation would have been any better had the Egyptians stayed in control is not all that relevant. I'm sure it wouldn't have been fantastic either. But that's hardly a ground to shift the responsibility.
That Egypt did not want Gaza back, and today refuses to let the conflict spill over into its region, is in my view entirely within its right and I see no reason why the onus would be on them to act when Israel has stubbornly refused to seek workable solutions for 50 years.
You mean free from Hamas and other terrorist organizations. What the world does not need is more Lebanons.
But Gaza borders Egypt, not just Israel. Israel doesn’t occupy it in the sense it doesn’t have settlements nor political rule there. Rather, Israel made moves to constrict aid and funding to Hamas. I totally agree though that in an ideal world they would aid the citizens whilst constructing Hamas though.
My greater point is Gaza is not in a vacuum, and the region is fraught with RealPolitik over idealism, perhaps due to the precariousness of the region and the various religious, ethnic, and political interests.
What I do know too is that after WW2 and general European colonialism, all of its hopes and dreams for Idealism over Realpolitik is heaped on Israel. Its (Europes) failure in the 20th century to be imbued upon Israel, perhaps as a symbol of what could be, and what they never did. However, the Middle East has never been about some “shining city on a hill” where human rights are more important than nations, territory, resources, and cultural preservation. It’s a vision wide of the reality. And Israel acting in the interests of a nation that was attacked, whatever reasons you want to provide, will act in a way that shows it is doing something about situation. In realist fashion, it will retaliate and declare war on its enemy who attacked them.
I disagree, and like I told Hanover before, the relevant rulings state exactly that:
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel (September, 2022)
I agree with you insofar that the other regional players haven't come to the rescue of Gaza either. But that's not their responsibility either. It's Israel's. That's why Israel has a nearly endless list of human rights violations to its name vis-á-vis the Palestinian people - human rights violations as determined by reputable international courts and organisations.
See the rest of my post, as I think this was addressed.
That being said, I joined this thread to root out biases on both sides. The Middle East/Israel is probably the most one-sided debates I see on these forums (and pretty much any forum). On this forum, the bias is certainly against Israel, so I provided considerations. I originally was engaging with @Baden on this, and he actually had a reasoned response here:
Quoting Baden
So I stopped there regarding Baden, as I saw that he at least saw that reality (if Hamas was in power over Israel/Palestine rather than Israel). The broader point there is that Hamas' goals are not merely "justice for its people". Rather, "justice" for Hamas is utterly destroying Israel and cancelling any peace process, making it impossible for moderate Pals (especially in the West Bank). And of course, they don't allow Pals to vote them out. Don't forget, the main (realpolitik) reason Hamas did this was to stall peace talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia. They want to derail that, as they wanted to derail Oslo Accords with suicide bombings, etc.
At the same time, it is obviously clear that Israel has utterly ignored its larger existential question under Netanyahu's regime. He completely lost any thread of Idealism, thinking that if you ignore the issue, it just goes away. He has utterly fucked up the West Bank, emboldened settlers/crazies on his side, and thus, has weakened any moderates on Pals side. As far as Gaza, he should have tried to convince the Gazans against their extremism by providing direct aid and trying a campaign of hearts and minds of the (few) moderates there. That being said, being that the citizens would be shot under Hamas rule if they even so much as blinked towards Israel, perhaps they should have thought of ways to form a coup against Hamas.. Not sure how viable that was in any way shape or form.
The millions of innocent people who live in Gaza however do deserve protection.
And while we may imagine what atrocities Hamas would commit if they were ever to gain power (which will hopefully never happen), in the case of Israel we need not imagine. Its list of human rights violations is unending. Human rights organisations have termed its treatments of the Palestinians as apartheid - a crime against humanity.
Hamas is being punished for its wrongdoings as we speak, sadly over the backs of innocent civilians. But when will Israel be held accountable?
:up:
Quoting Tzeentch
I guess my response is this:
Quoting schopenhauer1
That being said, yeah absolutely humanitarian relief into Gaza should have been part of Israeli policy in the form of food, water, services, etc. Don't forget though, Hamas would try to interfere with any of that. Israel blockaded the region so Hamas wouldn't smuggle larger weapons, as Hamas' main goal is to destroy Israel, which earlier, you agreed is what it is trying to do. So I agree, Israel has not properly balanced its security with humanitarian concerns. That is all on Israel's move away from any Idealist tendencies in the past 20 years (after the collapse of any deal under Arafat).
My impression is that Israel has acted in a predominantly realist fashion, the exception being the nationalism/zionism at the root of its creation, which is still supported by much of the hardliners that control the Israeli government (like Netanyahu and the Likud party).
But even they are realist to the bone.
I think perhaps Rabin was close to being an idealist. Sadly he was assassinated for it.
I've argued before in this thread that Israel's position in the region is and has been precarious. Perhaps that's why it can't afford itself much idealism.
On the other hand, it's hard to see how Israel's blatant disregard for humanitarian law is benefitting it in the long-term. One could argue it's the idealism of Israel's hardline leadership that causing its ruthless policies vis-á-vis the Palestinians. A realist perhaps would sooner see the necessity of finding a modus vivendi, to avoid becoming diplomatically isolated in the region - ending up as a pariah state hated by all its neighbors.
Agree with all of this. Don't forget Ehud Barak. I think he came the closest! But unfortunately, it was the failure of that summit with Arafat that, as far as I am concerned, that is the biggest starting point to the most recent conflicts (e.g. Israel's move to the right, Hamas taking over Gaza rather than moderates of some sort, negligible leadership of the PLO).
Quoting Tzeentch
For sure.
For purposes of definition, I consider Idealists as ones who put universal rights above nation, and follows globalized institutions like the UN rather than national interests. No nation is fully idealist. The more a nation is under threat, the LESS likely they will go the Idealist route for getting out of its situation. Rather, it predictably tends to go to the right.
Also, it is dubious to think "idealist" is always best. Global institutions, specifically the UN is also biased. No one is objective. No one is truly for "global" interests. And no nation is going to put some pie in the sky ideals above protecting its own people. Perhaps the made up Gandhistan I mentioned earlier.
When I look at it, perhaps by "idealism" I mean this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_internationalism
versus this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(international_relations)
This might be better:
https://world101.cfr.org/foreign-policy/approaches-foreign-policy/idealism-versus-realism
Either way, the question you should be asking is, "Is there responsible actors on the Palestinian side that would be for a moderated peace, and knows how to compromise". Israel has historically had more compromise in this regard. All or nothing mentality is what kills any moderate actors.
Based on what? Since 2017 they've explicitly changed their charter to allow for a two states solution along the 1967 borders.
You mean the same charter that says this?
“Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine should be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.”
I'd think you'd be unbiased enough to condemn an organization like Hamas :grimace:.
Also, with Baden, I asked a hypothetical scenario of what Palestine would be like under complete Hamas rule. It would resemble nothing protecting human rights. And you are unhinged, politically speaking, if you think they would.
Yea, within IR that would be the proper definition.
I probably should have used a different term to describe the ideals of the Israeli hardliners to avoid confusion.
But it seems we are mostly in agreement. :up:
Really now. You actually have to think about whether America or Nazi Germany should have won?
and then ...
Quoting magritte
Yes, including free from the post-1967, settler-apartheid strategems of the State of Israel.
Quoting ssu
Evict settlers from ALL of the internationally recognized Occupied Palestinian Territories.
https://www.btselem.org/publications/summaries/201007_by_hook_and_by_crook
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-205221/
Really now? You actually have to ask again the question I have just explained why I cannot answer as if you cannot understand plain English?
Edit: actually, I think you should be the one to now quote the full paragraph you pulled that from to underline how disingenuous you're being.
It's a powder keg. I don't know if they can keep off from entering a war if Israel goes in Gaza.
Not that I've heard. And there are also a lot of foreign nationals in Gaza who want to get out as well. Both hostages and foreigners are likely to cross into Egypt for an exchange, but no one is being let out.
It is very unclear what is happening at the border. It remains sealed. Egypt has variously said Hamas is blocking to border and that an Israeli strike is what has sealed the border and they can't repair it. The strike narrative seems less plausible as time goes on and there is more time to clear a path. Plus, Israel seems to want to opposite to happen, for the border to be opened, so this seems dubious.
According to an NPR correspondent, Hamas has sealed their side of the border.
According to some source from CNN, Egypt has laid concrete barriers across their side of the border and Hamas is not allowing people to leave anyhow.
According to Israel, Hamas is not allowing people to evacuate the south on pain of not being allowed back, which is dubious given the source, but could turn out to be true.
Egypt has pulled out the "if they leave now they will be dispossessed so they must stay," line after going back and forth.
It's totally unclear what is going on. Israel's allies seem to be advocating for the border to opened which makes me think Israel does want the border open. It's obvious though why Hamas would not want an evacuation, both on a tactical and strategic level, even if it is the height of cynicism to trap people there.
But then that's just the situation that exists today. All settlers were forced out of Gaza by the IDF. Hamas administers Gaza. The question of Gaza being an open air prison is entirely about how much and what type of traffic Egypt and Israel allow through their borders. And both have some justification for constricting traffic to and from a state with open support for terrorism in their borders.
But the problem has become much more complicated. After the decoupling of the Gaza economy migrants moved to Israel and took those jobs. There is no returning to 1990 where Gazans at least benefit from the prosperity across the border I
some way, because residents from Thailand and Eastern Europe have taken those jobs. And this takes away a major bonus of Gazans, if not Hamas, in normalization. It's moved peace further away because the dividends peace would pay out have been much reduced.
Just a few more things I see:
And right after that paragraph in question which is ambiguous at best and seems to be more about how they deal with the PLO/rivals:
But the fact is, I shouldn't even have to give a shit about a terrorist organization changing a founding document. This isn't like we are quibbling over some random business contract. It's known explicitly and through the actions what the organization is about. How it is that you can be for human rights and equivocate on Hamas because you see Israel as X, Y, Z evil state, is beyond me.
If you are truly unbiased call a spade a spade, no matter who it is.
So much for the "I'm so unbiased I can't even quote in the right context".
The paragraph titled 2 is no more and no less than Likud has in its charter but they never mitigate it with a clear proposal for a solution. Hamas clearly does above along the lines that international politics considers an acceptable solution. But there's the problem of all the illegal settlers, which problem Bibi only likes to make bigger because he and his party don't want a Palestinian state - tout court.
The rejection of the Oslo accords is really not that interesting. That you think those accords were wonderful just reflects your limited awareness how this was received. A majority of Palestinians rejected it at the time and Edward Said hated it too. Quoting Foreign Policy
If you want to call something a spade, you better make sure you know what a spade is.
Oh poor Benkei. You are too far gone in this one it seems. You plant ice, you are going to harvest wind, and all that.
For the record, you are supporting/justifying an organization such as Hamas. And I can see you are [s]unbiased[/s] very biased on this one. I would just like to juxtapose this with @Baden's response which recognized and condemned such an organization.
Terrorist organizations can and do become responsible governing parties. The Israeli state itself emerged, in part, from terror organizations. You can see the same thing in many places. The problem isn't that Hamas can't make this change. Really, Hamas did sort of look more open to compromise before their violent take over of Gaza. And the West and Israel should have been more open to them, but the whole Post-9/11, "communists now ok, Jihadis bad," mindset stopped that.
But it's also not like Hamas ever moved particularly far in that direction. If anything, the past 8 years or so they have become more and more tied to Iran and their prerogatives, making them a less trustworthy partner.
The Native Americans thought the British were terrorist colonizers.
Well the British saw the Americans as terrorists in 1775. Tarred and feathered officers in Boston, the Boston Massacre, all that.
The Anglo-Saxons thought the Normans were colonizers perhaps. The Romano-Celts thought the Anglo-Saxons colonizers, and on and on.
But I am just seeing the whole suicide bombings and these kind of attacks as brutal reminders that they are not for peaceful negotiations.
And as far as Israel acted like terrorists in their founding, I absolutely think that was barbaric and unjustified as well. All of it.
To be fair to the Israelis - of which I am being highly critical of, much more than Hamas - what you say about "all of it", goes way beyond Israel.
Off the top of my head, I cannot think of a modern nation state that was founded by peaceful means. Most of them are due to violence, war, conquest, expulsion or coercion.
It really is total barbarism.
Absolutely.
But if all modern nations are not founded by peaceful means (are there ancient nations? were they founded peacefully?), and yet our most deepest and most beautifullest moral convictions make us believe a peaceful foundation of nations IS INDEED ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE (possible like Santa Claus?), shouldn't we maybe become a little tiny micro femto bit skeptical about our most profoundest and most amazingest moral convictions? Would it be so abso-fucking-lutely crazy, Waaahnsinn, to start doubting about our so most heartfeltest and most spectacularest moral convictions?
You could try to phrase an intelligible question.
This is the best I can translate from that incoherent nonsensical paragraph using ChatGPT:
"If all modern nations were not established through peaceful means, and we consider whether ancient nations were founded peacefully, it raises doubt about our deeply held belief in the possibility of peaceful nation-building. Shouldn't we question our most fundamental moral convictions, akin to questioning the existence of Santa Claus? Is it too extreme to start doubting our deeply ingrained and spectacular moral beliefs?"
I don't exactly see how this helps for this situation here. Even if a Palestinian state were to be established, it would've been done so after an enormous amount of suffering.
Should we question our deepest held moral convictions? I think so, on occasion it is good to do so. Maybe not always, otherwise we wouldn't act on moral intuitions.
But I think that's a conversation for a different topic.
Is there anything that has been said in this thread which would make you exclaim: "I exactly see how this helps for this situation here"?
Quoting Manuel
Why aren't a war in Israel or in Ukraine a good occasion to do so?
Quoting Manuel
For many, in this thread, "acting on moral intuitions" seems nothing more than broadcasting moral condemnations and blame attributions AS IF thinking that a peaceful foundation of nations is morally desirable, then it must absolutely be also possible. What if it is not possible as it seems it never ever happened?
Nope.
But there is the issue of relevance to the ongoing issue, talking about say, Hezbollah potentially getting involved or Israel proceeding with the ground invasion raises more relevant and immediate moral issues than taking about a better moral situation. At least, that's how I see the issue, others may not see it that way.
Quoting neomac
I believe each of us is sincerely attempting to deal with complex moral issues. Granted, we may be overlooking something and are almost certainly biased and have preferences and so on.
Quoting neomac
Well, at least where I live, there is nothing I can do to help alleviate the situation - there aren't even protests here, we have other issues so the Gaza situation does not arise, outside of headlines.
It's a topic I've followed closely since college, so it is somewhat more impactful to me than another conflict, due to time investment. A lot of this is also venting frustration, which is not necessarily bad.
Well, I asked Baden and Frank about what could realistically be done here by the relevant actors if they choose to do so, I thought it relevant because it does not stray far from what's going on in the ground.
But, if you want to talk about this, why don't you start a thread specifically about that topic? It's not a bad one.
I just wanted to acknowledge this. Unlike Israel who at least gives a shit about its own population, I see no fucks about human life for Hamas.
It does look like that. Everything is going according to the plans of Hamas, and also the plans of the Nettanyahu government, which a former Prime Minster of Israel called 'thugs', right now, at least. It remains to be seen if the powers that be in Israel allowed this to happen in order to be able to have a reason for destroying Hamas, but to me it seems likely. Everything is going according to the plans of Hamas, they may have done some things for the Palestinian civilians, but in their minds, they may feel this is the best thing they have ever done. Given what they are, one needs to look at who funded them and propped them up. A terrorist organization.
It may not be clear what side I am on, or whom I stand with: so here I am: I am on the side of the civilians. I am on the side of the citizens. Their existing governments have let them down, one by failing to protect, the other for organizing a terror attack that would further the ends of the their organization: to draw Israel into a conflict, and attempt to 'exhaust' Israel. Of course..um..people have to die,but it is all worth it for Hamas. I call it a failure in intelligence on both sides in this sense: these are unintelligent plans, and more plainly, stupid plans.
These are colossal failures of government in its truest sense.
What is the role of government anyway?
Quoting Britannica
"active force in guiding social and economic development"
While that statement stands as the understatement of the century, in this context, judge for yourselves how the respective governments have fared.
To bear the brunt of this all are the citizens, the Israeli soldiers now asked to go and fight, again, because the last fight did not achieve their objectives. The Hamas terrorists - did not exist in a vacuum, but were created by the leadership, using the inexperience of the young Palestinian men (some reports say that their families are paid large sums of money from a 'Martyrs fund'). Hamas was, according to other sources, funded by the Israeli government at that time.
All this reminds me more and more of a game of chess. Pawns outnumber the elites, but pawns are to be sacrificed, all the same, faceless, soulless minions, discarded as soon as they are used in order that the Players may win the game. Who are the Players here? It is certainly not the pawns. It is certainly not the citizens. Another thing about pawns: they have no eyes.
It is all going to plan: Attacking Israeli civilians, getting Palestinians bombed. What of the plans of the innocent people of that country - men, women children? The plans of the ordinary human beings (not the extraordinary human beings in power)? Plans for a relaxing Saturday afternoon, a music festival. And on the other side, even simpler plans, plans for drinking water, electricity, free access to supplies without having to crawl through tunnels on hands and knees to bring sugar and refrigerators in.
The least we can do is refuse to be pawns in a manufactured conflict.
"What luck for rulers that men do not think"
Do you know who said that?
They may detract Iran, but Hezbollah? That's looking tougher by the day. The didn't go in today, or yesterday because of the "weather".
The issue is, how long will they starve the people of Gaza?
And the US better start really pressuring Israel to take it easy on the civilians, they're not listening.
If Iran does get involved, oh boy....
I hope you are right.
That looks like the plan to me but very cold-blooded, don't you think?
I am against any loss of life on any side (civilian or otherwise).
The statement by the Chinese government very closely matched my sentiments. You can't get much further from this than China.
You have reading comprehension problems. There's a clear difference between "Hamas can be made peace with" and "I think Hamas did the right thing". But yes, your totally unbiased position is very good at picking up on nuance. :chin:
In any case, I'm certainly not unbiased and anybody with moral clarity shouldn't be. Every same person should be pro-Palestinian. The "existential threat" card with the best trained and equipped army is nonsense, especially in light of the limited means the Palestinians have. Meanwhile, Israel continously commits humanitarian crimes against the Palestinians and illegally settles land. All this is well documented.
At the very least very popular. And if Fatah hadn't ousted them in the West Bank, they would be the see facto representation of the Palestinians. People underestimate what Hamas has also done to help Palestinians, which is why they are so popular and continue to be, even in the West Bank. When people complain Hamas doesn't allow voting in Gaza, they forget their favourite Fatah does exactly the same (but since it keeps out the party nobody wants to see, mum's the word).
And now I'm going on holidays and ignore every electronic device for a week.
Good luck with finding a moral compass for those who don't have one.
I think they’ve proven very thoroughly they can’t be, and odd that you’d want to reward it because “settlements”. One can be against settlements and not barbarism. In fact, if barbarism is justified, who cares- they’re all violent, right. It’s using people for causes. One can be so theoretical as to lose sight of the point of any of it. Perhaps Hamas can rule an empire of rubble and death. But it seems, you’d be satisfied with that. It’s either naïveté or blind hatred. A righteous cause gone sour. if you think Hamas gives a shit about its own people, you don’t seem to have paid attention to that side of the whole equation.
Quoting Benkei
It can be argued (and is) that Israel existing in the first place was the problem. If my history is correct, it started from Israel accepting the terms of the 1947 UN partition and Arabs rejecting it. This stated the subsequent wars that allows for the perpetual cycle of grievances.
You can put your lawyer coat on and spectacles and try to find the exact point at which you think that justice is defined, but you will always have prior grievances to fall back on to nullify that as too much compromise. You said yourself that the Oslo Accords were not just, but don’t worry YOU know the definition of the actual just position. Benkei! Benkei! Let us pull a page from the holy writ of the all just and knowing Benkei.
Psychology Today is a fake science journal written by journalists whose opinions are as whimsical as the requests of their editors. Where are their references to alleged systematic analysis to unitary retaliatory approach? Perhaps personal surveys of news clippings from Pravda?
Unless it’s still a good occasion to question convictions about “more relevant and immediate moral issues”, right?
Quoting Manuel
If the moral issues are so complex, I would expect more nuanced views on assessing evil and blame. Especially in a philosophy forum.
That’s not what I read, especially from the moderators of this philosophy forum.
Quoting Manuel
It can be bad though if it can be instrumental to politicians in a malign way. And that’s especially the case for protests since they do not seem the bestest occasion to question our deepest moral convictions nor to show nuances on complex moral issues. Unlike a philosophy forum, I dare to shamelessly suggest. Inshallah.
Yes, when the Palestinians were ardently in favour of Saddam Hussein, they could have anticipated what would be the result when Kuwait and Kuwaitis were liberated.
When Israel launched it's operation "Peace for Galilee", you have footage of local Lebanese civilian clapping there hands and cheering when Israeli tanks roll into Lebanon. So unwelcome the PLO had made itself in Lebanon. However, the IDF would quickly show it's disregard towards the Lebanese and hence we are in the situation we are in now.
I think the real problem is that the mutual hatred is quite persistent and basically something that is nearly part of the people's identity. It's rather telling to hear the stories of Finnish peacekeepers that have been in deployed to Lebanon (for a long time, not anymore). One fellow student in my university had been as a peacekeeper in Lebanon and firmly held the view that there will never be any peace, ever, and there will be certainly more wars. And he was correct as this happened in the 1990's. Peacekeepers from my country usually truly don't have any prior attitudes towards the conflict and tell a sober and honest view of the conflict. He wasn't alone with that conviction.
One story I remember is quite typical:
As IDF want to prevent from being ambushed, in any potential ambush locations (or basically place with limited visibility due to foliage or trees), the patrols simply drove through while shooting their machine guns wildly at the bushes and trees. In one unfortunate case a five year old girl was playing in her home's orchard and was killed due to machine gun fire. Later the IDF claimed that they had killed a terrorist that day in Southern Lebanon.
Of course, many people simply cannot fathom the fact that in this conflict both sides are victims and perpetrators. As if one as an outsider one has to choose one side, support them and denounce the other one.
If there is someone to blame it's the politicians on both side that do think that the only solution is war, because the other side is what it is.
Really? So you are assuming that Hamas would give space for deescalation? Or you think IDF liberating hostages would mean deescalation?
Quoting Benkei
At least the Likud is also very popular in Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu has been the most successful Israeli Prime Minister ever and is the longest serving one. Isn't it the third time he's in office?
And actually coming back to the "two state" solution that you talked about with Hamas. Your argument was that they don't accept Israel because it would recognize the present borders, yet somehow would be open to a two state solution. I don't think really there is no "two state" solution as it stands in the Charter of Hamas:
Perhaps Hamas is open for a two state solution where Israel is transfered somewhere else? Perhaps to North America? Canada and the US have room...
We'll have to see, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a diplomatic initiative coming from the BRICS that seeks to cement this new diplomatic reality in the Middle-East by finally allowing Palestinians statehood. (China has now officially stated it believes that to be the solution)
Even if that were to succeed, I'm unsure whether that would create positive change in the long run. My fear is that it would critically compromise Israel's already precarious position in the region. But it would certainly be another geopolitical bombshell.
Thanks frank!
I don't think so. They're going to squash the hell out of Gaza. Hamas will be gone. They have nuclear weapons. They don't care about Iran's bullshit.
It isn't though. It needed an alliance with Haredim parties to eek out a government. You need 61 seats and they have 64 in their alliance. But then they tried to use this narrow majority to drastically change the Israeli courts, precipitating a "constitutional crisis" of sorts. That's partly why Israel was so vulnerable to this attack.
Support for Likud has absolutely imploded. Polls show them winning a bit over half the seats they currently hold. Netanyahu compromised some core values for the current alliance, in part it seems, because he wants to hold office to avoid prosecution for corruption charges. In any event, post attack his approval rating has tanked to 29%. Gantz is up 20+ points on him now. It seems like, when the crisis is over, the centrist and liberal alliance is going to absolutely sweep. You can't campaign on strength and then deliver the worst attacks in decades. And unlike Bush during 9/11, this is clearly the fruit of Netanyahu's own policies as he's had ample time to shape Israeli security policy.
From Reuters:
Iran says 'preemptive action' by resistance front expected in coming hours
Iran's top envoy said that a "preemptive action" could be expected in the coming hours, state TV reported on Monday, adding that Israel will not be allowed to take any action in the Gaza Strip without facing consequences.
"Leaders of the Resistance will not allow the Zionist regime to take any action in Gaza. ... All options are open and we cannot be indifferent to the war crimes committed against the people of Gaza," Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, told state TV.
I wonder what they have in mind. Haven't seen any preemptive action yet.
Yuval Noah Harari has something to say about that in a Washington Post OpEd. Addressing why the country was caught so utterly unprepared for the Hamas onslaught, he says
As an outsider to Israeli politics, albeit aware of the huge controversy sorrounding Netanyahu's attempt to castrate the judiciary, this OpEd was helpful in understanding his weaknesses.
They are being nebulous, they of course don't want to be destroyed, but they have issued several warnings. So far, Israel has not relented on not letting food or medicine in Gaza, the water they opened in the South of Gaza, is subject to verification - it could be PR.
It could be nothing- the Iran warning, hopefully. We will find out in a few hours.
In any case, I don't see the situation in Gaza not leading Hezbollah to act, unless Egypt and Israel agree to open the Rafah crossing, just by allowing basic necessities, would make the situation in Gaza a smidgen better. They should do it, looks unlikely.
I think they'll have to do that soon.
What I'm reading is that the biggest inhibitor to Hezbollah's involvement is that Lebanon is already totally economically f***ed. What with the aftermath of the Beirut port explosion, the collapse of the currency and banking system, sky-rocketing inflation and huge unemployment - much of which Hezbollah's blatant corruption and nepotism are responsible for! - there is absolutely zero appetite amongst the actual Lebanese citizenry for war with Israel. It's the very last thing anyone wants, even if the mullahs and jihadis are all chomping at the bit. (Although it's also true that the constraints of reason often mean nothing to fanatics.)
I think that is an accurate description of the situation however going back to causes, this is the fruit of failure in conflict resolution. Is this more difficult than splitting the atom, or landing on the moon? Support for Israel does not mean support for any government for the policies of any one government. Other Israeli governments have shown themselves to approach the situation differently. Peaceful, sensible governments should be supported. It makes no sense to antagonize armed terrorists. There are more 'peaceful', ( though illegal ) methods of dealing with them. So there are options. The children will be safe. Maybe.
It is difficult to accurately describe both camps as 'Israelis' and 'Palestinians'. There are different perspectives on each side. I hope that I make specific references to, for example, the current Hamas military wing and its leadership, and the current Netanyahu government, whose faults are listed above . This is because they are not all the same, there are different perspective, personalities and opinions on each side. Anti - Zionists. Pro-Zionist Palestians. See here: (we don't know the motivation, but here it is)
Scanning the online newspapers and news sites out there, it seems that not everyone has the mind and language of an 'animal', I think we can all agree. I have been very impressed and inspired by the sheer humanity of some of these people. We have to realize they are not all the same. Maybe the respective governments should cage (or tame) whoever the 'animals' are, and let the rest live free.
For example, a Rabbi in Montreal, 3 days ago: (we must live in peace etc, anti-Zionist)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8queaGlpm8A&t=17s
Israeli armed forces: (search term "israeli pilot and bomb civilians")
'Every civilian casualty is tragic': Israeli pilot on Gaza ...
Sky News
https://news.sky.com › story › every-civilian-casualty-...
28-05-2021 — An Israeli fighter pilot who operated against Palestinian militants in Gaza this month has said all civilian deaths in the conflict were tragic ...
27 Israeli Reserve Pilots Say They Refuse to Bomb Civilians
The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com › 2003/09/25 › world › 27-isra...
25-09-2003 — Twenty-seven reserve pilots in Israeli Air Force present signed petition to air force head Maj Gen Dan Halutz, saying they will not take ...
The myth of Israel's 'most moral army'
Al Jazeera
https://www.aljazeera.com › opinions › 2023/10/16 › t...
13 hours ago — ... civilians. In other words, Israeli pilots, like Etting, know that they kill children when dropping massive bombs on city centres, but since ...
Civilians trapped in Gaza can't escape Israel's siege
CNBC
https://www.cnbc.com › 2023/10/13 › civilians-trapped-i...
3 days ago — Israel on Monday ordered a total siege of Gaza, cutting off the water, food and electricity for its 2.2 million residents, which is a ...
Israeli pilots refuse to fly assassination missions
The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com › world › sep › israel
24-09-2003 — A group of Israeli airforce pilots declared yesterday that they would refuse to fly missions which could endanger civilians in the West Bank ...
IDF bombed Gaza's high-rises to vent frustration: Israeli pilot
Anadolu Ajans?
https://www.aa.com.tr › middle-east › idf-bombed-gaz...
22-05-2021 — Israel's bombardment of high-rise buildings in the Gaza Strip was a way to vent frustration caused by the failure to stop rocket fire from Gaza, ...
Israeli pilots 'deliberately miss' targets | World news
The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com › world › aug › israel
05-08-2006 — Sources say the pilots were worried that targets had been wrongly identified as Hizbollah facilities.
The newspapers such as the Times of Israel, for example, are remarkably restrained and thoughtful after these terrible atrocities have been committed. Even the the Hamas spokesperson tacitly acknowledges the sheer horror of these acts "We do not kill civilians" etc . If it was such a good thing, how is it you are not proud to proclaim it, then?
Quoting The Economist
We all have a thread of common humanity, thought for some it flickers, for some it has been snuffed out.
Who is HezbelloQuoting Wayfarer
Looks like you are right. I had no idea that they were facing opposition in Lebanon. They have to tread very carefully here.
Quoting CFR
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-hezbollah
What PT says makes sense to me.
The question to ask is, is this mass hysteria or mass schizophrenia, or is is there a cause - by cause I mean a reason, right or wrong - for their actions?
Quoting Psychology Today
Apparently all you need is a cause. There are enough causes today, given that human beings are what they are. Anyone attacks a community, for example, here the Israelis, and some of them, now the people in power, but someone at any rate, will respond with force. You cannot do anything about the demographics of a society, there are always those, and you will find them among your friends and relatives, who see responding with violence as a right thing to do. I do not see the other side as any different.
The function of the government is to keep the peace, and stop violence from breaking out. To stop anything that may snowball into a armed conflict before it is too late. It is as important as clean water and food and electricity.
I know of people who have joined the armed forces. I have spoken to people who support armed forces, and army personnel have spoken to terrorist supporters. (not in the this region, though). Did they join to commit atrocities? Were they ordered to? Did their compatriots attack people while they did nothing? How do you know the group you join is not going to violate human rights either individually or collectively?
I remember what it was like when I was a young man. I thought nothing could ever hurt me, and even if it did, it was worth it. One does not think about the legitimacy of the cause, or more importantly, what orders you will be given, will they be 'legal' orders or not? It is all the glory of war. Of course the Hamas terrorists knew they will be killing civilians. All I am saying is that in any society there are people willing to go this far. I have seen this. Stop them before they start.
Plenty of causes out there. Remove the causes.
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-plea-for-moral-clarity-and-leadership-at-harvard/
The Statement in question.
https://www.harvard.edu/president/news/2023/our-choices/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jBgGY2Ww9Q
A reminder our viewers that public debate is about managing perceptions, not about being on the right side. Calm discussions don't make for good TV either.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/protest-outside-defense-ministry-grows-with-calls-for-netanyahu-to-resign/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/16/ifnotnow-jewish-voice-for-peace-protest-groups-white-house-biden
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-11/ty-article/.premium/more-than-10-000-american-jews-express-solidarity-with-israel-at-rally-in-front-of-un/0000018b-1c9e-d08b-adef-1ffe20850000
https://www.tbsnews.net/world/thousands-israelis-protest-against-netanyahu-ahead-election-219646
Here Arabs (Palestinians) protest against Hamas:
"Double standard" anybody?
"Take that Palestinian flag and shove it up your A**!"
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202310090589
All of this has been pointed out by human rights organisations, the UN and the ICJ countless times.
Currently the Palestinians are suffering from collective punishment and indiscriminate bombing at the hands of the Israelis - both of which are also war crimes.
Do you believe Palestinians should be allowed to "retaliate and make sure such attacks can't happen again"?
People who attack so as to annihilate their enemies don't wait for permission. They just do it.
But they don't have the capacity to so. They can say they want to make Israel dust, it doesn't matter. Israel IS turning Gaza into dust and is continuing to steal land, effectively making a Palestinian state almost impossible to establish.
The Ayatollah said in the end of times Israel should disappear, right? Bad comment, evil judgment. Israel is making Palestine disappear, massive difference.
Ground raids have occured, with a large weapons cache being displayed earlier. If the air war is effective, that could be another reason to let up. That or I can see why an invasion wouldn't occur until goals are defined. One goal I can think of is the elimination and suppression of Hamas, followed by the return of Palestinian Authority rule to Gaza. This could open the door to new funding for economic development from the Gulf, as Iran would no longer "hold sway," over the territory.
But would Fatah even be credible if it was brought back in this way? It has its own image problems. And Abu Mazen is quite old. What happens when he dies? But, that said, if there was a center left government in Israel after this and Fatah as the one bargaining power, it does seem like a deal for statehood and peace becomes far more likely.
Or it could simply be indecision.
Some said it was because Israel wasn't a dictatorship, but because it is a democracy (at least of Jews) and it is Western, hence we except more from states that are western democracies. South Africa was also a democracy (for the whites) and not a totalitarian dictatorship when they had Apartheid. And had close ties to the US and the West also. Hence the critique there.
I think because the US is such an ardent and devoted ally to Israel, people in the West who are critical about the West in general are then against Israel, because it does have Apartheid policies towards a minority. If it would be like in the earlier times when the US was actually indifferent about Israel and the main ally of Israel would be still France, this would be much more a debate in France.
We aren't so obsessed with the Kurds, even if there are more Kurds than Palestinians and their situation is even more complicated and they don't have any state too. But with the Kurds, the fight is with Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq. Countries that don't have so close connections to the US as Israel has.
Is it so? I think they are quite open about it.
As Biden is coming to town, they naturally don't start the operation yet. Perhaps allow some trucks to pass to Gaza with supplies and get those foreign nationals out of Gaza. At least those Palestinians with US citizenship.
I confess I'm perplexed by the outrage against Harvard's leadership for, it seems, not being sufficiently anti-Hamas and not identifying students so they can be blacklisted by certain corporations. It seems particularly ill-advised to criticize others because they've been insufficiently fervent in their condemnation of Hamas or because they've failed to cooperate in efforts of leaders or corporations to take vengeance against students who are anti-Israel.
He's some kind of Shiite. They have the most bizarre beliefs ever. But there are Christian groups who also think the end of the world has something to do with Israel. I don't know the details.
Biden's coming. Maybe they're waiting for that? Why couldn't they get a whole new crew to run Gaza? Have an election?
I see @ssu was thinking the same thing about waiting for Biden).
Haha! Yeah, those Christians man, they're wild too. We've just become numb to the BS they spew.
True.
When he came back he said to me "Eric we blew it" (by "we" he meant the Jews). He said: "We should never have gone into a place with a large hostile population. We should have gone somewhere like Tierra Del Fuego or Newfoundland".
It would make me very happy to be wrong, but I see nothing but an endless cycle of violence.
UN update on available humanitarian aid waiting to go in
:pray:
Just don't get Gotterdamerung, Armageddon, and ragnarökkr mixed up. Armageddon is the final battle between good and evil before the Day of Judgment. The biblical hill of Megiddo on the plain of Esdraelon, south of present-day Haifa in Israel, has been reserved for the big event (no date yet). Not sure what will happen to the real estate market afterwards.
I got the picture from an article on Armageddon in Business Insider. Who knew that the end of the world is within the purview of the corporate news magazine.
You can read all about it in the Book of Revelation, at the end of the New Testament. Is the book inspired scripture or coded rant? It has some really great lines in it, but I think it more coded rant than inspired word of god. Just my opinion but memo to Pope Francis: Get rid of it,
Let's hope so.
It has been reported in Israeli media that they have attacked Hezbollah today and they have declared it "a day of unprecedented anger", because it is likely Israel did this to move attention away from the hospital bombing. So it could be that Hezbollah attacks soon, or after Biden leaves.
If that happens, probably no aid will get into Gaza. It's a disaster, not made better by Netanyahu's total incompetence.
Sure, but then they would have had to put up with bitter and resentful Canadians. Besides, God had already given Newfoundland and Labrador to four Indigenous Peoples: the Inuit, the Innu, the Mi'kmaq and the Southern Inuit of NunatuKavu).
It's helpful to remember that every place on earth worth having has been colonized and recolonized several times over (well, maybe not Tierra del Fuego).
Hopefully it will get there soon.
I am sympathetic to your views on mass hysteria but not on the psychology of terrorists. In this I think both your take and the PT article are fundamentally mistaken. Psychology is not the place to look, as any psychological survey of terrorists will show random behavioral traits. The answer lies in sociology and in social psychology, in our gut irrational responses on a group, social, and tribal level. It's in the singing, the dancing, and the killing. :fear:
Somehow the single most powerful rocket fired from Gaza ever, that could destroy whole buildings, misfired and hit one of the few hospitals in Gaza. The video that captured the explosion didn't show the rocket motor burning or vapor trails in the video, and prior to the explosion in the video you can hear what sounds like the typical incoming missile or bomb, not outgoing fire. Incoming and outgoing projectiles make a different sounds.
Hence this is spin/damage control because Biden is coming to town. Because he might feel it to be annoying or awkward when he has been prepared to give a show of staunch support to Israel and the press will ask about a stupid hospital. Otherwise who cares, according to Netanyahu Gaza is an evil city.
Already the Arab leaders have declined to meet Joe.
"Hagari said some 450 rockets fired from Gaza had fallen short and landed inside the Strip within the last 11 days."
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-military-says-no-evidence-direct-hit-gaza-hospital-2023-10-18/
Here the upcoming briefing from IDF:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjFTgRnIL_I