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)
Their religious persuasion is irrelevant. They were forced to accept a division of land after decades of colonisation without any say as to how this should be done. And it wasn't as if Jews were unwelcome before that.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
No, what it comes down to is that you cannot exercise self-determination by displacing other natives (and it's not as if Jews were natives themselves, given the diaspora). That's been the issue that was and is resisted and it has nothing to do with being Jewish.
But please pretend to be the victim when you steal someone else's land.
Also in the speech, Bibi prepared the way in his speech for a land invasion of Southern Lebanon. A land invasion of southern Lebanon, at least to the Litani river even if far more north (likely to stop before Beirut) is quite probable in my view. Which itself would make the peace agreement that Bibi hopes to achieve with Saudi-Arabia quite distant. And Bibi btw refers the UN as "UN house of darkness" and to be a joke while all criticism of Israel's actions is anti-semitism. Yes, the UN is an anti-semitic swamp according to Bibi. Taken right out of Trump's vocabulary (of draining the swamp).
It's quite understandable.
Israel being able to normalize relations with its neighbors and garner allies in the region would be a fundamental step towards making its geopolitical position sustainable in the long-term.
As the window of US intervention in the Middle-East is closing and the situation there becomes more volatile by the day, Israel is hoping to signal to the US that these attempts at diplomacy haven't completely failed.
However, I think these attempts have failed, and that there isn't a single actor in the Middle-East that isn't counting down the days for the US intervention window to completely shut, after which they will fundamentally change their disposition towards Israel.
Yet, there is still a chance that Israel manages to drag the US into a war with Iran in an attempt to once again reset the balance of power in the Middle-East.
In order to do so, Israel would probably have to convince the US that it wouldn't turn into "US vs. the Middle-East," but that there would be regional partners that would support them. I don't think that's the case, though.
Quoting Tzeentch
Calling counter-parties partners is pretty usual in corporate and diplomatic speech, rarely means an actual partnership. For example, you may here corporate people say they are "working with their partners to remove unethical slave-labour / exotic materials from their supply chain" but partners in this context just means subcontractors and not actual partnerships.
So, I think in this case it's essentially just a figure of speech.
Quoting Tzeentch
I completely agree with your position except I doubt there was any signalling of this kind going on.
The far greater signal during the UN visit was ordering the strike on the apartment buildings to kill the Hesbollah leader Nasrallah leader.
Quoting Tzeentch
I would go further and state that Israel and the US knows this as well.
I think it's more likely that both Israel and the US realize Israel has overcommitted to the genocide in Gaza and that has made irreversible changes.
The situation is now that ultimately the US simply has limits to what it is able to accomplish militarily, but Israel, as a country (i.e. can't now change with a change in political leadership), has no other short or medium term options than to try to force US intervention anyways ... or ... or ... or then just Nuke Iran and maybe others.
Which, seeing Israel's course of action, the nuke Iran plan could be the plan from the beginning, or near the beginning.
For, as much as it's talked about the scenario of Israel dragging in the US in a war with Iran, I've never seen it explained how this war would work exactly. No analyst I've ever seen has even outlined how Iran could be defeated with conventional forces and on the contrary I've only ever seen it explained how this is literally impossible: Iran is too big, too mountainous, too populous, too battle hardened from the war with Iraq and then surviving constant sanctions and proxy actions, to be defeateable.
Therefore, if you war game it out (which all these countries do) the only actual "win" state is nuking Iran.
'Irreversible changes' is I think exactly the right term to use. It has set back normalization another 50 years, while Israel may not even have 5 years before US influence wanes and the situation in the Middle-East is going to fundamentally change.
It will have a hell of a time convincing the US to commit to a war in the Middle-East, because Washington knows that's exactly what Russia and China would love to see.
And I agree, there is no victory plan. Even nuclear weapons cannot realistically deal with the type of conflicts Israel will be faced with, not to mention the global consequences a nuclear first strike would have.
I don't see why Israel needs the US to fight its war for it. These past few days Israel decapitated Hezbollah. Hamas has been neutered. Israeli intelligence is unmatched. MBS just made a statement that he couldn't care less about Palestinians. A good portion of the Arab world cheers today at the death of Nasrallah while in the west they protest - Iranians, Syrians, Lebanese.
The Arab world is more complex and less unitary than many in the West imagine. Toppling the wicked Iranian regime should be the end goal. Humanity should be striving for that.
Yes, we agree on the main points.
Now, if by "victory plan" you mean a rational course of action, then definitely there is no victory plan.
However, nuclear weapons would not be for "victory" but to create long term deterrence that they are willing to nuke anyone, precisely because they are not rational actors. I.e. mad dog strategy ... but you are in fact completely a mad dog, no guessing games or theatre about it.
Interestingly, not only is there a lack of war games demonstrating how Israel could "win" against Iran even with a full scale invasion by the US, but a war game that was conducted by "The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center" concluding exactly that the US is unlikely to intervene to wage war directly against Iran and so Israel is likely to resort to nuclear weapons:
Quoting Wargame simulated a conflict between Israel and Iran: It quickly went nuclear, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
The takeaways are also interesting, the key points being:
Quoting Wargame simulated a conflict between Israel and Iran: It quickly went nuclear, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
Quoting Wargame simulated a conflict between Israel and Iran: It quickly went nuclear, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
Quoting Wargame simulated a conflict between Israel and Iran: It quickly went nuclear, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
Quoting Wargame simulated a conflict between Israel and Iran: It quickly went nuclear, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
There's more analysis of these points in the article, but I think we can agree that the first two takeaways are extremely "the case" and the last two points are extremely "not the case".
Therefore, the only thing deterring Israel from the use of nuclear weapons I would argue is Iran already having nuclear strike capability.
It's difficult to take your delusions seriously, but let's give it a go.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Israel already completely depends on the US for arms supply, significantly greater intelligence capabilities, and deterrence of the US intervention in order to conduct its current wars.
Israel's basic problem is first insisting on keeping Palestinians in a concentration camps and carrying out ethnic cleansing and also a genocide, slow at first but now very rapid, which renders peace impossible and having normal relations with neighbours.
Israel's second problem is that it lacks both population and strategic depth.
If Israel did get into a sustained major conflict with its larger neighbours it would lose due to simply being too small.
Without US support and also direct US intervention Israel could be conquered by its Arab neighbours in any sustained conflict. Israel's population is simply too small.
Now, obviously Israel can "go to war" against people it keeps in a concentration camp, such as the Palestinians, and also against a country with a similar surface area and a smaller population, such as Lebanon.
However, in a war against even half of the middle-east, such as the "cursed half", Israel would lose without US backing and the threat of intervention.
The key questions Israel has needed to ask itself therefore are:
1. How to complete the genocide of the Palestinians and create the living space of the superior Jewish race. I.e. how to implement the final solution to the Palestinian question.
2. Can Israel, as a Western Imperial colony propped up by Western Imperial power in the middle of a sea of people that don't want Israel there, survive without Western imperial power.
Israel's third problem is how to resolve the fanatical drive towards the final solution of the Palestine question with its desire to have long term security.
Insofar as US power was not in question, the problem was that the US itself wasn't so hot on a final solution of the Palestinians. Like, sure, US doesn't like brown people as much as the next superior race, but slaughter them in a giant concentration camp? Seems just a bit much. We're just a bit more sophisticated in our Imperial system nowadays. Therefore, the solution is to essentially take control of the US political process so that there would be no US opposition to Israel ethnic cleansing and genocidal policies, and certainly no hiccups in US arms supply during the final solution itself.
However, as US power wanes, Israel must face the prospect of being a colonial outpost of an imperial system that no longer exists as it once was.
Israel's current actions, whether October 7th was a surprise or not, are to carry out the final solution as well as prepare for the long dark or US imperial decline.
Israel is but the tip of a might US dick that penetrates the Middle East from behind. If the penis goes limp can the tip stay in?
Difficult to judge. History demonstrates that sometimes it's possible, but sometimes the tip of an empire just slips out once the mighty shaft no longer secures it in place.
Now, how exactly Israels actions prepare for this post-US dominance regime, how much is driven purely by Israel internal politics, is up for discussion, but reality is not contained in a few headlines today.
For example:
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Zero reason to believe this is even bad for Hezbollah long term but Israel maybe simply selecting for Hezbollah their most cleverest commanders to take over. Rarely does assassinating opposing leaders in a war have the desired effect.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Hamas is a concentration camp based force that did not have any capacity to inflict real damage on their concentration camp guards to begin with ... without absolutely massive incompetence (willful or not on the part of the Israelis) as well as a "mass Hannibal" of Israel slaughtering its own citizens for political purposes of justifying slaughtering even more Palestinians.
Hamas doesn't even seem defeated, but even if it was severely diminished it it hardly a great victory to defeat your own concentration camp proxy against yourself (which is what Hamas effectively was) needed to justify your anti-peace policies.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Which we already knew. What is more important in that interview is MBS clearly stating that his people do care very much and he needs to be responsive to that. Unlikely MBS would join in some war against Israel, but the more domestic pressure he has the less he could obstruct others waging war on Israel much less help Israel as an ally (which was on the table before this recent events unfolded).
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Which portion? Who is cheering in the Arab world?
But in general, sure, lot's of division in the Muslim world, but the more extreme Israel is the more that creates if not a uniting force then a laissez faire attitude towards conflict between Israel and its clear enemies.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Certainly true, but neither I nor @Tzeentch are making such an error, but pointing out that Israel committing obvious and obscene war crimes against Arabs has a unifying effect, which does not need to be total to cause an eventual Israeli defeat in a major conflict with various cursed factions of the Middle-East, especially if the other assists in non-overt ways or then simply stays out of it.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
You see this happening? You see anyone lining up to topple the Iranian regime?
No. Mainly because it is essentially impossible to do.
Therefore, Israel would need to resort to nuclear weapons to prevail, at least a time, against Iran and to also deter other aggressions, at least for a time.
It's unclear what would then follow Israel nuking Tehran and other Iranian population centres; seems to me Iranians will then put some effort to strike Israel, with nukes if they can manage but if not conventional missiles, and continue to fire missiles at Israel for a very, very long time.
However, it's equally unclear to me any diplomatic resolution of the current situation. Israel seems to me overcommitted to its genocidal project and there is only further into hell it can go from here.
Actually when experts have discussed this, these issues do have been raised. And thus even when the Neocons were at helm and the US had large forces both in Iraq and In Afghanistan (+ air bases in Central Asia). There was no appetite for a war with Iran. Even if during that time there was for example an incident of Iran capturing US Navy personnel.
Iraq was flat, it's army had been pulverized during Desert Storm and then attacked by Clinton with Operation Desert Fox, had Kurds in control of the north. So Iraq was "doable". Iran was and is something totally else.
Furthermore, we have already seen what a war between Israel and Iran looks like: both sides would lob missiles and drones at each other. Both are totally incapable of taking the fight to the borders (or coast) of the other country. Hezbollah acts here as the way for Israel to attack Iran. And I think Israel still has a bad taste from the 2006 war, which didn't go so well. But after the operations in Gaza have gone somehow, I think Bibi is willing to try to get Hezbollah again.
So I think it is more probable that we will have an Israeli invasion to Lebanon than it being just an air war.
The key paragraph:
“But an ironclad alliance with Israel built around strategic and domestic political considerations, as well as the shared values of two democracies, means Washington will almost certainly never threaten to cut — let alone cut off — the flow of arms.”
Notice the vague, careful phrasing. Translation: there’s nothing the US can do because the Israel lobby is too powerful (“domestic political considerations”) and is an extension of our economic agenda (“strategic considerations”) in the region.
There’s plenty we can do: namely, STOP SENDING WEAPONS. Stop funding the war. Period. Shame on The NY Times for talking nonsense. This isn’t the 1990s — we see right through it now.
It's lamentable that Nasrallah was murdered. He was, till the day of his death, willing to cease the attacks on Northern Israel, in exchange for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Quite a reasonable view. Now comes someone who will be much harsher and less sensible.
And more mass death for everyone.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
And the US better stay out of it too. A ground invasion is probably where this is heading (given that air strikes are insufficient to destroy alot of Hezbollah's tunnels and military infrastructure), but as long as Iran and the US don't get dragged in, then the IDF can enjoy being bogged down by such an adventure like they did in 2006.
Personally, I don't find that a very realistic strategy.
It's thinkable that Israel would launch a nuclear strike if its survival is directly threatened, and after a long series of warnings. The Iranians are probably smart enough to back down before such a strike would occur and then use the nuclear threats to legitimize their own pursuit of nuclear armament (as may various other actors in the Middle-East).
Actual unprovoked nuclear weapons use would have global political consequences so dire that they would dwarf any military advantage gained.
Keep in mind that a large part of nuclear deterrence lies in the fact that it threatens to destroy the world, and thus not having to deal with the political fallout (pun intended). Israel does not threaten that, so it must have a plan for what happens next.
I think you're being a bit naive here.
Israel is the side constantly escalating: genocide in Gaza, blowing up the embassy, assassinating leaders, raping prisoners and then defending the rapists, killing civilians en mass apart from the genocide, in parallel to their rhetoric of explicitly stating their intention of genocide and doing whatever they want (aka. rape children and prisoners) and so on.
All I'm doing is drawing a straight line through these data points and continuing the plot, which should be the base line realism projection. When you have data that can be simply projected you need strong reasons (based on previous data) to believe the trend won't continue.
For example, if I present you a plot of the temperature of my pot of water and it keeps going up in basically straight line, you should expect that to continue unless previous data comes into play. For example, based on previous data about water you are unlikely to continue the projection past 100 degrees Celsius as you know water boils at that temperature. Of course, you maybe aware of a bunch of special circumstances (pressure well above or well below sea level atmospheric pressure) but absent any reason to suspect those conditions actually exist then it's reasonable to expect "normal" water boiling. However, discard all the exceptions and consider the simple case of just boiling water for tea and being provided data about the temperature rising, the point here is if you have no prior knowledge about water then all you can do is expect the simple projection of the data to continue: you're best guess of the temperature of the water in the future is just drawing a straight line; indeed, if you had no prior knowledge of energy and materials generally speaking you'd have no reason to exclude the water reaching a billion degrees.
Bring this water boiling example back to the middle east, I see a line of the most provocative escalations Israel could essentially possibly make including acts that even the Western media admits, even an ex-CIA director admits, is straight up vanilla terrorism, and that after the Western media already admitting that Iran does indeed have a right to retaliate for the bombing of its embassy.
What I'm arguing here is that the prior knowledge you are using to predict this trend would abruptly change before the projection of nuclear strike is reached, is prior knowledge about other people, about yourself. [I]You[/i] wouldn't launch a nuclear weapon on a city, hopefully you believe neither would I.
We have no prior knowledge about Israel to arrive at the same conclusion.
Indeed we have the opposite of breaking every rule of war and being proud of it, of breaking every diplomatic norm and being proud of it, of committing a series of acts, and continuing at a regular pace, that by their by their nature irreversible changes to the status quo.
My argument therefore is that the goal is not to return to the status quo, and the only other equilibrium point available is the chilling "day after" the blazing heat of a nuclear strike.
Quoting Tzeentch
Dire for who?
If Israel has "lost the narrative" in being the actual victim in the situation and their DARVO is wearing thin, then the consequences for Israel of nuking Iran are much the same as the consequences for not nuking Iran, just that nuking Iran would greatly harm one of its enemies and create a deterrent for other parties.
Israel's basic dilemma now is that it has turned itself into a permanent war state and created non-resolvable permanent conflicts with a great many actors but it does not have the size to simply wage war indefinitely (such as Russia can) nor the geographic isolation to simply fester forever in a war economy (such as North Korea can).
How do you end war if making peace is not an option for you?
The answer is nuclear weapons.
Israel would turn itself into a global threat overnight, putting itself in the crosshairs of literally every nation on earth. Israel would be crushed diplomatically, economically, politically, etc.
Nuclear proliferation (and missile defense) in the Middle-East would skyrocket as every nation in and outside of the Middle-East will scramble for security. Similar strikes on Israel would be expected - strikes which Israel is a lot less capable of absorbing due to its small size.
Etc.
I think you're overestimating the damage and deterring effect, and underestimating the geopolitical consequences of a nuclear first strike.
Again, nuclear deterrence works mainly because of mutually assured destruction - threatening the literal end of the world after which there will be no consequences to consider. Israel can do no such thing.
From a rational enlightenment humanist position, we're in complete agreement.
Israel is not, however, such an actor.
From the perspective of people who have absolutely zero concern for human life and have now committed Israel (whether due to some actual strategy or for domestic political reasons) to a permanent militaristic path (bye bye tourism, bye bye "startup nation") with every new act simply overcommitting to such a path even more, nuclear weapons use are not seen as simply creating 100 more problems.
Obviously nuclear weapons would create problems, but they also solve problems. Israel can keep building nuclear weapons and can just keep striking Iran, both military facilities and population centres.
Iran would not be "largely intact" but in complete disarray and essentially nuked into failed state status. Israel can make clear that it will simply nuke the populations centres of anyone else that displeases them.
Of course there will be build up and then propaganda justifying this, repeated by US mainstream media: Iran was about to build a nuclear weapon and strike Israel! this was just Israels Hiroshima and had to be done! we need to look at the end result here which is Iran doesn't threaten Israel anymore and that's a good thing! there's only so much unprovoked attacks Israel can take before they just have to act!! Israel warned the world again and again that Iran had to be dealt with and the world didn't listen!! so Israel dealt with the problem and the world should be thanking Israel!!!
"Normal people" will of course be in disbelief both that Israel nuked Iran and Western leaders and media continue to cover for Israel. Seems "unbelievable" but is it really? We've just witnessed Israel carry out a genocide and acts of terrorism by the West's own admission ... yet we see Western leaders and media continue to cover for Israel.
Before these things happened "normal people" would faced with the scenario would be like "nooo! naaah! Israel can't just carry out a genocide broadcast live to the world and the West just do nothing about it except supply more arms, just can't happen in this day and age! Israel can't just get caught on tape raping prisoners and then justify doing so and then the West just politely ignore that, you serious?! Israel can't just blow up embassies and the West recognize you're really not supposed to do that, but like whatever, Israel can! Israel can't just blow up civilian devices in a clear act of mass terrorism and the West be just like 'cool, still terrorism ... but cool'? None of that could happen!!
Obviously can happen and has happened and using nuclear weapons is simply becoming the next "unbelievable" thing Israel could do that the West will cover for and continue to support and supply Israel.
Israel's rhetoric is that Iran is an existential threat to Israel, and therefore nuking Iran is simply a common sense act of self defence in that rhetoric.
The Russia-Ukrainian war can be understood on the terms you're proposing: two imperial systems, operating on some version (no matter how cynically implemented) of rational enlightenment humanism, seriously chafing each other, neither so happy about it but both "rational" enough to keep things under control as there's plenty more empiring to be done and no need to just up and nuke the whole party.
Israel is not such an imperial actor but is a small and vulnerable state surrounded a lot of enemies that is dependent on a distant imperial force that requires constant stewardship to continue extracting various forms of capital, from money to arms to diplomatic cover to direct intervention: a flow of capital that is not guaranteed but could go away at any moment due to US imperial decline or changes in US domestic politics or disruptions to the global system generally speaking.
Some people in a similar situation would conclude that they need to make new friends, but others conclude what they really need to do is nuke their enemies instead.
Leading up to these completely foreseen geopolitical changes there was of course a "make new friends" faction within Israel, but I think it's pretty abundantly clear by now that the "let's not do that" faction has won that argument.
But what's the game plan, to just look at their enemies across the region and say "Are we to be two immortals locked in an epic battle until judgment day and trumpets sound?"
Possible.
But the alternative is to start dropping nuclear warheads on population centres until you declare yourself the winner of the nuclear weapons duelling context.
For, if you're not sure you can survive until judgement day why not just bring judgement day to you?
The taboo on nuclear weapons use is enormous. If Israel were to launch an unprovoked nuclear strike on another country, the entire world would be seeking nuclear armament and anti-ballistic missile defense, and with good justification.
Unlike the genocide in Gaza, this would directly undermine the nuclear deterrence and security interests of every nuclear-armed power in the world, including the US. This would be everybody's problem.
If any nation were to do something like that, there'd be an international coalition on their doorstep the next day to dismantle the regime.
That's pure realism, by the way. It has nothing to do with humanism.
Consider the possibility that you are simply being too polite in your analysis and that death is a vulgar business.
What exactly is the difference between Israel as a rogue genocidal, raping and terrorist state and Israel as all those things in addition to dropping nukes?
It is exactly because the taboo is enormous that Israel is so envious to break it.
You are considering things from your own moral frame of reference.
Free your mind.
The difference is that the former does not threaten the security of the great powers, whereas the latter undermines it in the most dangerous way possible.
Nuclear proliferation is one of the only topics the great powers have generally been in agreement over. They realise the consequences to global security, including their own, if the nuclear genie is let out of the bottle.
What would ensue after an unprovoked nuclear attack is a mad scramble where virtually every nation on the planet will be trying to get their hands on nuclear deterrents and anti-ballistic missile defenses of their own.
At that point, the great powers would likely do everything in their power to crack down on the culprit in an attempt to cool global fear.
@BitconnectCarlos @neomac @schopenhauer1 @RogueAI @Moses @tim wood
10 mo. ago
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/858338
I wouldn't necessarily agree, as Israel officially adopting mass terrorism is going to motivate similar attacks on both Israel and the US as well as normalize the practice generally speaking which effects also everyone, and likewise eroding the US credibility and diplomatic position is a threat to US interests and thus security while also threatening to drag the US into a disfavour able war, but even assuming what you say is true and the former are of no concern to the US or the other great powers, can the great powers do anything about it?
Simply being a great power doesn't magically make your will happen, in this case even with respect to your own colony that you've setup, funded, nurtured and shielded. We are in an unusual situation where a colony has effectively taken control of the foreign policy of the empire from which it comes.
If not completely, clearly enough to carry out a genocide in broad daylight and boast about the fact, likewise praise rapists and blowup embassies and assassinate high officials left and right. None of this benefits US security since all of these norms are bedrock parts of the "rules based order" US officials keep going on about and some of the rules (like not being explicitly genocidal, explicitly pro raping prisoners, and not blowing up embassies) the US even follows itself (assassination being the one policy US also carries out with the expectation no one does it to them, but even there the US is clearly far more restrained than Israel)!!
Israel is simply not effectively constrained by the great powers at the moment so what the great powers want is not a determining factor in this situation.
On top of all of that, it's also debatable the extent to which US elites are actually against Israel nuking Iran. There's clearly a strong faction of US elites that wants war with Iran while, as @ssu notes, never elaborating how exactly a war with Iran would unfold; perhaps their idea is that Israel will nuke Iran all while being protected by the US from retaliation. They clearly don't have in mind a full-scale invasion, occupation and building up a liberal democracy over several decades only to be defeated by the Taliban again, yet they talk about war with Iran a lot so they must have some sort of idea of how that would actually go. If it is as obvious that Iran cannot be invaded conventionally as everyone familiar with the matter seems to believe, it would seem equally obvious that nuclear weapons is the only recourse that changes that equation.
Quoting Tzeentch
Agreed, but Israel already has nuclear weapons and the great powers were unable to prevent that nor would they be able to prevent Israel using those nuclear weapons.
Quoting Tzeentch
Agreed. Again, doesn't stop Israel from using nuclear weapons. One may assume that proliferation would lead to Israel eventually being nuked, but they may (whether they are delusional or not about it) believe that preemptively nuking Iran enough will deter that from happening. The US nuked Japan and has yet to be nuked in return; that maybe their model.
Quoting Tzeentch
Again, how? And also maybe Israel elites believe, rightly or wrongly, that the US simply won't do any such thing.
For, Israel is a tiny country and so it simply doesn't require that much inputs to keep afloat.
If all the "hippy liberals" and "startup bros" have mostly already left Israel, perhaps those that remain in Israel have little problem with the idea of becoming an insular rogue state exactly as you describe, confident that the US will continue to supply them with whatever they actually need. After the nuking, they'll be able to simply occupy the land they want, kill or displace whoever they want, and after that (at least believe now) they'll be left alone.
Now, the analysis I provide is not meant as a prediction, that this is the most likely outcome. My point is that this is where the trend is going and we'd need a solid theory based on prior knowledge, i.e. evidence, to predict the trend will change before nuclear weapons use.
It could very well be Israel is "escalating to deescalate" and is repeating their former pattern of disproportionate retaliation just with a bit extra "oomph" this time. That their enemies will have "learned a lesson" and will think twice about messing with them again.
It's also possible that the plan is to provoke a conventional war between Iran and the US and that they have some plan how that will go, or anyways think it's a good idea even without an actual plan.
It's likewise possible Israel is simply conquering more territory and once they have it they feel they can defend it at a sustainable cost.
Another possibility is recent events are driven mostly by Israeli internal politics to solidify Netanyahu's hold on power, trying to push the limit to distract from Israeli internal problems while satisfying the population with perceived victory, without intending to go more extreme than the current policies, and the long term security implications are not really a factor (of making more enemies, of losing enormous international sympathy, of not being unable to hold territory in Lebanon assuming that's the case, of angering the entire Muslim world for generations and so on).
So, there are many possibilities, none of which we have much data to exclude nor support above the others, but my basic point is that nuking Iran is one such possibility and directly in line with the current trajectory of going rogue on everything else and detonating taboo after taboo in an accelerating fashion.
In terms of reasoning structure, we need actual evidence (prior knowledge) upon which to base predicting a trajectory in the data will suddenly change.
I gave the analogy of the water. Another analogy would be simply throwing a ball. We know how to predict the trajectory of projectiles and in order to predict a sudden change in the data we'd need actual knowledge of something that's going to affect the balls path. Obviously if we can literally see a building in front of the ball, or we know the ball was thrown at ground level and there's no giant cliffs around, or we know someone is aiming to shoot the ball with a high precision anti-ball system, or someone there to catch the ball, etc. then that's excellent knowledge in which to predict the ball will not simply continue on an expected high-school physics trajectory (speed, gravity, air resistance etc.; which, even that presumes knowledge of the ball being thrown somewhere close to the surface of the earth and not on the moon or elsewhere in space; even the simple prediction "the ball will be stoped by something at some point" requires prior knowledge about the situation).
Now, before Israel blew past all these taboos we did have the prior knowledge that Israel did place limits to its violent actions, so if we were having this conversation a year ago, or perhaps even a few months ago or even literally weeks ago, the "restraint theory" (either self-restraint or then the great powers as you propose above) would have had significant weight. I definitely didn't predict where we are now a year ago; my expectation being things would be bloody but ultimately return to the status quo (as that is what has always happened before).
And certainly the theory that despite appearance we are not actually outside the previous pattern of violence and Israeli war planners fully expect everything to "go back to normal" can be argued. It certainly feels like "things are different this time" but perhaps that is only a feeling and in another year tourists will be back on the beaches, tech bros raving in their techno parties in Tel Aviv, Palestinians still in concentration camps with little international concern for their well being dealing with the raping and murdering as best they can, tensions with Iran exactly as the same as they usually are and the spice continuing to flow from the Middle-East as it usually does. That is possible.
However, when Netanyahu says Iran will be free sooner than expected he may not be referring to the freedom that the US generously brings to a country after a large scale invasion and decades of occupation and tutelage, and he may not just be talking bluster because that's what leaders in wars do, but rather he maybe referring to freeing Iranian spirits from their bodies in by cleansing light of the nuclear flame.
Nuking Iranian leadership and population centres is the only practical interpretation of Netanyahu's words, that is unless I'm missing some other way of exporting freedom to Iran.
Also, notice that in the time we are discussing this a new data point is created by Israel which tracks the nuke Iran trajectory: "warning" the Iranian people themselves so they can say "we warned them and they didn't listen" after everything is made "different" than it was before.
I already watched this video (I think you posted it already). I find Gideon’s argument, from premises to conclusions, enough plausible in light of available evidences and universal humanitarian concerns. However, I don’t find it particularly enlightening from a geopolitical and historical perspective (I elaborated on this in several previous posts, not sure if you read them).
So what I would really like to understand is: is it geopolitical and historical reasoning that is blind to universal humanitarian concerns or is it universal humanitarian concerns that are blind to geopolitical and historical reasoning? I think the second is way more likely, hence the spectacular and endless frustration of the universal human rights activists.
Yes and no. The latter opposes – struggles against – the inhumane and counter-productive (i.e. destabilizing) excesses – strategic blindness – of the former.
I'm not sure what you mean by "historical reasoning", but both geopolitical analysis and humanitarian concerns can be as informed or then blind to the other.
There are plenty of geopolitical analysts and actors that wish to minimize human suffering, and there are plenty of humanitarian actors that are aware of the geopolitical realities. You can also find the opposite cases, of geopolitical analysts and/or actors that have zero concern for human rights (there are plenty of brutal dictatorships that understand the geopolitics of their situation but are unconcerned with human rights).
In terms of "historical force", most conflicts are framed and limited by humanitarian concerns. The rules of war and international law and WMD treaties and other self-imposed constraints on state actors are the result of a humanitarian tradition to minimize the harms of war and strive to maximize a liveable peace after war, all while recognizing that wars do happen. If there was no humanitarian concern every state would stockpile chemical weapons and strive to attain nuclear weapons and not hesitate to use such weapons, as well as any other weapon on hand, on civilian populations. And not just weapons of mass destruction, there is a long list of weapons that states agree not to use (sound weapons, pain inducing weapons, various forms of terrorism, laser and other blinding weapons and radiation weapons of various kinds) all while competing with each other using as much force as they can muster within this broader humanitarian framework.
There's all sorts of things states could do but choose not to, and the argument that they don't do it because they would look bad simply circles back to the fact they look bad because enough people genuinely believe in the humanitarian principles (such as striving to minimize rather than maximize harm, avoid intentionally harming civilians and so on) that therefore those actions look bad.
The only reason we are discussing Israels breaching of various taboos is because a global human rights movement established those constraints on state actions to begin with. Everything Israel is doing, from intentionally starving a civilian population to compromising supply chains with explosives, could be completely normal acts of war that no one is the least surprised by, as normal as shooting with riffles.
Which is one area where I diverge from Mearsheimer in that states in the current system strive to maximize power but within a collaborative framework of self-imposed constraint due to the genuine belief in principles opposed to power-maximization. Even Israel could have easily carried out the final solution to the Palestinian problem if not for attempting to at be able to keep pretending it conforms to these universal human rights values. Even Israeli propaganda would have difficulty pretending to be a good faith actor if there was not one Palestinian left in Gaza.
And, as mentioned above, these constraints are due to the values and not some second order practical consideration, for we can easily find periods in history where there were no such values and we never find such constraints simply arising anyway due to practical lessons. When it was completely compatible with people's values to be torturing, crucifying (including a tenth of your own men on occasion), poising enemy water supplies, general raping and pillaging and eradication or enslaving conquered people's etc. we never find in history groups of people who have these values (i.e. see no problem with any of these things) but stop doing them because of practical considerations (like "torture doesn't work" for example).
And Iran finally responded in trying to assist it's ally Hezbollah. But with the killing of the Hezbollah leaders and with the great success of attacking Hezbollah unconventionally, it's obvious that Israel sees that it will be triumphant in this war (or military operation). And that's problem, as if successful military operations will solve the basic underlying problems.
Quoting javi2541997
Ask yourself how many years Israel occupied Lebanon until it withdrew ...and with it's actions made the Lebanese shiias form Hezbollah in the first place.
Quoting javi2541997
It's now likely that Israel will strike Iran now. Last time the two warring parties refrained their military actions, but likely this time it will be far more. This will likely escalate.
I think the US is now on the verge to being dragged out to another large Middle Eastern war. You'll just notice that you are in another quagmire...
This is the way the US is drawn to the another war in the Middle East.
Why no?
Because Israel's intent is to destroy Hezbollah and it will likely attack Iran, hence the fighting is quite likely to continue.
I thought the same when I read the post of Manuel in the first place. Everything is escalating very quickly, in my opinion. A few days ago the murder of Nasrallah, now Iran is bombing Israel. Netanyahu said that Israel can get to wherever they want in the Middle East after the missile attack. He is a bellicose man; his adrenaline pops up with this tension, and when everything is crossing the limits.
Quoting ssu
Yeah, Israel vows revenge, and they are looking forward to having a face-to-face confrontation with Iran. This is going to get worse. I hope nuclear weapons are not used. By now, only the USA is openly helping Israel, but if this gets serious, we (NATO) must take part in the conflict actively, right?
Well, I am off to bed. I hope Israel has not captured Teheran when I wake up.
This is a wartime politician on a roll. Fighting Hamas is now a mopping operation and the spectacular pager and the killing of the Hezbollah made likely Bibi and his leadership overenthusiastic and extremely self confident. As I've said, the 2006 operation into Lebanon didn't go well. Hence IDF is eager to have a brilliant victory such the Six Day War is very much in the past. They've been thinking how to fight Hezbollah for 18 years, so it's time now to put those ideas into action.
Iran still refrained this time around. The problem has always been Israel and their desire to drag everyone into a war. It doesn't matter how much the other sides want peace if one party believes a war is in their best interest. That's how WWII started.
As Israel and Iran are distant from each other, there is a geographic reason that limits warfighting capabilities. Hence both sides will talk about limited actions: they simply cannot fight the war in any other way. However now it's the second time in a short time that Iran has attacked Israel. Hence it is unlikely that Israel will refrain from a retaliatory strike.
Now tell me how Netanyahu won't strike back when he has said the above? When you say Iran will pay and that Israel will retaliate against it's enemies, it would be quite difficult then to follow by not doing anything.
This is the reason why I'm worried about the situation. There's no reason why Netanyahu wouldn't attempt to destroy Hezbollah as it has done with the current military organization of Hamas.
Of course both sides can only fight using air strikes but if Iran wanted to cause more damage they probably would've done so. Same with Hezbollah. Apparently alot of their strike here was intercepted like last time, and likely it was by design. They are clearly telling Israel right now that they are done and if Israel is done then things will cool down.
Quoting ssu
Of course I'm not suggesting that I expect Netanyahu will hold back. It was honestly surprising that he even held back in April. Like I said, Israel, helmed by Netanyahu, wants to escalate as far as possible. They really want to strike their nuclear facilities, which they can't really do by themselves, but again that's where the US comes in.
Quoting ssu
He will attempt to destroy all those groups altogether and reach Beirut or even Teheran. He feels unstoppable due to the unconditional support of a large number of Western countries. Israel always dreamed about a conquest and an expansion. They have now the best opportunity in decades to accomplish their mission.
Netanyahu is interested in more war to stay out of jail. The rest of his coalition are just in it for the body count.
They can come close ...assuming they get the needed airspace to launch an attack. I assume that Israel has it's Jericho missiles for nuclear deterrence, but for example the LORA medium range artillery missile (400km) can come in handy with it's air launched variant (AIR LORA) would be the optimal system. This has the possibility of launching the missiles from possibly Iraqi air space and thus minimizing the threat Iranian air defense systems pose. And then of course there's the option of also using drones, which Israeli has already used against Iran.
Israeli F-16 with conformal fuel pallets and AIR LORA missiles
And then of course Israel has a myriad of long range cruise missiles in it's arsenal, which can be launched from the F-15I, F-16I and F-35I combat aircraft. First wave would be to attack Iranian ground based air defence systems (GBAD) and it's command centers and likely the nuclear facilities. Yet a large scale attack would mean that the US would give a green light, which isn't actually so difficult as already the US has committed to the defense from incoming Iranian missiles. If Joe Biden (and Kamala) are started to be called chickens or whimps, that might easily get the US to side with it's ally even during an election.
The fact is that even if Iranian military targets are first attacked, then the lure of simply going against it's oil infrastructure looms also, even if this would be controversial and extremely unpopular (because of high oil prices). You can easily get into a situation just like with the War of Attrition 1967-1970 between Egypt and Israel, just now with the artillery strikes being replaced with missile strikes. The problem is that basically there's no reason why Israel wouldn't commit to this. It already is in an open military conflict with Iran. Bibi has already the hammer in his hand and Iran looks like one big nail.
Apparently the US is coordinating with Israel on a response unlike last time. Oddly enough that makes me feel a bit more confident about the possibility that it won't be too escalatory (or be specifically designed with an offramp in mind) despite the fact that the US is getting involved. That being said, I'm sure the Israelis may try to do their own secret operation, though there is only so much they can do unilaterally. I can certainly see it avoiding oil infrastructure for the reasons you described unless the Israelis really want to humiliate Biden even more.
If Israelis were smart enough, they wouldn't humiliate any president of the United States. It is not about either rooting for Republicans or Democrats. Without the backing of the White House, they are lost and abandoned in their expansion mission. It is not the accurate time to be choosy, precisely.
Dutch police are allowing their officers to opt out of providing security to Jewish spaces.
Apparently it's now valid/a legitimate concern if an officer has "moral objections" to providing security for Jewish spaces. :vomit:
One can now apparently be a "conscientious objector" re: providing security for Jewish spaces.
The basic issue is here: what is the objective in the landwar in Southern Lebanon?
The political reasoning is to get back the tens of thousands of Israelis that have been evacuated from Northern Israel, and hence the likely goal is to "destroy Hezbollah" altogether. Other political rhetoric simply won't do for warfighter Bibi. But this is actually problematic.
If some portion of your police force is morally opposed to providing protection to Jewish spaces there is something very very rotten in that security apparatus. Put them on a list somewhere. Something like this shouldn't be up for discussion.
It's about the same level of validity as a police officer who refuses to be placed on a rota for protecting e.g. a black space or a native american space. The officer is immediately suspect.
I love the selective outrage so you can continue to play act being a victim while the most moral army in the world keeps killing civilians and has apparently bought into the insanity of de-escalation through escalation. Two World Wars started because different sides thought they had more to gain through violence but don't let that stop you from supporting idiots.
I'm seeing an awful lot of finger pointing from you and zero condemnation of a dangerous phenomenon that undermines the impartiality of the police force and threatens the safety of the Jewish community in the Netherlands.
I do not keep tabs on everything the Dutch police do.
That's almost as obscenely vile as Israeli apartheid that everyday oppresses non-Jews especially in the Occupied Territories, West Bank & Gaza. Police (everywhere) should "conscientiously object" to protecting only Official Israeli spaces (e.g. consulates, embassies, government offices, businesses, etc) instead. Mass murderers, no matter how triumphant they are in the moment, reap what they fucking sow. :fire: :mask:
A disaster. It may grow much bigger, maybe beyond the Middle East.
Exactly. If they were really concerned with getting the Israelis back and saving the hostages in Gaza (which are probably completely doomed so much as they are still alive) there was an easy way out which Bibi refused to take.
As for the land invasion itself, if history is any indication a ground invasion wouldn't be a quick and painless operation. If there is any reason why Netanyahu doesn't want to start a war with Iran right now it would be because Israel thinks it is necessary to defang Hezbollah as a threat altogether before doing anything else (at least if Kushner's statement is anything to go by). They can still bomb Israel hard even at this stage.
Yet this fact of life is hardly given any thought now. Bibi's transformed into a wartime leader. He doesn't have to face the earlier political problems or an inquiry just how Hamas did get away with overcoming a billion dollar wall as long as Israel is in war. So he doesn't care a shit about just how "Peace for Galilee" turned out. But he can remember that after Yom Kippur war was over, Golda Meir was ousted.
Even if this was prior to the Iranian missiles, it still shows the benefits of being a wartime prime minister. People will rally to the flag and support the leadership of the country.
It will take time to know all the truth about October 7th. But given the fact that Israeli intelligence is one of the most advanced in the world, it seems strange the great defensive errors during the attacks of Hamas. So, they can trick the beepers of Hezbollah members, but they cannot prevent a bloody attack by Hamas. Hmm... we will see how responsible for all of this is Netanyahu in the future.
He ignored those warnings, or maybe he deliberately didn't listen to them because he, as a clever warman, saw the perfect opportunity to focus on a conflict with the neighbours rather than having Israelis voice out against his business practices and arrogance.
In a way the two can be seen as related as since 10/7 we've seen a huge uptick in anti semitism which just goes to show you the world doesn't recognize a clear boundary between Israel and the world's Jews. Pro-Palestine protests also tend to be more prone to criminality than pro-Israel ones which explains the more heavy-handed treatment.
Israel doesn't even make the laws in Gaza, but why should that inconvenient fact matter to you? It's ideology that matters to you and you side with weak. And as long as you side with the weak you're righteous and laudable.
Never let facts get between you and your support for the weak.
We can support the poor, innocent Palestinian all we want and that starts with getting rid of Hamas and de-radicalizing the population. Not teaching them to hate. Once violence and hatred wane, Israel can ease up in turn.
If it's the occupation of Jerusalem they're mad about, they can stay mad. Israel has offered them half in several peace deals and it's been rejected. To want it all, as the Hamas charter demands, is pure greed.
The Middle East is in a perpetual war zone that benefits a big ass weapon industry.
:up:
Based on what? I'm sure that's the excuse the police will give you.
Also the fact people confuse Jews with Israel is on the heads of many of your brothers and sisters insisting for decades any criticism of Israel was "anti-semitism" or that "anti-zionism" = "anti-semitism". The guilt over WWII has been wielded as an instrument and setting up Israel as the "Jewish homeland" really makes things confusing for most people.
EDIT: I asked perplexity:
Based on the search results provided, there have been some instances of violence at pro-Israeli demonstrations and counter-protests, though the overall picture is complex. Here are the key points:
## Violent Incidents Involving Pro-Israel Groups
- At UCLA, a pro-Israel mob violently attacked a peaceful pro-Palestinian encampment on campus[1][2]. The attackers, described as largely non-student age individuals, used fireworks, pepper spray, sticks, stones, and metal fencing to assault students[1].
- Counter-protesters, identified as pro-Israel, attempted to storm a Palestine solidarity encampment at UCLA, leading to violent clashes[2]. They tore down barricades, shot fireworks into the encampment, and sprayed irritant gases[2].
- In Chicago during the Democratic National Convention, a protest organized by pro-Hamas groups turned violent, with demonstrators throwing objects at police and surrounding a taxi with passengers inside[3].
## Context and Broader Trends
- While these violent incidents have occurred, it's important to note that the vast majority of demonstrations related to the Israel-Palestine conflict in the US have been peaceful[5].
- According to ACLED data, 97% of student demonstrations related to the conflict between October 7, 2023, and May 3, 2024, remained peaceful[5].
- Pro-Palestinian demonstrations have also faced accusations of antisemitism and resulted in violence in some cases, particularly in Europe[4].
- Israeli authorities have also cracked down on anti-war protests within Israel, with some restrictions placed on demonstrations[4].
It's crucial to recognize that while there have been violent incidents involving pro-Israel groups, violence has not been characteristic of all pro-Israel demonstrations. The situation remains complex, with tensions high on both sides of the conflict.
Citations:
[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/1/ucla-clashes-pro-palestinian-protesters-attacked-by-israel-supporters
[2] https://dailybruin.com/2024/05/01/pro-israel-counter-protesters-attempt-to-storm-encampment-sparking-violence
[3] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/-israeli-consulate-tonight-groups-one-dncs-violent-protests-rcna167384
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war_protests
[5] https://acleddata.com/2024/05/10/us-student-pro-palestine-demonstrations-remain-overwhelmingly-peaceful-acled-brief/
[6] https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/pro-israel-group-to-hold-counterdemonstration-on-ucla-campus/
[7] https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-jewish-students-say-pro-israel-violence-at-ucla-protest-camp-undercuts-advocacy/
[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNrkh8V8IMw
It is instrumental to the US empire, and that's the primary reason for the way things are.
The military industrial complex, BlackRock, etc. - these are the vultures who flock to the smell of fresh carrion, but they are not the main driver behind these conflicts. The main driver for US involvement is US geopolitical strategy, and that's what we ought to analyse and understand in order to make sense of events.
The US establishment on their part of course has no problem with corporate interests taking the blame. Much better for people to believe the US government is not to blame, but "evil corporations" are, or so the reasoning in Washington goes.
If you look at a map you'll note that the Middle-East is located on a critical junction that connects several regions of the world via land. Why is that important?
The US possesses the world's most powerful navy. It controls sea-based trade. Any nation that gets into a large-scale war with the US can say its sea-based trade goodbye.
China is heavily dependent on sea-based trade, and is deeply aware of its vulnerable position should its sea lanes of communication be cut off.
That's why China is seeking to create land-based alternatives.
The US is trying to deny such alternatives by trying to control critical trade junctions, or cause chaos if controlling them turns out to be unfeasible.
Note that Iran ("public enemy #1") is a critical bottleneck that connects China and India to the Middle-East, Africa and Europe via Central Asia.
The other critical bottleneck is Eastern Europe, which connects Russia (and by extension China) to Europe.
It is of course no coincidence that we see intense US involvement in these regions.
If you want another example, you can look at India. India has a much more neutral disposition towards the US, yet we see the same pattern.
Bangladesh and Pakistan are the land-based trade corridors that connect India to the rest of the world. What do we see there? Long-standing and intense US involvement.
Anti-zionism is effectively anti-semitism. To oppose zionism is to oppose Jewish self-determination which, if realized, would render Jews, once again, completely reliant on foreign nations for security and strip them of their autonomy.... the exact situation in which the holocaust occurred. It's not about guilting you; it's about ensuring that it doesn't happen again. Zionism has already been realized. To oppose Jewish self-determination when it has already been realized is pernicious.
Regarding criminality we can all do our own research and make up our minds. Here in the states the issue of which side is more criminal isn't close. There have been many, many arrests on the pro-palestine side and very few on the pro-israel side. They block highways, destroy shops, violate noise ordinances, occasionally commit assaults... but you're free to believe as you like.
No it isn't. One is opposition against a political idea, the other is just plain hatred.
And it's this sort of dumb shit that causes so many people to not care about the distinction anymore.
It's not a matter of belief, it's a matter of fact that pro-Israeli sides have committed violence in the US as well and the majority (97%) of all protests on both sides have been peaceful.
Yes, a hatred that is bent on the destruction of the world's only Jewish state and a reversion to the old order. I don't see how this is hard to understand. If someone were to oppose the notion of an Irish state we would call them anti-Irish.
How about the many times that they stopped traffic here in the US? Is that considered peaceful? In the US we saw a wave of violence across college campuses as pro-Palestine protestors took over university buildings and vandalized them. No parallels from the Israel crew. Thousands of arrests on the Palestine side, very few on the Israel side.
I would think that number of arrests is generally indicative of criminality unless you want to maintain that the police just hate palestine and are arresting the protestors for no reason. One can engage in criminality without violence, such as when highways are blocked and traffic is held up for hours.
They were broken hearted about what's happening to Gaza. They aren't anti-Semitic.
You're my favorite troll. :lol:
That's what I was going for, thanks!
Oh you mean "anti-semites" like ...
Quoting 180 Proof
https://inthesetimes.com/article/jewish-anti-zionism-israel-palestine-colonialism-annexation-apartheid :fire: :strong:
Yeah, because the post-1967 State of Israel has not been "completely reliant" on US (& EU/Nato) military & economic funding and logistics as well as diplomatic cover (propaganda / disinformation) for a half century ... what a lying little shit you are.
I don't agree with all the names on that list, but there were blacks who opposed the civil rights movement & supported racial segregation. Being a member of X group doesn't preclude one from antagonism towards that group or opposing rights for that group due to other reasons.
All Zionism is is support for Jewish self-determination in the land of Israel/Palestine.
The fact that you mentioned the "apartheid" in Gaza means you simply don't understand the facts about this conflict. Nor does it matter that Jews can be oppose Zionism (some do for purely religious reasons). To oppose Zionism is to support a reversion to the old order where Jews were at the mercy of foreign powers and could be stripped of statehood and butchered. No thank you.
There's no apartheid. Nor do I think you know what a war crime is. Until you learn the facts about the two sides consider yourself ignored. :mask:
:sweat: Of course, ignored again by the willfully ignorant ...
https://inthesetimes.com/article/jewish-anti-zionism-israel-palestine-colonialism-annexation-apartheid
"The wrong type of Jew?" ~zionfascists
:fire:
Ariel Sharon: "occupation"
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-may-27-fg-mideast27-story.html
re: documentary – "The Gatekeepers" (2012)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/856307
Quoting 180 Proof
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-04/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/amid-israeli-destruction-in-gaza-a-new-crime-against-humanity-emerges-domicide/0000018c-d585-d751-ad8d-ffa5965e0000 [1]
https://fnl.mit.edu/january-march-2024/domicide-the-mass-destruction-of-homes-should-be-a-crime-against-humanity/ [1]
I assure you that everyone is very aware of what a war crime is, with the only exception of Netanyahu. Although they are constantly threatening us*, we will keep defending the resistance and using diplomacy—not like Israel—we will try to do the best we could in our limitations and possibilities to end this bloody conflict.
* [i]We are outraged and saddened that Spain has become a paradise to sow hatred and incite to the destruction of Israel.
Masar Badil, an organization linked to terrorist groups such as the PFLP and Samidoun, has chosen Madrid for its annual international congress and the demonstration, set for today, to celebrate the brutal massacre of October 7th.
It is unacceptable that a democratic society allows the glorification of terrorism and the celebration of crimes against humanity perpetrated by Hamas.[/i] - Israel Foreign Ministry. Holy cow :yikes:
Unfortunately Israel cannot negotiate with those who seek to indiscriminately murder its citizens and take its land in the name of Islam. There already was a cease fire on October 6th of last year.
:lol:
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
:rofl:
Magnificent. :ok:
I love how in this metaphor the Islamic middle east is likened to an abused asshole. The greatest & most brutal settler-colonial project in history -- Islamic rule -- is really just a poor helpless orifice used and abused by the US and Israel. But by all means continue as an apologist for brutal authoritarianism and Islamic religious fanaticism. I guess you're one of those "anything to see the West fall" types.
Somebody is a bit exaggerating here. :snicker:
I think the colonization of a whole large continent would still count as the greatest settler-colonial project in history.
And I'm not talking about Australia.
It's interesting to compare. In any case, yes North America was colonized, but it also underwent large-scale decolonization. The idea of decolonizing Muslim lands (e.g. Zionism) is met with mass protests and violence around the world including on college campuses. The West is largely apologetic over its imperialist past, not so with the Muslim world.
Don't forget South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The Continent of America isn't just the US.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
?
You mean Latin America and North America got Independent? Especially when population transfer (meaning settlers coming in), American Continent comes to mind as the example. And of course with Islam people converted to the religion, so the people weren't replaced, but conquered. There weren't so many Arabs actually at the time of Mohammad.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
You're really serious? New interpretations for Zionism. Besides, without going to Biblical times, it was the Romans and Emperor Hadrian, that started rooting out Jews from their land (for example banned Jews from Jerusalem) and settling other people to the land, so that's a bit earlier than the Muslims. Like half a millennium earlier or so.
Zionism has long been understood as a decolonization movement. Both the Romans and Muslim powers were colonizers of Israel. Under Roman rule there were revolts to establish a free independent Jewish state (as had existed prior) so Zionism is nothing new.
And yes, Mexico is no longer controlled by Spain, Haiti no longer French, etc.
And that worked out really well for the Jews.
Modern political Zionism developed in the late 19th century in response to growing antisemitism in Europe:
He considered several places other than Palestine before that so claiming it's a decolonisation movement is just bullshit. Zionism has more commonly been viewed as a form of settler colonialism - and rightfully so. It's only been recently that some Zionist advocates have attempted to reframe the narrative by claiming Zionism as a decolonization or indigenous rights movement. This is a relatively new and controversial perspective that is not accepted by historians or scholars.
Nice to see you are radicalising right in front of our noses. :vomit:
?
This is quite funny, or as Benkei puts it, false.
As Benkei said, Zionism started in the 19th Century is linked to 19th Century nationalism. Also the term "decolonization" is also a very modern term not used to depict events happening in Antiquity.
For example, we can call the expansion of Rome, of Ancient Egypt or even the actions of the Mongol Horde as "Imperialism", yet with imperialism we mean expansionist policies of far later period. For example there of course is similar thinking in ancient times as "imperialism" and what we would now call "nationalism". Yet with nationalism we mean a specific ideology and thinking that came only far later.
Tell that the Jews who fought the Romans in the 1st and 2nd centuries in order to re-establish an independent Jewish kingdom in the land of Israel. Is that not the basic idea of Zionism?
Whether it's hertzl dreaming of decolonizing Israel from the Ottomans or bar Kokhba's followers dreaming of decolonizing Israel from the Romans it's the same basic idea. Hertzl was just a relatively (secular) revival of the idea.
Is that decolonization, really? What's the Roman colony that they wanted to decolonize? Actually those colonial efforts of Rome came later when the revolts were put down. The Jewish diaspora into Europe started during those times, so Jews have been part and parcel of Europe for a really long time.
And you simply seem not to get it. Decolonization is a historical term. And anyway, a revolt against Romans, especially when it fails, is hardly decolonization.
For example, we don't talk about the social media of Antiquity, the bourgeoisie or the middle class in ancient Mesopotamia. Was there some class of people that could be related to them? Perhaps, but it's not correct to use such terms as the class isn't what we now call "the middle class".
Yet the other way around historical similarities or links are much used. When faced a threat, people look for similar events in history and willingly link the present to ancient history to give importance to the present. A common link, a common goal shared by generations apart sounds very nice. And people don't want to hear any historian saying that things two millennia ago were actually different.
Quoting Tzeentch
I would say Netanyahu is far more capable and better politician than Milosevic.
Yet for example the battle of Kosovo Polje, battle of Kosovo in 1389, where after ancient Serbia lost the war to the Ottoman, even if they managed to kill an Ottoman Sultan, is very important for Serbs. Just that the place where the battle was in Kosovo made Kosovo important to Milosevic. And likely the ethos that it's a similar fight now as then:
Some say the speech that Milosevic gave in the 600th anniversary at the battlefield was a starting cry for the collapse of Yugoslavia and first step on road to civil war:
That vision has existed before and after Roman rule. It a Jewish constant. Whether it's Hertzl or bar Kohkba (or others in between), the goal is 1) Remove foreign hegemons from the land and 2) Re-establish Jewish self-rule. The technology differs, the foreign powers differ, but it's the same essential idea. It comes down to control and dominance. If you would like to educate me about why the Roman empire was not a colonizer then I'm all ears. Even if Rome doesn't fit the exact "modern" sense of colonizer, it remained the hegemon -- the undisputed dominant power in the region.
Missing accomplished.
Right.
But in truth Judea was a vassal of the Seleucid Empire, then become a client state of the Roman Republic, then a client state of the Parthian Empire, then came back to be a client state of the Roman Republic and later Roman Empire. It had little room to wiggle when Romans were fighting each other and then was put into line once the Romans themselves got their act together. Judea was as late as 6 AD annexed to Rome and became a Roman province, so the glorified vision of Jewish eternal resistance, always removing foreign hegemons is the likely propaganda. Of course this was before the Bar Kohkba revolt. There likely is very many of the "Quislings", which a vassal / client state tells us.
Yet patriotic history is actually quite similar anywhere: the thread of history becomes what enforces and validates our current views at the present. Many things that don't tell this narrative aren't simply "important".
A vassal of the Seleucids up until the Maccabees revolted in ~160 BC leading to the creation of an independent Jewish state under the Hasmoneans from around 150 BC - 37 BC. This is the event behind of Hanukkah. From 37 BC the Jews have their "Quislings" -- the Roman-backed Herodians. The Hasmoneans were no Quislings.
We can go back further. Between ~1000 BC - 586 BC Israelite/Jewish independence was realized up until the Babylonian exile. Even given a sober view of the historical record the history of proud Jewish resistance holds. Israelites fought off Philistines and Assyrians among others to secure their independence. I'm happy to call out propagandistic bullshit when it's present, but I can't in this case.
edit: from 63 bc onwards the hasmoneans are roman vassals.
Instead of learning from his interlocuters here, who aren't exactly dumb, he chooses to drink right wing Israeli cool aid.
The only real solution here is equal rights for Palestinians, and for Israel to become a normal, modern state where multiple ethnicities can coexist.
And it's Israel's only option for survival too. It cannot solve any of its problems with the sword, and attempting to do so is just going to ensure its adversaries will treat Israel in kind once the pendulum swings.
:100: :up:
Quoting Benkei
Keep hand-wringing over Zionist "settler-colonialism" over a tiny sliver of land while ignoring or defending a rapidly growing 1400 year old religious colonialist empire 600x Israel's size.
In any case, follow my discussion with @ssu as an example of how productive & polite discussion goes. I wouldn't even call it an argument.
Did my discussion with @ssu fundamentally change your view of me? Really? And is there a certain type of pro-Israel Jew that you do respect?
Speaking for myself, I respect every pro-Isreal Jew who openly, vigourously denounces and opposes the mass murdering, ethnic cleansing, apartheid policies of the US/Nato-backed Netanyahu regime.
The truly pro-Israel Jews are those who don’t want to see Israel destroyed. Which is exactly what they’re doing with these policies.
If someone IRL told me that they were "pro-Israel but anti-zionist" I would laugh. Zionism is why Israel is a state. It would make more sense to say "I'm a Zionist but opposed to certain Israeli policies." To say that you are "anti-zionist" is to say that you are opposed to Jewish self-determination. A true "anti-zionist" would seek the destruction of Israel/the loss of Jewish self-determination.
Bullshit. That you cannot wrap your head around it because you adhere to a definition of zionism that's ahistorical and wrong is your problem.
- Hamas remains undefeated while tens of thousands of civilians lay dead.
- Israel's international reputation has evaporated and it is probably the most isolated it has ever been in its history.
- Israel now finds itself at war with another adversary, Hezbollah, in a war that it is equally unlikely to win.
- Tens of thousands Israelis have already left the country.
- Recent seismographic anomalies suggest Iran may have tested a nuclear weapon.
A right clusterfuck if ever I saw one.
By “historical reasoning” I’m referring to reasoning over the historical genesis of the “universal human rights” institutions in Western societies or in the World.
By “geopolitical analysis” I’m referring to analysis about the role “universal human rights” appeals play in the geopolitical context.
Quoting boethius
My claim is not about possibility, but about what I find more likely.
Quoting boethius
Quoting 180 Proof
The reasons why I find it way more likely that people driven by humanitarian concerns are blind to historical and geopolitical reasoning can be found in the nature of their political engagement: the most obvious reason is that humanitarian activists, organizations and the like (as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty international, Unrwa, etc.) focus on monitoring violations, and denouncing behaviour that is breaching certain international norms (like war crimes, genocide, cleansing, torturing, etc.) to provide assistance accordingly, than on investigating either the historical and geopolitical reasons for such violations, or the geopolitical consequences of denouncing such violations. The other reason is that when geopolitical and historical analysis are taken into account, it is not to critically engage them as such, but to use their results to play the blame game (who started it? Who is the primary/mostly/only responsible for human rights violations? Who did worse?) and spin some pro-humanitarian propaganda (like, to restore human rights on earth one has always to take the initiative to cooperate, make concessions, redistribute, equalise, etc. that’s always possible it’s only bad government that makes you believe it’s not etc.).
For them, the point is not to interpret the world, but to change it.
Gideon Levy is an obvious example of this attitude. Many people in this thread reason in the same way.
Quoting boethius
Quoting boethius
But this can be framed also as a coordination problem: a state can contribute to the respect of some universal humanitarian rights, to spare inhuman treatment for its own people by enemies in war time in return. That doesn’t mean that a given state is inherently compelled to feel concerned by violations of universal human rights for the sake of other nations. Nor that a given state is inherently compelled to respect other nations’ universal human rights at the expense of its own people.
Quoting boethius
The problem is what it means “enough people”, and what states can be pressed to do by said “enough people”.
From a prescriptive point of view, everybody should comply with universal human rights, and every individual is compelled to abide by those principles by their own initiative without any need of being pressured by others, and history is no excuse. When one is talking about “enough people” and what happens if “enough people” look state actions as bad we are no longer in the domain of a-priori prescriptions but in the empirical domain of psychological and material pressures, and how they scale to the level of nations and political decision makers. There is where geopolitics and history may offer precious insights. For example: is Gideon Levy “enough people” to change Netanyahu’s decisions? is Gideon Levy+Chomsky+Mearhsimer “enough people” to change Netanyahu’s decisions? Is Gideon Levy+Chomsky+Mearhsimer+pro-Palestinian students in American colleges “enough people” to change Netanyahu’s decisions? Is Gideon Levy+Chomsky+Mearhsimer+pro-Palestinian students in American colleges+UN judges+Humanitarian ONGs+all Benkeys in this thread+ALL SOUTHAFRICA+ALL THE MUSLIM IN THE UNIVERSE “enough people” to change Netanyahu’s decisions in accordance to universal human rights principles? And if they aren’t enough, why aren’t they enough?
Quoting boethius
Not sure to understand what you are saying here. But how is your claim that [I]“states in the current system strive to maximize power but within a collaborative framework of self-imposed constraint due to the genuine belief in principles opposed to power-maximization"[/I] consistent with your other claims that international order (which includes international laws of war) is “ornamental” and “with no meaning”? BTW do you see Russia, China, Iran, South Korea, Hamas “within a collaborative framework of self-imposed constraint due to the genuine belief in principles opposed to power-maximization”?
Quoting boethius
I don’t doubt that ordinary people at large reason in terms of values, however I doubt that political decision makers are not compelled by “second order practical consideration”. By the way, this suggests me another way to put my original claim “that people driven by humanitarian concerns are blind to historical and geopolitical reasoning”: people driven by humanitarian concerns reason in terms of values, decision makers reason ALSO, if not mostly or exclusively, in terms of second order practical considerations that’s why the former are more likely blind to geopolitical and historical reasoning than the latter about universal rights values.
Give me a military definition of "Hamas's defeat"
Quoting Tzeentch
Yes that's why Arab States helped Israel when attacked by Iran.
They care so much about Hezbollah and Hamas:
https://www.trtworld.com/middle-east/why-are-some-syrians-celebrating-israeli-strikes-on-hezbollah-18213844
Quoting Tzeentch
Suggest to whom?
"While Iran has previously acknowledged the existence of the "Imam Khomeini" space centre and missile headquarters southeast of Semnan, the site is more than 100 kilometres from the earthquake's epicentre."
source: https://www.euronews.com/2024/10/09/social-media-abuzz-with-claims-of-irans-secret-nuclear-test-after-44-magnitude-earthquake
"Iran is one of the most seismically active countries in the world, being crossed by several major faults that cover at least 90% of the country.[1] As a result, earthquakes in Iran occur often and are destructive. "
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_Iran
Benkei, the Jews invented the idea. How can they be wrong about what it means? :chin:
Well, then I have some unfortunate news for you...
You can be an anti-Zionist Jew. The logical conclusion of anti-Zionism is the destruction of Israel. You cannot be "anti-Zionist, pro-Israel."
And I'm pretty sure those guys in your vid were excommunicated.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
' :chin: ' indeed...
See here
Even the US noticed this:
At least in the Finnish newspapers an security analyst told the reality how it is, because lets face it, UNIFIL has been in Lebanon since 1978 and to for a tank to fire on UN base (HQ) is no accident: Israel is trying to get the UNIFIL troops to be withdrawn so that IDF can create a new security parameter in Southern Lebanon. And although there was one before and it didn't work so well, who cares. Netanyahu is on the roll.
And on what the future holds for Gaza, here's an interesting possibility what Bibi has in mind now:
The Open air prison is divided to many open air prisons to handle the prison riot.
I forgot: WOULD YOU RATHER LIVE UNDER ISRAELI RULE THAN HAMAS RULE? EVERYTHING WE DO IS MORAL BECAUSE WE IS GOOD GUYS!
Since you will have the backing of the US (Biden sent just more US soldiers to protect Israel and deployed there the THAAD system), why care? You can do anything you want, so now is the time to do that anything.
Never underestimate the impact how a large terrorist attack can be put to use to rouse people to support war.
And anyway, both this thread and the Ukraine thread were put into the "lounge", because they didn't fit to the main page. Wouldn't that be telling too? :wink:
UNIFIL needs to leave. Weren't they supposed to enforce resolution 1701? That clearly didn't happen and the IDF has found Hezbollah tunnels a few dozen meters from their sites. Let the grown ups do their jobs and have the blue helmets go play soldier in another location.
Explain to me how Hezbollah was able to build tunnels (that took years to build and were used to attack Israel) ~100 meters away from UNIFIL. It's impossible UNIFIL didn't know. They've simply neglected their mission and now they're in a warzone that is a direct result of their own failure. Get them out of there.
Tell me about it. Never thought I'd see so many westerners out on the streets protesting in favor of totalitarian organizations that rule by hardline religious rule, murder LGBTQ, and suppress women's rights and dissent in what has become a progressive cause. Wokeism has degenerated into support for jihadism & intolerance against the only western, democratic state in the Middle East.
Edit : also Israel is neither western nor democratic.
Then why are they constantly flying Hamas and Hezbollah flags at protests and cosplaying as terrorists? Why are they chanting for the same goals as these groups -- namely, the annihilation of Israel? Why are they tearing down hostage posters and desecrating memorials to terror victims? The most straightforward explanation is that they are terror supporters.
The most straightforward explanation is that people are done with the double standards: where are the memorials for Gaza terror victims?
What the Israelis don't seem to understand is that it goes both ways. How many Oct 7s have happened to the people in Gaza and now Lebanon and how many civilians have been radicalized as a result?
Zero. There has been no cases where IDF soldiers and/or Israeli civilians went house to house murdering, raping, and torturing Palestinians in a manner comparable to 10/7.
You can say that you're a Hamas/Hezbollah supporter, it's ok. Sure, maybe you think sometimes (e.g on 10/7) they go a little over the top, but you're fundamentally onboard with their purposes. Is it fair to say at least that you're a sympathizer?
Hell, I'll support a side without condoning its every action. The Red Army committed many atrocities but I'll still take them over what they were fighting against.
Nope.
My point has been consistently that what Hamas does and our opinions on that are irrelevant. They are the evemy and for peace you'll have to negotiate with them. Trying to categorically wipe them out serves exactly one agenda and it isn't saving hostages.
Personally, I think it is self-evident that the US action is guided by a geopolitical strategy. The idea that a nation achieves, maintains and defends hegemony 'by accident' is just not a very convincing argument to me. I also think there is plenty of historical and contemporary evidence to suggest that the US follows deliberate geopolitical strategies.
That does not presuppose that the US is always correct in its assumptions or successful in its execution.
Nor does it deny that there is a wide variety of domestic and external factors that impose limits on what those strategies can feasibly entail.
As for the list of things you named - I don't think those are very self-explanatory at all. Take the draft for example. Vietnam showed the draft to be completely unfeasible for the types of foreign intervention wars the US was fighting.
I could go through the whole list, but I don't think that is very constructive. If you want we can zoom in on one or two items which you think best illustrate your point.
On the topic of Israel's genocide:
I did not call Israel's crimes part of a "US cryptic plan." What I said was that the US may tacitly agree to let Israel carry out the genocide.
The US is supplying the very ordnance Israel uses to bomb refugee camps, and the US could stop those weapons deliveries today if it wanted to.
Israeli hardliners clearly believe genocide is in their interest and worth the cost, because otherwise they wouldn't be pursuing it with such fervor. Perhaps the US government agrees, but doesn't want to be seen agreeing with it in public.
Like I said, in the case of a large-scale conflict, Israel is completely strategically compromised for various reasons, one of them being the existence of a large Palestinian population which will likely rise up the moment the Israeli state gets under military pressure.
So it's not hard to see (albeit from an utterly cynical perspective) why the Israelis want to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians, and will even resort to genocide.
Yes, it kills any chance for a rapprochement in the Middle-East, but perhaps that was never feasible to begin with, and perhaps the US isn't even interested in a rapprochement. Since the Middle-East is slipping from the US' grasp, it will be more interested in denying the use of the Middle-East to its rivals.
To be clear, I have often argued that Israel's belief that it can survive without first becoming a normal Middle-Eastern nation is foolish. In the long-term, the balance of power will inevitably shift against it at some point, and that's when it will be presented with the bill of decades of belligerence.
However, as I said before, the fact that I believe the Israeli government is deliberately pursuing a strategy of belligerence does not mean they are correct in the assumption that it will bring them long-term security.
The Americans on their part may understand the long-term implications of Israel's actions, but ultimately Israel's long-term survival may not be something that concerns Washington.
Washington is gearing up for a massive clash between itself and the rising powers. Israel is going to be used as a pawn in that clash, and its survival is of secondary importance to the defense of US global dominance.
The US will happily entertain Israeli delusions if it means the Israelis will voluntarily put themselves before Uncle Sam's cart. That's exactly how the US played Ukraine.
Quoting boethius
First of all, Israel is (correctly, in my opinion) anticipating a period in which power relations in the Middle-East will shift, and Israel itself may come under heavy pressure from other actors in the region, most notably Iran. The fact it is housing an oppressed population of several million within its borders means it is defensively completely compromised.
And secondly, the Israelis themselves are openly talking about 'remaking the Middle-East' - they clearly have great plans for what the Middle-East should look like in the future, and they're probably correctly assessing that this may be the last window of opportunity they will have to drag the United States in.
I do not know the details of such a plan, if it even exists, but the most obvious part of such a plan would be a 'reset' on Iran, aka, knock it down from 'regional power' status. This is what the US has already done once with Iraq, and what the Israelis are hoping it will do again with Iran.
And the reason the US may be willing to take part in this is because Iran, as I have argued, is an incredibly important trade corridor that connects all US geopolitical rivals to each other - Russia, China and India.
Note that Iran doesn't just cover Persia (the gateway between Central Asia and the Middle-East) but also touches the southern Caucasus (the gateway between Russia and the Middle-East).
It is of paramount strategic importance, which is why US meddling in Iran goes back almost a century.
By the way, not to be snarky, but your posts have a tendency to be a bit long-winded, with it being difficult to discern exactly what parts of my argument you take issue with, and what you want me to react to. Usually I respond to sentences that have a '?' at the end, but they're sprinkled all over so responding to all of it would become rather tedious.
Lets try to discuss topics one at a time, to avoid overly lengthy exchanges. I'll let you decide what you want to discuss first.
Apart from the 40,000+ Palestinians killed, many of whom were tortured and raped by the IDF. But if you happen to disagree I invite you to go to Gaza yourself and tell them all that.
Not sure where you're getting this from, but nowhere did I say the process imperial expansion is an accident.
What I explained is that empires tend to grow in response to an external threat where imperial expansion is perceived to be needed to deal with that threat. Certainly at least initially with other, especially later, phases of expansion having profit and prestige as also a main motivator, though "enemies out there" is generally a constant theme.
Point being, the perception of a serious external adversary that really could destroy your society drives meritocracy and competence among elites.
In an imperial ascendency phase you find competent, smart and honest people doing their best to advance the interests of the empire and other, even far more powerful on an individual basis, elites subordinating themselves to the needs of the empire as determined by a consolidated imperial custodianship.
Of course, when an empire expands elites benefit generally speaking, so there's not only the pressure from external threat but there's also a continuous flow of new empirical capital that eases inter-elite negotiations. There's a carrot and stick incentive structure driving competence, coherence and cooperation. What Chomsky refers to as (pretty sure Chomsky though maybe he didn't coin it) refers to as elite "war communism".
So definitely to build an empire you need really astute strategy, governing competence at all levels, and low levels of corruption (or then what corruption there is nominal corruption while actually serving to resolve elite conflicts; corrupt to de-corrupt as it were).
The problem that arises in the Imperial life cycle is that once external threat goes away (because enemies have been defeated for example) then elites lose focus on imperial maintenance. Elites ask themselves the question "what's it all for" and the answer is usually "to get me gold and sex slaves".
There's no longer the stick of the threat of external conquest that disciplines elites to subordinate their desires and personal ambitions to the needs of empire.
Reaching the apex, or then post an apex, of imperial expansion there's also no longer an inflow of the fruits of conquest that can be used to terminate inter-elite negotiations, so there is also no longer the carrots that the imperial custodian core can offer troublesome elites to follow their strategy.
The era of war communism comes to an end and elites lose the discipline to compete coherently with an external adversary and start competing between each other.
"Imperial strategy" doesn't go away per se, but becomes subordinated to factions of elite personal interest to extract capital from the empire, rather than the other way around, elites subordinated to imperial strategy, that was needed to build the empire in the first place. For example, faced with the threat of not only competing empires but competing ideologies that could potentially result in revolution at home, American elites tolerated a 90% top percentile tax rate, which wasn't so much to raise lots of taxes that way (as no rational person pays themselves to the extent of the taxes becoming 90%) but rather to discipline the elite class into reinvesting into expanding the capital base (or then the government anyways takes basically all the money and does it anyways). America was not dominated by socialists during this time, but rather American elites subordinated themselves to the needs of empire during the phase of imperial expansion (where they're going to access more markets, control more resources, so also had reason to reinvest all their capital rather than take it out of the production system and waste it on hookers and blow and lavish elaborate sex parties where "dark whims" can be indulged to better viscerally feel one's elite power; i.e. the stick of the threat of global communist revolution and the carrot of globalization goes away and other more personal priorities emerge).
As the threat of the Soviet Union seemed dealt with militarily and in particular the anxiety of communist revolution at home ebbed away (which was very real in the Great Depression), long story short, elites started to corrupt the system as their perception started to change from strategic alignment with imperial expansion and maintenance to extracting imperial wealth being the best strategy for personal aggrandizement of whatever form they are into. I.e. elite cooperation maximizes elite personal power during imperial ascendency as the benefits of being an elite running an empire far exceeds the power of maximizing relative power with other elites in a not-empire, but once empire reaches an apex then extracting wealth from the empire, to its long term detriment, is what maximizes personal power.
All of which is to say that the US is in such a corrupt decline and imperial strategy is subordinated to individual elite interest and the dominant factions they able to form on any particular issue. They'll of course continue to nominally express their actions as the result of some intelligible imperial plan; obviously people don't just come out and say "we're doing this war to make mad profits and build bunkers in Switzerland and New Zealand that we can hide in once the system collapses" but they pretend it's part of some actual plan. To begin with there's a compromise between elite interests and honest and clever imperial custodians but over time that process of compromise with smart people is a liability and they're replaced with useful idiots and corrupt sycophants and that's when things become rapidly stupid.
We've seen a rapid decline in US power and prestige over a short period of time; this is due to corrupt idiocy and not some 5D chess moves happening.
For example, to the extent the Ukraine war is for the geopolitical purpose of harming the European economy to put down a geopolitical competitor and in particular a competitor to the USD ... well the need to harm your own allies is only a situation that arises due to corrupt imperial mismanagement and the Euro threatening the position of the dollar as reserve currency is likewise only a problem in the first place due to disastrous fiscal mismanagement (debts taken on to directly transfer massive sums of money to the elites).
As for the matter at hand, the idea the US needs Israel to commit a genocide for "geopolitical reasons" is simply laughable. Israel needs to commit a genocide in order to carry out a genocide and can extract US Imperial capital of various forms in order to do so because a Zionist US elite coalition has managed to put themselves in charge of the issue through decades of systemic corruption.
Of course it has various domestic issues, and corruption is undoubtedly one of them.
However, settling on 'incompetence' as an explanation for US behavior is, as I said previously, not something I find convincing - not as long as there are clearly discernable patterns that betray a strategy like the ones I have pointed out.
Calling this '5D chess' is a bit ridiculous. The US has always behaved according to the tenants of realism, and used elaborate schemes to outmanoeuvre - often successfully - geopolitical rivals and unfortunate assets.
Your view is in line with the image the US tries to export of itself, namely that of a 'benign hegemon,' that only does ill out of incompetence and clumsiness. One glance at history, even recent history, however, betrays Washington's utterly Machiavellian disposition, and I see no indication that this has changed in recent years.
Quoting boethius
This is a strawman that I rejected in the very post you replied to.
The Israeli government clearly believes a genocide is in its best interests. The US may tacitly accept that and let the Israelis carry it out.
And it is not hard to see why the Israelis believe that. I've given you the reasons.
Power to do what though?
Defend their own borders? Nuke the world? Bomb a few weaker states into a internal chaos. Sure.
The US has no where near the power it did even a decades ago, let alone 2 decades or 3 deuces ago. It's in imperial decline.
We could of course discuss exactly what the US power status is at the moment, but my point here is not to argue that the US does not have a lot of power. Indeed, it is precisely because the US build up such a large amount of power that it can withstand such incredible levels of corruption without collapsing yet. However, the waste is very evident wherever one looks.
But perhaps that would be best to discuss in a new thread.
Quoting Tzeentch
Unless your position has changed, I don't view my portrayal as a strawman.
Quoting Tzeentch
Is the main point I'm responding to, which I feel is fair to assess as the US needing Israel to commit a genocide for "strategic reasons", those reasons being solidifying Israel's position (which also the genocide is unlikely to accomplish).
If you're objection is the use of the word "need" in the sense of some sort of categorical need, then I agree that's not what you're saying, but in this case I'm using need in the sense of "need for these strategic reasons" and those reasons being strengthening Israel's position through genocide. My intention was not to connote that you were suggesting the genocide was some sort of US strategic imperative.
My argument is that the US empire is not benefiting at all from the genocide and is in fact greatly harmed by it in various ways. If the US benefits from chaos in the Middle-East generally speaking, which I also disagree with, that is easily achieved without a genocide.
I.e. if your theory was true then it would make sense to say "The US needed Israel to commit a genocide to better secure the latter's borders and so the strategic position of it's proxy would be improved to more optimally contribute to further Imperial machinations".
By 5D chess is a pretty usual lingo to refer to theorizing secret cleverness to what seems like an obvious blunder.
And various Ds of chess is not meant to dismiss such theories as intrinsically ridiculous but rather to stress that if the theory is true then there's really advanced cleverness and subterfuge going on.
Of course where we agree is that the US tacitly approves of the genocide, where we disagree is on this serving US imperial interests or simply Zionist stakeholders within the US elite.
:up:
Quoting boethius
If Washington wants to sow chaos in the Middle-East, a nuclear-armed Israel that fully embraces violent ultranationalism is the perfect vessel to do so.
Genocide and ethnic cleansing, while dooming the Israelis in the long run, are critical steps towards its short-to-medium-term survival as an ultranationalist nation. Since, if it goes down the ultranationalist path (as increasingly seems to be the case) it will soon be at war with various neighbors, at which point the housing millions of possible partisans within their borders would become a critical strategic vulnerability.
In other words, Washington doesn't need Israel to commit a genocide, but it doesn't exactly have a reason to stop it either. If anything it means they might get more use out of their proxy before it eventually kicks the bucket.
Damage to US reputation/prestige is the price to pay, but if we are entering the prelude to global conflict, that really isn't all that significant.
PS: I would be exceedingly careful with ascribing the label "obvious blunder" to the actions of great powers.
People incorrectly interpret the actions of great powers all the time, as was for example the case with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which many must have deemed 'an obvious blunder' at the time.
The great powers' chess game is vastly superior to ours.
My litmus test for this is whether or not the great power in question shows signs of backtracking, or instead continues to double down. In the case of the US we see them continuously double down on 'obvious blunders' - in my view a clear indicator that they may not be blunders after all.
But again, Israel committing a genocide isn't needed for this. There's plenty of ultra-violent groups in the Middle East already completely willing and able to cause further chaos for the right price, training, equipment and a large amount of intelligence.
Even if the US plan is to completely collapse the Middle-East and stop the flow of oil to harm all its competition (except for Russia ... that was imperative to defeat literally a monty ago) genocide doesn't help.
Indeed, it would be far easier to escalate to a regional war without the genocide. Currently Israel's retaliation planning against Iran is frustrated precisely because of the genocide their would-be-Arab-allies against Iran are making their position clear that their airspace and US hosted bases can't be used in strikes against Iran ... which considering Israel has no other option than to fly over Arab countries to strike Iran that's really not convenient (of course they can fly over anyways, but it's still not convenient if this causes further diplomatic tensions of violating sovereignty of would-be-allies).
Without the genocide the pathway to war with Iran would be far clearer: battle Hamas, escalate with Hezbollah, play the victim far better, claim Iran's behind everything and trying to destroy Israel and is going for nuclear weapon and therefore needs to be attacked. Without the genocide that would be a powerful narrative, but with the genocide it's simply not believable (and a bit of real genuine belief in your imperial wars goes a long way).
Quoting Tzeentch
I just don't see how this argument works mainly for the reason above that supporting Israel's wars is far easier without the genocide and the genocide doesn't improve any actual strategic conditions.
Had Israel not genocided and instead let food in and avoided blowing up hospitals and schools and mass civilian casualties, the wars it would be so much incredibly easier to support diplomatically within the Arab world and Europe (and also everyone else).
Therefore, if America actually wanted to get into a big war in the Middle-East and wanted Israel to escalate things until the US had to intervene and attack Iran, then a deal would be struck pretty quickly that Israel play its part in this US plan (which Israel would be completely over the moon over). A key part of such a plan would be to "play by the rules" so that the US can easily portray the Israelis as the victims in need of saving. The Israelis could obviously carry out their genocide at a later date.
Now, if the US only wants Israel to escalate but doesn't intend to intervene with a big war ... well what exactly does this accomplish? Is throwing Lebanon into even greater crisis some major accomplishment?
Quoting Tzeentch
I disagree, even more reason to ensure Israel doesn't commit a genocide if some actual global conflict is about to erupt. The genocide places significant pressure on US alliances which you do actually need when going into a global conflict.
But on that issue we also disagree.
I just don't see the pathway to boot up a legit WW3 in a way that makes sense for America.
They can't actually defeat the other great powers and trying to shutdown global trade entirely just doesn't make any sense. As you've explained many times, the big advantage of the US is in its Navy to control global trade, but in order to leverage that to its advantage global trade must be happening.
Countries wouldn't all totally collapse but would figure out how best to survive in a US global trade embargo, and then figure out how to trade and it's not clear to me how the US could maintain such a global trade embargo. US and China can already trade over land and such an overtly aggressive move would bring countries together to deal with it.
Then there's the effect of such a global trade embargo in the US. How does this move get sold to the US?
There's of course intensifying competition between the great powers and I that will continue, but my point here is I don't see how it can get so extreme as for the genocide not to matter, diplomacy in the Middle-East simply not matter, neither public opinion in Europe and elsewhere.
Quoting Tzeentch
Again, this is where we disagree.
Supporting a genocide in today's world is an obvious strategic blunder in terms of geopolitics.
Likewise escalating the war in Ukraine was an obvious blunder.
Likewise getting into long wars in the Middle-East.
Likewise destroying the empires finances.
Likewise offshoring critical production.
Likewise a lot of things are obvious blunders in terms of geopolitical strategy.
As I've spent sometime explaining, elites cohere and are disciplined in the ascendancy of empire but once corruption sets in then incompetence reigns supreme (from imperial maintenance point of view and of course not transferring trillions of dollars of public money to private hands points of view).
Lastly, if the US did actually instigate some sort of global trade collapse on the theory that it will be the strongest party standing, countries would be forced to fight back against this embargo and start sinking US ships. Again, just not clear how this is supposed to strategically work ... and then what's the end game? To just maintain this global trade embargo indefinitely?
For, getting back to the Middle-East, the region is already super fragmented and nowhere close to some sort of regional integration to act as a land-trade-corridor, so the only purpose of increasing the chaos even further would be to collapse the entire Middle East oil economy as a move in some global war.
Again, don't need genocide to do that, but if that's the objective exactly how long is this global economic collapse supposed to last and why would the US expect to come out the victor? Seems more probable that the world would react by everyone agreeing they need to get the US out of their affairs.
And I ask these questions as I'm genuinely curious.
I also have zero problem believing that US neocons would want to do exactly such a thing, I just don't see the pathway; just as they've wanted to attack Iran for decades but just never found the actual pathway, so if there was an actual pathway available then that would be persuasive, I just don't see one. What's step 2 after embargo China?
Lived like a rat, died like a rat.
I'm sure the US has made peace with that fact decades ago, which is why US support for Israel remains unchanged no matter how many American bombs fall on hospitals and refugee camps.
Quoting boethius
That isn't necessarily true.
Iran is the target here, and there is no other proxy that could destabilize Iran.
Quoting boethius
The Americans are not going to get directly involved in this war if they can help it. They are going to stay on the sideline and have the Israelis do their dirty work, just like they use the Ukrainians to fight the Russians.
Quoting boethius
Does it?
I'm seeing some hand-wringing, strongly-worded letters, etc.
Is there any chance of alliances dissolving over US support for Israel? I see no sign of that, to be honest. As far as I can tell, they're getting away with it.
Quoting boethius
You may view these as 'obvious blunders', but to me they are not obvious at all.
The US is doing quite well, all things considered. The ones who are paying the price are the Ukrainians, the Europeans, soon it will be the Israelis too, but the Americans are safe on their island, with their economy doing largely fine.
Finally, I believe it is the US that has a vested interest in pressing the issue when it comes to global conflict.
With Russia, China and Iran in an alliance with each other, the Eurasian continent is dangerously united. This creates an economic base that the US simply cannot compete with in the long run.
In other words, the status quo favors BRICS, so it is basically up to the US to throw a wrench in the wheel which most-likely will be in the form of global, large-scale conflict.
Release the people who were stolen from Israel and Bibi will stop.
Yes if Hamas were to release the hostages I'd expect there to be a ceasefire. Gaza is not really that historically important to the Jews,
But then you'd want to negotiate with the ultranationalists to delay their genocide the time to attack whoever needs to be attacked.
There is no strategic path in which genocide is necessary nor conducive.
Quoting Tzeentch
Your argument has been premised on the US imperial goal being avoiding regional integration and so becoming a land corridor, attacking Iran is not necessary to avoid this regional integration.
Furthermore, Israel isn't destabilizing Iran either and can't really wage war on Iran. It could nuke Iran as we've already discussed but that doesn't require a genocide and you're position on Israel using nukes is that would be too high a diplomatic cost (but not for genocide?).
As far as attacking Iran goes, as mentioned we've been hearing the neocon reasons for this being important for decades but no actual pathway has ever been presented for how you actually go about attacking Iran.
Quoting Tzeentch
It definitely does. This genocide is broadcast to the entire world and the muslim world in particular which has some 2 billion people.
The whole "soft power" thing is actually pretty important to conduct imperial business, as it's only soft power that actually scales globally, whereas actually using hard power "unscales" global power to focus it on a particular spot, which can definitely then get destroyed but there's a limit to how many wars can be waged simultaneously.
As for alliances dissolving, this can definitely happen in the Middle-East, Türkiye, but diplomatic costs are more just making things more difficult to negotiate across the globe. The whole prestige thing really does matter a lot.
Now, Israel will "get away" with the genocide to the extent that no one can intervene due to the US protecting Israel, but this is at a massive diplomatic cost to the US and not really the world shrugging off the genocide. People are pretty mad about it, including as mentioned nearly 2 billion muslims.
Already this has had some pretty notable effects such as Houthis effectively controlling the Red Sea (and willing to be bombed due to their actions supporting Palestine).
Quoting Tzeentch
We're talking about the US empire, which is its hegemonic influence outside its borders.
Now, if the grand strategy you're talking about at the end of the day is just the US spoiling as much of the rest of the global economy as it retreats into isolationism on their island as you say, that's simply accepting US imperial decline.
If you're argument is the US can essentially burn all it's imperial clout overseas on really stupid policies like fomenting a proxy war in Ukraine, then losing, and going on to enable a genocide in Gaza, after decades of fruitless wars in the Middle-East ... only to come back in with a bang?? and those aren't blunders because the US can withdraw from the whole empire business, there would of course be a lot to discuss on how exactly the US can withdraw (and if US elites are really actually doing that), but all those decisions that lead to imperial withdrawal are anyways clearly blunders as far as the empire goes.
Yes, Ukraine paid far higher a price than America for the war with Russia ... but the important question is what did the US gain? It's not a case here that the US cynically used a proxy to accomplish something. As the RAND paper informs us, the war in Ukraine escalating and the Ukraine's losing would be a setback for US policy and a loss of prestige. Likewise, Europe is supposed to be America's closest allies and harm to your allies harms your empire. Most notably, you don't mention how the Russians (the US rival of concern in the situation, at least nominally) are themselves harmed.
You seem to be basically accepting that all these decisions are blunders, just pointing out that they aren't immediately fatal (which I agree we're not discussing anything that is likely to completely collapse America in the short term, just significant harms to US imperial power) and also pointing out that the US could withdraw to simply being a somewhat normal nation station and still do quite well.
Neither points I'm arguing against. Israel committing a genocide harms US interests but is unlikely to collapse the American empire overnight, much less America as a nation state. As for normal Americans, that they are "doing quite well" is debatable but normal Americans don't benefit much from maintaining the US empire anyways so the empire could go away completely and normal Americans not even really notice in their individuals lives for the most part.
The problem, however, in US imperial decline is that there isn't so obvious a way for US elites to simply give-up the empire, such as Britain giving up on its empire, without severe dislocations at home, mainly due to the finance structure depending on the dollar being an fiat reserve currency, a lot of production being oversees, and a lot of US "real wealth" being in brands that require global market access to be valuable.
Whatever. I admire your innocence, Carlos. :smile:
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Yeah, the conflict has been there for around eighty years, and 42K innocent people have died since the last year, but Gaza is not historically important to the Jews. Fine. It is important to me and a lot of people—fortunately—and we will not let this reality be distorted by narratives and fictional films.
I don't think Israel specifically wants to annex Gaza. I can't imagine Hamas staying in power though. It would be like al-Qaeda ruling a region on the US's border and being allowed to stay in power after 9/11.
If Hamas were to release the hostages it would signal a fundamental change in their approach though.
Quoting javi2541997
This number includes Hamas fighters. We'll never know the true breakdown but I've heard some ~80% of that are Hamas/Hamas associates.
Quoting javi2541997
It's important to me to since within Gaza there are hostages and they keep killing Jews. Israel has also been conducting polio vaccinations in Gaza.
Whatever the case, the Israelis disagree and the Americans don't feel called upon to correct them.
Quoting boethius
Israel has proven capable of assassinating high-profile targets within Iran, and it's likely they are holding back various means at their disposal for when shit truly hits the fan.
So personally I would not underestimate Israel's capability to hurt and/or destabilize Iran in significant ways, even without the nuclear option.
If things were to come to global conflict, I believe Israel may use nuclear weapons on Iran.
Quoting boethius
I think the onus is on you to provide clear indications of this diplomatic cost.
So far, I'm not seeing it.
When countries start putting their money where their mouth is, and impose tangible costs on Israel or the United States, I might change my mind.
Quoting boethius
This is true, but I think the signal from Israel is that they are definitively abandoning rapprochement (and thus embracing conflict - as good ultranationalists do) - probably because they now believe it was never feasible to begin with.
Without a solution to the Palestinian problem, no rapprochement. And any real solution to the Palestinian problem (either a Palestinian state or an end to the apartheid) would be anathema to the Israeli hardliners.
Quoting boethius
The US still has Europe, the Anglosphere and several East-Asian nations like Japan and South-Korea in the palm of its hand.
I think one shouldn't exaggerate the decline of the US empire.
Quoting boethius
Eastern Europe is a vital bottleneck that connects China, via Russia, to Europe over land. (Iran is the other one, remember?)
What the US has done is economically decouple Europe and Russia, and created long-lasting conflict with fertile soil for further escalation.
A forever war in Ukraine is the goal, and it's what they're getting.
In the case of the anticipated global conflict (which may be instigated by the US, or simply turn out to be an inevitability), this serves two purposes: it denies China overland access to European markets, and it involves two potential US rivals, Russia and Europe, in a war with each other.
If only Netanyahu would dare to think like you...
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
I agree that the 42K deaths also include Hamas members. But I think it is disproportionate to bomb them because a large number are Hamas friendly. Imagine if we ever bombed the Basque Country because there were sympathizers who voted for the political party. I think it is important to distinguish the targets: Hamas terrorists and then Hamas political members that defend some ideas, but they might not do terrorism.
Apart from that, what about the 20% left? That's 8,400 deaths. Are they just collateral victims who had bad luck and were in the worst place?
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
I think it is relevant to both sides of this terrible conflict, but I don't know to what extent Gaza is not historically important to Israeli.
A better comparison would be if there was a hardline Islamist party in a province of Spain that sought to conquer Madrid and impose hardline Islamic rule on Spain. In their charter, Hamas insists on capturing Jerusalem and making the land muslim. Hamas leadership repeatedly affirms that all of modern day Israel is "occupied Palestine" -- Muslim land. It all comes down to religion and control. The muslims feel aggrieved because the land was once theirs, but before it was theirs it was the Jewish homeland and the land where Jewish identity was born. And Jerusalem is the Jews most important holy site. (I believe Jerusalem is #3 for the muslims.) Hamas demands what is non-negotiable.
edit: Some muslims have come to terms with Israel's existence and accept it, but many, especially palestinians, do not. I can understand how it's a slight for them though.
Quoting javi2541997
Their loss is tragic but the US killed many more in Afghanistan. Such things happen in war. It is unfortunate that Hamas does not allow civilians into their bomb shelters and hordes supplies.
Apparently Bibi is now saying the war isn't yet over because they have to get the hostages out, which is why he is continuing to reject a ceasefire deal that does both at the same time.
And now if HAMAS kills all of the remainimg hostages in retaliation for taking out the terrorist Sinwar, do you expect the war criminal Netanyahu to agree to an immediate ceasefire in Gaza? :shade:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9-_nvSbEo8 - New Bibi speech today on Sinwar's death.
tldw two conditions for peace
i) return of hostages.
ii) Hamas lays down its arms and stops fighting.
Fine. Afterwards, he would say that war is not yet over because Lebanon and Gaza are a threat to their security standards; Iran is 'funding' them, and they have to do something because they are surrounded by evil enemies. I can't see an end to this conflict.
Well that's exactly my point, genocide against the Palestinians is an Zionist-Israeli interest, not a US imperial interest (not to say US imperial custodians wouldn't commit genocide if they thought it was in US interest to do so, and I would say they have done so on many occasions), and Israel is not giving anything to the US in exchange for cover for the genocide ... but it's the US that is paying Israel for the privilege of being party to genocide!
The theory that these events are best explained by some cryptic geopolitical strategic calculations no one has ever heard about is certainly "possible" but has no evidence for it.
The theory that these events are explained by Zionists being a major faction of US imperial primary beneficiaries and have the leverage to control US policy on this policy point has extremely well documented evidence supporting it.
Quoting Tzeentch
There's no evidence that high profile assassinations are of any help, that's why the world mostly abandoned the practice (if it "worked" we'd see way more of it) with mostly just the US and Israel continuing it, and not because there's any evidence that it helps but I would argue it is mostly just ego service to those in power: i.e. it is withdrawing US imperial capital to make US imperial primary beneficiaries "feel good".
But we do now agree that nuclear weapons will likely be used.
However, again, if the US wanted Israel to nuke Iran they would quickly strike a deal with Israel to follow a CIA script to build up to nuking Iran, and my main point here is that we are not witnessing some US imperial lead plan, which is another indication in itself of US imperial decline.
Israel is flexing its ability to commit genocide, commit terrorism, assassinate the leaders of its enemies, and flexing its influence over US policy to be paid handsomely to do so. This all makes the US empire look more weak and hypocritical and untrustworthy than it already did while stoking immense animosity.
If you believe it's only Israel that's clever enough to commit terrorism at scale we'll just have to wait and see.
Quoting Tzeentch
Definitely true, but becoming despised by 2 billion people (in addition to significant anger in the rest of the world) and validating what their most extreme voices have been saying all along (... because it turns out those extreme views were 100% correct all along) is not good long term strategy.
Seems to me more prophecy based delusion (and helping Netanyahu' personally) than the result of any sort of rational strategic planning process.
Quoting Tzeentch
"Has them" to do what?
And how exactly does it "have them"?
When I have time I'll make a new thread detailing my theory of US imperial decline, within a more general theory of imperial decline generally speaking, but defining feature and also the whole point of empire is to extract value from a periphery into an imperial core, but to make a few brief points perhaps worth considering:
Countries do not need to turn hostile to the US in order to stop transferring de facto tribute in one form or another.
The cost of maintaining the Empire must be less than the value of the mentioned tribute for the empire to be sustainable.
These resource flows "are the empire" not the imperial military.
The imperial military can do little in the face of imperial fiscal mismanagement which is what takes down most empires and is a process usually driven by corruption due to the interests of imperial primary beneficiaries falling out of alignment with the interest of the empire as such.
The effect on a small scale is when criminals cooperate to pull off a heist but then turn on each other the moment the loot is boosted. Their interests align in the phase of wealth accumulation but then diverge once wealth accumulation reaches an apex, after which the benefits of competition with ones fellow thieves for the available resources outweighs the benefits of further collaboration.
Trump v Harris represents this phenomenon on a large scale of different imperial elite coalitions competing for control of the imperial financial and resource flows.
The "civil" era people opine for when politicians were "friends at the end of the day" and could "work together" and so on represented the situation where thieves collaborate to organize and pull off the heist.
You're basic error in evaluation, if I may (which I definitely will), is in considering the US imperial power in static absolute terms: it's still very high and so you are not worried.
Of course, power in absolute static terms is of course very relevant, but what is also relevant in the direction things are going.
The dynamics of a complex system in decline are usually non-linear (and by "usual" one can read near infinitely likely), meaning: effects can be small at first and then rapidly accelerate, point-of-no-returns can be hidden and impossible to find regardless of the amount of information you could possibly collect on the system, and processes pushed beyond a threshold of stability tend to interact with other processes and amplify one another in unpredictable ways.
Perhaps consider you are too focused on a static analysis of the situation that extracts geopolitical strategy from real political situations and dynamics (such as corruption so "baked in" it is essentially impossible to reverse without a catastrophic collapse event).
I.e. your analysis is accurate to taking the geopolitical situation and transposing it to a game with each player controlling a country, in which case the US is in a quite good position and can do many things to manage Russia and China. This point of view is easy to fall into as the usual way of talking about geopolitics is "US declared this" and "China wants to do that" which implies some sort of unitary agency to entire countries.
However, I believe a famous person once said that a house divided against itself is a bungalow. Keep doing that and eventually what you have is a hotel for rats.
US elites could get their act together and make plenty of rational moves but the reality is that they won't. People (especially Western people) often place as weird confidence in corruption in that corrupt people will of course maintain the system from which they extract value (basically pushing the myth of profit maximization implying asset care, which is not true, to an absurd even less true limit), but the reality is that the more a system starts to degrade the more corrupt parties focus on extracting as much value from it before it collapses as possible. Someone thieving in a building that catches on fire simply hurries up their thieving rather than fight the fire to thieve it better later.
Quoting Tzeentch
As the RAND paper explains, it only works if Russia doesn't simply win ... which they are likely to do as the RAND paper explains.
We can continue this in the other thread, but a forever war is only sustainable against an insurgency and I would argue not sustainable in high intensity conventional warfare that exists in Ukraine currently.
Quoting Tzeentch
Now, unlike this Israeli genocide, I agree that Ukraine is born from some basic strategic framework, but the primary motivation is not that framework but rather selling weapons and gas to Europe, private interest in buying Ukrainian land on the cheap, deflecting from failure in Afghanistan and from US high level corruption in Ukraine and short term propaganda wins generally speaking, mixed in with general neocon delusional psychopathy.
It is not a "good move" if Ukraine collapses and the whole thing becomes quite clearly a Western debacle, that the US is not "for as long as it takes" and "whatever it takes" in supporting its "friends", that Russian weaponry was perfectly adequate if not superior, the West has no information or technological superiority that translates to determining battlefield gains, massive drain on arm stocks, and so on. A result that was predictable, and predicted by the US's own imperial analysts, before the war started.
The Russians winning means "Russia beat the West" and the Russians can go around credibly asserting that if parties join up with them and China that they "know how to deal with the Americans".
Before this war, people would need to include far more uncertainty in dealing with America as the military, information, covert and economic (i.e. sanctions) capabilities were not exactly clear (what they were exactly and if they could be dealt with). People will reasonably conclude that if the Americans had some super capability to deal with Russian air power, deal with Russian armour, deal with Russian intelligence, deal with Russian electronic warfare, deal with Russian sanctions proofing/skirting, then certainly they would have.
So the result is that you have Russia that can credibly say they are able to "deal with those Americans" partnered with China that can credibly say they have the finance and industrial capacity, all in a system that is already proven to be immune to sanctions, and this lowers the threshold considerably for countries joining in a Russian and China system and reducing tribute to the US in whatever forms they were accustomed to doing.
This global effect on changing the leverage and incentive positions of a large proportion of international actors far outweighs the control or disruption of specific trade roots. Countries that want to will find a way to trade with each other and that can't be disrupted or prevented over the long term (without conquering those countries, which the US is not in a position to go around doing on a global scale: for every Ukraine or Afghanistan or Lybia that becomes a focus of Imperial aggression, there are dozens of other countries in the system, either paying tribute to the US or then going and doing something else).
To summarize my rebuttal:
I'm saying "this plane is definitely going down" and your reply is "well we still have a lot of fuel so can't be that bad".
We actually agree that the plane is definitely going down, however I think a better representation of our arguments is "Plan vs. No plan", and to that end I've tried to repeatedly point out that there is clear continuity in US policy over the course of decades, both with regards to Ukraine and Iran.
A continuity that is in line with geopolitical theories like for example Heartland theory by Mackinder and Geographical Pivot theory by Brzezinski.
I view that continuity as a clear indicator of a wider strategy, and the idea that the US has operated on the basis of complex geopolitical strategies is not a difficult argument to make considering its history of achieving, maintaining and defending hegemony, and continuously outmanoeuvring geopolitical rivals and unfortunate assets.
Though I did read it, I don't have the time nor energy to respond to your full post. If we could narrow the discussion down to one or two subjects that would be neat.
... And neither do Americans.
In this case, we are pretty close in overall position.
However, my view is simply "there is a plan" is too strong wording. I think more accurate terminology is there is a framework for discussing plans that derives from dry geopolitical analysis of the kind you mention.
My position is that what plans actually get implemented, what decisions and policies the US government actually makes, are heavily affected by corruption as to make the moves incoherent on closer inspection. This incoherence is due to the primary motivation of various moves being extracting value from the Empire rather than trying to maintain it.
These other priorities of elite decision makes will be mediated through discussions nominally just about "geopolitics as usual" and "serious analysis" but without genuine engagement with any long term coherent thought process concerning what the interests of the US empire actually are.
For example, we go from abandoning Afghanistan and "fighting for democracy" there to a discourse of fighting for democracy in Ukraine as the most important thing to ever happen and Putin is literally Hitler and a genocidal maniac ... to supporting an actual genocide in Gaza!?
... and then escalate to regional war with Iran ... which the whole point of abandoning Afghanistan was that Iran was no longer such a big priority and the region generally, time to pivot to East-Asa.
All in the span of 3 years.
Add into that blowing up critical infrastructure of key allies, going from decades of the war on terror to now conducting state terrorism openly is ok and actually super clever if you kill some enemies in their living rooms with their families, running low of ammunition after decades of outspending essentially the rest of the world on the military for decades (where'd the money go??) and so on.
Yes, there is a planning framework that decisions and policies are hung on, but the incoherence is best explained by corruption: Afghanistan was about transferring wealth to military contractors and only nominally about something about Iran, and Ukraine about deflecting from the Afghanistan disaster while continuing to transfer a large amount of wealth to military contractors (and get blackjack in there and burry Biden family corruption in Ukraine by literally destroying the country), and then Zionists are further taking advantage of a weak Imperial centre to conduct a genocide which they've always wanted to do and perhaps feel now or never in reading the same tea leaves we are reading.
I.e. the characteristic feature of an empire in decline is elites transferring Imperial wealth to themselves, poor decision making and other misuses of the empire for elite personal aspirations (toxic elite "infighting" of one form or another).
Quoting Tzeentch
Sure, everyone has a plan.
The main point I'm trying to make is we're in a phase where the top elites, what I refer to as the Imperial primary beneficiaries, have personal plans that are more important to them than the interests of the empire.
Which is exactly what your reference strikes at the heart of, that individuals can have plans widely at odds with whatever official plans exist.
When an empire is on the ascendency there is strategic alignment between a dominant majority of Imperial elites, due to both external threats and the prospect of imperial booty of one form or another.
A near universal feature of imperial decline is strategic misalignment between Imperial elites and the interests of the empire, which leads to corruption and elite conflict.
The continuity of policy can represent the continuity of strategic thinking, as you say, but it can also represent the continuity of elite interests who only dress the policies up as serving some strategic purpose.
Corruption usually goes to some length to dress itself up as legitimate.
Who would believe that bullshit, right? Well, as it turns out a lot of people continue to believe that bullshit. Propaganda is a powerful thing.
And if we're honest, how is Gaza any different from the de facto and actual genocides the US has perpetrated and supported, like those in Vietnam, East-Timor and the Middle-East, with casualty figures running into the millions?
It's crazy, but they continue to get away with it. I can't blame the Americans for thinking they'll get away with it again.
I'm open to the possibility that they won't - times are changing - but that will require US assets from putting their money where their mouth is. No sign of that so far. Just "Oooh"ing and "Aaah"ing.
Quoting boethius
Iran and Afghanistan are part of the same geographical region, so in my opinion this is not so strange.
Afghanistan has been wrecked, while Iran is now threatening to jump the gun on US intervention.
So the switch makes sense, and again I see continuity.
I would also point out that Ukraine and Iran both play vital roles in that they connect China to the rest of the world - they may very well be part of the 'pivot to Asia', in that they directly relate to US strategy vis-á-vis China.
Quoting boethius
Yep. It's all bullshit.
I'm as surprised as you are that people keep falling for this shit, but alas here we are.
By bombing Nord Stream the US has rolled out a plan that has been in place since at least 2014, of transfering European energy dependency from Russia to the US.
And the US has succeeded. Germany and the rest of Europe took it like a bitch. The US reaps the benefits.
Quoting boethius
Maybe this is true, but I will believe it only when the US empire is definitively put in the trashbin of history. Until that happens, history shows they're way too dangerous to underestimate.
Agreed. No qualms from me on that one.
Quoting Tzeentch
Definitely, why I stressed genocide is not something American imperial custodians are against per se, just that this particular genocide doesn't serve US imperial interests.
Main difference is that this genocide is being broadcast live and there's also no plausible deniability, muddy the waters, kind of usual bullshit people easily swallow as you mention above. Israeli officials literally just get up on podiums and declare their intention to starve the Palestinians, that rape is ok, that they're animals, that children are just future terrorists and must be killed etc.
Normally you have clear evidence of mass murder on the one hand and a long winded plausible deniability bullshit narrative on the other and most people are then like "huh, who's to say what happened".
Quoting Tzeentch
But they didn't!
The famous child burning photograph turned public opinion against the war, massive protests, huge cultural change.
It was so shocking to American elites that they did not in fact get away with it, they wanted to "win the war", that they completely reorganized the military, and in particular the draft, in order to be sure not to be bothered by public opinion in subsequent wars they will want to wage.
Of course, US remained a superpower and the threat of the Soviet Union was still current and so on and there were plenty of "rational" parties involved in US politics at the time.
For example, in 1975 you not only have the end of the Vietnam war but also the Churchill committee that investigated the CIA (for the first and only time). That no one was held accountable represents the fact corruption wins out over democracy basically in a process that continues to this day getting more and more corrupt all the time, but the fact the investigation happened at all represents things were on a knifes edge. It could have easily gone another way.
Quoting Tzeentch
Well there's two forms of getting away with it.
There's the "getting away with it" in terms of not being held accountable for law breaking and incompetence, starting a war on fabricated intelligence and lying to congress and the public and so on, and then "getting away with it" in terms of wasting the Imperial capital stocks of one form or another doesn't exactly collapse the empire and there is plenty left still to loot.
Soviet elites "got away with it" in both sense for quite some time and continued to "get away with it" in the various former Soviet republics.
Of course, if the US Imperial tributes suffers enough then there could be elite re-alignment to fix things, such as we saw with the re-ascendency of Russia under Putin, of which the key element was Putin putting in place a system of elite discipline (that is the key to play the geopolitical game coherently which Putin definitely understood from day 1; of course, who knows what will happen once he's gone if he's the linchpin in this strategic alignment).
Quoting Tzeentch
Did Afghanistan really need to be wrecked? Was the Taliban building some cutting edged economic centre and I just missed it?
But my point was if you really want a war with Iran how do you geographically go about doing that without Afghanistan or Iraq?
So you really need to war game this out in detail. Obviously there's no actual plan to invade Iran, the best that can be done is a lot of chaos which would shut down oil exports from the region and (maybe collapse is too strong a word but) basically "not goodify" the global economy, seriously pissing off everyone in particular China. Is the expectation that China just accepts loss of oil imports from the Middle-East (and a lot of other people too)? Is Europe super happy about this?
There's the critical need of the oil, the super bad press of Israel committing a genocide, so how does the US maintain a forever war in the Middle-East between Iran and Israel without a coalition forming big enough to intervene?
Don't get me wrong, I do get the basic geopolitical idea of crashing the rest of the global economy and then sitting pretty in North America ... but how do you actually go about doing that?
Life ... finds a way.
As otherwise, the disruption must be only acute the time to accomplish some terminal objectives, such as invading and occupying Iran, which you'd definitely want to be in Afghanistan and Iraq to actually go about actually doing (which there is zero indication that the US can do, even when it was in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even less indication that the US is actually preparing to do such a thing).
Quoting Tzeentch
US elites reap benefits from harming Europe and forcing Europe to buy US gas.
The US empire benefited from a strong Europe. The whole reason the US can abuse European allies to begin with is that they are such diehard allies. They were far more useful to US imperialism with vibrant economies that can help balance against China.
The reasons to "take out" Europe are only sensical due to previous US imperial mismanagement, such as removing the Euro as competition for the dollar ... which only makes sense to do if you've already greatly mismanaged the dollar ... and doesn't actually solve the fundamental issues so only delays the day of financial reckoning.
Cannibalizing allies is again a sign of imperial decline.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yes, we shall definitely see.
However, just like Russia has gone through many phases of Imperial expansion and decline, and the corruption and discipline of each phase, and China for even longer, so too can America go through it's first imperial decline and reemerge later.
The great powers rarely just "go away" completely since the globalized international system started to form.
What's different now is nuclear weapons and environmental limits.
Either, or both, will kill billions of people in our lifetime. Which is unfortunate.
One could make the prediction that this will be the straw that finally breaks the camel's back.
Not an altogether unreasonable prediction, but at the same time I don't think it's obvious enough to take it as proof of US incompetence.
Quoting boethius
The US suffered strategic defeat in Vietnam and had to pay a price, but did it take responsibility for the millions of innocent dead it caused, and the effects of chemical warfare that last up until this day?
I'll let you be the judge, but in my opinion Vietnam vets paid the worst price, and the US itself largely got away with it.
Quoting boethius
Of course.
Afghanistan connects Russia and China to India.
Can't have the continental powers developing land-based trade relations on Uncle Sam's watch now can we?
Quoting boethius
The plan isn't so much crashing the global economy. The plan is, if things were to come to blows with China, to be able to cut off its land-based trade by sowing chaos in the bottlenecks that connect it to the rest of the world.
China is connected to Europe via Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Iran. It's connected to India via Pakistan and Bangladesh.
What do we see in all these regions? Long-standing US involvement.
Quoting boethius
Emphasis on the past tense.
When the Soviet Union was the big bad, the US empire benfitted from a strong Europe.
Today however Europe is unlikely to get directly involved in a war with the new big bad, China. In fact, a strong Europe would likely be able to slip US influence if it got into a war with China, and actually be able to benefit from the conflict. That's why Europe is now treated as a potential rival and no longer as an actual ally.
Not only that, but Europe can also potentially function as a critical market that can keep the Chinese economy afloat after its sea-based trade is cut off - this is why the disruption of Chinese-European trade routes is a fundamental part of US Eurasian strategy.
Europe's position in relation to the US empire fundamentally changed after the Cold War ended, and the Europeans were too slow the realize.
"Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty" - J. Goebbels.
Straight from the Goebbel's playbook.
Not a word from you on the widespread sexual abuse of 10/7 hostages and victims as well as the general rape culture that pervades the Islamic world. Not a word from you on the genocidal intentions of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. Now go run along and be a good propagandist for the likes of Putin, Assad and Iran. :vomit:
There is no genocide; only the resurfacing of blood libels when Israel responds to the murder of 1200 of its own and the taking of hundreds of hostages (as any nation would). How dare they react.
Population figures simply do not support the idea of a genocide.
Yes, how dare they react to legitimate resistance to occupation by committing genocide.
Yeah, tit for tat, mate. How does the does the Gaza population dare to think of revenge in the long term? Prepare for the next generations of young Hamas fighters.
In calling the deliberate murder and rape of civilians "legitimate resistance" you only expose your own moral bankruptcy.
If that isn't wrong then neither is genocide.
We saw white flags over Jabaliya after Sinwar's death -- perhaps peace is on the horizon. It appears Israel has finally broke them and peace is at hand. Success emboldens them more than failure.
The only rape in all these events that's actually proven is the Israelis raping prisoners on camera.
How do you explain that?
Ah yes ...
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Learn to condemn murder.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
:100:
And given Israel's conduct it's not the only lesson they're taking from the Nazi playbook.
Carlos, your optimism is—let's say— outstanding.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Yeah! Thanks Israel!
No... Let's get back to reality. Sinwar was a terrorist and the main objective of Israel since October 7th. The deaths of him —and Nasrallah in Lebanon— make the belligerent groups a bit dizzy and forsaken. But this is not over yet. Hamas will name another leader; the Gaza people are thirsty for revenge. You told me yesterday that around 80% of the population of Gaza is Hamas friendly or associated. Israel chopped the log but not the roots. While we are discussing here, I bet they are already reorganising themselves. It is pretty dreamy to think that peace comes by killing and destroying.
Start with the basic premise: Does the current government recognise Palestine as a sovereign state? No! Right? Then, the conflict will remain.
Whether UNIFIL is successful or not isn't the question here. It's attacking UN blueberets. It's just shows how absolutely reckless Netanyahu has come.
Formation of the Hezbollah was the result of the last occupation of Lebanon. That in itself shows how obvious this is.
In an intelligent debate this would be obvious, but policy has been hijacked by ideology and propaganda, where the leaders themselves are believing their own propaganda. Bibi and his administration has morphed into a wartime cabinet. Now before Israel and the IDF made limited military strikes, but those did go hand in hand with foreign policy and basically were peace-time operations. Now once the military has been totally mobilized (and demobilized partly for the economy not to tank totally), the threshold of military actions has severely been reduced.
If the earthquake in a region where a testing site is would have been a nuclear explosion, although it could have been also eathquake (as there are earthquakes in Iran). Yet if it was, the absolute silence in Israel (except the Jerusalem Post) and in the US would be totally in line with how historically the US (and the West) reactions of the past.
When North Korea made it's first nuclear experiment and the tremors were noticed in an area where there's no earthquakes usually, the reaction was to play down it was a possibly a conventional explosion or in any case a failed test. And latter nuclear tests haven't made any outcry. With silence the North Korean nuclear arsenal has been building up.
Naturally this is speculation, but if Iran did make a nuclear test, it will be now frantically building it's meager nuclear deterrent and decentralized the weapon systems. As Iran and Israel are basically at war with each other (even if both sides really don't want to look it that way), then this would be the logical time for Iran to go through with it's nuclear weapons program. Anymore the "ability to make a bomb" isn't credible deterrence for Iran. And the rockets of Hezbollah aren't either, as Netanyahu has opted to destroy Hezbollah and invade Lebanon.
So that would leave Iranians with the attempt to have some kind of nuclear balance with Israel. Naturally this means that Saudi-Arabia or UAE could also decide to have nuclear weapons, if Iran goes public with it's nuclear deterrence. Yet also if Iran has a nuclear deterrent, even small one, it can also get a more aggressive. Which actually it has by now twice attacking Israel. Which in the latter strike the attack has seemed to have gone through... even if naturally the IDF says that the attacks were inneffective.
And Hezbollah (Iran) attacking Bibi's home with a drone in Ceasarea won't likely defuse the situation...
I am curious about that. I think 5 were injured last time I checked. Perhaps a mistake? Fog of war? I don't know. I'd be horrified if Israel viewed the blue berets as valid targets alongside Hezbollah.
Quoting javi2541997
Are you sure about this? Maybe they just want the war to be over and go back to pre-10/7 life. Hundreds of Hamas surrendered today; I think they're getting sick of it.
Now, if they were on the verge of victory things would be different and I'd imagine they'd be highly motivated rather than think "well we're basically victorious, maybe Israel has had enough. Time to take it easy on them!" It seems that victory emboldens and failure discourages (and this applies to the Jews too). Losing top terrorists is discouraging and possibly interpreted as a sign that God is not with them. In Islamic and Jewish theology it is God who grants victory.
Quoting javi2541997
No, I said supposedly a source internal to Hamas said that 80% of the casualties of the Gaza war were Hamas & those close to them. The Palestinians were largely supportive of Hamas but many have become disenchanted after the results of 10/7.
Quoting javi2541997
It sounds strange but this happens time after time in the Middle East. Strength is in that region. God grants victories.
Quoting javi2541997
You are viewing this conflict through a European lens.
Yes, I am very sure about my point. It is dreamy to think that there is a chance to come back to the context prior to October 7th. This date did critical damage to the collective thought and soul of Israel. Like to the Americans in September 11th or here in 2004 Madrid bomb attacks. Do not expect to go back to pre-10/7 life. It looks like it is acceptable to take Sinwar out because he is a terrorist. But this is the way Iran, Lebanon, Gaza, etc. think about Netanyahu. They will keep attempting to take him out. Will you feel safe in a nation whose president is in perpetual thread with their neighbours? Then, this will be another reason for Netanyahu to keep bombing, and this is why I can't see peace in the long term.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
And you are viewing this conflict through a religious lens because:
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
What God?
What religious text? Quran or Talmud?
What prophet? Muhammad or Abraham?
See? This conflict is endless because it always leads to religious differences and hostility. I am right and you are wrong because my holy book says so; don't try to argue why.
I think it's quite obvious that where UNIFIL has stations and observation posts is known to everybody and in the maps. Let's take for example just some of the attacks at UNIFIL troops by the IDF:
And then, six days later:
You really think that a Merkava tanks, with their superb optics and fire control just "accidentally" fire on a marked and known UN watchtower? Fog of war, really? I won't buy the idea that tank crews are so disobedient and reckless that they just themselves decided to fire upon UN installations when they felt like it.
Look, Israel simply tries to intimidate UN forces simply to leave, hence there then would be nobody observing what they do. It's the obvious fact here. Even if nobody listens to what UN says, it's still there as an annoying neutral observer. Besides, there's historical examples of this. In one case in a prior war (if I remember correctly in the Golan Heights) IDF soldiers wanted UN peacekeepers that were Finns to abandon their observation post, which the Finnish blue berets refused to do. As the situation with two armed sides pointing assault rifles at each other was dangerous, the Finns laid down their weapons, but still refused to move. Hence an Israel-Finland wrestling match ensued.
If Trump get's into office, will then the nuclear sites be targeted?
I think the better explanation is that Israel / US simply have no practical way to defeat Iran.
They've been in a delusional driven genocide with constant escalation to try to distract from the Genocide internationally (new enemies to continue to be the victim) and also maintain credibility domestically of being the superior race that can go around killing all their enemies.
Targeted assassinations is massively popular in Israel and also provokes responses that allows Israel to claim to be the victim.
I honestly think the "win" strategy was nuclear weapons but they were simply unable to maintain the delusion level required to followthrough. The spell of invincibility broke between due to Iran's missile attack demonstrating Israeli air defence doesn't work so well (so Iran can cause significant damage conventionally) and also the pentagon simply having no plan to actually defeat Iran (Israel overconfidence likely includes overconfidence in US capacity as well).
Quoting ssu
My bet is that it is in fact the reverse, that Biden is the one 100% captured by the Zionists and they are pushing a max the genocide and attacking everyone else because Biden is president, but there simply a practical limit of how far you can actually go.
When Trump talks about Iran he never mentions a need to attack them but just goes on about how he sanctioned them and they were broke and he kept the price of oil down and they would never dare due anything because he's Trump etc. A major component of Trump's rise to power initially was his calling out the wars in the middle-east as failures as he knew they were unpopular.
Biden's Zionist support is quite clearly due to lobby capture and is super bad for him and Kamala, as an obvious genocide isn't popular with democrats, and Trump has no need to criticize Biden from the left, he can just vaguely claim that Hamas would never have tried anything when he was in power and he's going to solve everything.
Trump's base is pro-Israel so he knows it wouldn't be popular to go anti-Israel but if he was intent on attacking Iran we'd probably know that. Mostly when he talks about the issue it demonstrates he just doesn't know much about any of the Middle-East conflicts and isn't too interested in them: he just claims no one would try anything when he's president and that he bankrupted Iran with the sanctions and keeping the oil price down.
Trump's MO on national security is to escalate rhetoric to appear tough and then be the reasonable person that brings peace with his brilliant negotiation tactics. He was bragging on Joe Rogan that he would bring Bolton, who he called a nut job (accurately) to international diplomatic meetings to scare people and that he used Bolton that way. Now, whether this sort of negotiation tactics are effective or not is one question but what's clear is that despite all Trump's many failings he simply not a warmonger and does stay true to his "businessman persona" or focusing on deals and economics (what he's most excited about is tariffs).
Not that Trump is any friend of the Palestinians, literally using it as an insult, so the genocide may continue, but I find it unlikely that Trump is itching to get into office to escalate unwindable wars in the Middle East. He absolutely loves the Saudis for instance and the Saudis don't want a regional war so he's have plenty of reasons to deescalate and cut deals and claim diplomatic brilliance and that he's saved the lives of all the people over there.
Wheres Biden simply gets slapped down when he tries to "talk back" to Netanyahu, Trump may simply do that and force Netanyahu to deescalate (which the US could easily do).
Most of all, I would guess is what preoccupies Trump's the most is on all his legal battles and nearly being assassinated and so on and he's going to deal with all that, as we've discussed before.
Naturally all the above is guess work as he's highly erratic while also gaining in experience. He no longer has such singular focuses as he did before and also now knows better how the system operates and can be manipulated.
Wheres when he got elected the first time he was easy to predict that he'd just keep being Trump and running is mouth constantly and fighting with the media and constantly tweeting whatever crosses and being extremely naive how the political system actually worked, he has learned a lot since so what he actually plans to do is anyone's guess, but I don't find it likely his focus will be to attack Iran is my main point here.
He did suggest that Israel should attack the nuclear facilities in Iran in response to the Oct 1 attack. Of course that may be him playing politics because he thinks a war with Iran would help him but I just want to throw that out there.
Apart from that I agree that Trump's general aversion to wars will probably discourage Israel from starting a war with Iran since they won't have the ironclad guarantee that Biden would provide that the US would be involved. Of course that same assessment would also mean that entities like China and Russia would be more emboldened to invade places like Taiwan.
Unfortunately I don't see him encouraging Netanyahu to deescalate in Gaza or Lebanon especially if the US doesn't have to get involved. Trump is also paid off by folks like Adelson too mind you so probably he'll be transactional in matters like the West Bank.
The UN sat by for years while Hezbollah constructed terror installations when it was in the UN's deliberate mission to disarm them. They were suppose to neutralize that zone. Instead, they built their installations very close to Hezbollah military sites (or vice-versa, Hezbollah built their sites close to the UN sites knowing they were safe and that if Israel targeted them it would be right near a UN site.)
When you allow known terror groups to build their installations within meters of yours you are not a neutral party. The UN has not been neutral in this conflict: There are 57 Muslim nations in the UN and 1 Jewish one who is disproportionately scapegoated. Israel has by far the most UN resolutions against it when there are many nations that are worse. Going purely by the UN though, Israel is apparently the worst nation on Earth. UN neutrality is a myth.
Quoting ssu
:rofl:
My basic point is that he's free to criticize Biden for not being "tough enough" as red meat to his base without having any actual intention to attack Iran. If elected he's then free to claim there was a perfect time to attack Iran but the weak Biden missed it.
Quoting Mr Bee
Agreed.
Quoting Mr Bee
Definitely possible. I'm definitely not arguing the genocide would stop under Trump, just that I find it unlikely he'll attack Iran. However, Trump being erratic and also loving good press, he may see forcing Israel to let aid in Gaza as an easy win.
Where "deals" may occur is that Israel maybe forced to deescalate anyways if it has no further possibilities of escalating and then Trump takes credit for that. I didn't make that so clear in my post above, but I didn't mean to imply that Trump would actually be the direct cause of deescalation in this scenario, just that if it happens he'll take credit for it. He would nevertheless be the indirect cause of deescalation due to being unwilling to escalate. Permanent war with Hezbollah with the US Israel may simply be forced to accept is unsustainable.
It's unclear to me what hard influence the Israeli lobby has over Trump so maybe he can be just paid off as you say, but perhaps not.
However, my main thesis here is that Israel / US simply has no practical pathway to defeat Iran without nuclear weapons and Israel is forced to deescalate not by Biden but by the Pentagon making clear they simply just go casually defeat Iran, then the deescalation would happen due to not having an option to escalate further. Which if that happens Trump will simply claim it was because of him.
The reason to escalate as far as possible now while Biden is present, try to "finish the final solution job", would be, even if Trump can simply be bought, to simply avoid needing to do that. Escalating as far as possible now and then deescalating (whether it is Trump or Harris that wins) is simply cheaper than needing to cut a deal with the next president, whether Trump or Harris.
He's probably not knowingly gonna do something that will be akin to starting a war, but I can't definitively rule out him being duped into it. He was convinced to assassinate Soleimani after all. The Iranians will do all they can to avoid escalation but as we see with the Israeli's constant provocation they can be moved to retaliate and who knows where that will go.
Quoting boethius
I mean he has been paid off by people like Sheldon Adelson and now his wife. He was the one who ripped up the Iran deal, moved the embassy to Jerusalem, and did the Abraham Accords which bypassed the Palestinian issue. Like you said, Trump isn't knowledgeable about the middle east so he could be casually led into agreeing to things that most other presidents won't including Biden.
As a result I don't see him giving a damn about the Palestinians or their plight. His administration would probably pass the responsibility to someone like his son in law Kushner who's made his intentions to build beachfront property on Gaza well known.
Quoting boethius
Biden is still gonna be president for a few more months so yeah the possibility of Israel starting a war with Iran isn't completely out of the question. In fact Netanyahu may be more likely to do it during the lame duck period just so he can tie the next administration's hands. If Netanyahu feels emboldened by a Trump victory to start a war with Iran that would probably be when he'd do it. Would also provide cover for his buddy Trump to pretend like he's some kind of dove too.
I don't disagree but Trump viewed assassinating Soleimani as anyways a good thing that he's super proud of and believes, possibly correctly, people are proud of him for it too, especially his base. Where I'm unsure how easy it is to buy Trump is to do something that would make him unpopular like starting a giant war that can't be won and would also cause a major economic catastrophe sending oil sky high (he's also super proud of keeping oil prices low).
Where Trump is far more interesting than Biden is that his megalomania competes with his propensity for corruption, making him unpredictable.
So, I think we are in agreement that we can't predict either way, and so Israel can't predict either way, whereas Biden and Harris are 100% predictable. However, even Harris would want something, so it's anyways cheaper to get your genocide in before the deadline.
Which is only one explanation of recent events, that we are on a deescalation track and that explains Israel's weak attack on Iran doing nothing what they promised to do and also Israel escalating in Gaza to take advantage of peak tension to distract from the genocide but also not need to spend any further political capital once there's a new president.
Of course, the alternative scenario that Israel is just waiting for the next president, whether Trump or Harris or both, to escalate, is possible but seems to me less likely as I find the better fit to the data is that the Pentagon is simply unable to wage war on Iran in any sensible way and not that Biden would be unwilling to.
Quoting Mr Bee
Definitely Trump participates in these sorts of transactions but all this stuff his base also wanted. His MO is more seeing what his base wants and then maximizing his gains in following through on that.
Trump does have a strange sort of integral loyalty to his base, which is why his base is loyal to him. He is aware that his base is against more wars and he did deliver on that policy during his presidency.
He's going to wheel and deal behind the scenes to maximize his gains, do "good business with the boys" essentially, but I do feel he puts the limit on anything that would visibly upset his base, such as starting a giant war they don't want and would increase the price of oil which they also don't want.
So, totally agree with you that he was easily manipulated during his presidency to setup both further escalation in Ukraine and further escalation in the Middle-east, but also notable the "main events" didn't actually then happen during his presidency. He teed up Biden to hit it out of the park though, genocide and giant war wise.
Quoting Mr Bee
Totally agree here. As mentioned the only reason for Israel to speed things up before the election is to simply avoid needing to negotiate with the next president. Hence, clear Northern Gaza, start settling it under the next president who won't push back on that, whether Trump or Harris, but neither need to "pay more" in one form of political capital or another for further big favours; "go back to normal" as it were. The normal money sent to Israel is controlled by congress anyways so pay days aren't going to stop; the presidency is only needed to control for military operations.
Quoting Mr Bee
Definitely possible. We'll need to wait and see. Trump would definitely encourage that and be like "sleepy Joe has finally woken up!"
The alternative scenario I present is conditioned on deescalation being motivated by simply a lack of means and not motivation; there's a few indications (weak response to Iran, lack of any sensible war plan to defeat Iran, lacklustre performance invading Lebanon, domestic tensions rising in Israel) to support the premise, but it could easily all be a ruse.
As I've been discussing with @Tzeentch, one possibility is the US wants to more-or-less start collapsing the global economy by massive chaos in the various Eurasian "crossroads". @Tzeentch views events in line with this general geopolitical strategy.
My own view is that events are better explained by pursuing such a strategy nominally but the essential character driving US policy being corruption; that US imperial factions are withdrawing capital from the empire (different forms of war profiteering in the case of Ukraine - military, selling gas to Europe, privatizing Ukraine and buying up the farmland, human, drug and arms trafficking - and in the case of Israel all those war profiteering motivations but also, dare I say, "propheteering" in the form of pursuing a delusional apocalyptic Zionist vision); other US elite factions "go along with it" due to inter-elite negotiations, but only up to a limit of threatening their core interests (such as actually collapsing the global economy, in the case of tech elites, or then getting into wars that can't be won, in a bad way and not a good way, such as top Pentagon generals and CIA bureaucrats, who also have say in these negotiations). I.e. geopolitical debate in the US is currently a proxy for discussing and sorting out each elite faction's share of the Imperial pie, resulting in conversation that presents itself as being about "US strategic interests" but is really about which elites are going to get what and which pipers are going to get paid along the way.
Zionists are simply one of many US elite factions in this context getting their pound of flesh.
The fundamental driver of this corruption being that US elite interests diverge from any plausible objective imperial interests as soon as imperial extension reaches a peak (a rising tide no longer lifts all boats) and is greatly accelerated by the removal of an ideological threat to the whole system, such as communism.
Even if you loved the empire, as soon as there's enough US elites that rather maximize their own wealth by withdrawing US political capital (mostly by mismanaging imperial finances), then there is anyways created an elite collective action problem that if you don't defend your position in the troff then someone else will take your place anyways.
I.e. would you either spend your capital on trying to defend some plausible set of US imperial interests ... or spend your capital on getting even more capital and just move to your giant yacht in Singapore with a few backup bunkers sprinkled over the globe on various cool islands, even undersea bases like Sponge Bob Square Pants!, if it all goes tits up?
The rational choice according to US elite's own ideology is to maximize their own individual gains in this situation and not sacrifice a single dollar like a dirty communist for the good of the whole, even if the whole is the glorious empire that they'll cry single tears over saluting the flag in this case and even if the end result of transferring all the means of production to communist China in pursuing individual gains is that communism becomes the dominant force on the planet. "They're not really communists" they tell themselves, if you haven't noticed that refrain.
It is a mathematical certainty that at some point you maximize your gains by withdrawing whatever capital you can from any system you're involved in, rather than pursue the marginal gains of growing that system as a whole. I.e. at some point you maximize your gains as a US elite not by further growth of the Empire but by pursuing decreases in taxes while running up the national debt to transfer to yourself through various corrupt schemes and simply cut deals with other elites to make it happen, all of whom have an interest in doing the exact same thing.
When all is said and done you simply look at rational choice theory and pat yourself on the cock.
It's not a matter of him being bought off to outright start a war which I agree he wouldn't do if the option was explicitly presented to him. However there are plenty of escalatory actions that the guy may not know is escalatory. I'm talking about him accidentally putting Iran in a position where they put Trump in a position to start a war. Perhaps he could be told that assassinating a top Iranian general in the middle of Tehran like Israel did when they killed Nasrallah would be a good idea, with assurances from Netanyahu that this definitely wouldn't get the Iranians to retaliate in a major way. He could very well be paid off to do something like that, as he was when he moved the embassy to Jerusalem.
Quoting boethius
He can snub his base all he wants and they will still suck up to him. He was supposed to "drain the swamp" but his major piece of legislation was a tax cut to the rich. He was supposed to get Mexico to pay for the wall but shut down the government because congress wouldn't fund it. He was supposed to bring back jobs to the Midwest, which ironically enough happened under Biden. None of that matters.
There is nothing that he can't brush off with his usual bullshit. We unfortunately live in a political environment where substance doesn't matter which explains the current campaigns going on right now. His base currently supports him because they think he will bring down prices, but his economic plans include a 20% global tariff on all imported goods that most people believe is inflationary. That should mean something but his base doesn't and won't care.
Yes, this is definitely a good explanation for all the escalation that happened during his presidency.
However, "when shit hits the fan" as it were and you need daily approval of the president for all sorts of military actions and responses, then the inability to predict Trump is a problem.
Quoting Mr Bee
Sure, but none of that is on the scale of crashing the global economy in a mad scheme to attack Iran without an endgame.
However, as I say, if there's deescalation that is mainly due to practical factors in the scenario I propose, including what Israel now understands as practical limits.
The issue of buying Trump is related in my these only to escalating the genocide, simply to avoid paying for something you can get for free anyways under Biden. I'm not disputing you can pay Trump in one way or another to do a great many things, including continuing the Genocide but it's just economics 101 to buy from the cheaper source for the same thing (... or indeed get paid for getting it, as is currently happening under Biden; which I think is best explained by Biden's proclivity to be "grandpa awkward" around children in public translating to even more damaging video material existing in private).
Obviously Trump has no problem wither further violence against the Palestinians, but if he's asked for something he's going to want something in return.
If it was only Trump that would be an obstacle to further escalation I agree with your view that he can anyways be easily manipulated into escalation. Deescalation would be due to simply not having the means to escalate further to a desirable scenario (because Iran can fight back).
I have to correct you here.
My point was not that the US is trying to crash the global economy, but that it is trying to disrupt land-based trade connections between its main rivals in order to maintain control of global trade.
I'm saying maybe the Palestinians are getting tired of war and just want peace (which would happen if the hostages were returned but Hamas keeps refusing). And Iran may keep attempting to kill Bibi, but that doesn't mean he's wrong. Being the target of assassination attempts is not a shameful thing. It is the price of having enemies, and some forces like Iran are wicked and must be opposed regardless of whether they use some measures or not.
I am mentioning the conflict through a religious lens because that is the lens of the participants of the conflict. So it's noteworthy -- especially when there are similarities. Both groups view military victories as granted by God and defeat as likely a sign of divine disfavor. Therefore defeat brings discouragement and questioning from both sides. It would be a very different matter if Hamas was wildly successful, then the Palestinians would be bolstered.
The US politicians are just in the pocket of the Israel lobby thanks to mainly the Pro-Israeli Christians in the electorate, not just the American Jewish community. It's quite obvious that the US doesn't want the kind of "final solution" which the Netanyahu government hopes it can do somehow. These things take a lot of time to change, but I think they are changing.
But do notice that you have two different administrations and states here.
Quoting boethius
I have to agree with you. Those missiles hitting Nevatim Air base really were hitting Nevatim air base. And the US is in no position to occupy Iran.
Nuclear weapons hinder the pace of going up the escalatory ladder, but they don't keep states from fighting each other ...as long as the fighting is "limited" in scale. Argentina could attack easily the UK as there really was no threat of a nuclear mushroom cloud engulfing Buenos Aires. The UK wouldn't use nukes to defend few inhabitants and sheep in the Falklands. Also Pakistan and India could have a border war even with nuclear arms on both sides. And North and South Korea can engage in firefights then and now.
Hence the unfortunate reality is that it would be logical now for Iran to get it's nuclear weapon. The US will attack only nations that have potential nuclear weapons, but not a large and dispersed nuclear deterrent. That's why it's totally possible that Iran does have few nukes already.
The truth is that the UN can perform only a limited things well. It can be between two sides, when both sides accept this. But it's laughable to think the UN could act like a superpower. Really, the Korean war fought under the UN flag happened only because China was represented by the nation now known as Taiwan and the Soviets had foolishly boycotted the Security Council and wasn't there to veto the thing.
The idea that the UN could "disarm" Hezbollah is ludicrous. If the IDF with all it's might couldn't disarm Hezbollah while occupying Lebanon last time, how could a small contingent of a battalion size or so lightly armed blue berets do that?
But I guess that was this kind of agreement that all sides could OK in the Security Council, while knowing it wouldn't happen. Many actions are hypocritical.
In such a case he'll probably defer to a third party because he has no idea what the right military course of action would be and doesn't seem to be interested in being heavily involved in these types of situations for long (look at how he approached COVID). It'll probably depend on the people he would surround himself with so we will likely see things deescalate if he hands it off to people like Tucker or Tulsi though there is the (unlikely ATM) risk he appoints some crazy hawk like Bolton. I dunno, what does Project 2025 say about a future Trump cabinet?
Quoting boethius
Maybe but my sense is that he can do literally anything and his base won't care one bit.
Quoting boethius
The one (I guess) good thing I can say about Biden is that although he would ultimately allow these escalations to happen in the end, he may be slowing them down with his constant concerns, which wouldn't happen with Trump. Israel doesn't care about the concerns that the US brings up but they could be slowing down their violations if only to keep up this appearance of listening to them. If the Israelis are impatient and want to nuke Gaza and be done with it, then they may very well be fine with paying some money to speed the genocide process up.
Quoting boethius
A small price for AIPAC. The great thing with Trump is that more things are on sale with him, such as the West Bank.
Maybe there is some subtlety I missed in your position, but the core of the disagreement seemed to me that you were arguing this Israeli escalation in the Middle-East served US grand strategy interests up to and including a war with Iran.
The central thesis of my rebuttal to this position is that a war with Iran would crash the global economy and I don't see that as serving US grand strategy interests.
If the position is escalation but not to the point of crashing the global economy, my rebuttal to that position is that I just don't see what more chaos the US could possibly need in the Middle-East.
Obviously there was no land trade highway about to be built through Gaza nor Lebanon, so sure trade could pass through Iran and so collapsing Iran could make "sense" in such a strategy but:
A. Genocide isn't needed to provoke a war with Iran and is anyways a liability (my main concern is arguing the genocide serves no plausible US imperial interest), and
B. A war with Iran would crash the global economy (presumably) and I don't see what the US does next ... just keep the rest of the world economy continuously crashed?? Doesn't seem possible to me over any extended period of time, but indeed would just hyper-accelerate building exactly those land corridors of which this strategy is designed to prevent.
Of course I am not disagreeing with the generalities that you present that chaos in these land corridors generally serves the whole Island-navy-vs-land geopolitical strategic approach, just not to the point of actually crashing the global economy that would have plenty of adverse effects and accelerate further opposing coalitions (which we are already seeing by simply disrupting the global economy and threatening the crash Russia as a vital supplier of resources to plenty of countries; they naturally look to secure their survival in building an alternative trading system to that of the US; which, sure, the US could embargo the whole world - I'm not denying their supremacy on the high seas - but where does that actually lead is my issue).
Which mirrors our disagreement also on escalation with China in which your position is the US could embargo China, whereas my position is the same that I see no successful pathway after crashing the global economy.
However, to be clear, I am open to such questions being answered. I'm not claiming such a strategy is impossible for US imperial custodians to be embarked on, only that I don't see what it could be; therefore, given that, I feel the data is best explained by the alternative hypothesis that these escalations serve various coalitions of US elite personal interest merely cloaked in broad strategic terms such as Israel by definition serving US interests somehow, but quite directly at the expense of US grand strategic interest.
If we were not members of NATO, we would already have been bombed by spangled-minded Netanyahu; that’s a given.
Hey, @BitconnectCarlos. Look at the representatives of the nice and helpless nation of Israel. Because we should have pity on them! Otherwise, we deserve to be punished by ‘karma’ and God’s mercy and heaven, etc., and the rest of nonexistent things, but what could we expect from an occupier and an artificial nation like Israel? But hey, Carlos, didn’t you say that they are cool people, but they are just a threatened nation or something? What do you say now? Tit for tat, right? If they cheer about the deaths of Spain floods, I will cheer when a Lebanese or Gaza brother takes Netanyahu or another Israeli hateful ass out, right? Do you understand my thoughts on that artificial country now? Because it seems we only have to be empathetic with Jews.
If the blue berets are not going to do their mission (did they even attempt it... at any point?) the least they could do is get out of the way when the real army comes forth to clean up the mess that they helped create.
It doesn't even look like they attempted to enforce resolution 1701. It's not only Israel that has hit them, apparently Hezbollah likely struck a UN headquarters and they need to get out of there. Obviously if Israel had an official policy of striking them many more would be dead.
You're mad at a twitter account with an Israeli flag in it and this is apparently shaping your entire perspective towards the situation.
What do you think a lightly armed infantry battalion basically can do where IDF has failed (like in 2006)? That simply is ludicrous. UN can do it's work, if sides comply. You obviously don't understand the difference between blueberets and national armed forces.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
How many UN resolutions haven't been enforced?
Like how about this one from September 18th 2024?
I don't expect them to take out Hezbollah. I would just like to know whether they've taken concrete steps towards completing their purpose. Hezbollah evidently felt comfortable enough with them to build their shelters within meters of UN headquarters. What are they doing there?
Quoting ssu
This appears to be one of the General Assembly, not the Security Council. These are not binding.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/937315 (re: zionfascism)
[quote=Esther Farmer, A Land With a People: Palestinians and Jews Confront Zionism]My father always said, 'The Zionists love Israel and hate Jews.'[/quote]
:mask:
Lol.
Are the Security Council resolutions binding then? Not when it comes to Israel, I think.
All fifteen members voted in favor of Security Council resolution 242. Nobody even abstained.
But who cares, Bibi can ban the secretary general, attack UN organizations and attack UN blue berets and basically simply do whatever he wants. UN is something as the League of Nations during WW2 now in the Middle East. And Bibi is in war mode.
And it seems that Bibi is really willing to take Israel to a dark place. But UN, ICC and other institutions don't matter for Israel, when you have a Trump in your pocket.
As one Israeli put it: the proponents of an Apartheid have been replaced by proponents of a Genocide. Now Israel is talking about the "evacuation" of all people from Northern Gaza, so now it's really does seem that Israel is acting it's own "final solution"-type answer for the Palestinian problem. "The Generals plan" is a kind of final solution.
At the start of this conflict when the "Al-Aqsa Flood" attacked was instigated by Hamas, I was still hoping that Israel would fight like the Americans did against Al Qaeda and Isis in Iraq. Destroy the terrorists, yet try to help the civilians. The Americans had nothing against the Iraqi civilians, which showed in the way they fought the terrorists. In the case of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, it isn't so.
Again I have to say that @Benkei was right. In the present and the near future we will witness an ugly chapter in Western history, because I do see Israel being part of the West.
But hey, Azerbaijan successfully ethnically cleansed Nagorno Karabakh and now is feverishly trying to demolish everything linking or heritage to an Armenian past in the Nagorno Karabakh. So what is called a war crime and genocide worsk in the World. Yes, Israel can be angry that the Azeris seem to get a free pass in it's successful ethnic cleansing operation while they are getting flak from the World. Oh, the anti-semitism in the World!
(Meanwhile, in Nagorno Karabakh)
There are many more Hamas in Gaza than ISIS in Iraq. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't even seem like the US needs to be in Iraq. It just seems as if they've gone ISIS hunting overseas in a completely optional engagement. There are no hostages to rescue. There are no missiles being launched in the US. The US chose this fight and they could leave it. Israel does not have such a luxury.
If this confrontation were on the US border with rockets being launched into the US & there were hostages to rescue the situation would be completely different.
If hotheads like you would be given the say how to fight the war, sure. The objective would be to get pleasure from seeking revenge, which is an emotional response. Yet professional soldiers are far more logical. War is a continuation of policy and the objectives should be clear from the start. Excessive force creates resentment and one has to take into account how other actors will respond to your actions, if they seem excessive.
Here the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is a perfect example of how differently the Azeris were to the Netanyahu's govenment. When the Azerbaijan overran Nagorno-Karabakh, the Azeri president declared that they had no intention of forcing the Armenians out. And Baku made it clear that it would to “reintegrate” the region and its remaining population into Azerbaijan, promising economic development. Baku talked about normalizing relations and reaching a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh did flee to Armenia proper and the actions now show just how hypocrite that talk was from the Azeris, yet the reality is that the Azeris got away with this large part because they talked about a peace and talked about upholding minority rights.
Denial works. Yet the Israeli line has been totally different from this. Hardly anytime has somebody be ever so clear with their intent. Talking of evil cities and how every resident in Gaza is culpable because they years ago voted for Hamas is a way to keep that rage up. Then saying after some timeline everyone in Northern Gaza is considered a combatant isn't the way it goes. Simply rule based order or international agreements don't matter. At least they are totally honest in what they want to do.
I remember what a fellow student in the university said to me about the Israeli-Palestine conflict in the 1990's: There will be never peace. He was one of the smartest students and he had been a blue beret in Lebanon. And he was right. The conflict defines people: the Nakba is a crucial part of Palestinian identity as is this conflict for the Israelis too.
Amnesty International investigation concludes Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza
Same shit, different day.
Is there anything left to say at this point?
Quoting Ko Colijn (machine translated)
:grin: The problems of the present day politicians.
Edit: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/09/israel-seizes-syrian-buffer-zone-amid-airstrikes-on-regime-weapons-depots
Anyone still doubting Israel is run by a bunch of fanatical belligerents? Just the sycophants obviously of which we have our fair share here.
The US spoke in similar terms about enemies in Vietnam and Japan. Yet neither were genocides. The population of Gaza has risen by ~2% since last year never has there been a genocide where the victim population actually rose. The idea is preposterous. And of course Israel could wipe them out immediately if they really wanted as Israel has heavy weaponry. The facts simply don't bare it out the charge of genocide.
After 9/11 Bush said he'd make no distinction between terrorists and those who harbor them. Sounds like a justification for genocide, no? :chin:
In the aftermath of a brutal tragedy what kind of rhetoric are we expecting??
I'm not going to point to the definition of genocide for the fifth time in this thread. But you're wrong. Go look up the internationally agreed definition of genocide when everybody still agreed on it.
Also, let's not get into all the war crimes Bush committed shall we?
Netanyahu can now be mentioned in one breadth with the likes of:
Hitler
Mugabe
Pol Pot
The US also committed them in WWII, especially in the Pacific theater where US troops rarely took prisoners as the Japanese had a nasty habit of blowing themselves up upon being taken prisoner.
But of course instead of making difficult decisions in the field regarding how to treat such an issue, one could always just surrender to the enemy. Then one would be innocent and blameless. Or abide by the rules even when it significantly impairs one's chances for victory.
The free world was secured through brutality, don't ever forget it. Then again perhaps you'd be happier with a German-speaking Europe (that does mean no Israel). And how dare Israel seize land that rightfully belongs to the caliphate.
Sigh.
That's the real problem here. First it's a security zone. Intended to create a distance between the now annexed Golan Heights and possible mortars and small rockets fired from Syria (hypothetical that is, because nobody has been shelling Israel from Syria proper). Perhaps then the crazy fanatics in Bibi's administration will have dreams of enlarging the Golan Heights to have new settlements. But before that, it's going similar to Lebanon south of the Litani river, a low intensity conflict with some brief eruptions here and then. A "cease fire" here is something that there are only some, perhaps under ten, occasions or strikes or artillery firings.
The heavy handed and violent response of the IDF will create firefights and a tit-for-tat low level conflict will prevail, because those IDF forces surely won't act (as never have acted) with rules of engagement like the US armed forces does in the area. The IDF rules of engagement are very low on using deadly force. Israeli tanks firing on UN bases shows this attitude. Now IDF is trying to destroy that few remnants of Syrian military, like going after the navy, also shows that there's no trust here.
And this is a basic worry with Syria. Syrians left alone (like Trump said) could really win the peace, but too many actors can be totally satisfied if Syria is the next Lebanon: a country that you can bomb, put your own or proxy troops into and play the great Middle Eastern game. We have to remember that Syria itself occupied for some time Lebanon, so the Syrians weren't innocent in this either. It might not be just Israel, but Turkey and Erdogan might also be happy to have the ability to attack the kurds in Syria an have a proxy army inside the country.
This is the real threat, not the whimsical idea that ISIS will take over Syria or that the Syrians would want to spread Jihad be sponsors of terrorism. For the real ISIS, the HTS are already apostates, that have to be fought.
* * *
The natality rate for Palestine is 24 births per 1000 population. If Gaza has 2 million people, then if I can count right, there should be about 48 000 children born every year. Estimates of those that have been killed in Gaza is something like 41 000 - 45 000 now. That would be in the US perspective like 7,4 million Americans having been killed. Yet by your argumentation, 7,4 million killed Americans wouldn't be a genocide, if the population through immigration and population growth would counter this! Well, your "open" southern border isn't giving you so many new immigrants and Americans aren't having as many babies as Palestinians, the US population growth is just 0,5%.
But think of the happy side to this. When Trump kicks out every 33rd person living in the US, your population count will actually decrease! :grin:
And please learn the actual definition of a genocide. For example what Azerbaijan did in Nagorno-Karabakh can be viewed as a genocide, because ethnic cleansing (without killing) is still considered a genocidal act. Yet unlike Bibi's administration, they publicly denied of any such intent.
Time to leave Artsakh! Genocides can happen this way too.
But wait. The population of India and China is ~4x as much as the US, so suddenly 40k Gazans dead (a good chunk of who are Hamas) becomes 30 million Indians dead :gasp:
Can we just keep the number at 40k? And not try to scale everything?
Quoting ssu
Did Bibi specifically state he wished to destroy all Palestinians? I know of no such genocidal intent.
Quoting ssu
Israel ethnically cleansed Gaza in 2005 of all Israeli presence. Was Israel there guilty of genocide against Jews? The territory of Alsace-Lorraine changed hands multiple times in the 20th century with population shifts (including forced exiles) entailing genocide against Germans and French. If population displacement is genocide then all war is genocide.
Indeed. But for you 41 000 - 45 000 killed is a reason that it's not a genocide? Yes, it indeed isn't 100 000 or 400 000. Or at similar level that Bashar al-Assad's tyrannical regime killed. But just look up the definitions given, which can be read from the thread.
The point here is that Israel is considered to be part of the West. Not a place like Iraq, Syria or Egypt. Hence the criticism. But perhaps we ought to see the country as simply being part of the Levant, an Asian country that hasn't much to do with Western democracies.
Quoting BitconnectCarlosOh that would be the evidence? Again, look up the definition. The public speeches after the attack give ample evidence of this, which btw have already been discussed in this thread.
For example, just read what the ICC found to be the reasons for the warrant for Netanyahu and Gallant:
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Just like in the case of Sinai earlier, withdrawing settlers from newly established settlements isn't the same thing. And these people live in Israel, they weren't deported somewhere else and aren't refugees outside Israel.
And these were evacuated into Israel. Not like there was a large Jewish population living in Egyptian controlled Gaza prior the Six Day War.
Yet if I remember correctly, you even read through Ayn Rand, even if you knew what stupidities it would be. And it was indeed it. But since you know actually what Ayn Rand wrote, then you can better respond to someone who finds Rand's "objectivism" a great idea. Yet these people can indeed be sincere in their thoughts and be excited about libertarianism. A condescending attitude or the view "Why bother to respond?" simply isn't fruitful to anybody.
If a philosophy forum doesn't debate the hard problems of our time and sees no value in discussion about them, what does that tell of us ourselves?
It is very fruitful as it doesn't give space to zealots where their arguments are prima facie engaged as if they are rational, reasonable or acceptable when in fact they have no argument.
Quoting ssu
It's no longer a debate when people are not able to set out coherent logical arguments or deny facts.
EDIT: This is also why I have largely disengaged from the Trump thread.
If I were to learn ~40k civilians were murdered I would be horrified. If I were to learn that ~40k Hamas fighters and administrative staff were killed I would cheer.
It's sus to just give blanket figures like that. It would be like saying ~20k Germans were slaughtered by the allies in Jan 1945 when in fact it was German soldiers in the battle of the bulge. Yet we can abuse language all we want. We could say 20k Germans slaughtered if we wanted our speech to be provocative and incendiary. Soldiers without uniforms are still soldiers.
We could probably even argue today that what happened to Germany after WWII was "genocide" but it doesn't change the fundamental fact that they needed to be defeated and their government dissolved.
Quoting ssu
I recall similar statements from Bush after 9/11 re: an "evil" enemy that must be destroyed. As well as after Pearl Harbor. We can call evil evil without it being genocidal. It's just truth sometimes. The Empire of Japan was evil. Al-Qaeda is evil. Hamas is evil.
Putin's Russia employs industrialized suppression, Russification, propaganda, manufactured events/threats, whatever, to preempt eventualities (which is harder in more transparent democracies).
Anyway, the environments differ some.
Do Arabs accept Israel? As a state? (Which / how many do/don't, and how reliable is this?)
As an aside, would any of this change if, say, Israel exited the Golan Heights entirely?
Might as well get down to it: Should an Israeli state exist henceforth? And safe and with actual borders?
Your take, please. (?? addressed to everyone)
Formal recognition has been done:
By Egypt 1979 (a peace treaty)
by Jordan 1994 (a peace treaty)
by Bahrain
Morocco
Sudan
UAE (all with the above normalization of relations)
The obvious one missing is Saudi-Arabia, and of course Lebanon and Syria aren't so warm to Israel's actions. Yet notice also Iraq after regime change hasn't come abroad and Algeria has also opposed Isreal for a long time. Here you can see what countries have embassies or consulates in Israel:
This policy has come from the Khartoum agreement of the Arab League, which has stayed on for a long time and guided the actions of the Arab states.
Does the "Arab Street" accept Israel's current actions? Guess.
For Finns WW2 was finding themselves as a democracy between two bloodthirsty dictators that had divided to each other countries like Finland and in the end our country had to fight them both. And we were lucky not to be "liberated" from ourselves. For us WW2 never been about "the good guys" or the "bad guys", it has always been simply of survival as a country, as a people. That is the moral justification that we have. And for the Jews that founded Israel, it was that too in the wars of the 20th Century, with more populous neighbors that were armed by the other Superpower wanting to erase the nation out and with the US starting to back Israel in earnest only after the Six Day War.
Yet now it's different, especially when the Assad regime has collapsed and Iran has been dealt a severe blow. Iran and Israel have already had their tit-for-tat. Israel's situation isn't so perilous is it was before and the criticism of people like Moshe Yaalon should be noticed. Yaalon was the former Chief of Staff when the IDF was quelling the Second Intifada and later a defense minister under Netanuyahu, hence we aren't talking about a "bleeding heart liberal pacifist".
What is happening in Israel is alarming, because Israel has been a Western country with Western values. With religious fanaticism and radicalism there is a strive to use this moment for dramatic solutions and have total disregard of the "liberal" values as international agreements and future relations. There really are more than one way to handle terrorism and an insurgents.
In a similar way this response happened already with 9/11 in the US and the global war on terror. Somehow the laws that have governed covert actions and things like the attitude towards torture changed. It was like Hollywood had taken over: the hero had to be the cutting "the red tape" of legal norms and just beating the shit out of the bad guy, because somehow that made him tell where next attack was to happen. In real life it doesn't go that way, but who cares, when people want revenge. In the end you had Intelligence Services like the CIA, which were fully aware of their legal framework, then asking from the politicians "jail free cards", that the politicians would take the blame.
To paraphrase Mike Tyson, "Every country has a plan until they get punched in the face." It's easy to be against torture, until you have a captured nuclear bomb maker who won't tell you how to disarm the bomb that's about to go off. Do you start pulling fingernails and breaking fingers? Yes. That scenario is extremely implausible, but so what? It only takes one exception to invalidate a blanket policy like "no torture".
Let's see what other gems this treasure trove of wisdom has to offer:
Ok, that'll do Mikey. That'll do.
There's a very eye opening reported exchange between Jim Mattis and Donald Trump, which Trump himself told to the press. When Trump asked "Mad Dog Mattis" about his views about the effectiveness of torture, Mattis responded that a can of beer and cigarette pack works better than torture. Trump answered that maybe, but as the American people think that torture works, then he is for torture. Yep, Trump has always been for his base.
And there is a lot of truth to this.
Just as American want their legal system to be punitive and some Americans are offended of a "liberal" penal system that tries to assist the criminal away from a criminal lifestyle, so do they have this love affair about torture and ideas that torture, if not moral, is still so effective. If it's so effective, then Assad's Syria shouldn't have collapsed? It tortured a lot of people, so that should be so effective.
Now we can see what kind of regime Assad lead from the mass graves now coming to light...
But of course, there's North Korea! Hence torture works, I guess.
It's not effective. Period. People will do anything to stop torture, including telling you want you want to hear, which usually isn't the truth. And because I didn't feel like going through all the arguments again, here's Perplexity.ai on the scientific proof about torture:
It's telling in any case, that however grotesque WWII was, at least on the Allied side there was no policy of torture. It happened but these were low level decisions and it wasn't systematic.
Well, not on the side Western allies, at least. But in the case of Stalin's Soviet Union, remember that Russian soldiers were fed propaganda that only the dogs and the unborn in Germany were innocent. The whole mass rape is a collective effort in acting revenge on the civilian populace. Remember that the German military and Nazi Germany treated totally differently the Dutch compared to the subhumans like Russians and the war attrocities in the Eastern front were on a totally different level. And the Soviet security apparatus used extensively and systematically torture.
Yet this idea that torture is effective, that it's only the bleeding heart liberal left who oppose it makes the whole thing so worrisome. War on Terror has left a stain on the West. It wasn't the intelligence services themselves that demanded secret prisons, special courts or detention centers like GITMO. It was the politicians, because they saw what the people wanted. The people wanted that "the gloves were taken off". People just don't see the ludicrous insanity of not dealing with terrorists with the normal justice system that you have (like with the terrorists that attempted to blow up the WTC the first time). That somehow it would be dangerous to have in the ordinary legal system and prisons deal with Al Qaeda terrorists shows how delusional the discourse gets.
When people want revenge and want the "gloves to come off", you won't treat terrorists that have committed mass murder or attempted it as being similar to ordinary mass murdering psychopaths that still have rights in the justice system. Norway could handle Breivik through a normal legal process. Many country have been able to combat terrorism through their legal system.
Israel's actions are the next worrisome example as Israel has been part of the West. This thread was started well before the Hamas attack and the current wars, and like you have been critical at where Israel is going. I do also understand that someone like @BitconnectCarlos, being Jewish himself, wants to defend Israel. In this world it seems that we cannot be both critical and supportive at the same time. However if a democracy ought to work, that should be how ought to be.
For example I do support my country and the Finnish government and support things they do, but at the same time I can be critical about some actions it does. That should be what citizens of a democracy should be like in my view: both critical and supportive.
OH yeah, fuck, I always forget they were considered the Allied back then as well. :groan:
We can criticize all we want. Criticism comes in different shades. But Israel must succeed. I don't know whether there's ever been a foreign power that tried to wipe out your people, but perhaps if there was we'd see a little more eye to eye. But yes, criticism is part of one's patriotic duty. In war time, the drive to victory can overshadow other concerns.
I guess had the Germans won you'd have been absorbed into the Third Reich. So maybe a few of your neighbors go bye-bye and you need to learn German, but life goes on. If I were a typical Finn I'd probably have more Nazi sympathies or at least prefer them over the Soviets. I would have feared the Soviets more.
I understand the moral greyness and having to leverage two superpowers against each other. There are some conflicts where things are black and white though.
Quoting ssu
I remember 9/11 and very few Americans objected to striking Afghanistan. We were always going to strike them; it was just a matter of how much and through what means. With Israel, there's also the addition factor of the hostages. Had Americans been subject to such an ordeal, I suspect the response would have been even more outrage. The election of Trump shows that the pendulum has swung back in the opposite direction. I think the US is tired of handling criminals and terrorists and kiddy gloves and Trump has promised hell for Gaza if the hostages are not released.
You northerners are slow to anger and tend not to be targeted too much. If you've ever been to the Middle East you immediately that it's different. Greater machismo. Quicker tempers. We can all judge; even to me Israelis (and Middle Easterners generally) come across as rude and quick-tempered. Then I remember that I'm far from the conflict and have the luxury of safety.
Quoting ssu
Historically, the Jews are just another Middle Eastern people whose existence has been secured through resiliency and violent struggle in an extremely hostile world.
Guess then you've never heard of Finnish history.
We faced totally alone a massive Soviet attack in 1939, when our population was only 3,9 million people. We can clearly see what would have been our fate from the Baltic States if we wouldn't have successfully resisted. Our intelligentsia and people considered "politically dangerous" would have been killed, large segments of the population would have been sent to Gulag, Finnish women and girls would have been raped and a large amount of Russians would have been moved in Finland. The Baltic States just show to us this. In 1944 a possible option would have been to become part of satellite states. In both occasions a likely savage and brutal insurgency would have prevailed for some time. Hence Finns know they are very expendable, and can be destroyed and nobody would give a fuck it that would happen, because there are so few of us.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
How far Hitler would have continued his World conquering policies is totally in the realm of alternative history.
Yet Finland, just as Spain, Sweden and Switzerland and it's allies went totally OK with Germany (when Germany was winnig). Hitler wasn't upset with Finns as allies as he was with many other of his allies. Until we gave him the Dolchstoss in 1944. That Finland declined to give it's tiny Jewish population to be exterminated and had Jewish serving in the military didn't upset much Germany. When we then started to fight the German forces, those forces didn't commit attrocities in Northern Finland and did let the civilian population in the North (not many) to flee to Sweden. Germans just methodically destroyed everything on their way when they withdrew to Norway with German Pünktlichkeit. Here you can see, just like the actions of Germany as an occupier in Norway and Denmark, that Nazi Germany treated differently the people of the "Northern Race" as they did the Slavs. For example in Denmark the Germans simply hinted to the Danish authorities that they ought do something at the "Jewish problem" and the Danish government whisked the Jews quickly to Sweden. How the occupation was handled in areas where the population where "subhumans" in Nazi ideology was quite different.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Actually there wasn't much of sympathy of Nazism in Finland and the democratic institutions held quite well in the 1920's and 1930's. It's telling that the Social Democratic party, which basically had started the Civil war / War of Independence in 1918, was accepted back to the political system. I think the reason is basically that Finns themselves were looked down upon by the Swedish speaking minority, who earlier had formed the elite of the country. Yet the ethnic tensions weren't so bitter as like in Estonia with the Estonians and the German speaking elite.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Americans have difficulties understanding the mindset of a small nation is faced with a threat that it could face extinction. Large parts of the country have never, ever faced war. Only the South has experienced a total war, and what losing a war feels like. Even that has happened in history. Hence it's very difficult for Americans to understand the mindset of Israelis, or even the mindset of Europeans facing Russia. And of course, many simply don't care. Because ask yourself, how can you see in American life that the country lost it's longest war in Afghanistan. It was a tiny fraction of the country that were the servicemen and women who fought the "War on Terror".
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Not just that. You have had missiles raining down on the country terrorist groups and from a country that is developing it's own nuclear deterrent. You have a large segment of population that has been evacuated from their homes and perhaps only now moving back. You do have a society at war.
And that makes it so different and difficult to understand as Americans have never experienced this. And hence at this time mistakes can be done. Hezbollah is defeated, Iran has lost it's ally of Syria. Syria is now in chaos. US President is coming to power that has a place named after himself at the Golan Heights. At this moment, it's possible to do mistakes, to over extend and not care about consequences of the actions.
Something worrying is what Israel is now doing in Syria proper, destroying water infrastructure to obviously force Syrians living to move away somewhere else:
How far the IDF establishes it's reach in Syria might easily plant the seeds of the next conflict.
In fact there's a very long Russian aspiration to have a warm weather port in the Mediterranean, for hundreds of years even during the Russian Empire. Syria was for long a staunch ally for the Soviet Union and then for Russia. That made the relationship very strategic as the Assad regime was dependent of Russian help. Now their only hope is that everybody else would annoy the present Syrian rulers so much that they can have still some say here. If Israel takes more Syrian land, the West keeps HTS on the terror list and Erdogan does on his own something stupid without listening to the new regime. Only then can the Syrians tolerate for a while the Russians. But the connection has now been lost. In the Middle East, there can happen these Byzantine moves very quickly.
Too early to celebrate, but the implications of this will be major if it sticks.
The Trump administration apparently was able to achieve more in a single sitting than the Biden administration over its entire term.
Hopefully this will be the final nail on Netanyahu's coffin, and that will also be the only redeeming thing about the entire Biden administration. What a total disaster it has been.
It's likely we'll be seeing a baby exchanged for a dozen or so grown murderers. Such is the nature of the conflict.
:up:
46,000 dead souls were needed for a cease-fire. It is hard to give relevance to Western organisations such as the UN, honestly.
Is it 46,000? Time will tell.
46 or 64? Well, it's still in the tens of thousands. Not hundreds of thousands. So that's good.
Yet it's a cease fire. With Hamas. Without participation from other countries. I remember that Bibi Netanyahu was declaring last summer that Hamas was nearly finished. Now...
And of course, this is the time when the media ought to forget that in the Middle East a "ceasefire" doesn't mean what a ceasefire means in other parts of the World.
Still, this underlines what was already the obvious question of what really Netanyahu wanted. As if there would be a military solution with Hamas being destroyed and the Palestinian issue somehow going away.
So this thread goes on, likely far longer than the Trump thread...
That number includes the rapists and child murderers who crossed the border into Israel on 10/7. You should be thanking Israel for eliminating them.
Thanking a nation that has been threatening us since the first day we showed empathy towards Palestinians and whose citizens celebrated our deaths on Valencia's floods? No, mate.
They attempt to terrify her to the last second. I'll refrain from comment on the braided hair.
:100:
"Israel’s standing in the world has shrunk considerably— so that’s a good thing at least."
I beg to disagree. With Trump's victory, Israel's standing is the highest its been in a long time.
:lol:
Yes, keep up the good work of genocide apologetics.
We killed more Japanese in one night of firebombing than Israel's done in a year. They're not very good at genocide, are they?
:lol:
Same stupid justifications, over and over. Maybe a learning disability; probably just willful ignorance.
Cool! Bye.
Now as I was saying about the genocide: glad it’s temporarily over, but figure the terrorists will break it. So goes Likud.
Rogue, it's just a very special sort of genocide. It's a genocide where the population is bigger afterwards than before. :lol:
That's a very exclusive little club he made himself, and by extension Israel, a part of.
Yeah, everyone knows calling out a genocide is antisemitic.
https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-says-jordan-egypt-should-take-more-palestinians-gaza-2025-01-26/
For the joy of the whiners in this thread, apparently, the so-called genocide/cleansing of the Palestinians continues "thanks to" (?) Trump after [s]the "terrific" cease-fire[/s] Israel has destroyed all it could destroy of all its strategic enemies "thanks to" (?) Biden.
If the destabilization of especially Jordan (and Egypt) is the next issue on the agenda, then hardly anything else would be more effective that this. The last thing that the governments of these two countries want to be is willing participants and enablers of the ultra-nationalist zionists plans for moving all Palestinians out of Israel. As Jordan had to fight earlier the PLO earlier and the Egyptians are no backers of Hamas, the last thing for the two countries is to have huge refugee camps of Palestinians with Hamas.
Also, the fact that the border between Jordan and Egypt have stayed peaceful is because both of the countries armed forces can ensure their side of the peace deal with Israel. That's what an actual peace means. Hamas in the refugee camps won't have none of that.
And let's remember that their is an enthusiastic lust for war within the Netanyahu administration, who insist the war to continue. And why not? It isn't going to be that there's any sanctions hurled at Israel because of this, so simply keep on...
Ben Gvir has now exited the administration, Smotrich is still hanging on. So the cease-fire is for six weeks. What happens then, we'll see.
Exile is a world apart from genocide. Sometimes in exile things improve for the people. It allows them to rebuild in a better way. I think Jordan and Egypt (and possibly Indonesia) taking Palestinian refugees would be a great solution and I hope it works out.
“Israel has accused Hamas of breaking the truce.” Right. We’ll figure out a story later.
Do you consider Hamas a terrorist organization?
Do you consider Likud a terrorist organization?
And in America they lynch negroes!
You've got the playbook down.
Funny coming from the genocide apologist.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
So like the Pogroms in Eastern Europe that drove many Jews to migrate to America was ...actually a splendid thing to happen? :chin:
Yet as I've stated already, Azerbaijan did use ethnic cleansing / forced transfers, yet simply declaring publicly that nobody will be forced out, it worked perfectly. No condemnations whatsoever! Thing seems to be forgotten. Because they (the Azeris) didn't tell publicly that they want every single Armenian out.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
It's not a great solution and likely won't happen. It is as delusional to especially think that it's a great solution as is the anti-semitist thinking that Israel is a Western colonial project and the European Jews that have migrated there ought to migrate back to where they came from. After all, the Crusader States were for longer than present Israel has been around.
And no, I'm not saying that to be any solution, but just an example of the offensive "solutions" that people give.
The pogroms aren't a great example. If this exile were to happen, it's because the Palestinians were defeated by another civilization. But yes, exiles can have value. It's about how the culture understands the exile and what they do from there. I understand that exile is no walk in the park, but it's a completely different matter from genocide.
I was thinking more along the lines of the Babylonian exile for the Jews which, after being thoroughly defeated by the Babylonians, spent the next ~70 years writing much of the Torah (and many of the other 66 books of the bible) and experiencing cultural flourish.
Then that seems like that could be a good model for Israel to follow, but I agree that this is unlikely to actualize given Egypt and Jordan don't seem interested at all. I certainly agree that offering voluntary resettlement is much, much preferable.
Quoting ssu
Jordan has a few million Palestinians already and country seems able to handle to them. In any case, I agree that the plan is a longshot, but if Egypt, Jordan, and Indonesia were to accept the refugees (and the refugees were to go willingly, ideally) it would be a dream solution for Israel.
Srebrenica Massacre
Several high-profile individuals were tried and found guilty of genocide.
You'll note that whether or not the genocide is successful is no factor. And you'll also note that a nation need not kill millions in order to be guilty of genocide. In the Srebrenica massacre 8,000 men were killed. This act was ruled unanimously an act of genocide in 2004, and the ruling was again upheld in 2007.
Quoting Convention on the Prevention of the Crime of Genocide
Intent is of great importance here (which is why comparisons with Allied bombing during WW2 are moot). Unfortunately for Israel, several high-profile politicians have stated their genocidal intent outright and in public.
This is why Netanyahu is currently wanted for crimes against humanity.
All that's left is for the apologists to have their "Are we the baddies?" moment.
The issue here is that the Palestinian identity is fixed on Palestine, the territory, just as Zionism has fixed the Jewish identity on the land of Israel, the same territory. A Palestinian abroad aren't migrants, but see themselves as refugees. Thus they won't adapt to be Americans, Egyptians, French or German or whoever. For many Jewish people their religion is not their national identity, but for Israeli Jews zionism is part of their identity. Similarly it is for the Palestinians: the Nakbah and those cherished keys to their old now nonexistent houses that the families hold on as relics is what makes the Palestinian identity.
Peoples identities are lost either by cultural assimilation or by genocide. The sad reality in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that there is no option of cultural assimilation. Israel is the homeland for Jews, not a "multiethnic country that celebrates it's diversity". The conflict itself is part of the national character of both Jewish Israelis and the Palestinians. And when you have different laws to different people, this is totally evident. And this is why there is no "great solution" for this conflict. Only bad ones.
The Jews have lost Judea multiple times. Diaspora communities are formed. Jews accept the situation and focus on other things. They don't endlessly lament the loss and raise Jewish children to murder the occupier. Exile historically moderates Jewish theology and causes reflection. The more I read about the history in this region the more it is made clear to me that victory emboldens, defeat moderates. Palestinian society needs moderation and frankly deserves destruction.
The Arabs tried to destroy the Jews in 1948. The Jews managed to turn the tide and the Arabs fled. Then some of those Arabs claim perpetual victimhood. Yes, when mortars are being fired from Arab villages Jewish forces will attack those villages.
Regarding different laws, all Israeli citizens have the same laws. But yes, Palestinians under the PA or Hamas will have their own laws.
EDIT: One last, but important point, cultural assimilation is conceivably a form of genocide. The Philistines are no more not because they were slaughtered en masse, but because they were absorbed by the cultures around them and they lost their distinctive group identity.
I disagree. The PLO doesn't have it's roots in Islamism, as Hamas has. As the area had been part of the Ottoman Empire, with the exception of Egypt, there hadn't existed Lebanon, Syria or Jordan as we now know these countries now. But this isn't at all some kind of refutation. Just as there hadn't been an independent state called Finland, that doesn't mean that there hadn't existed Finns. And anyway, I despise people who talk about "the artificiality" of any people compared to others, when millions of people do relate being of a nationality. Usually these people have very dubious incentives for this strange argumentation.
Palestinian identity has basically emerged from the conflict itself. These aren't citizens of Egypt or citizens of Jordan. They aren't Lebanese or Syrian either. Even when it was Jordan holding the West Bank until 1967, even then the country had to maneuver tightly on the international stage. And of course in the 1948 the neighboring Arab states weren't defending the Palestinians, but trying to carve up the former British Mandate.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
And here lies the absurdity of the situation: you are referring to PA and Palestinians under Hamas, but then again would they have then their independent statehood? No. Hence they aren't the responsibility of Israel, but then they cannot be responsable in the way a sovereign state is of it's borders. And in the era of Trump, just shove them somewhere else.
There are POLITICAL reasons to call the overall Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza “a genocide” as much as there are POLITICAL reasons to call overall Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza “legitimate self-defence”.
From a legal point of view, we can speculate that Israel committed a genocide or not (I would argue against), but what the ICC legally sentenced against “Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant” is that they committed war crimes and crimes against humanity not genocide, which people keep confusing to spin their propaganda. And talking about “war crimes” is hinting at the fact that the conflict between Israel and Hamas is dominated by a logic of war. The problem I see is that laws of war would make an armed conflict between 2 nations claiming statehood over the same “native” land impossible. By comparison, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is different in nature since they were universally and reciprocally acknowledged states. STILL there are allegations about war crimes (or genocides?) also there [1], so go figure what is likely to happen in a situation where 2 nations are warring over the same piece of land claimed as their “native” land.
Before applying a ruling system over a piece of human domain, wouldn’t it be more reasonable to take into account under what conditions that human domain is amenable to be ruled by the referenced ruling system? It’s exactly their claims of “native” nation statehood over exactly the same piece of land that makes their violent conflicts to be perpetual until one of the two sides prevails or both extinguish. Calls for genocide and ethnic cleansing or appeal to laws of war are naive and myopic in that they overlook the inherent/conceptual conflict which deeply and widely inspires both communities. The way both communities FRAME their deepest political aspirations makes their aspirations inherently incompatible. So I find the Israeli-Palestinian conflict inherently much less amenable to elicit compliance to the laws of war than the Ukrainian-Russian conflict. And since I’m in a philosophy forum that is what I think it is worth stressing. Which is why I also find naive to take Netanyahou's psychology (or Trump's psychology) as bearing some fundamental explanatory power over dynamics that deeply concern their people's aspirations.
[1] … but the Russians have been provoked and yada yada yada as the apologists of Russian war crimes and genocide against Ukrainians are claiming (see how easy it is to accuse somebody to be an apologist of genocide with miserable rhetoric tricks?)
Quoting ssu
But if Palestinians (not Hamas, Palestinians) are destabilising for Jordan and Egypt despite being mostly all charitable arab-muslim brothers, then it shouldn’t be hard to understand that Palestinians ruled by Hamas can be destabilising for Israel, right?
Your enemy in a conflict is naturally destabilizing. How could it be something else, because it's your enemy?
Yet you can see the obvious problem with let's say with the PLO and Jordan. Yes, King Hussein did give them sanctuary. But having a large independent armed force (or separate forces) in a little country isn't something very secure. The whole thing ended up with Black September, or what sometimes is called Jordanian Civil War. This event from history should be remembered, when people just assume that other Arab states should happily bare the burden of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Worth watching, if one isn't familiar with Jordanian and Palestinian history:
Take a look at the PLO's draft constitution.
Article 6
Islam shall be the official religion of the state. The monotheistic religions shall be respected.
Article 7
The principles of the Islamic Shari`a are a primary source for legislation. The legislative branch shall determine personal status law under the authority of the monotheistic religions according to their denominations, in keeping with the provisions of the constitution and the preservation of unity, stability, and advancement of the Palestinian people.
https://pcpsr.org/en/node/487
It's not that the Palestinians don't have an identity. It's just that their identity is Islamic and tribal. And Islam is a religion that, since its inception, has been intent on spreading. There is no truly secular force in Palestinian society today. The Palestinians are simply on the front lines of the Islamic war on the West. Religions + ethnic customs are much deeper rooted than ideas about statehood in the near east. There was no need for "Palestinianism" under the Ottomans. It was only ever because Jews were in charge as a form of revanchism. We should all know the fruits of revanchism by now.
There was no Palestinian national identity at this point. We could also call Jews "Palestinians" in 1948.
Quoting ssu
I agree it's an undesirable situation. Unrestricted borders would be too big of a security risk for Israel.
Israel's basic paradox is that it would need a strong state capable of defending it's territory (as Egypt and Jordan) in order for there to be peace. These two countries can keep non-state actors out. Lebanon is a perfect example of a weak state incapable of controlling it's borders. Yet as there is no trust or faith in the other side, this won't happen. A Palestinian state capable of controlling it's borders would also present a threat to Israel. Hence it looks like present administration Israel wants to go for some kind of a "final solution" option in the long term.
Frivolous wording. There is no "final solution" here. Exile is not genocide, and could improve the lives of the Palestinians considerably if they were wrenched from their culture.
Such a peculiar set of footsteps Israel's hardliners are choosing to follow into.
Sure I can get that, it's compelling what you say. But I would also highlight two points: 1) the Palestinian resistance needs political and financial support to turn into a real threat, back then it was mainly Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Libya, today it's mainly Iran, but will Iran still be able to support the Palestinian resistance in the near future, after its proxies have been wrecked and while still being under the threat of Israeli retaliation? Plus Trump? Plus Saudi Arabia fearing Iran? 2) External support aside, there is the threat of fragile borders as you warned, but here I see a security dilemma: are Palestinians more of a threat to Israel from Gaza or in exile? Spreading exiled Palestinians over more than one country, keeping them far from the borders and favoring programs for their assimilation among charitable arab-muslim borthers (instead of keeping them in refugee camps) could make them less of a threat not only for Israel but also for the hosting countries. Or at least, this would be more preferable to a "final solution" by all involved parties, I guess.
If you desperately want to instantiate and aide the religious extremists in Israel in their dream of creating an Israel only for the Jews, then do their dirty work and assist them by opening your home to those people forced out from their homeland. Be the willing henchman yourself. Do not imagine that the forced transfer wouldn't be wrong, or that someone else would happily assist in this. After all,
That Egypt and Jordan are totally against these ideas is clearly understandable.
Of course, the extremist Smotrich welcomes Trump's idea. Why not, Trump gives credence to their ideas of a "final solution" for the Palestinian question.
Let’s not shift from “sending hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in different neighbouring charitable and brotherly muslim-arab countries” to “forced removal of people”, or from “I don't think it's matter of being that unpractical”, to “it’s practical”, or to “a great solution” so easily.
Quoting ssu
I’m far from making an ethical point or suggesting (to whom?) a political solution though. I’m a nobody, don’t pretend to know everything that matters about everything and everybody on the topic, nor am I interested at all in political activism, at least in here. So I’m not going to take your remarks in personal terms, if that was your goal. I’m simply reasoning over the conditions amenable to one or the other solution. To me, the peculiar case of the Israel-Palestinian conflict stems from the conceptual impasse I was talking about. Appeal to national self-determination and national statehood historically emerged and worked better at time of empires. But neither Palestine nor Israel (however shaped as a colonialist project in modern times) are empires. That’s also why comparisons to Stalin’s Russia (which actually deported Crimean Tatars) or Putin’s Russia (which actually deported Ukrainians), both motivated by imperialist ambitions, aren’t as compelling as you think.
Besides much depends on how the re-location of the Palestinians from Gaza is actually executed and perceived by the Palestinians. After all in a war like context re-location of civilians is done to preserve civilians life, e.g. through humanitarian corridors. But of course one can stay and risk their lives and freedom with no deportation by the hostile forces, still their lives will remain miserable. On the other side an international agreement over spreading exiled Palestinians (not all the Gazans) over more than one country, keeping them far from the borders and favoring programs for their assimilation among charitable arab-muslim brothers (instead of keeping them in refugee camps) could make them less of a threat not only for Israel but also for the hosting countries.
I would additionally stress that also keeping the borders closed and/or Palestinians in refugee camps besides being ethically questionable from a humanitarian or Muslim point of view, it also contributes to perpetrate the conflict. If Palestinians do not have anywhere else to go to flee from the war (unlike millions of Syrians) and to make a decent living, they are forced to suffer the consequences of a foreign occupation and/or fight against Israel for having their own state.
Are there more desirable outcomes? Of course, my challenge will remain the same: what are the circumstances more likely amenable to reach those outcomes to you, INDEPENDENTLY from whether you personally are pro-Palestinian or pro-Israel? Do you see such circumstances available now or in the foreseeable future?
Just make the offer first. As long as the decision to move is seen as individual and not national, people will go. Gazans are tired of the fighting. Hamas btw is now killing Gazans on the street and hunting down around ~400 more for "stealing" humanitarian aid. A ticket out of Gaza now could be a lifeline.
I think quite a few Gazans would choose to leave voluntarily if it were purely their own decision and they were promised stability elsewhere.
Neomac, that is the issue here.
When have Palestinian refugees that have fled had the ability to come back?
Never.
Not after 1948, not after 1967. Hence it is simply ridiculous to assume that "Simply move the people away while the place is refurbished". It's not a naive idea, it's an astoundingly stupid, ignorant idea. Besides, if this would really would be so "temporary", then have the Palestinian camp inside Israel, built in the Negev. There's vacant room there.
Quoting neomac
Lol.
Ruanda isn't an Empire. And Azerbaijan isn't an empire and neither is Burma. Yugoslavia wasn't an emprie, but killing people and cleansing the "unwanted people" away has happened in them. This isn't just done on imperial motives. So it's your argument that isn't at all compelling.
If people are treated as second rate citizens with different laws than the ruling people and these want to have an independent state, then it's a fundamental problem for the society and it just doesn't go away easily. And anyway, Palestinians and Israelis aren't talking anymore or trying to find a peaceful solution. They only are able to have a periodic cease-fire.
Quoting neomac
If both sides would want genuine peace, yes. But they don't. The Likud wants a victory over the Palestinians, Israel being from the river to the sea without any Palestinian entity between it. And they believe that they are succeeding in this. And why not. There seem to be no actual negative things for this as Bibi only needs Trump's ear. Europe doesn't matter at all and China isn't interested.
The so called "Oslo Peace process" was an oddity of a moment that won't come back. Those Israeli politicians that attempted a peace aren't getting back to power. Or then Bibi would have to fail again miserably. What we are seeing is moderate Israelis leaving the country and the previously secular Israel changing to a more religious country. And of course Israel's actions don't make it any easier for a Palestinian "moderate" to surface.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
They likely would want to come to the US. Still you can "become" American, even if Trump is making a great effort to stop that idea and go with the more traditional nativity. Many of them would even go along with the idea that they would be now Americans and not anymore just Palestinians.
I suppose the Allies "final solutioned" Nazi Germany by making life unbearable for them. It's called losing a war that you started.
Quoting ssu
What do you know about Palestinians and their integration tendencies or are you just speculating? In any case, they're not coming to the US under Trump. Indonesia or Albania, maybe. Sometimes a people need to be scattered so the toxic elements can be removed and they can continue living in a healthier way.
OK and when did Palestinians who remain in Gaza have the ability to impose their will on the Israelis instead of losing more territories, people, livelihood and freedom, exactly? How smart and long-sighted is that? Where did I assume that “simply move the people away while the place is refurbished”, exactly? That’s not what I argued. Remember it’s not your skin we are talking about but Palestinians and Israelis’ skin. So it’s up to Palestinians to choose between a cycle of massacre overwhelmingly in favour of Israel and having a life as a refugee especially if they can be assimilated instead of being ghettoed in refugees camps by allegedly charitable arab-muslim brothers.
Quoting ssu
You don’t seem to follow my reasoning. Indeed, what I meant to suggest is that the right comparison is not between Israel and Soviet Union or Russia as you previously did, but between the case of Israel and what happened in Rwanda, or Azerbajan or Yugoslavia as you now do. Exactly. And while we can invoke national self-determination and statehood to counter imperial ambitions (see Soviet Union and Russia), we can’t do the same when national self-determination and statehood can be achieved only at the expense of other people’s national self-determination and statehood like in Rwanda, Azerbaijan, Yugoslavia. That’s the impasse I was talking about and the reason why the cycle of violence can easily re-emerge, escalate and get vicious.
Quoting ssu
So, in short, you are telling me that while things are getting worse for Palestinians after losing all they have lost so far, because Israelis are becoming more radical, it would be less [s]naive[/s] stupid for "moderate" Palestinians to insist to remain in Gaza despite having the possibility to move somewhere else more welcoming because Allah knows if they will ever manage to come back and reclaim their land than doing otherwise?
I'm not following your reasoning here at all. It doesn't make any sense.
First of all, any secessionist movement where one people get independence from another is a loss to the previous state, be it Imperial Russia, Yugoslavia or Sweden (with Norway). The former state loses territory and citizens to the new state, whatever kind of state it is. Yet states and countries have the ability to be in peace afterwards. The violent nationalism and jingoism can be put aside and relations be improved, even after a war. Norwegians and Swedes come along well, even if Sweden fought it's last war against Norway, which in turn got it's independence from Sweden with a popular vote. (Notice that Norway has been part of both Sweden and Denmark.)
The obvious fact is that Palestinians already have accepted the loss of pre-1967 territories and hold on to the UN ruling about the conquered territories during the Six Day war. The Oslo peace process was about dividing this remaining part of Palestine, the West Bank and Gaza, to form a Palestinian state. But now that is out of the question. So I don't understand at all your idea here.
Or then you take granted the Israeli propaganda that there cannot be peace as Palestinians and Arabs will simply want to throw them into the sea and abolish the Israeli state. And any Palestinian state, how small or large, will continue this.
I get it; you don't want to believe that this is the case. It would be too ugly. Many of the 10/7 victims living on those kibbutzim on the border felt the same. We can see the world how we want to, or how it is.
I guess that the reasoning of remember 10/7 will have the lifespan as 9/11 was the reason for intervening everywhere. About two decades at most.
For you it's just the reasoning you need for your own stance. Next obvious question that you totally ignore is "how". The simply fact is that Hamas and PLO simply cannot destroy the IDF even theoretically, which just makes this argument nonsense. But just as the stance that there's nobody to negotiate with, that Palestinians just want to kill every Jew they can, will reassure your own justifications.
I'm only holding the view that there isn't a possibility for a negotiated peace and the current Israeli government thinks that in the long term a military solution can be achieved and the price that Israel would have to pay will be minimal.
That's a good point. However secession is not about land but about central-government. Different geographic parts of a land under the same sovereign central government claim independence from that central government and want to establish their own sovereign government.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about conflicting claims over the same “native” land, re-location of people and colonization.
Quoting ssu
You are arguing for a possibility by finding historical examples non related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I can argue for the possibility of a perpetual conflict more pertinently based on Jewish history and their life-or-death fight against Amalec.
However, I’m not arguing for random possibilities but about conditions amenable to a solution or another. And what’s funny is that, while musing over possible worlds, you seem to keep arguing that currently there are no such conditions, because Netanyahu and who backs him are animated by blood-lust, “moderate” Israelis are leaving Israel and more radical religious jews remain, “moderate” Palestinians can’t emerge after all devastation Israel brought to the Palestinians, even more so if they fear to be forcibly deported elsewhere or live as refugees else where, etc.
And I may roughly agree on that part. But your historical, sociological and psychological considerations however plausible or correct are philosophically uninteresting to me because they aren’t about core conceptual frames. Here the philosophical issue I see is that these people have incompatible claims over the same “native” land. Nobody can fix that by invoking national self-determination and statehood. That’s my point. And as long as both people will frame this in terms of national self-determination and statehood over the same “native” land, there will always be pretexts for violence, war, war crimes, cleansing, genocide.
Quoting ssu
This claim “Palestinians already have accepted the loss of pre-1967 territories and hold on to the UN ruling about the conquered territories during the Six Day war” sounds roughly right but it’s quite generic and decontextualised. When Palestinian representatives like Arafat made those acknowledgements how representative or authoritative were they wrt their own people? The same goes with Rabin. If one or both sides aren’t in political conditions to ENFORCE what they have acknowledged or agreed upon, acknowledgements and agreements can’t be considered authoritative/representative.
This contributed to build deep distrust between the two communities and relentless blame games which is part of the conditions non-amenable to find a peaceful solution. But that’s not all: there are security concerns like Russia has. If Russia the biggest country on earth which already acknowledged the Ukrainian territorial sovereignty and has already been acknowledged territorial sovereignty by Urkaine feels an existential threat (to its empire?) from Ukraine deciding for its own security and strategically allying with the West (which also acknowledges Russia’s territorial sovereignty) to the point of invading Ukraine, committing a genocide (right?), deporting Ukrainian people and annexing/colonizing Ukrainian territories (and notice it's all/mostly/primarily Ukrainians' fault according to pro-Russian "useful idiots" in this forum), even though Ukrainians have never ever attacked Russia proper, and keep making nuclear threats what should a small Israel pursuing just its own nation state but repeatedly aggressed by Palestinians and other Muslim-Arab neighbouring countries in its recent history, non-acknowledged by prominent Palestinian political representatives (Hamas has never acknowledged Israel territorial sovereignty) and with Palestinians strategically allied with Israel’s strategic archenemy, namely Iran (which doesn’t acknowledge Israel territorial sovereignty either) do?
Now, let’s talk propaganda, sooooooooo… you are telling me along with the self-entitled nobodies in this thread with no skin in the game at all that BRANDING THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY AND THE PALESTINIANS’ BRAIN AND PEDAGOGY (BECAUSE THIS WILL GO IN TO SCHOOL HISTORY BOOKS, RIGHT?) WITH THE IDEA THAT ISRAEL IS A GENOCIDAL APARTHEID COLONIALIST STATE WHICH STOLE LANDS FROM PALESTINIANS is more amenable to a peaceful 2 state solution between Palestinians and Israelis, and bears no risks of Palestinian revanchism and war exploitable by foreign powers hostile to Israel? Are you fucking nuts?!
Before commenting, maybe read more carefully what I write and also what you write. Because in your last comment you didn’t seem to have done either.
It really isn't so different. It's just marketed as such.
Do notice that Israel has expanded the jewish colonies in order to make more clear that the land is in doubt. If Stalin transferred native populations away from their homelands to Siberia, he also transferred Russians into these conquered territories. Hence the Russian minorities in the Baltic States haven't happened because of only voluntary work related migration. This can be seen from the fact that Finland was over a hundred years part of the Russian Empire, yet it has only a small minority of Russian Finns (about 1,7% of the whole population) as the Grand Dutchy didn't experience Russification. Hence this is a similar phenomenon happening here as obviously Israel's justification for territory would be dubious if no Jewish settlers would live there.
Even if you wanna put it in these terms, still, it’s selling way more than marketing the idea that “It really isn't so different” from a secession case like between Norway and Sweden. So maybe that’s all what they want to hear?
Unfortunately it’s very much different, Jews can hold Samaria, Judea and Jerusalem their “native” land given their culturale heritage. Palestinians can hold the same for their cultural heritage. So their aspirations of reaching national sovereignty over those same lands is incompatible, it doesn’t matter who is right or wrong, or who is responsible of this, or started it first. While Norway and Sweden were just fine to establish their sovereign states each on their side of the Scandinavia peninsula.
Quoting ssu
That’s perfectly consistent with what I just said, and you are trying to downplay this fact not only in name of historical examples that have little to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (BTW in Norway how popular is the idea that Sweden was a colonialist apartheid genocidal state against Norwegians and stole Norwegian lands before peacefully gaining their nation state from Sweden back then and/or now ?) but also against your own assessment of the predicament Israelis and Palestinians are currently in.
All I'm saying that this is quite similar as many other reasons given for conflicts. I agree that it's totally unfruitful to ponder who is right and wrong. The fact is that Jews moved into Israel and established their state on a former British mandate that earlier was part of the Ottoman Empire. That there is no will (on both sides, I guess) to assimilate the population that lived there causes a problem.
This conflict could have ended as the Cold War ended in a negotiated peace, but it didn't. And now it is extremely unlikely.
That the US is an integral part of the conflict (as an ally of Israel) and Arab countries and later Iran has made the conflict a question for themselves doesn't help.
Similar in some ways different in others. I'm highlighting the latter: the core issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not like the hegemonic conflict between Russia and Ukraine, nor like a session conflict as in the American civil war. Precisely, because they are fighting to establish national sovereignty over the very same land.
Quoting ssu
Here are other similar facts: Europeans moved to North/South America and Australia and established their state (was that a genocide?). Arabs moved to Palestine and North Africa and established their state (was that a genocide?). Now what are we going to do about these facts?
Quoting ssu
But apparently for the screaming monkeys in the West it's enough to scream louder to [s]fix everything[/s] show off the wonders of their righteousness & critical minds.
What about being apathetic about Zionism? Is that Judeo-apathy?
Judeo-apathy would be a good descriptor.
For what?
Apathy about Zionism.
Alright. :up:
The Stable Genius argues that the Palestinians are very happy to leave since nobody wants to live in a pile of rubble. Obviously, the Israelis can't possibly want to live in a pile of rubble either. That leaves only one solution: U.S. annexation, building beach resorts, golf courses and another beautiful Trump Tower. Having single handedly solved the Palestinian Problem, President Trump seeks to reassure Bibi that solving the region's residual Jewish Problem can wait for later.
Sinwar would be rolling in his grave. :rofl:
To be fair, the Orange Menace also clarified that big beautiful towns will be built to accommodate the Palestinians, thereby removing any incentive for them to return to Gaza—a place that has been such bad luck for them. Those big beautiful towns will be build "through a massive amounts(sic) of money supplied by other people, very rich nations. And they're willing to supply it."
And... as it turns out, it was too early to celebrate.
It began with them going from house to house murdering, raping, and torturing their neighbors. It ended with them losing their land. Divine justice.
Wickedness sows the seeds of its own destruction. Trump saw the 10/7 footage.
Trump also saw the rubble pile 60,000 Palestinian civilians have been burred under. Did he cheer this act of Divine retribution as much as he had cheered the assault on the U.S. Capitol? I bet he was just utterly indifferent.
The idea that Trump would send American troops to carry out 'the final solution' in Gaza sounds far-fetched to me. It would be a global diplomatic disaster. It also doesn't make a whole lot of sense to first push Netanyahu to a cease-fire.
If actions are undertaken to make this a reality, then we'll know. Until then I think this could just as well be Trump pandering to the Israeli extremists and the lobby.
In a way, it is good that Trump is putting it on the table. There are a lot of parties, in Europe for example, who are still trying to deny the gravity of what is happening in Gaza. With Trump openly talking about ethnic cleansing, there will be no more denials and all of these parties must openly proclaim on which side of history they wish to put themselves.
To put it in another way: Trump just made it plain for all to see that this is not about Hamas, but about the forced deportation of 2,000,000 Palestinians and the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
And let's not forget that also in this case certain Westerners can blame the Palestinian victims for ALL/MOST/MAIN of it as much as certain Westerners blame the Ukrainian victims for the Russian aggression, genocide and cleansing of Ukrainians.
He was on the brink of starting a global trade war a day earlier before chickening out so I don't think anything is far-fetched.
Pushing for a ceasefire makes sense if you want to use the land as real estate property which is something that Trump's son in law has suggested in the past. Of course we could also not rule out that he doesn't know what he's doing either.
Quoting Tzeentch
Not that I think it will do much since his election has shown that nothing really matters anymore, but at least people can stop pretending.
Anyways to borrow your phrasing it will be big if it sticks.
It's Trump's, so I wouldn't put a goal of forcibly deporting people past him, but why exactly is it bad, unthinkable genocide to allow Gazans to leave Gaza? Why is migration the solution to so many other wars (if people prefer to leave), and indeed "countries have a duty to take refugees," but it is instead "genocide" if Gazans are given the option for resettlement? It certainly isn't in virtue of what is best for Gazans.
Because I imagine many do want to leave. It seems obvious that many would have left Gaza if Egypt hadn't used its military to make sure they couldn't flee. It seems obvious that they wouldn't necessarily be eager to return.
Gaza is in ruins. Hamas was deeply unpopular before the war. Hamas took power in a violent coup and has ruled through depression, torture, and disappearances ever since. They started the war, with it's fairly obvious consequences for Gaza's residents, planning entirely in secret. Then, after provoking what was sure to be a massive response, they largely fled to hide rather than attempting to defend the Strip and its people: "not my problem." They even compounded the problem by, at least in some cases, using civilians and critical infrastructure/aid as a screen.
Since they were able to shepherd their strength by largely refusing to fight in the war they started, it seems they will maintain an iron grip on power. Shouldn't people be allowed to leave if they want.
I get why Hamas hates the plan. It's the same calculus that led them to try to stop people from fleeing combat areas. But forcing people to stay, blocking aid for resettlement and keeping them out by force, in the name of long term political aims, is incredibly cynical.
I think this becomes obvious in any other situation. Consider:
"Europe should not let in any Syrian refugees or give those who attempt to flee Syria any aid. Indeed, we should pen them in by force because if they leave Assad will get what he wants ."
"No one should take the Arab world's Jews as refugees because doing so would help the Arabs ethically cleanse Jews from across the region, where they have lived for thousands of years." Now here, the native population in question was entirely cleansed, whereas it seems very unlikely that all Gazans would leave. These communities are all gone. Was it in those people's best interest to have had foreign powers block their flight or deny them refugee status, to park soldiers at the border to keep them in?
Or consider: "We mustn't let ethnic minorities flee Afghanistan because it will be giving the Taliban what they want." Or "Germans must stay in Eastern Europe and face the pogroms because if they all flee there won't be Germans in Eastern Europe." Well, 10-14 million Germans were ethnically clenesed, but it's far from obvious that being forced to stay was the better solution.
Particularly abhorrent is the idea that members of the Palestinian diaspora who have successfully fled would want others "locked in" because they have to "defend the land."
First you'd have to prove that the Gazans actually want to leave. The closest thing they have to a representative body is Hamas, and Hamas clearly isn't leaving voluntarily. If there were to ever be a representative body that is open to the idea, negotiations would have to follow, mutually agreed-upon terms, etc.
Until that happens, this is ethnic cleansing, and for Egypt or Jordan to open their borders to "take in refugees" would amount to nothing less than complicity in Israel's crimes against humanity.
Hamas isn't close to a representative body. They didn't even win a majority of the vote in the one election they participated in held two decades ago. They seized power by force and have kept it by force.
By this logic, Assad should have had the say over whether Syrians could leave Syria. Was it "genocide" when Turkey and the EU allowed Syrians to enter? Likewise, Hitler would have the final say over whether Jews were allowed to leave Germany? And it was genocide when the US or UK accepted Jews?
This is frankly, ridiculous reasoning. Allowing refugees refuge in your country is not genocide.
Also, consider how bizarre Hamas' position is. Gaza is an open air prison. They claim to be fighting for the prisoners. A key demand in their negotiations is that no one be allowed to leave the prison.
Well, you'll somehow have to prove the Gazans actually want to leave. And "I imagine that they do" is obviously not sufficient.
In order to even offer the possibility of refugee status you have to prove people want it?
I can point to millennia of human history. When a city is under siege, when it is under modern bombardment, most civilians flee. This happens everywhere. This is what happened in Northern Gaza despite Hamas' pleas and efforts to trap people in. Why did no one flee Gaza? Because they couldn't. Because they had the IDF on one side and the Egyptian military on the other.
If no one wants to leave Gaza, why does Egypt need walls and a heavy military presence all around the border? If no one wants to leave, in what sense is it a prison?
I mean, if you give people the option to leave and they don't take it, fine. Locking them in and then saying "prove they even want to leave (but also, no, they absolutely cannot)."
Ridiculous.
Palestinians did leave, in vast numbers, when they were allowed to (e.g. Jordan and Lebanon). Living your entire life as a pawn in someone else's military aspirations isn't everyone's goal.
You're not talking about 'the possibility of refugee status'. What you're talking about is opening the border and letting Gazans leave 'voluntarily' at the end of a rifle barrel, then call them refugees to disguise the fact that what is actually happening is ethnic cleansing.
No I'm not. I am talking about them being able to leave if they want. They are currently not allowed to leave if they want. Hamas demands that they not be allowed to leave if they want.
Egypt will not even let people in temporarily to transit to other countries. Gaza is not the only major urban war to produce essentially no refugees because "no one wants to leave." That assertion is ridiculous on many levels, not least because force was used to keep people in.
Even if Israel had started the war, even if they had started it as a naked act of conquest, Egypt would not be justified in sealing off any escape route and telling women and children "sorry, we can't let you flee the active combat zone, that would be genocide you see."
I never made the assertion that "no one wants to leave". It's up to you to prove that they do, uncoerced (Yea, good luck with that.), if you want this to be anything other than ethnic cleansing.
Even if it was openly declared ethnic cleansing, your position would still be abhorrent. "Oh hey, watch out, that invading army wants to engage in mass slaughter and rape. Nope, I cannot let you cross the border to flee. That would be genocide."
It's patently ridiculous. Caging people in with ethnic cleansers to "prevent ethnic cleansing," genius.
If people have been asking questions like this, we wouldn't be in this mess.
You're claiming people have a moral obligation to pen women and children in with people attempting to genocide them. I don't see how that stops ethnic cleansing from working. Essentially, you are relying solely on the restraint of the people engaged in ethnic cleansing to fix the situation for you, since you won't let people remove themselves from the situation.
BTW, here is a story on people giving their life savings to get smuggled out of Gaza.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/jan/08/palestinians-flee-gaza-rafah-egypt-border-bribes-to-brokers
You can also find plenty of video of people pleading to leave. Apparently though, it would have been immoral not to keep them corralled in an active war zone.
I didn't claim any such thing.
Stop trying to deflect from the fact that you're trying to make ethnic cleansing work.
Ah, so see, countries should accept Gazan refugees! And they should be able to rely upon all the other services that Syrian, Afghan, etc. refugees can. Glad we agree.
Claiming that "Isreal is engaged in genocide" does not help the case for "no one should be allowed to leave Gaza or aided in doing so.". It's a perverse logic that says "aiding people who flee a genocide is abetting genocide."
But of course, I know the Hamas apologist logic here. "No, they cannot be allowed to seek shelter, because their deaths will be a boon to Hamas' political ends, as will their misery, and the cover they provide is a military necessity."
That's up to countries themselves to decide.
No country is under any obligation to make itself complicit in Israel's crimes against humanity.
You're trying to shift Israel's responsibility for its crimes to others.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
We definitely don't agree.
Remember, Gaza is a prison and a concentration camp. But they must not leave! :lol:
if Russia cleanses and genocides the Ukrainians to preserve its sphere of influence, we should blame the victims, of course. That's fucking realism, baby.
if Israel cleanses and genocides the Palestinians to not be cleansed and genocided by the Palestinians, we should blame Israel, of course. That's suprime moral standard, you scum.
He, Marco Rubio, is already showing the signs of "being the adult in the room", which is highly irritating for Trump and hence dangerous for the secretary of state. Donald, as the genuine asshole he is, won't tolerate in the long run such behavior as he want only loyal sycophants that simply repeat what he says. This was already clear when Rubio met the president of Panama. Then there simply was NO talk of the US annexing Panama or the Canal Zone. Naturally the US got a deal, US warships can now pass freely the Canal, but that wasn't what Trump was talking about. Few million cheaper and a new port deal without Chinese is simply not what Trump talked about.
Trump won't have it. If this continues, Trump will simply look as foolish as he is. He blabbers every strange idea that comes to his senile mind, just like this Mar-A-Gaza idea, and then people take it Trump "playing 4D chess". Sorry, but what the US president says has to really mean what he says. There cannot be then people behind him just talking about it as "a negotiating tactic".
I'll predict that sooner or later Rubio has to go. And we will have that trade war.
It’s a sad situation, and I’m actually truly rooting for Trump to mix things up. I was hoping for something more serious than this, though. It’ll just involve the US troops in the conflict, which will continue.
What Likud has done here is really unfortunate for Israel. They’ve wanted an excuse to ethnically cleanse the region, and Hamas provided them a great one with the horrid October 7th attacks on innocent people. It has to be understood in a historical context, as the treatment of the Palestinians has been awful for decades— but it doesn’t excuse it either. Nor does it excuse the disproportionate response.
I think Mearsheimer is right yet again: the Isael lobby in Washington is still very powerful indeed, to the point where even Trump — who is anti-war— can’t bring himself to demand a two state solution.
What a disappointment.
"Lurid billionaire fascist capitalist Donald Fucking Trump wants to exploit the horrible tragedy of the Palestinian conflict for his greediness and that of other Jewish real-estate capitalists (e.g. Harey Zahav) with the pretext of bringing peace while pursuing and validating the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. That makes me sick to my stomach. I feel like wanting to crucify my own pacifist balls for that"!
There I've corrected it for you. No need to thank me.
Many Palestinians actually would like to leave and go to peaceful Palestinian communities abroad. Many Palestinians would like to raise their children in peace and live quiet lives. The problem is Hamas doesn't let them. A few days ago Hamas murdered many innocent Palestinians for "stealing aid." The Egyptian border is built so high and so tough because without it the Palestinians would be leaving. When one lives under totalitarian rule one is not in a position to express open dissent or speak of one's true intentions publically without risk of reprisal.
Where did I do that?
Do you think I drew the comparison to between Israel and Assad, Hitler, the ethnic cleansing of the Jews from across the Middle East, and the Germans from Eastern Europe because I thought those were all clear examples where the aggressor was justified?
Let me ask, was it "justifying" the Hutu genocide of the Tutsi to allow Tutsi civilians to flee over Rwanda's borders?
Why is this different? Why in this one case must refugees desperate to flee a war zone be penned in? Why was it acceptable for Yazidis to flee, and for countries to help them, even as it "gave ISIS what they wanted," and helped erase them from the region? Or was it not, should the Yazidis have been forced to stay?
I know why the Arabs absolutely opposed letting Gazans have the status of other refugees. One, because they don't want to deal with the potential political unrest and fallout. Libya and Qatar previously ethnically cleansed their Palestinians, close to 500,000 were expelled in the later case. The history in Jordan and Lebanon is significantly more bloody. So there is a fear of getting embroiled in a in political or military conflict.
However, I hardly think this remains the main reason. The real reason is far more dubious. Even today, Christian nationalists and ethno nationalists fantasize about the day when "Constantinople will be reclaimed by the West." This was a major goal of the Russian Empire in WWI, the "Third Rome" restoring the "Second Rome" and the historical heart of Eastern Christendom. It's part of why they kept gambling on a losing war, even after the Tsar fell. That was half a millennia after Muslims took the city. The appeal to "one day" retake Jerusalem is every bit as strong in the Arab world.
This is explicitly why Gaddafi ethnically cleansed his Palestinian population. The PLO was considering a two state solution, and this meant giving up claims of reconquest. He also advised all other Arab states to do the same, a punishment for not being willing to "tough it out" until the day of victory. This is also explicitly why Hamas carried out its massive terror campaign, to try to derail the formation of a Palestinian state because it would be giving up claims on territory, primarily Jerusalem.
Obviously, Christian powers would form alliances with the Ottomans over the centuries. They accepted their short to medium term existence, all while holding out for the day of reconquest. The same is true for many vis-a-vis Israel. This is obvious in the case of the Europeans, since they pounced on the opportunity to retake the city when it finally came and just failed to win the city back.
That is why Gaza is the one place where there can be active urban fighting, but it would be "wrong" to allow women and children to leave the fighting. This is why the idea of even allowing voluntary temporary relocation to Europe is condemned. The Palestinians are there to function in much the same way that Russians settled in Ukraine after the Holodomor, or Germans settled out east during German conquests, to hold the land, or at least a claim on it, by their presence. But shouldn't they have a say in this?
This is also why the Palestinians Arab allies didn't grant the Palestinians citizenship after 1948, or let them seek employment, but instead herded them into squalid camps under military rule (this, despite their explicit goals in 1948 being to annex that land, not set up a new state). We know from documents at the time that this was explicitly to "keep the conflict alive," to have the door open on another attempted reconquest (obviously with a subsequent ethnic cleansing by the victorious party). Such attempts were made, they just failed. It is not any different today.
This is also why the Gulf States are happy to work with China, to buy billions in arms from them and provide them oil, even as they carry out a massive ethnic cleansing campaign against their Muslim population. East Turkestan is not a place nationalists and fundamentalists dream of reconquering, so it has no salience.
No doubt, many Palestinians would not want to leave Gaza for similar reasons. Nowhere did I suggest they should be removed by force. I said it does not make sense to force those who do want to leave, who would be treated as valid refugees if they were from anywhere else on Earth, to have to stay in a war zone, under a violent and repressive regime, in order to "stake other's long term claim to the land."
This position makes no sense from a Western liberal point of view. It is astounding to me that people who are otherwise fierce advocates of the rights of refugees are bamboozled into this, and I can only suppose that it is because their politics and philosophy tell them that they must defer to Arabs on Arab issues (but apparently not those at the border begging to be let through).
Yet I don't know how you can watch the videos of people desperately pleading to be let across the Egyptian border, or read the stories of people giving away their entire life savings just for the chance that their children alone might be smuggled across the border, and then say: "good job Egypt. Those soldiers need to be there to keep them in at gun point. Otherwise the claim on the land could be lost to the movements of history!"
I don't see how such a position could possibly stem from a concern from those families seeking to leave.
Sorry, but your speculations are worthless. Given that this conflict has gone on for 70+ years, to blame Hamas for the Palestinians’ (correct) desire to want to stay in their rightful homeland is ridiculous. Yes, some want to leave. Most want to stay.
Famous Israeli Journalist
@shlomieldar
“I’ve been talking to people from Gaza since this morning, and most of them say the same thing: If ships docked at the Gaza coast, they would board them for countries with Palestinian communities, such as Sweden, England, and Canada—if they were guaranteed medical insurance and education for their children. In that case, they would leave.
Egypt and Jordan aren’t seen as real options. If they were to leave, it would be for a place that offers the next generation a chance to live, breathe, and integrate.
People want a better life—a future for their children. The question is: Is such a move even feasible? Is the world ready, able, and willing to support Trump on this plan?”
https://x.com/Osint613/status/1887860828159742239
Many if not most Gazans seemly want a new start after 15 months of war.
They're a nasty little bunch, aren't they? Always causing trouble.
I would assume this is likely true. But this is precisely why I don't get the blanket denial on letting people leave. In particular, some people had the courage to speak out with journalists about their unhappiness with Hamas during the war, and might very well be facing retribution. This is a case where someone would normally have a good asylum claim. Likewise, particularly effective critics of Israel might have similar concerns.
But seriously, if you're expecting the Jews to have sympathy after Israelis were kept in concentration camp like conditions in Gaza and being paraded on stages and leaving emaciated, after women and children were murdered in Hamas captivity, after Israeli women were raped and then set on fire at a music festival.... I don't know what else to tell you.
It seems like with you Hamas could be in literal Nazi uniforms burning Israeli prisoners alive and you'd still be pearl clutching about Israeli soldiers. I'd imagine you'd say something like "well Israel is the ultimate cause behind all of it." And you can charge the same at me -- that I overlook Palestinian suffering yet I never claimed to be impartial but amazingly you apparently do.
Let's start with destroying Hamas and allowing Palestinian migration. I'm as uncomfortable with forced deportation as anyone.
The Middle East was never de-Nazified.
You need to learn to see Israeli civilians as human beings rather than just "Israel." You would never speak of the deaths of Palestinians as "resistance against Palestine" or "resistance against Hamas." There's a nasty double standard at work.
My conscience tells me to fight. If ~1200 of your people were tortured, raped, and murdered and your conscience didn't tell you to fight I would question your brain development.
Yes, fight all those women and children who had nothing to do with it. I’m sure we’ll “destroy Hamas” any day now…
Your moral instincts are as admirable as your judgment.
So you would be pro-Israel if all the dead were men who were involved in 10/7 or Hamas members? What of Hamas members who weren't involved in 10/7? Would those be valid targets?
Really? Are you? So you oppose the Trump Mar-a-Gaza plan?
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Usually in war it's the combatants that one fights. Yet not all the dead are Hamas members and not all buildings destroyed in Gaza were military positions were Hamas fought from.
Just because I'm uncomfortable with something doesn't mean that I oppose it. We ethnically cleansed Germans from territories like Alsace-Lorraine and I've never heard of anyone complain about that. Jews have been ethnically cleansed 3x from Gaza since 1929 and no one could care less. Perhaps we ought to work to reinstate their presence there.
Best PR would be to describe it as a temporary migration while Gaza is rebuilt.
Quoting ssu
I wish we could take all the Hamas members and all the IDF and place them on an island where they could duke it out among themselves, but that's not realistic. Also consider that many of those who kept hostages as slaves were not Hamas, but civilians. Many of those who attacked Israel on 10/7 were civilians also. So when Israel hits back, the Palestinians get to turn their deaths into evidence of Israel's unimaginable cruelty.
Just recently Hamas killed a 14 year old Palestinian boy when one of their rockets crashed in Gaza. You know that's going on the "killed by Israel" list.
And that's not the only young Palestinian teenager dying in a manner like that. Not too long ago a 14 year old Palestinian boy was blown up when the explosives he was transporting detonated.
:eyes:
Tells a lot. So you are uncomfortable with ethnic cleansing, but think it's an OK thing to do.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Then you have absolutely no problem of understanding Nazi ideology, because that's the way exactly how they thought. Some may have been "uncomfortable" in the process, but hey, the end justifies the means.
I'll just end here with that I'm categorically against your thinking. There are ample examples that once conflicts are over, people can adapt to peace. Yet then it's a military that is vanquished, or a political movement that has ended up in failure. Not a culture. The idea of perpetual war between "cultures" is a strange and dubious idea, because in the end you are talking of people that basically just want to live their life. I think your view of the "wickedness of some cultures" is one of the most dangerous in this World and will spread destruction and death in further conflicts. Because military conflict isn't seen as an extension or outcome of political disagreement, but a way to attack whole people constituting a culture. The objectives are war aren't as Clausewitz put them, but something of the lines of the Roman saying: "Create a desert and call it peace". If ethnic cleansing is OK, it isn't a big leap to genocide.
Yep, some new member would be immediately banned.
If wishing for the destruction of a culture where e.g. powerful men routinely abuse young boys or human sacrifice is a constant make me a Nazi then so be it.
In Nazism, it was a perpetual war between races. One's blood made one the enemy. Jews who abandoned their own culture and adopted German culture were not spared. Such an evil could only emerge in modernity.
Ideally the wicked group is destroyed by God/nature/its own internal dynamics. As we see with Sodom and Gomorrah. I'm not typically one to support military intervention against a group simply because it is wicked. However, if that group is being both wicked and violent towards its neighbors it likely needs both a decisive military defeat and wholescale culture reform. It will surely lose its self-determination after the defeat. It must be purged of certain practices by its new rulers, like the Spanish did with human sacrifice in the New World.
I apply this to my own group as well. Our texts do describe one of our ancient exiles as punishment for our own practice of child sacrifice (among others) in the first temple period. So my hope is, in the end, that wickedness is vanquished from all cultures. Some cultures are just more egregious and aggressive in their wickedness than others, and bad cultures poison all within it. May we one day see a day where it is all gone.
Exiling Palestinians from their land will not destroy their culture. It will be a second Nakba.
I think if they were exiled they would lose their culture fairly quickly. "Palestinian" as an ethnic identity is only around 60-70 years old and it will fade in due time.
One hundred years ago "Palestinianism" wasn't a thing, and hopefully it won't be a thing in another hundred. Meanwhile, the Jews continue 3000+ years of their connection to their actual homeland as it is even stated in the Quran.
What is Palestine if not the ancient Philistine?
So it's not that there was some loyalty to a state, but a sense that they were entitled to their geographical home- like everyone else in the region. Now they're being ejected again.
The Philistines were likely from Crete or somewhere in the Aegean. They were not Arabs.
The original UN plan had the territory divided between Jewish and Muslim land. The Arab Muslims rejected any independent Jewish state, so the moment one was declared the Arabs attacked from all sides. Had the Arabs won, it would have been a second holocaust. Yet since they were fought off and the Jews counterattacked and saved themselves from annihilation some of the Arabs living in Palestine fled and cry foul. Their own failure to annihilate the Jews in the region and secure the land as another Islamic territory is their "Nakba."
The other Arab nations should have taken them in and integrate them but they would rather just leave this as a perpetual problem for Israel and treat the Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank as front line soldiers for Islamic expansion which has always been the aim of their religion from the very beginnings.
You've completely ignored the history. These Arabs were in Palestine, and were forced out. Israel often excuses this as perfectly fine, because it's so similar to the treatment of native Americans in the US. They see that as perfectly fine.
I'm not defending the actions of Palestinians, I'm explaining why they won't accept the theft of their "reservation". You had claimed it was no big deal. That's utter nonsense.
Some of them fled because Arab leaders told them to. Some of them fled for fear of the Israeli army coming to their towns. Some of them fled because attacks were being launched from their towns. Some of them fled expecting a quick victory. It's common for civilians to flee in wartime for a variety of reasons.
It's more similar to tribes fighting among each other and boundaries shifting. This problem would have been resolved had the Arab states integrated their own or had the Palestinians not chosen violence towards civilians as a way to avenge their loss.
Yes it sucks for the Palestinians. They lost a war.
EDIT: Jews are indigenous to the land. You can tell this because of various ancient festivals that speak to their connection to the land. The "Palestinians" - a 60 year old identity - have no festivals.
Ancient history does not trump current reality. There were few Jews in Palestine before the 19th century Zionist movement.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
And you think this means they should just accept their lot, like native Americans did? What "should" happen isn't the point. It's what WILL happen. They won't accept it, and neither will their Arab neighbors.
Ancient history determines current reality. Jews have lived continuously in the land since antiquity. Jewish identity was formed in the land. I understand that Arabs have lived in in the land for many years, but Arabs are indigenous to the Arabian peninsula. They come from places like Lebanon and Syria and settle in Israel and adopt the name "Palestinian" as did anyone who lived in Israel/Palestine/Canaan etc. So Jews were "Palestinian" too in the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s.
This all changed in the 1960s when it suddenly became an explicitly non-Jewish name for an ethnicity rather just a geographical descriptor as it had always been. But it is lies. Many of these "Palestinians" settled in the land in the 19th century when the Ottomans imported Arab workers.
Yet there was no "free Palestine" movement during the Ottoman empire. There was no need for it. The land was already Muslim -- which is what it's always been about. It is humiliating for them that land that was once Muslim has reverted back to being Jewish.
Quoting Relativist
Many countries lose wars and accept the new reality and move on. Why won't the Palestinians?
There's not many close analogies of a conquered people being ejected from their land. But regardless, I'm discussing the reality that they aren't likely to be docile about it.
I'll tell you what you don't do: You don't go on a multi-decade terror spree and deepen enmity with an enemy who is stronger than you.
It would be like native americans choosing to go around murdering and kidnapping random white people.
History story is continuous, and you're omitting the reality that over time, the area became predominantly Arab. Jews were a tiny minority until the Zionist movement took off in the 19th century. It was falsely advertised as "a land without people for a people without a land. Still, Arabs welcomed them at the time.
What allowed the Germans to accept that and move on but the Palestinians can't?
What difference does it make? You're judgement of what they "ought" to do doesn't compel them to do so.
Yes, it became Arab because Arabs conquered it in the 7th century under one of their caliphates. Just as they conquered many cities and regions at that time. It's funny how people compare them to native americans given they came to control the land as a way to expand their empire. Imperialism would be the better term.
Anyway, yes initially they were welcoming but mostly jews under muslim rule were treated as second class citizens and forced to pay jizya (extra taxation for non-muslims.) It was hard to move there because of the political climate and very high taxation and oppression for non-muslims.
Of course it doesn't. That's Israel's job. The war will continue until Palestinians accept their defeat. It took huge amounts of suffering for Germany and Japan to get there. What Israel is doing isn't any different than what the Allies did, except Israel is being much more careful. The punishment we inflicted on Japanese and German cities before they surrendered was incredible, but that's war.
So you think think it was appropriate to correct a situation established 1300 years earlier. That's as ludicrous as suggesting Israel should be abolished because of the past injustices to Palestinians. Irrespective of Palestinian claims, Israel exists and has a right to continue. That doesn't doesn't justify ethnic cleansing. I absolutlely understand Israel's need for security, but this approach seems likely to provoke more resentment from Palestinians and more hostility from Israel's neighbors.
Zero apologies offered. The Muslims come in and take by the sword, but then cry foul when they are defeated by the sword by that land's previous owners and indigenous inhabitants. Cry me a river. And this was after many centuries of Jews being treated as second class citizens.
Israel's very existence is considered "ethnic cleansing" so excuse me if that charge doesn't exactly arouse my sympathies.
International standards developed after WW2 in the Geneva Conventions (1949 and 1976) would consider our "punishment" of civilians as war crimes.
Who cares? War itself is a crime against humanity. The only unforgiveable crime in war is to lose. I posted a poll awhile back:
Suppose Germany had won the Battle of Britain and then launched an invasion of England. Churchill authorizes the use of poison gas and it becomes a decisive factor in repelling the Nazi invasion.
Was Churchill's use of poison gas justified?
Most people said yes. I think that's the obvious answer.
You have been misreading if you inferred I was trying to arouse your sympathy. I simply trying to get across to you how Palestinians would take it, and that this will have consequences. You had suggested this would all go away.
Yes, consequences for sure. I suggested it would go away if the Arab countries choose to accept them and integrate them into their populations. And all this after many decades. They would start a new life and other affairs would occupy their minds.
Or if they were dispersed to other countries.
Well, some of the Arab combatants scream allahu akbar! before raping women to death, so....
Yes. It is the reason why there is a conflict. More states were suppose to become Muslim, not less.
Hey remember when Trump said “ALL hostages must be released by Saturday or there will be hell to pay?” :lol: Thankfully, no one takes that imbecile seriously.
Remember guys, as long as a non-state actor is fighting a state, the non-state is virtually always in the right because there's no way that small terrorist organization/non-state actor/battered population has caused more deaths (rightfully or wrongfully) than the state has over its long history.
So kill as many Israeli or American babies as you like; you are always the good one as long as your opponent is that state. :up:
Had this situation happened the other way around, we would say that Israel killed them, but on this occasion, it is simply a few Palestinian civilians -- certainly not representative of Palestinians in general -- who did the deed. Palestinians commit crimes individually, Israel as a collective. That's how the game works.
Yeah, that’s been the status quo for a long time. You always seem fine with it— or find a creative way to justify it. Just do the same when it’s Palestinians killing Israelis.
So whichever side kills more babies is the bad side? Is that how we see history?
That’s a decent rule of thumb, sure.
The US did kill many more Japanese babies than Japan killed US babies.
Additionally, we should note the difference between the intentional murder of babies (as occurred on 10/7 and to 10/7 hostages in captivity) and babies dying as a byproduct of a strike on a legitimate target.
:yawn:
Trotting out the tired WWII comparisons and the trusty ol’ “when the good guys do it, it’s not intentional.” Keep up the good work. :up:
You presented an idea - a universal rule of thumb - and then rejected my historical application of that principle. :up:
What other wars/time periods are we not allowed to use as historical examples? Just for future reference.
EDIT: And yes, when pilots bomb military bases (where do babies live) that is not the same as shooting a baby at point blank range because it belongs to a certain race and to draw a moral equivalency between the two is deranged.
True, there is no moral equivalence. Bombing from the air is morally worse. But I’m glad you can see into people’s souls now. When they kill, it’s because of race and evil intentions — when we do it, it’s accidental and unintended.
You’re in good company though — basic tribalism. Your equivalent is out there, only they justify Hamas’ killings. And have better arguments.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Nope — laughed at it.
It’s right there in my profile.
Ok, so an allied bomber who strikes a weapons factory where the debris ends up hitting a nursery in the area and killing 10 babies is equivalent (if not worse, since you say bombers are worse) to a Nazi who intentionally executes 10 gypsy babies.
Both are the same morally. Ten dead babies. Accidental, intentional... doesn't matter. Maybe the pilot did intend to kill those babies. Maybe the Nazi's motives/intentions aren't so clear. Maybe he really wasn't trying to shoot those 10 romani babies he lined up and shot.
When we do it it’s always with the best intentions.
You can condemn airpower as inhumane, but without it you jeopardize allied victory and ensure a much more deadly ground war. Now I wonder whether naval bombardment is ok with you or if that's off limits.
EDIT: WIthout air and naval bombardments we surely lose, so our best course of action would just be to surrender.
When Hamas gets an Air Force, let me know. But since they’ll be doing it with evil intentions in their hearts, I don’t see how it would change things.
ISIS doesn't have an air force either.
True.
Usually something this gross doesn’t get said out loud. But I appreciate the transparency.
1) Is intention morally relevant to you?
2) You do realize intention isn't purely internal, correct?
Minimally. Why? Because professing benign intentions is the norm for states (and individuals) that commit crimes.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Hence why they’re professed.
You may not care whether a death was intended or not, but civilized nations do.
Yes, the same civilized nations that murder with impunity, because their intentions are always humanitarian. If you believe all that, you’re welcome.
https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1894613903302176846
Civilizations must win wars/be able to defend themselves to be civilizations. They must sometimes use lethal force against criminal or terrorist elements, but I suppose all that is just "murder" to you.
Yeah yeah yeah. Like when the US invaded Vietnam because it was “defending” Vietnam.
Everything is defensive when it’s your team. And intellectually bankrupt apologists don’t have the slightest self-reflection to see it. But it’s conventional, and common. You’re in a large company.
What are your thoughts on the decision to fight the revolutionary war and declare independence from Great Britain? Justified or no?
I have not claimed that all wars that a nation engages in are good or necessary.
I think they had good reasons, yes. I’m also mostly in favor of slave revolts— like the one seen on October 7th. Don’t like seeing innocent people killed— but hey, as you said, “that’s war.” You make a strong case for Hamas. Especially considering they’ve killed far less people than the Israeli or US government.
Oh wait— right, you’re just rooting for your team and everyone else is antisemitic. Scratch all that: just replace Hamas with Israel and the same arguments hold — always justified in killing.
Apropos of what I was saying. Very typical. Laughable.
:lol:
“Love it or leave it!” yelled the same moronic, conventional jingoists in the 60s to the Vietnam protestors. Very original; very brave.
Like most defenders of state atrocities. Not a brain cell among them. Comments like these are so stupid, it’s not even worth responding in any serious way.
I wouldn’t know. If you feel that way, you’re welcome to take your advice. It’s a stupid, stupid way to think about things— but might as well.
The Palestinians were slaves... that's a new one. So what did their Zionist taskmasters assign them?
I've discussed this issue with many TPF users and I've only accused one of anti-semitism and it's not you. But yes, I'm situated. I was born to a certain culture, and I'm pretty open about that.
A state apologist through and through— but at least honest about it. I appreciate that.
No I meant I'm Jewish.
And you're a state apologist as well given you supported the American Revolution and the creation of a new state from England and you seem to think it's been a force for good overall.
What’s the relevance?
I’m American, therefore I defend Vietnam and Iraq? I’m Catholic, therefore I defend priests molesting children?
What a silly remark.
Hardly a state— but I never said I supported it. They had some legitimate points to make. Given what they did to the Indians and the rest of the world, perhaps it would have been better off staying colonies. Whatever the US has developed — like free speech — has come from long struggle, and I like a lot of that. I dislike the genocide parts. I guess I’m un-American.
What if it were your immediate family? Or what if your tribe/group had a history of persecution by another group and it's once again at your doorstep?
Every country has its sins of course; no country is perfect. So I'll certainly agree with you that America is flawed.
Because I love my family, I would have even more reason to try to stop them from committing atrocities.
The victims of 10/7 didn't commit atrocities. The attempted bus bomber a few days ago did not target people who committed atrocities.
What would you say if a terrorist bomber from Afghanistan or Iraq blew up your neighborhood? Justified blowback, perhaps? America is no angel.
Hence why we shouldn’t compare a state to a family I suppose.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Exactly. In fact this was a reaction to 9/11. It’s unspeakably awful and deserves condemnation. And it would be nice if our government wasn’t funding wars and genocides— then acts like that largely wouldn’t be committed.
I agree that 9/11 was unspeakably awful and deserves condemnation. We should say the same of 10/7.
Quoting Mikie
I'm sure you know that Arab massacres of Jews in Palestine occurred in the 1920s and 1930s before Israel existed. Before there was an Israel to blame things on.
Yep.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Yep.
:yawn:
The original Islamic expansion was not caused by some "cycle of violence" type logic. From its inception, Islam has simply been a religion that seeks to continuously expand. Has its nature fumdanentally changed since then?
So we’re going back 1400 years or so now…cool.
Yes, history is irrelevant. Islam clearly no longer seeks to spread. Carry on.
Is there any point at which history becomes relevant to you?
History is very important, yes. Mythology isn’t.
1981.
I liked 1993 too.
What I don't like is that Merz is inviting this war criminal to Germany, but Germany naturally has the Hitler-complex to fear about, so they cannot tow the line as other Western countries (except the US) can condemn Israel's actions.
* * *
When Trump is halting aid from Ukraine and want's "it's money back", Bibi can thank him for the arms that Israel has gotten:
Well, if Protestants murdered 1/3 of Europe's Catholics 80 years ago including members of your family that might alter your perspective both towards your heritage and the non-Catholic world.
Sure. Wouldn’t make genocide right.
What happened to the Jews of Bethlehem? Or Hebron?
Yes. Whether perpetrated by our in-group or not.
Yes. And it is important for a group to protect itself against others who seek its own annihilation.
Yes— like the Palestinians, for example. Israel would like to annihilate them.
Israel could annihilate them at any point. Yet it does not. Israel has nukes, chemical weapons, yet it restrains itself.
Surely if it sought to exterminate the Palestinians it would start with the Palestinians within its own borders, no?
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/1/pkk-declares-ceasefire-in-40-year-conflict-with-turkiye-kurdish-media
The genocide in Gaza is enough. This has been a goal for decades.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
It has to cover its actions so that people like you stay placated and complicit. Like every state that’s committed atrocities in history.
If you knew your history -- if history actually mattered to you -- you would know that the Palestinians are colonizers. So Israel retaking land in Gaza or the West Bank is quite literally decolonization, and decolonization can sometimes be a bloody process as the colonizer entrenches themselves in the land and openly attempts to continue their colonization in the form of the chant "free Palestine."
That is utter bullshit. The Jews lost Israel twice now. It'll happen again. They'll lose it and never get it back again.
They could lose it 20x. Doesn't change the fact they are the indigenous inhabitants. Nor does it change the fact that Palestinianism is simply a front for Islamic expansion - a far greater and more dangerous force than Israel.
In a couple hundred years Israel will be a desert due to climate change. Just as there is no state of the Sahara, there will be no state of Israel. It will be a desert for about 2000 years. Jews will move to Canada and Greenland where they will finally be assimilated. The state of Israel and Judaism will be fixtures of history texts.
You seem like you're in a vengeful mood.
Hundreds of Alawites, Kurds and Shia killed in Syria these past couple days and the world could not seem to care less.
:lol:
Yes, we already know how warped you are. Thanks for the reminder though. Keep fighting the good fight of defending a genocide because the right people are carrying it out. :up:
The term is also essentially meaningless these days. Anyone living in historical Palestine is technically a Palestinian. So Benjamin Netanyahu is a Palestinian. For very nefarious reasons the term has simply come to mean "non-Jew living in historical Palestine."
Maybe. My point was the Jewish right to Israel will soon be the right to an uninhabitable desert. All the killing will have been vanity.
The stuff of nightmares, and unfortunately only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Israel's long track record of human rights violations and crimes against humanity.
Note that this doesn't just cover the atrocities in Gaza, but also in the West Bank.
Has the HRC posted anything on the abduction and murder of Israeli families? Or of the sexual abuse and torture of Israeli hostages? How dare Israel pursue the kidnappers.
Was a Palestinian. But then, you know, some people there formed Israel and those people are called Israelis.
Quoting ssu
If "Palestine" refers to the geography, the physical land, then those born in Israel are born in Palestine. If "Palestine" is a political entity then it's not one that's ever existed as an independent nation.
Quoting ssu
Not if they lived in an Arab section of Palestine. Or refused Israeli citizenship.
But seriously, even if Trump is a devoted ally of Israel, his delusional ideas don't actually help Israel. And imagine if Trump follows Elon's advice of getting the US out of NATO and the UN. How friendly place will the UN be for Israel without the US and with an Europe alienated from the US?
You make reasonable points, but I do love what Trump is doing here in the US. My more immediate concern is American elite universities and dealing with these masked jihadists who terrorize Jewish students. The enemy of the Jews (and western civilization) couldn't be any clearer at this point. And it's nice that Trump is generous with the weapons shipments.
Oh, so you love also the trade war and the tariffs you'll pay?
Not caring so much about the separation of powers in a republic?
Just asking.
Canada was already imposing tariffs on us so I believe Trump's tariffs were retaliatory. I also love that Trump is embracing digital currencies.
I don't see Trump as a dictator currently. If we can't deport illegal immigrants and those who come here on visas and then seek to destroy America then what's the point of even having an immigration regulations? It's long overdue. Security is the primary function of any state.
Trump's trade war timeline 2.0: An up-to-date guide (PIIE)
An overview of the lot suggests differently.
There goes the AUSFTA as well...
No, NOBODY HAD TARIFFS against you like idiot Trump has now done.
This Tariff bullshit is ALL OF TRUMP'S DOING. Nobody was so foolish as Trump to think that tariffs would bring prosperity. He had to invent this would be an "emergency", because of the fentanol from Canada, which was a tiny fraction compared to what comes from Mexico, one fucking suitcase.
And just think for example of aluminium. It's basic a metal done with electricity and when producing . Well, Canada has ample amounts of hydroelectricity production, hence it's naturally cheaper to produce aluminium in Canada and the country now produces three times more aluminium than the US.
So now you have this epic wisdom of Trump that let's make everything cost more, so there would sprout more domestic production. Well, what you will be having is just paying the high fucking cost that hopefully then is met by American production that totally is dependent on the trade barriers, because it cannot compete in the global arena. That is just simply foolish!
International trade creates prosperity. Mercantilism, basically what Trump is after, doesn't work so well.
Please, wake up!
Quoting jorndoe
I hope he doesn't believe so. But.... I guess you are right.
You seem mad for some reason. As if my opinion on tariffs has any impact whatsoever. Even if I were against the tariffs, I would still be pro-Trump.
I get that certain metals like steel or aluminum can be produced cheaper elsewhere, but cost isn't the only factor. We simply can't be outsourcing all of our metals production overseas because it's just too big of a national security risk. There must be some amount of domestic production.
There's also the fact of countries like China manipulating their currency to make their exporters more competitive. And Canada does tariff some of our products very highly.
I agree with you that, by and large, free markets are good. International trade is good because it allows consumers access to lower prices. I use to be more dogmatic on this point, but now I do tariffs as being necessary in some cases. Lower costs to the consumers are nice, comparative advantage is nice... but it's not the only factor.
A great opportunity for Trump to build some plants. In the name of National Security. :up: For that matter, there's a crowd of very rich folks right behind him.
An even bigger risk is suddenly making enemies of the allies you depend upon without a plan.
Because he is pro-Israel, pro-bitcoin, and pro-Tesla. Because he deports those who come here on visas and spit in the face of the country that welcomes in them. I like him because he's serious about cutting waste and challenges unaccountable corrupt organizations. I like that he's serious about border security, unlike the Democrats. I like he doesn't try to "both sides" the current Israel-Palestine war. He can actually recognize evil, which is rare in the US, and in the world, today.
He correctly recognizes that the main maladies facing the nation are lawlessness, social and moral confusion, and Islam.
Quoting tim wood
You obsess over Trump. I obsess over the anti-American, anti-Israeli hate mobs destroying our universities, indoctrinating our youth, and spreading Jew-hate and violence across the Western world.
If 1200 of your people were massacred a few years ago and much of the world cheered or excused it as "resistance" your perspective would be different.
Trump is the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the Presidency and has consistently labeled Hamas and its supporters as wicked.
Those who understand the deliberate murder of innocent civilians as "resistance" or as being justified in some sense are disqualified from further opinions. Their views place them outside of civilization.
That would put Israel outside of civilization?
No, Israel targets terrorists who embed themselves in civilian populations. These terrorists often do not wear uniforms. It is not the deliberate murder of innocents. If Israel deliberately murdered innocents we'd see a lot more dead.
Got it.
No there's a target/terrorist in mind with these strikes. A hospital becomes a legitimate target if it's being used for military purposes.
Oh, I'm sure they have all sorts of things in mind. But you just said yourself they have no clue where the terrorists are. They blend in with the population and don't wear uniforms.
I didn't say that. Israeli intel can still locate and target them even if they aren't in uniform.
Yes, they seem to have conceived a most genius method: look where groups of civilians are, and assume some among them must be terrorists.
You write as if you work in an IDF command center. :roll:
How would you know the breakdown between innocent civilian and plain clothed terrorist in a group in Gaza?
No, I just tuned in to their Twitter feed.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-15/un-aid-chief-urges-security-council-to-prevent-genocide-in-gaza/105293790
If Trump manages to break that 70 year old trend, it would be nothing short of a miracle.
Surely, the US has had blood on its hands since its very inception. All countries have blood on their hands. Perhaps all countries are just tainted to their essence like some version of original sin.
*according to the UN aid chief, Tom Fletcher.
He's apparently "concerned" about the humanitarian situation and is demanding Bibi do more on aid. So essentially the Biden approach.
In other news:
Iran's Khamenei doubts US nuclear talks will lead to agreement
Netanyahu says Israel will control all of Gaza when offensive ends
Implementation of Trump’s Gaza relocation plan is condition for ending war
US intel suggests Israel preparing strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, CNN reports.
Of course I'm not ruling out the possibility of pressure campaigns being done on all sides from all parties on the nuclear deal talks but these past 24 hours haven't been very reassuring.
The UN retracted its latest blood libel against the Jewish state.
Not that it matters, as the news has already spread like wildfire. Since when has truth mattered to the "pro-Palestine" movement? Lies serve a purpose. Spout enough of them and you're unstoppable.
What will be next? Israelis drinking the blood of Palestinian children? Harvesting their organs to use for rituals? Possibilities are endless.
@ssu told you so but since you're the only one capable of changing his mind I won't bother tagging anyone else. I'm sure you already shifted your position in the meantime but I've been ignoring this thread in favour of my blood pressure so have no clue where the discussion stands.
In that the worst outcomes will come true ...just not instantly, but with time. So much time that the common man (or voter) forgets the issue and the media loses interest.
Now the US is actively assisting in the deportation of Palestinians.
And well, if for some reason my country is the happiest country on Earth (which I find always amusing), Israel is the fifth happiest country. I assume this didn't include the Palestinian territories. But they are more happy than you are in your country. So there we are.
World Happiness Report -rankings 2024:
1 Finland 7.741
2 Denmark 7.583
3 Iceland 7.525
4 Sweden 7.344
5 Israel 7.341
6 Netherlands 7.319
Three major groups could have done it: the Far right, the far left, and the Islamists. The culprit is from the far left—horseshoe theory at its finest.
Yes, he surely was linked to specific groups.
This is "globalize the intifada" in action.
So the question I have is, why isn't Hamas releasing the remaining live hostages, and returning the remains of the others? What advantage do they hold by retaining them in captivity? If they were to release them, wouldn't that pressure Israel to relent?
The only alternative is the intervention of a large scale international peace keeping force. But the international community is not stepping forward.
The whole situation is inconceivably horrific and intractable. We need the one person who can stop this to act. But for some reason he won’t.
[i]Five of the most prominent Arab sheikhs in Hebron—yes, Hebron, the heart of biblical Judea—just declared that they want to join the Abraham Accords, recognize Israel as the Jewish state and break away from the Palestinian Authority.
Not as part of some negotiated peace process. Not as part of a “two-state solution.” But as a rejection of the entire Palestinian nationalist cause.[/i]
https://www.jns.org/hebron-arab-leaders-back-joining-abraham-accords/
As far as I can tell, neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis want something like a UN peacekeeping force. :/ Palestinians give reasons like dignity or whatever, and, apparently, the Israelis just don't want any interference. Meanwhile, Hamas extremists roam, and Netanyahu levels Gaza more or less indiscriminately (which is also extreme), ... Dampening and observing peacekeepers would be great, though, but maybe that's just me.
Surprised the times published this.
OMG a Jew said that! Unbelievable! Stunning and brave.
Israel has reportedly passed a message to Al-Julani via Egypt: "Your regime will fall within hours unless you cease the massacre against the Druze and withdraw."
Something to keep in mind.
Actually it is pretty brave, yes. We all know you’re too stupid to understand why, but please go on with your Nazi sympathizing.
Jewish population in Germany—
1948: 15,000
2023: 125,000
Guess this proves something.
Um, yeah, Jewish life has grown in Germany since the Holocaust ended.
Um, yeah, Jewish emigration was pretty large scale since 1948. Must be ethnic cleansing. Nothing significant happened for Jews in 1948.
If you think that those Jewish population changes in the Arab countries were all voluntary emigration, I've got a bridge to sell you.
No, that’s ethnic cleansing but turning Gaza into rubble and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians— not ethnic cleansing. Got it. Exactly what the state conducting genocide wants you to say. A long tradition that includes the Nazis. How brave.
Hundreds of thousands? I hear that's only kids -- so that would make millions of dead Palestinians. Now that'll stick it to the Zionists. Who cares about sources when what matters is liberation?
More seriously: You honestly believe ~25% of Gaza has been murdered by Israel? Seriously?
Chartbook 396 Strangelove in the Middle East - or how the markets learned to stop worrying and love Israel's rampage
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-396-strangelove-in-the
Funny how Israel is so racist against the Palestinians/Arabs but stands up for the Druze (who are also Arab). Wonder what it is. We shouldn't think too hard, though; Israel is racist, and even though they're saving the Druze, nothing can change that fact. :roll:
:lol:
Nazi sympathizers can be so cute.
Will antifa be demonstrating for the Druze anytime soon? Confront the Islamic fascists sent to butcher them? You should push that through, be the change you want to see in the world.
Ask Antifa.
https://apple.news/Aq2J_HexKSYmIGc01vrSaKQ
Nothing to see here. Just a continued genocide.
Fake news. It's actually Hamas killing their own. They want to get to the food first and kill civilians for stealing it.
:rofl:
Truly the Donald Trump of this thread. Without the popularity.
What a shocker.
What’s cool is that the entire world, including the US, knows just what a genocidal, psychopathic state Israel is.
Man, there are just no words left. I don't even comment here and I just see headlines maybe twice a week. It's just... again no words.
Well, I can say that all those people who loved to say "If I were alive when the Holocaust happened, I would've done something" or words to that effect. Welp, something not entirely dissimilar is happening and you have people DEFENDING this. Granted, a small portion, but it's obscene, grotesque.
Yes indeed. The people now are even more culpable, since without US support there would be no genocide. It wasn’t like the US was propping up the Nazi regime.
Sad to see Israel use similar tactics as the very regime that murdered so many of their citizens’ families.
Yeah, don't mind the Qataris being allies with the US (a major non-NATO ally) and/or having the role as negotiators.
Bibi has understood that there's nothing that anybody will actually do. Mass starvation and ethnic cleansing of the whole Gaza strip of all Palestinians might very easily be future reality.
Qatar has a quite Byzantine diplomacy on the World stage, once they noticed that money talks and bullshit walks. Hence they can play the game just like larger countries do. They indeed are your friends, don't try to deny that, BC. Friends that give your wonderful swamp draining President a executive airliner. Friends like the Saudis (who btw. nearly started a war too with Qatar).
Above all, Qatar hosts the largest US military installation in the Middle East. That's the real interest that the US has with the country. Heck, if the negotiations would have been done in the UK or Switzerland, would Bibi have attacked London or Geneva?
I'm not convinced.
When you keep condemning one, and keep making excuses for or dodging the other, then your posts might as well be propaganda.
Those are two condemnable actions, not one.
But there are others that do the same vice versa, and so the chatter hardly overlaps.
You hit on an important point. I see these acts as quite different, even if the number killed is the same.
Consider these two scenarios:
A) A military murder squad deliberately murders 100 ethnic undesirables.
B) A bomber targeting an enemy weapons factory kills 100 civilians. Of course proportionality is an issue here, but the target is legitimate.
A) is deeply wrong, B) is acceptable—same number of dead.
Do notice that nobody is supporting or justifying the attack done by Hamas, but they are questioning the legitimacy of the objectives of the Netanyahu administration here. And here I think we have the disagreement on just what those end objectives are. Is the objective just to take out Hamas, or is it some kind of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from Gaza by making the strip totally unlivable. The ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Nagorno Karabakh did happen and the World didn't do anything, so there's a real world example of this.
Or if you think the latter objective is OK, then we have a true moral and philosophical disagreement.
Quoting (earlier)
• October 7 attacks :death:
• Casualties of the Gaza war :death:
• Gaza humanitarian crisis (2023–present) :death:
There isn't just one condemnable action here.
It does confront the issue.
Hamas's modus operandi is to target Israeli civilians deliberately. Israel targets Hamas, but in doing so, inevitably kills civilians as a byproduct. One of these is murder, the other is not. One of these groups would readily admit (and brag) that they murder; the other does not. I can't think of a sharper moral difference.
It's not just about body count.
It's more than the Netanyahu administration running this war. Israel has a unity government in place to run the war.
If the strip is made unlivable due to the war, then it becomes a humanitarian imperative to evacuate civilians. That would turn "genocide" into a humanitarian imperative. :chin:
It doesn't.
(I guess I could repeat (whatever) reports/links, except, evidently, it doesn't sink in, oh well.)
There's more than one condemnable action here.
The Russians raped and murdered their way to Berlin, yet they are the good guys. Israel fights Islamic fundamentalism — today's Nazism. While Israel is not flawless (no country in war is), it shows much more restraint than the Russians.
If all you want to point out is the wrongs of one party, we're not going anywhere.
Lol.
Well, if the enemy makes the living conditions of the civilians totally unlivable that leads to famine, that's a war crime. That's not inescapable.
You can easily fight the worse suicidal motherfuckers around and NOT have a famine among the civilians and the children. Here I would refer to look at how the US Armed Forces fought Al Qaeda and ISIS. Or to historically to ANY fighting force that has successfully put down an insurgency.
But then of course there's the Mongol Horde. Kill absolutely everybody, every living being, then fake withdrawal and wait for a while and then come check up again if any survivors had somehow escaped the first massacre and then kill these ones. Yeah, that works too. Where they make
a desert, they call it peace, as the saying goes.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
A bad guy taking out another bad guy don't make him an angel. It was still a totalitarian and imperialist regime, just with a Marxist ideology. Now we just don't have the fig-leaf of Marxism-Leninism anymore, but the monster of a regime is still there.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Perhaps. And perhaps we simply shouldn't judge Israel on the level we judge European or North American state, but as a Middle Eastern state.
I'm not playing this stupid game about condemnable actions when we're talking about the broad categories of collective good and evil. E.g., The US committed constant and countless "condemnable actions" in the Pacific, yet remained "the good side." If I were to point out more "condemnable actions" by the US, does that make Japan good and the US bad? What real purpose would it serve besides historical interest?
There are no saints in war. All parties are condemnable.
It depends. Many Westerners consider the US the Great Satan and Israel its sidekick in the Middle East. Besides, the reason why there are those in the West who consider the US "the good side" despite the evil committed is that the West has actually benefited for decades of the US protection and the support for Western-led international order. It's not clear to what extent the current war is benefiting Western countries and the Western-led international order (for example, Israel has not engaged in a direct, large-scale military campaign against ISIS, nor was it part of the official US-led anti-ISIS coalition, Israel has mostly refrained from strong, visible support for Ukraine, particularly in terms of military aid, compared with other Western countries, while the current war has lots of troubles: genocidal accusations, ambitions for territorial annexations, destabilized commercial routes to the West). Even more so after Trump's re-election. And Netanyahu's confrontational attitude showing a sort of full commitment to war in all directions, as long as possible doesn't bode well.
Agree. Judge it as it is.
Quoting ssu
I hate the USSR, but in the context of WWII, they are good imho. It's a peculiar phenomenon that I occasionally ponder — how, theoretically, all the individuals within, say, a unit may be morally flawed and criminally guilty, yet the collective remains good.
Of course, it's easy to judge the USSR in WWII as bad; we could do the same with the US, which was a very racist country at the time, with brutal conduct in the war. Yet there's something distasteful about judging our ancestors as such, especially in times of war when they were fighting evil. In total, I'd consider the USSR (and the US) as "good" in WWII despite their many faults.
Quoting ssu
There are a few factors here that complicate things: Israel and the GHF are distributing massive amounts of food, and naturally, in the course of war, infrastructure will be destroyed, making some parts of the land uninhabitable.
Quoting ssu
Sure, it's variable. In this situation, the Gaza government hordes food, prohibits its civilians from building wells, and has invested all its funds into concrete underground tunnels instead of infrastructure.
Franco presided over both the "White Terror" and the "Spanish Miracle".
Saddam Hussein was a murderous despot, and Iraq was invaded on incorrect justification.
...
Most are expected to be capable of understanding multiple truths at the same time.
Do notice that when the US and it's allies fought Al Qaeda and ISIS in large urban areas, there was reports of famine and malnutrition among the civilians. That should tell the obvious. Famines and malnutrition don't usually happen just by accident.
Bringing on a famine is one strategy in war to fight an enemy. And something that has been used in our time too. The Ethiopian army has used it extensively:
I just think the strategy is reprehensible and not to be used by an actor that wishes to be in the moral highground.
Recently, pro-Palestinian sources, including Francesca Albanese, have reported 700k dead Palestinians, including nearly 400k Palestinian babies under 5. According to AI, there aren't even that many babies under 5 in Gaza. The figure jumped quickly from ~100k dead to ~700k. What I'm saying is, we're simply not getting a complete, accurate, or objective picture of this conflict. What I do know is that Israel has supplied unprecedented amounts of aid to Gaza. Access to Gaza itself is dangerous and limited, and all reporting from it requires the approval of Hamas; thus, an independent, objective investigation is not possible at this time.
I also recall that the Allies used a blockade against Germany in WWI. The blockade was considered decisive.
An important development.
The Anglosphere is the part of the world the US cares most deeply about, and three out of five countries comprising the Anglosphere have now recognized Palestine, with the fourth (New Zealand) presumably soon to follow.
It's important to stress that US relations with the Anglosphere are fundamentally different from every other part of the world. The US considers these countries as actual allies (rather than mere interests), since they are in practical terms all English-speaking islands and therefore share very similar geopolitical challenges.
My earlier post was referencing WWII.
Islamic fundamentalism is more than ISIS. Israel currently fights Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. It also provides valuable intel, but apparently, it's stopped giving intel to the UK. I fear the "Western order" is crumbling from within, but hopefully it's not too late. The West needs to be able to stand up for its values, but this would require a rejection of multiculturalism. I genuinely fear for the future of the West, particularly Europe. Fighting ISIS in Syria or elsewhere in the Middle East should be the least of their problems.
Still, when WW2 was over the US became heavily engaged in the reconstruction and security of European countries (like Germany and Italy) and Japan as nation states. That doesn’t seem to be the case in Palestine where the Israelis aspire to establish their own nation states in exactly the same land as the Palestinians.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Western countries, particularly in Europe, have experienced numerous Islamist terrorist attacks in recent decades, many linked to groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda, which are generally not affiliated with Iran such as the ones you mention. ISIS and Iranian-affiliated groups have often been rivals in Syria and Iraq, which has sometimes aligned with Israeli security interests.
Besides the middle east stability is critical for the West for energy supply, commercial routes and immigration crisis.
You mean the ones you routinely present as US lapdogs when it's matter of Ukraine?
What do you say we talk about all the Union's war crimes, and when anyone tries to ask about the Confederacy, we continue obsessing over the Union? We could have this discussion, so hurry up and condemn the Union. Condemn your favored side in every war. Do you see why this line of inquiry is generally unhelpful?
Americans’ Support for Israel Dramatically Declines, Times/Siena Poll Finds
Nice to see good news. Unfortunately the genocide continues with government approval anyway. Really stupid move by Trump— one of many.
I'll simply repeat myself: there was no famine or even fear of famine when the US and it's allies destroyed ISIS in similar urban fighting. Period.
This doesn't happen on accident and the comments of the political leadership of Israel clearly showed that they weren't thinking about restraint. Yet unfortunately, restraint is actually the way you do win an insurgency, or at least contain it. The problem is that Bibi is playing just how Hamas wanted Israel to react.
This is simply terrorism 1.0: make an terrorist strike that makes the government to respond out of portions to eradicate the terrorists by disregarding international law or even domestic laws and rights of individuals, that a large part of the populace will reject and disdain the government action. In the case of Hamas "the populace" surely wasn't Jewish Israelites, but the international realm. Before the Hamas attack, there really was the prospect of Israel and Saudi-Arabia (among others) creating formal diplomatic ties and the Palestine issue being sidelined. The Hamas attack was clearly successful in doing that: now many countries like the UK and Canada have recognized Palestine and there is NO prospects of Arab-Israeli normalization.
And here the fact is that Bibi doesn't care about this. Israel basically sees that the international order has already collapsed, hence there's no need abide by any rules here. The Hamas attack have giving them the chance of a "Final Solution" to the Palestinian question. As I've said, Azerbaijan has given the example that ethnic cleansing works and is totally possible. Of course Bibi didn't notice the importance of the Azeri government giving the international order a fig leaf by denying that it would ethnically cleanse the Armenians out of Nagorno-Karabakh by reassuring publicly that Armenians can stay.
Great idea — the Palestinian political leadership has been openly attempting to genocide Israel since its inception: "from the river to the sea."
Case in point of a genocide apologist and Nazi sympathizer.
Right, right, it’s really the PALESTINIANS that are to blame. Cool diversion. May have actually worked two years ago. No one is buying it now. But please keep repeating it, as it drives more people away from the savage regime you defend. :yawn:
You're the genocide apologist and fascist.
Weak doesn't mean good. Going from house to house murdering, raping, and torturing certainly doesn't mean good. Kinda even sounds like genocide, dontcha think?
:rofl:
Good one.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Pretty awful, actually. Now times that by a couple thousand, and you get the Israeli government. A far greater terrorist organization than Hamas. But be know you can’t see that in your bubble.
Japan only killed ~2800 of us at Pearl Harbor, why did we need to mobilize and kill hundreds of thousands? We should have stopped once we had 2800 Japanese dead. Then we say "war over" and both sides return home in peace.
Israel is a state, but before that, yes, there is a history of Jewish non-state resistance/terror groups.
You've never been in a real fist fight, have you? Don't take that as an insult, most intelligent people never have. Most people alive are not very intelligent. "If you make me bleed, I make you bleed worse. That's the only way to be even." Unfortunately, you can see how it leads to a feedback loop when two unintelligent people (the only people who get into fights) get into a fight.
In short, humanity needs birth restrictions. No man needs to have a child without permission from a royal court or authority. He should be content in his life and labor, and the miracle of existence. If one cannot appreciate something so simple yet so mindbogglingly complex, he has no reason to reproduce, other than ego and primal lust, both of which are the causes of all human suffering.
Religion was a good start, outlawing fornication. But it needs teeth to really realize its true and intended purpose, that purpose being global peace, the end of all war, and even the least among us living dignified lives of contentedness.
Yeah, exactly. More sad, tired deflections.
Israel is committing genocide. Has been for 2 years. When you address that by condemning it, you’ll be taken more seriously.
What are you proposing Israel do after 10/7? Is Israel allowed to go after the savages who murdered its civilians in cold blood? Does it have your permission?
This is not a fistfight between two individuals, but a clash of civilizations. My own fight history has no bearing.
Oh, please. And every time a child chews a piece of gum for the first time it's a grandiose experience of past meets present. Get real. Aggression is the same animal it's always been. A rabid dog that anyone with the guts or means would have put down long ago. It's all the same. We delude ourselves otherwise with false notions of ego and pride. All men were once children, and all men, provided they are not killed, will become decrepit, or, like babies and less than children. Have some sense.
Depending on the context, aggression can be either beneficial or detrimental. Sometimes aggression saves (or would have saved) many lives. It doesn't seem fruitful to me to discuss aggression per se.
Sure. But that’s not what they’re doing, and you know it. So does the rest of the world. Including, shockingly, the majority of the US.
So you're good with Israel targeting Hamas and other terrorist groups who attacked on 10/7? You're ok with Israel destroying Hamas if Hamas refuses to surrender? About 3k Hamas fighters attacked on 10/7, and Hamas had around 40k fighters.
So you're saying you're fine theoretically with Israel destroying groups such as Hamas, but you want fewer civilian casualties and destruction?
Since that’s not possible, and thus just an obvious, unfalsifiable, infinitely used pretext for genocide — no. I’m not ok with bullshit excuses.
Why is it not possible?
Also, notice I said "in theory." Are you, in theory, in favor of the destruction of Hamas? Or those who committed the massacre?
Because as long as Gaza is occupied in an open-air prison, there will be people fighting against it. Understandably. Plus there’s no way to do it. It’s not like destroying a building. Hence why there’s been no criteria for what would constitute the “destruction” of Hamas, and why Hamas is alive and well, now going on 2 years. This genocide will only lead to more members.
But it’s never been a realistic goal anyway. It’s just a pretext to placate apologists for state genocide like you.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Both. In theory. But I’d like to see the destruction of the bigger terrorists in Likud.
In theory, I'm ok with this. In the absence of Israel's enemies, there's no real justification for the Israeli right.
Quoting Mikie
Do you really think this conflict is only about the "occupation" of Gaza and not the "occupation" of Palestine itself?
Historically, resistance movements — even those deeply rooted in a population — can be defeated.
Israel has done itself irreparable harm. But glad to see them doing the bare minimum.