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)
Has this been documented? I read that Israel showed then deleted a video showing an apparent missile strike when it was found to have been timestamped after the strike.
I mean it’s the most thoroughly dreadful crime whoever is responsible but the ramifications of it being an Israeli strike are truly horrendous.
It would be Israeli's fault anyways right? So let's not distract our selves
and keep passionately chanting all together "Israel caca!"
Edit: sorry, I forgot... and "Great Satan Amerikah caca"!
Re-edit: sorry, I also forgot... "Allahu Akbar!"
WSJ reported this.
Including others, with similar video...
But behold, we will soon get the truth from the IDF and proof of how evil the "human animals" are in Gaza. :smile:
Biden can happily come to Israel and give them the unwavering support the country needs. (Plus more weapons)
Who has the double standard?
So you are sure that it was IDF?
And if WSJ reported a video that wasn't the hospital bombing, I'm definitely sure that there will be an outcry in the US if such a prestigious newspaper as WSJ would be spreading Hamas propaganda and anti-semitic vitriol.
Wasn't Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters killing every Israeli they could find and reach already highly inflammatory? Correction, they did take some prisoners to act as shields, hence they didn't kill everybody.
And of the Hospital attack, as there's obviously now spinmeisters around and it's highly political (after the condemnation of Arab countries), you simply have to wait for some time before the thing is going to be accurate. Remember for example the shooting down of the Malesian airliner over Eastern Ukraine? Took a little bit of time, but was very accurately documented.
As I've said, the rapid Israeli media response to this is ,at least in my opinion, because of Joe Biden's visit.
But the WSJ video doesn't take position wrt whom is to blame. And its footage of the blast doesn't tell me much about whom cause the blast.
Of course it is. Do you think my recommendation to 'avoid inflammatory language' amounts to propaganda? Considering the amount of vitriol already sorrounding this issue, I'm simply advising moderation in speech.
Coming out with these sorts of audio recordings less than a day after the incident I find pretty suspect to begin with, and smells like damage control to me.
Had the Israelis been innocent in all of this, they would have likely kept calm and waited for a proper investigation. But since they are probably not innocent, they felt a strong pressure to claim the narrative before their enemies run away with it and denying it is no longer credible.
The reaction on the side of the Palestinians seems a lot more genuine - anger, disbelief.
I know which story I find the more plausible one. Killing 500 with a single rocket doesn't sound like the sort of damage Hamas weaponry is capable of (as rightly pointed out). Sounds more like the effect of large Israeli ordnance.
Anyway, in today's day and age it's best to reserve judgement.
What cite do you have to support this claim?
You're arguing impossibility, meaning Palestine couldn't have done this because their arsenal isn't capable of doing it.
I've not seen any articles where the Palestinians have even asserted that.
The noise that ingoing and out going artillery makes is different. And then the fireball seems to be rather big. There's ample videos that show the difference between air to ground ordnance and "Katjusha" rocket fire, that basically Hamas has. To me that looks like ordnance from an aircraft. And it surely doesn't look like a small rocket that they in Gaza use.
Quoting Wayfarer
Of course not.
Quoting Wayfarer
I would question why the vitriol over just one attack, and not the war itself.
Yeah, that's why I find the most likely cause that Israel bombed the hospital and they are now rapidly making a media blitz (as @Tzeentch note they otherwise wouldn't do) to counter the public and diplomatic outrage as their most precious supporter, the US president, is coming to Israel just today.
Just seems to me the most likely case here.
For many "double standard" and Western hypocrisy are a big issue. To me not necessarily.
Accusations of double standards make sense to me if we all are playing by the same rules. Yet I doubt this is the case when the West confronts the Rest. Concerning the current crisis, if there are no Arabs/Palestinians' public protests against Hamas while there are Jews publicly protesting against Netanyahou, then either there is a double standard in condemning violence (to many, even in this thread, "double standard" accusations hold only against the West, of course), or we do not play by the same rules (in this case "double standard" accusations are rather weak to me).
It would be interesting if you could illustrate the different noise between "ingoing" and "outgoing" artillery through comparable videos.
Quoting ssu
Can't the fireball be rather big due to the amount fuel, since it was a parking spot?
Except you provided an empirical argument for why it was the Israelis (i.e. Palestine lacked the rocket power) and now you're backtracking to theorizing (i.e. Israel needs to maintain its moral position for US support, so this is spin control).
These are entirely different arguments.
The counter theory is that Hamas cannot win this war militarily, they have no moral high ground since their invasion of the kibbutz, so they hope to politically turn the tides in their favor by showing Israeli brutality and their own suffering by causing their own death and blaming it on Israel.
This is to say that Hamas scores far more points if it was Israel that bombed the hospital, so much so that it could sway political support in their favor.
Israel gains nothing in such an attack.
...And then also lie about it with "extremely fake" sounding audios according to the most authoritative infowar experts on Earth. Anyway, in today's day and age it's best to reserve judgement.
Again, you're pointing to authoritive empirical evidence that doesn't exist.
I never called it (the audio) "authoritative". Nor affirmed my commitment to it. Taken in another sense, your claim sounds even contradictory.
Aahh.. a bit difficult as videos usually taken are with hand held devices that don't have good sound recording. But
Here's incoming. As the cameraman is taking cover, it's basically an audio tape.
Here's "outgoing" :roll: , you can notice the difference best at 1:51. The shrieking is different, it going away.
But assuming you are right about the pitch, how do you know that the video recording was taken with Gaza in the back or Israel in the back?
I see you're asking the same sort of question
The doppler sound indicates a passing projectile, incoming then outgoing. The time delay, if the locations of the target and video were known would give a clue to the direction of the projectile. The size of the explosion does not necessarily suggest anything. Hamas has explosives big enough if that was their intent.
You indicatedQuoting neomac
Your position was that there was authoritative evidence disproving the legitimacy of the evidence submitted by Israel in questioning the cause of the explosion.
This is to say, both you and @ssu throw out accusations that the Israeli account is preposterous, but then when asked for some sort of cite, nothing is provided.
Then others play junior pyrotechnics experts and offer opinions as to what they think the videos show, as if such analysis does anything other to reveal confirmation bias.
Dude, you are misfiring objections against me. That comment of mine was meant to be sarcastic. Scroll up to see "the most authoritative infowar experts on earth" suggesting that audio was "extremely fake".
Jeez man, this is vulgar Israeli propaganda and people believe it! Wow, suddenly Hamas has rockets that can destroy entire hospitals.
Just gross.
Thanks for those posts. :up:
Again, provide your support for your position that Hamas rockets cannot destroy hospitals. Obviously if that were true, then it was the Israelis, but I've not seen any cite that states (1) Hamas rockets lack the destructive power to destroy hospitals or (2) that the Palestinians have argued they lack the ability to destroy hospitals. That is, you're making an argument that has no empirical support and one that not even the Palestinians are making.
There are literally thousands of rockets being fired in a very small space. It would be more surprising if none missed their target than if all did. The question then becomes whether (1) this was an accidental misfiring or (2) whether it was purposeful. It would seem the likelihood of an Israeli intentional targeting of a Palestinian hospital is unlikely, considering the political fallout that would result. It is possible it was an accident by the Israelis. In terms of whether it was accidental or intentional by Hamas, either explanation works, considering their missles are notoriously inaccurate and also it could be intentional considering the political gain they'd derive from it if the Israelis could be blamed.
The point here though is that no one knows what happened and there are equally compelling reasons to believe in theory it was caused by either of the two. Any suggestion that it's clearly one or the other only reveals the bias of the person offering the opinion.
:100: :up:
If it's something that never happened before I would agree. But the extensive documentation provided by human rights agencies in the 2012, 2014, and other Gaza massacres have shown that this is not abnormal behavior for Israel at all. See for instance the Goldstone report.
And also, keep in mind what the Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, said "We'll change the face of reality in Gaza".
Add to that starving people to death, I don't see how this is in any way accidental. You think they care about PR? If they did, they would let aid in.
And yes, I have not seen a single Hamas rocket ever fired that was that powerful. If it was Hezbollah it would be a different story.
https://www.btselem.org/
Something like that. I haven't heard myself incoming artillery fire, only outgoing. But there's there's a difference. Of course the fire that will hit you won't be heard as it's coming supersonic.
Quoting neomac
I assume it was taken from Gaza as it looks like being taken from the same urban area. And I presume that WSJ make their due diligence on the video.
Quoting flannel jesus
Quoting flannel jesus
That hit it, yes. But notice a stray rocket has a different trajectory.
Quoting Hanover
Lol. I can make some observations from one video, but naturally that doesn't say much. I haven't seen the Israeli account, but just as @Tzeentch said, there was an usually quick media effort made to make the terrorists responsible for this. And there is a natural motive for this when Biden comes to Israel. As I stated, it's an awkward moment for a President that is in Israel to show solidarity, but then again try to uphold the image of being an mediator.
And this has already taken place.
I guess some years from now when the war is over, you'll have more accurate knowledge.
Taken from Gaza and same urban area ok, but I'm wondering about the position of the cameraman: did the cameraman have Israel in the back or in front? Because depending on the orientation of the cameraman and the trajectory one can better guess if the trajectory was in-coming or out-going wrt Gaza.
In other words, since it's likely, then it's certain. Impeccable logic.
Yes neomac, that is exactly what I said. Impeccable reading skills.
You've learnt well, habibi. Throw the stone and hide the hand, may Allah bless you.
That won't bring down a house, let alone an entire hospital. Such rockets are made with area saturation/high volume of fire in mind.
But it's unclear to me what the al-Ahli hospital actually looked like, and whether it collapsed.
A 20kg explosive that probably hovers somewhere between civilian-grade and military-grade will produce a decent boom, but 500 dead + presumably many more wounded sounds extraordinarily high for such an explosion, especially if walls were seperating people from the blast.
:up:
The shithole countries in the Middle East are terrorist-loving human rights abusers on a scale that makes Israel look like a piker. Israel should take over that whole sorry region.
The question was whether there were empirical evidence, not whether you've sorted out what you consider credibility evidence and decided who to believe. If you want to just say you don't trust the Israelis so you think it must have been their doing, that's one thing. But that's not what you've said. You said that Palestine didn't do it because they lack the fire power to do that.
You changed your argument.
If I were engaging in a credibility assessment of your comments, I would be led to the conclusion that you're willing to provide reasons for Israeli misconduct that are not supported by the evidence only to withdraw those arguments when challenged, and then to rely upon other grounds to support your prejudged conclusion that it was the Israelis, meaning I would see your opinions as biased towards what you wanted to conclude anyway. .
There's an equal chance that your foray into forensic pyrotechnics began about 20 minutes ago and you have no idea what rockets are within the Hamas arsenal, what their explosive power is, and no idea what forces the hospital structure could withstand.
On the other hand, if you were correct, I would expect someone other than the friendly folks at The Philosophy Forum would have arrived at these conclusions, would have presented them somewhere on the great world wide web, and then you could simply provide me a link as opposed to providing me the benefit of your new found expertise.
If you can't tell, that's probably a great indicator it's time for you to sit quietly on the sideline until the 'official report' comes out. :lol:
Based on previous actions, which have been widely reported. I can refer you to several books if you want to read the myriad of abuses and crimes committed by Israel, as well as taking a look at the Israeli human rights organization which I posted.
But - maybe when Israel finalizes its report, it will prove that Hamas has firepower, it has not shown through-out this whole war, which is a bit curious.
If such evidence does arise, then I will retract my statement. I have seen no such credible evidence, unless you count the IDF as credible during wartime.
If you see my comments all throughout this thread going back 2 years, I have never hidden whom I think is responsible for the overwhelming majority of the crimes. Which does not mean Hamas hasn't committed horrible atrocities and engages in gross conduct. As does Hezbollah.
I see these groups as reactions to Israeli actions, not as the source of Israel's problem, which is the occupation of stolen land, recognized by the whole word, resolution 242 of the UN.
Based on what I've seen you say, you appear to believe that Israel deserves all the land it occupies. IF that is indeed the case, then there is not much to discuss. If it's not, then we can talk.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Office released a statement saying:
"In light of the overwhelming and vital American support for the war effort and in light of US President Biden's demand for basic humanitarian aid, the reduced cabinet unanimously decided:
1 - Israel will not allow any humanitarian aid from its territory to the Gaza Strip as long as our abductees are not returned.
2 - Israel demands the Red Cross visits to our abductees and is working to mobilize extensive international support for this demand.
3 - In light of President Biden's demand, Israel will not thwart humanitarian supplies from Egypt as long as it is only food, water and medicine for the civilian population located in the southern Gaza Strip or moving there, and as long as these supplies do not reach Hamas. Any supplies that reach Hamas will be thwarted."
Quoting Tzeentch
:up: :100:
Unfortunately Hamas fighters run also on food and water, like the civilians.
It looks like the "diplomatic effort" will be reduced to some humanitarian effort and that's it. Although 2 million people need a really huge convoy of food etc. to be supported. Something that isn't easy to do in some brief time window before the bombing starts again.
I think the problem is that Bibi cannot now back down what has been said: he has to go into Gaza. At least temporarily to give that hollow declaration that "Hamas has been destroyed".
Indeed, it looks quite complicated. And obviously it will be very hard to tell apart who belongs to Hamas and who is a civilian when the aid comes through.
It could lead to a situation in which Israel closes the border or shoots civilians because there either are Hamas members with the civilians, or if it think there are Hamas members with the civilians.
If he does go into Gaza, I don't see Hezbollah not acting. Maybe Iran too. That would be a disaster.
I would only want to read your books if I chose to allow you to divert attention from the question that we're addressing so that you can pretend it wasn't asked.
The question was who blew up the hospital. Your answer was it could not have been the Palestinians because they lack the rocket power to do that. I asked you for a cite to that. You then started telling me about how Israel has a long history of abuse against the Palestinians and you had some books that supported that.
So, back to what we're talking about. What evidence do you have that the bombings could not have been the result of a Hamas weapon due to the fact that Hamas lacks the firepower?
If you tell me, well, the Israealis are always doing bad things to the Palestinians, so it more likely was them, that will not address your statement that it could not have been the Palestinians due to lack of firepower.
And that's what I'm going to keep coming back to because yours is attempt to create empirical evidence from nothing to support your view that it must have been Israel.
That you are an open detractor of Israel, even if justifiably so, doesn't mean you must abandon the truth and misreport objectively verifiable facts. That is the point of my responses. If you want to say you don't believe Israel because they're sons of bitches in your opinion, then just say that, but going down the road of providing what is represented as objective fact when it is not is simply disingenuous.
It's better than nothing. If I were a Palestinian in northern Gaza, I think I'd be moving my butt south on foot if necessary. Those who decide to stay put, I don't know what to say. I think that area is about to be the stage for a ground invasion.
I have no evidence that Hamas didn't blow up the hospital.
I have no evidence that Hamas did blow up the hospital, based on the missiles they have.
Now the context is important, but you seem to want to downplay it, for lack of "official reports." The context is, there is clear as day evidence that Israel is bombing Gaza to the stone age, without care about who is killed.
I don't know if that "type of evidence" achieves the high standards you demand.
[b]Israel-Hamas war updates: Hundreds killed in Gaza hospital ‘massacre’ - Al Jazeera
Israel-Hamas war: At least 500 people killed in hospital bombing in Gaza, Palestinian officials claim - Sky News
In deadly day for Gaza, hospital strike kills hundreds - Reuters
Hundreds likely dead in Gaza hospital blast, as Israeli blockade cripples medical response -CNN
'They're still collecting the dead': Panic and grief after Gaza hospital blast - BBC
[/b]
The evidence here, the actual newspaper titles, speak volumes. Notice the words 'strike', 'attack', 'blast', different words suggestive of a missile or bomb strike, and a bomb planted at the site. The attempt to manipulate this one event using different interpretations is a telling indication that much propaganda is in the air. In any case, each group will choose to interpret the event according to their biases, and this helps.
If it is a non-Israeli rocket, then it would only make sense for whoever it was to fire another one at Israel.
Let's see. Could it be a guided rocket that was hijacked and made to change course?
If it hit dead center then it may make the case for a deliberate attack?
Non -guided Hamas rockets have done a pretty good job of avoiding hospitals, and in any case have a 'small' warhead that damages roofs.
Oh and this, reported on RT
And on CNN:
That seems a huge stretch, and is very telling. This was no barrage. If it was one rocket, the warhead was no large enough to create such damage. If rockets were fired in close proximity it would be even more unlikely to hit something close by. Such a clumsy explanation is another piece of circumstantial evidence that could be used to bring the case the Israeli government is lying.
Fact check this:
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/deconstructing-a-lie-how-israel-bombed-al-ahli-hospital-then-changed-its-story-twice/
And now this tweet:
https://twitter.com/HananyaNaftali/status/1714400598991261966
:chin:
Honest mistake, or did he screw the pooch?
I was only responding to your incorrect comment that there was evidence Palestine didn't blow up the hospital, which you acknowledge you don't.
As to whether they are bombing without concern who they kill, I disgree with that.
Yeah, it's nuts.
But where is the evidence? :roll:
Am I wrong in suggesting that, from the side of the Israeli citizen, and especially the relatives of the hostages, the following would be a better course of action? It is really hard to tell which actions are smarter than others simply because there are too many mistakes being made so far.
Suggested press release:
1. Temporary ceasefire with immediate release of hostages to the Red Cross, will be followed by humanitarian aid convoy.
(then we will end the ceasefire and kill all Hamas members including civilian Minister of Economic Affairs etc, later. But don't put that in the press release)
2. Visit to abductees? This is not a tour of the Hollywood for God's sake, you want the Red Cross to see them alive, and then leave them, amidst heavy bombing? Where would these visits take place? On location? Maybe the Gaza hospital since either it has been bombed or will not be bombed by Israel.
3.President Biden's demand? Not based on humanitarian reasons that Israel, as a modern nation, affords? President Biden's "demand"
"as long as these supplies do not reach Hamas. Any supplies that reach Hamas will be thwarted"
No offence, but this strikes me as absolutely insane. How on earth is one to say these supplies will not reach Hamas?
What does this all mean? It all sounds like the nature of the entire Israeli military approach seems to be, as I made up my mind years ago is very 'heavy handed'. It has all the hallmarks of police brutality, in short.
My impressions is these people are dangerously limited in their thinking, which is not good for anyone.
Or something got lost in the translation.
The Tweet or "X" in full, in case you don't want to click.
Hamas should be afraid, very very afraid, because they are dealing with an irrational, incompetent bunch of .. what did former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert call them...no disrespect here
I truly feel sorry for the people of Israel. They, too should be afraid.
If the government of Israel did its job of protecting you, none of this would have happened.
Your government is playing you like a fiddle.
I am beginning to feel the need to pray for Israel now.
Yes and I think Hamas said it was willing to release all hostages minus the IDF soldiers if the bombing stops. I think that exchange is reasonable.
Now if it so happened that it was one of your family members that was in the IDF captured by Hamas, this position may be problematic.
Israel has had a decent record doing counterintelligence and stuff like that. If they want to kill Hamas, infiltrating them and doing something from the inside might work. But, it's very very hard to pull off.
Quoting FreeEmotion
I also see this as being very reasonable. One can't be sure that the hostages aren't in an extremely dire situation, so it's very sensible the Red Cross (or a similar organization) to visit them.
Quoting FreeEmotion
I would imagine that it is very hard to distinguish who is Hamas and who is not if the aid gets through. I assume they won't be wearing guerilla warfare clothes.
It seems to me that the government is reacting this way because they are extremely embarrassed by how they colossally failed to protect Israeli civilians. To cover up, or attempt to make people overlook this, they are going in guns blazing, to keep postponing serious accountability.
But with what I've read, people in your country are extremely pissed at Netanyahu and they will not forget his failure even after this is all over.
I feel sorry that you guys may have to go through yet another election(!) to get some competent leaders in the government.
And yes, I think if this continues, others will get involved, Hezbollah and maybe Iran. It's a spine-chilling situation to find yourself in.
This may sound empty, but I can do nothing else: stay safe.
It sounded like, "We don't have any common decency, but since we need American support, we'll let some water in to the southern side."
Netanyahu is such a butthead.
https://news.sky.com/story/israel-gaza-war-latest-hamas-palestine-sky-news-live-blog-12978800
I'm not sure what the assessment is independent of exactly, or who will credit it. Still, 'death goes on', as they say.
Just looking at the BBC report from the scene, I'm not seeing a big crater, and I'm not seeing lots of demolished buildings and damaged buildings. Rather it looks like a lot of people camped in the hospital courtyard, and a rather modest explosion in a crowded place. So it does rather look to me as if it was more likely a palestinian missile gone horribly wrong.
So the absence of a crater does not absolve Israel, though the use of airburst munitions would be properly ghastly, because those are meant specifically to harm people as opposed to buildings or materiel.
It would explain the extraordinarily high death toll, though it remains to be seen whether that's the actual death toll or if it is being heavily exaggerated.
Well, then we have two USN carrier strike forces in the Mediterranean Sea ready to pounce the Hezbollah positions in Southern Lebanon. To help Israel, which cannot deal with far weaker enemies than before. :smirk:
And of course, there is always the option to bomb Iran. Last time the US came to blows with Iran (and Iran attacking US forces), Trump didn't do much else than declared that no servicemen died and left it that. Hence there actually is no desperate desire for the US to extend this war. Iran of the present is much stronger than before, but old examples of these limited conflicts show historically how these exchanges have gone:
What history tells us is that a) The US sees any military operation of this kind as an extension of foreign policy and hence will try to make a "proportionate" strike. If it comes to using military force, the priority is political thinking, not military thinking. The US will b) try to not escalate the war too much. Joe Biden has no intension to engage in a large war in the Middle East. What this means, that the US won't try to do an all out attack on Iran's military capability (something that Israeli doctrine would want), but will try to do something "proportional".
And let's remember that US engagement is still quite hypothetical here. Apart from sending arms to Israel.
Last time the US sent forces to defend Israel was during Operation Desert Storm. Then the earlier Patriot missiles were in truth a disappointment, unlike the media back then made them to be. Only later the dismal performance of the early Patriots was unveiled.
They do and that strategy of being proportional with Iran is more levelheaded than a full out war.
Now, as for the US ships - yeah, they may be used to bomb Lebanon. This issue is, if Israel continues to fire into Lebanon, either as a reply to attacks or for wanting to defend its northern border, it seems strange to me that Hezbollah would happily stay while Israel strikes.
In short, I do not know how long the "proportional" part of the Exhange of missiles can stay this way.
But that's not actually the other side of the coin. It isn't either WW3 or this. It's either peace through deterrence or war. I'll try to explain what I mean here.
The basic problem is that "proportionality" in using war doesn't make sense, because it militarily does nothing. It simply lowers the threshold of military action and creates an environment for on/off war: a low intensity conflict. It's ruinous for what militaries should do to enforce peace: to create a deterrence that nobody dares to make any military attacks.
Likely people will get my point wrong. They will think that it's better to have a "proportional" response than an "all out attack" to the bitter end. Yet this isn't the case. The "proportional" response is usually a political response with either with no or simply very vague military objectives. If there would be a clear military objective, that objective is either achieved with limited resources or everything you have.
Just think if during the Cold War both sides, blaming each other, would have every once in a while lobbed artillery rounds to the opposing sides of Germany. Or East Germans would tried to snatch tourists or West German civilians that came too close to the border. And this would have gone on for decades. It would have made living quite miserable in West Berlin, if there would have been the occasional mortar of artillery fire every now and then. But if you are a proponent of the "proportional" war, this could have easily happened. Once it's OK to bomb someone every once a while, or like Trump enjoyed it: launching cruise missiles to Syria and bragging about it to the Chinese premier while eating the most nicest chocolate cake.
Hence the idea of "proportional" military response sucks. The worst example is how the Vietanam war was micromanaged by the White House. But also the Israeli strategy of dealing with the insurgency by "mowing the lawn", simply having these military every now and then to decrease the ability of Hamas/Hezbollah/whoever simply creates this low intensity conflict, which once a while blows up like it has now. Basically the leaders of Israel have decided that a small shooting war every decade or so is OK. It doesn't hurt much. And it keeps up the spirit and doesn't inflict true war weariness.
I understand what you mean and that risk will always lurk. But look at for instance, what happened to Soleimani. I'm not saying that it was good to kill him, that almost took us to the verge of a full out war. But it didn't get to that point. It could have, had anyone decided to make just a slightly different calculation.
It's less harmful in terms of numbers of deaths involved than a war. Nonetheless, what you say is correct, which is that such situations end up escalating because there are no clear objectives in mind, so they just continue shooting at each other until someone decides to end this silly game.
You could say that Soleimani was a clear objective- maybe, but they knew the tremendous risks involved.
There is no good solution, unless a ceasefire is declared and implemented. Short of that, anything that can, for the moment, delay something much worse, should be tolerated as a lesser evil.
But I agree that in principle it is a sign of a lack of clear thinking from those involved.
Or the simple fact they can do it. The US can strike at Soleimani as they can strike at various targets in the Iranian nuclear program. Yet an overall war isn't fruitful: trying to march to Teheran is beyond question. Yet the US won't take out a Russian general... or Putin. Then what they can do is to put them on a sanctions list or hope that the ICC takes attention of them.
The fact is that with Russia, just as with China, the deterrence of those countries works. Even Israel is very nice to Russians, even if otherwise they bomb Syria nearly at will. Here the deterrence works and basically any "proportional" strike is out of the question.
Yet it's not obvious that it is so: that the Cold War could have been similar to the DMZ in Korea, where you still basically have only a armstice. That the US has lost quite many killed during the decades there, which isn't well known. Hence it's totally possible for a Cold War to be violent, once the politicians get accustomed to "proportional" military responses.
Basically Israel should have on it's borders everywhere a country like Egypt, which does have a peace agreement, yet is powerful enough for guard it's borders and make any Israeli government to think twice before being reckless with it. Yet as Israel enjoys military dominance over it's neighbors and has the nuclear deterrence (which it's neighbors don't), a leader like Netanyahu can do basically whatever he wants.
Countless visions/visitations later and here they are doing the same thing to the Palestinians.
How long before we hear a Palestinian refugee/survivor who suddenly has visions/visitations from god/angels telling them about returning to their homeland and expelling the unholy infidels?
The river of blood and tears flows round and round.
Well, now that there is more photos from the site, it seems that the explosion happened at the parking lot, which was full of people. People aren't excavated from under rubble as in many other videos from Gaza after obvious IDF attacks. Hence it seems that the hospital wasn't demolished. And the crater shown is quite tiny, which is quite similar to what rockets fired from Gaza typically leave behind. Also the cars in pictures are burnt, don't have markings of shrapnel. This leaves out the more powerful HE ordnance.
If it was a rocket and it had fuel, there ought to have been the trail that a rocket leaves, or then the motor stopped for some reason with fuel still left. Hence there is the possibility that indeed this was a stray rocket. But also, there are many kinds of munitions that can be used in Gaza. Proof that will make it clear will be hard to come by.
https://www.channel4.com/news/who-was-behind-the-gaza-hospital-blast-visual-investigation
And have backing from the US, which doesn't hurt.
An air-burst ordnance could easily also do this. Or something else than air-to-ground bomb. And as the Channel 4 remarks, the Israeli [s]spin[/s] media presentation is confusing at times.
The pictures show extremely lack luster damage at the impact zone, almost no crater, and none of the concentric circles of damage you'd expect from an airburst bomb. Whatever it was, it was likely not a weapon that worked as intended. The most impacted area has a small crater and the cars are still in tact and in rows, neatly parked. Windows are blown out but there is no visible shrapnel damage.
The idea of it being a defective rocket is credible from that respect, because if it was even a 500lb JDAM you'd have much more damage. Or, alternatively, Israel air dropping some special low yield carbon fiber bomb that wouldn't leave material that could be traced back to them so they could blame it on a rocket. But that seems a little much, they don't really seem to have problems with letting the electricity run out, and that will kill more people. Maybe some sort of older rocket they have for their rotary wing craft, but I don't know why they'd even be using that in the first place.
I have to imagine the casualties are being vastly overstated unless the parking lot was packed with people.
By way of contrast:
A malfunctioning munitions impact isn't necessarily going to look like a functional one. If it still had fuel left and dumped it, that could explain the significant fire damage and scorch markets relative to shrapnel.
Or it might be consistent with some of the smaller unguided rockets like the Hydra 70, but those generally aren't used individually, in part because they rely on accuracy through volume. You'd be extremely lucky to get your target at night, in an urban enviornment, especially since I would assume they wouldn't be flying low.
Edit: and I guess there is video of what appears to be a failing rocket? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67144061
The twitter thread posted earlier on with the sub-titled comments from Hamas operatives, says that it was a missile that had launched from the cemetery immediately behind the hospital, and that it malfunctioned and hit the hospital immediately after firing. The implication being that, apart from whatever explosive charge it carried, it also would have been full of rocket fuel, which would explain the massive fireburst that was captured on video. Here it is again:
Whoever was responsible, whatever the cause, the suffering on the ground is absolutely heart-breaking. (It should be noted that Islamic Jihad denies this account. The authenticity of the recording will also be questioned.)
I find it very depressing. The Israeli and Hamas governments have been very bad at PR, but good at killing civilians on the other side. To what end? If this was a direct democracy, what would have hapenned?
Quoting ssu
Apparently they have given up this strategy, they are going to eliminate Hamas. Very good, but not a word about the other terrorists organizations, will the let them be, and have them take over, or provide some fresh grass for moving?
For now, I am going to assume it was an attack by Israel. Hitting the parking could be a 'warning' strike since the hospital had been asked to evaluate. I can excuse them for avoiding the hospital and hitting a parking lot at night, they may not have known that there were people there, as I said, they were warned.
To my untrained eye, it looks like an explosion happened in the air, burning the cars evenly for some radius.
In any case, it does not excuse the bombing of buildings and cutting off supplies, which is deliberate, and will cause possibly more painful deaths.
Without wanting to get involved in a big argument over it, I think that an unsafe assumption. The emerging story of a failed missile launch from the cemetery behind the hospital, by a group called Islamic Jihad (not Hamas, but allied with them) was the likely cause. As others have pointed out above, if it had been a bomb dropped from an aircraft, there would have been far greater structural damage and a crater. What the pictures show is consistent with a firestorm caused by an exploding missile.
If there is an official investigation, carried out by an NGO, we may get a definite answer. Or we may soon forget about as more massacres happen in Gaza. It could be that it was a misfire, but, given how many lies they've said before, it's hard to take them at their word.
You have a keen eye for this stuff. If it was a misfire, damn that's horrific. If it's not, it's also horrific.
Ideally we'd want an NGO doing the research. But, I'll keep your skepticism in mind.
Quoting FreeEmotion
The end? Hamas for revenge in Gaza and the West Bank, Israel for revenge and to make up for the fact they did not prevent the attacks.
A direct democracy, involving Palestine and Israel? Impossible to say. It would cease to be a Jewish majority state, though one could imagine having different laws - those for Muslims, those for Jews. It needn't be terrible, but I do understand how losing national identity would be very tough.
If you mean something else by direct democracy, I don't know. My impression is that, when people are cool and level headed, they get along perfectly fine. It's when the state gets involved in matters, removed from direct control by the people, that these problems tend to arise of get magnified.
Sure, it's a generalization and there are exceptions. But it's what I've seen.
It’s the inability to compromise for moderates, and the inability to control the radicals. Almost all of it stems from that.
Which makes one question how moderate they are. As for radicals, plenty.
Correct which seems to contradict Quoting Manuel
What if it’s turtles all the way down?
But Israel should have somehow tried to find the moderates in Gaza and help them with a coup or whatnot instead of just containing and ignoring. Allowing various outbursts every year or so.
Could it have been a Hellfire?
AGM-114N Metal Augmented Charge (MAC) Thermobaric Hellfire
Or maybe another Hellfire variant.
To be honest, I find the Israeli defense of "there is no crater!" a very strange argument, since their arsenal is full of weapons which do not produce craters. :chin:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67144061
Also want to remind people how they got here from when the current history began (from Wikipedia):
As the violence increased with little hope for diplomacy, in July 2000 the Camp David 2000 Summit was held which was aimed at reaching a "final status" agreement. The summit collapsed after Yasser Arafat would not accept a proposal drafted by American and Israeli negotiators. Barak was prepared to offer the entire Gaza Strip, a Palestinian capital in a part of East Jerusalem, 73% of the West Bank (excluding eastern Jerusalem) raising to 90–94% after 10–25 years, and financial reparations for Palestinian refugees for peace. Arafat turned down the offer without making a counter-offer.[75]
2000–05: Second Intifada
See also: Second Intifada, Israel's unilateral disengagement plan, and Israeli West Bank barrier
The approved West Bank barrier route as of May 2005
Israeli soldiers deployed in Nablus during Operation Defensive Shield, April 2002
After the failure of the 2000 Camp David Summit, which was expected to reach a final agreement on the Israeli–Palestinian peace process in July 2000,[76] the Second Intifada, a major Palestinian uprising against Israel, erupted. The outbreaks of violence began in September 2000, after Ariel Sharon, then the Israeli opposition leader, made a provocative visit to the Al-Aqsa compound on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.[76]
After the collapse of Barak's government, Ariel Sharon was elected Prime Minister on February 6, 2001. Sharon invited the Israeli Labor Party into the coalition to shore up support for the disengagement plan. Due to the deterioration of the political situation, he refused to continue negotiations with the Palestinian Authority at the Taba Summit, or under any aspect of the Oslo Accords.
At the Beirut Summit in 2002, the Arab League proposed an alternative political plan aimed at ending the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Later on the proposal was formulated as a political plan widely accepted by all Arab states as well as the Arab League. As part of this plan all Arab states would normalize their relations with Israel and bring to an end to the Arab–Israeli conflict in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and West Bank (including East Jerusalem). In addition, the plan required Israel to allow the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and, what the plan describes as a "just solution" for the Palestinian refugees in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194. Israel rejected the wording of the initiative, but official spokespersons expressed gladness about an Arab initiative for peace and Israel's normalization in the region.[citation needed]
Following a period of relative restraint on the part of Israel, after a lethal suicide attack in the Park Hotel in Netanya which happened on March 27, 2002, in which 30 Jews were murdered, Sharon ordered Operation Defensive Shield, a large-scale military operation carried out by the Israel Defense Forces between March 29 until May 10, 2002 in Palestinian cities in the West Bank. The operation contributed significantly to the reduction of Palestinian terror attacks in Israel.
As part of the efforts to fight Palestinian terrorism, in June 2002, Israel began construction of the West Bank barrier. After the barrier went up, Palestinian suicide bombings and other attacks across Israel dropped by 90%.[77] However, this barrier became a major issue of contention between the two sides as 85% of the wall is within territory that is Palestinian according to the 1948 Green Line.[78]
Following the severe economic and security situation in Israel, the Likud Party headed by Ariel Sharon won the Israeli elections in January 2003 in an overwhelming victory. The elections led to a temporary truce between Israel and the Palestinians and to the Aquba summit in the May 2003 in which Sharon endorsed the Road map for peace put forth by the United States, European Union, and Russia, which opened a dialogue with Mahmoud Abbas, and announced his commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state in the future. Following the endorsing of the Road Map, the Quartet on the Middle East was established, consisting of representatives from the United States, Russia, EU and UN as an intermediary body of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
On March 19, 2003, Arafat appointed Mahmoud Abbas as the Prime Minister. The rest of Abbas's term as prime minister continued to be characterized by numerous conflicts between him and Arafat over the distribution of power between the two. The United States and Israel accused Arafat of constantly undermining Abbas and his government. Continuing violence and Israeli "target killings" of known terrorists[citation needed] forced Abbas to pledge a crackdown in order to uphold the Palestinian Authority's side of the Road map for peace. This led to a power struggle with Arafat over control of the Palestinian security services; Arafat refused to release control to Abbas, thus preventing him from using them in a crackdown on militants. Abbas resigned from the post of Prime Minister in October 2003, citing lack of support from Israel and the United States as well as "internal incitement" against his government.[79]
In the end of 2003, Sharon embarked on a course of unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, while maintaining control of its coastline and airspace. Sharon's plan has been welcomed by both the Palestinian Authority and Israel's left wing as a step towards a final peace settlement. However, it has been greeted with opposition from within his own Likud party and from other right-wing Israelis,[who?] on national security, military, and religious grounds. In January 2005, Sharon formed a national unity government that included representatives of Likud, Labor, and Meimad and Degel HaTorah as "out-of-government" supporters without any seats in the government (United Torah Judaism parties usually reject having ministerial offices as a policy). Between August 16 and 30, 2005, Sharon controversially expelled 9,480 Jewish settlers from 21 settlements in Gaza and four settlements in the northern West Bank. The disengagement plan was implemented in September 2005. Following the withdrawal, the Israeli town of Sderot and other Israeli communities near the Gaza strip became subject to constant shelling and mortar bomb attacks from Gaza with only minimal[clarification needed] Israeli response.
2005 to 2019
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, US President George Bush and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Annapolis Conference
Following the November 2004 death of long-time Fatah party PLO leader Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat, Fatah member Mahmoud Abbas was elected President of the Palestinian National Authority in January 2005.
In 2006 Palestinian legislative elections Hamas won a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council, prompting the United States and many European countries to cut off all funds to the Hamas and the Palestinian Authority[80] insisting that the Hamas must recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept previous peace pacts.[81] Israel refused to negotiate with Hamas, since Hamas never renounced its beliefs that Israel has no right to exist and that the entire State of Israel is an illegal occupation which must be wiped out. EU countries and the United States threatened an economic boycott if Hamas will not recognize Israel's existence, not renounce terrorism and shall support the peace agreements signed between the PLO and Israel in the past. Hamas officials have openly stated that the organization does not recognize Israel's right to exist, even though the organization expressed openness to hold a long-term truce. Hamas is considered by Israel and 12 other countries[82] to be a terrorist organization and therefore not entitled to participate in formal peace negotiations.
1:54
Footage of a rocket attack in Southern Israel, March 2009
In June 2006 during a well-planned operation, Hamas managed to cross the border from Gaza, attack an Israeli tank, kill two IDF soldiers and kidnap wounded Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit back into the Gaza Strip. Following the incident and in response to numerous rocket firings by Hamas from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, fighting broke out between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip (see 2006 Israel-Gaza conflict).
In the summer of 2007 a Fatah–Hamas conflict broke out, which eventually led Hamas taking control of the Gaza strip, which in practice divided the Palestinian Authority into two. Various forces affiliated with Fatah engaged in combat with Hamas, in numerous gun battles. Most Fatah leaders escaped to Egypt and the West Bank, while some were captured and killed. Fatah remained in control of the West Bank, and President Abbas formed a new governing coalition, which some critics of Fatah said subverts the Palestinian Constitution and excludes the majority government of Hamas.
A Qassam rocket fired from a civilian area in Gaza towards southern Israel, January 2009
In November 2007, the Annapolis Conference was held. The conference marked the first time a two-state solution was articulated as the mutually agreed-upon outline for addressing the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The conference ended with the issuing of a joint statement from all parties.
A fragile six-month truce between Hamas and Israel expired on December 19, 2008.[83] Hamas and Israel could not agree on conditions to extend the truce.[84] Hamas blamed Israel for not lifting the Gaza Strip blockade, and for an Israeli raid on a purported tunnel, crossing the border into the Gaza Strip from Israel on November 4,[85] which it held constituted a serious breach of the truce.[86] Israel accuses Hamas of violating the truce citing the frequent rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli cities.[87]
An explosion caused by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza during the Gaza War
The Israeli operation began with an intense bombardment of the Gaza Strip,[88] targeting Hamas bases, police training camps,[89] police headquarters and offices.[90] Civilian infrastructure, including mosques, houses, medical facilities and schools, were also attacked. Israel has said many of these buildings were used by combatants, and as storage spaces for weapons and rockets.[91] Hamas intensified its rocket and mortar attacks against targets in Israel throughout the conflict, hitting previously untargeted cities such as Beersheba and Ashdod.[92] On January 3, 2009, the Israeli ground invasion began.[93][94] The operation resulted in the deaths of more than 1,300 Palestinians.[citation needed] The IDF released a report stating that the vast majority of the dead were Hamas militants.[95] The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reported that 926 of the 1,417 dead had been civilians and non-combatants.[96]
From 2009 onwards, the Obama administration repeatedly pressured the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to freeze the growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and reignite the peace process between Israel and the Palestinian people.[97] During President Obama's Cairo speech on June 4, 2009 in which Obama addressed the Muslim world Obama stated, among other things, that "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements". "This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop." Following Obama's Cairo speech Netanyahu immediately called a special government meeting. On June 14, ten days after Obama's Cairo speech, Netanyahu gave a speech at Bar-Ilan University in which he endorsed, for the first time, a "Demilitarized Palestinian State", after two months of refusing to commit to anything other than a self-ruling autonomy when coming into office. The speech was widely seen as a response to Obama's speech.[98] Netanyahu stated that he would accept a Palestinian state if Jerusalem were to remain the united capital of Israel, the Palestinians would have no army, and the Palestinians would give up their demand for a right of return. He also claimed the right for a "natural growth" in the existing Jewish settlements in the West Bank while their permanent status is up to further negotiation. In general, the address represented a complete turnaround for his previously hawkish positions against the Israeli–Palestinian peace process.[99] The overture was quickly rejected by Palestinian leaders such as Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, who called the speech "racist".[98]
On November 25, 2009, Israel imposed a 10-month construction freeze on all of its settlements in the West Bank. Israel's decision was widely seen as due to pressure from the Obama administration, which urged the sides to seize the opportunity to resume talks. In his announcement Netanyahu called the move "a painful step that will encourage the peace process" and urged the Palestinians to respond.[100] On September 2, United States launched direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in Washington.
During September 2011 the Palestinian Authority led a diplomatic campaign aimed at getting recognition of the State of Palestine within the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, by the Sixty-sixth session of the United Nations General Assembly.[101] On September 23 President Mahmoud Abbas submitted a request to recognize the State of Palestine as the 194th UN member to the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The Security Council has yet to vote on it. The decision was labeled by the Israeli government as a unilateral step.[102]
On November 29, 2012 the UN General Assembly approves a motion granting Palestine non-member observer state status. UN observer state status voting results were:
In favour Against Abstentions Absent Non-members
In 2012, the Palestinian Authority applied for admission as a United Nations non-member state, which requires only a majority vote by the United Nations General Assembly. Hamas also backed the motion.[103] The draft resolution was passed on November 29, 2012 by a vote of 138 to 9, with 41 abstentions.[104][105] Regardless of the UN recognition, as of this writing, no Palestinian state exists except on a symbolic level. Israel indicated that an actual, real-world Palestinian state can only come into existence if Palestinians succeed in negotiating peace with Israel.[106]
On November 14, 2012 Israel began Operation Pillar of Defense in the Gaza Strip with the stated aims being to halt the indiscriminate rocket attacks originating from the Gaza Strip[107][108] and to disrupt the capabilities of militant organizations.[109] The operation began with the targeted killing of Ahmed Jabari, chief of Hamas military wing. The IDF stated it targeted more than 1,500 military sites in Gaza Strip, including rocket launching pads, smuggling tunnels, command centers, weapons manufacturing, and storage buildings.[110] According to Palestinians sources civilian houses were hit and[111] Gaza Health officials state that 167 Palestinians had been killed in the conflict by November 23. The Palestinian militant groups fired over 1,456[112] Iranian Fajr-5, Russian Grad rockets, Qassams and mortars into Rishon LeZion, Beersheba, Ashdod, Ashkelon and other population centers; Tel Aviv was hit for the first time since the 1991 Gulf War, and rockets were aimed at Jerusalem.[113] The rockets killed four Israeli civilians—three of them in a direct hit on a home in Kiryat Malachi—two Israeli soldiers, and a number of Palestinian civilians. By November 19, over 252 Israelis were physically injured in rocket attacks.[114] Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted about 421 rockets, another 142 rockets fell on Gaza itself, 875 rockets fell in open areas, and 58 rockets hit urban areas in Israel.[110][112][115] A bomb attack against a Tel Aviv bus that wounded over 20 civilians received the "blessing" of Hamas.[116] On November 21 a ceasefire was announced after days of negotiations between Hamas and Israel mediated by Egypt.
During 2011, as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange, 1,027 Palestinians and Arab-Israeli prisoners were released in exchange for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
In October 2011, a deal was reached between Israel and Hamas, by which the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit would be released in exchange for 1,027 Palestinians and Arab-Israeli prisoners, 280 of whom had been sentenced to life in prison for planning and perpetrating various terror attacks against Israeli targets.[117][118] The military Hamas leader Ahmed Jabari was quoted later as confirming that the prisoners released as part of the deal were collectively responsible for the killing of 569 Israeli civilians.[119][120]
In 2014, another war between Israel and Gaza occurred resulting in over 70 Israeli casualties and over 2000 Palestinians casualties.
2020s
Main articles: 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, July 2023 Jenin incursion, and 2023 Israel–Hamas war
In 2021, yet another war between Israel and Gaza occurred resulting in over 250 casualties.[121] As the war went on, violent conflict was ignited within Israel as well.[122] Policy analysts believe that the war decreased the chances of Israeli-Palestinian bilateral talks.[123]
In November 2022, with the election of the 37th government of Israel, a coalition government led by Benjamin Netanyahu and notable for its inclusion of far-right politicians,[124] violence in the conflict has increased, with a rise in military actions such as the July 2023 Jenin incursion and Palestinian political violence producing the highest death toll in the conflict since 2005.[125]
On October 7, 2023 Hamas launched an large-scale offensive against Israel, during which Hamas initially fired at least 2,200 rockets at Israel from the Gaza Strip, while at the same time hundreds of Palestinian militants broke through the border and entered Israel by foot and with motor vehicles, as they engaged in gun battles with the Israeli security forces, murdered Israeli civilians, took over Israeli towns and military bases, as well as kidnapped Israeli civilians and soldiers.
END QUOTE
A series of missed opportunities and stubbornness. Pride can become an ethical problem. A series of missteps towards the beginning that moved each side to the right.
I think the accusations have already been fixed as Arab countries have already accused of Israel of being behind it and the Joe Biden has said he's convinced it was "the others", not Israel. Either party won't officially back down as they will appear weak and undetermined.
Quoting Tzeentch
A possibility. Just as a possibility is a rocket too. Yet on the long run, already the rare occasion of there being more Israeli killed than Palestinians has turned to the ordinary situation of there being more Palestinians killed that Israelis.
Let's see what Bibi decides to do with the "evil city" and it's human animals.
I see y’all ignored my history lesson for your usual dialogue. The sideline banter is just as predictable in their camps.
OK,
There are several things that you can see even from earlier history taken place.
1) First is that when there are peace talks, Palestinian organizations that are focused on the military struggle will make terror attacks to defuse the peace engagement. This happened when Egypt and Israel were have their peace talks. Then the Fatah made then the worst terrorist strike into Israel from Lebanon by the sea. The landed not where they intended, but did hijack several busses and fired at traffic killing several people, quite similar in the way that now Hamas has operated. This prompted Israel to make punitive strikes.
Yet it should be noted that behind these heinous attacks was then what now is the Palestine Authority. Hence militant groups can make peace approaches. Just like the previous terrorist and later prime minister Menachem Begin (who was responsible for the death of 91 British authorities in the King David hotel bombing).
2) There is the unfortunate history, which people like Bibi Netanyahu use eagerly to reason their policies. And that is when Israel has retreated from somewhere, then the gap has been filled with rocket launching terrorists. Naturally the peace with Egypt and Jordan is sidelined here. Yet Bibi argues that the withdrawal from Southern Lebanon (done by labour prime minister Ehud Barak) was a mistake as any withdrawal would be a mistake.
(Ehud Barak had a stellar career in the IDF before becoming a Prime Minister of Israel. After the withdrawal from Southern Lebanon he was defeated by Likud's Ariel Sharon.)
- Ehud Barak
Basically Hamas and Likud embrace and support each other. They feed on the emotions of hate, revenge and the belief of a military solution. The grim fact is that war weariness kicks in only after a lot more people have died than now. A lot more. People like Barak are pushed to the sidelines.
Indeed but my point earlier is that there was a time when there was a chance to form the two state solution and the “moderates” blew it on the Pals side. In fact, it was the kind of encouragement on the anti Israeli side, every step of the way, from the participants and side liners, that encourage this hardened no compromise situation.
Also, while I agree Likud and Hamas feed off each other, as one side justifies the other, I don’t see them as the same beasts.
There’s a reason why Ghandi and MLK were effective. Sympathy doesn’t come from violence. It gets muddled from violence. The underdog loses the very thing that makes them sympathetic. Then it’s just pick your grievance.
You have to agree that the other side exists. You have to be able to live side by side with them. You have to be able to compromise and give up something.
If it was a Hellfire it would seem to have malfunction or it was some sort of very low yield variant I am unaware of. They do make a fully kinetic, very low radius version, but I'm not aware of any sort of low yield incendiary version that would be consistent with this damage. There are cars with still mostly intact windshields parked within what would probably be the lethal radius, or at least the wounding radius of a Hellfire.
The MAC is designed to pen buildings and then detonate so that the blast can be channeled through those spaces, so it'd be a weird choice for hitting the parking lot even if it did seem consistent, which it isn't for the reach of the damage.
The damage is way too small to be even an MK-82 500lb bomb, so a rocket or missile is the right idea though. But you're right that some weapons might leave a small crater and be more consistent. The most obvious thing I can think of is something like the small unguided rockets used in earlier decades, but then you would expect many to be fired and other areas to be hit.
And the video isn't particularly consistent with something like a 70mm rocket being fired. The folks the BBC contacted thought it was consistent with a failing rocket. I'm not expert on that, but it at least didn't seem to be the other explanations, an aircraft dumping flares or a fighter using its afterburner (for an incredibly short period, at like 3,000 feet, which also makes little sense). The flares would be lit up for longer, not shoot forwards and mostly go out as they fell at a fast rate (unless they were defective flares).
Old rocket pods can be used on the F-18, and if Ukrainian MiGs can be rigged up to fire HARMs, I assume the Israelis could have them set up on fixed wing craft (they don't fly the F-18). But why they would use them when they have such a hard time hitting their targets is another question. In any event, it would be more likely to come from a helicopter.
But if it's a weapon functioning as intended, it would have to be some sort of incendiary given the damage. If the goal was to kill people in the parking lot, this wouldn't make a lot of sense, and if the goal was to hit the hospital it would also make less sense. You'd have to sort of assume that Israel preselected a very different sort of weapon to hit this target than the ones they are currently using with the intent of deniability. I just don't see that when they are already leveling buildings with weapons they are quite obviously coming from their planes and doing a blockade that is plenty easy to condemn.
NGO's have given their opinion. The BBC, ABC, CNN, each had contacted panels of experts, although they are mostly Western firms staffed by former members of Western militaries, diplomatic corps, or intelligence services.
I haven't seen any that don't suggest that a failing rocket would be the most obvious cause, although not the only possible cause. But note that none of them have done a ground investigation yet.
It just seems to me that, if the argument is that "the Western defense agencies and NGOs will all go to bat for Israel," and if Israel's goal was "just to kill a lot of civilians," why wouldn't they use a more effective weapon? Why not just level the place with a real bomb and then say it was a munitions explosion, cook off from some accidental detonation? Or a defective rocket setting off cook off because "you know that Hamas, they love storing munitions near hospitals and schools?"
If you knew NGOs would lie for you, then you just attack. But I find it implausible that all the NGOs contacted are being dishonest since I've met plenty of former and current US security officials who are none too fond of Israel, and I don't think Israel thinks they can get away with that either.
True, but what rocket? As far as I have been able to tell the biggest one Hamas uses is the Qassam-3, which is comparable (if not essentially the same?) to a BM-21 Grad. They both use a simple and relatively small 20kg warhead.
Videos of Grad explosions are easy to find on the internet - just your run of the mill puff of smoke and dirt - not the type of fireball seen in the videos of the hospital bombing, though admittedly those are taken at night-time which might alter perception.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
There are a lot of variants of the Hellfire, and they were originally anti-tank missiles which were later modified for use by drones against personnel, so the warheads used are quite small. (10kg range) Though they're also modern and (obviously) a lot more sophisticated than the BM-21 Grad, which may account for the increased blast and lethality.
Supposedly the R9E and R9H variants of the AGM-114R (Hellfire II Romeo) were made with reduced explosive yield to minimize collateral damage, but I haven't been able to find proper sources for these types in particular.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I guess with term 'air burst' I was pointing at the fact that the munition used may have been the type that explodes before it hits the ground and thus leaves less of an impact zone (though it increases lethality). This would explain the lack of a crater, but it would also make Israel the likely culprit since I am not aware of Hamas using that type of munitions.
I'm not sure if you believe that is inconsistent with the pictures of the damage? Or perhaps what you mean is that it can't be caused by particular airburst munitions like those that can be fired from artillery platforms (which would involve shrapnel, which wasn't found at the scene).
Just to avoid confusion, what I'm referring to is any type of munition that does not explode on impact, but on proximity with the ground.
It would have to be a low yield antipersonnel weapon that is somehow mainly an incidiary. There was a large fireball and most of the damage seems to be from fire, which isn't what you'd expect from a high explosive weapon used to target infantry. I don't know if anything like that exists for the Hellfire, but there are old Vietnam era incidiary rockets.
You have cars quite close to the explosion in some aftermath videos with some cracked windows and some that are still fine. So it's a weird combo of lots of fire damage but weak blast damage.
And I think that the time has passed. Either Hamas or Hezbollah, even both of them on the same time, don't make an existential threat to Israel. Israel has the capability to deal with them. Israel has total air superiority, an a far more capable modern combined arms army. Plus a nuclear deterrence.
Then it has unwavering support from the US. Support from other Western countries and neither Putin's Russia or China will be hostile against it.
Why would they need to take any steps towards a real two state solution? Especially when there's already over 600 000 settlers in the West Bank and after the opening of the borders in Eastern Europe, the Jewish migration from there has made them to have a comfortable Jewish majority in Israel.
Quoting schopenhauer1
The pacifist approach might have worked in a different situation, but especially on the Palestinian side it has been always the militant wing that has dominated the scene. And actually the origins of the Jewish state are similar armed groups.
First and foremost, the origins aren't in political instability inside a country, but in straight forward war as the British simply left their former Mandate. This has lead to the conflict being a continuation of a war, basically. And that's the difference with the Israeli side too: it isn't a police matter, it has always been a military matter fighting the PLO and the Palestinians. In Lebanon the civil war could be ended by the opposing factions going back to negotiations and trying to cooperate in an already existing state. With the Palestinians, the state of Israel is not part of them, but an entity that the opposing side of the conflict has created. Hence there is no Ghandi or MLK figure in Palestine. It would as if there weren't any Civil Rights Movement in the US, but just the Black Panthers. And that the Blacks weren't taken here as slaves, but had existed in the US just like the few Native-Americans now.
As I discussed with , there is a thermobaric version of the Hellfire II missile designated the AGM-114N.
Supposedly there are also versions of the Hellfire II Romeo that are have lowered explosive payloads to reduce collateral damage (presumably for use in counterinsurgency operations), but I haven't found any good sources with details about those.
While thermobaric weapons are known for their effectiveness in buildings, it's unclear to me what type of damage they would do outside of a building. (Or for example, if they were directed at a building but detonating outside - would it still produce a blastwave that travels inside?)
Still, the question perhaps isn't what exact weapon was used in this strike, but whether Hamas has weapons that show these types of characteristics.
For a BM-21 Grad type weapon (which is what I am assuming the Qassam-3 is roughly an equivalent to) the blast seems too large. Further, the most commonly used ammunition is high explosive fragmentation, but someone noted that no signs of shrapnel were found at the scene.
A malfunction seems a hard sell, given the deadliness of the blast.
Well, on the other hand we do have photos of actual Hamas/Hezbollah Katjusha rockets that have hit Israel:
The hypocrisy is of another planet, considering how readily the EU lectures other nations on human rights.
It's hard to imagine US/EU credibility sinking even further, but alas here we are.
I guess they still believe it's 1991 and they can get away with anything.
We are governed by toddlers.
It's the brief time to go to Israel and show the support.
It's more awkward when the land operation begins and the Palestinians really start dying and then be there telling how you support Israel. After all, all those reservists need some refresher training before they can operate as a team in urban combat.
I'm still hoping they don't decide to do this. The more I consider it, the less likely it seems like they can remove Hamas this way,
A thermobaric missile is highly unlikely to have light a vehicle on fire without breaking all the windows.
Not to mention, this makes the entire EU look like a joke. After all, the EU loves pointing the finger at other nations when it comes to human rights and international law - but not in the case of Israel, it seems.
This is why EU leaders aren't respected abroad.
Interesting pictures by the way. The damage done at the al-Ahli hospital certainly seems within the range of what a Hamas rocket could do. It's just the death toll and the blast which seem strange to me.
But I guess what you are referring to is the fireball in relation to the blast wave. Which is a good point.
Intel bulletin says terror groups are calling on supporters to target U.S., Israeli interests amid Israel-Hamas conflict
[sup]— Catherine Herridge, Nicole Sganga · CBS · Oct 18, 2023[/sup]
Protesters clashing was reported earlier
Right, and a large blast wave that extends beyond it. If this was a thermobaric weapon then it didn't work correctly.
Quoting Tzeentch
:up:
Such a weird juxtaposition of the first sentence with the rest of the paragraph. In one fell swoop you admitted, the moderate Pals failed, and then instead of going into that phenomenon, you immediately pivoted to Israel, when the focus was on moderate Pals and their failure. As I said earlier, it is this lack of encouragement from insiders and the world community that doesn't help the already recalcitrant moderate leadership to make the compromise (a thing whereby you have to give up certain things to gain other things). That is a huge deal. Security, peace, and moving on with living everyday life was missed for perpetual grievance and war.
Quoting ssu
Indeed, but as that history showed, it didn't happen in a complete vacuum. Prior to the one I posted, there was also the various wars with Arab nations (not just Palestinians). It wasn't until the 90s that it became solely focused on dealing with Palestinians sans other countries (like traditional enemies like Egypt and Jordan, which had made peace agreements over time). So really, this conflict starts with Oslo Accords and the failure of those and the move to the right as a result.
Quoting ssu
I mean this just seems like making excuses. There is no Hegelian-like definite pattern anyone must follow in X situation. It's not like, "In this situation non-violence can be used, and in this other it should not". And someone can come back and then say, "Fine, if non-violence is not an option because it is X situation, then Israel cannot be compared with apartheid because Palestine is seen not as part of Israel but as an opposing group run by terrorists, and therefore are taking protective measures".
All this is to say, it seems clear you have picked your side which "can never do wrong" and now everything they do is justified or must be Israel's fault.
When I joined the thread, I first engaged with @Baden but stopped when he admitted that if Hamas ran all of Israel (and thus it was effectively Palestine only), they would probably be horrific to every Jew under their control. And I am not even talking about "revenge" but just their MO.
Even in peace time we've had things like an A-10 firing shells into a (thankfully unoccupied) middle school. People I know who flew in Blackhawks regularly still called them the "Crashhawk." War is chaotic. Explosives are dangerous even in a civilian workplace context. Negligence is bad, but one incident doesn't represent negligence. It more justified to complain if the problem is regular, e.g., Russia's shoot downs of its own aircraft in Ukraine seems like someone should be blamed, or the incident itself involves gross negligence (e.g. the Soviet shoot down of the Korean airliner where the pilot was extremely skeptical about firing and was ordered to anyhow).
Uh, call in hundreds of thousands of reservists and they just what, sit around and then go back home? And Bibi has already called it a war.
I think that we are past that. Israel has made already recon attacks. It has already pounded Gaza. Of course I could be wrong, but I think it's very likely that IDF will go into Gaza.
Perhaps they cut Gaza into two and then go through the northern part of the city, Gaza proper.
Quoting schopenhauer1
When was it the failure of the moderate Palestinians? Even the moderate Palestinians have wanted for an independent country that, and what they might have accepted would be West Bank and the Gaza. But that independent Palestine in West Bank has been something that Israel has never accepted.
In my view, there was a time when Isreal was willing to cut a deal. Perhaps then Arafat hesitated too much. Yet then that time passed. Israel thought that perhaps the US would loose interest after the Cold War ended and had to do something with the Palestinians. Well, the Evangelicals and AIPAC never lost interest. Bibi Netanyahu became the longest serving prime minister and now is for the third time in office with new settlements going up. How viable is an independent state in the separated plots of land that basically the PA has?
And there is nothing that would push Israel to commit to this anymore. Israel under sanctions? No. Is it really threatened as earlier? Actually, no. It gets enough support now from being a victim.
When was that in question by me?
Quoting ssu
And yet, again, you make a weird juxtoposition (this time starting with how big bad Israel never wanted to accept an independent Palestine), and then go on to this admission:
Quoting ssu
And AGAIN, like a broken record, or reflex, you gloss over this huge part of the equation that led to so much conflict that came after, and the very thing that was supposed to be a capstone/end to the Oslo Accords and build inroads towards a final peace, without constant grievance, violence, and using the powerful tool of compromise.
Quoting ssu
As long as you ignore that the moderate Pals failed, and this pushed Israeli sentiment towards the idea that if moderates can't make a deal, no deal can be had... Then you will miss the boat and just keep playing the broken record. You do realize your bias is very apparent. Not as bad as Benkei's who seems raving mad, and wouldn't mind a Hamas run Palestine, and ultimate death and destruction, as long as it means Palestinians "won". It's a little more moderated, but still quite blatant, the blind spot.
So which side you think I'm on?
As I've stated, there are the Kurds, the Basques, actually quite many people that don't have their own land. We've just witnessed one group of people having had to leave where they'd lived after a many decade conflict came to one conclusion in Nagorno Karabakh.
I wouldn't even consider the PLO as "moderates", mind you. They have had their own list of terrorist actions that they have done. And btw they have fought also the Lebanese and the Jordanian Army, so not so "moderate" as you are implying.
And naturally the PLO, or now the PA, hasn't been able to control the bits they have had. Gaza is now in the hands of the Hamas. Which at least before was great for Israel. Now, not so.
Israel simply needs to have neighbors like Egypt and Jordan, which can keep the peace. So it really isn't a "bias" that I have forgotten.
I know what you are implying, but I am not sure if it's a cultural thing, but there needs to be a culture of compromise for any of it to work. I know this is crazy, but Israel in the past had been willing to compromise, but Arab neighbors and then Pals, tended to want all or nothing.
Where I would agree with you is that Netanyahu was/is ruinous and Israel needs to go to its roots in liberal compromise.
I think it's more about weakness than strength, actually. Imagine what would happen to a Lebanese government, if it tried to make peace with Israel? Not only would be the Hezbollah against it. Just look at the riots now in Beirut near the US Embassy.
The most powerful Arab nation did make it's peace with Israel. It could make this as it has actually shown it wasn't the total loser after the Six Day war, but did put up a limited operation against Israel during the Yom Kippur war.
I mean, again, we can probably start talking culture here, but doesn't that support Israel's wariness of hostile neighbors? Why can't Lebanon moderate either? A bloody civil war is unwanted, but perhaps there is more tacit support than would be willing for that to happen in Lebanon. I don't know the full situation there other than Hezbollah has a large percentage of their "parliament".
Quoting ssu
I think once they gave up the "let's conquer our common enemy" and just focused on stability, they realized that was the best move. Of course, in order to do that, it needed to go back to the usual authoritarianism.
It seems that compromise, and moderation are not going to work when you have religious para-military style governments running a country like Lebanon.
You are saying all this on your own assumption of ethnic separation as the basis for peace. If this was in your own country would you want that for yourself? For a more distanced analogy how does this work in the US or Canada with indigenous peoples who were granted lands forever, do they want separation (Some in fact do, and claim 'historical' rights.)?
Hamas just recently killed some toddlers:
War is hell. Dresden, Berlin, etc. Were bombed pretty damn heavily:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Berlin_in_World_War_II#:~:text=The%20death%20toll%20amounted%20to,left%20homeless%20or%20%22dehoused%22.
Well, I'm not sure do they have an working government. Lebanon is nearly a failed state. Hezbollah, which does have seats in the Lebanese Parliament, is basically in charge of Southern Lebanon. Hence the Lebanese Army doesn't enjoy monopoly in the country. And what was the Lebanese government left to do when Israel had it's war with Lebanon? Then prime minister Siniora made a declaration after the the casualties Lebanon suffered that Lebanon would be "the last Arab country to make peace with Israel".
But perhaps they ought to be more moderate, after being bombed and all that.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes, because the Egyptian voters voted "wrongly" and voted the Muslim Brotherhood to power, who weren't at all so eager to continue the warm relations with Egypt.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Does this look like para-military style government? I think it looks like there's no government, no President. The last government is only acting as a caretaker government because the Lebanese have been incapable of forming an government. Hezbollah isn't the state of Lebanon, remember!
Well, in general nation states tend to be divided by ethnic lines.
My country could have an ethnic division between the Finnish speaking majority and the Swedish speaking minority. Yet the fortunate thing is that the Swedish speaking think of themselves as Finns also and not Swedes. The Finnish majority hasn't ever considered them as foreigners, not at least since the Early Middle Ages. And after WW2 language hasn't been any kind of problem for the new independent Finland.
Quoting magritte
There's five million Native Americans in the US, which is 1,5% of the population or with mixed heritage about nearly 3%. There's even far more Asian Americans in the US. Perhaps when there's 1,5% Palestinians left (now every fifth in Isreal is an Arab) of the Israeli population, they can be granted similar reservations with similar gambling rights? (Oh darn! I think Islam forbids gambling.)
Man, you might be the most schizophrenic poster on this topic on here.
Quoting ssu
1) As to Lebanon, sounds about right in terms of the government, except then you go on to blame Israel, the knee jerk reaction. As if there is a group that doesn't want to see Israel destroyed in there...
Quoting ssu
2) Yeah, I wonder why Israel wouldn't want to see the group that was the progenitor for Hamas, a group that would like nothing better than to wipe Israel off the face of the map, retain power..
Also, if an enemy combatant came into your country, killed your civilians in brutal ways, and then took 200 hostages, no one is going to question if the government should try to root out the perpetrators if they had the means to do so, unless you are SSU, Benkei et al from philosophy forum, seated high in their academic bubble. Next you'll quote Mao and Lenin, and colonization and all the rest without nuance either. It's all part of a same package of an ideology gone off the rails. The "West" (post-WW2 reality) is "bad", and any group that is generally aligned against it, is good. What bullshit.
This just shows an odd "glitch" in this (your) thinking where it is recognized that various actors, countries and groups missed opportunities (the Arab countries with the Three No's when peace was offered for return of captured lands in 67, the second attempt to destroy Israel in 1973, the missed opportunity to take a deal in the Camp David Accords, etc.), but then goes back to the skipped record, and still redirects attention always to the bias against Israel.
Yes, what is annoying is that neither side wants to state that they are doing this for revenge. Public Relations, you know. We have a 'prison break' on one hand and 'Israel attempting to defend' on the other hand. Pretty harmless.
Quoting Manuel
Well then the state must be having different goals from that of the people, what could these be? Dare I suggest they are self-serving?
Many a terrorist was once an ordinary human being. Unless you assume terrorists are born, then you have to assume that terrorists are created by the social environment, given that some of the population will have a tendency to accept violence as a means of solving their problems. It happens all over the world.
Israels' response is predictable, and not irrational as such, given that rationality has to be judged on the basis of what the actions aim to achieve.
The problem is that governments and groups, knowing that they are lighting a powder keg with a short fuse, then proceed to deliberately proceed, or deliberately risk letting it happen. These are intentions that are pretty clear. Some groups on each side want a solution based on their terms, and when these groups are in power, like Hamas, then you can expect them to push for it.
Unless states are democratic, meaning, directly responsible to the voters, instead of concentrated interests of power, they will do whatever power asks.
Now, you'd need to establish a system in which citizens tell prime ministers or presidents what they demand, not politicians telling voter what they (the politicians think that the people) want to hear.
Have you morphed into a Democrat? Just curious.
Thank you for the history.
The question that needs to be asked is: are the Israeli governments and the Palestinian governments acting in the best interests of its people, long term? These are in terms of social and political interests?
If the goal of Israel is to annex and control the Palestinian areas, and the goal of Hamas is to take control somehow over the entire land of Israel, sort of a Palestinian Nettanhayu -type far right government, then supporting one over the other is a matter of deciding whose cause is right. Human rights abuses abound, to be sure.
What we learn from history is the suppression of groups of people, if it succeeds, will lead to a lasting peace. Human rights? The entire history of the world can be described as a litany of human rights abuses, from one era to another. This is how history is made.
I don't think so, but If Bush, Kasich, Christie, Pence, and Trump are all Republicans, I'm not sure what it means to be a Republican.
I mean, this "it is what it is" seems like political nihilism writ large. Granted, the stories of country formations are almost all replete with bloodshed, my point with that quote that you referenced was that in this conflict, there were many missed opportunities by the Palestinian moderates to get almost all of what they wanted. I see on this forum that people DO recognize this, but IMMEDIATELY pivot to blaming Israel for these failures.
And so did Israel. Your point being?
Strawman as I've said again and again about Hezbollah, which isn't the Lebanese government. Your the one asking why "Lebanon cannot moderate". Well, that "Lebanon" is nearing to be a failed state if it isn't and doesn't have the ability to control it's territories. Yet for you it seems "Hezbollah = whole Lebanon". I don't think especially the Maronite Christians in Lebanon are actively engaged in the war in Israel.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well, that's basically one of the reasons the military took over the country. So bitch about them being not democratic. Democracy isn't this miracle drug that makes people change their thoughts.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Quite a strawman there again. What I have said that Hamas and Likud embrace each other. Netanyahu wants to annex Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Hamas just works for him giving him the evil city with the human animals. There's no other way for Israel than to go into Gaza, really, not even if the opposition would be in power. That's the natural response when you have an army like IDF. If a country would be weak and couldn't do anything about the terrorists strikes, then there wouldn't be anything else than plea help. But Israel has a strong military which can go into Gaza. And Hamas basically wants that. Those religious zealots think there's the next generations growing, so it's not so bad for them if they take a hit now. The following battles will just deepen the hatred for the Jewish State, which is their purpose. And for Likud it's the perfect event that just show how it's impossible to do any peace agreement, that any compromise with the Palestinians backfires. Everybody that has tried that has been wrong, because just look at what happened.
And that's it. I don't believe that there's going to be a peace process or peace. People should be truly war weary to find a two state solution, and that not yet.
Sad, but apparently true.
My point was that it would require a civil war to gain control back from rogue actor Hezbollah de facto doing whatever it wants. They don't want that, as they've already seen a bunch of conflict and don't have the stomach for it again. Either way, this causes major instability and allows Iran to bolster these para-military, extra-governmental actors, who can act with impunity within Lebanese borders.
Quoting ssu
Oh you can have an illiberal democracy, where a majority of people vote in people who take away others' rights, and want to see a theocratic-oriented state, etc. But generally when we use the term "democratic" we mean a state that recognizes rights and have free and fair elections, allow freedom of speech, press, ideas, etc. But add to that an illiberal democracy that calls for perpetual war and aides terrorist operations, then yeah, I'm glad the authoritarian forces put a lid on that. Would I rather them form a liberal democracy? Of course. But that doesn't seem the sentiment there.
If people vote in Nazis into power somewhere, I don't support it just because a majority voted them in. That represents not only an illiberal democracy, but an illiberal democracy that is voting out democratic principles.
Quoting ssu
@Baden
So again, I provide you all my previous posts where I present the fact that Arab nations/Palestinians had the ability to take a deal but rejected it. Do you ever put any onus on the Palestinians, or is it always going to be Israel's fault no matter what? And I think you have shown the (broken record) answer to this. It is just a knee-jerk response for a contingent of people. I'm going to dub this the "underdog fallacy", not all groups that have less military power are in the right. Hamas represents a barbaric group that has shown in its suicide bombings and then these kind of barbaric attacks where they parade dead bodies, kill babies brutally, etc. are not people to negotiate with. And I present you exactly what I said in the last post:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Who would you prefer babysit your toddler? Israel or Hamas? More to the point, who would you trust as a nuclear power, Israel or Iran?
You're on the verge of sounding racist, dude. I'm sure that's not what you intended.
:up:
The international community should have stepped in.
Attaining hegemony in 1991, the United States had every opportunity, but by and large neglected to do so for reasons of domestic policy, many of which relating to the Israel lobby.
As the United States attained hegemony, Israel felt that with its big brother at the wheel, it no longer had to look for a modus vivendi but could press home the advantage.
If I had to point at one party in particular to be responsible - as in, having reasonably the power to make a change for the better - it might have to be the United States. It used its near-total power to impose circumstances on nations far and wide, but somehow never in the regions that truly required an imposed solution.
There can be extremists on either side, but this doesn't discount the lack of moderate Palestinians to take a deal and start moving on living their lives, trading with Israel economically, and trying to make a prosperous country for themselves and their children rather than no compromising on what really matters, and creating a prosperous situation for themselves. I absolutely will not concede on this point because in this forum at least, that is where I see people's blindspot because it doesn't confirm their biases and narratives apparently.
Quoting Tzeentch
They did. It was called the Oslo Accords. Arafat could have taken a deal and that last deal could have made him ironically from "fighter" to "founder".. But I doubt he ever really wanted more than the former image. We might have had 25 years of prosperity between two co-existing nations. But it wasn't. And all I can see is a lack of moderation from the majority on the Pals side- the ability to make compromise and give up all or nothing mentality.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yeah I think they should continually always want the moderates to go for peace talks, but find the Palestinian moderates. I will gladly recount the history one more time about why Israel shifted to the right in the 2000s.
With all due respect, Israel has been doing everything it can to make life impossible for Palestinians.
Gaza we needn't even mention, but the situation in the West Bank is barely any better. It's a police state, where Palestinians are policed by the Israeli army and the Israelis are policed by the Israeli police (who are nowhere to be found).
Palestinians cannot freely traverse Israeli-controlled areas of the West Bank, and if you look at this map of the West Bank, you will see how entire communities are cut off.
The mechanism is simple: Israeli settlers illegally settle somewhere in the West Bank, whereupon the Israeli army is forced to protect them and create an area of Israeli control, thus making life impossible for Palestinians living in the immediate vicinity and slowly driving them out.
When people talk about Israel ethnically cleansing the Palestinian territories, this is what they're talking about.
I try to stay impartial and maintain some understanding for the Israeli position, but at the same time we cannot pretend this isn't happening. There is no semblance of an equal playing field. Every day of "peace" means more Palestinians are driven from their homes. This settlement policy is essentially a slow annexation and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. How are Palestinians supposed to build up a prosperous existence amidst all of this?
Quoting schopenhauer1
Arafat could have accepted a deal on the Israeli's terms. Would that have been better than no deal at all? I think nowadays many would say yes. But it's not reasonable to shove all blame into Arafat's shoes.
There's a lot to be said about the Oslo Accords, and you know full well that it wasn't as simple as what you're sketching here.
At the same time, I will agree with you that leadership on both sides failed. And it failed for reasons which were understandable. This conflict is far too severe to expect either side to act within the bounds of reason and indeed they are chronically incapable of it.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Considering the circumstances many Palestinians find themselves in, it's an miracle moderate Palestinians still exist.
Regardless, the US had a lot of power, which it wielded with little restraint. Did it have the power to pressure either or both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict to an agreement? I think it did. I think for domestic reasons, it didn't.
In as far as Israel should relinquish control to PA, sure. But PA will have to step into role of constant mediator for their own extremists. Do they have the will to do this? So how should Israel proceed. What happens many times is, Israel relinquishes control, then the extremists do some attack, and then Israel takes control again because it says that the PA can't do a good job containing their own extremists. I am not sure the answer to this. Israel is going to act out of security when this happens, but I guess some sort of commission should be had whereby the PA sees what failed and what can be given to them to improve their ability to police their territory?
Quoting Tzeentch
Yep, I certainly support ousting Israel's right-wing and Netanyahu. This idea that peace is only had through dissolution is ruinous as I've stated earlier. You see, I am not for Likud/right-wing aims/conduct but the reason I don't emphasize that is because most people on this forum already agree with that, and if I mention it, that just gives excuses not to look at the disastrous policies that the Palestinians have followed for the last 35+ years or so. I am rooting out the clear bias. If it was the otherside where I would bring up Netanyahu not living up to Israel's own principles, thus negating it's moral authority. But see, then that will be seen (falsely) as the notion that it's okay that Palestinians have not been able to create a majority of democratically-minded compromisers who are willing to quash their own radicals.
Quoting Tzeentch
It's a matter of if the moderates are willing to clamp down on the radicals and ARE there enough moderates to do so? If so, then Israel should do all it's power to embolden the moderate Palestinian forces. The move should be away from tactical and onto strategic.
Quoting Tzeentch
I'd disagree here. Pride killed that deal for Arafat. But you do admit that it would have been better had he taken the deal at least in hindsight. Good leaders consider the long term, not their own popularity at the moment, granting that you still need practical wheeling-and-dealing to get the vision accomplished.
Quoting Tzeentch
Should I recount the history again? This didn't happen in a vacuum. The underdog fallacy is that the underdog is always right because they have less military power. If you look at the actual history leading up to the 2000s, Israel was willing to take whatever deal was given them when they were the "underdog". The Arab nations/Palestinians refused every time. Then when Israel was concerned about security (remember all the suicide bombing of the 90s?), somehow its security concerns when negotiating doesn't matter. It's always them in the wrong. I don't think you see the bias there.
Getting rid of the Israeli settlements, thus giving the PA complete control over the West Bank, is sadly not going to happen. There are too many Israeli settlements. Those settlers are essentially the Israeli equivalent of extremists. Removing Israeli settlers as has happened in the Sinai and Gaza is extremely difficult for the Israeli government, and they can't do it on the scale that would be required here.
The situation is fucked, and dare I say it is fucked on purpose.
Quoting schopenhauer1
In line with what I stated earlier, under the conditions of the Israel-Palestine conflict, it's no surprise radicals spring up, and extremism is hard to combat. How do you tell a person that lost their child, whether they be Israeli or Palestinian, to ever bury that hatchet?
My sense is both Israel and Palestine struggle with the issue, and it's one of the reasons why it's not realistic to expect them to simply get together and solve things.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Personally, I don't believe the current Israeli establishment is interested in a two-state solution, and they haven't been since at least 1995.
Maybe the new generation of Israelis will push for policies more geared towards reconcilation, which I believe is the only real long-term solution. There is some indication that this might happen and young Israelis are generally a lot more critical of their government.
I do believe Netanyahu is a symptom of the US unipolar moment, and that moment has now all but ended. But current events have me fearing Netanyahu won't quietly fade away but go out with a bang.
Moderates in Palestine? Yes, I believe there are many. Most people are interested in living a peaceful existence. I visited the West Bank in 2019, and that at least was my impression.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Agreed, but the same could be said for Israeli leaders.
My personal opinion is that a two-state solution was never all that feasible, for a variety of reasons.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I don't think that's true. In the 2000's Israel was far from the underdog. In the '60s, '70s, yes, a case could be made for Israel being the underdog. In 2000, with Uncle Sam at the wheel? I don't think so.
Suicide bombings are an act of desperation. Yes, Israel's security concerns should be, and should have been taken seriously.
It's very difficult, but not impossible. I don't see why it cannot happen in principle.
A one state solution as of now, that would be much more difficult than removing the settlements, so far as I can see.
This would be the ONLY hope. And the willingness to clamp down on radicals.
Quoting Tzeentch
I think that is a fallacy of necessity argument. No, suicide bombings and barbaric attacks (like Hamas just did) is not at all a necessary action. This brings up a larger argument, but I think it is cultural and contingent, and not a determined part of human or political behavior/action.
And thus my point here was:
Quoting Tzeentch
Yes, so in those scenarios where Israel was the underdog, they acted in a way to get peace, not the opposite. Actually let's go further back even. Israel was willing to take these deals, all of which were denied by the Arabs (and Palestinians):
Peel Commission 1937 (Israel/Jews were underdogs but accepted this):
1947 UN Partition (Israel/Jews were underdogs but accepted this):
Quoting Tzeentch
Which is why strict 1967 borders have been seen as a concern (beyond just the settlement issue).
I said it was an act of desperation, not necessity. I think it's terrible such things should happen, and I think it is only rational that Israel should try to guard itself against such attacks.
Quoting schopenhauer1
If we take the 60's and 70's as reference, Israel acted by absolutely clobbering its opponents militarily.
The theat Israel faced during the Yom Kippur war was very serious. Had they lost, it would have meant the end of Israel. I'm not blind to that fact.
Prior to 1948, I think it's only reasonable that the Palestinians refused to be kicked out the lands they owned. The 1948 "agreement" we can thank the British for.
From 1973 onward, and especially 1991 onward, I don't think Israel could realistically be considered an underdog anymore considering the state of its enemies, and who its allies were.
Quoting schopenhauer1
A two-state solution would, in my opinion, severely compromise Israel geopolitically. It already has zero strategic depth and is surrounded by historical adversaries.
This is why I never saw a two-state solution as being realistic.
Neither. Both rationalize murdering each other's children.
Neither. Both states are run by religious extremists.
How is it racist? It is a fact that Israel is more progressive and less oppressive than Iran and Hamas. Just look at how they treat gays. These hamas sympathizers are suspect - not only do they seem to be antisemetic, they also come off as homophobic.
Does any of that impact an Iranian's ability to take care of a toddler?
Fyi AP seems to be confirming now, based on the evidence available to them, that it was most likely a Hamas rocket.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-hospital-rocket-gaza-e0fa550faa4678f024797b72132452e3
My comment that "it would sound like it's incoming no matter who shot the rocket" turned out to make a lot of sense I think.
So continued condemnation for a barbaric terrorist organization that keeps its own people hostage by perpetuating/provoking a war with its neighbor, funnels almost any money it can get from operating its country to its military/violent wing, has no conscience, treats Israelis and own people as expendable pawns, hides its supplies and reserves in hospitals and schools, only cares about death of its citizens when it can be used as propaganda, not actually protecting human life, right?
As if Hamas wasn’t capable of mass collateral damage of its own people and then trying to gain world sympathy from it. That’s literally their whole MO! And since it wasn’t as removed as an enemy combatant dropping bombs, they had to double down on the propaganda. The already primed Arab extremists and unreasoned supporters would take the bait of course. At that point the mobs of mainly young men are just waiting to be activated.
For a US president to try and score good boy points with perhaps the most controversial and corrupt prime minister Israel has ever had at the expense of what little stability there was in the Middle-East is as pathetic as it is dangerous.
I don't think I've ever seen a US administration mismanage foreign policy this badly. Literally everything they touch turns into a trainwreck.
Throwing more red meat to the forum bias masses I see.
Netanyahu is the prime minister he has to work with, that is independent of supporting Israel in theory and supporting a strategic ally specifically after being surprise attacked.
And Biden in his speech did tell them to not to fall into the trap that US did after being attacked and to abide by its liberal democratic principles.
You stated yourself the strategic difficulty of Israel. In this kind of incident, Biden isn’t going to jeopardize that in a hostage situation and the type of indiscriminate killing that started it.
Israel's strategic challenges are going to increase dramatically if it alienates the entire Middle-East and thus becomes permanently surrounded by enemies - enemies which are now not as weak as they were in 1973 and have powerful allies of their own.
Relying on its big brother to avoid having to find a modus vivendi with its neighbors is what caused this situation to not have moved an inch in the past decades.
It's the United States' pathetic groveling that has encouraged Israel to stay on this ultimately self-defeating path.
By siding with Israel's hardliners the US is bringing Israel closer to the cliff and burning bridges in the process, but few people seem to realize this.
I am not attempting to convince anybody about who is responsible for the explosion in the hospital parking lot, by the way have any of the investigators/experts identified this as a hospital parking lot, not a hospital?
It seems like a religion has sprung up around the Hospital attack story. All I can ask is that everyone get as much information from the second hand reports put out by news outlets and decided for themselves.
Just a few things to point out, from the above report:
Other sites have stated that it could be an weapon that detonates in the air, leaving a small crater or maybe none at all.
I will be looking at the videos:
No definitive proof - AP
For comparison, 2019 missile strike, but this time a longer ranged missile possibly with a larger warhead?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-47689684
Quoting NYT
Launched from Palestinian fighter positions, yes, and not from Israeli forces? I take it then that Israeli forces are not embedded in Palestinian fighter positions?
The IDF confirms that calls were made to evacuate the hospital. I saw on Israeli commentator saying 'you mean the hospital under which Hamas stores weapons?'
This BBC report shows a video of a single projectile in the sky, breaking up and exploding.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67144061
It also shows the hospital and the graveyard - right next to the hospital. In close proximity, next door, virtually. Surely this is not what they mean?
Quoting CNN
The rocket explodes, leaves no fiery trail to the ground, but still has enough unburned fuel to cause an explosion on the ground?
Hamas has been 'pretty smart to stay of communications' - except to discuss failed rocket launches.
If two people discuss a rocket explosion in Arabic, does that mean anything? How do we know these are Hamas operatives?
I am not presenting any conclusive evidence either way. I am just pointing out that the reporting on this is confused, and some news outlets have drawn conclusions while others say they cannot draw conclusions. Maybe they have access to different experts and reporters, but that proves that their knowledge is incomplete.
Meanwhile, no-one is suggesting that the 4,000 plus deaths in Gaza are anything less than Israeli IDF attacks. Yet they want to defend a 200 to 450 deaths in a hospital parking lot. Very strange.
And yes, a misfired rocket did cause casualties earlier, read Wikipedia's rocket attacks on Israel page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel
Total dead, 2001 to 2015: 33. Thirty three.
Note the final entry deliberately fails to mention that over 300 were killed in the last attack, as in stands in contrast to the others.
Have a look at the videos on the Oslo Accords, and how far they have progressed from there!
Also see a 1978 video of Benjamin Nettan. "Do you believe the Palestinians have a right to a separate state?" No.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1c-DSZ_l9Q
Transcript
Why on Earth would anyone conducting a serious investigation include a line like this in their article?
Anyway, you can find similarly (presumably) biased reports "debunking" the Israeli story on channels like Al Jazeera, so honestly it's impossible to say for certain what happened.
AP seems to be presenting nothing new or conclusive, so the idea that they are in a position to be "confirming" anything is a bit naive, to put it mildly.
From the start I think this looked like a precision strike and not like a 1 in 1,000,000 fluke, even if simply by virtue of likelihood, but again, at this point there's no way to say for sure.
Simply not putting onus back where it belongs. Seems deflection to me. If you want to talk about the greater breakdown of strategic 2 state solutions, that makes sense. Moderate Pals need the backbone to do it. They need their Arab Allie’s ti encourage them to not stay on this ultimately self-defeating path. They also just need outright condemnation of Hamas.
I can’t imagine how the allies could have conducted the end of WW2 if at every bombing raid of Nazi Germany, even at the point when Nazi Germany was no longer a real threat to the other countries for all intents and purposes (circa 1945), they were condemned.
Granted ALL of that consideration, I do think Israel has to figure out how to conduct operations without mass bombings. My point with the Ww2 analogy is that, (and I’m by no means a military tactician) these type of bombings seem to be apart of ground operations as well to minimize the casualties on the side that is about to send in ground troops.
But I also realize in other cases I it has other objectives. For example if you have two rational actors (they both care about protecting human lives for their own people) the bigger country will force the smaller to stop the very first time the smaller one sees how much damage the bigger one is willing to inflict. That’s not the case with Hamas.
Edit: not to mention that the objective at the end of the war was fully accepted defeat by the Nazi opponents.
I don't agree.
You can't justify the actions of Israel's hardliners through Hamas. In fact, said hardliners have at various points in time supported Hamas to weaken the PLO and reduce support for a two-state solution.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Mass bombing has never made a whole lot of sense. At the end of WW2 not a single German city was left standing, yet they fought on till the bitter end.
And this is also not WW2 - this is basically Israel conducting a counterinsurgency operation. Mass bombing during counterinsurgency operations has the opposite effect, since the huge amounts of civilian casualties ensure the extremist elements grow.
Quoting schopenhauer1
This sounds like caveman logic to me.
If this were a feasible strategy I don't think the United States would have suffered a string of defeats at the hands of much smaller nations which it bombed completely into the ground.
30 years ago, perhaps. I can't say that I can credit the western press with much objectivity these days, and I don't think AP is an exception.
The Biden administration is simply too incompetent to see this. And even if it did, it doesn't have anyone that can credibly conduct diplomacy in the Middle-East anymore (which makes the situation that much worse), because they're that incompetent.
So instead it defers to the safe option which is trying to score good boy points with Israel in the hopes of securing domestic support from the Israel lobby. Again, it's utterly pathetic.
You mean nearly 20 years ago when the extent of how they operate as a para-governmental entity wasn't known yet and as you stated earlier were almost co-equal with Fatah in terrorist acts? (Obviously that has been far exceeded by this point). Who should have known better than think that Hamas was going to reform?
Also, Quoting tim wood
Absolutely, right on. Well-stated
. :fire: :up:
Quoting Tzeentch
Besides the fact that your first statement sort of contradicts your second statement (did they keep fighting or not?.. The answer is yes they kept going, but they were eventually defeated.), your analysis contra my analogy just seems wrong here.
When analyzing history, we have to make sure to understand what elements can be somewhat comparable and what elements are incompatible. Granted, there will be disagreement, I think there can be comparisons and contrasts that can be made to highlight how conflict is waged in general.
In some sense, even though Nazi Germany was extremely rigid and hierarchical (and in that sense predictable actors in war), by the end of the war, Hitler acted irrationally. Instead of giving up when it was known the defeat was all but inevitable, he encouraged the rigid compliant hierarchy to carry on to the bitter end. It was not until after he literally had to commit suicide, that the German leadership had to give up the ghost and finally declare unconditional surrender. In that sense there are some similarities of irrational actors waging war. Hitler wanted hand-to-hand street combat, all hands on deck, women and children fighting to the bitter end. He wanted nothing less than absolute maximum resistance to the end. Hamas being irrational actors, want the same thing. Death does not make a difference to them. Protecting their own people's lives makes no difference to them. The bombings in WW2 were for several reasons. The main one was to destroy weapons and manufacturing facilities. The other was to cause fear and break their will and to stop resisting. But you see, Nazi Germany wasn't representing a "just cause" JUST because they (by that point) were the underdog! I think most historians (minus very egregious examples like the fire bombing of Dresden) agree this war could only be won with full surrender of Germany. And by this point, the unbelievable amount of devastation that had taken place perpetrated by the Nazis just did not give the Allies any pause on this one.
Quoting Tzeentch
That's because (and justifiably), they did not have an unconditional surrender mentality as in WW2, as they knew those wars were not worth it in the end. The times there were actual hot wars during the Cold War did indeed have very spotty (if any) justification (such as the whole "Domino Theory" during Vietnam).
Netanyahu receives widespread criticism for this policy.
How Benjamin Netanyahu Empowered Hamas (The Telegraph, 2023)
I'm not sure what else there is to say about it. Netanyahu helped create Hamas, just like the US helped create Al Qaeda, ISIS, etc.
He used Hamas specifically to sabotage the PLO to avoid having serious talks about two-state solutions and other peace plans.
It follows a familiar pattern. Trying to downplay it is senseless.
Quoting schopenhauer1
The first statement is about WW2, the second statement is about conducting counterinsurgency.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Israel is not fighting WW2. It's conducting a counterinsurgency. The dynamics are totally different, and I don't see the point in this comparison.
In both cases the effectiveness of mass bombing is questionable (in the case of counterinsurgency, outright rejected as a viable strategy).
By far the most-widely supported method of counterinsurgency is the so-called 'Hearts & Minds' approach, in which the side conducting the counterinsurgency seeks to win over the civilian population and erode support for the insurgents.
Indiscriminate bombing achieves the exact opposite.
Quoting schopenhauer1
The US committed de facto genocide in Vietnam, and it wasn't enough to secure them victory.
This method (sadly) has been tried, and it has failed every time. turning the perpetrators into the very monsters they claimed they were fighting.
My point in the comparison is Hitler wanted a counterinsurgency, and in some sense, towards the end of the war, it can be characterized as such in the fact that, why fight when by all rational analysis you are going to be defeated?
And the major point was that this fight was NOT A JUST ONE, just because they were an underdog and were getting heavily bombed.. with many civilians dead, homes destroyed, and displacement of population. All of it terrible that any of it had to take place obviously.
For the rest of it, I'll get to.
Al Arabiya questioning Hamas leaders. Echoes of the same anti-Western propaganda one can read also in this thread.
:100: :fire:
Way too many folks "can't handle the truth!"
[quote=reportedly spoken by the commander of the Albigensian Crusade, prior to the massacre at Béziers on 22 July 1209]Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.[/quote]
It's amazing what Hamas can just say and the whole world will believe.
Hamas is exploiting the weaknesses of the Western media. As Putin does. The West is much easier to divide. Anyways I wouldn't lose sight of the geopolitical implications of this conflict in Israel wrt the wider/ideological conflict between the West and the Rest.
There is little doubt that the current Israeli government is taking a hard liners stand. There is nothing wrong with being a hard-liner. Was Sir Winston Churchill a hardliner? Some Israelis and former Israeli Prime Minister - at least one - calls out this right wing government. Many previous Israeli governments have ordered attacks on Gaza, I am sure. There have been swings of the pendulum.
I mentioned the Oslo accords: have a look at what the Prime Minster at that time said:
Quoting Israeli PM Rabin, 1993
He ends quoting the scriptures
It is clear that the time for peace has not yet come. So the cycle continues.
I did a little searching about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, first by watching his interview in 1978 that I posted a link to above. In another interview, he mentions his brother, and that thousands came to his funeral (Rabin was there, according to Mr. Netanyahu, and little did he know that Mr. Netanyahu would be attending Rabin's funeral.
Yani Netanyahu's fame was was in leading the raid in Entebbe to release hostages. He was the only Israeli armed personel killed when they were leaving the airport.
Looking at Mr. Netanyahu, I feel I cannot blame him. He grew up in an environment whose very existence was based on the the the practice of creating artificial nations and destroying local demographics that the colonial powers were so hell bent on doing. Maybe they did not know better. Jewish people also had been squeezed out of many nations due to anti-antisemitism. In fact, the founder of Zionism it was a second option to integration into the societies they lived in. He wanted Jews to integrate into the societies he lived in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzion_Netanyahu
There is a nice map, which shows the Biblical Israel, very attractive to some Christians and some Jews alike, I guess.
These different and mutually exclusive positions.
Channel 4, for example, an anti-government channel, in my opinion, has this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pAuDA6IOwc
CNN and other media outlets, on the other hand, accept the Israeli version of the story.
Sides are taken, but so many years down the road, no one has done enough to for the civilians.
I hope the nations of the world can do something to solve this conflict, new media tends to ignore civilian suffering: Yemen, Sudan, these are all ongoing disasters right now. Somethings wrong.
Look at the headlines:
While searching for "Hellfire Missile" I found that Israel has an air to surface missile with a '20 metre kill radius'. Apparently the warhead survives the explosion.
Quoting IAI
https://www.iai.co.il/p/sledgehammer
Quoting ReliefWeb
Quoting Jerusalem Post
In my opinion, this is terrorizing.
This in 2021. They seem to have abandoned giving warnings now.
This is the Israeli military. We need to bomb your home
It is to our shame we did not pay attention to this madness and try to stop it ten, twenty years ago...crazy
This is the Israeli military. We need to bomb your home
I had no idea. I did not know. Some people portrayed this as a good thing, the 'roof knock'
Fool that I was.
Apartheid at best, genocide and ethnic cleansing at worst.
But because it's Israel, we have to pretend that what we're seeing is not in fact violent ultranationalism.
Critical voices in Israel itself have no qualms calling it out for what it is:
Religious Ultranationalist Zionists Have Taken Over Israel (Haaretz, 2015)
To be clear, much of this the Israeli government does entirely by choice and has nothing to do with military necessity or Israeli security. If anything it fundamentally undermines Israeli security both domestically and internationally.
Quoting FreeEmotion
If you thought Israeli ultranationalists were crazy, you should see some of the Christian evangelical groups that support Israel.
They support Israel literally because they believe it will fulfill a biblical prophecy that brings about the end times.
Half of evangelicals support Israel because they believe it is important for fulfilling end-times prophecy (Washington Post, 2018)
Sadly, these types of nutcases somehow hold a lot of political clout. No wonder things are a mess, eh?
... messianic Jewish settlers & Hamas.
Your accusations of schizophrenia happen only because you seem to have the problem that the victim cannot be also a perpetrator and vice versa. Yet in reality it's often so. And that people have to choose a side and then be supporters of that side, which means you don't bring the negative aspects of whom you support, seems to be how you approach this conflict.
Quoting schopenhauer1
They simply don't have the capability! If the IDF couldn't erase Hezbollah out from World in the last war, how on Earth do you ever think the puny little Lebanese army could ever do that? Hezbollah has fought better against Israel than the whole Syrian Army in the 1980's, which happened to occupy large parts of Lebanon back then. It has had long backing from the Iranians and have focused on the little things like small unit fighting that is important in war.
Quoting schopenhauer1
And with that "democratic" term, with free and fair elections, the Muslim Brotherhood came into power in Egypt. And if they wouldn't have been thrown out in a military coup, I'm sure that they wouldn't have allowed free press and the freedoms what we think of being an integral part of the system. And do note that the military coup had it's supporters also. There isn't going on an ongoing large fight against Sisi's government.
Yet people did vote for them, just as the ONCE voted for Hamas. You cannot deny that. It's the typical arrogant Western fallacy that if you have free elections, people will vote for parties that want to build a Western style democracy with all the liberal perks.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well, sorry, but people can vote "wrong". And you can then blame the people for voting "wrong". I don't, it's a danger that comes with people power. If the "normal" parties end up being totally worthless in the eyes of the voters, they will vote for otherwise "fringe" parties. That's why thing like BREXIT or Trump happen even to us. I won't start then blaming somehow the people for being against democracy or so, it's simply that the political system has failed. For example in Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood was the only party with a large grass roots organization. Pretty hard for liberal parties to start up when everything Western is typically related to the former rulers and their corruption and inefficiency.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well, seem you don't read my comments. Just like now, by killing civilians and anyone possible they could reach in Israel, Hamas has made it's best effort to ruin any idea of peace of a two-state settlement, and it was done on purpose. And is the PA innocent here? No, not only has there been corruption, but mistakes have been done starting when Jasser Arafat didn't take deal when it was the best for him. But then there's just the question just how independent the Palestine would have been. Sorry, but religios zealots have a too big influence over the events in the Middle East. And just as the emergence of Hamas is a fact like the building of the settlements to the West Bank, we obviously aren't where we were in the 1990's. I don't see a peaceful solution here. Just more of the same: suffering and hatred.
As one stated, we are talking about the doppler effect and how projectiles sound. And then it's one hand held recorder (phone or video camera). The bigger fire explosion than usually from a rocket can be explained with the existing rocket fuel. The video doesn't capture the actual projectile. So as I've earlier said, the rocket is also a possibility and the now damage shows it wasn't an air-to-ground HE bomb.
Exactly.
Basically the conflicts in the Middle East are upheld by religious zealots. This isn't actually the only one: There also the Shia - Sunni divide and the fear of the Shia crescent lead by Iran, from which we have the Saudi lead war in Yemen and also in way also the Syrian civil war (Alawites & other religions vs Sunni extremists). Perhaps only with the Kurds vs Turkey / Iran / Iraq / Syria -conflict religion isn't as important.
I despise any group that treats women as second class citizens, whether they be brown, black, or lily white MAGA Republicans.
Quoting United Nations Report S/1994/674
Quoting United Nations
Ok. But you've been making statements about how Israel ought to conquer the whole region, and then vague swipes which appear to be directed at Muslims in general. I hear you saying you have no problem with Muslims as a group, you just hate sexism. I agree with that.
In a way, the idea about the origins of Israel is relevant and irrelevant. It is relevant in that it was the inability for the Arab nations/Palestinians to accept any Jewish political presence in the Levant. It's not relevant because it is the reality that there were several wars, Israel decisively won them, and Palestinians who are moderate have to accept some reality whereby they live within borders peaceably if they want their own country and peace.
But being a philosophy forum, we can bring in the broader philosophy of British/Western European ideas of nationalism, and how the malignant aspects of nationalism were also transferred to people's in non-European regions with dire consequences. The region was ruled, by the Ottoman Empire since 1516. Before that it was various empires like the Mamluks, the Crusaders, the Umayyads, etc. Many Palestinians also ended up working for Jewish business operations, which complicates the economic interdependency of the late 19th century and early 20th century. That is to say, here is a region marred with European notions of "statehood" and injected in a region bringing with it the hatreds that come with that notion. What is the substantive difference between the groups WITHIN Syria or Lebanon and Iraq versus the external borders? Was it that European powers like Britain and France, carved it up to benefit them? Why was Jordan "given" to the Hashemite dynasty? Could it be for helping them in various campaigns and allying with them against their enemies in various World Wars?
On Gaza, Israel's "open-air concentration camp" and breeding ground for (Israel/Bibi-created) Hamas ...
Finkelstein is someone I could listen to. Comparing the Palestinians to his Jewish holocaust survivor mother; and then to the slave revolts; even Jesus would weep.
At the end of the day, \violent/barbaric means is not going to convince Israel that Palestine is looking for for a round of negotiations and living peacefully. If somehow supporting violence/barbarism/terrorism to get your message across is in any way supposed to push Israel to "realize" their wrongs, it hasn't and currently isn't working. And if the intentions are for the betterment of their people, certainly provoking a response that leads to mass death for their people (and this isn't an unknown at this point), certainly indicates supremely bad actors (both in their decision-making and their values) and does not represent anything resembling a protector of their own people or a furthering of their cause (unless the cause is more death and hardened hearts).
Again, rooting out bias here, if the point is that "two wrongs don't make a right", that certainly goes for the violent actions of the terrorist actors who are launching attacks from Gaza.
Let us say another direction was taken whereby the people on the streets chanted "Palestine for Peace!" not just random outlier videos you find on YouTube but a sort of Intifada for Peace initiative that sweeps the country. But people on this forum have the same black-and-white thinking- that change is seen as always had by the price of blood. Advocating it as somehow justified in its due course to me is sickening. As I said, it's all terrible. There has to be a better way other than justifications for violence.
For now, you are going to have to wait it out, as the wound is too fresh. No way is a country hardened by decades of tit-for-tat conflict going to let an assault by ground/air/water, one that led to captive hostages, breaching into communities and having the elderly, mothers, fathers, and children gunned down, maimed, and burned going, to just let that fly. Unfortunately, the other side of the coin is going to be carried out.
Then perhaps all of it can reset yet again, or more of this barbarism and "security measures" continue and a regional war.
The people have to stop living on past grievances, learn that the other person is human, and actually figure out what the point of existing is. If it is to hold grudges and not carry on with life, then it's just nihilism. It's keeping the trauma and finger pointing going because that is all they know.
Rage should not be the only response to grievances. That in itself is an ethical value to consider. How can one turn it into something constructive? How can peaceful means be used rather than crass nihilistic violence? Enough is enough. The grievance-to-barbarism cycle has to stop or continued death is all there is.
I hear you. One of the things that's really hard to understand is honor killing. It's where male family members kill their sister/daughter by beating her to death for dishonoring the family. One woman who survived this kind of attack said her family tried to kill her for running away from an abusive arranged marriage. She said her mother and sister-in-law were there and looked on approvingly. It haunted me for a while, so abysmal.
In 1948, about 80,000 Jews lived in Egypt, in 2016, it was 6. In Iran, in 1948, there were 140,000 to 150,000, in 2019, 8,300. There are 0 in Jordan. At the end of WWI, Lebanon had 3,500, now 29. Libya had 40,000 in the 1940s, now it has 0.
The systematic effort to remove the Jews from the middle east has been largely successful.
When they were expelled from these nations, they immigrated largely to Palestine, but the effort to remove them has been unrelenting. I mean, why can't they just leave Israel once and for all and just go to New York where they can live without bothering people.
Middle Eastern countries have been driving out Christians as well.
.
From the propaganda I've read, Palestinians make up a significant portion of Israeli citizenship. If all true, then there is no possible dispute about where the problem lies.
With all due respect, the prinicipal bias I see in this thread comes from people who are unwilling to condemn widespread human rights violations for what they are.
Condemning Israel's brutal treatment of the Palestinians does not mean one is taking sides, or that one is biased towards the Palestinian side of things.
In my view, it is a prerequisite for any reasonable discussion on the subject. The same goes for condemning terror attacks on civilians by Hamas.
If we can't agree on something as basic as the value of human rights as a bar to which we should hold nations and actors morally and politically accountable, we may as well revert back to the law of the jungle.
There is a lot of criticism in Israel itself regarding these policies. I've already linked to several articles of critical voices within Israel, and often their opinions are even more scathing of Israel's practices than any critic of Israel you'll find in this thread. Sadly, the Israeli left has little to no political power.
Quoting Hanover
You think something might have happened in and around this year that could explain a sudden souring of relations between Arabs and Jews?
Anyway, no one is denying the history of antisemitism in the Middle-East. Trying to excuse Israel's treatment of Palestinians in this way is familiar caveman logic.
Those are obviously not the objectives here. Hamas doesn't want for Israel to "realize" anything. It's intentions aren't surely protecting the people in the open area prison called Gaza.
You really should understand that Hamas is a religious organization, not some Western political movement thinking of politics in the Western way. Just read what Hamas and it's political leadership says about the objectives.
This is what the Hamas chief political leader, Ismail Haniyeh told on the first day of the Campaign:
On Arabs that seek normalization/two state solution with Israel he said the following:
A message to other countries, especially other Arab countries:
And finally, just why now?
(the whole text here)
I think the above states quite obviously the reasons why Hamas made this all out attack. It was because the whole Palestinian issue was starting to be sidelined. It was because of even Saudi-Arabia was coming closer to officially normalize relations with Israel. Well, the Palestine cause is back now thank to them. And to have it be an important issue, Hamas needs more martyrs!
Hence it's quite easy to understand that if the thousand fighters can infiltrate to Israel what Israel's response would be. It's eerily similar as with the tiny cabal called Al Qaeda, which in an outrageous fashion declared that killing Americans, any Americans, civilians or children, would be a good thing. That naturally caught the attention of the US many years earlier from 9/11 happening. And then after 9/11, again achieving strategic surprise with the lax domestic flight security and using airliners as projectiles, the US did unleash it's War on Terror, which actually is still fought. That was the whole intention. Now Israel has responded with war and with the majority of the reserves being mobilized. And Israel will very likely go into Gaza.
And Hamas will indeed have it's martyrs for it's Holy War.
The righteousness of of any people is directly proportional to the amount of blood they are prepared to sacrifice. That is the agreement that makes war possible, and the spilling of blood maintains identity and unity.
How else can we identify both ourselves and the common good, except by contrast with the others and their common evil?
[quote=Churchill]We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, We shall never surrender.[/quote]
The fight is always existential; the blood shed demonstrates the worth of the bloodline, without which 'we' dissolve into mere 'folk' and 'sheeple'.
Yet all the 'People of the Book' will agree on the barbarity of the human sacrifice of "primitive people", even as they contend to pile up the most of 'their own' copses to prove their virtue.
Do you think you are different?
Sari Bashi's statements are the most objective and fair statements I have ever heard on this conflict, and from a totally humanitarian point of view. Thanks for the video.
I like to hear Finkelstein's point of view, however I am 1 hour into the 2 hour video.
I watched Dr. Gabor's view one I can agree with.
ChatGPT may flag questions regarding Gaza as violating its policy. So watch out.
https://thinkmarketingmagazine.com/chat-gpt-joins-the-list-of-israel-biased-platforms/
How will this end, possibly? Did you know the war in Lebanon killed over 20,000 people?
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/12/how-will-the-israel-hamas-war-end-here-are-several-possible-outcomes.html
Are the nations of the world complicit? Were they?
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/6/1/the-uns-responsibility-to-protect-doctrine-in-palestine
Their own, or the blood of civilians?
I would like to know what everyone's basic assumptions are, axioms will determine the rhetoric, so the basic beliefs regarding war, peace and government, colonialism, these all apply.
Here is what I subscribe to at the moment:
Quoting UN Charter
Everyone agree?
As if there is more than one kind of person. "The blood of our civilians is sacred, but the blood of your civilians doesn't count at all."
Yes, you are making my case. Not only are their means evil but so is their ends. Perverted religious ideology of death. People on this forum don’t want to recognize that is what Israel is dealing with. And it’s a devils ploy. If you don’t attack back they are emboldened and it’s victory emboldens more attack. If they do attack back, the inevitable collateral damage (because they hide amongst the civilians) will cause world outcry. The knee-jerk leftist types, academics, quite frankly many of the types on forums like this, fall for it. They’ve made their bed with a death cult.
I dare say it is some form of antisemitism or Judenheit but couldn’t tell you if that’s some subconscious reason for the inability for clarity or just delusion. There has to be accountability on the side that is creating and supporting the death cult or at the least acknowledge the reason Israel would want to root out the death cult.
Netanyahu should have absolutely tried to work with the PLO for a two state solution but the evil thinking is that thus one can expect the death cult is the fucked up thinking I see on this forum. There is no empathy. It’s a kind of ignorance only found in the halls of academia.
Everyone agrees, of course.
Except the enemy.
Perhaps reference this:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/847759
The point here is that the Arab nations have been expelling Jews from "their" land historically and during modern times. That clear case of apartheid for some reason is overlooked. What's also overlooked is that while there has been a Jewish presence in Palestine for thousands of years, a large portion of today's Jews are the descendants of refugees from all over the globe. Jews currently exist in their largest numbers (although still very small) in Israel and the US, and then way down the list you come up with France and the UK, but those numbers are very low.
The big picture here, if you're not seeing it, is that this tiny minority is being evicted from everywhere they go, including Israel, one of the only places available. If not for the US, where do you think they'd go?
Israel's treatment of the Palestinians while shocking to you appears to overlook the fact that Palestinians butchered and burnt babies, raped women, and took the very old as hostages. The outrage that followed Israel's supposed bombing of the hospital seems to have been muted as evidence comes forward that it was Hamas. Why not the outrage and protests against Hamas for bombing a hospital? Will you take to the streets if evidence is confirmed it was Hamas?
So you would say, on the atrocity scale, that Hamas has "crossed the line"?
I wasn't aware there was a spectrum of genocidal intent.
Claiming either side has a moral edge in justifying murder is....justifying murder.
Should the Allies have bombed Nazi Germany in 1945?
Still looking for the moral high ground? The moral high ground, preferably with a deep surrounding ditch of historical persecution and subjugation, is always the most easily defensible, especially when guarded by "innocent civilians".
And how exactly does this excuse human rights abuses and crimes against humanity?
Quoting Hanover
Equating Palestinians to Hamas is tasteless. I'd love to see where you're going with this logic.
Would you like to answer that question?
They are God's chosen people.
Everything else pertaining to them follows from that.
What should happen is that people stop try to justify and legitimize violence in all of its repulsive aspects. Morality is exercised in living contexts, not historical evaluations.
Certainly. What one should do in these circumstances is die. It's very clear; Jesus did it and he told his followers to do it. And everyone can understand it. The blood sacrifice has to be made. All the horror comes from wanting someone else to do it.
:lol:
I would love that too. I write a whole post also condemning the perpetual cycle of violence. But the point was to illustrate how the situation can be framed whereby it is both true it is absolutely wrong that any innocent civilian dies in war and yet there is still a justification in a war with a combatant who by all means is rotten in both its means and ends (Nazis and Hamas).
And thus whilst I consider Israel justified in its war on Hamas, it will be an extremely unfortunate fact that just like innocent Germans were bombed and died, Gazans being under this rule unfortunately also fall under this circumstance.
That being said, I think Israel should abide by its own principles in war and provide as much aide as possible to Gazans, keep its air strikes only at targets that are absolutely seen as necessary to disarm them, not just anywhere they suspect. They need to actually have a strategic plan for a two state solution and work to bolster the moderate Palestinians.
Reasonable.
Fire across the Lebanese and Syrian border ramped up, with 27 Hezbollah members and 7 members of Islamic Jihad and Hamas killed, as well as 6 or 7 (conflicting reports) members of the IDF.
The Islamic State and Al Qaeda called for global attacks on Jews, but what else is new? Contra to their position here, Jihadis seem to be taking advantage of the distraction this generates for Syria and Iran to carry out their own offensives. But of course, Assad is "just as evil." I recall the (dubious, to say the least) IS propaganda videos claiming SAA forces forced prisoners to chant "there is no God but Assad," and defile Korans.
IS stands to gain from new Turkish operations in Syria, while the SDF will be hindred in their fight against IS by them. The SDF itself has been implicated in gross use of force violations, mass arrests, disappearances, and killings, in their offensive operations against Arab tribes in Deir ez Zor.
Lebanon's economy is in shambles, the power and water grid failing, Beirut still a mess after the 2 kiloton explosion that rocked it. And yet Hezbollah's harassing attacks promise to bring more strikes down, and obviously this is not particularly pleasing for Hezbollah's many enemies. Lebanon is an economic basket case, and this has caused the scars of its 1975-1990 civil war to begin reopening.
Iran continues to have problems with domestic unrest in its Persian community, and faces an even larger threat from growing resistance from their very large minority population, particularly the Kurds and Azeris. Meanwhile, what Azerbaijan plans military vis-á-vis Armenia still seems to be an open question.
The Taliban are facing an IS offensive and were exchanging fire with Iranian forces just the other month, with a growing fight over water rights. Aside from this, they face other active insurgent movements.
And of course, one could see the same sort of chaos erupting in Egypt or Saudi Arabia, a bit less so in Jordan.
Point being, the whole region is a basket case. The whole argument about "all the neighbors rallying to destroy Israel," is millenarian nonsense, and should never have been allowed to be a part of actual military strategy within Hamas. I continue to think they didn't think their attack would be as successful as it was, but the very idea of trying to mobilize support by getting your own civilians killed is pretty grim. Also very short sighted.
Suppose the Gulf States and Egypt did mobilize against Israel? It's unclear if they could win, and there is the nuclear deterrent, but moreover, if they occupied Gaza or southern Lebanon one of the first orders of business would be completely dismantling Hamas and Hezbollah.
The millenarian view seems to suppose that anger over Israel will be so powerful that it will lead to popular coups across the Arab states such that "everyone becomes allies." I don't get how anyone could look at the history and not think such a second, more violent "Arab Spring," wouldn't be far more likely to result in a cascade of civil wars instead.
I don't know if Hamas drank too much of their own Kool Aid, just badly miscalculated, or simply acted for Iranian interests here. The more I think about it the less sense it makes. Reminds me of the GOP, the lunatics begin running the asylum and torpedo their own efforts.
Are you confident about that? Israeli sources (Haaretz and the Times of Israel) are saying the IDF is pressuring the government to launch the invasion, despite expected casualties to soldiers.
As for Hezbollah, I don't know man, I don't think this tit-for-tat will continue for much longer, I just see a long trial of gasoline and a match held by a drunken hand, wobbling over the fuel.
The longer this goes, the worse the prospects are for a very big war to break out. Maybe you have different intuitions and/or sources.
Certainly not positive about it, but there has been movement on the hostage negotiation front, the US is calling for a delay, and there have been some Israeli press releases that seems to presage a further delay.
The IDFs problem is that a siege is by far and away the safest way to destroy Hamas but also a gross violation of human rights. Realistically, they can't choke Hamas off from food, electricity, etc. without doing it to everyone. If they were alone in a fort or something, the obvious move would be to just sit and wait until they surrender.
I don't think there is a way for them to "thread the needle," here. They're going to have to let a large amount of supplies through and this will mean that Hamas is supplied. There isn't a real way to constrict their access without constricting everyone elses too, especially since they are armed and organized and can make sure they get supplies first.
There used to be a theory that the Boston Tea Party was masterminded to bring about colonial unity in the face of British punishment. I think most historians today believe the people who dumped $12 million dollars worth of tea into the harbor didn't realize what they'd done till the next day. The mastermind was probably whiskey.
I lean toward that perspective for most events of this kind. There's no mastermind and no plan. But then, Muslims don't drink, so I may be missing something.
Personally, I don't think a siege will do anything to destroy Hamas. If anything, the suffering of ordinary people plays right into the hands of Hamas and will increase support for them, and erode support for the actions of the Netanyahu government.
It's even reasonable to assume that Hamas, probably being prepared for these types of repercussions, is among the best supplied in all of Gaza.
I've known plenty of Muslims who drink lol. But even without that, you can blame hashish and captagon, which Hamas sort of corners the market on in the Strip anyhow.
Maybe. But carrying ops out in total secrecy that result in massive collective suffering while failing to accomplish any real goal outside of that very suffering? And then preplanning so that you're sitting cozy on supplies while others go without? That could spark backlash.
For example, the Siege of Leningrad certainly made the residents hate the Germans, but it also sparked significant hatred of the party. One, for the incompetent defense and political moves that made the siege a reality. Then, for the way the party elite didn't starve and used their control of resources to oppress. And also for the total lack of concern the government seemed to show in people, blocking evacuations, etc. (something Hamas seems to be engaging in to some degree). Survivors have some tales of pretty profound hatred for their own leadership in bringing the situation about at least.
And of course, the Red Army had to rely heavily on coercion, summary executions. and "blocking detachments," throughout the war, precisely because of this sort of thing.
The KMT's inability to effectively resist the Japanese, and how that played into the hands of the CCP is a similar example. Hatred of the Japanese did not equate to love of the KMT, which was blamed for both failures and their own actions of brutality.
Edit: Just as an indicator, Hamas was against an evacuation of the north, and allegedly put efforts into stopping evacuees, but 700,000-800,000 appear to have left despite their calls. Were the border with Egypt open, it doesn't not seem like the call by Hamas for everyone to stay in place would be particularly well heeded. And who can blame them. Passing out weapons is one thing. Asking you to keep your family in a combat zone to be used as a shield?
That might sound reasonable in theory, but in practice it never works out that way, and because Israel is seen as the occupying force it will receive most if not all of the resentment resulting of it.
Such tactics have been tried before in history, because they seem to supply an easy solution that promises few losses on the side that conducts the counterinsurgency.
In reality, bombing campaigns and collective punishments have never worked. They have always strengthened the insurgency, while simultaneously inflicting immense suffering on civilian populations.
Even the United States, the nation with by far the most, and most accurate, firepower at its disposal, eventually was compelled to devise other strategies for conducting counterinsurgency that focused on a 'Hearts & Minds' approach.
If sieges and bombings could have given the Israelis an easy out, I'm sure somewhere in the last 16 years that would have already happened.
I don't think it's so.
I don't think anyone (or nearly anyone) thinks Israel isn't allowed to deal with the terrorist threat it's facing. It's really about how they deal with it and if Israel takes into consideration Palestinian civilians or not. Or if the Gaza is the evil city with human animals as Bibi and the defense minister have said...and that's what you give as an order for the military. Warfare does have laws and one should try stick to them. Those laws don't mean that civilian casualties cannot happen. It's about civilian casualties counted in the thousands and not in the tens of thousands. Or in the hundreds of thousands. Besides, the more Palestinian civilians die, the better for Hamas.
The fact is that warfare in a densely populated area is very costly for urban population. History tells this to us:
In Stalingrad in total about 1 to 2 million perished, but "only" about 40 000 civilians died.
The Warsaw Uprising: 50 000 Germans vs 20 000 - 49 000 Polish Home Army. Civilians killed in Warsaw is estimated between 150 000 to 200 000
Battle of Manila: US forces 38 000 vs perhaps 17 000 Japanese. Over one hundred thousand civilians died during the fighting (from 1 million or so).
Battle of Hue: US & South Vietnamese forces 15 000 vs perhaps 7 000 PAVN & VC. About five thousand civilians died during the fighting (from a population of 140 000).
First and Second Battles of Fallujah: US and allied forces about 13 000 vs 4 000 insurgents. Perhaps 1400 civilians killed (of over quarter of a million population).
So Gaza has 2,2 million people, and Hamas has perhaps 40 000 fighters. Already perhaps 5 000 have been killed in Gaza in the initial bombing without even the actual ground fighting having not yet started.
Question: Which picture is from Gaza? One thing tells it, when you think about it.
Gaza, who knows. Yet remember that Israel has basically twice tried to take care of Lebanon by launching an war against it. Twice it has had to retreat from Lebanon and then the rockets have flown again from there.
And what is dismantling Hamas? Great, you can declare that every Hamas leader is either dead or in captivity! And how much time when the next generation of Hamas comes into existence? A decade? So you'll have a few years before it's time "to mow the lawn again". How great is that idea of perpetual war?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Basically they can go into Gaza, clear it and declare that Hamas has been destroyed. Hope that after that relations will come to what they were before. And that's it. Then Bibi can wait before he's going to be fired just like Golda Meir was after the Yom Kippur war.
Never? You might consider how the PA lost its grip on Gaza and was able to be forced out in a violent coup. Hamas was able to gain power and influence, in large part because Fatah was seen as weak, ineffective [i]against Israel, and unable to provide improvements in quality of life.[/i]
The claim that an insurgent group can never lose enough traction due to bad performance to be replaced is falsified by Hamas' rise itself. Consider also Hezbollah vs. Amal in the context of an ongoing struggle with other groups within Lebanon, or the way the SDF is hemorrhaging Arab members due to its use of repression.
[quoteIn reality, bombing campaigns and collective punishments have never worked. They have always strengthened the insurgency, while simultaneously inflicting immense suffering on civilian populations.[/quote]
This simply isn't the case. The majority of insurgencies fail (84% in a dataset from 1900 containing 303 insurgencies). Guerillas/irregular forces are the sort least likely to win their conflicts (in comparison to conventional warfare of symmetrical non-conventional conflicts).
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40863761
E.g., FARC never took over Columbia. The various insurgencies in Egypt never succeeded in winning a victory over the government; this was only achieved (briefly) via non-military resistance. Syria crushed an earlier insurgency, prior to 2011. China has crushed insurgencies in East Turkistan, Tibet, etc. Stalin crushed post-WWII insurgencies. The Tamil Tigers were defeated despite the obvious zeal displayed in their frequent use of suicide attacks. The Shining Path is much reduced and clearly did not achieve a "victory," and the same is true of the Naxalites. The insurgency in Chechnya was also defeated, etc.
The illusion that insurgencies tend to be successful comes from two sources:
- First, the fact that these are the wars the West has been most likely to be engaged in since the end of the Second World War due to their lack of conventional peers. This is a cultural bias. Decolonization is wrapped into this, a larger historical phenomenon. Further, there is a strong selection bias at work here in that Western ground forces have generally only been used in conflicts were the state being supported is clearly out matched. No one much recalls support for states that just involves arms transfers.
Second, that insurgencies tend to last longer than any other type of war also helps sustain this illusion. Conventional wars tend to have the shortest duration, followed by SNC (neither side fielding significant amounts of armor, airpower, heavy artillery, e.g., Liberia, Sierra Leone, CAR, DRC, etc.). But it's a mistake to conflate staying power with victory. If anything, the fact that insurgencies tend to last so long is symptom of their inability to successfully win military contests.
Neither is it the case that insurgents that attack civilian targets in terror attacks (as opposed to military/police targets or property) are more likely to succeed. Every context is different, but writ large it seems to hurt insurgents' causes if anything.
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2010/RAND_MG965.sum.pdf
On a side note, it is also not the case the violent resistance is more likely to attain a total victory in removing a regime or achieving lesser concession than non-violent resistance, quite the opposite. And non-violent resistance has the added benefit of making future conflict less likely. Ghandhi wrote at length about the importance of "how you win" for the future. Unfortunately, a lot of people didn't listen and we had the disaster of the Partition, multiple wars since, and the sides aiming nuclear weapons at each other. Not that all the tensions can be tracked back to the Partition period, but a good deal can be.
https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-future-of-nonviolent-resistance-2/
Of course, every situation is different and there are different ways to run the numbers, but these are fairly robust trends (particularly the fact that insurgents tend to lose). This is not to say Hamas isn't justified in violent resistance of some sort. However, if your cause is important enough to kill for, then its important enough not to do things that make it less likely to succeed, and this is where I think this attack has been a catastrophic blunder.
This is not the case, although I think it holds true in this context. Stalin's massive use of force and absolutely massive scale internal deportations crushed resistance effectively. You can see large scale use of force defeating revolts going all the way back to the Roman destruction of the Second Temple and mass deportation of the Jews out of Judea.
I meant that "if an alliance of Egypt and the Gulf State joined the war on behalf of "the Palestinians," they would end up occupying Gaza as part of their offensive operations. And if they did that, they would almost certainly get rid of Hamas too, since they are enemies. I don't know if they would have the same "mowing the lawn" issues.
Likewise, if some sort of Arab expeditionary force attacked from the north, using Lebanon as a staging, ground, maybe coming down through Turkey maybe, crushing Hezbollah would likely be on their agenda as well eventually.
I mean, the whole idea is farcical in the first place. My point was simply that the whole "we'll provoke Israel so that they kill so many civilians that the whole Arab world joins the fight," is fanciful. It's fanciful because it's incredibly unlikely, but it's also fanciful for Hamas and Hezbollah to engage in because, as Iranian clients, they are ostensibly enemies of the very people that would be coming to "join the fray." The entire "everyone unites to take out Israel" delusion requires that everyone uniting magically puts down some extremely deep grudges.
Now, given what happened during the civil wars in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, the genocidal sectarian struggles there, this seems like pure delusion. That's what I mean by "insane millenarianism." And even if it worked and Israel was destroyed, it seems almost certain, in the current context, that "allies" wouldn't want to just hand over the land, nor that the Fatah - Hamas war wouldn't kick off again.
Obviously this. After the first die is cast, most plans are for the rubbish bins. Especially if you don't have several battalions in reserve and options to manoeuvre in the theater of war, which is simply too small here.
But as this massacre continues, Egypt and Jordan and others will be heavily pressuring Israel. A very general and uninspired comment is that, after this, it seems to me that the status quo of Gaza and the West Bank may not go back to how it has been until recently.
But, in wars, almost everyone is wrong. Too many factors involved.
Hey, great points and examples in history! :clap:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/terror-attack-bared-west-bank-barriers-gaps-but-some-say-holes-help-keep-the-peace/
As I stated earlier:
Quoting schopenhauer1
These are some reasons. There are others. I think no-one is paying attention to that, you can find it if you search.
Firstly, as in the past, 1,000 Hamas fighters were exchanged for 1 Israeli soldier. Now Hamas has taken hostages, and initially wanted some sort of swap,
Secondly, their stated goal on a TV interview is to 'weaken' Israel.
The killing of civilians? This is speculation, but I think some of the Hamas fighters (some in civilian clothes as you can see) and other 'volunteers' may have crossed the fence and with the same spirit of revenge that is in the air today, may have attacked and killed civilians. Also, some civilians may have been killed in the crossfire.
If the order was given to kill as many civilians as possible, why were some released before Hamas went back over the border? It proves someone was not following orders.
Notice no-one is protesting the killing of Israeli soldiers, some off-duty, and when a Hamas leader is killed along with his family, that is alright, but if an Israeli soldier is killed along with his family it is a horrific atrocity.
It is, as I stated, a very callous and suicidal method of operation, but then they are used to that, this was a suicide mission, after all.
The stated goal of Hamas is not peace, or a two-state solution. For some reason Israel propped them up, in their wisdom.
Why now?
The question is, who funded them, who supported them? The cold blooded planners have used them as pawns. Nothing new here.
Other views ( I don't agree with everything here, though)
https://warontherocks.com/2023/10/a-major-pivot-in-hamas-strategy/
That wasn't my claim.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
So why write a long post ignoring it? :brow:
Sure, if you're Stalin and willing to resort to mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide then everything is possible, I suppose.
My sense is indeed that Iran is heavily involved, and I don't think it's a coincidence that there are now three members of BRICS who take an adversarial stance towards the US are involved in a conflict with US proxies.
This is speculation, but I think that like Ukraine, the Israel-Gaza conflict will turn into a similarly stand-offish "forever war" (which it basically already is) that is supposed to drain US resources and resolve, and spread the US thin.
If Israel invades Gaza, it will have taken the bait that will turn the entire Middle-East against it, and essentially ensures the forever war takes place.
The question remains what the strategic endgame of this would be. In Ukraine it is more clear, but in the case of the Israel-Hamas war it is not.
I don't think they have any desire to do anything on behalf of Israel, that's for sure. Just like Egypt won't assist Israel on Nakba II and take the civilians from Gaza.
And if they come to the war on behalf of the Palestinians against Israel, that would be most unfortunate and is extremely risky. The only reason I can imagine is that Bibi goes full neocon and starts attacking everybody or goes for some kind of "final solution" in Gaza.
But I wouldn't hold my breath on the Saudis and especially the GCC to give anything else than money. I think that during the Yom Kippur war the Saudis sent few battalions to Syria, but they never fought the IDF. And for especially Egypt it's a risk. Besides, what would be the objective?
Far more likely (or smart) is simply go economically against Israel and the especially the supporters of Israel (US, UK, the West). If the Saudis can mend their relationship with Iran, why need of the US, especially if the US fully backs Israel and it becomes a huge tragedy in Gaza? Who needs then the Americans?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Well, they can always hope that US & Israel will attack Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. How do think that going with the Arab street? Israel killing Palestinians, Lebanon under attack, Syria under attack... and so on.
Hasn't there been already this kind of military engagement between the US Navy and the Houthis of Yemen?
Do not forget that the US still has it's "War on Terror" going on in the region. Remember George Bush and 9/11 and all that? Still going on...
And do you believe that Netanyahu has really a "strategic plan for a two state solution"? I think his strategic plan is to talk about a two state solution (to keep Americans happy) and make sure it never happens. This is the plan: destroy the terrorists.
It's like the EU having talks with Turkey (or whatever the name given to the state by Erdogan) about a "possible" EU membership for the country. Because the EU will never declare membership being out of the question...
Sorry, but to kill over 1400 civilians, you really have to make the effort. It's not just civilians getting into crossfire and a conditional that "some may have".
Quoting FreeEmotion
No one is protesting Israel killing Hamas fighters either, but typically killing families of soldiers is a war crime, assuming not everybody in the family is part of the military.
Quoting FreeEmotion
Yes, but that was some time ago when Israel thought it was a great "divide and conquer" strategy to have PA and Hamas fighting each other. Yet that is history now.
Aka "more of the same".
At what cost do we destroy terrorists?
History is replete with peace deals with the most vile dictators, terrorists (didn't we just hands Afghanistan back?) and belligerents. The idea peace isn't possible with Hamas is just a narrative people lap up because it's repeated ad nauseum and it's obvious bullshit. See: ISIL, IRA, ETA and Tamil Tigers.
Instead let's talk with the political deadweight Abbas. As if that will ever go anywhere. If you want peace, you talk to the enemy. Not a bystander.
Umm, actually ISIL and Tamil Tigers actually were destroyed. There was no "peace deal" with them in the end.
Of the end of the Tamil Tigers:
With ISIL/ISIS/IS it was basically the same. Of course anyone can pick up the crazy franchise again...hence the IS can naturally pop up again. Perhaps like Hamas can after its possible destruction, assuming it puts up a heroic fight in the eyes of the next generations of Palestinians.
Many terrorist organizations and independence movements do have met their end without a recognized peace deal.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-president-biden-israeli-pm-netanyahu-agree-to-continue-flow-of-humanitarian-aid-into-gaza-101698026717166.html
The statement that humanitarian aid might help Hamas terrorists is not relevant here, if these words are to be taken at face value, then 'continued flow of humanitarian aid and relief materials into Gaza' has been stated as official policy by the Israeli and US governments.
Given that statement, it means that the aid has to be flow in in sufficient quantities does everyone agree?
A ceasefire will help the trucks not get destroyed, but it would seem to be smart move if they want the relief to get through in sufficient quantities.
If they are going to 'destroy Hamas' I don't think they will mind giving them a few last meals.
There were many ceasefires and peace deals. At the end, the loss of life is very tragic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Civil_War
This is an interesting ethical problem, were it not so serious. Is war itself not a violation of human rights?
Quoting ssu
Most of the effort was directed there, however there were exceptions, that is what I am saying. Some witnesses do mention getting caught in the crossfire. Following orders allows no exceptions. I do not think the Hamas terrorists were asked to catch and release.
I find it interesting that killing an armed person in uniform in cold blood is somehow acceptable. Its curious. Is there some gentleman's agreement to kill or be killed, sounds macabre. Duels were once legal.
Number one thing is immediate security as a leader. That has to be dealt with first. Then the existential issue when not at hot war.
The problem here is that if sufficient aid is not brought to Gaza, it will be a literal genocide, not a figurative use of the word.
So, what's taking so long? 700 people were killed in Gaza last night.
Total guessing but I think that Hamas committed these atrocities to shaken up the situation, put Israel in such a bind that it may be forced into some negotiations if this escalates in a big way.
But there's no way to know as of now why they did what they did. The only thing they guaranteed for certain is mass death in Gaza. The rest, we don't know. Can't continue in this exact manner for too long, I don't think. Way too many people are being killed.
I'm probably wrong here and indeed many, many thousands more will die...
Found this:
Quoting AA
Either an insane or incompetent human being? Any guesses?
Another official, better this time. Did he mean minimize or maximize?
"We are in a huge effort... to minimise the civilian consequences of this conflict. But, and I say this very sadly, there will, and it is unfortunate and inevitable that this will continue to happen."
https://news.sky.com/story/israel-hamas-war-idf-says-civilian-deaths-inevitable-as-dozens-killed-in-southern-gaza-strikes-12986401
I think duels were usually not looked well upon. Totally different from how fighting well in war is respected.
But yes, war and warfare is one of the really crazy things that our societies have created. The monopoly of violence of the state in our society has comes close to this when you think about it, but warfare is really something spectacular compared to legal violence. Military men aren't psychopaths, but quite logical normal people. How we can compartmentalize issues is simply incredible.
And it's telling that in many ways we have become in many occasions far more savage again than earlier. As late as the 19th Century things were different.
(And then it's over. Russian and Finnish officers meeting after the armstice between the two countries in 1944. Note that here the Finns aren't surrendering, peace agreement was made later, yet the Finland and it's army are basically the same as before WW2 even having been on the losing side.)
In fact, the last war where both sides did extensively follow the laws of war was in the Falklands war. Either side didn't act war crimes. The only civilians killed during the Falklands war were three women who were killed when a Royal Navy shell hit the house they were sheltering in during a naval bombardment of military targets inside Stanley itself. That's not a war crime, that is what is stated to be collateral damage. The only accusations were made by Argentinians against Argentinian officers against their handling of their troops, which the Argentine court didn't see as crimes against humanity as the Argentinian military law did allow the harsh measures.
The violent attack on Israel is far worse than the defensive reply with violence. Defense is permitted, attack is not. Killing in defense is not as bad karma as murder during an assault.
But today I saw this appeal, made by Palestinian-Dutch actor Ramsey Nasr, and felt compelled to share it with TPF. It has subtitles.
I remember the good old days when 'defence' meant trying to stand your ground and chase the enemy off your territory, and attacking the ground your enemies held was called 'attack'. Life was simpler back then.
Yes, Israel definitely does not have a history of genocidal persecution of the Palestinians. The holocaust halo doesn't grant eternal moral immunity. The end does not justify the means. The means we use dictate the ends.
Proportionality is generally associated with retributivism and Kant, where the objective is punishment for the sake of punishment and it should be proportionate to the offense. For example, a person who murders receives 30 years in jail while a shoplifter receives probation, regardless of whether those sentences deter or reform the offender.
Israel's primary obective would be deterrence in trying to stop the ongoing violence. I would view its proper limitation as doing that which acheives the deterrence without violating some higher right or objective.
For example, if I shoot all shoplifters, I will eliminate shoplifting entirely, but I'd be opposed to that response on deterrence grounds not because it's disproportionate to the crime, but because the goal of preserving life is greater than preserving items in people's stores. That is, it's worse to kill people who steal from stores than to allow people to steal from stores without consequence. But that has nothing to do with proportionality. Proportionality would limit the punishment to a just dessert, perhaps providing to the offender a dose of unhappiness equal to what the offender received.
Consistent with this line of thinking is that we would not hesitate to put store owners out of business who sold dangerous products, again because we value people over store items.
So,
If the objective is to deter citizens from murder, rape, and kidnapping, the response will not be limited by the concept of proportionality, but it will be limited to its effectiveness as long as it does not violate some other higher principle. So, using the Israeli example, they may do whatever they need to to protect their citizens lives as long as the rights of their citizens are not of lesser value than what they are destroying. Unless you are going to convince the Israelis that the rights of Palestinians to kill Israelis exceeds the rights of the Israelis to stop Israeli death, you are not going to convince the Israelis their response is ethically invalid, and that's because it's not ethically invalid.
On the other hand, if you could arrive at a way for the Israelis to stop the violence against them that would not entail a similarly violent counter-response, then that would be ideal. What do you propose? How would you defend your home if it were under similar attack?
Proportionality is generally associated with international humanitarian law, and it is indeed one of the fundamental pillars of international humanitarian law.
To show a blatant disregard of it is to commit war crimes, pure and simple.
I have to imagine that the US is under attack from a strip of land that contains eight refugee camps. I have to imagine that this ungodly situation is a result of my country's generations old efforts to run them out or annihilate them. I think the answer is to reach out with compassion to them. Start trying to undo the damage.
As to what Israel should do. Israel is reaping what it sowed for years. It should start with dismantling it's apartheid regime and stop it's continuous well documented human rights violations. And getting parties in power that are actually interested in a two state solution, instead of the corrupt turds they have.
But Israel are God's chosen people! They are justified to do whatever they want.
And so is Gaza. According to reasoned third-party judgment, the terrorists and the IDF are both proceeding according to the above discussed ideals of world justice.
Why is it so hard to separate Hamas from the people of Gaza?
Should it not be up to the people of Gaza to reject terrorists ensconced in a maze of tunnels under the city? In all the world news I still don't hear anything of the sort anywhere. Apparently it was the Israeli babies' and old women's own fault that they were massacred by righteous Gaza freedom fighters.
Karma was defined by Buddha as cetana or intention or motive, not simple action alone. So the"good" motives of an individual or a nation or government can mitigate "bad" actions, and the converse is true - bad motives worsen bad actions or bad intentions weaken good actions. Here is Yogananda commenting on a line from Bhagavad Gita 10:38:
I am the rod of the discipliners
The rod is God's Law of cause and effect, karma, the ultimate discipliner. The errant man may escape the punishment of man-made laws, but karmic justice is inexorable, appeasable only by right actions which earn rewards of merit and ultimate pardon. The Bible also refers to the law of karma as "the rod": "Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me." [Psalms 23:4.] The karmic principle is a source of comfort to those who understand its discipline and rewards as pointing the way to true happiness and liberation.
Morally speaking it’s wrong to reward the barbarity that Hamas did. Pointing to collateral damage in response or the whole sidelining of the two state solution doesn’t justify negotiating with that kind of group. You reward the peaceful. Thus, you vote in the dives and you work with other doves. It’s insane to equate that kind of barbarity and think they’re equivalent to Sadat or something on the brink of a 1979 peace accord :roll:.
That'd be your response to your attacks? Seems like you'll be taking in heavy casualties while your dismantling and running elections.
Let's not pretend this is a chicken or egg situation. Terrorism has always been a reply to Israeli oppression. .
Quoting magritte
But they don't because Hamas until recently was more popular and would've won in the West Bank as well. And it was more popular because it didn't give away Palestinian rights during the Oslo Accords which is still opposed by a majority of Palestinians, yet inexplicably continues to be hailed as progress in the West.
:100:
And indiscriminate bombing has always been the reply to terrorism everywhere because there is no other effective answer. The answer to bombing is either annihilation of Hamas or escalation and spreading war to the entire region with the aim to eliminate Israel.
That's where Iran comes in. What is Iran's role as an instigator for Hamas to start the next regional war?
[quote=Romans 12: 19-21]Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.[/quote]
A silly dichotomy but unfortunately reflects a similar lack of imagination of both the media and our political leaders.
Do you not think Israel is guaranteeing the survival of Hamas in some form? I wonder if Hamas can only be permanently stopped by a police force within a functioning Palestinian state. Not that I think Hamas is the most pressing problem.
While I'm certain you don't intent to denigrate Palestinians, I find the usage of the dog analogy somewhat troubling. Because crucially a dog is not a moral subject and we don't expect a dog to have agency.
Isn't it at the core of human dignity that humans are responsible actors regardless of their situation? That is it would be dehumanising to treat humans simply as objects caught up in some situation, which then excludes agency and responsibility as two sides of the same coin.
If we're making a moral argument - as opposed to simply discussing the correct instrumentality to reach some result - we can't ignore the agency of either side. And this of course goes for Israel as well, where politicians all too often seek to avoid the moral argument by pointing to the allegedly inexorable demands of security.
Quoting bert1
Hama seems to me to be an embodiment of an idea. Even if you kill every last Hamas fighter, you can't kill the idea.
I do not think it is wholly in the power of Israel or the Palestinians to bury that idea. It's bound up in more global phenomena as well.
It's almost as though the oppression of millions of people is a proposition with no good outcomes... :chin:
Southern Gaza in Israel's sights as world leaders seek pause in fighting
First telling thousands of civilians to evacuate to the south of Gaza, only to intensify bombing there.
These people are unhinged. The Netanyahu regime has got to go. Can we get regime change in Israel, please?
I chose a dog because most people have more respect for animals than Palestinians and the imagery seems to work. A dog barely has agency, much as oppressed people don't. And I think it also reflects how people like Bibi actually see Palestinians; not human.
Drawing it out a bit further:
You have a pit bull tied to a chain in the yard. You underfeed it, you leave it in the cold, you poke it with a stick, and you do all you can to antagonize it. One day it breaks free from its leash, charges into your living room, starts chomping on your children, raping your parents and grandparents, and destroying all your property. No amount of "Down Fido!" seems to do the trick. Fido has arrived to give you the biggest mouthful of comeuppace he can muster and he's not backing down.
Your reponse, as you've indicated it would be, would be to dismantle the chain in the yard and to get the dog and the members in your household to figure out a way to give the dog a nice yard to live in seperate from your household so that the two of you may live peacefully.
The immediate question though seems to be what you are planning to do about the actual dog in the living room. Fido has your kid's leg in its mouth. Do you just say "Fair is fair my son. This dog, violent as he may seem, is just enjoying his just dessert. Justice demands we so endure"?
My response, contrary to your tempered and suicidal approach, is to kill the raging pit bull in my living room. While we may feel different duties to our families, and while I respect your right to let the dog settle all scores past and present on your kin, I think you can at least understand my feeling of duty, which is to eliminate the real and immediate threat threatening my family, which has become apparent through my son's severed and gnawed leg. That is, I would eliminate the dog, even if my kind hearted neighbors were shocked and dismayed because they thought I had earned this healthy dose of dog chomping.
This is to say, even if I were to buy into your argument that Israel represents an antagonizer of a helpless pup, I still don't think your response can be taken seriously. Your response does not give a nod to proportionality, as if to suggest that Israel has a right to a military response but just not as extreme as it has been. Your response is that Israel is entitled to no military response, but that it must lay down its neck and accept its punishment. If that were not your belief, I would think you would have permitted Israel some sort of responsive bombing or military attack, but here you've suggested no military response is acceptable.
An excellent way to live, for a nation or individual. The people of Israel have lived that way (not like a good Xtian of course) for decades. Now if Muslim leaders & their followers would do the same.
Quoting Proverbs 6, 16-19
Also
https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/16377/jewish/Chapter-6.htm
Is war permissible?
Worth quoting
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/war/#Nece
What are the ethics of peace, then? Is it better to seek a durable peace between two parties even at the expense of subjugation of one party by the other, since it saves lives, and minimizes damage? It depends on what is seen as important. Possibly the United Nations, and other parties, could focus their efforts in arranging for negotiations of peace at all costs, with the focus on a durable peace rather than justice, at least in the short term. Permitting illegal, covert operations to preserve the peace - is this allowable?
The problem with the dog analogy is that you can kill a dog and end the threat. You can't kill an idea while there are people left to believe it.
Israel is an apartheid regime: https://www.btselem.org/topic/apartheid
Israel detains Palestinians for bullshit reasons and no legal recourse: https://www.btselem.org/topic/administrative_detention In the thousands now.
Israel kills more Palestinians than vice versa by a factor of 5. The method really is irrelevant, dead is dead. https://statistics.btselem.org/en/all-fatalities/by-date-of-incident?section=overall&tab=overview&nifgaSensor=%5B%2275c9ac7%22%2C%22a14a397%22%2C%224d9ecf3%22%5D
It steals Palestinian lands: https://www.btselem.org/topic/settlements
Turns a blind eye to settler violence against Palestinians: https://www.btselem.org/topic/settler_violence
Where's your disgust with the daily targeting of Palestinian civilians by IDF forces like "Operation Home and Garden", the detentions, the murder onder the "open fire policy"? How can you condemn Hamas doing exactly what Israel has been doing for years and not do the same where it concerns Israel?
Very nice analogy. One may be tempted to go out and kill 2,500 pit bulls as an act of vengeance, ostensibly to prevent them attacking you, including the pups. I have a feeling that this is what we are looking at here: a political strategy, already decades old, is playing out, this is not a military strategy.
The Israeli government could simply upgrade its iron dome and station 40,000 troops at the border with the orders to shoot to kill - Hamas terrorists, motor gliders, drones, etc.
When you shoot this particular pitbull, the whole neighborhood is likely to fall apart. That's why a giant swat team has pulled up along the coast of your house. Does pulling the trigger really seem like a rational solution?
Civilians get killed in war. Should the Allies not have bombed German cities? The strategic bombing campaign was a great help to Russia, since it caused Germany to divert resources from the Eastern Front to try and fend off the Allied raids. Is your claim then that the Allied air campaign against Germany was wrong? What should the Allies have done then to help the Russians?
So in the end with all your immense knowledge ("Military history and military thinkers, the development of contemporary land, naval and air doctrine, irregular warfare, modern conflicts, etc. I also had the opportunity to follow courses on propaganda (euphemistically called 'information warfare') - very eye-opening.") you are gonna tell me that you can't do more than just whining over a regime change on a forum to random anonymous nobodies?! Your emotional parade is really hilarious. But I'm sure that no Palestinian bombed in Gaza could stand a second hearing you suffer that much! If that might ever comfort you.
No, Hamas had no plans just to return to business as usual after having let off some steam. Israel's show of force and dismantling of Hamas is part of a larger longer term deterrent strategy.
As if raping someone on Saturday is excused on Sunday because he tells us he's done.
But let us also take a moment to note the enabling role of the utterly incompetent Western leadership, which is beyond amateurish and clearly in way over their head.
"When in doubt, proclaim unconditional support for Israel."
By letting the Netanyahu regime run amock, rather than helping Israel, Western leaders may have set in motion events that will ultimately mean the end of Israel as we know it.
Rapprochement in the Middle-East is shattered for the foreseeable future. This future likely holds radical shifts in the geopolitical balance of power, and that balance could very well end up heavily in favor of one or more Arab states.
Meanwhile, world opinion towards Israel is tanking. Israel has oddly managed to manifest itself as the villain as it wreaks a civilian death toll several times that of the initial Hamas attack.
There might be some loud apologists - this is hardly new. What is new is that sensible people all over the world aren't buying it anymore and Israel is diplomatically isolated apart from its Western stooges, who are too incompetent to offer any kind of real support anyway.
Everything that goes up, must come down. And what Israel has done over the past weeks is ensure that when the pendulum swings the other way, the whole region is rife with resentment towards it.
If that should come to pass, I wonder how they will treat Israel. I think Israel can only hope that it won't be treated the same way as it treats the Palestinians.
We're getting too deep in this metaphor, so maybe spell out what everything represents the way you're presenting it. I think I'm assigning different entities to different objects than you maybe.
As to whether I'm a hypocrite in holding Palestine to a standard I don't hold Israel to, I could draw all the distinctions between the two, but you'd still disagree. At the most, you'd prove me a hypocrite, not that I'm incorrect about my disgust at the Hamas attacks.
So here's my position: I do not condemn the Israeli response to the Hamas/Palestinian attack and I do not believe the Israelis to be the instigators in this conflict. My stand with Israel is clear here and you can condemn it as you will and find it unsustainable.
But as to your position, do you acknowledge that the recent Palestinian attack on Israel was vile, disgusting, and barbaric? Or, was their response fair game? I'm just waiting for you to tell me that each person involved, from top to bottom, in the planned rape and butchering of innocent children should be located and made to pay the consequences for their crimes just as should occur with the Israelis. But these issues are not mutually exclusive. The same vigor ought be exercised in the correction of injustice regardless of the perpetrator. This would include an insistence that ordinary citizens with knowledge of what occurred and who planned and committed these acts come forward and share the information they have.
That you think I give a pass to the Israelis for the same conduct, means you question my ethical consisitency, but ithat is an aside. The question is whether you accept that you are ethically inconsistent under your same standards you allege I am. If you're not, then let's get to the bottom of who these rapists are. Or, are we just both hypocrites, me siding with the allowance of injustice at the hands of the Israelis and you the Palestinians?
I wasn't suggesting any excuse, just questioning the rationale of self defence.
I don't remember that bit of the quote. If only folks would do what I want, I wouldn't have to bully them so much. Saith the Lord of the flies.
Quoting RogueAI
Who are you asking now? The war crimes tribunal? They only prosecute losers. So win at any cost seems to be the moral thing to do. Losers attempt to commit genocide; winners unfortunately, reluctantly, find that collateral damage occurs.
It's a dangerous game asking moral questions, because if you cannot win by fair means, then you ought to be content to lose. The suggestion that one cannot have it both ways is unwelcome.
The iron dome proved ineffective though from the recent attacks.
But anyway, think about the concept of having to protect your life daily from incoming attacks by shrouding yourself in a cloak of defensive missles, hoping death doesn't find its way to your door.
The answer would be yes, if there was no other way to win the war, or for that matter, shorten the war.
One possibility is development of the atomic bomb earlier.
No one knows if there was another way, and no one knows how long the war would have lasted.
There is even a difference of opinion on who should have won WWII.
The use of violence in resistance is not permitted by International Law, is it?
There may have been a non-violent, though possibly illegal method to fight the oppression, and achieve their goals, no-one can prove that there was not. I am sure that among 1 million people something could have been devised.
Could you clarify this stand? Do support the goal of a decisive victory over Hamas, despite the civilian deaths and destruction, or do you support the apparent revenge bombings and attacks by Israel that are clearly punishing civilians and the total blockade?
I believe the instigators of this conflict were the British Mandate of the 19xx. I feel sorry for these pawns in the front line while Kings and Queens and Bishops stay safe.
Armed resistance to occupation is legal and can be derived from every people's right to self-determination.
What's the pitbull? Hamas or the Gaza strip? Israel is attacking both. Gaza is 2 million people, 55% of which live in refugee camps, and 80% are in poverty. I know you're hearing nothing but politically motivated Israel bashing, but that's not where I'm coming from. I think Israel actually is in the process of committing a major moral screw-up, not that you or anybody else can do anything about it, but to avoid it, they need to stop the attack and pursue Hamas by other means.
What should the Allies have done then to relieve pressure on the Russians?
Something else
Yes, that sounds plausible.
:roll:
Israel is walking a fine line, this may cost them very much in the near future.
"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everybody else and nobody was going to bomb them.
At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put that rather naive theory into operation.
They sowed the wind and now they are going to reap the whirlwind."
You reap what you sow.
In any case, "they started it" is just a tu quoque fallacy. Do you have anything interesting to add or just here to glorify whatever Israel does?
I didn't ask you to condemn this response. Go back. Read my post and try again and then I'll entertain your questions. The answers of which should be clear already from my recent posts where I've gone into them.
Hamas, and many Palestinians, consider the existence ofany Jewish state in "Palestine" to be "occupation" of Arab lands. So I guess it's just endless fighting until Israel ceases to exist.
Quoting Tzeentch
1400 dead is the most Jews killed since the Holocaust, and then to have protests erupt around the world with anti-Semitic slogans being shouted ("gas the Jews" in Sydney) and the major uptick in anti-Semitism over the past 5-10 years leaves some of us worried.
I think if Israel treated Palestinians the way it treats Jews, Hamas would disappear in a puff of satisfaction.
I see where you're coming from, frank. It's a nice idea. Unfortunately granting the Palestinians full Israeli citizenship just isn't feasible if Israel is looking to survive as a democratic, Jewish state. There have been periods where Israel has tried treating them nice but it's hard when your very existence drives a certain element of palestinian society to homicidal rage.
Unless what you mean by 'treat palestinians the way it treats jews' doesn't involve opening the borders... Does it? Is that part of what you mean by that?
That will fall by the wayside eventually. Future generations will see that trying to establish a Jewish state was a bad idea which just stained their religion with blood. One day the president of Israel will be a Muslim and all the old people will be like, I thought this would never happen! There will still be dumshits whining about this or that, but in general, the worst will be behind them. Free at last, and all that.
Quoting flannel jesus
I doubt it. Most Palestinians are just regular people.
Quoting flannel jesus
It means treat them with respect. No more trying to get rid of them.
:100:
Do you think one day there will be Jewish presidents of Arab nations?
Not until they become democratic.
20% of Gazans have a "very positive" view of Hamas (38% "somewhat positive"), according to this:
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/polls-show-majority-gazans-were-against-breaking-ceasefire-hamas-and-hezbollah
If I were Israel, I would be very leery about opening my door to that group of people.
35% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Donald Trump. Doesn't mean they're all going to raid the Capitol. At least I hope not. :grimace:
Most Palestinians aren't going to be the ones creating boat loads of dead Jews. You don't need most of them to accomplish that
When the US stops killing off the moderates and putting extremists in charge, sure.
Funny that. Where's the call to violence exactly? Maybe my English is rusty.
As if we can't be opposed to Israel as a Jewish state (which I consider inherently discriminatory and a source of many of Israel's internal problems) by peaceful means? We can't insist on a one-state solution where all people are equal regardless of their faith or mother? We can't insist on a two-state solution between equal sovereign nations?
Let alone that this is a rallying cry about stopping Israeli oppression rather than the obliteration of Israel. It was a PLO phrase, which always pursued a two-state solution.
Dutch politics is pathetic. Ridiculous virtue signaling.
Let this sink in. Count the number of Israeli settlements in land that isn't Israeli under any international law. Stolen land. And the thefts continue.
Maybe that's in acknowledgment of the shameful oppressive colonialist history and smug not-me attitudes of your country?
The slogan is a bit edgy, but I agree.
Things like these should spark a healthy public and political debate, and not be used cynically by the old cadre to try and score 'good boy' points.
Clearly the phrase itself is not an incitation to violence. Van Baarle (who used the phrase in parliament yesterday) even emphasized he believes in equal rights for Muslims and Jews in the very same sentence. They're just deathly afraid that critical voices will shatter the Dutch image of being an exemplary US vassal (which of course involves unconditionally supporting Israel, no matter what).
Quoting Benkei
Indeed. We're governed by toddlers.
Easy to say by anonymous nobodies. Why don't you candidate yourselves, since you know better. Let's see if you ADULTS can do better than just whining over the internet like baby girls.
While I think it might not be right to ban the phrase, Palestinians chanting that ABSOLUTELY mean "from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean sea, Palestine will be free of Jews."
Ignorant westerners trying to virtue signal don't realise what the chant really means.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/jordan-queen-skeptical-israeli-children-were-beheaded-by-hamas-during-onslaught/
Did they murder them? Did they torture them? These are the two questions that are relevant.
I think it's best to be careful with such assumptions.
We can't read people's minds, and to say one has done so and found genocidal intent sooner betrays one's own biases.
Actually, this isn't only limited to your favorite country that you hang around in. For example the Swedish government is worried about the rising anti-semitism and the Swedish media reported the similar chant in protests in Stockholm. And the Germans too have zero-tolerance for such disgusting anti-semitic hate speech.
Of course, people protesting for Palestine, someone using such a chant and someone throwing molotov-cocktails in a synagogue are naturally put together. Because, why not?
Which just reminds me how great the already here mentioned exchange between Piers Morgan and the Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef was. If someone hasn't yet seen it, I encourage to view it or listen to it.
I disagree. I find it relevant to mention whatever allows us better assess the extent of the ideological clash between the West and the Rest (especially if that’s part of the implicit message Hamas intends to send to its people, foreign supporters, and perceived enemies) as well as the reactions of the latter. The issue I’m thinking about is not much related to the fact of beheading children, but the social and cultural meaning of “beheading” and “children” in that part of the World.
We shouldn’t simply assume that is like ours. The same goes with the notion of “human rights” or “self-determination”.
There are already a lot of Palestinians in Jerusalem. No corpse laden boats have appeared. The idea that the two groups can get along has already been tested. They can.
It is a call for ethnic cleansing. The chanters do not wish to share the land; they wish to annex it all and subjugate the Jews under Muslim rule assuming there are any Jews still left alive. At best subjugation, at worst genocide.
When Israel expands its opponents call that ethnic cleansing, but the same standard is not applied when "Palestine" expands and Israel shrinks. The same people harping against the genocide of Palestinians eagerly support the genocide/subjugation of Israeli Jews with such chants.
Some of those Palestinians in Israel have lived there their whole life, and some are vetted and given permits to work in Israel from the West Bank. It's fairly obvious why those two groups would be less of a risk than just immediately opening up the borders with Gaza.
The question isn't "can some Palestinians co exist with Israel without violence?", obviously they can. The question is, can ALL Palestinians do that, to the extent that it's a reasonable request to open Gaza up? I really think it's immensely clear that the answer to that is no.
And those aren't slogans or vague accusations, they're backed by UN Security Council resolutions and by countless reports of human rights organisations.
One might think they're aiding Israel by turning a blind eye to its rampant human rights abuses, but in fact it accomplishes the opposite. With every human rights violation that is perpetrated and subsequently ignored, reconciliation becomes more difficult, the list of Israel's enemies grows and global support for Israel diminishes.
Recent votings in the UN Security Council already show world opinion towards Israel's war on Gaza is under pressure, and when the issue is taken to the UN General Assembly I think it will become painfully clear how isolated it has become.
Ethnic cleansing. Genocide. One square inch of Israel on Muslim lands constitutes ethnic cleansing for a certain side. Excuse me if I sound jaded.
Exactly.
They are "worried" about being annihilated, when they have nukes.
And they're the ones who are ethnic cleansing another territory, right now, making it extremely difficult to form a two-state solution.
That's quite ironic.
As to Likud:
Their original party program:
a. The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.
b. A plan which relinquishes parts of western Eretz Israel, undermines our right to the country, unavoidably leads to the establishment of a "Palestinian State," jeopardizes the security of the Jewish population, endangers the existence of the State of Israel. and frustrates any prospect of peace.
— Likud
The 1999 version:
a. “The Jordan river will be the permanent eastern border of the State of Israel.”
b. “Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel.
The government will flatly reject Palestinian proposals to divide Jerusalem”
c. “The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.”
I'm sure you can find their current party program on the knesset website but I cannot access it.
I don't see where the Likud platform says that Israel must be entirely Jewish. Or maybe I misunderstood you because the grammar. I've just never heard of the idea that Israel ought to be 100% Jewish and I don't see it in the Likud platform.
As to Hamas supporting a two state solution on paper... recent events make this irrelvant.
That’s moral equivocating two unrelated things. You are essentially advocating that if you feel jaded over a historical land dispute, you are justified to in brutal, disgusting acts of violence. Man you are so gone…
Is it a cultural thing? I know the Netherlands was taken over by a hostile homicidal regime during WW2 and was unable to put up resistance until the Allies pushed into Nazi Germany bombing them and all…
A. The land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established.
B. The State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, in which it fulfills its natural, cultural, religious, and historical right to self-determination.
C. The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.
How about you do that to your advocating for a homicidal group? Either you’re for peace or you’re not.
I fixed it for you. If using violence makes statements irrelevant then what now?
Finland felt it had to align with Nazi Germany to not fall under the influence of their old enemies, the Soviet Union/Russia. I can see reactions to aggression as being seen from the POV of strategic neutrality. If given a personality chart, it can be seen as true neutral.
Netherlands was overran by Nazi Germany in 1940 and was occupied until the end of the war, with pockets of resistance. I can see this also taking a neutral position, as it had to maneuver occupation, being bombed by allies alike, and could not afford to take a hardened military position, and never amassed a military big enough to do so.
Britain had a more complex role. They learned the hard lesson that you can't negotiate with leaders who have evil ends and means when Neville Chamberlain made his ploy for peace with Hitler and the Sudetenland. At the same time, they held control of many colonial territories gained from colonization (India, Ghana, Nigeria, etc.) or from WW1 (the Mandate of Palestine). So they were also mired in the middle of the conflict between the nationalism and ethnic divisions of the various populations under their mandate. They had to stay kind of neutral. Thus they have a more limited pro-Israel stance when it comes to being attacked.
The US learned that to defeat an evil enemy, you had to amass great military strength and not be afraid to use it to get unconditional surrender. They would be the most pro-response after being attacked by a terrorist group. Whether appreciated or even right about it, it sees its military as useful in destroying "evil actors" on the world stage. At the same time of course, its military industrial complex has issues of what counts as "evil" (Vietnam wasn't necessary, arguably you can't have a never-ending war on "terror" itself, overthrowing those not fully aligned leads to worse consequences like getting rid of Mossadegh in Iran etc.).
Similarly, Britain is most likely going to back US hegemony as US had their back in WW2, and it allowed them to give up the need for as much military spending and put that on the backs of the US. US will get the flack for fighting wars in their former colonies, not them. Western/Central Europe is mildly anti American hegemony, as they formed alliances after WW2 to create things like the EU and Euro. They tend to like coalitions versus lone actors. Also, the anti-colonialism tendencies of Communism and leftism in general are more influential in European countries, thus the tendency to sympathize with certain groups aligned against American hegemony or foreign policy that are perceived to be the underdog, whatever actions they might take as a means to their ends.
Of course, people are free to believe whatever they want, but beliefs aren't shaped in a vacuum. I can see people's responses being very heavily influenced by the overall lessons learned during that most significant conflict in modern world history.
So yes, go fuck yourself if you cannot talk to me without implying I have mental problems "you're so far gone" or pretending it's a cultural thing. Maybe just actually deal with the things I say and not whatever shit you make up to deal with the discomfort you apparently feel from the fact someone disagrees with you.
Or you beat the enemy so badly (e.g., Germany and Japan and the American South), they're so sick of war that they're ready for peace.
You implied and explicitly said on many posts that Hamas has a legitimate form of how it conducts itself. You tried saying how it's charter is cuddly-wuddly for a two-state solution, you tried saying that it is justified because they live in X conditions, you tried justifying it because the Likud party exists. I am too lazy right now to go back and provide you your own quotes backing their hostility and butchery. But you can keep pointing at Israel all you want, and you will not make Hamas any more moral an actor, and not outright condemning them is moral equivocating.
I agree with you when you when you say that "peace requires people to talk to each other via other means through the barrel of a gun or cannon." If you JUST stick with that, instead of all the moral equivocating and hemming and hawing at a DEHUMANIZING group, I wouldn't say stuff like "you're so far gone".
Sounds like a lovely idea. So total war against Israel is justified then? Because while Hamas might have committed a war crime, certainly we are in agreement that the continuous oppression, indiscriminate killing of civilians, administrative detention, illegal settlements - all aimed against a people- is just blatant aggression, that great crime from which every action that is derived from it is a war crime in itself?
You keep comparing Hamas to Nazis and Israel to the Allies but Hannah Arendt and Albert Einstein thought it was certain elements in Israel that learned the most from the Nazis.
And who is the successor of Herut? It is Likud:
EDIT: All that to say that I prefer my peace a bit less bloody, thank you.
Again. You're not replying to the facts. You just don't like it that it's incontrovertibly true that Hamas has indicated a willingness to discuss a two-state solution along the 1967 borders. I linked to the text. If only Japan had taken the same position as you would when they had a nuclear bomb dropped on them! "We don't negotiate with war criminals and terrorists and because the US army dropped it, we will not speak with the US government!"
It's fucking dumb.
A vague reference couched in absolutist terms of Jordan to Mediterranean all of a sudden means Hamas is for two states? Its actions say otherwise. And if you think that it is a legitimate form of "getting Israel to negotiate", and they are just playing some "game" then your means not only doesn't justify the ends, it cancels out whatever supposed "peaceful" ends that it supposedly is aiming for (and I don't believe it is intending that in any way).
Quoting Benkei
I don't get what you are trying to point at here. If anything that would be pro-bombing Hamas to make them give up, because after two a-bombs, Japan did give up. I am not advocating that approach either, but it seems like you are oddly making that case here, which I know you don't mean to.
Yes it is an ethnostate surrounded by Muslim nations. Just as the Muslims govern in a special way that promotes Islamic ideals, Israel perpetuates Jewish life and Jewish ideals. Israel absolutely values the lives of its own citizens above those of surrounding nations, but this hardly unique to Israel. We should keep in mind that Judaism is not a race. It is an ethnicity and a religion. You may not like the idea of a state with a religious/ethnic character but this is hardly unique to Israel.
I think that is simplifying the history of the whole conflict. If Israel is not problematic, then every concession Israel made towards its founding would have been accepted as a reality by [s]Palestine[/s] Arab states + Palestinians (Peel 1937, 1947 UN Partition in particular).
Explainer: What war crimes laws apply to the Israel-Palestinian conflict?
[sup]— Stephanie van den Berg, Anthony Deutsch, Giles Elgood · Reuters · Oct 26, 2023[/sup]
What constitutes a war crime? (NBC · 4m:46s · Oct 26, 2023)
[quote=@user-bx6we4od7d]all is fair in love and war[/quote]
If someone has the means and opportunity, then the decision is theirs, others can't decide not to. Anyone may argue about motive, which often enough ends up shrouded in rhetoric.
For Israel to exist as a state it must use violence. That has been the case since the beginning. We can criticize the scale, but not the tool.And yes I have never denied the existence of ultranationalist elements. Wars where a people/nation are faced with annihilation tend to foster such elements.
But as I've noted before, the situation has deteriorated too far over the years that we can no longer expect entirely rational behavior from neither Israel nor Palestine. For these nations to come to a solution together would require nothing short of a miracle.
In my opinion, that is where the international community should have stepped in. And it did. Many UN Security Council resolutions were in fact passed, and those are legally binding.
However, the United States, mostly guided by shady and fool-hardy internal politics, refused to hold Israel to its international obligations.
And that's where we are now - at the final stop of decades of failed US Middle-East policy. And security for Israel nowhere to be found.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
This is not how modern states function, so evidently something must have gone terribly wrong down the line. What do you suppose that is?
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Do you agree that the same could apply to Palestine?
What do you think would happen?
The moment Israel attained statehood it needed to defend itself in 1948. Without force there would be no state.
Quoting Tzeentch
Violence radicalizes, no doubt. But the Palestinians numbers have boomed. If Israel is trying to genocide them it has done a terrible job.
It'd be pure comedy if it weren't for the fact these two clowns are basically in charge of half the world and their incompetence is causing untold suffering.
If so, what approach would you suggest going forward?
It's only vague if you have reading comprehension problems.
In other words: more terrorist attacks? I mean, what they're doing is fueling the Hamas of the future. Being friendly toward Gazan Palestinians would make things worse?
If you combine this with the "no other State west of the river" when you know there's millions of Palestinians living there, you are deliberately creating a huge problem though. Marrying Likud's program to the Basic Law does precisely that. The greatest threat to Israeli security is Israeli policy not the Palestinians. But it's unfathomable for right-wing nutcases to have such reflection apparently; it has to be the "Other" not "Us".
Edit: just for clarity, I"m not calling you a right-wing nutcase but mostly anything Likud and the similarly depraved.
I just bid you read my last post on that argument. You’re also contradicting yourself about you supposedly not supporting Hamas. Also other posters on here I believe quoted more radical crazy stuff from their charter. Please reference those if you’re gonna try to argue sanity from a violent, suicidal, homicidal barbarically religious extremist groups document.
I don't know what a rational manner would be. Hamas killed 1400 Israelis in the worst massacre of Jews since WWII. Any state's primary purpose is security and that is what Israel is exercising right now in its effort to destroy Hamas. There must surely be some response. Is a ground invasion justified or better to stick to air strikes? I have no idea. What is the proportionate response to 1400 massacred? Not entirely sure outside of decimating Hamas and trying to minimize collateral damage. To call for no military response is absurd and a standard that we would hold no other nation to.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full
That's true. It just seems like a zombie walk. They can try to destroy Hamas, but they probably won't succeed.
It would be absurd except for the context of decades of oppression and crimes by Israel that preceded it, that you conveniently leave out so you can pretend it's an isolated incident and Israel is just reacting to it. Hamas' attack was wrong but so is any Israeli reaction to it. No collateral damage is acceptable given that we already have several decades of collateral damage, oppression and occupation. Because the Israeli cause isn't just, every action following it, is contaminated by that unjust cause. You cannot act ethically right in that case. In the case of the Palestinians, their cause is just but Hamas pursued it via unjust means. So their actions are also unjust but they could, if they had used other means - for instance only attacking Israeli soldiers involved in the occupation - they would've been fully in their rights.
I'm not saying this because I don't want all the innocent civilian Gazans to have freedom and prosperity, please realize that. Most Gazans are normal folks. Not all Gazans are normal folks, and enough Gazans have pretty much sworn their lives to destroying the Jews of Israel that there's really no rational way to justify opening the border any time soon.
And again, my main response to this ludicrous hemming and hawing in this justifying of Hamas is:
Quoting schopenhauer1
And I can't see how you can look at that same document 18-26 or anything else in there without seeing it as hostile to a two-state solution. Ridiculous!
I pointed it out here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/846101
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/846212
Even SSU, already pointed it out here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/846238
Rationally speaking, had the Israeli government practiced restraint there would have been no doubt at all within the international community who the villains were. It would have clearly been Hamas.
I think even after initial retaliatory strikes by Israel this view would have prevailed.
It is after the intensified siege, prolonged bombing, and questionable rhetoric by prominent Israeli leaders that opinion started to shift. (Provoking the occupying force into overreacting is a typical insurgent tactic, by the way.)
But what about practical results?
Does this type of operation actually hurt Hamas? I think it does the exact opposite.
Hamas lives in tunnel networks dug up to 80 meters underground, likely with stockpiles of food and ammunition. I think they're among the people who suffer the least from these Israeli reprisals.
The people who are hurt by these bombings are the people of Gaza.
Wishful thinking may have one believe that the people of Gaza would eventually turn on Hamas and blame them for the bombing, but this is, as stated, wishful thinking and has no real precedent in history.
Pretty much ubiquitously we find collective punishment strengthens the insurgency and doesn't undermine it.
Admittedly, I am on the sideline. It is easy for me to say these things when I don't have family members to mourn. Regardless, irrational behavior will further deteriorate the crisis.
Haven't we long been at a point where both parties need to be protected from themselves? That's why I am saying, can we really expect rational behavior from either of the actors involved in this conflict? And if not, what is the way forward?
I think the whole area is going to dry up in the next century anyway. They can all move together to Norway or wherever.
What do I expect from Palestinians?
Not supporting terrorist groups that funnel money into violent barbaric means of getting what they want. They tried conventional warfare and lost. That doesn't mean "Ok, let's try some asymmetrical warfare". At some point you put your big boy pants on and negotiate like an adult who cares about the physical and financial well-being of your people. You don't let grievances fester into acts of terrorism and either support or be indifferent to it. Also, if they were going to use violence, use it against their own extremists! Fight the internal "enemy". Much of this starts out psycholgoically. It is the psychology of vengeance, past wrongs, religion, nationalism, and all the rest that can cause never-ending hatred. The same reason Arafat and Abbas did not take deals in the early 2000s.
The UN is screwed in so many ways.
1) It can't act as a referee unless there is an enforcement arm. In a game, the referee is final, not ignored. If it is ignored, the game is forfeited. For the game to be a game, both parties agree to give authority to to the ref.
2) The referee has to be unbiased. No way does the UN represent an unbiased body. That will be said on both "sides" North and South (the Security Council and the General Assembly).
They won't be able to move to the Netherlands, though. That whole place is going to be under water.
Quoting Benkei
By "Israeli cause" you mean Israel's existence as a state, period? Is "Palestine" really for the Palestinians? Are they the original inhabitants? And the Jews are colonizers? Whose land is it really, Benkei?
Quoting Benkei
This would be a huge step up from what happened on 10/7.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I think this could just as easily apply to Israel.
But honestly, I have no problem envisioning myself being in the shoes of a Palestinian or Israeli and making the exact same mistakes.
This is kind of my point.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Do you, for example, believe the US / the West during the unipolar moment should have acted as the enforcement arm of the UN and forced a two-state solution as was accepted by, among others, UN Security Council Resolution 2334?
Quoting schopenhauer1
If anything I would assume the nations currently holding permanent seats in the UNSC would be biased towards Israel, and not against it. Or am I missing your point?
And which is why I said they should have voted Netanyahu's fascist ass out a long time ago.
Quoting Tzeentch
Perhaps, perhaps. But I do believe sane minds can resolve things peacefully. It's possible, just not easy. It's not easy to "bury the hatchet" on past wrongs. I think that was the point of the thread on vengeance, horror, and terror cycle. But you do need doves on both sides. I don't think everything works like Sadat and Begin, two "warriors" that came together. Rather, I think it calls for the doves coming together and agreeing that this has got to stop, Gandhi style. Economically they should freely migrate from one side to the other, but respect the laws of the other side.
Quoting Tzeentch
That would be just as bad if the UN was pro-Israel and condemning Palestinian actions and enforcing that. Because of problem 2, problem 1 cannot be resolved.
Ideally, that also means that Palestine would be an Arab/Muslim-oriented government that respects the rights of its minority citizens (Christian, Jewish, Druze, Samarians, etc.), similar to what Israel has, or even on the style of something like Turkey (pre-Erdogan).
:up:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Agreed with this also.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Imperfect though it may be. if we agree that we can't expect the two battling sides to come to a rational solution, we will have to accept the intervention of a third party at some point.
Please let it be sooner rather than later, for everyone's sake.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Certainly.
I think if the Arab nations can muster enough courage and temper their "all-or-nothing" tendencies, MAYBE they can be part of a solution. It would be ironic because I [s]don't believe[/s] they are not particularly fond of "liberal democratic" Arab countries. But, I think the ability to create a stable Israel/Palestine is immensely more in their interest than not.
It's beneficial for the Arab states; it's not beneficial to Iran. Likewise, any such move would likely be beneficial to Fatah, and, if it worked out, Palestinians writ large, but it would not be beneficial to Hamas. Right now the rule over a poor area, but they rule with impunity.
That's part of the problem. Hamas' funding and ability to keep control over the Strip isn't really conditioned on popular support or "getting results," but on continued financial and military assistance from Iran.
This is why Hamas is so beneficial to Likud. Hamas doesn't necessarily face incentives to do "the best thing possible for independence and economic development," quite the contrary in some sense. Their incentives shape their intransigence and their intransigence had (until now) been a boon to Likud.
So what do you think is the solution?
As I said. Learn to read. Under the Chapter: The position toward Occupation and political solutions (note the word "solutions", eh? It's a dead give away of the purpose of those paragraphs)
It starts out stating that the British gave away to the Jews what wasn't theirs, the UN gave away what wasn't theirs and all resolutions and measures thereafter are not recognised by them. And really, why should they accept a colonizer gives land away that wasn't theirs to begin with? Why should they accept the UN partitioning land that they believe was theirs because they lived there? So in their veiw all these methods of establishing the Israeli state should be rejected by the Palestinians. And in this view, there can be no legitimacy of the Israeli state. That's a perfectly sensible view on the matter. Both ethically and legally.
It then goes on to say that despite these facts, it would accept a two state solution along the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as it's capital.
Rejecting the Oslo Accords is totally sensible as well. It's ridiculous to write away rights of self-determination and self-governance indefinitely and have another State have far-reaching control on governance at the same time. That's not self-determination and by definition can never lead to an independent Palestinian State. That criticism is well established as well and not surprising. The Oslo-Accord has never been popular with a majority of the Palestinians.
It continues to set out that any settlement without a right to return will always be rejected.
Only then do we get a chapter on resistance. The only thing there to disagree with is their "by any means". But it's quite clear resistance and a complete free Palestine is only pursued if the political solution is not reached.
So if you don't want terrorist attacks you need a) a real Palestinian State and b) a right of return.
Isn't Hamas Sunni? Why is Iran supporting them?
:up: Yes it was,
I'm sorry, whatever ends you're going for, that's evil on the face of it. It's sad you support it. I am bracketing the issue to this. You can justifiably be against violence by the Israeli military, but if you are not against Palestinian violence due to this particular issue, then you are too far gone. As I said earlier:
Quoting schopenhauer1
And as to even giving a shit what a terrorist organization tweaked a section (so the sliver of gullible (already biased) people might think it more respectable, which apparently worked for that small percent) is:
Quoting schopenhauer1
and
Quoting schopenhauer1
Some Christians might be OK in Israel, I guess. Assuming that they know their place...
What's evil about a Palestinian state and a right of return, exactly? Or do you have it in your head again this excludes an Israeli State?
And yes, I think violence against an oppressor is justified. Slaves were justified to revolt too.
Christians have been traditionally well treated in Israel, but sadly there has been an uptick in anti-Christian activity lately. It seems to mostly come from the ultra-orthodox. Very sad, but many Jews are unlikely to be sympathetic due to centuries of Christian anti-Semitism. In any case maybe it'll work out for them.
“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matt. 5:11-12).
Better yet, one day a secular Buddhist will be president of the whole area, and it'll be a genuine democracy with separation of religion and politics.
That's a red herring and strawman. I did not question a Palestinian state (right of return is trickier but in theory some compensation makes sense). Rather, the means for the ends is not justified.
Quoting Benkei
Nothing that Israel has done regarding land justifies that barbarity to people, sorry. That's what you are supporting, and it's sad.
The Arab world is deeply entrenched in a cultural environment that is alien to the Western culture as Westerners live it. It is instead dominated by tribalism, feud mentality and islam/ist sectarian preaching (which beheading and children indoctrination into jihadism are an expression). They have learnt to just ape Western language about human rights, international law, and the value of life NONE OF WHICH they are committed to, educated to and inspired by when implementing their institutions. But they use it as a rhetorical bludgeon IF AND ONLY IF it plays against the West (people and institutions), especially as a siren call for Western “useful idiots”. Indeed the Arab world does not make much use of these concepts when they have to deal issues at home or among them. Neither Hamas nor Palestinians give a shit about human rights in the middle east, they want their land from Israel and their blood revenge against Isreal. That’s all. Understandably so, but also who-gives-a-shit-ly so. And it should be evident also how Arabs themselves do not give a shit, nor gave a shit, nor will give a shit about zillions of bombed Palestinian kids in the apartheid prison of Gaza, other than from the fact that they are instrumental to push their geopolitical agenda. They also have learnt the “best” anti-Western arguments (like the Marxist criticism of Western capitalism and imperialism and neocolonialism) from the West itself, the Western “useful idiots”, including the Westernized middle-easterners (which are the most dangerous “useful idiots”).
Outside the West, the Palestinians would be treated as Putin treated the Chechens and now the Ukrainians, or the Chinese treat the Uyghurs, the Turks treat the Kurds. Bloody repression, genocide and concentration camps would be perfectly in order. Russians, Chinese, and Turks don’t give a shit about it.
Now they are using the Palestinians to divide the West, since the West is currently particularly rich in “useful idiots”. So I do not give a shit if Nathanyahu made mistakes for which he deserves not only to be deposed, but even to be literally killed, hanged, tortured to death, or decapitated, along with his closest family. But I would find rather weak from the Westerners to not support Israel in front of the Arab and the Rest of the world. Also a lost opportunity to show the Rest of the world how the Western “useful idiots” are indeed just an irrelevant bunch of “useless idiots”.
Only after Nathanyahu has wrecked to dust Gaza with as many Hamas fighters as possible (hopefully, including their closest families because that’s what is required by the feud logic they understand), it would make more sense to me to immediately have Nathanyahu politically removed along with his supporters (or even better, eliminated physically like in a Hamas operation helped by Mossad, or an entirely Mossad operation then blamed on Hamas) and political trends. Then relaunch another fucking round of peace talks. As far as I’ve understood Israel doesn’t need to allow a Palestinian state, nor Palestinian interlocutors, but it could declare its willingness to stop its territorial expansion or even withdraw in exchange for an international (or Arab-led? Indian, Chinese, Russian-led? Tzeench-Benkei-led?) mandate in the now occupied Palestinian regions and finance part of its reconstruction (starting with hospitals and schools) in a transparent and traceable way. Certainly it would make sense for Israel to be sincerely open to recognise the right of Palestinians to have their own state IF AND ONLY IF Russia recognises Chechens their own state, China recognises Uyghurs their own state, and Turkey recognises Kurds their own state.
Fortunately the Jewish religious zealots aren't so deadly towards Christians as the Muslim religious zealots are towards them in many other Middle Eastern countries. And it's now a bit ironic that the ultra-orthodox protested against their military service.
Yes, this has caused some people to lose their moral compass.
Five whys may help here.
Defining the problem:
The problem: the conflict between two armed parties, resulting in civilian deaths.
Or is this the problem?
Can we agree on the problem statement?
Here is my attempt:
1. Why is there a conflict?
Answer: because Hamas terrorists attacked civilians (and maybe military) on October 7
2. Why did they attack?
Answer: because they are committed to attacking Israel
3. Why are they committed to attacking Israel?
Answer: because Israel is attacking their citizens
4. Why is Israel attacking their citizens?
Answer: because they want them to stay quiet and peaceful and turn the other cheek and be submissive under occupation
5.Why do they want them to stay quiet?
Answer: because it will allow Israel to live peacefully with the Palestinians.
Well, that's pretty strange. I've stated violence is permissible, gave an example of what sort and condemned the way Hamas goes about it and in the post indicated that "by any means" is problematic. What Israel does is exactly what colonisers did, including the horrible treatment of indigenous people. If history has taught us anything then violent resistance is acceptable. I really don't see why not, especially after your derogatory complaint about the lack of resistance of the Dutch during WWII. Your position is inconsistent with historically accepted practices.
US fighter jets strike Syria after attacks by Iran-backed militia (Reuters)
The US is going to war with Syria, it seems. And probably it won't end there. The massive build up of forces and firepower suggests they might be going to war with Iran.
Many speculate that the reason Israel hasn't gone ahead with its invasion thus far, is because the US needs to complete the deployment of its carrier groups, two of which are already in the area and reportedly two more might be on the way.
That firepower is obviously way beyond what you'd expect against an actor like Hamas, hence the speculation about a widening of the conflict.
This is following a familiar pattern of US interventions - it's going to try and pummel the enemy into submission with mass airstrikes.
The real questions is whether its adversaries are prepared for it this time around, and have something up their sleeve.
The ultra-orthodox even protest against the existence of the state of Israel, because they believe it is claiming the land that belongs to God.
You can find images of them burning Israeli flags during protests and things like that.
I thought that was very interesting.
The second option is a non starter, despite how popular the idea is. It's never going to happen, nor do I think it should happen - I don't think that's the best of the practical options, I think it's probably one of the worst. (Israel should never have existed, but now that it does exist, it cannot un-exist)
The first option is good, if Palestinians would be satisfied with it, and if Israel would stop trying to fuck it up. The assholes with power in Israel have sabotaged Palestinian independence in the past, which is just absolutely terrible. I understand WHY they sabotaged it, I understand the motivations and they make sense from a self preservation perspective, but at some point Israel has to loosen their stranglehold on Gaza and the west bank and let them live.
Unfortunately I think these recent events have set that back most likely. It's possible that the opposite is true though, and the pressure on Israel to loosen up on them will give a peaceful path forward to that. I'm not too optimistic about that though, personally. I'd bet that we don't see Palestine as a sovereign nation in my lifetime.
Quoting Benkei
What role do you think “justification” is supposed to play?
People may feel oppressed and react against oppression, what would be the purpose of talking “justification” in this situation?
Quoting Benkei
It was acceptable by some, unacceptable by others. What does “being acceptable” have to do with “justification”? Do you mean that all that is acceptable is justified and/or that all that is justified is acceptable? What if X find acceptable what Y doesn't find acceptable?
Quoting Benkei
Why do you assume that Palestinians or Israel are acting based on whatever YOU take as relevant moral reasons? If X kills Y’s child, and Y kills X or X’s child or X and X’s entire family, why do you think Y would reason in moral terms the way you do? What would be your moral reasoning anyways? Can you spell it out?
If Israel lets go of their fear of a neighbouring Palestinian state, and Palestinians accept not getting all of Palestine back, then a two state solution becomes possible, but I fear we're a long way away from that.
It's a really simple concept; people find things acceptable when they are done for just reasons.
But a two-state solution is denied through backing Israel, which considers a Palestinian state a no-go. Let alone the insane amount of colonizer settlements in what should be Palestine for it to be remotely viable as a sovereign state. There's only one way in the direction we're going and continue to go and that is the total removal of Palestinians from Palestine. A de facto, really fucking slow, ethnic cleansing.
So if that's not acceptable then the only solution is for the West to pressure Israel into the two-state solution, which it never does. Although it does look like younger generations are wizening up to the crap Israel has been up to in the past decades.
What does this phrase mean?
I'm not sure what a solution would look like. Perhaps the Arab states can help by offering funding as a "carrot" for peace, but they don't exactly have the best credibility as negotiators for the most part.
Yes, they are an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Iran began supporting them because they wanted to support parties attempting to spoil the 1990s peace process. A deal isn't good for Iran because Israel is a good wedge issue for Iran that helps keep the Gulf-US relation on the rocks and helps them with public support "on the Arab street."
It's an alliance of convenience in many ways, but it's old enough to be well cemented. The relation is in some ways akin to medieval vassalage.
Absolutely. To my mind what makes the Hamas attack unjustifiable has nothing to do with violence being used. Violent resistance can be justified in this situation. It is rather the way in which the attack fits in to over all Hamas strategy and their relationship with the people they claim to be advocates of that makes it unjustifiable.
What could Hamas possibly have expected from this situation but that Israel would respond, taking advantage of its many military advantages, bringing death and misery to Hamas' subjects, destroying Hamas' supplies of weapons, and killing their fairly limited numbers of trained fighters? In what way might this help with furthering Palestinian aims? It seems the attack has given Israel a freer hand to persecute the people of Gaza than they have had in decades vis-á-vis international opinion and internal opinion. That Likud is actually being blamed for the disaster does play to Hamas' aims, but this seems like one of the hardest responses to the attack to predict beforehand.
So it isn't the attack, but how the attack was done:
-Planned in secret with no feedback from the people Hamas claims to represent
-A brutal style of attack as one can imagine, including intentional killing of children, rapes, etc. followed immediately by retreat as soon as the military response they were baiting out arrived— retreat into their own urban areas with the obvious goal being both to hide behind the civilian infrastructure and to have that infrastructure targeted in the hopes that the reprisals would stoke local, regional, and international opinion in their favor.
Can such hiding be justified? Prehaps, but only if it's tied to a plan with decent odds of success.
This last move is reprehensible for two reasons:
A. It's claiming to represent a group you rule over by force, with torture and repression; starting a war "on their behalf;" then, immediately on contact, you flee to your well supplied tunnels while the people you claim to be "fighting for," suffer. You make absolutely no realistic efforts to stop violence against "your people." There are no sorties out to stop strikes, there was clearly no air defense system put into place first. They are completely ignoring any duty to defend their own people, leaving them prostrate before the enemy, putting all faith in the enemies' self control and mercy since they simply will not defend the people they claim to represent. It's "too high risk," to defend the people. But if it is "too high risk" for you to defend your people in any meaningful way, one might consider that it's not a good time to provoke the enemy with the most outrageous attacks possible.
I am well aware of the power imbalance that Hamas now faces. But IMO, this itself heavily militates against such attacks in the first place. It suggest using other means. They should use other means if the other choice is "attack in as provocative a way as possible, then turn and hide behind our civilians and count on Israeli restraint to save them." And, to the extent Hamas has tried to prevent people from evacuating within Gaza, which is opaque right now, this is downright criminal, akin to Stalin's moves to force civilians to stay in combat zones.
[B]You can't attack and then immediately hides, making no realistic efforts to defend your people and then claim you are justified by the need to defend them.[/b] The same attack would be more justified if they had built some sort of air defense system they thought might work, but they clearly didn't, the game plan was always to pull back into urbanized positions, to enjoy safe tunnels and stockpiled supplies while the population "suffered for the cause."
2. Given their current diplomatic and military situation, such an attack was completely unlikely to work in their favor. While violent resistance might be justified, that doesn't mean it's always the most advisable course of action.
Israel seems like an opponent that would be particularly vulnerable to well organized non-violent resistance, which has been historically better at forcing concessions world-wide anyhow. As the hopes of military victory become less and less reasonable, it seems incumbent on the leadership to begin changing their tactics.
That their tactics don't change, despite decades of failure, I would guess has to do with the fact that foreign support is more important to their control and impunity than popular local support. That the leadership is insulated from any of the privations of the average Gazan probably doesn't help.
So you think people don't find doing things for unjust reasons acceptable but do find doing things for just reasons always acceptable? I don't find either claims evidently true or mostly true, if you take acceptable as opposed to rejectable via open political resistance (violent or not) or diaspora or auto-auto-marginalisation if not suicide. I think people overall tend to be sensitive more about violation of their own freedoms or perceived rights, or at most the ones' they really care about, than random others’ and their tolerance over oppression and injustice is pretty high, higher in many non-Westerners than in many Westerners though.
Anyway let’s stick to your “really simple concept”. Why do you think the massacres and attacks on civilians by Hamas is justified or grounded on just reasons [1]? Show me the reasoning you do. Step-by-step, can you spell it out?
[1] my impression is that you equate justification with "having just reasons" where "just" refers to moral justice and "having" refers to what you acknowledge to be grounded on "just reason" independently from the actual personal reasons Hamas agents had. Am I right?
I think the deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians is wrong tout court, irrespective of what Israel's possible reaction could be. In fact, we already know even attacking soldiers often invites disproportionate responses from Israel. So that is a given even if, for instance, Hamas had only raided a military outpost in what is considered Palestine under the UN partition plan and killed every soldier. And given support of relevant foreign governments, even such a "clean" strike is not going to help Palestinian aims. But I don't think it follows they shouldn't do anything in such an event.
Any way, I nitpick, I appreciate your post and reasoned responses. It grounded me in the beginning when I had a very emotional response to the situation initially (knowing full well the amount of civilian deaths that were about to follow).
Especially when these it's these people that then the IDF has to safeguard in the occupied territories.
I remember a great French documentary about the first Israeli soldier killed in Gaza and the first Palestinian fighter killed in Gaza. The brothers in arms of the fallen Israeli soldier remember him bitching about why they have to be there safeguarding few ultra-orthodox settlers. (The interview with the Palestinian family was also telling: the mother was extremely proud that her son was a martyr and when the little sister started to cry during the filming, the mother scolded her and told his brother was in heaven and she should be proud to have had a martyr as a brother)
Sure, but I'm less interested in the claim itself, and more in your arguing over "just reasons". So why do you think Hamas was unjustified? Do you think Hamas or Palestinians think that the massacre was not grounded on "just reasons"? Or didn't find it acceptable and yet they executed the massacre anyways? On the other side they were rebelling against the Israeli oppressor. And in war there are civilians as collateral casualties. Besides the ratio of civilian casualties between Israel and Palestine seems heavily unbalanced in favor of Palestine. Right?
But it's along the lines of blasphemy for Shiites to support Sunnis, so the support isn't about ideology at all. It's just about regional strategy, right? That's just cold blooded.
As far as I am aware, the majority of settlers are regular Orthodox Jews. The ultra-orthodox Haredi have largely (but not always) opposed settling on the West Bank due to their anti-Zionist stances.
Not really. Shias get on with Sunnis fine in some contexts. It's generally been the Sunni majority that has spawned ideologies that are extremely hostile to the other side (e.g., "they are heretics that must be completely removed.")
There is definitely bad blood on the Iranian side, but there is nothing that necessitates that they be opposed to everyone across the sectarian rift. Iran sponsored Hezbollah, who fought beside the PLO during the War of the Camps in Lebanon, against rival Shias from Amal (backed by Syria). But of course, now Iran is an ally of Syria and an enemy of the PLO.
So yes, it is largely about strategy, but there is some real zeal there too. Iran, as the vanguard of revolutionary Islam, has this sort of "sacred role" in advancing the cause that will help the faith retake Jerusalem. It's just that they go after this aim in quite self-serving ways, sort of like the United States re being a vanguard of "liberalism and democracy." Sure, people really believe it and are motivated by the ideal vision, but the shape it takes can be extremely cynical, so much so that it actively undermines the idealistic aim.
Politically, peace in Palestine is not particularly in Iran's interest. It removes the biggest issue they are popular on in the region and removes their main cat's paw for breaking up the tacit Gulf-Israel alliance and hitting Israel. If Palestine became a "Jordan," of sorts, Iran would lose out.
A justification for rape, torture, and murder of children? It sounds like you're not even aware of what Hamas has done.
ETA: Reading through the responses, I see you are aware of the atrocities Hamas has done. You just don't care. Or you just don't care when they happen to Jews.
They don't in Pakistan. That's interesting that they do elsewhere.
What part of some violence is acceptable and some isn't is so incredibly hard for you to grasp that you start making shit up about my position?
I'm sorry, I was mad. Let's back up. I agree with you that slave violence against their masters is justified. What about a slave that kills the plantation owner's kids? That wouldn't be justified, but what if the slave had good reason to think the kids would ruin the head start he could have in his escape? Would the violence against the kids be justified?
Thanks for the correction, I'm not so familiar with different sects of Israel.
As now the US has retaliated on attacks on it's forces by attacking the Revolutionary Guard in Lebanon, but also de facto defended Israel from a possible drone from the Houthis with the USS Carney shooting down 15 drones and four cruise missiles, I think the possibility for the conflict to escalate is actually high.
(US Navy defending Israel on the Red Sea)
And the land assault hasn't started yet, only with probing attacks.
Doesn't look good. Hopefully both Iran and the US can keep their cool. And minimize it to slaps on the wrist.
I think this is a very difficult problem to deal with, morally.
If you are in a situation where you are clearly oppressed, but do not see any actually effective way out, what do you do? Are you allowed to attack your captor, jailor, torturer? Even if all that will do is result in one more death on the list? Is "fighting evil" a moral good in and of itself?
One can put the question in the reverse: At what point does participation in an immoral system strip you - in this specific context - of your right to bodily integrity, to liberty, to life?
I don't think this is an alien concept. Self-defense laws often work this way, though usually not explicitly. They follow the dictum that the person who puts themselves outside of the law by their actions then looses the protection of the law from the consequences.
This perspective seems to make the problem clearer: it is with identifying the fight against the system with the fight against specific persons. Maybe in turning yourself into an enforcer for a system, you're morally taking onto yourself its crimes?
But this is false. Not every action taken against a justified cause is immoral, much less punishable. I agree that one can retaliate (in due proportion) against an oppressor, but this is a separate issue. In particular, one must recognize that not all means to independence are licit.
Quoting As Gazans Scrounge for Food and Water, Hamas Sits on a Rich Trove of Supplies
Hamas are holding their own population hostage in support of their military and public relations aims.
Meanwhile the senior leadership of Hamas resides in relative luxury in hotels in Qatar, as well as in Lebanon, Turkey and other safe spaces well away from the conflict zone.
We can only hope.
Reports are that four US carrier groups are headed to the eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea. That's a massive deployment, likely not meant to scare small fish like Hamas or Hezbollah, and probably offensive in nature.
But time will tell.
UN General Assembly resolutions aren't legally binding, so in all likelihood will be promptly ignored by Israel and the United States, but it does show how isolated they have become in terms of global opinion.
Just two aircraft carriers is rare and basically a two carrier battle group is a wartime deployment. Four would basically mean all possible carriers out of the eleven, because with a rule of thumb one third is on repairs and fitting out... in peacetime.
(Situation of the USN major surface combatants at sea, October 16th, 2023)
Quoting Tzeentch
Notable is that along the lines of US and Israel, the only other US allies that joined being against were Czechia, Croatia and Hungary. The majority abstained and France voted in favour.
Quoting Wayfarer
I think the actual leadership is now committed to the fighting in Gaza. Of course the "representatives" in the Gulf States are there to hold up the flag especially if the present cadre is wiped out in Gaza.
A sober assesment of the situation from UN's Navi Pillay, Chair of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Naturally she sees both sides clearly committing warcrimes. Not surprising that the US or Israel disregards her position of having any authority. That she heads this kind of Independent Comission isn't even written her Wikipedia page, which writes like she has retired this decade. Very typical in the way persons like her are kept out of the public view.
She, as an South-African, when asked about the Apartheid-nature of the occupation agrees on it, but points out that it has only happened because of the occupation.
"The United States is appalled that the Iranian Ambassador in Geneva may serve as the Chair-Rapporteur of the Social Forum, an annual meeting in Geneva established by a UN Human Rights Council resolution, to be held in November. "
https://geneva.usmission.gov/2023/05/23/statement-by-ambassador-taylor-on-the-appointment-of-the-iranian-ambassador-as-chair-of-the-social-forum/
The UN is an Israel-hating joke.
Why?
And if Israel is allowed on any committee, the U.N. is an Iran-hating joke? :chin:
Oh no! :monkey:
"LGBTI people suffered systemic discrimination and violence. Consensual same-sex sexual relations remained criminalized with punishments ranging from flogging to the death penalty. State-endorsed “conversion therapies” amounting to torture or other ill-treatment remained prevalent, including against children. Hormone therapy and surgical procedures including sterilization were mandatory for legal gender changes. Gender non-conforming individuals risked criminalization and denial of access to education and employment.
In August, LGBTI rights defender Zahra Sedighi-Hamadani, known as Sareh, and another woman, Elham Choubdar, were sentenced to death for “corruption on earth” by a Revolutionary Court in Urumieh, West Azerbaijan province, due to their real or perceived sexual orientation and/or gender identity and their social media activities in support of LGBTI communities.6 The Supreme Court quashed their conviction and sentence in December and sent their case for retrial.
Women and girls
The authorities continued to treat women as second-class citizens, including in relation to marriage, divorce, child custody, employment, inheritance and political office.
The legal age of marriage for girls remained at 13, and fathers could obtain judicial permission for their daughters to be married at a younger age.
Women and girls were at the forefront of the popular uprising, challenging decades of gender-based discrimination and violence, and defying discriminatory and degrading compulsory veiling laws that result in them facing daily harassment and violence by state and non-state actors, arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment, and denial of access to education, employment and public spaces.
There was a stricter enforcement of these laws in mid-2022, culminating in the death in custody of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini in September, days after she was violently arrested by Iran’s “morality” police amid credible reports of torture and other ill-treatment."
https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/iran/report-iran/
You and Baden apparently have no problem with Iran leading a UN human rights group. I think you're nuts.
A bit like when Saudi Arabia chaired UN's Human Rights thing, or Russia led UN's Security thing.
I suppose, having the theocrats take some responsibility for all to see, being inclusive, could have some positive effects. One could hope anyway, though admittedly I haven't (personally) been impressed so far.
Jews are not a murderous people. Murder is the primeval sin in our religious texts; Judaism is also a much older religion than Islam. The ultra-orthodox have been disliked for years by their fellow Israeli Jews for a myriad of reasons.
You can't infer that from my post. I do have a problem with it. But my point was that it has nothing to do with Israel. Iran being on a human rights committee is certainly perverse. So would it be for Israel but for different reasons.
(As for the "appalled" comment. The US gets "appalled" whenever it suits its interests. It wasn't appalled at Israel's bombing of schools or refugees on routes Israel itself designated safe. And it's not "appalled" by the thousands of dead Palestinian civilians in general. What's apparently a worse crime against humanity is some committee designation. The US has zero moral standing and simply pursues its strategic interests (like every other large powerful state), so such statements can safely be taken with a grain of salt.)
Thank you for sharing your point of view. I would not have imagined it possible.
By the same token, if another country in the same situation, say Great Britain in the second world war, if they were cut off on every side and being bombed with no food and water coming in, no electricity, the British Armed forces are supposed to use their supplies to support the civilian population, and degrade the only defense they have against an armed invasion? Fuel, for example?
Why don't they simply stop fighting and surrender?. That is the question that should be asked.
No mention in that long article that the "Israeli blockade is ineffective, since Hamas has all this food and supplies. Suppose Hamas starts sharing and caring, what happens, does it neutralize the isolation?
Neither Nettanyahus extreme right wing Zionist government cares about the Gaza, it would seem, no-one cares.
This conflict is a acid test for humanity. Maybe that is its purpose.
Thank you for sharing your point of view. I would not have imagined it possible.
By the same token, if another country in the same situation, say Great Britain in the second world war, if they were cut off on every side and being bombed with no food and water coming in, no electricity, the British Armed forces are supposed to use their supplies to support the civilian population, and degrade the only defense they have against an armed invasion? Fuel, for example?
Why don't they simply stop fighting and surrender?. That is the question that should be asked.
No mention in that long article that the "Israeli blockade is ineffective, since Hamas has all this food and supplies. Suppose Hamas starts sharing and caring, what happens, does it neutralize the isolation?
Neither Nettanyahus extreme right wing Zionist government cares about the Gaza, it would seem, no-one cares.
This conflict is a acid test for humanity. Maybe that is its purpose.
In addition, modern-day Iran is a problem Israel and the US themselves created.
So you hit the double whammy for hypocrisy. :lol:
And in which religion murder wouldn't be a sin? Those religions with human sacrifices have dissappeared, and even they didn't that you can randomly murder anyone. You can have individuals, groups organizations and states that are murderous, not whole people.
Quoting FreeEmotion
I wouldn't say that. The EU is quite divided in this issue and for example France and Macron don't share the views of the US. Erdogan is so mad that Israel is withdrawing diplomats because of his comments. And Hamas has achieved at least one objective, the halting of the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi-Arabia. The Palestinians are back in the center of focus.
Hence actually, so many care that this war might escalate.
This is one point of agreement. I feel bad that I have not been aware of all the conflict and suffering that has gone on around the world. Not the 'center of focus'. Maybe if people were aware of things and starting protesting earlier, maybe things could have been different. Look at all the other conflicts- Yemen for example, or Sudan. Azerbaijan. What is happening there?
Christians will find it hard to believe that the Israel has treated Palestinians this way.
How Evangelicals Betray Christians In The Holy Land [Pt. 2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHT-SjIM0tA
"I don't believe that Israel is oppressing them."
I have heard this all before, "they are not being oppressed" therefore they are fighting over nothing, they have no reason to engage in terrorism, they should stop. Later, you learn that there was a reason, many years later. Then, you do not hate terrorists, you see them as a rational human beings recruited and inspired into violence. They never plead insanity. Those pulling the strings are the ones responsible, you think. If the reason for terrorism is mental illness, we have a problem, if it is oppression, there is a solution, stop oppressing.
If everyone had known what they know now, things would be so different.
Yes, there is some division on this issue, the question is why. Is it the humanity?
The news sites are also divided, that's OK, but deliberately refusing to address the issue is something else altogether, I must say I am rather surprised and disappointed that those supporting the "Evangelicals" are so very unscrupulous.
Fox News - war is approaching second phase, and further down the page, reports a horrific event:
"32 dead, more than 60 injured in horror vehicle pile-up in Egypt"
Israel-Hamas war: Thousands raid Gaza aid centers, UN says - DW
BBC reports same thing.
Is the news now changing? Interesting to see what twists the news takes in the next few days.
That's true, but it doesn't nearly go far enough. If Gazans surrendered, they would not only have peace, but if they let foreigners rule over them, rewrite their laws, and build their institutions, they would achieve a level of prosperity that would've been unthinkable before.
Their irrational commitment to self-determination is at the root of the problem. The most successful countries in Africa and the Middle East are basically run by catering to the needs of foreign capital. The people are themselves better off as a result.
As the Gulf Arabs show, there's even a way to do it where you keep your culture. You just can't have a society centered around undoing the results of wars you lost.
Like the French in June 1942
At least Azeris are happy, they got the Nagorno-Karabakh to themselves and the Armenians there are fleeing (or have left) the place. That conflict is resolved.
Quoting FreeEmotion
The support of American Evangelicals of Israel one of the most ludicrous things in present politics. For them Israel isn't an ordinary state, it's something nearly divine.
So it seems. Yet I think the question is how Israel defends itself. Is there a legitimate question about using excessive force? I think there is. Is it when 10 000 Palestinian civilians killed? Or 50 000? Or 100 000 out of 2,2 million? Would over 100 000 dead be excessive? Already Israel has made more strikes than the US did in one year in the war in Afghanistan.
But you are correct that we didn't have a similar debate about the Russian strategy of bombing hospitals and civilian targets. Yet as of September 2023, the UN has reported that 9 614 civilians have been killed and Ukrainian officials say about 11 000 are missing.
Urban combat is dangerous for civilians, especially there's not much restrictions on using artillery.
And as Gaza was basically totally dependent of Israel for water etc, the population is in danger. And if during peacetime Gaza recieved daily 500 trucks with supplies and now it has gotten 80 after October 7th, it's no surprise that people are looting UN warehouses.
Uh, just where do you think people of Gaza have been living after 1967? Did they live under the same laws as Israelis? No. Have they had the same rights as Jewish Israelis? No.
They have been living under foreign rule that has rewritten the laws (from Egyptian or Jordanese law).
Wouldn't they be actually on the same spot as they were earlier, if they surrendered?
Like Germany and Japan in 1945.
Ideally, the situation would be for Israel to have advanced weapons and use them to hold off attacks from their technologically backward neighbors. That's what the Iron Dome is meant to do. "Launch all the rockets you want, and we'll just sit here and shoot them down." Hamas says, "Alright, then. Rockets don't work? We'll just charge in and slaughter as many of you as we can."
What is Israel supposed to do?
Yes, people will die. Children will be orphaned. Children will die. Many people will be maimed, crippled, impoverished, and immiserated. Homes and shops will burn. It's going to be horrible, and I think the Israelis know this. But still: what are they supposed to do? Just sit there and take it? Thus encouraging a second strike? No. They have to hit back, and it has to hurt.
What makes this difficult is the fact that Israel is overwhelmingly more powerful than Hamas. This makes the situation difficult for anyone with a conscience. It makes the situation especially difficult for Western leftists, who see everything through a prism of oppressed/oppressor logic. If the first question you ask is always, "Which person is the cop and which person is George Floyd?" then your moral prism will be skewed.
Excessive wrt what? Excessiveness in the law of war is not assessed wrt the number of casualties but wrt militarly efficacy. IDF has targeted, and killed, Hamas commanders and gunmen, as well as destroyed weapons warehouses, command and control centers, tunnels and numerous other assets that enable the terror organization to function. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/08/06/laurie-blank-follow-up-on-gaza-proportionality-and-the-law-of-war/
The oppression of religious and ethnic minorities across MENA and Central Asia is very much a mixed bag and also shifts based on the politics and alliance needs of the day. It's a bit like Reformation Europe, where Catholics and Lutherans would fight these incredibly bitter contests, but then agree to beat up on the Anabaptists it Calvinists together.
Or perhaps it's even more like how, through Luther's day, Pope Leo X was urging the European monarchs to put aside their differences to beat back the Turks, who were rampaging through the Balkans and smashing their heads against the bulwark of Austria, and yet during the following inter-Christian religious wars, alliance with the Ottomans was not out of the question. Same deal with the Fourth Crusade turning on Constantinople, the supposed beneficiary of the early eastern Crusades.
And the fraught political-religious situation across those regions doesn't look to be getting especially better.
Of course, every time a commentator says something like "well Islam in the region just needs something like the Reformation," I sort of slap my head because that time was not one of some sort of nice transition towards tolerance. It was full of wars that killed a significantly higher proportion of their nation's populations than both World Wars combined, and the wars raged for centuries.
I’m sure they mean Enlightenment :wink:.
It all reveals the moral hypocrisy of leftists. They spend all their time complaining about the evils of a hetero-normative patriarchy in the west, but seem to care little about it running rampant in Islamic states. While they spend all their efforts defending anti-Semitic violence, their concern for the rights of women and LGBTQ's is conspicuously absent.
France or Germany or Japan?
Which one will it be? Can you foretell the future?
Even if it means another Dresden or Hiroshima, it will be worth it, but not for me.
I have a difference of opinion here.
Remember this works both ways. It is not called a cycle of violence for nothing, it has that name for a reason. If they are all human, then, they will hit back when hit.
I hope you are wrong. I hope against hope for a immediate and permanent ceasefire, and the repair of Gaza and its infrastructure. Too bad about the people, right?. I do not care if they return to peaceful oppression, at least it is peaceful.
If you say, knowing human beings, hitting back when hit, then, assuming there are human beings on both sides, then the probability of escalation is high. I wish I could hold them back, but I can't. Based on what happened before, it looks likely.
The most difficult part is believing human beings could act this way? Which ones? Find out.
Yes Benkei yes, have you not heard of Gandhi?
This whole thing can be summarized as follows: if you walk up to someone and slap them do they have to turn the other cheek?
I say yes. Jesus did that, and that is what the Christian in the video said.
This morning the news was that the IDF has 'advised' that the main hospital in Gaza 'should be evacuated'. It's full of dreadfully injured and burned patients, and the facility is already under massive stress. It would be an enormous challenge to re-locate those patients even in ideal circumstances, let alone on the back of jeeps across the rubble-strewn streets of a war zone. So while I'm in agreement with Israel's right to defend its borders and also agree that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, not a legitimate government (remembering they took over Gaza through a military coup and that the destruction of Israel is in their founding documents), I think like many others I'm uneasy - actually, no, not uneasy, but appalled - at the price being extracted from the Palestinian populace in pursuit of its aims.
Here's a link to an OP in the SMH by a Sydney writer, who is Jewish, expressing similar concerns:
Quoting David Leser, Stop annihilating innocent Palestinians in my Jewish name
I don't want to get drawn into a 'who's side are you on' debate, although I think Hamas' responsibility for triggering these horrors should never be overlooked or downplayed even while acknowledging that there is plenty of blame to go around.
Which is why it's the dirt the meek inherit, not the earth.
Whenever I read statements like this, I wonder which are the concepts of 'first world' and 'third world', respectively. Apart from being a notion created by Western civilisation after WWII to label nations in different boxes and causing, in the long run, negative prejudices sorrowfully.
If we continue to use those concepts, the problem will remain, because the sense of your argument is backing up Israel's genocide because it is a 'developed' nation in a 'backward' territory. A territory which was occupied illegally in the first place.
If you check the politics, level of corruption and their system of representatives, Israel is far from being a nation of the 'first world', as you labelled it. Israel is consistently rated low in the Global Peace Index, ranking 134th out of 163 nations for peacefulness in 2022. Marriage and divorce are under the jurisdiction of the religious courts: Jewish, Muslim, Druze, and Christian. The Economist Intelligence Unit rated Israel a "flawed democracy" in 2022. A flawed democracy is a nation where elections are fair and free and basic civil liberties are honoured but may have issues (e.g. media freedom infringement and minor suppression of political opposition and critics). This is how Netanyahu literally works.
According to this data... do you really consider Israel as a first-world country?
As usual he delivers a straightforward, realist analysis of the situation in Ukraine and Israel, and provides some wider context. This is part 1 of that talk. Part 2 is yet to come out.
Timestamps:
0:00 - 21:05 Russia-Ukraine War
21:05 - 37:18 Israel-Gaza War
By definition anyone resisting a just cause is acting unjustly. It's kind of like the following decision tree:
So we see here it's not the opponents cause that gives rise to a justification to use violence but it arises from how the opponent pursues that just cause.
There's some room for weighing what is and isn't proportional given the cause of course. The greater the good we're pursuing, the more intense violence we would likely accept. As an example, I think the moral intuition that we are allowed to use more violence to protect our lives then to protect our things, seems reasonably.
Easy to be straightforward if you just ignore the parts of the story that don't neatly fit the narrative. Like the fact that the two-state solution was repeatedly rebuffed by Palestinian and Arab representatives as well. Or how the interests of Saudi Arabia and Iran also shape the conflict.
What do we do if noone has a just cause though?
It seems to me that, looking at the broad strokes, no "side" can really claim to have had a just cause. Individuals, certainly, but not those who ended up steering the larger situation.
Obviously we can condemn both sides for their respective unjust actions. But do we act beyond that? Should we revert to consequentialism in a situation where we cannot resolve the "just cause conflict"? Or should we ignore consequences and adopt complete neutrality?
From the article you posted:
Now how do you do that? Well, here's one example what US armed forces did before capturing an Iraqi city held by insurgents in Operation Phantom Fury:
Less than one thousand civilians were killed then in Fallujah (800 according to the Red Cross/Crescent). Meaning if there were only 30000 left in the city, roughly three people of every one hundred civilians died in the battle at worst. That would be to Gaza's size 58 000 killed, if or when the civilians cannot get out from the fighting. Assuming the IDF would show similar restraint as the US did in Fallujah.
And you might say Israel has done the same thing here by telling the people to leave Gaza City and seek refuge in the south. Now it seems that Gaza has been cut and the focus is on Gaza City. Sounds OK, but then not giving minimal humanitarian aid to over two million people is one troubling issue. Then comes the question what to do to the southern part. How Israel will conduct the war when it comes to the southern part of the Gaza strip is the real breaker here. Civilians supposed to have gone there(in 48 hours), yet it has also has been bombed. How to clear that, what to do there, is where you can easily get into tens of thousands of killed. The battle of Berlin cost the deaths of 125 000. The real questions here are the "then what?", what you do after you have gone through the small strip of land.
If the human toll will become huge, the propaganda spinmeisters will have a lot of work (on both sides) and will try to make it disputed. However you cannot make tens of thousands killed somehow be living, hence history will have a somewhat exact figure.
I see what you're saying. The source I read was a Pakistani who was giving a broad history of Islam since 1900. He said that Iran is a beacon for Shiites everywhere because there are elements of Shiite practice that are deeply offensive to Sunnis. Where the two groups are living in the same area, Shiites have to hide or squash their practices. This is a burden that Shiites have to carry. Iran is a symbol of emancipation from it.
The same author did say that conflict between the two comes and goes, and that it's not the same conflict over time. It's usually a symptom of tension that's arisen for other reasons.
In Fallujah the US did have the Iraqi government to help here (and whose performance wasn't stellar), but who has Bibi? So what to do with the human animals from the evil city?
Perhaps the US will come to mop around and clean the place or something...
These days we talk about core countries and developing ones. We talk about regional influence versus global influence.
You prefer the 1950s jargon. :up:
That's weird.
But nobody is saying "let the other guy hit you", we're saying stop human rights abuses, stop the occupation and illegal settlement. That has nothing to do with a cycle but everything to do with ensuring Palestinians can live in human decency. I have no problem with a just and proportionate response against a terrorist attack but I don't see why in the West Bank, where there is no Hamas, there's still an occupation, settlers with support from the IDF feel free to kill Palestinians and other human rights abuses continue.
I'm OK calling them a second-world country surrounded by shitholes. It doesn't really take away from the point that Israel is a democracy where gays and women aren't flogged and killed by "morality police". Do they have their issues? Of course. Are they ten times better than the surrounding countries? Yes.
I still do not see why this is relevant at all, and I think you support the occupation and massacre of Israel in Gaza.
Japan has always been more developed than many Western countries, but they were attacked by a nuclear bomb in the most cruel way... so what?
What do you attempt to say? 'The end justifies the means' or similarities.
From an antinatalist's perspective, all supporters of procreation support bringing both known, unknown, un-consented amounts of harm to people born into the world. So from that standpoint, pick your poison, pick your side- it's always going to be some wrong involved :wink:
Javi, Japan attacked first. It was all-out war. Stop with the bullshit about how Japan was unfairly targeted.
Despite that I understand what you attempt to say, I don't like to treat those nations as 'shit holes' because nobody is guilty to be born in a country like West Bank or Lebanon. If we keep treating them in such a way, don't be surprised if they hate the Western world then.
On the other hand, it was Israel the one who settled there, in the middle of the desert, surrounded by countries that had already been there. Now, they have to accept the consequences of their artificial borders for a nation based on wandering people who don't belong to their specific territory, but they 'believe' so because a holy book says whatever in its psalms...
I don't see any difference between Israel and a country ruled by the Quran.
If you truly see yourself as against the "Western" narrative, even this idea of "territory" should be questioned. Did you ever consider that even buying into the "this is rightfully mine that is not for them" is itself just buying into the meta-narrative given you? You are doing the narrative-creators a favor with the internalized bickering within their framework. In that sense, they have already "won", due to your lack of vision beyond the given.
I disagree. They attacked first. Yes, but with honour and respect, not targeting civil citizens. They bombed military headquarters and zones. But, they were answered by a bloody nuclear attack. For me, it is clear that there was a big disproportion between the attacks. As well as in this current conflict.
Quoting javi2541997
You don't see a difference between a country where gays are gleefully murdered by morality police, and one where they aren't?
Israel is governed by orthodox authorities! Why is this so hard to accept?
Because it's all about how people get to control other people. Procreation is the "original sin" of ethics. As a parent, you get to control the decision for someone else that "this world" must be "endured" (lived out, survival.. living as a human with various burdens, suffering, and self-awareness of all of this). But this is handwaved. But then we take "seriously" made up social fictions (that are taken s realities) like, "this territory is for my people!!". You can parse out where the "serious" part is for anything. People think taking the given traditions of "nation-states are true/real/necessary" as simply what must be the case. It was a narrative that grew out of the wars of the 17th century Europe, the colonialism of 18th century Europe, the philosophies of the 19th century Europe (exported to other areas of the world), and the World Wars of the 20th century Europe (exported to other parts of the world). In other words, it's just bullshit carried out in real time and the "reality" part is simply its backing by violence.
I'm sure Israel isn't PERFECT in their respect of homosexual rights, but I think I'm fairly justified in thinking it's a hell of a big improvement compared to most of the other countries in the region.
Do you have evidence to the contrary?
There were civilians who died at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked, but worse, when the Japanese invaded China, around 20 million Chinese civilians died as a result. The US was allied with China at the time.
Second Sino-Japanese War
You're being insulting to all of Japan's victims.
Liberalism used to mean being for a certain way of life (liberal democracy). Presumably, whatever blemishes America has (and there are many.. from how the Cold War was conducted to cult-like authoritarianism like Trump), the ideal stands for "old school Liberalism".
The "newer" liberalism can be differentiated with the term "leftism". That is to say, culture matters more than old-school "liberal" ideas such as "rights". Thus if a culture deems their "territory" to be "self-determined", it can thus do whatever it wants. If it is an illiberal democracy so be it. There might not be enthusiastic support from the "leftists" in European countries, but there might be "indifferent" support that at least it is what the "majority" culture wants there.. Like why someone would support an illiberal state like Iran, who also claim to be "liberal" is beyond me. It would have to be a case of extreme anti-US hegemony (cut my nose to spite my face), or extreme cultural relativism.
China and the US became allies immediately after Pearl Harbor. China provided the US Navy with intelligence throughout the war. Americans knew.
Yep
Everyone's posting their favorite (anti-) post here. But it was to elucidate a bigger point of where people pick their "indignation". So I did tie it into a philosophical point that we often handwave some things and include others in what we condemn. In a philosophy forum setting, where we question even first principle of our debate (and not just political science or history), I think this is a legitimate point to make. But carry on with your particular indignation.
There are roughly as many Jews living in 'Greater Israel' as there are Muslims, which means that as soon as Muslims get equal rights, Israel ceases to be a Jewish state. In addition, due to demographic factors Muslims will start to outnumber Jews in the span of several decades, further compounding the issue.
So there you have it.
Under the paradigm that Israel must be a Jewish state, your flavors are apartheid or ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Yes, I have.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_of_Israel
If the rule of law is shared by religious courts, how can the rights of gay people can be guaranteed?
It is so obvious, right?
Just curious did you see my response to that? My response to that quote was because it basically was "yadadyadaya.. but AMERICA couldn't know". It just seemed like knee-jerk leftist rhetoric which goes.. Yadyadayda..America (bad).
Yea. We all see the world through myths, I think. There's the Muslim terrorist myth, which shows up sometimes. The America-bad myth is ever-present. What I do is just try to be slow to judgment so I can detect my own myths and try not to write off what someone says as if it's nothing but myth. Sometimes a person is appealing for a particular fact to be recognized, and it may be important. How do you get to that when there's a cloud of myths in the way?
Absurdity; they deserve to die; they are backwards because the Samurai are old-fashioned; they have an Emperor, so they are weird; dropping two nuclear bombs is justified, etc.
Imagine if Hirohito was the one ordering a nuclear attack on California - for example - you would argue what I am arguing right now. No doubt about that. On the other hand, I am not saying that the Japanese army was peaceful and not bloody. Yes, I must admit that their commanders were savage. But as much as I can remember, their commanders were condemned by the U.S. Supreme Court. Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944)
Why no court condemned Truman for letting the American army destroy two cities?
A bit of hypocrisy and cynicism. Don't you think, Tim?
Did Americans know about what the Japanese were doing to the Chinese? I would love to learn more about that if I've been mistaken.
I agree. The bombing of Dresden was also a war crime. It killed more civilians than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I don't think anyone would hold Germany up as a pitiful victim because of Dresden, though. That's what Javi has been trying to do with Japan and the atomic bomb attack.
Hence, certain flavours of Zionism (as pursued by Likud for instance) are racist. It's also pretty cool how being "Jewish" was subverted to something like a nation-race. Jabotinsky, one of the founders of Likud, wrote that "Jewish national integrity relies on “racial purity", whereas Nordau asserted the need for an "exact anthropological, biological, economic, and intellectual statistic of the Jewish people." (source: wiki on Zionism).
Also: how nice it is a pansy leftist like me can finally agree on something with your conservative ass... :razz:
My much earlier point up on this page somewhere when talking to Javi, was to question all of it as myth. I tied it to the idea that bigger questions like "being born itself is good and should be condoned" could be a myth. How indeed, do we handle the social fictions that we are given?
So here is an example. There is an idea of "eminent domain" in many countries. In some countries (like the US with the 5th amendment) it is enshrined as federal law. That is to say, if the "government" (and this could extend to private businesses whose revenues would "help" the government with revenue as "backed up" by "Supreme Court decisions"), wanted to take your property for a Court backed cause, that is perfectly acceptable. They can pay you a "fair price" for your property/land and start building on it. You have to "take the deal" or they can technically arrest you, fine you, etc. if you refuse. Now, what if you think this is "unjust"? It's your land according to YOU. YOU HAD THIS LAND in your FAMILY. You grew OLIVE GROVES on this land. But the "evil GOVERNMENT" took your FAMILY'S LAND!! You DON'T WANT a FAIR PRICE. YOU WANT YOUR LAND DAMN IT! So instead of accepting this, you form a posse of angry individuals who also hate this idea. It's a minority of people. But you are all people who think were "screwed over" by the policy of "eminent domain". So you all get pitch forks, torches, you all stock pile a bunch of weapons, you all form a gang and call yourselves the Freedom Domain Front (the FDF). You are the underdog. You feel dispossessed. You refuse to live under this TYRANNY. You start doing terrible acts to the "oppressors" who are not letting you live on YOUR LAND! Etc. etc. etc.
It's ALL choosing which MYTHS are going to be your INDIGNATION.
True. There was once a quiet little village in the middle of nowhere. One day the blacksmith said it had come to him that he owned the moon. Startled by this, the weaver said he'd always thought of the moon as his own property. The villagers began taking sides and war broke out amongst them to finally decide who owned the Great Orb. Now they're all dead.
Frank, it was a tremendous pity to see a lot of people dying because of a nuclear attack. More than 140,000 civilians died in minutes. Nobody deserves to be nuked by another nation, it doesn't matter the context and circumstances at all. I don't know who is 'wrong' here. Me, for defending Bushid? and Hirohito or you for backing up the nuclear attacks. Yet, what is obvious is that it was a human disaster.
But I can always say THAT is TRULY a MYTH. I "actually owned" the OLIVE GROVES! The Government TOOK my OLIVE GROVES. It's the Great Devastation! I have passed this INJUSTICE to my grandchildren, unto generations. They will always fight. By any means necessary, WE WANT THE OLIVE GROVES FROM THE OPPRESSORS!
In fact the Netherlands and Finland has been secretly funneling money to our group in support of our FREEDOM CAUSE! Because they see the injustice of the Eminent Domainists and their colonizing ways.
And, as this is John Lost-his-Marblesheimer, for him there's only United States, China, and Russia. Period. Nothing else in the World and his theories.
Of course, Marblesheimer, as a typical American thinking only as the US from the perspective of me, myself and I, totally sidelines that the actual working and effective alliance it has NATO and NATO countries like France, Germany, the UK and others. If and when they come along with the US, that the actual Superpower juggernaut, because these countries can work together and are totally happy with the US being at the helm. There is absolutely NOTHING like it in Asia where the US according to John (and the US establishment, it should be noted) wants the US to pivot. There is no SEATO. There is only bilateral agreements with countries and some vague speaking clubs.
Hence if "pivoting to Asia" would literally mean forgetting Europe, then NATO would go the same way as the other treaty organizations like CENTO and SEATO. And Western Europe would create it's defense towards Russia without the US. This actually has been already been discussed for example in the British Parliament when Trump put out his most eccentric tweets.
And the US pushing NATO states down throat of Russia? Again, the idea of those NATO states pushing for membership doesn't come to Marblesheimer's head. Again, anyone or any country other than the three big military one's are totally meaningless. At 11:54 he again forgets that the US isn't handling satellite states like Stalin did with NATO members and Ukraine or Georgia coming to join isn't just what an US President wants. That Sweden isn't yet in NATO shows this clearly. Only ignorant people think of NATO as a puppet of the US.
On the Ukraine war, at least he is correct that it's a war of attrition, and about the importance of artillery (it's still the king of battle). Also that it will end up as a frozen conflict is probable.
Mabrlesheimer about Israel and Hamas conflict:
How he depicts Gaza is correct. He is also correct that the US isn't able to pressure Israel for a two state solution and Israel will never accept a two-state solution. Yes, that train has left the station. Just why is the US so close to Israel isn't explained. Actually John makes a mistake claiming that the carrier group shot down cruise missiles. That didn't happened, another US Navy destroyer Carney shot down them from the Red Sea, as anything shot from Yemen towards Israel is a bit difficult to shoot down when sailing in the Mediterranean.
Geographical mistakes can happen to old men.
In terms of politics I fancy myself more of a classic liberal, but I'll take it. :pray:
I also love Japanese culture, particularly the wabi sabi aesthetic. My love of it is in evidence throughout my house and garden. I have about 7 bonsai's made from Japanese privets, and two from a cypress. What I want you to do is take a broader look at what happened to Japan in the 20th Century. Read the article I posted about the Sino-Japanese war. Understand the America's war with Japan wasn't America versus bushido. Americans were literally fighting countries that were intent on global domination. Americans were fighting for their own security.
:up:
Putin has virtually for his entire time in power attempted to foster close ties with Europe. He probably felt Europe and the US were potentially more reliable allies than China (also given historical animosity).
I don't think that train left the station until March/April 2022, but now it certainly has and the Russia-China alliance is a fact of life. I share Mearsheimer's view that this is largely due to the conscious, but ultimately misguided, effort of the United States.
Quoting ssu
Mearsheimer wrote a book together with Stephen Walt, and gave many lectures about the US Israel lobby.
A must-read/watch, in my opinion.
It's more about how the lobby functions, and what historical impact it has had.
Just curious, do you think the inverse is true? As you imply the US has a (insert common trope Israeli lobby), European countries might have an Anti-Israeli bias/lobby? Could both be true then if you proffer one side or is Europe “objective” and “too meek” for this to be an issue (which I predict to be a response in some couched form).
Wrong.
Putin at his start tried to foster close ties with Europe. On his terms, of course. And unlike many think, there were indeed those close ties. And a lot of work to renew those good ties, remember the reboot button? Even after the Russo-Georgian war, we have to remember. But then, he would have to had to make an economic recovery and give a lot of prosperity to the Russians, which he and his robber barons failed to give the people (even if oil prices rose). So on with Russia is an Empire card!
Quoting Tzeentch
What happened in March/April 2022 with Israel and the Palestinians?
Quoting Tzeentch
That's true! Darn, forgot about that.
I view the European countries as little more than US vassals. What they do or think is generally irrelevant, because on important issues they fall in lockstep with the US.
But in its actions Europe has largely been as supportive of Israel as the US has, and all my criticisms apply to Europe as well.
Quoting ssu
I'm not sure if I follow the link to the Israel-Palestine conflict, but what I'm referring to are the failed negotiations that took place.
I think in March/April the Russians still believed NATO did not really want a war with Russia, and therefore could be negotiated with if Russia showed it wasn't bluffing with their red lines.
Only after the blocked negotiations did the Russians realize that the Biden administration was serious about pursuing regime change in Russia and trying to destroy Russia economically, etc.
In my view that was the definitive point of no return.
So basically what I said here:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Do you think there is still more anti-Israeli bias (and I’m going to say bias because each side thinks it’s objective and right) than the US proportionally? Or is philosophy forum just representative of a Non representative trend?
:up: that is what I was asking.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yes terms can be very indicative of how the debate is framed. For example, “anti-Israel” implies that it should never exist in the first place and any action it takes is wrong tout court. It could be a subtler suggestion though.
Ok.
Quoting Stalin
Maybe Mearsheimer forgot post-Yalta. At least that Stalin-world ended.
Quoting ssu
I suppose one could hope anyway (all of Europe preferably). Expensive, though. The (present somewhat Stalin'esque) Kremlin looms large on the horizon.
Without the US, Russia has quite a say in Europe. Finlandization could come back as be trendy.
And of course there is a new armaments program going on already in Europe. For example in Poland.
It seems that way, but I think politics gets murkier. Also, I want to stick to your original phrasing of a justified cause rather than a just cause ("the Palestinian cause for independence is justified").
Regarding politics, suppose Bob steals Fred's land in 1800. The land passes on through his descendants until in 2000 Bob Jr. owns it. At that time Fred Jr. demands that the land be returned to his family. He has a justified cause. Bob Jr. resists the claim, pointing out that he inherited the land that has been in his family for 200 years, during which time the land was substantially improved. Whatever we want to say about Bob Jr's resistance, I do not think we can say it is immoral. Two justified causes exist which are in conflict with one another. Such is politics. To reiterate my conclusion, "Not every action taken against a justified cause is immoral, much less punishable."
Quoting Benkei
This decision tree is somewhat useful, but if you made it yourself I would suggest reorganizing the three boxes in the bottom right. They don't seem to follow from, "No [your cause is not just], you're not allowed to resist."
Quoting Benkei
This question of violence is interesting and important, but I want to avoid it given my time constraints. Generally, though, I would say that violence is only justified by injustice, and therefore more is required than simply a cause. My goal was only to oppose your claim that, "every action [against a justified cause] is already contaminated as something immoral."
Yep, and that's why you don't get what actually happens in the World.
And so does John Marblesheimer. After all, who care about EU and the West European integration? Who care about the existing allies of the US?
Quoting Tzeentch
The talk was about the two-state solution here. Did you watch the whole lecture? That the time for a two state solution has passed away a long time ago. And here I agree with Marblesheimer. The topic wasn't anymore about Ukraine, fyi.
What's actually happening in the world? Enlighten us please. :roll:
Quoting ssu
That's why I didn't understand why you mentioned March/April 2022 in relation to the Israel-Palestine issue.
Have done it all the time when discussing events with you. :snicker:
This seems to parallel my points here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/849629
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/849634
But with the added element that much of these things are social myths (stories) of indignation and selecting which ones “matter” (and carried in generationally) and with what means and intensity one uses to justify one’s injustices and “indignation”.
Someone STOLE your olive groves! No amount of compensation will allay your indignation over this! If your great grandchildren rape and pillage those who you think STOLE your olive groves that is the Great Devastation, is something off with this myth? Does it even seem reasonable anymore or has it morphed into something else?
Ok, I got mixed up, I thought you were referring to this below, which you weren't. Case cleared.
Quoting ssu
Yes, and one way to look at this is the difference between a right and a legitimate interest. Interests can come into conflict and must be balanced, but we usually do not think of rights in that manner. So your example of eminent domain requires a settlement, a balancing of interests based on various contingencies. Both parties have a justified cause, and some sort of compromise must be reached.
You may not see what I added:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Thanks, I did miss that addition. Yes, and those entrenched spats make these political situations exponentially more complex. So I think you are right, but given that I am trying to avoid these "exponentially more complex" facets of the thread lest I get sucked in too deep, I will say no more on this issue of generational grudges. :razz:
Sorry did you have a response?
Of course you don't.
:up:
Quoting Leontiskos
Eh c'mon you can do it. You had a line of thought.. Follow it.
I would be naive if I thought Israel had any reasonable systems involved to hold these men responsible for shooting a rocket at people they knew were civilians. Maybe I'm naive in thinking they weren't ordered to do just that by their superiors.
Fuck this.
I think we are probably in agreement, but in order to argue for your position and propose mediation for the conflict of interests, I would need to descend into the various contingent factors of the situation on the ground. I don't have the time or energy for that descent at the moment. Do I think the Palestinians need to start putting the past behind them and stop justifying the unjustifiable? Yep. Am I willing to argue the details and extent of this with those who are strongly in favor of Palestine? Nope. Not every battle is mine to fight, even when I am in agreement. I wish you luck, though. :halo:
It's peculiar that the west, the very culture that invented "social progress", the only culture in history that has achieved any relevant sustaining success in matters of "social progress", is supposed to be the very thing preventing "social progress" in certain nonwestern cultures that despise and hate everything about western culture (including the idea of "social progress").
It is even more peculiar to think that if the so-called Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory was ended, the Palestinians would miraculously become concerned with the rights of women or LGBTQ's without some form of culturally oppressive intervention from the west.
So the left has a dilemma, it can either support the oppressed Palestinians against the tyrannical Israeli colonizers while dispensing of any concern for the evils of antisemitism or the rights of women and LGBTQ's within Palestinian territory. Or, the left can support a western culture that actively defends the human rights of classically oppressed groups within its very own territory while disregarding its occupation of a place that has a clear record of oppressing its own people (particularly women and LGBTQ's).
From what we've seen thus far, it appears that the left couldn't give two shits about the fate of women and LGBTQ's. I still hear no cry from the left over justice for the plight of women and LGBTQ's suffering under fundamentalist islamic regimes like Hamas.
Quoting Benkei
Countries have no obligation towards any other (at least with which they have no treaty). Countries are only responsible for their own citizens. And how they treat their own people is generally indicative of that society's relative degree of humanity. Based on the way Israel treats its own people versus the way Hamas does, I would much rather be colonized by Israel than Hamas.
Quoting Benkei
Not sure I can agree with that logic. Why would someone want to be accorded human rights if they despise the very idea of human rights? For those of us concerned for respecting the rights of the individual, it is our duty, out of concern for the respectability of the individual, to deprive human rights to those who do not want them, and to not unjustly impose our ethics upon them.
Come on, Tim. Do you really think that it is logical to use a nuclear weapon?
I don't 'wish' to prove that it was terrible to vanish Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the map. It was literally a disaster. This mess goes beyond any human understanding or philosophy. There was a historical war, where one country overused its force to another, and destroyed two cities where innocent people lived. The Japanese accepted the loss because they are an honoured civilisation and understood it was the best way to end the war after the shock. But this doesn't mean that they think that the nuclear attack was the best ending for their military aspirations...
Tim, they play pokemon and watch anime, but the Japanese are not stupid. They are very clever folks.
Yes we can. Moral rights don't lapse. The reason legal claims expire, is because of economic reasons because the administrative burden and possibility of proof greatly reduce over time. This is why there's no legal argument in favour of equitable relief for descendants of slavery but there certainly is a moral one.
That doesn't mean Bob has no rights at all of course but to deny the claim in its entirety would be immoral.
Yes. 20,000,000 Chinese civilians died during their war with Japan. The Japanese put themselves at the top of the list of the most destructive nations that have ever existed. I'm sure you didn't mean to pass that over without comment.
Even from generation to generation? What if the span of time is 2000 years rather than 200 years? I am a moral realist, but I am doubtful of the idea that Fred Jr. has an indisputable moral right to the land that was stolen from his family 200 years ago.
Quoting Benkei
Right, I agree. I think these intractable political disagreements point to compromise.
The point was that proportionality is not matter of minimising civilian casualties, but a ratio between maximising military achievements and minimising civilian casualties (nuclear bombing Japan was proportional in WW2?). And that minimising civilian casualties has to do with efforts like early warnings and precision weapons, but the situation is particularly challenging in Gaza, due to the density of the population, the hiding of Hamas combatants among civilians and, to a non-negligible degree, the complicity of the Palestinians themselves with Hamas.
There is an inherent risk in letting Hamas (which doesn’t care about civilians, Israeli or Palestinians) emotionally blackmail us, into isolating Israel. And again, the West is showing its weakness toward the Rest of the World at large. As far as I am concerned, humanitarian institutions are welcome if they manage to make their guidance widely shared, from the West to the Rest, or denounce Western abuses when the West is not significantly challenged by the Rest, not to harass the West which actually gives a shit about humanitarian concerns while the Rest which doesn't give a shit about humanitarian concerns is getting more and more confrontational by exploiting our (not their) sensitivity about human life.
Quoting ssu
Over time Isreal has become more cooperative on this
https://www.timesofisrael.com/un-says-33-aid-trucks-with-water-food-medical-supplies-entered-gaza-sunday/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-says-will-allow-significantly-more-humanitarian-aid-to-enter-gaza-from-egypt/
Quoting ssu
Why? If you are a Hamas terrorist, knowing that IDF will catch you in the North, you would flee in the South. Again if the logic here is that Hamas hides behind potentially complicit civilians [1] (apparently no pro-Palestinian here seems interested in promoting the narrative that Palestinians are hostage of Hamas, which betrays their pro-Hamas bias), there is no easy way to isolate Hamas combatants.
If that is the strategy, what’s the military way to get rid of Hamas’ current combatants and capabilities? More to the point, how would Hamas or Putin reason according to you if they were to choose? To me it doesn’t make much sense to apply one standard when your enemies don’t play by the same standard. It’s like boxing with a tied hand with somebody who can fight with both hands. You can do it if you are so strong that you have a good chance to win with just one hand. If not, then your approach is self-defeating.
[1]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/idfspokesperson/status/490877848165421056?lang=en[/tweet]
Maybe not the land but possible compensation if we can discover who benefitted from it. I'm not entirely convinced private property is the right legal framework to begin with though, which complicates these matters. Plus I think at some point reparing past injury isn't about obligation but more about taking responsibility. EG. I'm not responsible for the sins of my forefathers (slavery) but I do think I and the wider Dutch society can take responsibility without necessarily proscribing how (reparations, investments, acknowledgement).
So given the centuries of persecution of Jews in Europe and ME, I do think we have a collective responsibility to give them that piece of land for sovereignty. It would've been more of a class act if we hadn't foisted a huge problem on others though. Maybe Luxembourg.
At the same time, I don't see how the Palestinian issue can be resolved without a right of return. There's no issues of proof or ambiguity as to who is profiting from their displacement. It's more a question where to return and under who's government. And in that respect Israel cannot have its cake and eat it too. Either it's one state with equal rights for all and therefore no specific Jewish character, or a viable two states solution. And there decades of illegal settlements has fragmented the borders to such an extent that the Palestinian part isn't viable without significant land swaps also compensating for the loss of arable land and resettlement of illegal colonists.
You're acting like an idiot pretending this is about lgbtq rights or antisemitism while people are starving due to war crimes by Israel. As if we cannot be against discrimination and oppression at the same time! Or against Israeli occupation and against anti-semitism at the same time! Wow! It's mind-boggling! :scream:
I agree. The Japanese Empire's behaviour and actions against China, South Korea and the Philippines were disgusting and totally bad. Nonetheless, which nation never had a bloody bellicose past? Whether you like it or not, that's how the past used to be, just before diplomacy and dialogue started to be more effective. In addition, I still maintain my position that Nagasaki and Hiroshima destruction were not really justified at all. It was the first time that a nuclear attack was used on a population. Your arguments are like: 'the ends justify the means'.
Following up your view, my country deserves to be nuked as well. Our past was bloody towards Latin America. Why don't the U.S. wipe us off from the map and do some moral justice to all of those civilisations which disappeared because of us?
Sure, and your acting like a Nazi pretending like antisemitism and the oppression of women and LGBTQ's is justified in cases where alleged war crimes are being perpertrated.
Quoting Benkei
You still haven't shown how we can reconcile the fundamental and inalienable rights that belong to all individuals with the sovereignty of a state that openly oppresses and tyrannizes women and LGBTQ's. It really is mind boggling. :cool:
Quoting javi2541997
Javi, the Sino-Japanese war was 1937-1945. If you file away the deaths of 20 million people with which nation never had a bloody bellicose past?, then you have to give the US the same treatment. Oh well, who hasn't killed millions of civilians?
I agree that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a crime. But there was no imbalance of power. The USA did not destroy Japan's traditions. When Japanese warlords decided to go to war with the USA, the UK, the Soviet Union, and China, all at the same time, they were killing their own culture. I'm finished trying to explain this to you. Carry on. :razz:
That is a fair post and I can agree with much of it. If I tried to engage the points of your last paragraph in detail I am sure I would quickly move beyond my competence, but if you have an article outlining the Palestinian case in more detail I would put it on my reading list.
Quoting Benkei
Citing the Wikipedia page:
Quoting Wikipedia | Palestinian Right of Return
This seems correct to me, and it goes back to my point to @schopenhauer1 regarding the difference between a right and a legitimate interest. I think what is at stake is a legitimate political interest in need of settlement, not a right in the strict sense.
Incidentally, my Fred Jr. example was clumsy given that it is so close to the broader issue. I was only trying to illustrate the complexity of political disputes, where two opposing causes can both be justified. I was not attempting to make a point about Israel or Palestine's land rights.
Overtime? Well, here will be the really huge problems, which will be quite important. After this the open air prison of Gaza cannot be just excluded like before. No outside force will likely come to Gaza. Or perhaps it might be a fig leaf of a UN mission, and when criminal gangs etc. rule the ruins of Gaza, it's going to be an example of how Palestinians cannot take care of themselves (or something like that). The question what happens next should be on the agenda, but it might not be.
Quoting neomac
Hamas and Putin choose not to be Western, especially with all of it's decadent attention to human rights and democracy and the rights of peoples and minorities etc. Yet Israel isn't Hamas or Russia, but of course if they wish, they can go in that direction. Yet all the Israelis I've met are quite Western people and think of themselves as being West. They don't have the fear of their state as Russians do.
Hence that's not the issue. The issue is how a Western country handles this situation. Does it try to solve something or is it just more about revenge. Or is it just about "mowing the lawn" until the next Palestinian uprising happens. There are many choices.
Quoting neomac
Well, then I hope you are never put to be an officer position in war, or basically given a rifle and fight in a war. Because it does make sense for me to treat a the enemy as I have been taught in the army: you shoot to kill an armed enemy (before he shoots you) and you don't shoot one that has surrendered or civilians. Your enemy doing that doesn't change what my country ask of me. It all starts from as obvious things like if you have to kill something, then kill it and don't torture it.
Now I don't know what you really meant, but if you have an objection to the application of laws of war because of the actions of the enemy, that we have now, you are the problem if you will go to level as the enemy. So why on Earth didn't the Allies start exterminating all German men, women and children afterwards? Why not sent then the Germans to Auschwitz, since they had already built the infrastructure for industrialized genocide. Why apply them some other standard then and make them feel how untermenschen were treated, neomac? And afterwards, do you think Germany now (assuming you'd leave some spear) was as today?
Quoting neomac
And that's simply just Hollywood nonsense. Throwing to hell the laws of war doesn't help you, it helps your enemy and undermines your cause and justification.
To take the laws of war seriously is important, because it's just an ignorant fallacy that they really would "tie you hands in boxing". You can kill and destroy the enemy quite well. And if you think the laws of war are a hindrance, well, then when having the boxing match just come there with shotgun and shoot your opponent full of lead until the bloody corpse doesn't move. He was such a loser in the first place just waiting for you with those boxing gloves on and thinking you would just try to hit him. As if there would be rules... sucker!
(and about boxing matches and using firearms...)
This is still a political problem, that needs a political solution. Or then the solution is just same thing over and over again. I personally don't see a political solution, but naturally (hopefully?) I'm wrong.
I'd submit that no duty is owed by others to the Jews to give them Israel, but the duty is owed not to intervene in their right to their land. I can't think of any other group of citizens where the world feels it within their authority to decide who gets what land and under what conditions that land can remain in that groups' possession.
If that land is for sovereignty, then it is not subject to reconsideration nor international debate. It is theirs and the expectation should be that it will be defended as unforgivably as one would expect any other sovereign nation to defend their land.
I believe a people can be murderous, not inherently, but rather because their culture/what they are taught. According to Jewish tradition/theology the flood occurs because of the murderousness/bloodshed of humanity in the pre-flood era; in the Babylonian version it is because humanity makes too much noise and disturbs the Gods. Cultures have different ways of processing events.
Hm. As opposed to what? The way I understand Judaism is that it has always been bound up in the land of Israel. Our Bible details centuries of Israelite kings ruling in Israel in antiquity (from around 1000 BC-600 BC). Even before that Moses is promised the land by God. What I'm saying is - a biblical view of the subject would lead me to believe that the Jews are a nation-people. Zionism just rolls with this idea. Can it be taken to an extreme? Yes, of course. There are of course racists on both sides who want the land to be entirely theirs and view the other people as inferior.
IDF progress as of half a day ago; maps seem somewhat reliable in being tied to geolocated media. I would imagine that the IDF will be more active at night than during the day due to their advantage in night vision and drones with thermal imaging.
Both losses and resistance seem to have been quite low so far. No fatalities reported by the IDF, no Hamas imagery of losses. The IDF has released a small amount of footage showing ground forces engaging isolated resistance.
At least one hostage was rescued during a raid on Hamas tunnels.
I am sort of at a loss to explain this. The IDF appears to have already moved more than halfway to the sea and now has an orthogonal spearhead moving down the coast. I assumed Hamas' whole plan was to provoke an attack so that they could attack the IDF in Gaza, but they don't seem to be defending particularly vigorously. The original attack also would have made more sense if they had developed some sort of air defenses, but it doesn't seem that they have.
I suppose they might be waiting for the IDF to push into even denser urban areas. But what if the IDF doesn't and focuses on tunnel infrastructure alone? Then it just looks like they provoked an attack, then fled the field and left the people they supposedly lead and protect to fend for themselves. It certainly doesn't make them look good; who exactly were they doing this all for if they don't defend the Strip? I'm at a loss to explain it.
Granted, if even a fairly low percentage of all reported fatalities are Hamas members, then their relatively small armed forces have already taken pretty atrocious losses, so it might be that they are just in disarray. This would make even more sense if the leadership was killed.
The other thing I thought of was that Hamas was expecting more support for Iran. Prehaps this was headed off by US diplomatic overtures, which would explain the large force deployment to the region. Hamas has at least said something to the effect of "we thought Hezbollah would do more," although you can't really complain if you start a war without telling your ally your plans first and they aren't particularly hot on following you into the fight, especially if you pick a losing battle. Iran's denial of involvement in the attack was unequivocal as well.
This all might be a good thing in terms of civilian losses and the duration of the war. Depends on exactly what the IDF's goals are. I'm just surprised.
Speak among yourselves then.
The blur between the two is initiated both internally and externally for various silly reasons.
I am sure many citizens of many countries have been wholly opposed to the actions of the state government that is meant to represent them. There is nothing wrong with criticising a state government. Leaders of states should always be questioned and held up to scrutiny.
I guess they should have protested when the first Palestinian was killed.
Breaking the cycle should have been done many many years ago. I think the real enemy is indifference.
Protesting now, when it gets so bad, what happened in the preceding years? Attempts should have been made even to Hamas to give up violence.
Could nothing have been done? Was this all inevitable? Pre-destined?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHIEI2eEHPg&t=1056s
Better arguments could be made by the Israeli government, but they are not doing so, not all united in their messaging. Not that it is a problem, but it does upset people even more, maybe that is the plan.
The government of Israel is not obviously trained in sophisticated lying and public relations. First step is not saying it out loud.
More info:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZQdBoAJWV8
Oh they have been planning revenge for some time. I didn't know government was about revenge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj6EDEMlQzQ
The starting point isn't that we must agree to anything, but it's that we be clear in our positions so that we know where disagreement lies and then being able to offer support for our positions. Neither of us need to prove to the other we have the ethical standing to enter the debate by condemning X, Y, or Z. We have the right to hold contrasting views, even if we find our respective positions deeply offensive to each other.
This thread likely pisses everyone off, but, with the topic, that was pretty much expected.
I made my position clear previously on Israel: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/848309
This is to say, I don't claim Israel without any error, but I don't agree that Israel is an illegal occupier, a committer of war crimes or crimes against humanity, or that they're engaging in illegal settlements, although they push the envelope with the latter.
I don't condemn Israel. Feel free to condemn me for that.
Do you condemn Palestine? You don't have to as a starting point, but you do need to at least tell me if you do and how seriously you do. Do you see them as the warrior rapists and child butchers I do? They hardly dissuaded me from the narrative that they are barbarians with their latest song and dance.
There's no Palestine so no I don't condemn them and in any case, I'm not asking for a blanket condemnation either. I condemn specific behaviour. I condemn Hamas for their last attack. I don't condemn them for wanting to free Palestinians from Israeli occupation - which is a just cause and allows for violent resistance. I don't agree with the repeated claims Hamas still pursues the destruction of Israel and instead that they had a clear change in purpose in 2017.
I also think condemnation doesn't mean parties shouldn't be talking to each other. Exactly the other way around. I think admitting to the crimes committed on both sides is necessary for any reconciliation.
Quoting Hanover
I don't agree with this. I think we fundamentally have shared moral intuitions and only in the basis of that is reconciliation possible. You cannot have peace without justice.
Why would they meet Israel's offensive head-on?
Hamas doesn't need to fight, since Israel doesn't have an endgame here. What are they going to do? Occupy Gaza?
Israel wants to 'defeat Hamas', but has no way to cope with the fact that Hamas fighters can go back to looking like civilians at any point they wish.
Meanwhile, Israel is damaging itself through its disproportionate reaction in ways that Hamas could only dream of.
This has always been in my mind as well. Like, can't Hamas just... hide among the civilians and take very few casualties, wasting Israel's time with this invasion?
The desire to defend their territory and the optics of launching a highly provocative surprise attack only to immediately hide in well supplied tunnels while the people they ostensibly exist to protect are left absolutely defenseless and at the mercy of the enemy?
Right, but not "hiding behind civilians" was something Hamas had to pledge to do when they ran in competitive elections because it does not make the civilians particularly happy. This was one of their campaign promises. In the 2014 war, they made a big show about how their soldiers wore uniforms, how they operated like a real military, how they were defending their territory like a real military, etc. Hamas having more martial prowess than Fatah has always been part of their sales pitch.
Now the optics are:
1. Hamas plans its attacks in isolation, communicating with foreign sponsors, but not the public. (This can be justified to a degree be opsec needs.)
2. Hamas carries out the attack, ostensibly "for the people of Gaza."
3. Hamas has no strategy to inflict losses on Israeli air assets, leaves the strip open to bombardment. (This can perhaps be justified by poverty)
4. Hamas seems to have no strategy for stopping ground incursions, leaving at least main thoroughfares open to occupation. (This seems hard to justify).
This makes them look more like a terror organization than a state; more like they work for Iran than the people of Gaza. After all, what exactly is the expected return on this action for the people of Gaza, especially if a military defeat isn't inflicted on the IDF?
In 2006, Hezbollah was able to make much of better than expected combat performance against the IDF. This was particularly bolstered by loud Israeli recriminations and finger pointing over what was, in the context of similar US and UK operations (e.g., Second Fallujah), not that bad. This, plus their strong efforts in financing relief and recovery efforts made the short war a strategic victory, even if it was a tactical stalemate. But the optics are not at all the same if Hamas provokes an invasion and then melts away with a "not my problem" directed at Israeli tank columns bisecting the Strip.
Yes, but at the cost of public support and making Fatah look like far more of an actual "government" than Hamas. If you're military force isn't there to defend the population, what is it there for? To scuttle Saudi-Israeli rapprochement on behalf of Iranian funders? The leadership already faces questions about their wealth and their Qatari assets, the proper allocation of priorities, etc.
Hatred of Israel is not identical with love of Hamas. Palestinian organizationscan and have lost the support of their people due to poor performance in governance, perceived dereliction of duty, and military losses before. Hamas itself has had to suppress protests over its (mis)rule in recent years.
So, I would think the point was to bait Israel into an invasion, where they could score a military and propaganda victory by forcing them to withdraw, thus increasing their leverage in negotiating better conditions in Gaza. But if they just hide? What new leverage do they get there?
It's one thing to say, "we can inflict costs on you and if you pursue us we will inflict losses on you, so settle up," it's another to have the message seem to be "we will inflict costs on you where possible and then hide for as long as you keep pressure on us."
Demonstrations of martial prowess, even if they are largely illusory, tend to be good fodder for militant groups. But you need at least something to spin up as a win.
Now I'm reading though that a large number of the initial attackers, perhaps 1,500, tried to hold territory in Israel. So between losses there and losses to air attacks and raids, I suppose its possible that Hamas has just already taken significant attrition. It's combat forces are not particularly large. But if that's the case, the whole attack seems to be an even larger blunder. Those forces are also what let them control the Strip.
Hamas was never there to defend the population in the first place. Have they ever done that?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Actually quite a lot. The entire world is watching right now and I've never seen "free Palestine" being chanted more than it is now. Maybe the world will forget in a week, or maybe this new pressure will achieve some useful goal.
The optics right now are that Israel is acting like a bull in a china shop with the people of Gaza as its victims.
That suits Hamas perfectly well. No need to stick their neck out to engage in a fight that they cannot win militarily.
When some of the smoke has settled and Israel has to scale back its military presence and force disposition, that's likely when the 'death-by-a-thousand-cuts' will happen.
I'll step it back farther, to better express my fundamental position. A post or so ago, you said I had decontextualized something you said, but what I heard was basically an attempt to offer a justification for Israel's right to the land. You generally fell in favor of Israel having such a right, but the part I found an issue with was that there appears a need at all to provide a justification. Americans, Dutch, Brits and so on don't spend much time thinking about whether they have the right to their land, nor do they believe that their rights to the land are based upon or subject to international approval. If the US explained that it would allow the Dutch their continued occupation of the Netherlands based upon the fact that the Dutch need somewhere to live, that they've been pretty ingenunitive with their dikes, windmills, and daffodils and whatever slew of other justifications the US might think of, I don't think you'd be thankful for its graciousness. You'd actually be concerned that the US thinks it has a say in your continued sovereignty and you'd be especially worried if the US took a single minded focus on Dutch internal politics and how it might be treating its adjacent German neighbors.
What is happening in Israel is child's play when compared to Ukraine. The death toll, the displacements, and the lack of threat Ukraine poses to the Russians pales in comparison with what is happening in Israel. I'm not saying the Russians have been given a pass because there certainly is outrage, but the campus eruptions haven't occured and the marches in the streets haven't occured because no one has any thought that such protests are going to change Putin's mind. He truly doesn't care about international opinion. The same could have been said of the US's reaction to 9/11. Protest as you will, but G.W. was going to be G.W.
The problem is that Israel's existence is linked to international acceptance unlike any other nation on the planet. That's what I have a problem with. The people who protest Israel are doing everything they can to endanger its existence. The only means by which Israel can be defeated is through this political effort. Israel's safety is a matter of Israel's concern, not subject to international approval.
Quoting Benkei
Gaza is occupied by Palestinians regardless of how you want to say the land it titled. The have possession of it and they've chosen Hamas as their representative. Hamas has fired thousands of rockets into Israel and sent in paratroopers for the purpose of not wanting to destroy Israel? I've heard the mantra of freeing Palestine from the river to the sea over and over. Am I misunderstanding that sentiment to mean something other than the removal of Israel from the land?
In any event, I'll take you at your word that you truly think Hamas wants a Jewish state by its side and doesn't want its destruction. I think that's absurd, but we've at least identified that point of disagreement. I think they want to remove every Jew on Arab land, much like every other Arab nation has done.
I do not assume there is a solution for all problems, however desirable. My understanding is that it is of vital interest for the West to be committed to a system of alliance between countries that share the same standards and treat each other by the same standards. Israel is a valid ally in that sense. Hamas not and countries which support Hamas neither.
Besides Israel has shown a cooperative approach in conflict and toward the Palestinian claims of nationality and land on many occasions. And given the history of the jews in the christian and in the muslim world, I find psychologically obtuse to demand more.
I think the international environment around Israel, especially in the middle east should significantly change, to make more easy for Israel to soften its positions. The Abraham Accords were an opportunity in this direction. An initiative coming from the West. What was the response from the anti-Western Rest?
Quoting ssu
As far as I’m concerned, that is very much the issue, because Russia, China and Iran have found ways to exploit Western vulnerabilities (like freedom of speech, concern for human rights/life, a population of exploitable “useful idiots”) which they do not have and this gives them a very dangerous advantage over the West. Talking about revenge is underestimating a greater threat coming from an alliance of anti-Western and anti-Israel aggressive authoritarian regimes. That’s why the conflict has geopolitical significance.
Concerning the logic of feud and revenge (which the West managed to get rid of within the territories UNDER their control and over several generations) can lead to an eternal conflict as much as to a genocide. Or to a nuclear bomb. But for sure putting the moral burden of a peaceful resolution and all the moral costs in case of failure on one side, especially if previous attempts failed, may alienate instead of persuading reluctant allies. And mine is also a moral point.
Quoting ssu
Dude, emotional or personal appeals do not work on me. You better put your effort in showing the flaws of my reasoning in its logic or its assumptions.
Notice that you wrote “it does make sense for me to treat a the enemy as I have been taught in the army”, so it depends on how you are taught after all? Those who are taught otherwise, are free to do so? Or do you still want to effectively prevent them from doing so?
The objective in a war is not to respect the law of war or to win a moral argument in a philosophy forum but to win over the enemy. And things can get as ugly and brutal as one can imagine and historically happened.
So one needs a compelling argument for a more proportional military response if this compromises military efficacy: like waste of resources or more propitious opportunities, it doesn’t really grant military victory, it doesn’t politically benefit the winner in the longer run, it weakens the enemies’ support for protracted war, love of humanity. None of these arguments are a magic wand to fix the world, nor to trigger a consistent enough emotional response over time, nor spare us from abuses and exploitative intentions, nor unburden us from the weight of history and the constraints of current power balance.
As far as I’m concerned, laws of war (which are man-made and revisable) exist because all potential belligerents can see a significant benefit in respecting them if they fight among them and/or they can suppress and/or contain the threat coming from those who didn’t commit to such laws when it becomes imminent. Laws of war would be irrelevant if it would be mostly violated or not enforceable. Especially if trumping them makes victory over an enemy more likely.
The West is currently dealing with powerful regimes and ideologies which do not place the value in human life and law of war as Western countries keep doing. And if this gives them a significant strategic advantage in the conflict with the West this is a big trouble for the West.
Instead of your counterfactual, think of actually history: the US nuclear bombed Japan, was this proportionate? how is Japan today? Was the Allied bombing of Germany 1942-1945 proportionate? How is Germany today?
In any case, I don’t think that Israel doesn’t try to abide by the law of war in the current conflict, I’m also far from idealising Israel as if they couldn’t commit abuses. I simply think that the purpose of Hamas which doesn’t abide by the law of war is to make more difficult for Israel to accomplish the task of “minimizing” the civilian casualties in the same way it is possible in more conventional wars where all belligerents care for laws of war, and if the concern for reducing to the minimum civilian casualties would prevent Israel from effectively defeating Hamas on the ground, this approach would in the long run be self-defeating. BTW no other state in he West is living under the same imminent/potential conventional/asymmetric threats Israel is living in middle-east and this may bias our understanding of their situation.
Quoting ssu
First, keeping laws of war may help somebody’s cause only to the extent states and people care about laws of war. Indeed not respecting laws of war didn’t undermine Hamas’ cause and justification. Their historical grievances against the West and their islamist ideology trump laws of war.
Second, I’m not advocating for throwing laws of war. I’m pointing out a problem of their relevance and application wrt the historical circumstances and power balance: if powerful enemies threat the survival of one of our allies, do not abide by laws of war, and can therefore manipulate the war conditions to spin a discrediting narrative against our ally with the precise intent of isolating our ally from our support, that doesn’t help our cause because we would alienate an ally and benefit powerful enemies’s cause, which use our standards, to divide us. And if their strategy succeeds replicate it against us.
Third, in terms of justification the West, there is a load of historical grievances and anti-western narratives so popular even within the West that the West reputation may be unrecoverably compromised. With or without laws of war (see as it is perceived the legitimacy of the war in Iraq no matter how proportional the battle in Felluja was). We can’t hope to win on the ground of justification for the simple reason that demographic trends, extremist ideologies, and state indoctrination in the Rest of the world do not play in our favour. So, my understanding is that the psychological warfare here is not much about how the West can do things better based on their standards, at this point, but about unity in the West against common foes and retort the anti-Western logic against those who promote it, as much as they try to retort our standards against us.
Quoting ssu
No idea what point you are trying to make here.
The NY Times gives the impression that Hamas fighters may be experiencing an intelligence black-out. Israel didn't give any notice that they were going in. Maybe Hamas just doesn't know how to react to that? It said Israel isn't calling it an invasion, which is probably due to American pressure. Is Israel getting American military advice?
Hamas propaganda certainly suggests that they want to be seen as the "military of the Palestinian people," not as merely a terrorist organization incapable of military action.
Hamas won power on the back of popular support combined with a violent coup, they can lose power to an existing or new group the same way. Plenty of insurgent groups in similar contexts have gone extinct because they failed to perform up to expectations. Going "not my problem," to a ground invasion they provoked seems like something that could fatally hurt their reputation.
It's something that will allow Fatah to continue to paint Hamas as "Iran's army," as opposed to a "Palestinian Army."
And Israel is never going to be more vulnerable to ambushes than when they first enter the Strip.
Sounds plausible. The flip side of access to new C&C technologies is becoming reliant on them. Israel's electronic warfare efforts might be causing significant problems for Hamas.
Who's this "our" I wonder?
If one is inclined to think time spent ruling land identifies a people with it, I would think the fact no Israeli kings, or Jews in general, ruled in Israel since around 600 B.C.E., suggests there is no connection between Judaism and Palestine. As for the promise made by God in "our" Bible, it would seem God changed his mind when he allowed Babylon to conquer Israel, as so many others did.
The Jews continued to live in the region after the Babylonian Captivity, restablishing a Second Temple (Books of Ezra and Nehemiah) under Persian rule. They later won their independence from Alexander's Persian successors, the Selucids (Books of the Maccabees). Hence the existence of Judea at the time of Rome's arrival in the region.
But we could also consider if Italy has a claim on the land because it was part of the Roman Empire for so long. Or Turkey because they Byzantines held it. Or the Vatican because the crusader states existed for two centuries. The paper trail of "ownership," in the region is very long, to say the least.
Perhaps Mongolia even has a claim, as the crusader states were at one point Mongolian vassals as part of an alliance against their Muslim rivals.
This is true everywhere. Greece and Venice have older claims to Crimea than Moscow for example.
The USA is kind of like Cyrus. I don't think Israel would be there without US support.
Yes. Then Rome destroyed the Second Temple and most of Jerusalem under Vespasian and Titus (have you ever seen the Arch of Titus? Men of the legions are shown carrying the treasures of the Temple as part of Titus' triumph in one of the reliefs). The Romans finished the job under Hadrian.
But you're quite right. The idea that land belongs to or was given to a certain people merely because they were there many years ago doesn't work.
It will be easy for Hamas to frame it in a way that suits their purposes, especially when the harassment of Israeli occupation forces begins - if they even occupy Gaza, which I suspect they won't. That can then easily be spun into a victory for Hamas.
The Hamas playbook basically writes itself here, enabled largely by Israel itself. The hatred among Palestinians for Hamas will never exceed the hatred they feel for the Israelis. The arguments you put forward are theoretical minutiae - Hamas has basically already won and all it needs to do is survive.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
It sounds like you're grossly underestimating the amount of firepower Israel has at its disposal.
The Israelis don't really care about the civilian casualties they cause. Anything that looks like the barrel of a gun will be flattened immediately.
Engaging in conventional battle with the IDF, even from ambush, would be suicide, and pointless.
It probably would still be there, just in a less dominant position. The US did not give Israel much support in their most precarious war, the 1948 War. This was prior to the US Arab rift, back when the Arab states were still being courted as potential clients in the emerging Cold War system. It was only the Suez Crisis that squarely settled the Arabs on the side of the Soviets and the US on the side of Israel (more by default than due to intentional maneuvering on behalf of the US). Prior to that, the French and domestic production were the main source of Israeli arms.
Israel won the 1948 war due to significantly better
organization and morale, despite a marked material disadvantage. It was the USSR who was the main sponsor of Israel during this period, owing to the large number of contacts between Jews and new communist states that were being stood up as Soviet vassals across Eastern Europe.
One of the great ironies of the 1948 war is that it was largely fought by the Israelis with Czech surplus Kar98k rifles donated by the Soviets, rifles which had been stamped with swastikas for their intended Nazi users (a dark premonition of the apartheid state perhaps?)
Truman was not a huge supporter of the idea of Israel and Eisenhower famously ignores the Holocaust in his telling of the war. Israel only became an appealing ally after they had succeeded in setting up a functioning democracy that granted the Arabs there full citizenship and voting rights while the Arab states has lurched into pan-Arabism, an explicitly socialist program that also failed to produce any real democratic reforms. And, it's worth noting that the US probably cared more about the Arabs being openly socialist than Israel making strides towards democracy, realpolitik being what it was.
Israel's position in 1967 and 1973 would have been more perilous without US aid and sales, but they probably could have managed with French arms or using Soviet arms. The Arabs' problems ran much deeper than the differences between Soviet and US hardware, which were less significant back in the 1960s anyhow. Plus, they had their nuclear deterrent quite early, without US support on that front.
Hell, they might be in a better place without US support because it could have forced them to make more concessions for peace. Alternatively, they might be a significantly more repressive and violent regime owing to increased existential anxieties. It's hard to say. But I'd wager that they'd be around in any case.
It is authoritative for Jews and Christians.
It is not just the time spent ruling. The Torah, the meat and potatoes of Jewish religious canon, details the connection between the Hebrew people and the land of Israel. The events described in the Torah occur before this period. When the land changed hands away from the Israelites it was explained as loss of divine favor, often due to the Israelites own misbehavior. A common biblical motif.
Nobody is telling you what you must believe or how you must weigh the ethics of the situation.
But when the British gave up trying to govern Palestine, it was pretty much up to the US to settle Israel's status. If the US had been opposed to recognition of the state of Israel, it's political standing would have been pretty weak. I'll put it this way: without a strong ally, Israel wouldn't be there.
I think that @Benkei and actually many others, including Western states do have questions if really Israel's standards are the same as ours. Many countries in the West don't see themselves as "allies" of either party.
I question the "vitality" of being an ally here, just as if Iran would be an "existential" threat to the West either.
Switzerland isn't an ally of us. Either the EU or NATO have absolutely no commitments to come into their help on some occasion (which, surrounded by EU member states, would be incredible). If the Swiss would suffer a terrorist attack, many countries would send help if needed. But becoming an "ally" is different.
Because Benkei and I were discussing Judaism and Benkei made the claim that Jews/Judaism was "subverted" to being a nation-people as opposed to merely a religion, like Christianity (unattached to any land). I made the case that the Jews *are* a nation-people. I stand by my claim.
In other words, when we speak of "jews" or "judaism" we are speaking of a nation-people.
However, I wouldn't say that gave them any more of a right to the land on Palestine back in the first half of the 20th century more than anybody else. Perhaps I was jumping the gun thinking that's what you were saying - do you think that gave them a valid claim there?
"Hamas carries out attacks with the sole goal of producing an Israeli response that kills civilians so that Gazan and international opinion shifts against Israel."
Come on, this is like the Likud propaganda caricature of Hamas. I'm willing to believe plenty of things about them, but not this level of cynicism.
Zionism came out of specific conditions in Europe. This article provides a history of Zionism. One of the influences here is that in Russia there was an emphasis on ethnic identities. In the liberal west, ethnicity was dissolved in individualism. Vicious antisemitism was another strong influence.
Like it matters historically, it matters in the sense that it sheds light on their motivation, but it does absolutely 0 work, from my view, in justifying what happened in the region in the first half of the 1900s in the region. Contextualises? Yes. Justifies? No.
When it comes to claims of national property, it seems like occupation counts for a great deal, whether the previous occupants agreed to it or not. Look at the Western Hemisphere.
Establishing Israel was as legitimate as establishing any other regime in the world.
When I visited Moscow during the second last year of the Soviet Union a lived with a Muscovite family, the father was Jewish and I remember his passport having as nationality Jewish. So that prevailed I think.
But that second thing is true regardless of the Torah. The Torah doesn't play into it at all. Religious fantasies don't give them the right
This doesn't square with the rest of your comment. If occupation counts for the most, and most of the occupants are Arab Muslims, then... establishing Israel was categorically less legitimate than establishing other regimes that had the consent of a majority of the occupants.
Being successful in war doesn't give it either, but you do get the land.
But then, you have to get the recognition of that from other sovereign states and those that lost. That's the difficult part of "getting the right".
If the US or the IDF will go and strike the Yemeni Houthis, then we will have the truly macabre war of US & Israel against the "Humanitarian Disasters". Which just shows how one sided this war is and will be.
Here's one of the more recent ones: Study of the legality of the Israeli occupation of the OPT including East Jerusalem
But I guess Quoting RogueAI
:nerd:
I would suppose it is, when it suits them at least, but am not certain that's the case as far as any claim of Jews to Palestine. I know the wackier Christians are great fans of Israel as they hope its existence indicates the Second Coming is nigh, and Jesus will soon return to send the great majority of us to eternal punishment, which they will delight in watching from Heaven. But I don't know that's a common view, and Christians haven't been especially keen on the idea that the country belongs to the Jews over the years.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Quite common, I know. How else explain why one's God-given homeland hasn't been home for thousands of years? But I assume you're aware that many people don't consider the Bible or the Torah to be determinative, especially when it comes to ownership of land.
Quoting Ciceronianus
It's common as a mode of explanation throughout the Bible, even on a personal level. Why does King David's infant son die according to ancient biblical writers? Because of the Urijah debacle detailed in book of Samuel. Even kings are not above God and will be held to account. Misfortunate is very often attributed to one's bad deeds.
Regarding ownership of land, I don't know whether Israel needs to justify its own existence anymore than any other state. It exists and continues to exist.
As someone once said, "elections have consequences." Also, lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.
I don't think it need justify its existence; I simply don't think it has any claim to exist because God wills it or because it's the homeland of the Jews.
I agree. America stole Native American lands fair and square and would no more tolerate an armed Cherokee uprising anymore than Israel tolerates Hamas.
"Fair and square"? Well, the U.S. certainly did it's best to hide its conquest, theft and fraud in the trappings of the law in some cases, though there was no contract (treaty) it was unwilling to breach or see breached as convenient.
Yes, the U.S. treated Native Americans horribly. Does that mean that Native American tribes would be justified killing civilians and/or American soldiers in an armed uprising? Suppose Cherokee Nation pulled off an attack similar to 9/11. What should the American response be?
One could make a case along the lines of national self-determination.
Thats a great point, but the situation is a bit different in that the people responsible with Israel and Palestine are still around. The conflict is so much more recent, living memory for many. That means there is a somewhat more tangible connection to retributive strikes imo.
Yes. Israel as all other states is a fact not an opinion. Justification for facts is empty verbiage. The people of Israel are likewise a fact but they are plural and diverse, as are Jews many and diverse all over the world. Confounding these three and assigning widespread ills of the world, such as universal social or legislated or enforced oppression of the oppressed, to any or all of them indiscriminately is antisemitism, whether that be open or covert.
But since you asked for it, here is UN Security Council Resolution 2334 from 2016.
Quoting UN Security Council Resolution 2334
Oh, and why don't we throw another one in for good measure?
Quoting UN Security Council Resolution 2334
That's ethnic cleansing, by the way.
Note also that 'Occupied Palestinian Territories' is used so often they turned it into an acronym.
Stop spinning apologetics. Stop coping. Accept the facts. So should Shapiro.
Quoting tim wood
You clown.
I am glad you brought this up. Wars are always proxy wars, it seems, which technically constitutes interference in the affairs of other nations, probably violating the UN Charter.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I tend to agree. Everyone seems to forget that Israel at that time negotiated with terrorists - the PLO - and reached a peace agreement, the Oslo accords. Temporal discrimination is needed, the Israel of 2023 needs to be labelled as such (and I will do so in future posts).
Quoting Oxford Academic
https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/32/7/1480/6356877
The big question is, what unfortunate turn of events followed the Oslo accords? A series of worldwide protests may have saved lives earlier, and the actions of governments may have done so also, provided they wanted to.
By the way, I value human life above causes.
I think it is worth pointing out that the United States had free elections in 2016 and 2020 "according to some accounts" . Does that mean that everyone is responsible for the result?
After those free elections, if Canada blockaded your coastline, and prevented ships from delivering goods, and no-one was allowed to leave, what do you think would have happened?
A real insurrection, this time.
I think you need to state all the relevant facts here.
Some Orthodox Jews, and I have posted a link to the video earlier, consider that the it is God's will that Jews be in exile until "God gathers them back", God, meaning not the British or the United States, although some will worship these entities. These are anti- Zionists, and adherents to the Jewish religion.
As a Christian, I have been unimpressed with the idea that these are "God's people" therefore they have the right to expand their territories, my memory goes back to 1973 when I remember first hearing this sort of comment. Years later, again, talking to an evangelical in New York, he had to agree that "Not everything Israel does is right". Again, in around 2013 or so, I would hear again statements from a minority, how the IDF at that time was nice enough to warn people that their building was going to be blown up. We learn later "We need to bomb your building".
As a reasonable human being I was not impressed.
The 2023 Netanyahu Right Wing Government seems to be intent on revenge, not only revenge, but more of its motivation is to colonialist. Nothing special to 2023 Israel but it has all the hallmarks. An effort for ensure a military victory plus a peaceful solution would look very different, I think.
Florida Governor Ron de Santis was interviewed on PBD recently, and he correctly pointed out that Israel has a great deal of support among Evangelical Christians in the United States.
It is called Christian Zionism.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/christian-zionism
https://newlinesmag.com/argument/israels-current-crisis-exposes-christian-zionisms-contradictory-ideals/
On the other hand, it is a Biblical truth that God deems it necessary to let His people suffer - slaves in Egypt, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the end-times in any case are times of horrific suffering.
How many of you are familiar with these words?
Quoting Luke 19:41-44
Who are we to condemn for this?
This actually happened:
Quoting ACLU website
The irony is suffocating, though.
"a call from a Nazi leader complaining that his planned demonstration had been blocked. "
This has to be made up, but no, it isn't.
The demonstration was to last for about 30 minutes, after which the Nazis would return to their headquarters on the south side of Chicago.
South into the Sinai: Will Israel Force Palestinians Out of Gaza? (Carnegie, 2023)
Israel is actually considering ethnically cleansing Gaza at the top level, with US support.
At this point it's hardly a surprise, I suppose. But it does show how deep the West has sunk, and that it's still looking to explore ever deeper depths.
I'm reminded of a popular Mitchell and Webb sketch: "Hans, are we the baddies?"
Yep. It has come to that.
That's why I also think that this war can easily now expand.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Quoting FreeEmotion
Notice in the actual war of Independence that total lack of any "special relationship" between US and Israel, no urging of the special "Judoe-Christian heritage" that makes the US the greatest ally of Israel and Israel a most important ally for the US. In fact the FBI was dying all it's best to prevent the new country from getting weapons!
And let's just remember that the most valuable outside assistance that Israel got, the nuclear weapons program, came from France. NOT the US. Israel has much to thank France in the years when it truly faced peril from it's neighbors.
Quoting tim woodAnd then PLO/PA and Hamas fought over control Gaza and there hasn't been any elections afterwards. That fighting part and then holding power without any elections is always forgotten. But I guess it's still extremely important to mention that Hamas did get a lot of votes (as people were tired of the PA).
Quoting Tzeentch
As that article states, it talks about getting assistance from Egypt. That's not happening. Hence this is irrelevant.
Amidst all this hand-waving of genocide, I feel like I'm getting a real good look at some of TPF's denizens.
That post was a historic account, where I agreed with the principle that Jews (not Israel) were offered land to establish themselves due to the centuries of persecution. I questioned the wisdom of the location that was chosen. I don't think Israel's sovereignty of land that has been recognised is in question and it's weird you read is as such when that account in fact it supports the view that the State in principle is well established also from an ethical point of view.
Quoting Hanover
A silly implied argument, nobody else thinks about it therefore it shouldn't be an issue. Seriously? The reason nobody thinks about it is because nobody is challenging those rights, whereas Israel's rights have been challenged from the beginning. And it's also not true that borders don't continue to be an issue, they're just negotiated by governments. For instance, the Germans and Dutch have several treaties on how to share gas deposits that extend under their respective borders. There will be joint development of platforms in the north sea as a result but the underlying reason is competing claims to those deposits.
Edit: out of time for now, I'll get back to more later.
Rough approximation of the area the IDF is holding, with reports of temporary advances outside of these axes. So far, they have stayed out of denser areas (with some exceptions).
Estimates are that 800,000 of the 1,100,000 civilians who live above the river have evacuated, but that still leaves a lot of people in the area and a lot of civilian infrastructure. The more the advance stays out of urban areas the better most likely.
I have not seen any estimates for how many Hamas fighters stayed in the North. Might be impossible to tell.
I imagine the pressure to let new supplies in will grow once they have bisected the Strip, since they can't plausibly claim that they lack an ability to intradict supplies moving north.
Quoting Benkei
Not a simple question. The history trace back around 4000 years, but many of the key religious ideas/concepts doesn't form until the 1st millennium BC. Nation states don't emerge until the 16th century IIRC. Passports are 19th century. Judaism formed in autonomous ancient kingdoms in Samaria.
What makes Israeli policy in Israel's borders similar to Apartheid? I always thought the comparison was apt, but for the Occupied Territories.
Israeli policy in Gaza is hard to compare even with Nazi policy towards the French, let alone the policies they are best known for. There is a difference between callous ROE and lack of concern for collateral damage and attempts to exterminate the population.
Israeli airstrikes hit refugee camp for a second day
Where Israel is going, there will be no coming back from.
If that is accurate, then Israel would be crazy to agree to a cease-fire.
For what?
It's interesting that scholars have concluded that the Gospel of Luke was written 10 years or so after the Roman siege of Jerusalem and their destruction of the Second Temple and most of the city in 70 A.D. or C.E. It explains the reference to the encirclement of the city. Construction of ramparts around a city and encircling it with legionary camps was standard Roman practice during sieges.
The establishment of Israel had everything to do with the doctrine of replacement theology and Christian Zionism. Ever heard of the founding of Singapore, and who cares?
Here is what is the most sensible explanation of how the Bible does not support Zionism,a sermon preached in Bethlehem, after all. Dr. Hank Hannegraaf states that unfortunately the dominant Christian view is one that supports Zionsim.
Hank Hanegraaff: A Gospel Response to Christian Zionism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q51sL-2SOmo
It is terrible to think that today's atrocities are the result of pig-headed preaching and deception of vast numbers of believers. That is a crime. I know the nonsense I have had to hear.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Indeed, but it does not preclude the possibility that Jesus predicted it, if you believe that Jesus actually existed.
My point is that Zionists never talk about the disasters and exile as God's doing, only the return. If you accept that bombing a hospital is God's will then you have to accept that the Hamas attacks were God's will as well, as I mentioned, the Bible is full of examples of Israel being punished for not following their God, not being faithful to the Almighty.
In the meantime conservatives that champion family values are now displaying extreme prejudice.
Gaza is a litmus test for the soul, it is. Disappointing and indefensible.
Jesse Watters: We've had it with the Middle East
I fear it is the path the self-destruction or at the least, self-harm. I do not want to see lives lost on either side, anymore.
Quoting RogueAI
Israel is acting crazy anyway, don't be surprised.
“There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.”
? Sun Tzu, The Art of War
“who wishes to fight must first count the cost”
? Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Also
“Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across.”
? Sun Tzu
Unfortunately, nations always have adversaries, and war is the state of nature for all nations whether they want it or not.
The cost of war also includes the cost of refusing it. History shows unequivocally that it is always better to conquer than to be conquered.
I'm ignorant, but where does Sun Tzu speak about the possibility of any universally sustainable peace amongst nations?
That is a possible certainty. I'm willing to entertain the idea that Hamas is directly funded and operated by a secret branch of the Israeli government for obvious reasons. But I'm also a big fan of the apocalypse that places Israel at the center of it all. It is all very entertaining :grin:
It's pretty much an accepted fact that the Netanyahu government at various points in time supported Hamas in order to disenfranchise the more moderate elements within Palestine.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz even calls it the 'Netanyahu-Hamas Alliance'.
But I think this is a classic example of 'feeding the beast', only for it to turn on you. US and Israeli Middle-East policy is rampacked with examples like this.
Islamic Jihad, the Taliban, Al-Qaeda - I could go on. There's scarcely an extremist group in the Middle-East that doesn't have Uncle Sam's greasy fingerprints all over it. Even modern-day Iran is a direct result of continuous divide & conquer strategy to keep the Persian Gulf weak (and thus easily influenced by the US for oil).
The problem for Israel now is that much of the Middle-East seems to have caught on to this pattern. In fact, one could argue the whole world is catching on to this.
Wearing the symbol of victims of the holocaust while engaging in genocidal crimes against civilians in Gaza. Shameless and vomit-inducing.
They started to use their propaganda to brainwash the people. I bet we will see a lot of Hollywood films regarding this conflict too.
It is important to highlight that the history and facts are always told by people according to their reality. I wonder what people will think in the next 10 or 20 years. I bet they would think that Palestine deserved it.
If there are actually people who believe that Japan deserved nuclear attacks, I guess they would think the same about the genocide of Gaza...
This propaganda is age-old. The problem for Israel is that no one is believing their bullshit anymore, and the world is now rallying against it and the United States.
I've heard several analysts claim that unless a cease-fire is put into action, multiple actors are gearing up to join the war on Friday (a prayer day for Muslims). Among them Iran.
:up:
"Israel will Face Destruction if this Continues"-Col. Macgregor Warns of Armageddon on Tucker Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrazXS2f34Y
"Killing people is not going to solve the problem, but it is very attractive at the moment..."
That's a risk any country takes when going to war, but what would you recommend Israel do? Suppose you were president of Israel. What would your response have been to the attacks? Suppose you were the American president after 9/11. Would you have gone after Al Queda? Also, suppose Israel adopted a pacifist strategy and gave in to Hamas's demands. Would Hamas and all the other Muslim terrorist organizations stop trying to kill Jews? I doubt it.
I guess they have a reason to that. But of course Hollywood will be there.
People living their life and caring of their children and elders, attending a music festival and overall enjoying life... until psychopathic terrorists come and try to kill everybody. And here you can be absolutely truthful, nearly making a documentary. That all happened.
And in truth, it would be as truthful as making a film about people living their hard life in Gaza and caring of their children and elders... until homes are bombed and an invasion is launched, even without the "knock" or the phonecall/text message "How are you doing? We'll bomb your home now." And here you can be absolutely truthful, nearly making a documentary. That all happened.
But will you put both stories on the same movie? Never.
That isn't allowed. Either you have to side with the Zionists or the Islamists. There has to be the good guys and the bad guys. As you couldn't condemn both.
And that is what disgusts me the most.
For example, Ursu Uzala is a top film by Kurosawa. Yet, what we know the most about this Japanese master are his films about Samurai - a good piece of art, that's a given -. What I do not understand is why Ursu Uzala is not known by the public generally. When I discovered that it was inspired in the Russian context and plot, it rang a bell to me...
On the other hand, although I admit that Nazi Germany and Holocaust films are great - Schindler's List, for instance - it seems that they only focused on Jewish people, while the Holocaust also affected Socialists, homosexuals, gipsies, etc. I never heard of a film about the Holocaust in which these victims are also included.
Quoting javi2541997
Well, it did happen in the Siberia of Imperial Russia.
It's actually a movie where there's little political, but a great movie about friendship and about the wilderness. The simple thing is that Russian or even Japanese movies aren't so well known as Hollywood films in the West. Hence you often have a very popular foreign movie then being made "The America" version about it.
Quoting javi2541997
Some victims get always more attention than others. Here one could quote the infamous comment that mr Hitler himself made about the Armenians and the Armenian genocide.
And have people done a film about the genocide that Circassians suffered? Or from the people that have been killed to extinction, like the Guanches of the Canary Islands (by who other than the Spanish)? Or simply have faded away when they have been assimilated and have lost their original identity. If there's nobody "promoting" or keeping up the memory of someone, then hardly will people find the time or interest to do a film about their plight. The memory of the Guanches are now basically upheld by Spanish who want to look critically at their own history:
What would the world be like if either group was in charge? One side would create a democracy that respects women and LGBTQ rights, and the other would create an Islamic shithole patrolled by "morality police".
It's not hard to figure out which side are the good guys here.
I just watched "Photographer of Mauthausen" and that focuses on Spanish victims. "Come and See" focuses on Slavic/Russian victims (it is also the most horrifying/realistic WWII movie that I am aware of.) There is a lot of Russian material on this topic. I agree with you that the gypsies receive very little attention.
First and foremost: Israel exists. It's existence is never or has been ever in doubt since 1967.
Yes, Hamas can obviously make a successful terrorist attack when Bibi was concentrated in the West Bank and Israeli forces had lulled themselves to similar confidence as prior to Yom Kippur war. But that's it. Hamas, as you can see evidently now, cannot defeat the Israeli army.
Hence your whole argument is as crazy as asking what if the Native Americans would have pushed the United States to the sea and reconquered America. What kind of shithole America would be then ruled by Apaches and the bunch? It's simply as ludicrous as thinking that in the 19th Century the Plain Indians or any of the various could have defeated the whole US Army. They had good luck once when they faced such an incompetent commander as Custer. Well, the Palestinians have similar ability to push Israel to the Sea as did the Native Americans in pushing the US to the sea and sending the Europeans back to their own Continent.
Besides, you think all Arab states are shitholes? Is Jordania a shithole?
It's not just Hamas. There's Hezbollah and Iran and a whoever else opposes Israel. I'm also not fond of the assumption that the Palestinians just are the native inhabitants of the land. IMHO the "indigenous" people of this land are both Jew and Arab. Judaism gets formed in Samaria and Judah in the 1st millennium BC so I would consider Jews indigenous.
They have nationalist - or regional - political parties in the Congress, but they barely get one or two seats at most.
Yeah, they are just two guanches in the Congress.
Ah, yes that film... It is so bad and full of mediocrity that I forgot its existence.
Yes, various non-state actors. But not Egypt. Not Jordania, Iraq, Saudi-Arabia etc.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
And I didn't say that! What I said that Hamas defeating the IDF is as remote as the Plain Indians defeating the US Army in the 19th Century. Jews have live their and Israel has every right to exist.
Prior to the Six Day war it was different. And prior Israel having a nuclear weapon, which the arsenal now is quite powerful.
My response would have been to improve watching the Gaza border. Then, and not as a response Hamas, express some embarrassment for being the beneficiaries of British giving land away that wasn't theirs, but probably stopping short of promising to dismantle the state of Israel. I'd relocate settlers back within Israel's borders. I'd comply with agreements and expedite a two state solution as rapidly as possible. Or something like that. Basically ignore Hamas as much as possible. None of this is giving in to Hamas pressure. It's doing the right thing regardless of Hamas. But I doubt i'd get elected on this manifesto.
What we need is a world government with courts and a police force. Then the Palestinians and colonists can both make their submissions to the court and the matter decided on accordance with law.
A lot of people busying this type of rhetoric now. Making comparisons to WW2, stating that there is no limit to the amount of civilian deaths that should be accepted, etc.
What this implies is that the conflict in Gaza should be fought according to the same principles WW2 was fought: total war.
I'm sure these lowbrow demagogues think that sounds like an awful 'cool' thing to say - at least while they feel like they're in control.
I wonder how they'll react when other actors in the region get involved in this conflict and start operating on the same principles.
Ah! Well, the gauches are the perfect example of how critically Westerners (here the Spanish) do look at their past actions. And notice, your friends are proud of their Gauche past. Not that they are proud of their present culture and language separate from Spanish.
So yes, there are those who have gaunche ancestry, but still, the people are quite assimilated to Spain. Obviously there are those who identify being and not Spanish, but for example the Gauche language seems to have disappeared. Which just shows how thorough the genocide and assimilation was. Now obviously Spain has an objective to help this culture etc. And why not.
No offense, but sound bites like these sound like AI generated “paid actors” that are meant to cause disruptions on various social media platforms. Kind of low key threats regarding Western actions and meant to rile up the Leftist protestors waiting for the red meat. Then various articles and videos are posted to surely show how the West is a belligerent force of “evil”, yet minimizes the evil on the other side or retreats to “they’re not as militarily powerful” yet then proceeds to vague threats of their capabilities when aligned, as if they aren’t provoking that action anyways, just innocent buttercups.
I think that the Houthis now attacking Israel shows quite clearly that they indeed are proxies to Iran. Which should have been obvious after they managed to sink a Saudi warship with an anti-shipping missile, which isn't the usual repertoire of a Yemeni faction.
Telling is that this country is one of the poorest in the World and has a genuine humanitarian crisis of it's own from which it is suffering. For example you rarely see the Per Capita of any nation plunge back fifty years. But in Yemen, you can!
So what better thing to do is to fire missiles and drones at Israel. :roll:
I'm merely drawing attention to the fact that such rhetoric can easily be turned around to justify the killing of Israeli civilians.
But that has already happened, many times over, including very recently, and technically ongoing. I was/am characterizing what I see. It's not just your posts, but that one was an example of a characteristic trend in content and style I see and wonder about.
I also notice that for various positions on the defense of Israel, there is usually a large variation of opinions. Even if a percentage majority are for the actions, there is definitely regret that anyone dies "collateral damage" or otherwise. That is to say, there seems to be a wide array of views on that side ranging from "Cease fire now!" to, "The job must continue until finished, no matter the cost!". That can stem from a plethora of things including but not limited to:
1. The Western/Enlightenment tradition of reviewing all sides and being self-critical. One posits things like "rights" and "universal X" and then sees if one is living up to this posited notion.
2. It is arguably true that the Jewish tradition itself is based on self-criticism, and is often this that is used against that group because it makes them open for other-criticism. The whole bible from Moses to the Prophets were all about reproving and reprimanding the populous of Israel for straying from moral obligations or their leaders for doing so. Every national catastrophe in the Bible is spun into "divine punishment", but many times punishment on themselves. Collective self-flaggelation. This tradition carried over into the Englightenment when secular Jews criticize their own policies infinitum. Whether in this current conflict or in conflicts past, you can find a range of Jewish opinions, even if there is an obvious trend for a particular view. What you don't see, is the same thing in the Palestinian circumstance.
3. Self-criticism is less of a cultural feature on the Palestinian side perhaps, it is seen as weakness maybe and not strength. Whatever possible contingent/historic/cultural reasons, the Palestinian side will be much more solidly anti-Israel than Israel is anti-Palestinian. And this solidarity in the Palestinian side seems as if the non-diversity of views, the non-self-criticism, means that that cause must be the right cause. Both sides need a diversity of views, vociferously moderate ones. You can point to Abbas perhaps, and a few of his contingent. Perhaps there is hope there, or a younger even more moderate person if there is one. But I am talking about the media and cultural milieu in general has to self-criticize. One can say that in the middle of a war, this is not going to be obtained by the people who are in mortal danger. I'd probably agree there. However, until there is a vociferous outcry not only of Israel's "get Hamas no matter what the cost" response to Hamas, but of Hamas and their actions itself, then nothing changes. Perhaps starting with using one’s own population’s lives as a pawn by putting caches of weapons and military command centers as a strategy is one place to start.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/847621
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/847687
I think these professors/commentators/academics are much more BALANCED in their approach:
I watched the first link. I am familiar with Ta-Nehisi Coates. He has a certain POV, as does "Democracy Now" which generally also shares this POV. When it comes to similar subjects, I generally agree with John McWhorter who is critical of Coates (and Coates of McWhorter). Glenn Loury is also very nuanced too and provides interesting perspectives. Coleman Hughes is newer to me, but I've seen some of his previous stuff on specifically Palestine and Israel and I think has less of an agenda and provides thinkers with nuance on his show.
On the post before my previous one I have linked two other posts containing three videos of other informed commentors further corroborating Ta-Nehisi Coates' observations (as well as my own throughout this long thread going back to 2021). Posting a video of three center-right / conservative Black Americans to 'counter' Mr Coates' interview, schop1, lacks substance and seems to me racially problematic. :brow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqD-bwXzWV4
I did watch the Ta-Nehisi Coates interview. He mentions several times how the Palestinians should have voting rights, and I was thinking "why, so they can vote in the group that massacred Israelis?" Shouldn't they get free Israeli healthcare too? Wouldn't that be nice? The apartheid comparison seems ill-fitting given the Palestinians are under their own rulership; Hamas in Gaza and the PA in the WB. I would get it if it were about e.g. Israeli citizens under Israeli law. There was a lot more freedom in the WB until the rockets starting firing.
This is a great point. I think it is to our peril that we ignore history, and do not condemn atrocities, wherever they are carried out.
Found this horrific detail
Nazi Germany and its collaborators killed about 1.5 million Jewish children and tens of thousands of Romani (Gypsy) children, 5,000–7,000 German children with physical and mental disabilities living in institutions, as well as many Polish children and children residing in the German-occupied Soviet Union. Jewish and non-Jewish adolescents (13–18 years old) had a greater chance of survival, as they could be used for forced labor.
Good people must stop doing nothing. Do something good.
Any suggestions? Getting a correct view of history is a first step.
Do you mean wars of defence or wars of offence that go against the UN Charter. It becomes a matter of opinion.
Tell me, what have wars preserved that was more important than the lives of people? Is there something so valuable to send your children against the children of others to have them kill each other?
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Oh yes.
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/sun-tzu-quotes
Now, does this include peaceful, bloodless coups orchestrated by a foreign enemy?
It all descends into a matter of opinions.
Note: edited misquote
We are all the same, we are all different.
Human societies, and nations, are not all homogeneous. The proof of this is the kind of arguments that take place within societies, among friends, among relatives, among brothers, even. It is vitally important to recognize this. I recognize the Lindsey Grahams. There are many. There is the Zionist Jew and the Anti-Zionist Jew. Why is it that only a few people even think of reparations to the indigenous people of an island? I am the few who have ever mentioned it, let alone thought of it. Being educated is one thing, but we as a people of a society have to insist that history is taught - history is common to all, and history is true, and it can be found, because we know it has been found and suppressed.
I feel for the Israelis, I feel for the Palestinians, the young men ( I am not 50+) like I was, eager for battle and glory, without fear.
Highlighting the inhumanity of the common history of the world, and anyone can agree or disagree, is one step. The reaction to killing of children is the litmus test of humanity and all that needs to be preserved in our race.
Quoting bert1
What we need is for each human being to properly govern themselves. Atrocities begin in the heart.
I did not know that. Thanks.
Quoting New York Post
In wars atrocities are committed, what is surprising is that people forget that this situation was not unique to Hamas. In Vietnam, for example, but they were not 'only following orders'
Any explanation why if the elimination of Hamas was the goal, this man was not executed?
That would constitute revenge would it not?
Not so, but I can see where you think that. I just saw that post about comparing it to Jim Crow, which indeed does make a racial overtone to the subject, trying to connect two distinct convergent (as in convergent evolutionary) phenomena. And I do believe Coates (and Democracy Now which produced the video) has a major bias. I’m familiar with Coates through his own videos and articles but also with commentary criticizing his point of view from McWhorter. I wanted to present counter theories that dispute such overreaches, and who generally have dismantled and showcased his (and similar extreme left wing academics) already biased viewpoint. That video was not so much on Coates (there are plenty of those in their past videos) but being that the topic is on Israel and how the issue is framed by this, and that their stance is opposed to and critical of that type of framing typical of a certain far left-leaning academic contingency, I think it is legitimate to showcase.
I also want to reiterate that anyone can post outrage videos on their side that makes various points that will make their case. It's the kind of thing I was observing on another post. It is like a drive by Buzzfeed.. "Let me give you this video to instill the outrage. DON'T YOU SEE THE OUTRAGE!". But that can be done on BOTH sides. That isn't useful in argumentation. It is just red meat for one's side, and not a nuanced debate. At least the videos below hosted by Coleman Hughes go deep, are nuanced, and provoke further understanding about the topic. He has a view, sure, but if he doesn't know he asks, and if he has a point of contention he will develop the thought and then hear out the guest/interlocutor.
Also, they are not all "center-right / conservative". Glenn is generally center right / conservative. McWhorter is more “old school” liberal (not leftist), generally voting Democratic. I'm sure Coleman tends to have moderate views (I think he does vote Democrat) and has a very informative video on Israel/Palestine (actually several now):
Glen Loury & John McWhorter are in my view the beacons of sanity, especially when it comes to race issues and academia in America. I always enjoyed listening to them. It just reminds me that American academia still can be totally sane, reasonable and objective. And speak the truth. Unlike we hear from all the "wokeness" going around.
Have to listen what the two professors say about this. What Coates tells us on the other hand is his personal experience, how he did feel when being in the occupied territories etc.
Good question. I was drafting an extensive list but then realised B'Tselem wrote about it. Please check this out: https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid It writes about both the Occupied Territories and Israel proper but if you read carefully you can find the dinstinguishing features.
Here's an overview of laws passed in Israel that discriminate between Jewish and non-Jewish: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/index
And I know there were also operational things like issuing Jewish driver licenses and passports on other days than those for non-Jewish, so with a simple glance your "loyalty" was established but I cannot find whether this is still the case or not.
So the concept of nations doesn't arise at least 2,000 years after Judaïsm was made up but they are a "nation-race". Of course, I totally get that people who read a right to land based on some scribbles from people that probably got high on shrooms and think it was the revelation of God then can read "nation" into their favourite piece of insane ramblings but nobody who doesn't have a horse in this race is fooled by that. Even a century after nations arose nobody spoke about Jews in that way. So yes, it's a totally politically expedient invention. Obviously. But carry one.
:lol: now you’re smoking your own shrooms. Arguably, for good or bad, the idea of “the people of Israel” and connection of a particular people with a particular land was practically invented by the Bible years before “nation-state” in the 1600s. You can argue a strain of philo-semitism in Europe from Protestantism and from the 1600s onward promoted this idea of Jews possibly “returning”, even stemming from a sort of secular millennialism. But for you politically, no such nuance can be had because…it can’t be. Otherwise you’d have to have a wider worldview, and can’t have that.
No, read the idea and put the connections and implications together. It contradicts your idea full stop.
Right, there is a great deal of discrimination within Israel proper. I just don't know if South Africa is the best analogy for that given the ways in which Arab Israelis are integrated into the economy, politics, and fabric of social life though. To my mind it seems more like Jim Crow, or even more so the less formalized, defacto Jim Crow or the northern US in the decades prior to the 1960s-70s (which was often none kinder for being less explicit).
Although, interestingly the wealth gap between households and educational achievement is not as large as gaps that exist in the US, with a good deal being explained by much lower employment rates for Arab women 28.3% vs Jewish women 61.6%. This is partly due to a cultural difference; the gap for men is much smaller, although still quite significant, showing the effects of job discrimination as well. This is not so much a defense of the noxious Israel system, as a signal of the scale of US issues.
The difference would lie in returns on wealthy, since the Black-White income gap is a bit smaller than the Arab-Jew gap in Israel, but then the wealth relationship flips, probably because of how much the US system is set up around the principle of "to those who have, even more shall be given" (all sorts of policies that inflate wealth so long as you scrape up to a certain level).
Quoting ssu
And the appended links to videos (which you've ignored) do not corroborate Coates' "personal experience" of "the occupied territories"? :chin:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/850515
I wondered what happened in 2010. Now I know
I am not sure outcry is going to change anything. At least not for the exaggerated numbers of civilians allegedly killed.
Where is Hamas supposed to put its weapons, in specially demarcated areas?
I don't see the point here, you are saying that everyone should follow the rules of war, or just Hamas?
Sometimes the reasoning is difficult to folllow.
Hamas has already complained about the ineffectual response from Hezbollah, and that seems unlikely to change.
Despite some public moves in support of a cease fire, Hamas has yet to embrace that position with any consistency. Per the last interview with a politburo member:
But I wonder if this posture will change now that the response from allies has been about as unequivocal as you could expect it to be for public statements.
I imagine a cease fire would have to come with some sort of public statement about not carrying out additional October 7th style attacks whenever feasible. Not that Hamas will, or even should be bound by such statements, but because, if they want a ceasefire, they should realize that Israeli leaders need cover for one as well. Thus, there has to be some sort of shift in the language away from "such attacks will continue as soon as possible," and "total annihilation."
But, since both sides have face to lose in relenting first, I think we may be unlikely to see a move toward changing the rhetoric re "total destruction of Israel" and "total destruction of Hamas," until private negotiations bring about a mutual acknowledgement.
I still find it a bit strange though, because both militarily and in terms of protecting their people, a ceasefire would benefit Hamas, so I would think their messaging would follow the strategic imperatives. And if their goal is to win wider support, dropping the threats of continued attacks of the same nature (explicitly targeting civilians), while asking for the ceasefire seems like a no-brainer.
They did walk back the nature of the attacks, making an appeal to the targeting of civilians not being their goal, which is at least a move in the right direction. But it wasn't said very forcefully, and given the intent obviously was to massacre civilians, they probably need to expand on their view of future efforts. At least some acknowledgement of "mistakes were made," on the most heinous acts, not "everything was justified." You can claim the attack was justified and still say your soldiers might have "acted rashly," and blame it on the combat environment, etc. Diplomatically, claiming executing toddlers is "totally justified," is a non-starter.
Good point; I hadn't thought of that.
Both sides will cry foul here, but there are "human shield laws" if one cares about international law, which people seem to use pretty heavily against Israel, but not Hamas. These Laws state that it's illegal to use civilians as shields or cover:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_shield_(law)
Hamas originally used this tactic thinking that it would prevent overwhelming force against them. Then when this failed, they kept doing it, and not that I can tell what their leadership says, it's pretty clear that it's then used to stoke the media news cycle about how Israel is disproportionate. Either way, whatever Israel's actions are (which is clear by now that it will be overwhelming force to get the baddies), Hamas knowing this still hides amongst civilians, thus knowingly putting their own people in danger.
Quoting FreeEmotion
If you are referring to my reasoning, then what I was basically saying was that Palestinians need to bolster their moderate voices. Though Netanyahu and his regime/Likud Party have been in power for a while (more to do with their complicated parliamentary system of forming coalition governments than overwhelming majority support), they have a plethora of "doves", "liberals", and "moderate" positions. That has not historically been, and continues not to be the case on the Palestinian side. Until BOTH sides have a sufficient amount of "moderates", it doesn't end. I gave some possible reasons for this, and also explained how Palestinian solidarity on the hardline anti-Israel sentiments make it seem that that side is right, as if have a less diversity of views regarding peace and compromise means one is somehow more "right". But that is certainly not the case. Rather, there has to develop a sentiment of compromise and willingness to move forward without violence. That starts with Palestinians condemning Hamas vociferously, rejecting their style and rhetoric. That also means recognizing when your so-called "leaders" are not even protecting your people by provoking a neighboring force that they know will strike back with overwhelming force. So until they start holding their own leader accountable, and not keep reforming various Jihadist groups, it doesn't end. Until the Palestinian leadership puts their own people's lives and welfare above their agendas, it doesn't end.
The best thing Palestinians could do, as a group, is stand up against Hamas - make it clear that the people aren't looking for the destruction of Israel ("from the river to the sea"), and want to negotiate for a 2 state solution, one where Israel can feel confident Palestinians won't allow another Hamas to come to power.
This would never happen, but if it could happen it would fast track Palestinians into having their own sovereign territory.
:clap: :up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2BSDLFVT74
He's very biased, I think, given his history and circumstances, but I would love it if he were right
I don't think it's that far of a stretch. They haven't delivered on any of their promises. They haven't delivered on good governance or quality of life improvements. And now they have openly declared that all the people they rule over by force "want to be martyrs," following their unilateral decision to start a war.
Not only this, but they also kept their plans for the war secret while stockpiling supplies for themselves, preparing for their own saftey. They then started the war, and have since seemed more focused on protecting their strength and themselves than defending against the attack they provoked (the IDF has encircled Gaza City and begun to push into urban areas and losses do not suggest anything like a "heavy" resistance).
And now they seem unable to even keep meaningful support from allies in a time of crisis, making armed struggle, the very thing they are committed too, look even more hopeless. If Iran won't step in now, it never will. And Hamas will never be able to overwhelm Israel. Leaving a change in strategy as the only realistic option.
Yes.
And perhaps that Saudi-Arabia and it's allies have put a blockade on the Houthi controlled part of Yemen. Plus bombed them for years.
Ummm.... hasn't that the Palestine Authority already done that? :roll:
And oh yeah, now far less Palestinians are killed in West Bank than in Gaza.
More news articles are appearing about the relationship between Netanyahu and the Biden administration.
If the administration can put its foot down and pressure Netanyahu into resiging, that would be a big step in the right direction - probably enough to prevent an escalation of the conflict. Perhaps it would be enough to cause a shift in Israeli politics.
Netanyahu is politically finished anyway, and the question is whether he leaves now or after the conflict escalates and the massive war that would ensue.
A US administration pressuring what is essentially regime change in Israel is unheard of though (is it?), and the domestic pressure on the administration will be enormous. But we're living in unprecedented times so who knows?
Israel is, quite frankly, evil. Hamas is obviously evil. All the innocent that have died and will die are a travesty. I have no idea what a way forward would even look like.
Curious, why is Abbas’ four year term 16 years? Don’t get me wrong, consequentially, this is infinitely better, but your answer will reveal the contrary situation to what you imply in that response.
Great question. Terms apparently can be changed to whatever helps your cause. I’m sure you’ll get a BS answer where it has something to do with the “embargo” (because of Hamas occupation) and the “open air prison” (where money was funneled from Palestinians to Hamas weapon infrastructure).
It’s probably going to shift in the overwhelming force that Israel responds though. My guess is that one. So it will be mutable to various “bad” things. Settlements will also fall under this mutable category of “bad” equals genocide. Just call it all genocide I guess.
Or the fact that at various times Pal leadership rejected a state fir various uncompromising reasons. That failure also makes it a genocide apparently.
Or perhaps just Zionism being a thing from 1881 or 1947 or whatnot which Arab Muslims never agreed to. That’s genocide. Pick your start date.
You can surely purpose a peaceful solution, but then I don't see that simply as being realistic.
Quoting flannel jesus
How about extrapolating the present history into the future?
Isreal will continue to "mow the lawn" once a decade, when a new generation of Palestinians make their own attempt of an intifada. And during the more peaceful times life is ordinary for Israelis, until that time to head to the bunker when the rockets fly comes every once in a while. And nothing will be done because there is no outside pressure the US is an ally of Israel and no Arab nation presents a real threat to it. And the far right in Israel can always say that any appeasement with the Palestinians have just made things worse.
Hence I think perpetual low-intensity conflict is what Israel thinks it has to do. And the religious zealots like Hamas and Hezbollah, they are just happy with this. They don't want normalization. Heck, people could get as unreligious as young Iranians are today. People who lose their loved ones can rejoice of having the honor of having lived with martyrs! Religious zealots prevail.
Quoting schopenhauer1
They surely aren't a justice state, a democracy and rather corrupt, as people opted to vote in Gaza. But notice, that Hamas fought the PA and then took over Gaza. And yes,
Quoting schopenhauer1
What do you think I imply as a response?
In my view there simply is not a peaceful, diplomatic, solution!
To think that there is now is a nice humane solution is living in a denial. Either side has no desire to appease the other side and make any solution, like going back to the pre-1967 borders.
Unlike European after WW1 (or WW2), people aren't fed up with the war.
Quoting Benkei
I wouldn't call the Apartheid-system of control of the Israelis genocide, but clearly a state where every Palestinian understands that they don't have an own independent state. (No Russian soldiers checking my ID when drive to a different town from mine in Finland.)
In fact, many Palestinians might desire for the time there wasn't yet this "freedom" in the West Bank. Yes, there was a time when the Israeli officials were more lax about their Palestinians in their occupied territories.
Oh you know what, I'll save you the trouble:
On 11 December 1946 the General Assembly of the United Nations resolved that genocide was a crime under international law. This was approved and ratified as a Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on 9 December 1948. The Convention defines genocide as:
‘any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
I emphasised the part that applies in this situation. So no, it's definitely not an exaggeration. It's like suggesting what the Chinese are doing to the Uighurs isn't genocide because they aren't killed. Just their way of life and identify.
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/ethnic-cleansing.shtml:
Quoting United Nations
What is telling that he has gotten a lot of support, but naturally nobody dares to say anything similar as fearing that they'll lose their job.
But the example does tell us that when it's not Israel, the US does think carefully what the impact of its arms will have (and this can be seen from some other conflicts).
I use the expression “having the same standards” as a conscious and convenient simplification to deal with a messy reality. After all I didn’t specify which standards I’m referring to, nor conditions for their assessment. So I’m perfectly aware that there is room to broadly question its application to the case of Israel. But that would be true for other Western allies (Turkey), Western countries (Hungary, Poland), and Western leaders (the US). For example if we are focusing on the respect of “human rights” as the core of Western foreign policy, it’s very much questionable that the US was/is respecting this standard in its past wars and supporting Israel now.
As far as I’m concerned, even if we take “humanitarian concerns” as a core Western standard (take also as a test case the illegal immigrants dying in the Mediterranean), I would still understand it in more “realist” terms: “human rights” are what states can more likely commit to enforce AT BEST within the territory they are effectively under their control. Beyond that, in the international arena, and most certainly in the case of contested lands, credibility&accountability of states’ commitments toward “human rights” remain the facto deeply constrained and disputable given the involvement of foreign authorities. A logic of alliance between sovereign powers is what replaces the logic of sovereignty in the international arena, whence the dilemma of the conflict between Israel and Hamas for the West.
Quoting ssu
France and Germany had and may still have different views from the US on Ukraine, yet this didn’t prevent them from aligning with converging policies and/or narratives when needed.
For many Western countries the issue of the current conflict is also linked to the presence of an angry Arab/Muslim community which is much larger than the Jewish community (in many European countries at least, not in the US). So I’m not surprised to see public gestures meant to contain the risk of a political (given incoming elections) or social backlash. Propaganda serves also that purpose.
Quoting ssu
As far as I’m concerned, “existential” or “vital” have to do with the security dilemmas we are having in mind. If we agree that a system of alliance is part of the survival kit of any state in the international arena AND a larger alliance is better than a smaller alliance to the extent economic, political and security policies and capacities can converge to maximise efficacy in reaching desired outcomes, then Israel on its side has lots of economic, technological, military, intelligence, geographic and political assets that it’s definitely worth preserving as an ally. Most certainly for the US, the leader of the Western alliance.
Besides, let’s not forget the historical role played by European powers in the genesis of Israel. History of the christian anti-Semitism is haunting Zionism as much as the history of Western colonialism is haunting anti-Western countries, and the two tend to overlap in the case of Israel for the Arab world. So even condemning Israel now wouldn’t still condone Western historical responsibilities. Again, it’s on Westerners, to see what tradeoff between division and unity is acceptable in the face of anti-Western challenges.
I’m not blind to the toxic nature of Netanyahu’s government (as many Israeli denounced). I’m not trying to defend the Zionist ideology (with its ethnic-based notion of state) or the abuses of the Israeli colonisation. I doubt that we can still comfortably assess the proportionality of the Israeli response, even if we assume that it is going to be effectively eradicating Hamas inside Gaza (and analysts doubt that too).
I simply find it myopic and easy to exploit to understand the current events exclusively in terms of dead civilians accounting/accountability and demand for peace. In the Israeli crisis as much as in the Ukrainian crisis. The weight of the historical legacy and the geopolitical stakes for sovereign states can not just be trumped by a popular wish for peace or humanitarian concerns.
Another remarkable example to support this, while the Western anti-Americans keep whining over the Vietnam war today, yet Vietnam has now become another precious American military ally in the Pacific.
Indeed if this is the “objective” version because you quoted the UN, Hamas seems to be doing all of this and seems to as of recently vow to continue doing so. Oh and can you include genociding your own people as well?
I think @flannel jesus had a point in pointing out the differences with things like the holocaust and Native Americans. I can tell you I highly disagree with Netanyahu and his regime, but I wouldn’t call it a genocide likened to what I mentioned. I think my previous post stands on its own. You can argue having a Jewish state called “Israel” in the midst of Arab Muslim population is “genocide” because it will exclude by definition a majority run Arab Muslim polity in that territory. But then genocide is stretched to anything. Uighers are out in communist reeducation camps and are sterilized, there are attempts at low key reduction in the population. It’s hard to argue land acquisition in disputed territory is genocide. It’s turning very nature of the land dispute as “genocide” rather than historic systemic destruction of a people. Yet here there is an increase in population- more than the supposed aggressor even. That’s problematic if the term is to have historical significance beyond “this is unfair policy regarding land claims”. You can have bad policy, unfair state actions, and not a genocide. As much as you’d like to circle the square official policy is not to “wipe out the Palestinians”. However, I’d 100% agree that Netanyahu has never really done his part to keep the chance for peace going and by ignoring the existence the issue and only focusing on other states and not the internal problem, he has tried to bide time and stall. However, Hamas has always been for fucking up any chance peace. They did it in the 90s, they’ll do it again if they maintained power. Their goal again, is not a committed peace plan. It’s chaos. It’s death. It’s strife. It’s Lord of the Flies.
It is probably both.
Israeli policies in Gaza and the West Bank are deliberately put in place to make life impossible for the Palestinians living there.
It's not hard to see how purposefully creating terrible living conditions can be seen as an active attempt to destroy a population, prevent births and be a form of physical and psychological torture.
It also doesn't help that there are plenty of Israeli politicians blatantly stating that destroying the Palestinians is what they intend to do.
I'd like to draw attention to the fact that Netanyahu called the Palestinians 'Amalekites' in a speech some days ago.
A quick reminder of who the Amalekites were:
Yet they have (large) increase in population, so it’s a highly unnsuccessful one?
Who will win the contest of moral outrage? Give me some pop-corn.
Reasonable guy that makes good points from someone who was up close with the group. He represents a badly needed moderate position. Some of the members of this forum can learn from him and heed what he is saying.
That would actually be the least of their problems.
The perpetual war in the Middle East simply has had and will have a destabilizing effect and unlike the US, European countries will have to deal with the flow of refugees because the Israel and the Levant is in the Mediterranean and not on the Caribian Sea. What will Bibi afterwards with the 2,2 million Palestinians as Israel likely kill only some tens of thousands of them in this war? Or, Lebanon, which basically is now bankrupt and facing, has already 1,5 million refugees from Syria. Hence if the war escalates into Bibi vowing to destroy Hezbollah, Lebanon turning into a battlefield can cause huge amounts of refugee flight again.
Then the war can destabilize countries like Egypt and not Lebanon, that do have a peace agreement with Israel and does have a population that generally despises what Israel is doing. When Egypt had it's brief encounter with democracy, the only organized opposition group won, which wasn't actually so eager anymore to hold on to the peace agreement in all cases.
Quoting neomac
Russia has attacked already two countries and wants to annex large parts of Ukraine. Russia is a threat to EU and NATO member states. It's quite different than a terrorist organization. Hence there is no similar unified response from the EU as there was in this case as there was in the case of Ukraine.
Quoting neomac
I'm sorry, is Israel an ally of NATO? Has Israel committed ever troops or assistance to help any other country than itself? Is it a member of EU? First and foremost, the US is an ally to Israel that is basically the only advance country which the US funds. Only time when foreign countries have gotten more is when a) US has invaded them or b) the Ukraine war.
Quoting neomacAs the interview I above posted, yes, lot of that 14 billion weapons aid will go to weapons development.
But why not then do this with the allies that actually come to help the US in it's wars? Why not for example the UK? Give them the aid to make new joint ventures on new weapon systems with the British! They would be very happy if the "special relationship" with the US really would be a special relationship. They have a sound, well function military industrial complex I think better than Israel. Especially after the disaster of Brexit, they need friends. The British have gone with you to into Afghanistan, into Iraq, defended Kuwait alongside the US. Israel has not. Wouldn't it be more reasonable to help and improve the armed forces of your ally that for example can help you all around the World (like with AUKUS), including in the Far East?
Why not the British? They are easier and less problematic than Bibi.
Oh but I forget: Israel's security and objectives are the objectives of the US. In that order. Because... Judeo-Christian heritage, because Israel is a democracy, etc.
I don't see how that makes any difference.
Immigration, resident Muslim (or pro-Palestinian) electorate and Islamist terrorism are all potential issues ensuing from the conflict in Israel, sure. So containing the risk of escalation and pursuing a longer term solution for the crisis in the Middle East is desirable. But HOW? By launching an international criminal investigation against Nathnayahu? Impose economic sanctions against Israel? By letting the anti-Western propaganda galvanize the popular outrage in the Middle East and in the West? Hell no. By diplomatically pressuring Israel to stop? How is that supposed to work?
My idea is that when Nathanyahu’s compulsive response will exhaust its impetus, the US will have the best opportunity for diplomatically pressing his ousting as well as a significant change in Israel political strategy toward the Palestinian issue.
Quoting ssu
I don’t need an argument for why they are different, but one for why they better be different, since there are non-negligible idealogical and functional links between the two crisis. They are both attacks on a Western-led World Order and they are reciprocally instrumental in dividing the West’s energies, attention and unity.
Quoting ssu
Right, Israel is a Western ally as much as Japan can be, through the strategic cooperation with the US, the leader of the Western alliance. But the reason why the Western alliance with Israel is not getting any stronger is essentially because of the Palestinian issue. BTW many European states didn’t want to get involved in the Ukrainian war too and the reason why the Western alliance with Ukraine didn’t get any stronger is essentially because of Russia. And yet you seem to be for Western support in the case of Ukraine but not in the case of Israel because of the “humanitarian crisis”, right?
I think that if the West doesn’t support Israel the “humanitarian crisis” could worsen, for example because it would make the escalation in the area more likely.
Quoting ssu
To which I would add: the geographic location of Israel (like the proximity to the Suez Canal and its strategic relevance for the traffic of oil, gas, commerce, the internet cables), the expertise and means that Israel has dealing with Middle Eastern regional conflicts, the Jewish lobby in the US.
While UK was more useful to the US, before the Brexit, when it was inside the EU (because it could better support pro-American policies). But it’s not an out-out issue: both countries are good and effective American allies. Anyways, Israel is the most problematic ally.
A moderate position that Hamas is clearly willing to destroy also in Israel. Indeed, Hamas attack was targeting the Israeli population and audience politically opposing Nathanyahu and turn them into supporters of Nathanyahu's hawkish response:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/29/world/europe/israel-reservists-hamas-war.html
I agree that the compulsive response will exhaust its impetus. Actually Joe Biden's advice was good on the failures that the US did in 9/11. The Hamas terrorist attack shouldn't be viewed as: Great! Now we can deal with every enemy we have because we will have the support of the traumatized population.
I don't think that the US has to do anything (and will do anything) about the internal Israeli politics. You see, this goes only one way: Israel influences US politics, not the other way around. If you say it does, please give me a concrete example. The only pressure what the US had was for Israel to disregard it's own fighter project, the IAI Lavi, and choose modern F-16s.
Bibi will likely fall. October 7th was a total disaster and political leadership will have to pay the price, just as Golda Meir later had to resign.
Quoting neomacPlease tell me, what just that "strategic cooperation" is in the case of Israel.
Japan aided the US in it's War on Terror. Japan sent roughly 5,500 GSDF troops to Iraq from January 2004 to July 2006 to provide medical aid, water and to help repair infrastructure in Samawah. No Japanese troops were killed or injured during the mission (they were actually protected themselves). But still, that's a contribution from a country from the other side of the World, which has similar problems like Germany to show it's military muscle (after WW2). And Japan is quite essential for the US when it poses against China. Plus the Japanese navy is actually quite large and competent. Without Japan all this talk about US pivoting to Asia (against China) is very difficult. That is strategic cooperation for me.
What has Israel contributed other than continuing on it's own objectives?
I don't recall Isreal and Bibi helping the US to defeat ISIS. Actually what I do remember is that islamists fighting Assad's forces who were wounded were helped by Israel: the islamists would simply leave the wounded on the Isreali side of the Golan Heights and Israeli soldiers would pick them up and take them to a hospital. Pretty honorable thing to do... but I'm not sure if they would have done the same for Syrian troops. In all, Israel and Bibi are just interested in themselves.
Quoting neomac
Umm... isn't the US and Egypt in good terms too? Wouldn't geopolitically the stability of Egypt be here more important? The Suez canal is in Egypt. Btw, those gas fields that Israel has aren't so important. And as Israeli is a very wealthy country, I guess it does have a lot of internet cables.
Evidence? You mean like Israeli politicians admitting intent, and decades of Israeli policy we can fall back on?
It's an open and shut case.
First off, I can go either way as to whether terms matter here or just a tool for making red herrings. But let's say "genocide" is a useful word as it demarcates a specific immoral phenomenon regarding groups of people against other groups of people. Ok, if that is the case, then both sides can be considered "genocidal" in their intentions. Both sides want the land, and both side have made violent overtures, often with rhetoric like "from the river to the sea". Hamas has kidnapped 250 people raped, pillaged the countryside, chopped off heads, killed 1,400 people and showed it on media, sending rockets daily, and before that periodically. Hamas had scores of suicide bombers in the 1st and second intafadas, not participating in two-state solution talks. At various points in 1948, 1967, and 1973, the Egypt/Jordan/Syria/Lebanon/Iraq/Saudi Arabia with the Palestinian forces, have called for the utter destruction of Israel. Currently, Iran and Hezbollah have had that as part of their policy. So, sure, we can indeed talk about Likud's abysmal policies in the West Bank. But if we start throwing around terms that matter because of their intent, and even on the "harm" they actually do to a population, then genocide starts widening to everything that the extreme actors in that region do.
Sure, but I'm not sure if being equated to a terrorist organisation is going to help the Israeli government's case.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Israel has a history of ethnic cleansing, apartheid and other human rights violations that skirt the lines of genocide. We see the intent put into practice on a large scale.
I've learned on these forums that sometimes there is a previous post that makes the best, and it's just best to refer back to that one, as it still answers the question. I am going to do that in this case.
Did the Allies commit genocide against populations of Axis powers?
So the Allies didn't commit genocide against Axis populations.
:100:
Quoting RogueAI
The Allies certainly committed their share of war crimes (e.g. Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki ...)
Let's go with war crimes then. Does the committing of Allied war crimes entail a moral equivalence between the Allies and Axis?
Yes. What makes actions "war crimes" is that, to begin with they are not self-defensive, they are gratuitous, etc.
But there wasn't a moral equivalence between the Axis and Allies. Are you claiming the Allies were just as bad, morally, as the Axis? That's absurd.
yes, those things would also constitute evidence, sure.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II
OK, so there is a moral equivalence between Axis and Allies viz-a-viz war crimes, but the war crime moral equivalence does not create an overall moral equivalence between the two? Even though the Allies committed war crimes, they were morally superior to the Axis. Is that correct?
Moral acts are done by moral actors. Abstractions like Allies / Axis are not moral actors.
But if we ignore that, looking for a moral high ground in something as awful as war is pointless too. Both sides participated in war crimes and the industrialized killing of millions. Both sides were irredeemable from any moral point of view.
Quoting RogueAI
That question is too vague.
Yeah, the world was better off that the Allied powers had defeated the Axis powers. No doubt the world will be better off when the US client-state of Israel destroys the Iranian client-terrorist proxies of Hamas & Hezbollah. The question is: will Israel destroy itself, or be destroyed, in the process by becoming the monsters it is fighting? Apparently, Israel has – especially, since 1967 – such that the "Greater Israel" state policy is, in practice, indistinguishable from, IMO, the US' "Manifest Destiny" and even Third Reich's "Lebensraum" ideologies.
So, Rogue, is the concentration camp regime that's indiscriminately mass-murdering prisoners "morally superior" to the very few prisoners who had escaped only to murder the guards' & torturers' "innocent" families and friends?
(update 5 mins after I wrote this post) To wit:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/04/us-jews-rift-gaza-israel-crisis
No, it's not. The Allies were morally superior to the Axis. Full stop. That's one of the clearest real-life moral cases we have. The Nazi's were so bad that invoking comparisons to them shuts down debate (Godwin's Law). Your anti-Israel bias has blinded you to some obvious moral truths. I get why. You don't want to follow this chain of logic: if the Allies can kill innocent people and still claim the moral high ground, then Israel can kill innocent people and still claim the moral high ground.
Quoting RogueAI
You can always tell the goodies from the baddies by the colour of their hats. Plus the goodies always win because God is on their side. So we know the Nazis were bad because they lost, and the Allies were good because they won, and the fact that they both slaughtered children by the thousand is unimportant.
Similarly, we know the Taliban are good because they won and the US and Britain are bad because they lost. Now God does not seem to have decided yet about Israel and Palestine, so you have to rely on the hats - and all the Jewish hats I've seen have been black, from the little crocheted ones they have to glue on to their heads to the giant extra thick pancake things with furry bits. I rest my moral case.
And if 29% supported Hamas, that means, I guess, some hundreds of thousands for Bibi to do away with.
There won't be any sanctions, though, even BDS is deemed illegal. Is it because South Africa is so far away, and was a Dutch territory?
Al-Shifa: Israel admits airstrike on ambulance near hospital
The blatant disregard for humanity is appalling.
What's perhaps worse is the complete inability of the Biden White House to put any meaningful pressure on Israel to stop its abhorrent practice. It seems content with virtue-signaling rhetoric while in fact doing absolutely nothing.
One cannot help but wonder what kind of leverage the Israel lobby has for this to be the case.
Or is it simply election politics?
Ever hear of AIPAC?
Election politics would be a decent explanation, were it not for the fact that this policy is basically bipartisan and criticism by politicians from either side never amounts to any action.
Sorry that I've not responded to this earlier, @Benkei, as your argument ought to be discussed here.
I think there's quite enough of quotes of Israeli politician giving emotional outcries of revenge and demands to flatten all Gaza, that it's a evil City with human animals and questioning the innocence of all Palestinians in Gaza as they had not overthrown Hamas. The massacre on October 7th lead to this response. Obviously a chance to milk the justified outrage for the massacre to get a "free hand" on dealing with Hamas.
Yes, that is the kind of political rhetoric you need for a genocide. However, we have to remind ourselves that this kind of rhetoric is very typical in the Middle East. How many times have nearly all of the other participants have been involved in ranting to their own crowd the rhetoric of the destruction of Israel and throwing the Jews into the Sea? Yet these are the same people who have done that have been capable of making peace with Israel. Hence there is simply a lot of hot-heads and a ranting style of discourse in the Middle-East. Behind this discourse are still shrewd and logical politicians, even if they earlier called for the utter destruction of their enemies.
Yet I don't think the orders are for the IDF to perform genocide. However, with unrestrained bombing, a tiny area filled with over 2 million people totally dependent on outside logistics and incapable of fleeing the battle, this is very difficult. It can easily become so that nobody can refute you.
Hence here it's really about how Israel deals with the two million people of their open air prison, which is in a riot. If there's a prison riot, do you kill everybody and flatten the prison? Sounds easy, but then what you kill is also the rule of law.
Hence the real question is that if Israel continues to block supplies, doesn't anything on the survival of two million people, then pretty well it will play into the hands of Hamas. Bibi can easily make this error. As I mentioned with the example of the US Army, which itself really had no grudge against the Iraqi people (and basically was left to solve issues on the ground without it's incompetent politicians), it observed that it had to start humanitarian assistance to the people at the same time as the fighting was still going on in Fallujah. (Let's remember that actually the US Army did put down Al Qaeda and reached a solution in Iraq, again without any political direction from Washington, only then to leave and leave the place to the Shia government, which then lead to ISIS taking over the place.)
Perhaps if Bibi fucks up again and there is a huge death toll, well into the tens of thousands and perhaps even hundred thousand killed. Perhaps then, out of outside pressure, the post-Bibi government of Israel has to seriously consider a two-state solution.
Or at least give the picture of it being serious about the peace process at least a few years. Because in a few years the Western audience will have forgotten about Gaza. And then back to the policy of perpetual war and "mowing down the lawn" every once a decade.
About the rhetoric of Israeli politicians and the question of genocide commented on MSNBC:
It's seems to me that allegations of genocide have to come with actual genocide to be meaningful, not just "genocidal intent among [I]some[/I] of the members." It is not that the latter isn't worth pointing out or criticizing, but that it would apply to virtually [I]all[/I] wars of any significant size.
If every war with massacres of civilians and attempts to displace populations was a genocide, than virtually every war is a genocide. Maybe they are in a sense, but then the term loses any value in international affairs.
By such a standard, Yemen's Civil War would be a war of genocide, as would Iraq's. The Vietnam War, the Russo-Ukrainian War, the Iran-Iraq War, Pakistani intervention in what is now Bangladesh, Algeria, the Russian Civil War, much of the Chinese Civil War, etc.
But it seems to me that the term "genocide" needs to apply to something more than "at least some leaders express such intent," and "at least some attacks are carried out showing such intent." If that's the bar, then it would also be the case that Hamas is guilty of "carrying out a genocide of Jews in Israel," by virtue of publically expressing such goals and carrying out attacks explicitly designed to further them. This seems wrong. [B]Hamas isn't carrying out a genocide because of 10/7; the term has to be attached to some sense of scale.[/b] Russian actions in Bucha, heinous as they were, were likewise not "genocide."
It seems wrong in part because a study of most conflicts will find attacks like October 7th occuring very often, and because it seems ridiculous to say that Hamas, who is in such a militarily weak position, is guilty of "committing genocide." By such a metric, North Vietnam and the Vietcong would also be guilty of "genocide," because of events like Hue as well.
By such a weak definition, the PLO certainly committed genocide in Lebanon, because they massacred the populations of Lebanese Arab villages, destroyed their cultural heritage, etc., with the aim of removing them from the area. And then Lebanese groups would be guilty of genocide as well, carrying out similar attacks against Palestinians. And Russia would be guilty of "genocide," in Ukraine for its punitive strikes, executions, and population transfers.
Here, one can't really debate the absolute vileness of such acts. The reason they are not genocide is because genocide is a term that needs to apply to scale. [B]Else you could easily have it that the victims of most genocides are themselves "committing genocide," whenever there are counter massacres.[/b]
Thus, in comparing scale we should look at the explicit examples. In Rwanda, 800,000 people were killed over the course of 100 days. During the Holodomor, 3.5-5 million were killed from 1932-1933, with deaths heavily concentrated in areas Stalin had denied food to, areas in Ukraine that were then immediately resettled with ethnic Russians (who there was plenty of food for). In Syria, where genocides against minorities have been carried out locally, 500,000-600,000 have been killed.
I would draw a distinction between that and Russia's actions in parts of Ukraine, but it isn't to "excuse," such acts in any way. It's just in scale and unified purpose of such efforts.
In this, the history of the conflict over Palestine does not seem like a genocide, with the possible exception of both parties' attempts at ethnic cleansing in 1948. This doesn't make their actions any less heinous, but the distinction has to remain meaningful.
Decades of conflict have not produced a very large number of fatalities (significantly less than other wars in the region). Population growth in Israel has remained strong due to continued immigration, but the Arab Israeli birth rate is higher as well. The Occupied Territories are subject to all manner of oppression, but their population has soared faster than almost anywhere on Earth in recent decades (actually a major problem/source of the collapse in standard of living.)
Until the decoupling of the OT's from the Israeli economy, the residents had significantly higher incomes than their Arab neighbors as well.
If simply being oppressive, offering a low standard of living, and responding to terrorism and protest with a massive use of force was genocide, then a very large share of the world's states fall into that category, cheapening the term.
Even indiscriminate mass killing is not necessarily genocide. US fire bombing of German and Japanese cities was never aimed at erasing those populations, but at forcing their governments to capitulate and reducing their ability to wage war. Israel has not been blanketing the strip in indiscriminate shelling and fire bombing— the death toll would be many times as high if they were, for they are well capable of doing what the US did to Tokyo.
IMO, to call either side's actions genocide is to simply cheapen the term such that, by any objective standards, it would apply almost anywhere. The Taliban would then be a genocidal force, the Soviets in Afghanistan as well, North Vietnam, etc. And then the imperative to "stop genocide," becomes impossible to meet, because it becomes equivalent with stopping all warfare.
Nor do I think the enlightened West would act particularly different. If the Swiss government carried out a 10/7 style attack on French, German, or Italian cities, you could certainly expect that there would be a counter invasion and heavy use of air power in urban areas. Actually, for all their righteous proclamations, given their actual track record and ability for complex air ops, combined with their aversion to casualties, I could definitely see the French just leveling all of Zurich in such a scenario (source: all of European history before the EU).
The condemnation due to Israel is rather due to their broader historical role in creating the situation, not simply that there has been an attempt to destroy Hamas at all. They are at fault in that they helped create Hamas and the situation they find themselves in, not because they are using military force to remove a hostile government that carried out an attack against their population.
Naturally the term "genocide" is used in excess and is a basic word of propaganda. However, how you fight wars does have differences:
Soviet war in Afghanistan (9 years): 525 000 - 2 000 000 civilian deaths, 7+ million displaced
US war in Afghanistan (19 years): 46 300 civilians killed
Do you see any difference in the amount of civilians killed? No? Or did both armies fight the war in the same way?
And of course you can refute that 46 000 civilians number, but the low estimate won't be over half a million. No amount of propaganda or media control will somehow erase the hundreds of thousands of not having been killed. Yet the difference in happened because of the way the war was fought. And why was the Soviet number so high? Here's one quote:
Basically this was going back to the Roman tactic of making peace by making an artificial desert. If there are now peasants from whom the mujahideen can live off, there's no mujahideen. And even some ancient Roman's found this way of fighting immoral.
Hence the fact is that how you deal with 2,2 million people that of whom about 1 million are now displaced is going to be a key factor here. There simply isn't any way around it. Especially when there's no Armenia as there were for those Armenians living in Nagorno Karabakh to go for the Palestinians. Yes, in Nagorno Karabakh where just a little time ago a huge ethnic cleansing happened and nobody lifted a finger.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
In 1967 Israel decided to occupy more land because it could. And that's basically where the problems we have now started.
They are referring to decades of Israeli policy which has already termed been by human rights organisations, UN legal bodies and even the Israelis themselves (Haaretz and B'Tselem, for example) to be ethnic cleansing and apartheid, among a whole slew of other human rights violations.
When Israeli politicians today are stating outright that they wish to raze Gaza to the ground together with all its inhabitants, it appears they have started to 'say the quiet part out loud'.
There is something rotten in the state of Israel. It's clear for all to see, except for people who cling to the delusion that Israel is a normal state and hand-wave dozens, probably hundreds of UN resolutions and human rights reports.
Even the Israelis themselves see it. They are protesting for Netanyahu to step down as we speak. Many of them have long understood that staying on this path will not provide Israel with security, and will instead facilitate its demise. They want Israel to be on the right side of history.
Right on, Bernie.
Starting from the Six Day War.
Before the US-Israeli relations were friendly, but basically normal as with two countries and France was Israel's biggest ally. But then came the astonishing Israeli victory in 1967. Back then it was Cold War realpolitik as the Soviet Union backed the Arab nationalists mainly in Egypt and Syria.
But now, as you say, it's all domestic American politics. That someone like Netanyahu knows well how to play.
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/13/1205627092/american-support-israel-biden-middle-east-hamas-poll
Can't argue with that, not many terrorist acts being perpetrated by radical Hebrews
So was this Israeli cabinet minister sacked just for what he said or rather for his extremist, Freudian slip – saying the quiet part out loud – nuking Gaza? :brow:
https://www.politico.eu/article/israel-minister-amichai-eliyahu-suspend-benjamin-netanyahu-nuclear-bomb-gaza-hamas-war/
The Likud-led regime is nothing but Hamas with US firepower & NATO support.
To pretend there’s any parity between a US-backed settler-colonial state and the actions coming out of an illegally occupied territory is absurd.
The least we should be asking for is a ceasefire.
That endlosung has been openly talked about on social media in Israel for decades. You know the type of hate speech that lands you in jail in any other "democracy". This poor man only lost his job. Oh... Wait... No, just suspended.
I watched that incredibly balanced view on the accusations of genocide, and the conflict.
Obviously since these words alone, and it looks like we can only state our opinions and not convince anyone, then I would say guilty on two counts.
That's just my opinion, based on a totally disinterested reading of the definitions.
In any case my opinion that the ongoing carnage should stop, whether or not there is genocide or not, so I was objective going in to reading. I did not need to draw the conclusion at all.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Well then it seems like genocide to me. Is this what we are down to, discussing what it feels like to each person? Opinions? Based on what?
Maybe the best thing to do is to state our underlying views as simply as possible, and let everyone see that the conclusions follow from the assumptions.
Here I my assumptions:
I assume that this is the best thing for all parties concerned.
Both sides should immediately enter into a permanent ceasefire and come to a peace agreement. Hamas should give up its arms and stand trial for war crimes. Hamas fighters should surrender. Israelis and Palestinians should live in a permanent peace between themselves as it was alleged they lived before the creation of Israel. How this is to be done are just details.
Of course this is all fantasy, but this is what my thinking is.
It might be best if everyone presents their axioms, then we can make up the arguments themselves, the arguments that follow from the initial assumptions.
I reject the idea that we can judge which countries are decent and which ones are not.
I have a list of decent countries as well, and it will not be the same as yours. These are errors of reasoning here, practical and moral reasons supposes that the morality of Israel is better than the morality of everyone else.
If there is a conclusive way to settle which countries are moral and better than other countries I like to hear it, however I may not agree on the criteria, then what?
So what do we follow? The United Nations Charter, and Bible, other religious texts? Which one should we follow?
I would like to hear your suggestions.
And while you are at it, maybe highlight the lies and deliberate distortions and omissions on both sides.
Or just watch the news channels - all of them.
If you are interested in Philosophy, at least realize that certain lines of argument are prohibited by the laws of reason, these are fallacies of reason. At least they are entertaining.
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/logical-fallacies/
Question: are there any logical fallacies or omissions, unsupported claims made here in this interview?
Is the speaker presenting a certain point of view? I think that is why it is upsetting watching it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMkA--JpO7c
By the same argument, if the Israelis crossed the fence into Gaza and killed 1400 civilians in exactly the same way, then it would be fine. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, revenge perfected.
Why do so few agree with the above argument? What are the issues here?
Then we have to ask, why is this?
If it is a reasoning machine, then it is fed by the same facts it should come up with the same answer the same conclusions on the other side. What is this reasoning machine made up of? What are its initial settings? What are the filters used?
I would like to see everyone's assumptions : let's start with the Wikipedia history of the conflict.
Are we all agreed on history?
Americans have their material leverages (like the American package of military aid), but I guess their diplomatic network can reach Israeli military-intelligence apparatuses as well as political opposition inside Israel to figure out a post-Netanyahu strategy.
Besides the Israeli lobby can be so powerful over American administrations because of the mostly bipartisan American interest in the region: Israel can still be instrumental to contain the risk of emerging regional powers in the Middle East as previously was to counter Soviet Union influence in the region. Here two examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_rocket_attacks_on_Israel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_in_the_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War
Quoting ssu
But you are talking about Netanyahu, I’m talking about Israel. The US is evidently committed to the survival and security of Israel in the region, not to a specific Israeli leadership. And my understanding is that Netanyahu political prospects have become pretty grim. Maybe Netanyahu “getting rid” of Hamas is the way Israel might get rid of Netanyahu as well as neutralise his toxic fanbase.
Quoting ssu
It’s not an aut-aut choice. The more the better. But I guess the US-Israel partnership is more solid and resourceful than the partnership with Egypt. The geographic position of Israel is relevant for military and intelligence projection, also against/for possible sabotage operations in a region that is dense of major routes critical to the World economy. That’s all I’m saying.
Then give the example when Israel has done anything to help it's ally US. As I have stated, this "special relationship" with Israel started only after the six day war. And it's been quite one sided, especially when there's no threat of Soviet Union: no country in the region is armed by China as the Soviet Union did. There are no Chinese instructors in the Middle East.
Quoting neomac
The US doesn't have any military bases in Israel. The US has military bases in Turkey, in Kuwait, the Gulf States. It has friendly ties to Egypt and Jordan. What is the geographic position so favorable in tiny Israel? And intelligence sharing. Really, all of these billions of dollars
US troops have only been deployed to Israel to defend Israel when Saddam Hussein launched Scuds to Israel and Israel yet didn't have it's vast anti-missile systems it now has (thanks to the US again sponsoring that).
Basically the alliance with Israel serve one purpose: domestic politics in the US. Both political parties uphold the staunch special relationship at any cost to win elections, to woo especially the Evangelists for whom Israel is a biblical entity to be supported. Even the large Jewish population of the US (7,6 million) understands that Israel is a normal country and can be critical of politics in Israel, but not the whacky Evangelists who wait for the rupture and the second coming of the Christ. The Holy Land getting attacked rhymes well with that. After all, to the Evangelicals, the Jewish Israelites are Gods people too. Hence the support of Israel has nothing to do with security policy or global realpolitik. And Netanyahu knows this. He can just walk past Biden or whoever is the US president and get his support from eager American politicians waiting in line for the photo-op.
Basically here's the dire extrapolation of the catastrohy of the US foreing policy in the Middle East. It has gone all through the decades worse and worse falling to another lower level.
The 1950's was the height of US influence: The Middle East had a treaty alliance like NATO in the case of CENTO with Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Turkey aligned in the organization. Then Iraq had a revolution.
Next phase was worse, but still good: This was the "Twin Pillars" policy were Saudi-Arabia and Imperial Iran were the backbone of the US alliance in the Middle East. And then came the Iranian revolution where the most important, most armed ally in the region suddenly changed to be an enemy, a rogue state from the US.
Perhaps last the swansong of the US happened when the utterly reckless dictator of Iraq attacked it's former war financier Kuwait. The Bush the older could create a truly impressive alliance of not only all of the Western allies of UK, France etc and all of the Gulf States, but Morocco, Pakistan, Egypt even Assad's Syria sending a tank division. With approval from the Soviet Union, this was the pinnacle of US diplomacy and power. Luckily Bush took the advice of the Saudis and didn't invade Iraq. Yet the episode it went into the head of a tiny cabal called the neoconservatives.
Next phase was worse: Now the time of "Dual Containment", containing both Iraq and Iran (both former allies, do take note of that!), might sound as the lowest, but it got worse, far worse. After 9/11 for totally invented reason (a nuclear program that didn't exist anymore) the neocons had their war in Iraq and the US attacked and occupied an Arab country, even if just having attacked and occupied another country (Afghanistan).
Next phase was worse: The US stayed in Iraq with a small force, which now could be attacked by Iran and Iranian proxies and the relationship with the Iraqi government, the one originally installed by the US, is bad. The as Syria fell into civil war, you have US troops there alongside Russian troops, who have their own agenda.
If you simply extrapolate from the above the future is bleak for the US. It will continue standing with it's special-relationship Israel and simply alienate it's former allies. So when will Egypt become a rogue state? Or if the Saudi kingdom falls? In the end likely Israel will be the last place where the US can be.
Then surely Israel will have strategic importance.
Oil has always been the big game in that region. Take down the Ottomans and install various oil kingdoms. That didn’t quite work. Luckily for Britain and France they had the US take the reins in foreign policy after WW2, thus allowing the messy military aftermath to them. Europes last hurrah in the region was the 1956 Suez War.
No. That’s not the argument, and it wouldn’t be fine.
True, justifications and pretexts are always given. They’re given by everyone from Hamas to the Nazis to the IDF to the Pentagon.
But what it comes down to is usually predictable: when they do it, it’s terrorism. When we do it, it’s counter-terrorism.
Do you think Israel would have been more brutal and careless about civilian casualties if they'd been unhampered by international pressure and hostages?
If the question is about “ Israel has done ANYTHING to help it's ally US”, I gave you the examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_rocket_attacks_on_Israel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_in_the_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War
The alliance is strategic and it doesn’t need to focus exclusively on current military threats , so it concerns the emergence of anti-Western regional powers (like Iran) and the potential penetration of great power rivals in the Middle-East (like Russia and China), assuming that the US is reasoning as an hegemon.
If you are claiming that Israel is INFLUENCING American foreign policies that are AGAINST the American national interest, I would claim instead that the American support for Israel is solid, longstanding and bipartisan so that’s for me enough to claim that is in the American perceived interested to preserve Israel (or, if you prefer, that the pros to preserve an alliance with Israel are estimated to outweigh the cons) and that makes sense given how resourceful and geographically strategic Israel is in the Middle East.
Quoting ssu
I think the US-Israel partnership is more solid and resourceful than the partnership with Egypt, Turkey or other Arab countries which can support terrorism, flirt with China and Russia, and lack the democratic flavour Israel has. And even if the US has military bases here and there (I was talking about the military and intelligence projection of Israel, though), the challenges against American hegemony by regional and global powers are growing in intensity and number. So it doesn’t seem to be the best moment for the US to give up on one of its most powerful allies. Concerning the “all of these billions of dollars”, Israel may be as expensive and dubiously beneficial as any policy insurance. Given the stakes and the uncertainties, billions of dollars may never be enough though.
Quoting ssu
I think you are overestimating the importance of the Evangelical Zionism which is not only grounded in the American internal polarisation but also in Netanyahu’s attitude toward it (https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/evangelical-youth-losing-love-for-israel-by-35-percent-study-shows-671178).
Evangelicals support Trump not Biden, even if Biden decides to support Israel. If Biden wanted to compact his democratic front, assuming the anti-Israel front was significantly stronger among democrats, then it would be more convenient for Biden to not support Israel.
Quoting ssu
The political elites of Saudi Arabia and Egypt are most certainly not pro-Hamas. The openness of Saudi Arabia to economic partnership with Israel was normalising the relations of Israel and part of the Arab world, EVEN IF the Palestinian cause wasn’t solved yet. Most certainly the Israeli reaction in Gaza raises socio-political concerns in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, because the muslim population is sensitive about the Palestinian issue. But how serious is the risk that Israel’s current retaliation is going to alienate Saudi Arabia and Egypt’ political elites? I think that this may be brought on the political table by the American informal network inside Israel to define a post-Netanyahu strategy (that might include smearing campaign against Netanyahu and prison, investments to reconstruct Gaza, etc.).
Israel will have strategic importance in both cases: if it succeeds in normalising the relation with other Arab countries, it’s a strategic success, if the normalisation fails is a strategic failure, Israel will remain the only ally with strategic importance in the Middle East.
And Israel's gas fields are a very late comer here. Besides, the US lost interest in the oil once it had it's fracking & shale oil revolution.
Just look at what are the primary Oil trade customers of Saudi Arabia:
Yes, the US is only 6th. For China Saudi-Arabia is more important. But then China also buys oil from Iran too.
Just curious, what do you make of how the Middle East turned out with the Sykes-Picot agreement? Seems pretty dismal. What were the goals of Britain and France? Were there any goals of the inhabitants? But you see, the inhabitants, anything it took up that wasn't naturally developed from the Middle East itself (the last being the Ottoman Empire itself), would be just European political philosophy. Rather, anarchic sheik-run fiefdoms and kingdoms and tribal units was not an option for Europe, was it now.
Why do I picture a bunch of men in mustaches sipping their tea, thinking they are civilizing the world drawing arbitrary lines on maps? Why is this connection to colonialism downplayed in Britain nowadays and shoved onto Israel and the US?
I think I already mentioned that it was the US that deployed it's own forces to protect Israel. Not the other way around.
Quoting neomac
HAH HAH!!!
Well, I cannot fathom just what that supposed to be of an example of the "strategic alliance" that Israel had covert arms deals with Iran. For the US similar weapons deliveries was the Iran-Contra scandal, that shook Reagan's administration. So Israel makes shady deals with it's neighbors that vow to destroy it.
And the Osirak strike? Well, again here (just as with similar strike in Libya) Israel had first and foremost it's own agenda in having nuclear dominance in the region. Heaven forbid any kind of parity!!! Again read just how suspicious JFK was about the Israeli nuclear weapons program, but then that was before 1967.
Quoting neomac
But that's my whole point. This "solid" relationship happened only after 1967 and yes, there's bipartisan support. As I stated, the whole reason is that the US is the staunch ally of Israel is because both parties want to get votes and win elections. That's it. For the US it's a domestic issue. That's the key to this "strategic alliance". And that's why Biden or anybody cannot push Netanyahu around. Heck, he'll just voice his concerns to the both parties and it's hell for the US president.
You don't think there are sides in the Islamic realm that also wants to see an apocalypse of sorts in Israel/Palestine? There is a sort of "liberation theology" in Islamist strains of politics that would like nothing more than pushing Jews to the sea... To them, Islam is Political Islam (starting with Mohammed himself) conquering lands from Arabia and then under various descendent regimes pushing into Central Asia and India (and then influencing East African and Asian routes all the way to Indonesia).
You want to see real ethnic cleansing? Talk to the Yazidis, Assyrians, Manichaeans, and especially the Zoroastrians. Don't know of many? I wonder why. They don't want territory. Sweet, precious land and resources. They don't want their OLIVE GROVES to be called "blank country here named after ethnicity". So no one cares. They get to be a minority group that's brought up every once in a while as a curiosity of cultural differences amongst a hegemony.
So what? My premise is that strategic interest of the US in the Middle East is to prevent the emergence of regional powers that challenge the American hegemony. On that occasion, as explained in the link, Israel despite being attacked by Iraq refrained from retaliating because this better served the American-led Arab coalition to counter Saddam.
Quoting ssu
Again, so what? What happened is still consistent with the logic I stated above. Israel can fit into the American strategic goals in the Middle East, like preventing the emergence of a regional power hostile to the American hegemony. Ideological conflicts can be put aside if there is a more threatening incumbent common enemy: do you remember when Hillary Clinton claimed “we created Al-Qaeda”?
You can be skeptical all you want about the efficacy of such strategies, that doesn’t make them less real.
Quoting ssu
Yes you claimed that it is a domestic issue. But what is that supposed to mean? First of all, that doesn’t exclude strategic concerns: indeed, all costly strategic foreign policies can have domestic impact in a democracy. Second, your explanation seemed to rely on the role of the Evangelical Christians supporting Zionism (which is not bipartisan as the support for Israel is). Now if your point is that Biden supports Israel because he will have greater chance to win the elections by pleasing Evangelical Christians, I countered: [I]“Evangelicals support Trump not Biden, even if Biden decides to support Israel. If Biden wanted to compact his democratic front, assuming the anti-Israel front was significantly stronger among democrats, then it would be more convenient for Biden to not support Israel. ”[/i] (and BTW Biden is also catholic, not the ideal candidate for Evangelicals).
Good point there. I was going to make that one but had some bigger issues to bring up. I thought that one was too obvious.
...which is the delusional raving of lunatics, to put it mildly. But these kinds of delusions fit perfectly the minds of religious zealots like the muslim extremists. They live in their fantasy World where the true Caliphate of the Ummah is just around the corner and they are the glorious few of the vanguard of it. Or perhaps in the case of Hamas, they are just the glorious few martyrs who will cause the destruction of Israel. And Palestinians that now get killed can thank them for rising to martyrdom going straight to heaven.
But then there is reality.
Israel is the sole country with a nuclear deterrent and likely has now a nuclear triad. It dominates all of it's potential rival is in the air and has a technological advantage over even theoretical rivals. All of those neighbours that Israel hasn't gotten a peace deal are basically failed states (Lebanon and Syria) and Israel is bombing them with impunity all the time. Israel enjoys all this before it's Superpower ally comes to the picture. As we have seen now, the US will immediately come to Israel's aid.
Hence those prophesizing the destruction of Israel are simply lunatics. Hamas is a real threat to Israel as we have seen what it can do when Israel let it's guard down, yet still, it's not an existential threat meaning it could defeat the IDF on the battlefield. It surely can't.
Yet in the media absolutely crucial to uphold the image that Israel is on the verge of being destroyed with it's uncanny fiendish enemies rolling the people back to the sea. Not just the one that can indeed make large scale terrorist attacks, but truly can destroy all of Israel. Never mind the peace deals with it's largest neighbour, never mind that it's enemies don't surround it now and aren't backed up and armed by the communist Superpower. And never mind that even if Iran does get the nuclear weapon, then there are the Israeli nuclear deterrent.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Look no further than the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh, @schopenhauer1. You don't have to go to history to the fall of the Zoroastrian Persians to Islam. You can only go back to last September.
Yet this doesn't refute my point that Israeli-US relationship is a domestic issue for the US, which put's the relationship totally apart from any other country that the US has relations with.
Before I respond, how about the post before about Sykes-Picot, it’s goals, it’s failure, etc.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/851248
Yes, but does being the most staunch ally of Israel help here?
Both Egypt and Saudi-Arabia are allies of the US. If there would be logic here, that the issue is to prevent emergence of Iran becoming a regional power, wouldn't it then to be more logical to support the Sunni Arab states? The US has already forces in Iraq.
Sorry, but what US needs is a hegemony that it has in Western Europe through NATO. Countries that want it to stay in the continent. Not countries that are just waiting for it to go away, but being friendly when Uncle Sam is around.
Ok,
Let's remember that Sykes-Picot, just like nearly all of the imperialist border drawing competitions were drawn to please first and foremost the parties that drew the lines on the map. And some effort was also drawn with the old idea of divide et impera. It's similar to the Durand Line, which separates one people to be living in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which has caused problems even to this day.
Under no circumstances have the Europeans thought of when drawing the borders that "lets make large nation states that unify people". The Kurds are a prime example of this.
Quoting ssu
Why does it seem like Britain, France, and Western Europe etc downplay their hand in this and colonialism in general and just are content putting the onus on the US and Israel for problems they generally caused in their imperialism? I don’t see much ownership here.
Where are the mustache men with their tea and maps?
For some reason, I'm reminded of this :lol:
Ok so we can all agree every side has a weird fetish with apocalypticism (or at least some fetish with ancient glories). Perhaps we can put extremist right wing Israelis (even Likud) under this, along with Evangelicals and the extremist Islam. Each one thinks something about that land and its importance regarding the end of the world. Others like Netanyahu are just straight up opportunists, using these notions for power.
The nitty-gritty is tactics, policy, etc. of a more liberal government (Labor Party or something like it?). What should their tactic be when opposing forces of Islamic Jihad (that is Hamas Hezbollah Iran, and the like)?
But that's simple: it's about here and now!
France isn't anymore the most important ally of Isreal. The US is.
UK isn't anymore actively meddling in the Middle East. The US is.
Yes, the decisions made in the post WW1 era do reflect to this day.
Yet the present is the present.
And let's remember that in the time of Sykes-Picot and post-WW1, Turkey, not anymore the Ottoman Empire, had it's War of Independence as they simply fought back the partition of Anatolia proper. And now Turkey has been in NATO, an ally of both UK and France.
(The idea of post-WW1 Ottoman lands by the Western nations. Yeah, the Turks weren't amused and thought otherwise.)
They really liked to draw those maps, didn't they.
And you are correct: they did have moustaches. Fine moustaches.
(Mr Sykes and Mr Picot)
:rofl:
Man is it easy to hide under the US, militarily, and historically, huh? Now you can sit back and be back seat drivers.. critics on the sidelines AS IF you had nothing to do with it.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Another semi-powerless enterprise, made even more powerless by the state.
https://theconversation.com/israel-hamas-war-will-the-murder-of-peace-activists-mean-the-end-of-the-peace-movement-215973
By the way, who is in control of your respective countries?
Is it you or some human/animal?
Curious.
This hasn't been the policy at least. While people talk about "indiscriminate," attacks, I don't see it. Israel certainly has the munitions to do what the US did to Tokyo or Dresden. But there is still a difference between total destruction and appropriate ROE, so it's not that "everything Israel is doing is appropriate," just that these maximalist claims are unsupportable.
By way of contrast, the Strip has 37.5% more people than Mosul. When the Iraqi Army and Peshmerga retook Mosul from the Islamic State, seeking to displace a force about a third of the size of Hamas' military component, 40,000 civilians were killed. If you're trying to remove an enemy that is digging into urban areas and comfortable using them as shields, this is the sort of thing you face. This was generally not an event where there were complaints about egregiously loose ROE; I don't recall any internation controversy.
By contrast, a recent event that did have egregiously loose ROE would be the Siege of Mariupol, against a much smaller resisting force. Scaled up to the Strip's population, such action would be the equivalent of 110,000-140,000 civilian fatalities. But even then, the Russian forces weren't pounding areas of the city they controlled to kill as many civilians as possible. They were simply completely indifferent to civilians and also punitively hitting civilian targets in areas they didn't control.
I honestly can’t figure out what you are saying. I see you quoted me though and it had something to do with the Middle East being a mess from how European colonial powers arbitrarily divided the Middle East, created and propped up rather foreign notions of “nation-states” in a region that it didn’t come from. It being reiterated in Atlantic Charter/Breton-Woods and such, and then how after WW2, was content hiding behind the US and criticizing from the sidelines as if it wasn’t a MASSIVE colonial force that created the countries of the “third world” (and first world ones in non-European lands) in the first place out of shear imperialist ambitions.
You see, you are allowed "self-determination" to make a nation-state the way we have cookie-cutter transplanted it for you is what "self-determination" means. Don't question that, but "fight amongst yourselves for the glory of that which we constructed for you to fight over". That we accept.
And then the people "determining themselves" think they are actually doing so. Every avenue they take is a Western one though, even ones they think are their own. Ah how odd. As I stated in the other thread. Once you go West, you can't go back. It's better to go FULL BLOWN West. Do what the Japanese did, not the Taliban.
Here’s a whirlwind tour of you need it:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/850939
I’m also reminded of this:
Eerily looks like Dick Cheney way before he looked like that :lol:.
Was that double post intentional? You just posted the same post again- the very post I said I did not understand what you were trying to say.
Moderates cannot fight extremists almost by definition, because moderates tend to be reasonable human beings who aren't willing to resort to any means necessary to get what they want.
We see this everywhere, even in 'civilized' countries: John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Yitzhak Rabin, etc.
It also doesn't help when certain hegemonic unipoles go around sowing chaos and death, purposefully putting radicals in power and killing off moderates to avoid "regional rivals" from getting too prosperous (aka, US Middle-East policy).
We know what happens to moderates in places like this - they get strung up from the nearest tree. The extremists rule through terror and an iron fist. Opposing them is signing oneself up for death and torture.
But extremism is often reactionary, and in the Middle-East it is very obvious what it is reacting to - constant Western meddling, divide & conquer, etc.
Quoting schopenhauer1
The obvious answer is because after 1945 the United States became the world's most powerful nation and its 'special relationship' with Israel disallowed any other power to interfere with its foreign politics.
After 1991 the US became the global unipole and dominated the world for some 30 years.
What did it do in those 30 years? Did it seek to take away the root causes of extremism in the Middle-East?
No, to the contrary - the destabilization of the Middle-East runs like a red line through the American 'unipolar moment'.
In fact, the situation in the Middle-East has probably never been worse.
How should they have handled 10-7 as prime minister? Your citizens were raped, you had babies burned, people shot in cars and their bodies paraded around and shot in real time, you had 250 people kidnapped, and you had hundreds (1400+ people) killed in a one day operation. Okay, well, we already know that you failed in terms of intelligence... What would you do? This group is also responsible for helping screw up the Oslo Accords in the 90s with suicide bombers, and has been sending rockets to Israel, trying to provoke war for years. Also, let's factor out prior politics. Let's just say this is the situation you are given. What do you do? You have a lethal Jihadist entity next to you that showed you a taste of what it would love to do to every one of the people in your country until it gets what it wants. Do you leave that entity intact? Do you sue for peace and give in?
I know your answer is going to be, hold steady and bring the case to the UN for review, right? Get world sympathy from former colonial powers in NATO so that you have enough support from the sideliners to get the bad guys?
Quoting Tzeentch
Well, around 1991 it started the Oslo Accords peace process, which failed...
Quoting Tzeentch
Again, why does this always go back to the US' fault. Do you not think that Europe gladly wants the US to take on whatever it is, good or bad? Do you know why the Netherlands doesn't have to spend gross amounts of money on its military? The world we live in is US backed, but European created my friend.
Any American or Israeli leader that has a 9/11 or 10/7 happen to them and does not plan for immediate retaliation would be removed from office. Is there any country that would tolerate a pacifistic leader after such an attack?
I would have secured the border and subsequently resigned. Getting the Netanyahu regime out of power is the first step to creating any sort of workable future for Israel.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Where were the UN / international / US-led efforts to enforce them?
As I noted in an earlier post, neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians can be expected to drag this cart along - at least not over the initial bump. The US being the global hegemon after 1991 was in a prime position to do just that.
Did any party to the Oslo Accords show any true dedication to implementing it?
Personally, I think not. And of course all parties deserve blame for that, but it is primarily the US that was in a position to push for it.
Quoting schopenhauer1
1. Because the US after 1991 to a large extent dominated the world, and certainly the Middle-East.
2. Because it's US 'divide & conquer' policy that has perpetuated chaos and conflict in the Middle-East.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I do, and personally I am opposed to the Netherlands forfeiting its sovereignty that way.
Quoting schopenhauer1
In 1945 you would have a point. We are now 75 years on during all of which the US has been the most powerful nation on the planet, and during 30 years of which the US was the global unipole. Europeans on their end acted as obedient vassals.
So no. The world we live in is US-created, just like the world in 1945 was European-created.
Resigning seems like a shortcut, a way to answer the question without answering the question.
I don't know. Is there? I hope so.
There is no other way to answer the question. Any solution I could propose would require the Netanyahu regime to leave first.
After that it's pretty straight-forward:
1. Renounce the idea of turning Israel into a Jewish nation state.
2. Immediately stop settling the West Bank.
3. Give Palestinians equal rights and stop mass human rights abuses in the occupied territories.
4. Garner help and support from the international community (including Arab states) to integrate Israel and Palestine into a state where Jews and Muslims can live together peacefully.
5. If successful steps are taken towards these goals, start removal of the West Bank barrier and lift the siege/embargo on Gaza.
Of course, this could take a long time and appropriate caution must be applied. If Hamas continues terrorist strikes, retaliate accurately and proportionately. Hamas will completely isolate itself over time, since everyone will recognize that it is standing in the way of a genuine solution.
Further, no longer committing mass human rights abuses on the Palestinian people will drastically reduce if not outright remove the motivation to join terrorist organisations.
Any of this would be anathema to the Netanyahu regime, who will not be able to get past the first point. They are essentially ultranationalists, and no real solution exists within that paradigm.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/12/how-will-the-israel-hamas-war-end-here-are-several-possible-outcomes.html
This time the Arab winter that followed the mess created in the middle east may engulf Israel as well.
Let's come back to this October 7, 2024
Ok so that's unrealistic. Israel's whole existence is to have a place in the world where there can't be more pogroms and holocausts (which makes this of course all the more traumatic).
Quoting Tzeentch
More reasonable for sure, but that was long term policy, not immediate. And arguably, Hamas doesn't care about this. But as you point out, it does tie in in regards to getting buy in from moderates, so is absolutely necessary for a long-term strategy. Who knows where we would be if there was not a Netanyahu. Agreed there.
Quoting Tzeentch
Trickier in Gaza where there is an organization that wants to destroy you but for sure in the West Bank there should be some sort of brokerage with the PA to ensure the PA is trained, secure, and won't turn on the PA itself and become another Hamas. The embargo in Gaza is arguably to not allow weapons and munitions into Gaza (before this war, it did allow various water, food, and electrical supplies). Basically, the "idea" was to make it so that Hamas could not sustain military operations, and the long shot hope that the people would simply get sick of Hamas and put someone else in. That last part is unrealistic for sure though. Also, other countries don't want to take in Palestinians for various historical reasons. Jordan took in Palestinians and then in 1970 the PLO started a coup against the Jordanian government and assassinated the prime minister. They were kicked out and moved to Lebanon. They disrupted the political situation there and formed the Hezbollah and the ongoing wars in the 80s with Israel. So, this is more complicated than just Israel.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yes, and arguably Saudi Arabia also being included would help with this. Get the "moderate" Arab nations (aka more stable regimes) help out and moderate. Certainly getting Arab support is possible. You need consensus about end goals first. That is the harder part, and certainly a non Netanyahu would help with that as well.
Quoting Tzeentch
Well, if Hamas is completely removed that makes sense. The West Bank wall might be a harder sell for Israelis. All they see is a 90% reduction in suicide bombings and terrorist attacks. Of course all of it takes good will and commitments on both sides.
It's only unrealistic for as long the West thinks an inherently racist basis for a nation is worth supporting.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14754/western-civilization/p1
Quoting Tzeentch
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes. Israel was created with the idea of providing Jews with a safe haven. There is nothing inherently wrong with that idea, except for the fact that Britain and France chose to worst possible way to go about it and now we have to deal with the imperfect situation they created.
Lets also acknowledge that Israel is a far cry from the safe haven that it was supposed to be, and unless a different path is chosen this is unlikely to change.
Now we have the problem that on the territory of Israel + the occupied territories, there live roughly as many Jews as Muslims. This is the fundamental issue.
I'm assuming everybody in this thread agrees that:
1. Apartheid is unacceptable. That means equal rights for Jews and Muslims.
2. Ethnic cleansing / forced displacement is unacceptable.
That means that the demographics as they are now are basically what we have to work with. This means that Israel cannot be a Jewish nation state, since half its population is Muslim.
A two-state solution is, in my opinion, unworkable from literally every perspective. You'd simply end up with two extremely vulnerable states, likely with plenty of animosity and territorial disputes between them. I would predict within ten or twenty years there'd be a conflict that wipes one or both states off the map. Not to mention the settlers on the West Bank are never going to leave peacefully.
What other options are there?
Apparently not:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/851448
Quoting Tzeentch
Yes.
Quoting Tzeentch
Certainly.
Quoting Tzeentch
So this is where I keep railing against the idea of "I want my OLIVE GROVES". In other words, just as Israeli extremists who want to settle "Samaria and Judea" is wrong, so is this idea that every past event has to be relived and violently opposed by generations that follow. Palestinians have to want to live in peace and probably be okay with some sort of monetary compensation rather than land. Land is such an OVERRATED value. It's a fetish even. Israel needs some land, and Palestinians need some land. It doesn't need to be THAT land.
I'm not sure what you mean.
If we assume for a moment a new secular state is created, then no one would be forced to move. Everybody could live where they currently do, or move to other places within Israel voluntarily. Of course some sort of reconciliation would have to have taken place.
Are you suggesting paying Palestinians money to leave voluntarily, or letting them settle some new land?
I'm talking a usual sticking point, the "right of return" from 1948 War. But also, let's say Israel deems that there are parts of the West Bank that are strategically very hard for Israel to maintain security and have to have some Israeli oversight, those kind of things as well. But that's getting to the nitty-gritty.
In a secular state, the land would belong to all citizens, people would be free to move wherever, assuming there is housing available.
Quoting schopenhauer1
The Israeli army would remain the Israeli army, but would be ran by both Israelis and Palestinians. So theoretically it would double the manpower pool from which the Israeli army can tap.
Further, I think the single greatest contribution to Israeli security would be solving the issue of millions of angry Palestinians that are sitting within its de facto borders.
To be clear, I don't think it would be easy to arrive at a secular state. But necessary, perhaps.
Right of return is the idea that Palestinians who previously lived on specific tracts of land that are now lived in by Israeli Jews have the right to those specific properties back (or their descendents have that right). It's not just about the general ability for them to freely move around the area.
Either Jews have to be moved out or Palestinians have to accept reparations, someone has to give something up either way.
Interesting detail to be aware of is that those Arabs were mostly expelled and the remainder fled. And since we usually don't reward thieves, the Israelis will have to move out AND pay reparations. Since Israelis have such extensive experience in colonising areas, they should easily be able to move to another place within Israel.
One would have to start somewhere, and the idea that every Israeli owes every Palestinian their home and reparations is obviously not a viable starting point.
There'd have to be an acceptance of the state of things in the present day, though that doesn't mean past grievances shouldn't be addressed. Indeed that is a fundamental part of reconciliation.
Assuming goodwill on both sides, I'm sure some proper substance can be given to the right of return, like housing projects or priority when houses become vacant.
It's so difficult to be even handed. The fact is that Israel has some land, and Palestine has none.
Palestinians need some Palestine. One has to start where one is, and where one is is that there is Israel and there is not Palestine; instead there are enclaves and territories, autonomous regions and refugee camps. So one is on one side condemning a government and on the other side condemning a resistance movement / terrorist organisation/ bunch of landless refugees.
There are something like 13.5 million Palestinians, and there is no Palestine, and no other country in the world is prepared to absorb them. If there was somewhere they could go to, Gaza would be almost empty years ago. The one thing we can all agree on here is we don't want them in our back yard. We're happy enough to tell Israel what they ought to do and not do, while shutting down immigration as fast as we can.
And the one state solution is fine as long as you don't have to live there. Some 7 million Jews do not want any more to be always in the minority, but they are outnumbered nearly 2 to 1 by Palestinians.
So the first step towards a solution as I see it is to deal with the refugees that have been stuck in camps their whole lives, by welcoming them into Europe and The US and Canada, and anywhere else with decent civilised peace loving and wealthy populations. That would ease the pressure all round and show a tad of commitment to a peaceful solution. I'm all for finger wagging as a rule, but it just doesn't seem to be working in this case.
I just don't think under the circumstances of the world order, how these two groups want to be governed (Jewish or Arab Muslim polities), this is feasible. This isn't the United States, they are countries with obvious ethnic/religious differences that would lead things that would start the cycle again but in a civil war fashion. Either way, the reality as it is now wouldn't even get to that solution. In other words, I just see it as a non-solution. If that's the case, let's redraw the whole middle east as a secular United States of the Middle East run in the manner that George Washington and James Madison intended for that region. It can't be any worse than the Sykes-Picot British and French (and European generally) version we have now.
Quoting Tzeentch
Although I think you have good intentions with this type of solution, I just don't see it being a reality unless people start smoking some serious shrooms and question what reality is in general let alone "Palestinian" and "Israeli", "grievance" "land", "right of return", "settlements" and any other conceptual framework that is trapping human beings in this made up social artifice. That is to say, I think it rather fantastical as a solution.
Quoting flannel jesus
Yeah I wasn't thinking otherwise, and that is precisely what has to be compromised. Intergenerational grievances have to be given up, just as loony settlers and backers in the Likud on the West Bank have to give up something, etc.
Quoting Benkei
This is just needlessly stoking flames to live on forever. At some point, give up the grievance game. It's almost as if peace was made by giving up right of return, you would call for more violence which is scarier than anything I've seen thus far in terms of moral reasoning. All of history is a wrong in some way. But certainly continual hatred and death is not a great option if given choices for something else.
But we should reward land to people who would treat women and LGBTQ people like dirt? Until the Arab countries stop dehumanizing women and minorities, they should be treated as inferior to other, more equitable, nations.
No, but their land is not ours to give them is it? It's theirs.
I think his point was at which indignation does one [s]choose[/s] focus on?
That's a different issue isn't it? Or can we set Israel on any country that is worse than it on these terms? Get them to colonise China perhaps. Now there's a thought.
Did you type that right? I can't make sense of it.
True enough, I mentioned the PLO in Jordan (ended with them being kicked out and the assassination of the Jordanian prime minister), and then a reformation in Lebanon. Seems both countries didn't fair well from various political groups that formed there. Someone mentioned the Palestinians were kicked out of Kuwait for encouraging Saddam's invasion. However, I doubt these types of agitation would happen in a non-middle eastern country...
Quoting unenlightened
Are you aware of the politics surrounding this? Asking genuinely. Is it lack of wanting to move or lack of wanting the immigrants or both?
Got it now, thanks. We shouldn't give land that isn't ours away to anyone, psychopathic colonists or gay-bashers alike.
Granted, I just think that the grievance game isn't going to help anything and stoking it as a matter of policy is as morally questionable. If a great grandpa Hatfield stole your great grandfather McCoy's olive groves, and then McCoy proceeded to launch generations of deadly gruesome attacks on the Hatfields, the person encourages the McCoys is no moral hero either, even if there was a righteous cause at some point in the past. Native Americans reforming into bandits that rape and pillage Americans because of aggrieved past doesn't start making sense because... grievance.
That's bullshit. What stokes the flames is that there are no consequences for these thieves so they continue to do it.
Cool, have fun ruling over your skulls and heads on pikes. Then YOU can be the Lord of the Flies.
You're taking away a point I am not making. Rather, it's the grievance game that has to stop. You are encouraging it rather than thinking of solutions to it.
I just don't think it's a tit-for-tat grievance game. Or maybe it is between Hamas and Right-wing Israelis, but not between the Palestinian Territories and Israel. The basic concept of tit-for-tat is that both sides are equally at fault, or near-equal. Where that is the case, one side just has to take the last hit and say 'Enough! I won't retaliate'. But the situation is hopelessly lop-sided. The Palestinians, or even Hamas, are not in a position to say 'Enough! Stop!' because Israel will just carry on colonising anyway. Colonising is an act of aggression, just as much as the rockets. It is the powerful side that must say 'Enough! We won't retaliate." Not doubt Hamas would continue with the rockets but only a Palestinian state can stop that.
We've already recounted the history numerous times here. First off, you would be against Israel in 1948 as you would in 1967, 1973, 1982, etc. So what would it matter. Just the existence of a state called "Israel" would be wrong so that then becomes a non-starter for any argument it seems.
However, assuming you are for a state called Israel, no doubt Netanyahu and Likud do not represent a fair policy. But let's say that is something I have always maintained (which I have), what is in question in this particular round of arguments is the "right of return". It is examples of these sticking points that make compromise neigh impossible. These are the things the sideliners have to encourage to perhaps "give up" (and grow up) so that people can move forward without the grievance game. As I said, in this case, possession of a "particular' piece of land becomes a fetish. A tool for more violence and no peace rather than a moral point of justice. History and justice obviously doesn't work that way. In some sense it is more Hegelian in that various wrongs become a reality. Was it wrong for Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and the rest to even exist and be carved out of the Ottoman Empire? Well, Britain and France won that war and the Ottomans' didn't put up enough stink against their dissolution. As far as those in charge in the Arab populations, they became various vassal-kings (Faisals and the like) that then were deposed for various Marxist-leaning Arab League guys, etc. etc. It's all a big batch of failures but it is the reality now of the hodgepodge of injustices and contingent happenings that are now the reality. We now call Iraq and Syria and Lebanon a real "entity" even though they are in no way native to the people's of that region. I am trying to broaden the view to some extent to how history works, and it is not in the moral justice way you seem to think.
No one wants to give up their home, and especially not under coercion and with no compensation. But in the situation that prevails, it would not be expensive to make a realistic promise of a better life to people living in awful conditions for years and years. Fuck the politics, I would be wanting my children safe from being buried alive or blown to pieces.
For sure. One would hope/think.
I'll readily admit it is very idealistic. But it is not fantastical. History has known individiuals who were able to bridge large gaps between peoples.
But I think you know my views of what the realist/probable outcome is, which is why I believe the idealist option is worth investigating.
It's called boycotts, sanctions and divestments. It's not the first time it brought down an apartheid regime. But sure, you can go on pretending it's all too complicated and therefore argue in favour of the status quo and do fuck all when solutions are obvious.
Sure, I get that eventually borders that were once new become old, generations die and the new order becomes the old status quo, and attempting to put back borders the way they were hundreds, or thousands, of years ago is impractical. But the Israeli occupation of Palestine is live, now. The wound is fresh, the borders are fluid, moral justice can readily meaningfully apply.
Your solution is heads on pikes because there is no compromise. Again, you can be right, on top of a pile of skulls all you want.
I just disagree with this. It gets stickier and sticker with the circumstance of the 1948 war. One side accepted, the other outright didn't like the UN resolution. Interesting how if UN comes down on the side of Israel, they were wrong.. but not the opposite. Hmm.. It's almost as if the UN is whatever bias you want it to be.
It would be cool if they could have a confederation of sorts at least where social issues are their own polity but economics populations can freely flow between. It is indeed almost intractable because you would then have to maintain strict immigration requirements to maintain the polities religious/ethnic homogeneity or whatnot.
For sure. I think modern times has given us ways to be pissed off for a lot longer, history or otherwise. Then again, how many years did France fight England? Hundred years?
Partly. From a consequentialist/utilitarian point of view, we have to look at it like:
Two groups have valid claims on a piece of land. What will each group do if they get control of the land? Group A will create a society where Muslim men have all the power. Group B will create a much more inclusive democratic society. People will be better off if Group B owns the land. Therefore, group B should get the land. If Group A gets their act together, we can reevaluate their claims to the land.
That's the critical assumption.
Quoting RogueAI
Yeah, that's the issue. Who is the deciding 'we'? The colonial West? It seems to me that the nearest entity with a valid claim to being 'we' is the United Nations. A world government with a proper court would be the best thing, first to establish rights of ownership, and if they are evaluated to be equal, then maybe the other considerations you raise might be considered. I have no real idea what the procvess and law would be. The UN and the ICJ is the next best thing we have, no? The UN have already expressed their view of the situation.
I'm not so consequentialist per se. I'm not sure what to call it, but I would say "big toe theory". That is to say, everything in the Middle East is basically a fiction in its relative origin. The fights now are created from a world order created during the last few hundred years in Europe (and the US). Israel is part of this (already present fiction, whether there is an Israel or not). If it's all FROM the West anyways, I advocate going FULL BLOWN West. In that regard, all made up "nation-states" should be so tolerant. Just having a democracy itself is taking partly from the West. Having a liberal democracy is preferable as it is just good to have the notion of rights, equality, and protections in a society. However, Israel is not just a country like the US in terms of it is based on a principle. It is also based on a religious/ethnic identity. It has to cut a fine line between maintaining its charter as a Jewish based polity and a liberal democracy. In that regard, contradictions will arise in regards to what if the majority wants to dissolve the Jewish character of the state? This is why Israel needs a functioning Palestine so they can have a roughly equivalent Arab liberal democracy where they can maintain their cultural polity but yet respect rights of the minority and human rights in general.
The real dreadful thought is that if Bibi fucks this up, we actually could really have a two state solution: if the body count becomes too bad, the "international community" really gets upset, then Israel can perhaps make a change correction from the "perpetual limited war every once a decade" solution to the two state solution, because it starts hurting them as the present Apartheid system hurt them like White South Africa.
At some point where there's too many civilian casualties, that Judeo-Christian heritage and Israel's right to defend itself will start looking bad. Even for Americans.
But that's a little chance.
Nonsense.
Moderates can perfectly fight wars. It's the "bitter enders" that simply lose everything.
Finland was a democracy when fighting Stalin's Soviet Union and stayed as a democracy even after the war. The leaders were moderates: they understood when to accept peace and when to give a Dolchstoss to your former dictator-ally, who just had given us enough weapons to stop the Soviet offensive in it's tracks. And yes, I will call Stalin, a mass-murdering dictator an extremist.
They'll have to? Is this a prediction? You think this will be a reality? When?
Everybody loses.
Oh, have children both inside and outside of Israel been taught a Two State Solution is best?
The UN would be the closest thing. I was making a point, though, that the moral thing to do (on some views of morality) is to continue to let Israel control the land.
You think one state solution is best? Ok, so you are for a) a continuation of the Apartheid system or b) integration of Palestinians / non-Jewish people with similar rights as Jews?
Or you just think this is the best solution: perpetual war that sparks up occasionally, that doesn't make life too unbearable for the Jewish people.
Nah.
There are winners of conflicts and wars. Why otherwise would humans be so eager to fight wars if everybody would lose?
Perhaps jgill had in mind, something along the lines of the following:
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2023/11/05/antisemitic-hatred-in-palestinian-schoolbooks/
Quoting ssu
Our atavistic delusions of grandeur (à la the gambler's fallacy).
Successive Israeli governments allowed Hamas to exist. It may have been in their interest to create a beast and then use it as an excuse for excessive force. If you do not care about lives, then it is all very rational.
I always wonder how high tech 2020s military intelligence allowed the vast number of weapons to be smuggled in, not bad for a blockade.
Paragliders? Technically, motorized paragliders.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/13/middleeast/hamas-weapons-invs/index.html
There is a difference between what a warring party, or terrorists ought to do, and what they will. Hamas should not have killed civilians. But terrorists are by definition killers of civilians. What I meant is that Hamas has no rationale for following any laws, given that it is committed to terrorism.
It is a funny argument, terrorists should not engage in terrorist acts. Terrorists should not exist. Since they were allowed to exist, then it follows that they were propped up for a reason. Or maybe the could not be suppressed, but why is that? After 70 years or so rockets are flying into your country? What if Canada started firing rockets into the United States? What do you think would have happened?
The Cuban Missile crisis - that got solved didn't it?
The attacks are as talking points for generating public opinion for bombing Gaza. Don't you think it strange that a nation keeps talking about its worst intelligence and defense failure ever, as if to parade it in front of everyone, for what reason?
Notice how the military casualties are never never mentioned? Killing military personnel is OK, not an atrocity, but killing civilians is not OK? Why they never come out and say it? Over 200. And 200 'missing' what does that mean, they searched for them on their own territory and found nothing? Hostages? Is 400 hostages too much for the PR machine to bear?
I'm not advocating, only saying that IF a two-state solution is sought the journey starts with how children in the areas affected are taught. Young people have the energies to push hard for a cause.
The effect social media has is something we should all be concerned about. Propaganda has reached a new height.
Profound ignorance, mostly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_hoV-_SoT0
Despite his statement that he heard about the attacks over TV and that he never heard of the refugee camp attack, something that Israeli armed forces spokesperson confirmed, and other possible 'errors', the interview was very useful, thought difficult to listen to, useful as information: a different point of view.
He 'cares about Gaza children'. So he says.
I found something unexpected in this interview: I actually felt sorry for the guy. When he says that Israel has been under attack since the beginning, I realized what he said was true. 1948, 1977, 1973... Intifadas etc. Rocket attacks. I have always found that the Israeli people speak of living in fear, not knowing whether to plant an olive tree. President Herzog seems upset about the world opinion, ganging up on them.
Are they victims?
Let's see my reading on how this came about, you can agree or disagree, but there seems to be forces behind the Israeli and Palestinian camps, I sense it.
Here is what I think happened: (from memory)
In 19xx Lord Bafour suggested a land for the Jews. This was suggested in some part of Africa (which shows how serious they were about claim to the land) then Palestine was suggested. Jews migrated in, and it caused, predictably, problems for them. Then, an evil thing occurred - the persecution of the Jews in Europe, chiefly by the Nazis. The founder of Zionism 'preferred integration' but but because the dislike for the Jews was so great, he thought the second option of a land for the Jews was a good idea. No-one expected the Holocaust. That brought in millions of Jews into the land. Jewish militant groups attacked the British Army, which caused them to give up control of that territory.
I suggest that the creation of Israel was fueled by Jew- hatred, by anti-Semitism, by telling them to go back where they came from. Christian theologians, some of them, using the Biblical ties that Christians had to the land, started pushing Christian Zionism. Israel's cause of existence is what could be called the 'evil way in which many nations treated the Jews'. They had no right to cause it to exist, born of hate, racism.
The United Nations vote on Israel was also, if Wikipedia is to be believed, made under pressure, but from whom? Zionists? Not Orthodox Jews.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine
Now, these people have been placed in a lions den, given weapons and soothed will words such as "We Stand By Israel' Very convenient if you are out of rocket range. Benjamin Nettanyahu speaks at the US Congress and gets an ovation thirty-five-times. For what reason? Is he being played like a puppet?
Who is behind all of this?
I do not think there will be peace until either the wolves behind the puppeteering feel they have had enough or find another prey.
**** Do we all agree?***
Just so you know where I stand: I will welcome an Israeli. I will welcome a Jew. I will welcome a Palestinian. I will speak to a Hamas terrorist but he has to leave his weapons outside the door. If he did not live in Gaza - and where you live affects who you are - he would most probably not be a terrorist. His motor glider will not have the range.
I leave you with this.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/officer-dismissed-as-idf-blames-deadly-egypt-border-attack-on-easily-opened-gate/
What a haunting image of a young woman. 19 years of age.
People say God is in control. I think not I think Satan is in control of this entire situation now.
Ask me any questions you want.
You think the Palestinians here decide the outcome? Hamas can make terrorist attacks
Quoting jgill
Right. So how they are treated (second class citizens, with different laws and limitations what they can do) is the minor issue here? I think that influences quite much how they are taught. Especially with the view that armed struggle is the only way out.
As I've said, politics have been hijacked by religious zealots. The PA was started as secular, while Hamas is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. And obviously Hamas wants to take the role as representing all Palestinians. In Israel once powerful Labor party, under whose rule the Oslo accords were done (just as the peace deal with Jordan) has only 4 seats and is quite marginalized.
Zealots dominate both sides. Hence I see no reason for a negotiated peace to become reality.
The only possibility is that Gaza gets to be a massacre, and then to improve their image Israel does something. But this is unlikely.
What happens next will speak volumes.
https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2023/1108/1415313-msf-gaza/
So you're saying it isn't already? 10,000 in the meantime right?
As @Punshhh remarked, it can get even uglier. Is the West Bank then to have the similar fate as Gaza?
I understand the claim of "nation-race" - or rather "nation people" we should say; one cannot convert into a race. The period between the 11th century BC - 6th century BC, under the independent Israelite monarchy(s) was really, I believe, when we see Judaism really "form" in terms of the major ideas and practices. Obviously these monarchies were not a nation state in the modern sense, e.g. of having clearly defined borders - but this is still clearly an issue in the middle east today. So, maybe not "nation people" but "independent kingdom in the land of Israel" people.
You realize that anyone has the right to refuse any offer made to them, and sometimes it is entirely rational. Right now, Israel is refusing a ceasefire and has reportedly refused to take two hostages back. (These are Hamas figures). At the time, those driven out from the land objected to taking some of the land and then offering to give some of it back. Like if someone steals a car and offers some of the parts back: 90%, 80%, 50% etc.
Quoting Benkei
I really cannot understand the opposition to peaceful protest, and in any case long articles have been written about how ineffective BDS is. According to reports, South Africa was supported by Western governments in its Apartheid system until public protests were made. Then, apartheid fell, replaced by an even worse situation. You can't win, but you sure can lose. Isn't the idea that you create such a mess of a country if you can't have a peaceful puppet in place, that this message will get across: you can push us out only to get scorched earth in return.
It would be instructive to look at the South African perspective:
Ahh yes, Bibi is smiling at the thought of a post-apartheid Israel, and his cabinet with him. "They will support anything we do, it is absurd" so it is, Mr Nettanyahu, we are all perennial, colonial victims. They are laughing much louder though, the Romans.
Quoting bert1
You are right, yes. We have YouTube now. Reading about it in a history book never sparked a protest.
Take the side of your religion, and conscience. There seems to be no other way of settling this, and all religions concerned forbid the killing of innocents. Of course a proper theology will fix this nicely.
And then declare war on the people you refused the offer to?
You can't make an omelette...seriously though, Germany and Japan suffered civilian casualties many orders of magnitude higher than what Israel has dished out (and will eventually dish out) and became better countries for it. Change is messy. War is hell. Innocent people get killed. What did the Palestinians and Hamas think would happen when they decided to go down this road together? Did they think it would end well? Did they think they could pull off something like 10/7 and not get the shit kicked out of them?
Sure, look at the war on Iraq. They were given a deadline, and if they did not agree: war.
So, you the 'Imperialist' United States demands a leader of a country leave that country or face war? What kind of offer is this?
On strictly rational terms, some of the arguments seem spurious or ill informed, or maybe selective.
I cannot reasonably argue that the current Israeli government should sit by and say thank you for attacking us. This is not being pro-Israel, but being pro sovereignty. Right to defend and to engage in military operations against terrorists. By the way, apparently Syria has to sit by and say thank you when their airspace is violated (maybe with tacit agreement, who knows).
Hamas is a threat, should be asked to surrender, and if not, Israel has the right to capture or kill them. After all, Israel killed 1400 Hamas militants in one day. Quite a record. Some people may not like it, but there it is. Terrorism must be fought and defeated.
The arguments in the media seem to be based on affecting public opinion, hence the constant reference to dying civilians and war crimes. Each side needs its cheerleaders, to inspire the team. These are cheerleaders, which explains their lack of concern for the facts that do not suit them.
Israel could have killed the exact same amount of people but hidden their motives much better. Let me write their press statement when I have the time. It could start with
'we do no want revenge, we agonize over every decision the results in the loss of life. We love the children of Gaza. We have no choice, we are doing this to save lives.. save the lives of your children, our children, for our future, for our security...."
So PR incompetence
Maybe we should listen to the people we support to inspire us to stand with our conscience.
I have heard various versions of this actually, though granted much more can be said on how military tactics are decided. But maybe that’s a security consideration. There are articles you can read on how countries go about waging war in terms of how they advance, what they do before they advance into a conflict zone of a certain type.
I fixed it for you.
Maybe stop it with the double standards. If Gaza civilians have to accept their fate because of the crimes of Hamas then certainly Israelis should suffer a hundredfold. It's a fucking dumb argument.
The burned and mangled corpses of men, women and children made Germany and Japan better countries? That's... a take...
Quoting RogueAI
Which is to say, if you don't think about it, it isn't so bad.
Quoting RogueAI
Hamas wants this to happen. They're not idiots, and the Israeli reaction is what anyone could have predicted. Every single dead Palestinian child helps Hamas.
Quoting Benkei
Agreed. Yet it's very popular. Probably because it's easier to shut your eyes and convince yourself what's happening is not really happening to people like you. They're others who have done something to deserve it. It can't happen to you, you're safe. Looking the horror in the eye is excruciating.
Quoting Echarmion
Yes, there's hardly a greater horror then torturing civilians, including children, to death by burying them in rubble or burning them with white phosphorous as per the IDF or butchering them directly as per Hamas. Rather than recognize this horror though, some see it as no more than an opportunity to engage in apologism and as long as the apologists dominate, it will keep happening.
I just wanted to highlight this as an example of how a narrative is being build around evil pro-Palestinian protesters that this poor woman apparently has fallen for but it's the same narrative that gets Israeli politicians to wear the star of David at the UN. It's fabricated and often a concerted approach. I've noticed Jewish colleagues tiptoeing around answering a simple question: "in an ideal world what do you wish the lives of Palestinian children looks like?" after we went in depth into what they would like for their own children. You hear the cognitive dissonance warring with loyalty.
It’s a weird intractable bear trap in some ways there. It’s clear that Netanyahu contributed to shitty and bad faith leadership, making moves that basically ignored the moderates rather than trying to work with them because he himself is not a moderate and doesn’t even know how that looks apparently.
HOWEVER, if we look at the situation on the ground, Hamas has festered into a it’s latest incarnation of death by barbarism (used to be suicide bombings, then rockets which seemed manageable for Netanyahu, but then the recent events of Isis style barbarism). There’s also the situation of active 240 people still hostage. According to the NYT article that wayfarer quoted, Hamas wanted to continue warfare in the region, similar to this so would repeat the attacks.
These two things are related (long term failure) but they ate not the exact same. It has two different components. The long term failures for attempts at peace are related but not the same as Hamas wanting death and causing immediate chaos. That just becomes about immediate security and regaining hostages if possible. Again, look at my Western Civilization thread. The binary good and bad, black and white, oppressors and oppressed is the fallacy that is continually made and needs to be examined. Israel’s failure with Netanyahu doesn’t negate Hamas having to be degraded and pushed from Gaza. Then the debate becomes about how to wage that war.
Yes, the problems of an occupier. And yes, it is about how to wage a war. For many decades now.
We would be closer to a solution if the US would treat as a normal country, an ally, but still as it treats allies like the UK or Canada or Germany...
But shouldn't the debate be about how [I]not[/I] to wage the war?
Seeing as waging the war cannot but advance the objective of Hamas, and that nothing past outright genocide offers itself as a continuation of the policy of containment.
War is the default option in part because of all the prior failures. In part also because Israel, from it's conception, necessitated the construction and entrenchment of a Jewish majority.
Destroying Hamas seems ultimately more a rationalisation than an actual goal. While Hamas is a real organisation with real goals, and it does have a real and specific impact, it seems absurd to assume that it'll be the last of its kind. So to reverse Clausewitz: what's the policy that will be the continuation of this war?
Then can I ask you if you think this is an act of revenge, collective punishment of a demonized enemy, or effective military strategy? What does it look like to you? And by the way I have no regard for terrorist acts, the country I was living in was subject to terrorist acts - where many civilians died, for years on end, so of course I was not likely to support terrorism, nor do I do so here.
I asked a while ago if there is someone who has actual military knowledge to analyze the tactics and strategy in Gaza and why various moves are made. I don't buy "it's all vengeance!". I think it is a sort of "all in approach", but not really because that would be completely ignoring humanitarian concerns which is not the case either. Again, I would like to know actual military tactics, not just people's reaction to various things based on their prior framework of the two sides.
Quoting ssu
Well after total war was waged on Germany, the US treats them pretty well once they dropped the Nazi thing. That took a while though. Granted, the difference is you didn't have Germans constantly taking up the Nazi cause once the leaders were dead or had given up. And another thing is, they eventually did give up. But once that happened, the US allowed Western Germany to vote in their democratic government (but with army bases nearby to deter Eastern Germany). They moved on after years of war. But the US helped with something like a trillion dollars in the Marshall Plan (massive amounts of US aide basically). Without a Marshall Plan, you would not see Western Europe flourish post-WW2 as much as it did. The same with Japan. The defeated Japan was still respected. The Emperor was still able to sit in power.
If you are talking about how the US treats the UK, are you referring to Northern Ireland? I think there is a difference there because Northern Ireland was not trying to actually destroy Britain, but rather have Northern Ireland part of Ireland. A bit different situation.
I just asked recently if there are any people familiar with military strategy. See above. But yeah, I'm glad you are not a fan of terrorism. My point in the West Civ thread is people think in "black and white" "underdog and oppressor" and then end up supporting some grim, illiberal, and barbaric things as a result. That's not good either.
Are we all agreed on history?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel
According to this version, 'Arab militias' attacked Jewish areas. Then the 'Haganah' went on the offensive and '250,000' Palestinian Arabs 'fled or were expelled'.
What is the argument here? If one side attacks another side they have to expect them to respond?
To be more exact, they are accepting the risk that the other side may respond disproportionately?
There is a question of agency here, is the attacker responsible for the subsequent actions of the attacked? How does this work? What is the argument here exactly?
Since I think it's a dumb argument to make I believe my position is that doesn't work.
I understand this point of view, some Jewish people are scared. When violence happens between two communities, some members feel threatened, some are actually threatened. Similarly Palestinians in the West Bank feel threatened. It is not really falling for the propaganda but being afraid.
Everyone has to come to the realization that there are violent extremists in every community, but the right to hold protests comes with this accepted risk. I am not sure if the case can be made to ban all protests because they may turn violent. It is, however, upto the organizers to make a statement that violence will not be tolerated.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I would guess that the military strategy is to degrade the enemies capabilities to where they no longer pose a threat, while minimizing your own casualties. I don't think there are any other restrictions except a 'nice to have' minimizing civilian casualties. My fear it that they will be successful at great cost. This seems to be the pattern - Iraq for example - but not everyone is on the same side this time.
Germany and Japan did not become occupied territory under blockade, with the allies refusing to acknowledge their elected governments. If that happened, they may have had a problem. Also, there was an outright surrender.
Yes well, I do not agree with the argument that the civilians have to suffer for the decisions their governments or certain groups make.
Both sides knew that any attack on the other side would generate a violent response, and this is known through decades of experience. Each side, then, is responsible for risking the civilians on their own side, through violent action. But this is war, anyway. Civilians working in military factories for example, are a target, unless prior warning is given.
It all comes down to the question is violent resistance permissible? I take the extreme view that under no circumstances is violent resistance permissible, and it is better to continue under oppression than violently resist. This is a philosophical position, pacifism I think it is called.
The heart of the problem is that many people, almost universally think that violent resistance is not only permissible, but right, for example the American war of Independence. If we accept that, then we have to judge which causes are right and which causes are wrong, which is a personal thing again.
One answer would be to take extreme care to avoid oppression, or overt, visible oppression, to take the cynical view. Buying powerful influence and keeping the populace poor is one peaceful method I would think, or perhaps bribing the population, or some sort of mind control. All sordid stuff. Or a dictatorship.
I believe a statesman wise and intelligent enough could achieve such a thing.
https://www.cjpme.org/fs_236/
Wow.
Also, this information, which you will have to sort out, that a large number of causalities were military.
https://new.thecradle.co/articles/what-really-happened-on-7th-october
The irony of it all is that as a Pacifist, I do not agree to the killing of one single Israeli soldier, especially the 'female soldiers' but that is a personal opinion. I state this to show that I am not for violence, and do not side with Hamas, but at the same time, it does appear to me that this was a largely military operation, with some units running out of control, friendly fire, and huge attempts to keep using the attacks to fuel propaganda to support a military operation and force the country to unite. It just seems like that to me. After all, the Israeli government was having problems with reservists threatening not to report for duty and other problems.
What are they suppose to say? "Convert them out of Islam?" Jews know Jewish culture, don't ask them what the ideal Palestinian/Muslim culture looks like. Do we want them to be shi'ites or sunnis? Do we want them to be devout muslims? No idea. Do the basics but the rest is up to you.
When you are recounting the points I made differently as if I wasn’t making those points, that’s a sort of a straw man. Because, similarly I stated:
Quoting schopenhauer1
I am sorry if I misunderstood you. The question then remains, what is the likelihood that Israel will treat the Palestinian terroritories the same as Germany or Japan, and why not?
So you think the inmates at Sobibor death camp were wrong to rise up?
Actually this is a great point. I am for Gandhi, not for (X shitty "freedom fighter"). Means do matter. And repeated use of those means makes the case weaker, not stronger. It's always bad, but using it as a tactic repeatedly, and trying to find sympathy just doesn't seem to make sense to me either. I don't buy "Oh it's out of desperation!" either. It's a shitty argument, for people with shitty morals. Two wrongs don't make a right. This is basic one would think.
The problem is you need to build up a culture of compromise and systems for this to take place. If you can't even agree on the systems, violence becomes the means for which people think is the way to solve it.
But hence my greater point in this current round of shit is that Netanyahu's failure to call for a permanent peaceful two state solution, does not justify X terrorist attack, and those who think so are fuckn morally corrupt and perhaps they can be exposed to living under said terrorist regime. Means do count. And nothing happens in a vacuum. If there were chances to compromise, and you didn't like the terms of the other side, this doesn't mean you get to mow down civilians and such because you are unhappy that you didn't get what you wanted.
I am not sure the likelihood of anything, but the point you and I were making I think was that Germany and Japan essentially went along with the program after defeat. Will Gazans take up that position as well? Will they hold West German or Japanese style Parliamentary liberal democracies at some point? Will Israel aid them in some sort of Marshall Plan?
I think it's pretty obvious that Israel doesn't treat the people that lived in the areas that it has conquered in the same way that US and the (western) allies treated people in the somewhat brief occupation of Germany and Japan.
In fact, the GIs felt so at home in Germany, that the US Army had to make a video to remind them that they were in enemy territory and that the Germans were up to no good and shouldn't be trusted. It's just fascinating how have to dehumanize the occupied, because otherwise the soldier might be too friendly with them:
History has many examples of how nations deal with lands they have conquered. It starts from performing genocide and trying to eradicate all traces of the killed people having existed to giving vast autonomy to the people and leaving them to be themselves. One smart move by the English was simply to create a whole new identity, being British. Since Scotland didn't vote for independence, I guess that idea of being British, and a kind "please stay" campaign made the Scots stick around and be pseudo-English people.
In the case of Israel the fundamental problem is the whole idea of Israel being the place for the Jews. Bibi isn't creating a country for everybody (both Jews and Palestinians). So we have a problem.
But luckily for Bibi, for Americans (and the West) there is Judeo-Christian heritage and the Jews are Gods own children, so everything Bibi does is OK.
(has a history-review, actually interview starts 3:40)
What is interesting is Craig Mokhiber views is that he views the Oslo peace accords the moment when international law was basically sidelined.
:up:
Kinda off topic, but this result is so odd given the history. It seems to me that in many respects, Islam is closer to Judaism than to Christianity (the divine law, the fixed rituals, the rules about food and dress).
And the early Arab invaders were described as a Jewish sect by some contemporary observers.
Yes in a perfect world the palestinian children are safe and happy. no one wants harm to come to children. but regarding how palestinian children are actually raised... that question goes to the palestinians. religion/culture is the major divide in the region and the jews will do things their way and the palestinian muslims have their own way. I think this is ok. But to ask a Jew how the ideal Palestinian muslim ought to live is a minefield of a question. But regarding the Palestinians we'd give the same answer we give all gentiles: Follow the 7 noachide laws and you're fine. Beyond that we don't judge as it would not be our place.
Yes, who wouldn't be ignorant about some Arab raiders? Islam rose only because both large powers were very weak at that time. In fact, the Roman emperor (or we would say Byzantine emperor) could witness both the final destruction of Erânshahr, the Sassanian Empire and then later the emergence of the Rashidun Caliphate which takes the Middle East and Egypt from the Romans.
Didn't Muhammad tried to persuade Jews that this was God's final instructions and join him?
NATO is not just about military defense but, ideally, about military defense among countries that support “democratic values”. Preferring Saudi Arabia and Egypt over Israel could blow back in terms of soft power, not only because Saudi Arabia and Egypt are most certainly not democratic countries (notice that NATO has already problems in dealing with Turkey and Hungary), but also because their population leans toward supporting the Islamic jihad ideologically and financially (Saudi Arabia has also been accused of committing a genocide in Yemen and arguably Al-Sisi too against his own people). Besides Egypt and Saudi Arabia political elites can flirt with authoritarian regimes like China and Russia, something Israel can’t easily do precisely because of the Palestinian issue. So, for the US, courting Saudi Arabia and Egypt at the expense of Israel will likely increase their negotiation power not the American negotiation power, while at the same time alienate a precious ally like Israel (less reluctant to engage in a military confrontation against hostile powers than many NATO countries) by increasing its isolation and therefore its threat perception (likely at the expense of the Palestinians). This in turn will inflame the American domestic conflict also over Israel (better would be for the Democrats to exploit the Republican sensitivity over Israel, to get a greater support over Ukraine from them in exchange of more concessions to Israel). Normalizing the relation between Israel and Saudi Arabia/Egypt may help for both containing Iran in the Middle East (likely also Turkey in the Mediterranean Sea which might benefit the Europeans) and softening the Israeli attitude toward the Palestinian issue. This might be a diplomatic success for the US (like the Camp David Accords) considering that China is working in the opposite direction by trying to reconcile Iran with Saudi Arabia.
First off, great video of the US military training for soldiers occupying Germany. The problem is the video highlights exactly why the situation is so different- Germany (on the surface appearances at least) seem similar enough to the (Western) US culture that it would make sense the the soldiers might put their guard down. They had to be reminded "Every German can be a source of trouble.. The German people are not our friends.." That was straight from the video.
Quoting ssu
I think using "Israel" is a [s]bit of a[/s] huge misnomer there being that Israel and Palestine are supposed to be different states. Rather, if anything, Israel under Netanyahu did not advance peace talks with moderates. That can be bracketed from anything else we are discussing (like some weird implication thus terrorism is justified.. which if you are subtly suggesting that, then you might be morally suspect and I will say so without hesitation).
Nazis too had a problem with land. They bordered various nations that they thought were more German than not. Yet, they accepted their borders after WW2. They had to at first, but it became second nature after a while. When the US did nothing but send goodwill through economic aid to reconstruct Germany and Western Europe, this was one more sign of good will.
These are excellent questions. The question as to whether any nation, forget the Palestinians, would go along with an occupied power indefinitely is a question that answers itself. I think not. Are they under a moral obligation to simply give up and be eradicated? I do not think so.
History has shown that either a brutal military victory or what is commonly caused genocide, can lead ultimately to a peaceful (but unjust) coexistence. Because there is no choice. This gets both sides speaking the same language. We have, as examples, the native Americans, and the aborigines in Australia, and many many other nations and ethnic groups. That was 'conquest'. In the case of Japan and Germany military victories settled the issue.
Speaking of morality, it occurred to me that Gaza can be represented by the classic trolley problem. And it is.
https://aninjusticemag.com/gaza-is-the-ultimate-trolley-problem-72898439f378?gi=2f98b0f64bd8
There is also the morality of not interfering while 10,000 people have been bombed to death without doing a thing. The cost of intervening may be too high, that is understandable. Prevention is better than cure, and much of the world is morally complicit in letting things get this far down the road, when there were clear indications that the responsibility to put pressure on Israel was simply ignored.
To quote Craig Mokhiber
What I see are daily revelations of the ethics and morality of the nations of the world and the people and power. They have surprised me, in fact. Didn't we all expect a better outcome than this, which was predictable to some extent? They took the risk of escalation, that is for sure.
What have also surprised me is the news bias. Fox news, which I used to watch, is disgustingly silent about any of the civilian deaths in Gaza, take sides, that is OK, but report the news, you are news channel are you not? Are people that prejudiced? Insular?
All local news, and this:
Eradicated, yes, but they have informed the enemy that there will be no shooting from their side for four hours. Feel free to shoot back, though. Do they know what they are doing?
Much more to it than that. The disease of world domination is alive and well. "They are not your friends"
" some day the German people might be cured of their disease the super race disease the world conquest disease but they must prove that they have been cured beyond the shadow of a doubt"
https://press.un.org/en/2023/gashc4391.doc.htm
Maybe...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-we-end-wars-a-peace-researcher-puts-forward-some-innovative-approaches/
https://theconversation.com/how-to-avoid-war-and-conflict-with-a-little-help-from-social-psychology-83189
Plenty of evidence they wanted to get rid of Jews, which is what Balfour intended.
Perhaps that was a reason, but whatever the exact intentions behind the declaration it was never turned into British policy.
Unfortunately plenty of people have heard about it and thus remember the history as "Britain promised Palestine to the Jews and thus Israel was created". Really the Balfour declaration has very little to do with the actual formation of Israel.
Meanwhile British policy does have a whole lot to do with the history of Islamism and antisemitism in the Arab world.
Quoting neomac
REALLY?
Uh, when they (Saudi Arabia and Egypt) are already US allies, what here would be the blow back? That mainly Saudi terrorists made the worst terrorist attack on US and killed far more Americans than Hamas achieved killing Israeli soldiers and civilians? The killing of a Saudi journalist in a Saudi embassy? The Yemen Civil War? Has all of it upset Americans? Not much, and not much as supporting Israel's tactics in the occupied lands.
Even this hilarious photo op with the US president and the leaders of Egypt and Saudi-Arabia didn't cause an outcry, simply laughter:
Sorry, but here you can see the how just little the war in Yemen has been in the media than reports of Israel's apartheid system in the lands it has conquered and the fight against Gaza. In one month a lot of children have been killed and 10 000 Gazans in all. Yet in the 9 years that Yemeni Civil war has gone about 150 000 have been killed in the fighting and over 300 000 from disease and malnutrition.
All I'm implying is that if the US would take a stance to Israel as it takes to Canada, UK, Japan, Germany and any other ally, that could start to solve the situation.
Stephen Ambrose recalls that in mainland Europe the American GI felt most at home in Germany. When you think that many white Americans do have their roots in Germany, that's not actually so incredible.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Are they?
How?
Smaller parties in Bibi's coalition are against the two-state solution and by any means one can say that the Palestine Authority doesn't control it's territory as a sovereign state. As Craig Mokhiber said in the good interview above, even in the corridors of the UN the "two state solution" is a joke. Nobody believes it, not after the 700 000 or so Jews living in the West Bank.
Bibi's administration came into power with the thought they could annex the West Bank. If they annex it, just what then is the state of Palestine?
If we are comparing Israel vs Saudi Arabia/Egypt as allies of the US in the Middle East (that’s what I was doing anyways) and accepting the fact that each country can have its own agency and its own agenda conflicting with the American national interest (that’s true also for Europeans), is it better for the US to give up on Israel and invest on Saudi Arabia/Egypt instead? The primary criterium can’t possible be “the unconditional respect for human rights”, since neither Israel nor Saudi Arabia/Egypt nor the US itself would pass the test in the eyes of many (inside the US too). The criterium doesn’t need to be the fitness for a NATO-like alliance which has proven to be twice problematic: there are NATO countries which do not play along with the US interests to various degrees (on the extreme side authoritarian regimes like Hungary and Turkey) and NATO alliance requires from the US a financial and military engagement that has become domestically controversial (and which European democratic countries are reluctant to rebalance). Israel has the benefit to not need the same kind of engagement by the US (Israel is a militarised regime) and at the same time spontaneously play against the emergence of regional powers hostile to the Americans (like the Arab/Islamist world) while having enough common cultural-institutional-economic-technological-security grounds and exchanges with the US to justify the privilege Israel has over Saudi Arabia/Egypt. That’s why I find the American attempt to draw Saudi Arabia and Egypt toward Israel, instead of bypassing Israel, pretty consequential.
Why not have them all as allies? No?
The proper way would be to act similarly as with Greece and Turkey, which both are in NATO and both have huge disagreements. With these two countries NATO*s 1st Article is actually very important. And if you don't know what is NATO's first article, it's this:
Actually something important and a very clear reason just why NATO is important to Europe.
Yet does the US make one ally far more important than the other one? With the situation on the Greek-Turkish animosity, the US has been quite logical:
But with Israel, a special relation unlike anything... Judeo-Christian heritage! Israel is a democracy! etc.
Quoting neomac
This is simply false because of two reasons. Firstly, no NATO member has ever gotten as much aid than Israel. About 30% of all US foreign aid has gone to tiny Israel! The US has rushed it's weapons straight from it's arsenal's to Israel when it has had it's conflicts with it's neighbors. NATO countries haven't gotten such aid, so what you are saying simply is not true.
Secondly, Europe was the primary front during the Cold War as Soviet tanks were in Central Europe. To this the Middle East was a sideshow. Now there simply doesn't exist that huge presence that the US had in Europe. And even as much Americans desperately want to "pivot to Asia" to face China, Europe still surprises them again and again with wars like with the Yugoslav Civil War and with the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Sure, it is what the US is doing (I stated the same in some previous post “It’s not an aut-aut choice. The more the better.”). However you seemed to question the US support for Israel with a series of objections like:
“Both Egypt and Saudi-Arabia are allies of the US. If there would be logic here, that the issue is to prevent emergence of Iran becoming a regional power, wouldn't it then to be more logical to support the Sunni Arab states? The US has already forces in Iraq.”
“Umm... isn't the US and Egypt in good terms too? Wouldn't geopolitically the stability of Egypt be here more important? The Suez canal is in Egypt. Btw, those gas fields that Israel has aren't so important. And as Israeli is a very wealthy country, I guess it does have a lot of internet cables”
“But why not then do this with the allies that actually come to help the US in it's wars? Why not for example the UK? Give them the aid to make new joint ventures on new weapon systems with the British! They would be very happy if the "special relationship" with the US really would be a special relationship. They have a sound, well function military industrial complex I think better than Israel. Especially after the disaster of Brexit, they need friends. The British have gone with you to into Afghanistan, into Iraq, defended Kuwait alongside the US. Israel has not. Wouldn't it be more reasonable to help and improve the armed forces of your ally that for example can help you all around the World (like with AUKUS), including in the Far East?”
I limited myself to explicit the possible reasons for why the US is so committed to support Israel in the Middle East and those reasons go beyond the idea of the Evangelical support to Zionism or the humanitarian acknowledgment for the Jews' right to self-determination. There is an intelligible and bipartisan strategic interest behind the support of Israel however fallible its pursuit can turn out to be.
Quoting ssu
Sure, the US provided a lot in military aid to support Israel, because Israel, differently from NATO countries, was under constant imminent threat from Iran and its proxies and because the Middle East has been for a while a hotter arena than Europe until the war in Ukraine. But the American financial and military engagement still remains different, as I said, because the problem is not just how much money the US puts into providing security to NATO countries vs Israel, but how much of this benefits the US interest in return. Over time, after the collapse of Soviet Union (most certainly after the war in Yugoslavia), many NATO countries have been progressively perceived as exploitative consumers of the security provided by the US, investing little in their own security, mostly reluctant to side with the US in the Middle East, getting to close to strategic rivals, like Russia and China, getting overconfident in questioning the American leadership and competing economically against the US (actually the war in Ukraine showed the weakness of the NATO allies in the face of the Russian threat). Israel has been until now in a better spot to the eyes of the US.
The state of Israel has drifted into an apartheid state subjugating the Palestinian population. Her Western allies are perceived as endorsing Israel’s project through their inaction, or failures, in insisting that Israel observe Western protocols.
This would explain why Western leaders feel they have to turn a blind eye to Israel’s genocide. They are impotent, Their populations are being gaslit with Israeli propaganda, lobbying and influence.
The only person who could exercise influence on Netanyahu now is Biden. If he makes a wrong step Trump and Co would launch a campaign labelling him as anti-Semitic etc, weakening him prior to the next election.
Tonight the IDF is closing the noose on Al-Sheifa hospital. Arabic Twitter etc is watching closely and talking of consequences. Let’s hope they can restrain themselves.
Then we agree. Some of my Twitter feeds (following the UN) alert me on Yemen, Sudan.. etc. It is very alarming and really horrific.
Maybe we need to reduce Global Warring before we reduce Global Warming.
This all is so true.
Yet there are many ex-US Presidents that the media simply doesn't listen to when it comes to them saying something critical about Israel. For instance Jimmy Carter has talked himself of Gaza as an open air prison. Would Biden take a too critical stance on Bibi, then he would likely join those ex-presidents that don't matter. I think that Obama is becoming one of them.
It's simply just incredible how a small country can have so much leverage over a Superpower. But it's not AIPAC or the over 7 million Jews in the US, it's the 70 million Christian Evangelicas. The Bible belt is quite important in US domestic politics and elections, hence I think about US-Israeli relations being a domestic political issue in the US, not something that is about foreign policy.
This picture is featured in a New York Times article.
Simply the point I am making, that however you conduct a war, the public relations needs to be done properly: this is the worst possible picture: Trump with an evil glow on his face, lighted from below, President Sisi looks like he is sharing a secret joke, and King Salman is made to look clueless.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/world/middleeast/trump-glowing-orb-saudi.html
What a PR disaster, thanks for sharing. 'Anti -extremist center'
"While religiosity and partisanship do play a part in how Americans view each side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is important to note that support for Israel is greater than for the Palestinians in every political and religious group we analyze. And other results show Americans view Israel as a nation much more favorably than unfavorably, by more than a 2-to-1 ratio."
https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/247937/americans-views-israel-remain-tied-religious-beliefs.aspx
Indeed, so the question is, is this 'manufactured consent' or real?
Even Elon Musk, in my opinion, does not seem to be fully clear on the concept, though he has some good ideas: search for it.
Update: Here it is:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-says-israel-try-203718139.html
I think it's real. Everyone knows Jewish people. Their country is similar to ours. They don't hate women or gays. They don't revel in the slaughter of innocents. They're our allies in the fight against Islamic terrorists. Do people under 30 really understand the horror of 9/11 or how much it changed America?
Israeli demonstrators protesting.
Reading from right to left... of course war has winners, and let us not forget, losers. Israel exists because they have won their wars. Israel's Arab neighbors have, so far, not won their wars against Israel. Were the Arabs to launch a successful war on Israel, who doubts that the Jews would receive the kind of treatment that Hamas is receiving--from the river to the sea.
If massacres do not justify self-defense, what in god's name does?
11000+ Palestinian men, women, and children killed? Some people think that number is exaggerated. Given the intensity of Israeli bombing of Gaza, I would be surprised if it is not significantly higher.
Is there a manner of attacking Hamas (who are literally dug in under Gaza) which would not result in a large number of civilian casualties?
Probably not. Bombing in WWII had mixed success rate -- as did bombing in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. "Precision targeting" has been the elusive goal since the beginning of WWII. A lot of dropped gravity-guided bombs do not come close to or hit their designated targets. Guided bombs do better, as do guided missiles and drones. Presumably Israel targets within fairly tight parameters. That's better than just opening the bomb bay doors over Gaza and letting loose.
I don't know to what extent Hamas represents the political opinions of the Gazan and wider Palestinian population. Do they deserve to be wiped out, at considerable human cost to the civilians they claim to represent?
Yes, for three reasons: #1, they are on record as favoring the destruction of Israel. #2, they demonstrated a willingness and ability to carry out effective attack on Israel -- 1200+ killed on 10/7. They launched 9,500 missiles at Israe over the previous month, most of which were shot down or were not heading toward a significant targets. #3, they are not uniquely able to govern Gaza. I have no knowledge about their administration, but I have not heard much in the way of positive reviews let alone rave reviews about how effectively they have governed Gaza.
My guess is that Hamas has diverted a large percentage of material imported (or smuggled in through tunnels) into Gaza for its own use, rather than for the benefit of average Palestinians. They have further endangered their own people by digging in under significant civilian buildings -- hospitals, schools, mosques, etc.
What good has Hamas done?
Since you asked the question, and military experts will different things. I say yes, it is possible. Remember that, unlike Mosul, people cannot flee to the countryside. 1 million people were given 24 hours to move. It is a question of how many casualties you are willing to take, and what your aims were. For example, if Hamas were holding Israeli hostages in the border towns would the IDF attack and kill their own civilians, firing from tanks? If so, what are they fighting for that is so important?
The military has the right to decide what course of action it will pursue, and we have the right to try to ascertain what this course of action is, rightly or wrongly. If we want, we can actually pronounce judgement on what they do as well. It is all non-violent.
Quoting RogueAI
I guess then you have to ask if the support for a ceasefire is manufactured or real? Any non-partisan approach would want civilians to stop getting killed. They do not care about the causes they represent, as much as some ideological stand about self- determination - which Israel has, and was achieved partly though violent means. In any case, there are Jewish people asking for a ceasefire as well.
I can see valid arguments for each side, however some of the starting assumptions I do not agree with, and this is a matter of personal beliefs, which are unassailable under the Charter of Human Rights.
Agree?
I will place a quote here, it is instructive to see who said it:
If Israel was strong, armed and resolute, would this have happened? How can you argue against a military defeat?
Here is ChatGPT:
It's an agonizing conflict. The images we're seeing daily of burned and maimed children undergoing surgery on hospital floors with no anaesthetic, sorrounded by collapsed buildings and the detritus of war, is absolutely appalling. In the past I've generally accepted that the State of Israel has a right to exist but I have to say that Israeli brutality against civilians is severely testing my belief.
As far as Hamas is concerned, their sole rationale is that Israel is an occupying enemy and that the State of Israel must be destroyed. They of course understood that their October 7th attack would provoke a terrible retribution, but their spokemen have gone on the record saying that it is an acceptable price to pay in pursuit of their ultimate aim. They're willing to martyr tens of thousands, whether they want it or not. The major motivation for the Oct 7th attack was to undermine the possible detente between Israel and Saudi Arabia and to bring about a state of chaos and perpetual war, as this is preferable in their mind to any kind of peace which accepts that Israel continues to exist.
I'm trying to keep away from the debates - we have two opposing protests in our region today - as I don't personally have any connection to the conflict, but I just want to register my feelings about this disaster.
The building of the tunnels itself is part of their diversion of resources meant for the building of civilian infrastructure into terrorist infrastructure.
They have a network of tunnels said to be larger than the NY subway system designed for Israel's destruction and the cries for a cease fire are supposed to be taken seriously prior to the elimination of those underground tunnels.
I think it's real too. Leftists have always had a soft spot for oppressed peoples, and Israel, with it's vastly superior military, can't help but come across as a bully. I can see both sides' reasoning, and they both make compelling arguments.
Agreed.
"Article 1
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."
I already see a problem here. Ukraine certainly isn't going to act in a spirit of brotherhood towards Russian soldiers (or even Russian civilians who are in the way of a high value target), nor should they.
No comparison. Under the original un charter, every sovereign is to govern itself. So why is it that the Palestinian authority has been given its own sovereign land to govern, and done nothing but wreak tyrrany upon its own people, and violence to its neighbors? No excuse.
War is hell, regardless of the combatants, without respect to the goodness of one side and the wickedness of the other. Yes, Israel is deploying massive force against an intrenched enemy in a very crowded urban setting. Israel depends on advanced weaponry (no homemade missiles). Had they opted for a ground war without using their air force, their own casualties would be very high, and there would still be many civilian deaths, and maybe an unsuccessful outcome from Israel's POV.
The legitimacy of Israel isn't negated by its battle tactics, any more than the legitimacy of Palestinians need for an secure state in which to live is invalidated by Hamas' brutality.
Some demonstrators accuse Israel of ethnic cleansing. This seems to have occurred at the time of Israel's founding when many Palestinians were displaced. What the settlers are doing on the West Bank is more 'ethnic encroachment' than ethnic cleansing. Israel ought (imho) to return the settlers' seized lands. I don't think that is going to happen, but it should happen. The Gaza war is definitely not ethnic cleansing: it's an effort aimed at regime change. (Those don't always work out very well either,).
I pretty much support Israel. I'm not very enthusiastic about the Arab block. Israel's birth could have been engineered more successfully, perhaps (don't ask me how). I'm not very enthusiastic about the increasing dominance of the ultra-conservative religious factions in Israel, but I don't know what we can do about it. I dislike the American religious ultra-conservatives too, and not much I can do about them, some of them are close relatives!
People are lazy and stupid. Once systems exist to eliminate what creates such laziness and stupidity (pedagogical reforms) we will all remain witnesses to the status quo fooling ourselves into believing things are changing when they are just stuck in the same old cycle.
The map doesn't include tunnels dug by smugglers from Gaza into Egypt. Those are privately built and owned, according to a YOUTUBE video, and are worth quite a bit to the owners. They are not as well built as Hamas' tunnels, and there are a lot more cave ins. But they can import cars through the tunnels -- they cut them up. Animals are brought in through the tunnels too, Well, just about everything/anything.
I have no idea how the map of the tunnels relates to the street map of Gaza. That's a problem for Israeli Intelligence to work on. Clearly though, destroying the tunnels from the air (to whatever extent that's possible) is going to be a smashing operation. Soldiers destroying the tunnels would, my guess, lead to very unacceptable losses by Israel.
Well I read somewhere that people are stupid, and I have a long record of laziness, so... guess that's true.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/544984 :fire:
This might be the most sensible characterization yet :up:
Ah yes. I was talking about further up the chain of command. If the leader of a nation, acting in line with his freedom of opinion, religion, and conscience (like George W Bush, who stated that God wanted him to 'free the Iraqi people), then what? His human rights after all, which he is exercising freely. This is a problem, however, if a leader resorts to lies and broken promises, then, the conscience and religion aspects of the argument cannot be sustained. To be consistent, one would have to relinquish all moral responsibility, all semblance of religious belief, and then act. Both Hamas Leadership and Prime Minister Nettanyahu would have to renounce Islam and Judaism since these religions forbid the killing of children, and then proceeding on. "ye shall know them by their works".
Russians and Ukranian soldiers? Like American soldiers and Germans eventually they will become friends and 'feel at home' I suppose, but who knows. Someone has to win first.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYPQlPBmWoA
Not to say I agree with it, I am for a ceasefire and status quo, I am not interested in war.
The legal approach. Peaceful? Non - Violent? I think they should have a case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtBN7mVO1T8
Of course the adamant and extremely loyal support for Israel whatever it does can make some sense if the objective is to divide and rule in the Middle East and keep the area in turmoil... on purpose.
However true alliance building as happened in Europe, where even the former enemies were given aid and spectacularly so in the Berlin Airlift, is in my view far more better. Also in the case of West Europe, Europeans themselves were listened to, which then created a genuine alliance where the European countries have based their defense on NATO. The failure of similar American defence treaties in the Middle East and in the Far East are telling.
In truth, all the pivoting towards Asia is quite futile as the Asian countries are quite separate from each outher. Only AUKUS has happened, but otherwise any "Quad" is more of a debating club.
If you want to characterize an elected government that is blockaded on all sides, with constant attacks from Israel, and also the PA in the West Bank, which also seems powerless to stop what it sees as an attack and displacement of its people, as sovereign, you can do so. I had something different in mind when it comes to a sovereign nation.
In any case, the UN Charter states that disputes should be resolved peacefully. No ones hands are clean here.
More to the point, though, can the moral argument for supporting the right of both sides to exist, with a permanent ceasefire, be opposed? If there is such an argument, both for killing civilians on October 7th, and every day after that, then I would like to hear it.
Quoting BC
Is there a moral obligation for breaking ranks with the people of this world who support war, tribalism and communalism, those who subscribe neither to any religion or moral law in thought and practice. Is there a way to protest? To call out these stands and make them uncomfortable, I think there is.
The past two centuries and before have seen an endless series of wars, a war to end all wars then another world war, with several other conflicts worldwide, what is really going on with this world we live in?
If nothing can be done at least draw dividing lines between us and them, those who want wars (very few just wars if any have been fought, Iraq was not one of them) and defend them. Oppose the teaching of a distorted history to children. Condemn the movies glorifying war and conflict, or condemn them. War should be described for what it is - hell on earth, and then going to war is going to hell, for what crime are we going to hell, then? Even today there is a disturbing trend of supporting the killing done by one side or the other, why support killing? What would it cost to say that Israel should go after terrorists but not soil its reputation? Why not call Hamas to give up terrorism also?
What is not said is as important as what is said: the nations of the word are engaged in morally corrupt, self - serving, deceitful an murderous neglect, but no one is willing to call them out en masse - the divided and conquered support on side or the other. They will never admit it, blood for oil and all.
Take Yemen for example. Which side to support? What will result in peace and the saving of lives? I do not know much about Yemen but hope to find out. What then? Nothing will change.
Don't we need to teach about peace in our schools, and ask the major corporations to help fund 'teaching peace in schools' 'teach children to hate war' 'war is a crime, a black stain on humanity' 'war is a corruption of the worst form.
Will our military masters allow that to happen?
I suggest something is radically wrong with this disgusting world we live in, only the innocents are beautiful. The good hearted should inherit the earth. Everyone else should be sent leaflets to move south - to the South Pole. That is not ethnic cleansing, but it does sound like a cleansing of some sort.
https://www.unicef.org/parenting/how-talk-your-children-about-conflict-and-war
Many people - are not. Just the opposite. Teach your children about these devils.
https://www.theedadvocate.org/fostering-pacifism-in-the-classroom-a-guide-for-k-12-teachers/
Or, there is the alternate approach:
https://forward.com/opinion/197866/when-israelis-teach-their-kids-to-hate/
Non-violence is the opposite of the PA and Hamas curriculum.
And Israel? You have gone on record as saying you support Israel, well, do you think Israel is being used? How did Israel's friends allow it to get to this? Are they really friends or just pretending?
Quoting The Atlantic
https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/deep-shtetl/62cf09b668f61f0021d786ca/biden-israel-lobby-america-walter-mead/
This is especially true of disputes between individuals and small groups, or disputes between nations that do not involve existential issues. The EU was formed by negotiation, and the UK exited the EU through negotiation. Stupid, but it was done nonviolently. We generally negotiate over financial matters--trade, tariffs, taxation. But if it is us or them, negotiations don't work very well.
For example:
All totally hypothetical, of course, except that there are real nations who have been quite willing to seize their neighbors land (by military violence, usually) and not give it back. The United States comes to mind, but also Great Britain, Germany, Russia, Japan, France, Italy, Turkey, and China -- and more.
Individuals can practice pacifism if they so choose. States can not, States that attempt to practice pacifism will either cease to exist or will become the exploited vassal provinces of another nation, and their citizens will suffer severely. (Switzerland is not a pacifist nation, just in case you were going to mention them. They are armed.) Consider Germany's war to acquire lebensraum and resources: It acquired Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Greece, Belgium, Holland, Poland, much of the western Soviet Union (i.e., Ukraine, Belorussia), Latvia, Estonia Lithuania, Norway, and Denmark. It planned to acquire more -- like the UK.
Russia seized a large chunk of Ukraine, and claimed that the whole place belonged to them. Ukraine is currently attempting to reclaim the seized territory.
Jesus said, "You should turn the other cheek." He didn't say Israel should, or Rome should, or Persia should, or any other nation should.
A bold choice for a dictatorship that won a slim plurality in a single election almost two decades ago to make for their people. Especially when so much of the leadership is safe from any of the privations of the war.
Oh, we do it here. Prep for our weekly/monthly mass shootings... :confused:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBLjOXkKAnE
Quoting the video:
Obama: What the Palestinians are going through is 'unbearable'.
Trump:
Then there is Jared Kushner. This is after October 7th, by the way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcAwqIZoxeU
Jared Kushner, speaking after October 7th, wants a "Palestinian state that can function and thrive".
Everyone wants a solution, and wants peace. All except the current Israeli Prime Minister.
So the question is, whom is he working for, apart from himself? The Wikipedia article makes for some interesting reading.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Netanyahu
Apparently there are no term limits, which some countries think is a good thing.
For a long time the Prime Ministers of Likud have wanted simply to push the Palestinians somewhere else:
Ariel Sharon, another minister has followed this idea that for Palestinians do have a land where to go to: Jordan. Naturally the king of Jordan and Jordanians didn't think so and the Oslo peace accord made some problems to this kind of thinking, but I guess it's still popular in the right-wing circles.
Then there's the strategy of "mowing of the lawn". I think that this strategy, basically that the Palestinian insurgency can be contained at such level that only once a decade or so one has to have a bigger military operation (mowing the lawn) and otherwise this doesn't effect too much Israeli economy and the living of Jewish, has been around for quite some time especially when Likud has been in power. And many of the smaller parties of Bibi's administration are simply against any two state solution.
Naturally they want peace. But that peace isn't what Palestinians, or people in general, would accept as peace to this conflict.
I think this is absolutely the crux of the problem. Because of the "oppressor/oppressed" framework people seem to be working on in this forum, the focus is on Netanyahu's failure(s) (along with the Israeli right-wing in general). However, what is not discussed is Hamas, representing some portion of Palestinian attitudes, is an obvious abysmal failure. The PA is to a large extent a failure as well in terms of trying for peace. Perhaps I am not reading it right and that it is just assumed the Palestinian leadership is a failure, but I am not sure. It certainly isn't Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. level leadership over there anywhere. SSU, it would be interesting to discuss Palestinian failures and missed opportunities in the same breath, but I fear that side won't be told. I am sure, in a response there will be some strafing at Israel once again for why this is the reason, but sometimes you surprise me.
Hold it there. But that is the reality in the framework here. Israel conquered Gaza and West Bank in 1967. Palestinians there are under occupation: they aren't treated as normal Israeli citizens, but are under a different law. And yes, the PLO did use terrorist attacks outside to attack Israel, which lead to fighting between Jordan and the PLO and Lebanon and the PLO. And then to the occupation of Southern Lebanon by Israel.
Yet that there has been a PLO working outside from Israel doesn't erase somehow the fact that the civilian population in Gaza and the West Bank came under Israeli control in 1967.
Then that this civilian population fights an insurgency is again something that everybody understands here.
So what according to you, is here the wrong in describing the situation as occupier and occupied?
Quoting schopenhauer1
Their most abysmal failure was to lose the war, I guess. Once when you lose a war, you are on the mercy of your enemy. And of course as they think of themselves as Palestinians, it's convenient for both Egypt and Jordan then to agree that they indeed aren't either former Egyptians or former Jordanians (as both countries had only a brief stay either in Gaza and the West Bank).
Quoting schopenhauer1
Gandhi and MLK type leaders using the pacifism might work especially if the focus would be on non-Jewish citizens of Israel of the pre-1967 borders. And the non-violence approach obviously would mean that there wouldn't an active violent insurgency against Israel. That's hard, because Palestinians have been represented by those who have believed in the military solution. Bibi and the far right simply need the bloodshed, need the attacks. And the repression works for Hamas. As I've said, Bibi and the hardliners and Hamas simply embrace each other: both get strength from the violence and hate. And of course, Bibi and the hardliners have literally supported Hamas.
For them the perfect representative of the Palestinians is Hamas.
Sure, we can imagine an alternative reality, but the violence, bloodshed fear and hatred is there. That cannot be changed. A leader like MLK worked with a Civil Rights Movement, but that Civil Rights Movement wasn't looking for a separate country from the US. And the Black Panthers didn't commit such terrorist attacks against white people as PLO did (and later Hamas) against Israel.
Quoting schopenhauer1
We can totally discuss this too. The idea that one has to have the good guys and the bad guys here is naive (or well, typical). My view is that extremists have hijacked the conflict.
Jasser Arafat surely did errors and could have perhaps reached a better solution. The representative of the Palestinians was (is?) the PLO and Fatah's leader Jasser Arafat dominated that position. So it is a quite undemocratic organization. Fatah was formed in 1959 by the Palestinian diaspora and PLO in the 1960's.
And of course there were those on the Palestinian side who opposed the Oslo accords. And surely they did their part alongside Bibi in derailing the Oslo accords.
As I've stated, is see no peaceful resolution to this conflict.
I said "oppressor/oppressed", there is a difference. This means a very specific cliched framework used in this conflict whereby the "underdog" is supposedly blameless for their plight, when you (should) know that isn't the full story (by a long shot). It would only be if one already knew which side they wanted to favor for that kind of distortion to proliferate. You are sometimes on the cusp of something, but then it seems you want knee-jerk resort to that hackneyed (over-represented in this forum but not by a long shot in other venues). The more violence used, the less compromise made, the less the "victim" is really the victim anymore. It turns into something else- a festering hatred. It is an identity defined by its grievance rather than its ideals. It's an identity of purely what has been lost or not gained, and not what one can do for a future stabilization.
Quoting ssu
Yep. You couldn't do it. You couldn't talk about Palestinian failure without Bibi in there. I have seen you ONLY talk of Israeli failure without talking about Pals, but haven't seen the other way. I wonder why...
Quoting ssu
I mean, but you did think of the Black Panthers as a counterpoint. Some people thought MLK was too soft. But he wasn't. Strength in peace and non-violence. That is harder, and therefore braver, more courageous. It's also more effective. The other divides, causes friction, causes bad blood. MLK was also proud, so you can't use that argument either. Being proud, doesn't mean being violent.
Quoting ssu
Again, you almost did it. But not quite. You either find someone or you don't. Peace is not aggressive, it's transgressive. The ultimate kind :).
Yes, it follows. This is an emotional argument. So let me ask you, is it wrong for Hamas to kill Israeli military, like they did on October 7th? If they had confined their attacks to military targets only, then what? Would you support Hamas on that?
What we know for sure is that one side, or both sides, did not take the 'chance to compromise'. In an ideal world, no-one should mow the lawn, but in a world that is not ideal, the less people get killed the better, but there are those who do not share that opinion either. Its up in the air.
You took that out of context ti make an irrelevant point with it and clearly didn’t see my last post which actually goes more to your peace point. That is to say, massacring people and sending rockets isn’t excused, period.
Indeed, that same Bible justifies self-defense. I believe in self-defense, if that contravenes pacifism then I can't help that. I can take the stand against violent rebellion: any of these positions taken can be challenged by any number of counter-examples, that is not the point here. If one has to take a stand, one can only take one.
Israel did not defend itself on October 7th. That was wrong. If Hamas has chosen a fight with Israel, then the tacit agreement is that both sides will fight to the death. I take the stand that civilians should not be killed as far as possible, even if they support the IDF or Hamas. You can take the stand that Hamas is illegitimate, well, then that destroys the case for their existence, which Israel allowed all these years, why? Didn't they have the moral obligation to destroy them earlier?
In any case, the more information we get on this and other conflicts the more useful in preventing them.