Everything else aside, this is an absolutely fantastic development and I really hope the ceasefire holds and all hostages are released.
I just fear this will cause western media and politicians to and declare the crisis to be over (after it had began on Oct. 7, of course absolutely out of the blue and without any context...) and go back to pretending everything is back to normal. Never mind that Gaza is still in ruins, the west bank is still being annexed, Israel still has the dual role of "all authority, no obligations" over the Palestinians, while making it pretty clear they have no vision for them at all, apart from "maybe they just vanish into thin air tomorrow".
And never mind that Israel still has a fundamentalist, authoritarian government that is actively at work undermining democratic structures and civil rights even inside the state - that too with no word of objection from its allies.
We'll see where all of that goes.
I also found Trump's signalling in the whole issue odd. His base and his cabinet is full of the most hard-line pro-israel figures imaginable, but then he goes forward and quotes Jeffrey Sachs and ostensibly pressures Netanyahu into accepting the ceasefire.
Is this just his usual "appear unpredictable by all means" spiel or does he have a strategy there?
I graduated from an electrical engineering program at a big ten (U.S.) school in the mid '90s, and I am closing in on retirement. I spent today enrapt in an Oracle upgrade from 10g to 11g. Yes, our IT is COBOL-centric, and we are vastly behind the times. Much of today was spent (re)compiling C. The consensus is that I will have to think hard tomorrow about how to fix these problems.
While I was in school, I studied with many Palestinians in my college of engineering. I wonder often what happened to them.
At the same time, within Israel, Intel is the largest civilian employer. The Pentium M is an Israeli rework of the Pentium Pro legacy, and Israel is key to Intel's gains over the past two decades.
I wish that everyone that I knew from the Middle East was fully involved in the advances of Intel.
Perhaps my lost schoolmates' absence was precisely what Intel lacked, but such cultural divides are not easily bridged.
This is a great pity.
I've worked with a few teams based in Israel during my at Intel, namely in networking and transceiver technology space. I try to make a point of getting to know the people I work with through 1:1s, and you'll be pleased to know there is a good mix of Palestinans and Israelis working together. Everyone there was proud to have a very diverse team.
This is a great post. Thank you to share your personal experience. Do you think they were first generation Palestinians? Or multi-generation (parents or earlier immigrated)? I know that Michigan state (Detroit, etc.) has one of the largest Arab communities in the United States.
I went to school with some first generation Palestinians just 5-ish years ago.
One of them had to miss an entire quarter because Israel just wouldn't allow him to leave. He has never been back to Palestine since then because another detainment or missed visa problem, etc. would derail his career.
> One of them had to miss an entire quarter because Israel just wouldn't allow him to leave
Terrible.
Even in the current ceasefire terms, there's an explicit provision to have Israel agree to let the injured leave for treatment to neighbouring countries and be allowed to come back to the Strip.
Despite arguments to contrary, I can see why some claim it is an open-air prison.
> and be allowed to come back
Is it common to want to go back to prison?
If the prison is your homeland, it might be.
Especially as the Gaza strip is not their homeland but where they have been displaced from their colonized homeland.
Displaced? Or did they leave because they wanted the armies of the Arab world to destroy Israel?
Plenty of Arabs stayed and today they enjoy equal rights to the Jews.
> Plenty Arabs ... enjoy equal rights to the Jews
Plenty? You kid? https://www.adalah.org/en/content/index/2052
Granted, a few masochists among Arabs may very well "enjoy" the predicament they find themselves in, sure.
First one:
> Since the beginning of the War on 7 October 2023, dozens of Israeli universities and colleges initiated disciplinary actions mainly and overwhelmingly against Palestinian students, both citizens of Israel and residents of East Jerusalem, based on their social media posts.
I started reading thinking oh this isn't good - oh that makes more sense. Here in the UK we also ban support for terrorist organisations.
> Plenty? You kid?
21% of the population of Israel counts as plenty in my opinion.
Imagine being from the UK and hating some ethnic group halfway around the world so much, that when I am here talking about my college friend who was prevented from higher education because of an ethnic conflict, you have to deflect to the worst possible examples of his ethnic group for what reason? To be a jerk?
Imagine actually living in Israel where I bought my meds yesterday from an Arab pharmacist and watched my kids play in the park the other day with Muslim (presumably Arab) children.
I really wish the world would stay out of an issue they know nothing about.
The very word "Palestinian" is _ridiculous_, there is no such nation, it's literally the Arabs who seek war and rejected every offer of peace from Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon.
Look at the Jordanian flag next to the "Palestine" one. Google where Arafat was born. Look at the actual Hamas charter which says to kill every Jew no matter what.
Arabs and Muslims who do not want to annihilate Israel absolutely 100% do enjoy equal rights here. I live here. I see it first-hand nearly every day of my life. It's a democratic country. Arabs and Muslims are in the Knesset. Whether or not they should be in a Jewish homeland is a different discussion, fact is they are.
Odds are your "Palestinian" friend was offered the opportunity for Israeli citizenship and rejected it because he's been brainwashed by a downright stupid narrative of a national identity that never existed until the 1960's when all out war failed.
I buy my medicine from Arabs and chill in parks with Muslims, but then I have to run into a bomb shelter multiple times a week and cope with the 19 year old in my neighborhood who got killed fighting homicidal maniacal terrorists.
So, no, this isn't about hating an ethnic group. Palestinians are not an ethnic group. It's about hating antisemetism and the pattern that keeps happening throughout history where people choose to hate Jews so much they make up all kinds of nonsense to justify it.
> So, no, this isn't about hating an ethnic group
Several statements you make contradict this & just because you "buy medicines from Arabs" and "chill in the park with Muslims" doesn't change the fact.
To watch cognitive dissonance like this is wild.
> Look at the actual Hamas charter
You looked at Likud's? Otmza Yehudit's? What the Kahanists in the Knesset, in the IDF say and do? Or, do you turn a blind eye?
> really wish the world would stay out
The World created this issue by imposing a partition on peoples that didn't want it. Too bad for y'all that you can't handle external assessments but that's how this works.
> 100% do enjoy equal rights here.
100%?
https://minorityrights.org/communities/bedouin/Out of the 92,000 Bedouin living in the Negev in 1947, only 11,000 remained after the foundation of Israel. The others were never fully accounted for. Those who remained were treated particularly harshly, uprooted time and again and forced to live in reservations. Currently there are around 200,000 Bedouin in Israel, including some 80,000-90,000 living in 35 ‘unrecognized villages’ at constant threat of eviction or forced displacement by authorities.And that's just the Bedouins.
https://www.ft.com/content/3d57cf7c-a097-4e86-8f39-0f7720508...... a law passed in November that allows the interior minister to deport family members of people convicted of terror offences if they knew of an attack and did not take necessary measures to prevent it, or if they express support or sympathy for an attack, even if they hold Israeli citizenship. Other laws passed in late 2024 would allow authorities to withhold benefit payments from parents of minors convicted of a security offence if an Israeli court deems it a terror offence, and allow children as young as 12 to be imprisoned if convicted of murder that is deemed an act of terrorism. Proponents say the changes would deter would-be terrorists. But legal analysts say they discriminate against Palestinians — since Jewish Israelis are generally charged under criminal rather than counter-terror laws — and further entrench the two-tier nature of Israel’s legal framework.And that's just the 48ers protesting the govt. They're the Arabs you "hangout" with, and this how they live ("as good Arabs").
> fighting homicidal
https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/new-year-brings-little...בשבוע הראשון של 2025, צה"ל חיסל 74 ילדים ברצועת עזה> maniacal
https://telem.berl.org.il/11752/למפקדים שלחמו ב־7 באוקטובר יש "המבט": לכאורה העיניים נראות חולמניות, אבל הן לא – זהו המבט המוטרף. לחיילים יש את "אני משוגע", שיר שגרסתו העדכנית חושפת את התפרקות המערכת הצבאית מי משוגע? אני משוגע! מי משוגע? אני משוגע! מי משוגע? אני משוגע! מי משוגע? אני משוגע! צה"ל משוגע כן צה"ל דמיקולו> terrorists
Who? Hasmonaim? Nahal Haredi?
https://www.timesofisrael.com/misfits-or-misunderstood-sanct...
Lol, you're clueless, I served in Nahal Hareidi myself. Directly. And you're going to try and spin me on this? Sickening.
I was directly ordered to NEVER attack civilians. In fact, I was even ordered to NEVER shoot terrorists unless they shoot first. In cases of clear danger but no shots (like someone approaching with a knife), the orders were to shoot in the air with a warning, then if necessary try to shoot in the legs.
As a Nahal Hareidi soldier I went on a patrol in a village, with Druze drivers, and was instructed to only use rubber bullets when we were attacked with rocks.
Speaking of rocks, the quote I am talking about from the Hamas charter is:
"Article 7: "The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."" [Page 4]
So.. either you're deliberately twisting the narrative to suit your agenda, or you're ignorant.
I want to believe the latter based on your handle, but you misquoted too many sources for me to believe that's the case.
Just another antisemite looking for evidence to support a blood libel when there is no evidence at all.
But, hey, let's go further. Even if you go to the absolute extreme right, what Rabbi Meir Kahane actually said was that Israel can't simultaneously exist as a Jewish state and a Western democracy because Arab population will gain too much voting power and abolish the Rabbanut's jurisdiction over things like shemittah, marriage, etc.
It's a rational point, and he didn't have good solutions, he merely pointed out that the most peaceful logical solution was cooperative resettlement of Arabs outside of Israel. Not forced. I am not saying I agree with his policy, I am saying it was not one of genocide.
Some of his followers took to violence, but even that was typically based on the reality of ongoing skirmishes, and we're talking extremely small numbers. You probably have more representation per capita of violent gangs in America. Doesn't reflect the norm by any means, not even of Kahane supporters, nevermind normative Israeli government.
Genocide was never the policy of Israel, comparing it to Hamas is disgusting.
Yes- it actually matters that I can "chill" with Arab Muslims in Israel but I would get murdered in Gaza based on my nationality and/or religion alone. It really makes a difference.
Yeah, just proving me right, you had to come in with "Palestinians don't even exist" in a comment thread about my friend who had to delay his graduation because of Israel's control of Palestine, and then think it's crazy people accuse Israel of genocide.
I don't hate them. they hate the Jews. I want them to live in peace and thrive. but it's not going to happen while they keep attacking Israel.
My college friend didn't attack anyone, but you are taking the sins of people who share his ethnicity and attaching them to him, and in the same breath bemoaning that we do that to the Jewish people (even though we never did that)
I don't think I said anything about your friend specifically.
do you believe the state of Israel has a right to exist and be safe from attack from its neighbours?
It is common for those seeking to engineer demographics to want to forcefully displace people.
It is common for those who have dehumanised the other to take away their most basic rights, like freedom of movement.
So yeah, super uncommon anywhere except in places like the tiny silver of land ruled by the most moral occupiers in the world.
A UN delegate first referred to the Gaza strip as an open air prison in 1956, while still under Egyptian control.
That aspect of Gaza was in place long before Israel had anything to do with the strip.
Some part of this doesn't make sense. He couldn't leave from Gaza or Egypt? Why would he have needed Israel's permission?
I must admit I'm not an expert in how it works. And as friends we never really talked about the details of such things. But you can read about the procedures here: https://www.nrc.no/globalassets/pdf/legal-opinions/legal_mem...
Based on that, he must have obtained a special permit to leave Palestine and fly to the US for higher education, but this had to be approved by Israel or he could not leave Palestine or transit through Ben Gurion Airport (remember the Palestinian's international airport was bombed into rubble a decade ago or so). One year they denied him for some Kafkaesque reason, I presume. By the time he sorted it out he had to arrange with the school to take a leave and start again the next quarter
So... Why not blame Egypt? You can answer if you know, but the question is really meant as a shrug towards bias and a plea for education in geography.
Egypt has an airport just west of Gaza. They have a visa exclusive program for Palestinians. And that's not new.
So based on the story, if you presume Israel was Kafkaesque then you must also presume that Egypt was at least as Kafkaesque if he was unable to leave from there.
Or worse... he was unwilling.
And yet, the story is about Israel for some reason. I'd ask why, but I presume to know the answer. Again, this is a shrug towards bias.
He didn't get his visa through Egypt. He got it through Israel, and when it was randomly denied, he probably couldn't apply for an Egyptian one in time to make it.
This is a one-sided description of the conflict. I am empathetic to Israel, because they also do not have a lot options.
Israel, as it it currently constituted (based on 1967 borders) is not a viable state if the West Bank is a hostile entity with a standing army, and funded to a similar extent as Hezbollah. The West Bank bulges into Israel and effectively cuts the country in half and places all strategic targets within shelling distance.
The Palestinian position seems to be "trust us that if you give us full, un-fettered independence, then we will not be a hostile entity" - but that's asking for Israel to place an enormous amount of trust in present and future Palestinian people and leaders, without any historical reasons to base this on, and highlighted by the worst case scenario of Hezbollah in the north, a foreign-controlled militia funded to the tune of 1 billion / year, and potential a hostile party in the West Bank (and Gaza) - effectively surrounding the country.
And it is more than just demilitarization. A demilitarized Palestine is not enough if, for example, Iran funnels hundreds of millions of dollars in arms to militia groups.
Hence we are where we are .. with Israel unable to disengage because doing so presents an existential risk to their nation.
> Israel, as it it currently constituted (based on 1967 borders) is not a viable state if the West Bank is a hostile entity with a standing army, and funded to a similar extent as Hezbollah. The West Bank bulges into Israel and effectively cuts the country in half and places all strategic targets within shelling distance.
This is exactly the same argument that Russia has been using to annex territories such as Crimea; "it's strategically important for us" isn't really sufficient justification for mass murder, and - on a purely geographic point - talking about the West Bank doesn't justify anything to do with Gaza, which is geographically separate.
And why the 1967 borders rather than the 1948 ones?
> Iran funnels hundreds of millions of dollars in arms to militia groups.
This is the side that's not really been raised enough in this whole discussion. If Israel's war is with Iran, why is that war not being carried out in Iran? Does this have something to do with the fact that Iran is 1000km away from having a land border with either Israel or Palestine?
>This is exactly the same argument that Russia has been using to annex territories such as Crimea; "it's strategically important for us" isn't really sufficient justification for mass murder, and - on a purely geographic point - talking about the West Bank doesn't justify anything to do with Gaza, which is geographically separate.
Russia is the largest country on earth, whereas the distance from the West Bank to Tel-Aviv is like 5 miles.
This roughly like arguing that owning a personal nuke is no different from owning a firecracker. The scale of the threats are separated by several orders of magnitude.
>And why the 1967 borders rather than the 1948 ones?
Because the Palestinians rejected the 1948 borders, started a war, and then lost. Incidentally they also rejected the 1967 borders by starting a war in 1973 and losing that one too, but the consensus around those borders is at least a bit more solidified so people still pretend they're meaningful rather than null-and-void.
The work that has been going on for the past month is systematically destroying every known air defense asset of the Syrian government (and securing a key mountain peak with newly entrenched ground troops) in order to have a permanent air corridor with which to strike Iran.
The Israeli F-35s can get through right now, but they have limited payload and have to rely on slightly dicey refueling arrangements. With Syria under Israeli air cover, they can run tankers right up to western Iran and strike anywhere in the country.
Repeated, unilateral Israeli aggression is the status quo in the region.
>This is exactly the same argument that Russia has been using to annex territories such as Crimea;
How many times have Ukranian terrorists murdered a bunch of Russian athletes at the Olympics? Or hijacked a 3rd nation plane carrying Russian tourists and then murdered them? How many bombings have Ukranian extremists carried out in Europe, targeting Russian tourists?
They are not the same arguments.
At all.
It is the same argument because whatever terrorism the victims of occupation engage in, or whatever terror groups exist among a much larger population of the occupied, is not an excuse to break international law.
Russia also made a number of excuses to annex the territories, the USA also fabricated a web of lies to justify their illegal invasion into Iraq. Criminals often lie or justify their crimes in any number of ways. None of which makes their crimes right. There are no exceptions to international law for fighting terrorism.
I know this isn't the time or place, but international law doesn't exist.
Well, it does but only by the consent of the participant and participants can withdraw their consent at any time, arbitrarily.
It's like how international treaties become worthless the second one party decides they don't want to abide by them anymore.
So, any time someone mentions "international law" I kinda just smirk a little bit and make the "jerking off and then ejaculating" motion with my hand.
The actual smallest country on earth, Tuvalu, can tell the UN to eat a bag of dicks and ignore every single plea to obey "international law" and the only remedy is embargo, begging, or the cruise missile.
Wait, does Ukraine have a long established history of military attacks against Russia?
Only during periods of Russian occupation.
>This is exactly the same argument that Russia has been using to annex territories such as Crimea
The rhetoric may be superficially similar, but facts on the ground aren't. The Russian state is not under an existential threat in the same way that Israel would be with Hezbollah in the north, and a similar entity in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel is a tiny nation with a tiny population. Russian and Israel's security issues are simply not comparable.
>talking about the West Bank doesn't justify anything to do with Gaza, which is geographically separate
They are linked, and highlight the core problem to Israel - namely - disengagement does not work with a hostile entity.
Israel in 2005 disengaged from Gaza. It wasn't a full disengagement as Israel still exerted control over the airspace and territorial water, but it also wasn't nothing and it was an olive-branch and a big opportunity. Instead it resulted in a Hamas electoral victory, and rocket attacks, and a circle of retaliatory actions from Israel and Hamas. Imagine a world, where post-disengagement there were no attacks from Gaza, no preparation for war and smuggling of weapons into Gaza by Hamas - by this point, where would we be? Would Israel still maintain the same kind of blockade? I just don't think so. I truly believe it would be a model for permanent peace and Palestinian statehood.
>And why the 1967 borders rather than the 1948 ones?
I mentioned 1967 borders, because as best as I can gather, that is the current Palestinian position. Although it isn't clear exactly what the Palestinian position is as Palestinians do tend to maintain some level of ambiguity on this point.
> If Israel's war is with Iran, why is that war not being carried out in Iran?
It goes the other way actually - Iran is at war with Israel. Iran is using proxies, Hamas, and Hezbollah to strike at Israel.
> I mentioned 1967 borders, because as best as I can gather, that is the current Palestinian position.
The Hamas position (as best I can figure it) is the dissolution of the Israeli state entirely and Palestine restored. Whether you consider that the Palestinian position is open.
The Israeli position (as best I figure it) is to do whatever it takes to be unassailable - everything else is second order.
There are much more moderate positions throughout both sets of people, but I feel like they're the defining ones because they drive the violence (and subsequent retaliation)?
Open to arguments against
> Imagine a world, where post-disengagement there were no attacks from Gaza ...
Imagine a world where pre-disengagement there's no radicals on either side. Imagine a world where Israel works with people displaced in 1948-1967, and utilizing its overwhelming economic advantage finds acceptable solutions to defuse the problems, instead of supporting more land grabs.
The big gestures (like withdrawing from Gaza) are of course important, but we still must not mistake cause for effect, or the outliers for the baseline.
Palestinians aren't even trusted by their Arab brethren, and they expect to be given the benefit of doubt.
Why is demilitarization always a unilateral affair? Has this solved anything in the past 50+ years?
It should be either be bilateral militarization (a miniaturized MAD if you will - similar with the Korean peninsula I guess), or bilateral demilitarization and extensive UN force deployment.
There is an international perspective on the borders that I think should be mentioned. I think it is also worth mentioning that most people who live now in West Bank and the broader Palestine area were not consulted in how power and might is distributed, whether they benefit or suffer from it.
Should they?
> The West Bank bulges into Israel and effectively cuts the country in half and places all strategic targets within shelling distance.
That’s why the peace before 1967 was so important. But Israel ended it and was left with a mess that now all young people are drafted into service.
Egypt implementing a blockade triggered the 1967 conflict. It didn't come from nowhere. Then that was followed up by yet another war against Israel in 1973.
Taking over the west bank is not at all an acceptable response to something happening in Egypt's domain. Keeping the west bank is also not reasonable. Not sure why you would bring that up.
Israel repeatedly and systematically kicks Palestinians out of their homes and grants those homes to Jewish settlers.
They are able to do this in large part because Palestine is not a recognized state.
The longer they prevent Palestine from getting statehood, the more dunams of land they can steal.
> "trust us that if you give us full, un-fettered independence, then we will not be a hostile entity"
I don't agree, that's an optimistic view of things. Most Palestinians (Hamas for sure, Abbas as well) never agreed to give up on the 'Right of Return' so its not really independence in a 2 state solution that they're looking for, it's the abolishment of Israel.
That's part of the problem as well - it's not exactly clear what the Palestinian position is - partly because I think they see things like 'right of return' (which is completely unacceptable to Israel) as bargaining chips to trade for something during negotiations.
The right of return is a human right which some Palestinians have according to international law. Whether it is acceptable or not for Israelis should not be a consideration. Majority rule was also completely unacceptable to white Rhodesians. But the international community correctly assessed this to be because of racist grounds and thus not worthy of consideration.
Palestinians might negotiate away the right of return at some future date, but any deal which denies them that right will be a human rights violation and thus court material to be reversed at an even later future. But regardless, what Israelis think is not of concern, and should not be a concern.
Great, why don't we start with the United States which is the richest most privileged country in the world?
"Mexican Cession (1848): The most significant event was the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). Mexico lost the war, and through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, it was forced to cede a vast amount of territory to the United States. This territory included present-day California, Nevada, Utah, most of New Mexico and Arizona, and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Texas had already declared independence from Mexico in 1836 and was annexed by the U.S. in 1845, a major cause of the war."
"Displacement and Dispossession: While the treaty promised to protect the property rights of Mexicans who stayed, in practice, many lost their land through legal maneuvering, fraud, or outright violence. This forced displacement would have driven some south to Mexico."
Whatever doesn't belong to Mexicans surely belongs to Indians.
Sounds like a good place to start. After that - Australia and Canada. Once that's done let's do Israel.
There are land-back movements in the US. In addition, all native Americans have US citizenship. If Israel gave citizenship, equal rights, and the right of return to all those that were displaced since the 1940s and their descendents, then I imagine a one-state solution would be possible and a lasting peace could be achieved.
> In addition, all native Americans have US citizenship.
Yeah easy to do since almost all of them were exterminated. Why shouldn't all their old lands be brought back to them? Why do they have to settle in a few tiny reservoirs?
What about all Mexicans ? Plenty of them would like to move to the U.S, and as we saw some of them have legitimate territorial claims - why won't you allow them - are you pro apartheid? Because that's what the word means - separation. Let me guess - it's way easier to abolish other people's countries than your own for the sake of impossibly high morals right? It's way harder when you have actual skin in the game.
Whataboutism is not an effective rhetoric device, and is unlikely to win any arguments nor to convince anyone. We can also talk about Tibetans who were annexed but not displaced, we can talk about Chagossians who were displaced but given citizenship. We can talk about Japanese Americans who were displaced, given the right of return, and payed reparations (in my opinion too small of a reparation). And we can even talk about Cyprus, I‘m not very well versed in that history, but I’m sure there is something to talk about there.
Point is human rights have been violated in multiple occasion throughout history, all around the world. We can talk about any of those all day, but it won‘t get us anywhere. Point is also that Israel is one of the current violator of human rights, and deserves to be called out as such, irregardless of other human rights violations throughout history. But the main point is Palestinians deserve to have their human rights, which they have been denied for 77 years, and are still being denied.
> Whataboutism is not an effective rhetoric device, and is unlikely to win any arguments nor to convince anyone.
At the very least it would be nice to hear that hypocrisy runs deep for many many people without actual skin in the game whose ancestors have done the worst things imaginable. They have to give up on nothing, but can feel morally superior by helping 'end colonialism' by ending Israel.
As for Palestinian human rights - they can get the right of return to the Palestinian state without destroying the Jewish state. But no, that's not good enough, the only way to create 100% justice is to 100% eradicate Israel in your eyes and in most Palestinians eyes. This religious/ideological principle has brought tremendous suffering to the region with not much to show for it.
You are arguing with a strawman. All we are saying is that Palestinians that were displaced after the 1948 terror campaign which created Israel, that it is their right to return to their homeland. It is indisputable that they have this right, and that denying them that right is indeed a human right violation that ought to be stopped.
Whatever happens to a supposed Jewish state should not be a concern. Jewish residents of the area have their human rights as well, but what they don’t have a right to is a demographic majority, a racial supremacy, etc., and any policy which aims to maintain a jewish demographic majority or a racial supremacy is illegitimate.
> The 1948 terror campaign which created Israel
That's a very one sided view of a war that included many massacres and ethnic cleansing of the Jewish population as well
Forced displacement is a recognized crime against humanity. Israel forcibly displaced these people, refusing their right of return is a crime.
I don't disagree with you, but will comment.
There is a justifiable argument for Israel to occupy the west bank and/or the Gaza strip (whether one agrees or not is another matter that I will not get into). Settling it is another matter entirely, and this action is what causes so much grief.
But what Palestinian supporters continuously fail to grasp is that every time Israel has tried to give (and there were many attempts in the 1980s and 1990s), bad actors have caused violence. This violence was a huge cause in support shifting to right-wing parties in Israel.
The tragedy is that a plurality of Palestinians would otherwise love to have a peaceful (two state or otherwise) solution, but the "bad" ones are well funded by outsiders, in particular Iran. If a Gandhi/Martin Luther King/Nelson Mandela figure emerged, they'd almost certainly be killed by Hamas,Hezbollah,etc.
But at the end of the day, there's no way the extreme elements of either side will agree to a permanent and dignified peace, because even if it would work it would mean the end of either of them (and Israeli PM was assassinated by a far-right Jewish nationalist).
I'm sympathetic to both sides myself. I'm sympathetic to Israel's position, need for security, and the fact that hostility against them is a given. I'm also sympathetic to the fact that the Palestinian people were pushed off their land, often with violence to a level that can fit the definition of genocide, during Israel's independence and subsequent annexations.
But there will never be a true peace so long as the extremists on both sides have as much power as they do. I know most Iranians are fed up with their government. My Iranian colleagues all are commenting that even devoutly religious Iranians back home are getting fed up. A lot of this is a house of cards, so I guess we'll see.
The fact that we use the term "Settling" and "Settlers" is kind of grotesque. These places are occupied, by Palestinians, who have to be ethnically cleansed (with varying degrees of violence) in order to establish new Israeli Jewish settlements. This is done with Israeli Jewish soldiers, a hundred thousand of whom now patrol hundreds of enclaves and all major routes through the West Bank.
Isreali and US right-wing leaders find a hostile Iran to be extremely politically convenient, and the military-industrial complex that they share with each other and with centrist parties just wants a reason to keep existing. People talk about a potential "War with Iran", but in reality we've given them maybe a dozen different diplomatic casus belli in the past decade, in part to deter them from political moderation.
That's how the term is used in the U.S. as well, when history classes describe "settlers" who wiped out the Native Americans who lived here through genocide, germ warfare, regular ol' warfare and displacement. I think in general when one sees the word "settlers" one should assume the worst.
> military-industrial complex that they share with each other and with centrist parties just wants a reason to keep existing.
This is so freakin' true. I feel like, if world peace ever reared its ugly head Americans would whine, "but jobs!" because of the hit it would give the military-industrial complex.
While this is a good development. Everything in this part of the world is on a rinse snd repeat cycle ever since the Assyrians and the Babylonians - it hasn't changed much except maybe its actually a little more humane then it was in the past (which says something). Sorry for the cynical take but this just does a temporary stop.
That's not true at all. The current conflict isn't some thousand year old feud. It was very much caused by the deliberate provocation and importation of European settlers via Zionism. It's easy to wave our hands and say "it's so complicated!" or "they've been doing this for thousands of years!" but it's not complicated, much like apartheid South Africa, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were not complicated. Colonialism and ethno-centric racism are never good.
The plurality of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi (aka, Jews who never left the Middle East), at 45% of the population [1]. This isn't about Europeans, or even "race": Mizrahi Jews and their Palestinian neighbors are racially indistinguishable.
Ashkenazi Jews — that is, Jews who lived in Europe during the Diaspora — make up less than a third of Israeli Jews. [2] Although if you're dead-set on racial essentialism and blood-and-soil nationalism, Ashkenazi Jews are firmly within the Middle Eastern/Levantine clade and are more closely related to Palestinians than they are any European group. [3]
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizrahi_Jews_in_Israel
> Although if you're dead-set on racial essentialism and blood-and-soil nationalism
You're reading things OP didn't even write; and addressing a historical assertion with present-day facts.
OP posits that European settlers coming in during the Ottoman era (establishing Hebrew-only areas & businesses, only to later demand a Jewish State, in opposition to the local majority [0]) is what kickstarted the current conflict. It isn't a 1000 year old feud.
Mizrahis, save for Yemenis, migrated en masse after the conflict was irreversibly set in motion by Imperial Britain & various Arab states.
[0] https://www.pbs.org/video/1913-seeds-conflict-establishing-r...
That's a high quality comment but nothing at all like the comment it is defending whose main thrust is that the conflict is simple to understand and one side is just wrong.
Apartheid, oppression, occupation, genocide, and ethno-nationalist supremacy are "just wrong", and not all that complex once you get past the lie that they don't exist.
Also, the comment's "main thrust" was in response to the claim that the area is 'just always like that', for 'thousands of years', which is categorically untrue; a deliberate thought-terminating lie. Israel's terror campaign and colonialist brutality of the last 80 years is something quite new and different, based as it is on brutal British and American colonial strategies.
How is this different than the Muslims currently pouring into Europe today? Whatever happened to "refugees welcome"?
It should be noted in context that in 1856 the Ottomans, after their war with Prussia, actively invited all peoples - not only Muslims - to come and settle the sparsely populated Holy Land specifically in order to collect more taxes. Jews and Arabs happily took up the offer. The last Jerusalem census to show a Muslim majority in that city was 1876, and the 50 years preceding it were neck and neck for Jews and Arabs majority.
> in order to collect more taxes.
Non-Muslims were taxed more so of course they were welcomed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_Ottoman_Empire
Muslims have not asked for a majority Muslim state in Europe or started a terror campaign in support of that goal.
> Ashkenazi Jews — that is, Jews who lived in Europe during the Diaspora — make up less than a third of Israeli Jews.
This isn't true, and the link you posted in support of it contradicts it in the third sentence. 'less than a third of Israeli Jews' excludes Jews who migrated to Israel from the Soviet Union, or from the post-Soviet Union countries. In fact around 20% of the population of Jewish people in Israel arrived during the wave of migration which happened in the 90s and early 2000s.
> In fact around 20% of the population of Jewish people in Israel arrived during the wave of migration which happened in the 90s and early 2000s.
any idea where the millions of Jews from around the middle east disappeared to around the same time?
It's not about race, but it is about the invention of a country that relies on specific demographics to exist (majority Jewish) which necessitate keeping millions of people stateless yet under the full control of an elite ethnicity who actually have the votes and the control.
And no matter where Jewish people are from, they are that privileged ethnicity. The Arabs in Israel get token rights (but you and I both know if they were a demographic threat in Israel those rights would be revoked). And the Arabs in Palestine get no rights in Israel but are fully controlled and blockaded by Israel. That's the ultimate source of the conflict. It's not thousands of years old, and it is partly about race (if you consider Jewish a race, as the nation of Israel does).
> The Arabs in Israel get token rights.
That's just false. The Arab minority in Israel has right to vote, the right to establish political parties, freedom of expression, freedom of association, free press, religious autonomy, separate educational systems, legal rights, etc.
Yes there are differences, but claiming that Arab israelis only receive "token rights" is a far cry from the truth. Of course this doesn't mean theres' no racism, but that's a different issue.
They don't have a right to own land in 90% of the country. You literally have to be Jewish to buy land. Also Jewish people started burning down buildings full of Arabs during the war. They can get evicted from their houses. They are discriminated against. And I don't think you're a full citizen if you can't even buy and keep property.
> Also Jewish people started burning down buildings full of Arabs during the war.
Citation needed.
> You literally have to be Jewish to buy land
False.
> They don't have a right to own land in 90% of the country.
False. It's true only to 13% of the land which is owned by JNF: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Israel#Land_ownershi...
Looked into this and yes I think I was mixing up the 90% of land owned buy the ILA with the 13% owned by the JNF: https://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/iopt0308/4.htm#_ftn53
In the case of the ILA, you can buy it if you have full citizenship, but not if you are an Arab with a residence permit but not full citizenship. You can however buy land if you are Jewish and not a citizen. I find this somewhat racist still. Moreover, according to the above source from Human Rights Watch, Arabs still are de facto prevented from leasing 80% of the land. So my figure is not that far off. You also didn't dispute the fact that they have been evicted and contained. Which is also mentioned here.
They have also been steadily changing the rights of Arab Israelis over the course of 2024, as if their collective punishment of Palestinians needs to extend even to their own citizens, just in case: https://www.ft.com/content/3d57cf7c-a097-4e86-8f39-0f7720508...
Edit: archive link here https://archive.is/gvke5
I cannot find a source about the exact incident I was citing about arson perpetuated on Arab Israelis. It was a long time ago I read about that. So I will concede that seeing as I think my other points hold strongly. There are several incidents of arson and increased unpoliced violence in East Jeruselam and the West Bank though. I find this as clear evidence that the war crimes going on in Gaza are not just about retaliation to Hamas, but are part of a larger racist issue, since Palestinians in the West Bank logically do not deserve punishment for things Hamas did, but are being killed at far higher rates since this war. I say higher because children were always being killed every week in the West Bank, increasingly so in 2023.
> seeing as I think my other points hold strongly.
But they aren't. The initial claim was about Arabs in israel (aka israeli arabs), not Palestinians in the west bank / east Jerusalem which is a different topic.
Now don't get me wrong, i'm not gonna protect Israel's treatment to it's arab population, but let's get some facts straight. In terms of human rights you're still better off being arab israeli than being an arab citizen in most of the arab countries.
Bro when I said my other comments, I was speaking about the points ABOVE that statement. The ones I provided sources for. Both of which are about Arab Israeli citizens. Most of what I provided was specifically about Arab Israeli citizens. Are you being purposefully dense? I said I don't have evidence about the burning of Arab Israeli buildings BUT I have provided other points pertaining to Arab Israeli citizens that do hold up.
Anyway, saying "there's human rights violations but other countries have more human rights violations" is stupid and doesn't prove the point that Zionists are trying to make, that they are the victims in this situation and are not racists with an intent to genocide. Go say to black Americans in 20th century fighting for full civil rights "well at least you're not still in Africa, you'd probably be starving so you should really be grateful for this wonderful fair country". Those are two seperate issues.
> Both of which are about Arab Israeli citizens.
> Most of what I provided was specifically about Arab Israeli citizens
Palestinians in the west bank are not citizens. So again, Israeli arabs have much more than "token rights", they have all the rights i listed before.
As someone who was defintely pro-palestinian and now changed his stance to "eeeeh it's complicated", I want to thank you for taking the time to rebutt falsehoods and to call out exaggerations rather than engaging with ready-made partisan talking points. I know doing that sometimes feels like pissing in the wind but in my case, it really helped question what I thought I knew and to admit that I was probably more ignorant than I thought.
I'm baffled by how you've changed your stance in such a way. I sympathise with the Israeli people for thinking it's complicated and I understand that we need to consider them and their livelihoods and trauma when talking about the situation, but at the end of the day, what Zionist project requires genocide and thier government subsquently is quite happy to slaughter people like dogs. No amount of "the other side did some bad things too" justifies that when the Israeli's are the only ones who have the power to stop it.
You are trying to get me to engage to the claims you are making, I will not do that. Instead I will tell you about my stance change assuming you care. This is not about "the other sides did some bad things too", it's about the claims made by the pro-palestinians and the reality of it, which I think this thread illustrates quite well. On one side you have someone who cares about understanding the situation before making any claims and one the other hand you have someone (you) who is on his morality horse kinda saying that the facts, details in your eyes, don't really matter since you are on the side of the opressed. Attempting to dumb down the situation to an oppressor/opressed schema might be true in present day at an abstract level but does not help anyone. It's easy to be right, just make a broad abstract claim, it's much harder to be relevant. I know how you feel, I felt just the same, you are high on your emotion : It seems like for once it's a clear oppressor/oppressed situation, like the one you have read in History books but ask yourself "Why doesn't everyone see it like I do ?". Is it only because of the undeniable Israeli state propaganda directed at the western world and everyone is blind to it ? Or is it because people much smarter than us have tried to solve the situation, and failed ? Also do you care at all about a solution that would work for both parties ? Or do you only care that one party is right and the other, more powerful one, should vanish into thin air because they are wrong ?
> Or is it because people much smarter than us have tried to solve the situation, and failed ?
There are also a lot of people much smarter than us saying that the core parts of the Palestinian narrative are true (Nakba, land theft, apartheid and occupation, and yes, genocide, not talking about the religious Islamist stuff). E.g. the heads if pretty much all UN orgs and aid agencies.
I dunno man I've had a lot of people accuse me of being blinded by emotion on this but I am the only person who gave sources in this conversation. I've done a lot of reading, including of pro-Israel sources. The facts of the matter hold up. Israel is in the wrong. Again, the other side obviously did bad things but Israel is the one trying to create an ethnostate and then is acting surprised by the adverse consequences of that. Israel also is the only side with the power to stop this.
Anyway, I'll go back to being overly emotional by citing sources while the other side cites zero sources but is 'reasonable' because of their aesthetic of conservatism.
Edit: Also in terms of why do I think other people think differently, there are a lot of reasons. One is the genuine trauma of the holocaust. I totally understand why Jewish people felt like they could no longer conscience living anywhere other than a Jewish state after hundreds of years of pogroms leading to the holocaust. I also understand why they see anyone who is against them as antisemetic. There's lots of overlap between antisemitism and antizionism even if they are definitely not equivalent. I also understand that many people are scared of the instability in the region that be caused by the loss of a friendly westernised state and the possible formation of yet another total disaster of an Arab government. I also understand that it is not the choice of people who are grandchildren of settlers to have been born there and it is naive of me to dismiss the trauma of living in such a war torn place even from the more privileged side. None of these things makes it right to ethnically cleanse a people. That's the bottom line. And until we get Israel to admit that, we can't move forward, because the Palestinians cannot be gaslit out of their day to day experience of brutal military occupation and racist apartheid. They cannot be gaslit out of believing in the corpses around them.
Of course I don't believe we just dispose of Israelis for the sins of their forefathers. I believe they either need to give up a lot of land or they need to concede to having a multi ethnic state. Maybe the first one and then a plan towards the second so that neither side feels contained. This is easier said than done but it is what has to be done. Just like how South Africans had to forgive each other and the Irish and the English had to forgive each other, just on a more extreme scale. It's obviously a crazy thing to have to do, but you know what's worse? Continuing with a system that necessitates genocide.
I find it quite insulting that you see someone having the pro-Palestinian view and you think "oh yeah you're probably all for genociding the Israeli's to get your way"
That's unfair to your interlocutor who politely engaged with your point and tried give his source once, especially since you started with a false statement that you backed away from (with sources, to your credit).
I don't think you are blinded by emotions but "high" on them btw. I do not negate the fact that you are an intelligent, reasoning being. And it's fine, we all get emotional about things. I understand how appearing reasonable is part of the aesthetics of conservatism but I still wouldn't trust someone who seem engaged in overtly motivated reasoning to get to the truth of something, and I am speaking of both sides here. If you don't show me your own doubts, I will doubt you.
Edit:
You show a lot of understanding and I think that's a prerequisite for any serious conversation but you also see how it is not very practical for any online conversation to have a wall of "I understand that..."
> I find it quite insulting that you see someone having the pro-Palestinian view and you think "oh yeah you're probably all for genociding the Israeli's to get your way"
Well you see the problem, like any dispute in any relationship, it's an endless chain of "I feel insulted that..." unless you have a strict framework for discussion where everyone feels heard. Of course I don't see pro-Palestinians as having genocidal intent (and I take offence that you think I do :). I was one and I did not, but I also understand that an israeli person would be concerned about violent reprisals and wouldn't trust high on reighteouness pro-palestinians who would absolve themselves saying "Well they reap what they sow". That's why peace is hard, it takes a saint-like dedication to dialogue and gandhi-like refusal of revenge.
I agree that a "they reap what they sow" attitude can be tempting but is totally unproductive. You're absolutely right that we need real empathetic dialogue from gandhi-like figures. That was what I was trying to say in my last response. If the Israelis can admit that their genocidal actions have been wrong and that they have to concede some of their land for paece and the Palestinians can acknowledge the Isrealis generational trauma, welcome their need for sanctuary and disband Hamas then we could get somewhere. What I object to is that most of the world seems to believe that the Israelis should not have to admit to their own faults and concede anything. Hamas is a necessary resistance force in the eyes of the Palestinians if the Israelis continue to beleive that genocidal action is justified. I say in the eyes of the Palestinians because this may seem ludicrous to some of us, but that really doesn't matter. What matters is dealing with the greivances of the people in the area once and for all.
> Yes there are differences, but claiming that Arab israelis only receive "token rights" is a far cry from the truth
Aren't the rights only subject to them being an ethnic minority in Israel? According to nation-state law, they could not be allowed to retain those rights if they became the ethnic majority
This is well summarised. It could end very easily.
Inform us to your simple solution:
Keep things the same with Palestinians as wards of the state: Iran and others fund Hamas to continue the conflict.
Palestinians get an armed state: in 5 years Palestinians attack Israel and are utterly wiped out by complete military defeat and carpet bombing
Palestinians get an unarmed state.: lol like they have now? Smuggled arms, terrorism, eventual war, carpet bombing.
The essential geopolitical issue is that the Palestinians have never functionally accepted being defeated. So they never moved on and accepted peace in defeat like literally thousands of other ethnic groups historically in the history of ethnic conflict in the world.
Granted their only source of economic support is being funded to not accept peace by Iran and the Arab world for 70 years. That's four generations of Palestinians only existing to be thorns in the side of Israel and as useful fools.
At this point there is no good outcome for Palestinians. All roads lead to devastating military defeat politically. The economic basis of their existence (oil money) is rapidly fading. Old allies are now aligned with Israel (Sunni Arabs), impotent (Russia/Syria), or regionally deflated (Iran). Global warming is worsening. And they have increased their population 10 fold over 70 years with ZERO agricultural or economic ability to support themselves. Their political leadership is corrupt and paid to be militaristic and have authoritarian control. The West wont give them headline prominence anymore. The US is becoming insular, and we are entering an era of conflict and a fall in international diplomatic idealism
If you are a Palestinian and have any way to get out, get the effing hell out of there.
I could grant the Palestinians every moral high ground and argument. It won't change anything geopolitically and the Palestinians are utterly screwed.
Their only (impossible) chance is to reject Hamas, live in whisper quiet peace with Israel, develop tourism or some other economic basis to support their population.
And we all know reading that paragraph how impossible that is.
The best outcome would be that Israelis collectively decide that ethnic hierarchy isn't right as a state and commit to ending it. What you are saying is basically that black slaves couldn't be freed because all they'd do is try another ill-fated Nat Turner rebellion.
The Palestinians don't have to "accept defeat" if the Israelis can "accept ethnic equality". The same way the IRA and the PA (who renounced violence as an overture to Israel) never "accepted defeat" either.
Black slaves weren't funded, radicalized, and armed with military weapons and missiles with a stated goal of its leadership to kill all white people.
There are Palestinians that will get along with Israel. Newsflash, there are a ton of Palestinians living in Israel peacefully. 20% of Israeli citizens are Arab.
The Palestinians need to lay down arms for a looooong time before kumbaya peace is on the table. Stop with the bullshit that West bank and Gaza just want peace. Gaza continued to politically elect Hamas.
Likewise Israeli right wingers are in charge of Israel, like if the southern states had a lock on the US government.
Peace was closest when Yassir Arafat walked away from an agreement that included a Palestinian state. He was probably paid to do by the Iranians, Arafat died worth hundreds of millions.
Finally,the Palestinians dug their own mass graves by increasing population by a factor of ten when they had no economy and lived off of world relief and Arab oil money.
That's why they will never make peace. They only way they get money to live is to fight Israel. If they don't fight Israel, the aid dries up and they starve. If they fight Israel, Israel unleashes military force and blockaded and they starve.
Geopolitically the Israeli right wing have won. The world doesn't care about mortality. The UN will probably even stop passing their paper resolutions, because the world has way bigger issues like Russia NATO Ukraine, China Taiwan, and Trump vs everyone, brewing trade wars, and the fact that Israel is allied with Sunni Arabs, and Iran lost all its proxies.
The Palestinians are losing their funders, losing practical military access, lost Egypt a long time ago.
Global warming will be kicking into gear, so that means widespread population movements and other issues that will take all aid from the Palestinians.
That's why it's so critical for the Palestinians to find a way to some sort of peaceful state with an economic basis. That is the very narrow historic window for their survival. There is no Israeli kumbaya moment. There is no UN intervention force.
The fact you say "they don't have to accept defeat" is utterly nuts. And it's why that brief path to some survival by the Palestinians in Gaza is virtually impossible.
The West bank has a slightly better chance.
> Black slaves weren't funded, radicalized, and armed with military weapons and missiles with a stated goal of its leadership to kill all white people.
They were actually all of those things... Do you not know what the Nat Turner Rebellion was?
> Newsflash, there are a ton of Palestinians living in Israel peacefully. 20% of Israeli citizens are Arab.
No one ever answers this follow up. What would happen if those Arabs were a demographic threat to the Jewish majority of Israel? Would they still retain their voting rights past 50%? Be honest.
> Stop with the bullshit that West bank and Gaza just want peace.
I never said that. I said that when Israelis decide that ethnic hierarchy is wrong and commit to ending it, this conflict can end.
> Peace was closest when Yassir Arafat walked away from an agreement that included a Palestinian state. He was probably paid to do by the Iranians, Arafat died worth hundreds of millions.
Oh so we just throw out lies now? My comment could have been a lot shorter. What happened to Arafat's counterpart, btw?
> Finally,the Palestinians dug their own mass graves by increasing population by a factor of ten when they had no economy
Advocacy of collective punishment. Nice!
> They only way they get money to live is to fight Israel. If they don't fight Israel, the aid dries up and they starve. If they fight Israel, Israel unleashes military force and blockaded and they starve.
Well, like I said earlier, they could get money if Israelis decided to collectively end the policies of ethnic hierarchy... You know Gaza had an international airport, it had a luxury hotel. It was building an economy. Constant war makes that hard. And as long as millions of people in Palestine don't have citizenship in any country, much less in the country that controls their lives, strife is inevitable.
> There is no Israeli kumbaya moment.
I don't agree. The people of Israel have a collective consciousness that will prevail. Ultimately, whites decided to end slavery in the US. Ultimately whites decided to end apartheid in South Africa. Ultimately Israelis will decide to end their ethnic hierarchy as well. It doesn't have to happen, but I believe it will.
> The fact you say "they don't have to accept defeat" is utterly nuts.
It's not nuts. It's a factual statement. The IRA did not admit defeat even after its prominent members were all jailed. The ANC did not admit defeat even after its prominently members were jailed. History shows they don't have to admit defeat. Many here might say it would be better for them and the Palestinians. But there's understandable mistrust of both sides that making a step forward is difficult. The last time steps forward were made, the PA renounced violence only to have more and more of the West Bank stolen. Rabin welcomed talks towards Palestinian statehood only to get a bullet in return. We went from the highs of Oslo to the lows of the Second Intifada. That kind of backstabbing makes it hard for one side to back down, but there is agency on both sides. The US decided to end racial hierarchy, and it was painful, but worth it in the long run. I firmly believe Israel can do the same.
Nat Turner: a sideshow of American history. Also, armed only with muskets, not missiles explosives and automatic assault rifles, and not able to travel the world and enact terrorism.
50% Arab voting rights: let me get this straight, you admit Israel will never allow Arabs to gain majority voting, an ethnic racial hierarchy, but are arguing that Israel... Can stop apply a racial hierarchy for West bank and Gaza? So you're admitting that your "just do this" is impossible.
The IRA (I'm assuming you mean the Irish) were white vs white, and Christian. Palestinian "problem" is both ethnic and religious divide.
South Africa was probably related to the death of imperialism and the fall of British empire in particular. The whites were way outnumbered and required implicit world support to maintain that long term. The whites either relented or eventually would get the guillotine. Blacks had implicit power in numbers and surrounding countries. That's a totally different power dynamic.
Palestinian population problem isn't laying blame. It's the facts of the situation to highlight how precarious and vulnerable they are, and how little actual power they have. They can't sustain their population without aid, and that aid is implicitly dependent on them being a thorn in Israels side. No thorn, no food. So peace no food, war ... Blockade no food.
I respect your idealism, but I'm in my fifties (not Israeli, Arab, or religious, I have no skin in this game) and ... Look, the Palestinians have worked the moral argument for 74 years. During a time when geopolitics was reasonably quiet between the cold war and the post cold war unipower system. When there was still attempts at the UN, court of international justice, and other idealism internationally.
That era is coming to an end worldwide. Free trade is ending, America is turning insular/isolationist, global warming is in the rise, China is saber rattling, Xi is nuts, Russia is threatening NATO, the EU and NATO are fraying, right wing nationalism is on the rise.
The world is going to abandon the Palestinians. Egypt won't save them, Israel sure as hell won't. You call for impossible idealism, and I call for impossible realism.
Nat Turner had military technology of the time. You are just shifting the goalposts now to exclude everything that isn't exactly this situation to avoid discussing the reality that ethnic hierarchy is bad even in the face of valid security threats it shouldn't exist.
> let me get this straight, you admit Israel will never allow Arabs to gain majority voting, an ethnic racial hierarchy, but are arguing that Israel... Can stop apply a racial hierarchy for West bank and Gaza?
No, you admit that Israel would never allow Arabs to gain majority voting. That proves it is an ethnic hierarchy. Rights are not equal for each population. One ethnicity has the power and the other can never have it. That is what's wrong, and what I say should end. The Americans ended racial hierarchy. The Europeans ended racial hierarchy. The South Africans ended racial hierarchy. Israel must, and will end it as well.
> The whites were way outnumbered and required implicit world support to maintain that long term.
Just like Israel
> The world is going to abandon the Palestinians.
No it won't. Dictatorships like Egypt and Saudi might. But the people will never forget them. Even the Israelis have not forgotten them. Israelis themselves are some of the most vocal about their plight. And it's that spark that will lead them to freedom. You don't have faith in the people. You don't believe the people make change possible. I do. Call it idealistic, but every ethnic hierarchy has ended except this one. I think I'm just following the stats.
Ethnic hierarchies are a fact of history and geopolitics, especially where guns and hatred are involved.
Nat Turner was not financed to the tune of billions of dollars (inflation adjustment necessary) and employed by France to foment and continue fighting. He was not financed to torpedo any real resolution of slavery because it would mean the personal money train ends. Nat Turner did not have a Mafia authoritarian government oppressing a couple million people of his own kind.
The slaves didn't want collectively to fight and kill and jihad on their white masters. They just wanted freedom. They got reconstruction and segregation.
Slavery was only resolved with the bloody civil war. A civil war that America has the luxury of engaging in because it has no geopolitical enemies on its borders.
Does Israel want to kill a couple million of its people to resolve this in a civil war internally? When a dozen enemies would leap at the chance to attack them when they are weakened?
Look, you are dealing with more hatred, more barriers, more meddling external powers, more dangerous enemies.
Every ethnic hierarchy has ended? Us is still ethnically split along the echoes of slavery. The native Americans would also like to point out their situation. Russia is still the Rus at the core and subordinate ethnic stans, just like 1000 years ago. China is an ethnic hierarchy with the Han at the top. Turkey can't wait to reestablish a caliphate. South Africa has worse divisions than the US post apartheid.
The US native American population is basically the Palestinians. That is your analogue. Confined to reservations and poor. I don't want to hold them up as a model of "living as defeated people" but they exist, they have freedom to move in the US, and they aren't viewed by Americans as terrorists and periodically blown up. They have some economic determinism (casinos). That is the model the Palestinians need.
Again with Nat Turner you are just shifting the goal posts of course he didn't have billions but he did successfully kill a lot of whites and was feared and put up as an example of the dangers of ending slavery. Ethnic hierarchies by law with legally different rights based on one's ethnicity have all ended except in Israel. All what you are talking about are not legally encoded hierarchies. You're kind of just floundering so I'll leave you to it. Like I said before, and you didn't respond to, I believe in the people of Israel. They will not let their legacy be one of legally encoded ethnic hierarchy. They don't want to be China or Russia, they want to be America, where even the ethnically cleansed Native Americans are equal citizens (to use your own analogy) with equal voting rights and all
Also, if you were a European Jew in the late 1940s after the fall of the Nazis, you were still faced with the prospect of living under the local governance of Nazi collaborators, continued pogroms [0] and antisemitism, and potentially Joseph Stalin's USSR. It's not like everything immediately went back to normal, either in real terms or psychological ones.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielce_pogrom
It's unsurprising that many wouldn't want to reintegrate with that society after what they experienced, even if they managed to avoid the camps (and especially if they didn't).
Yes and the reason many of the Mizrahi are in Israel and not in all the other places is the Zionists.
I'm fairly certain it's because they were ethnically cleansed from and/or simply murdered in the rest of the Middle East by the surrounding Arab countries. For example, Egypt tortured and dispossessed its Jews, forcing them out at gunpoint while holding their family members hostage so they wouldn't speak to the press [1]. Syria made it illegal for Jews to buy property, own a telephone, or even drive, and then seized all the property they already owned and froze their bank accounts, killing them if they fled [2].
Blaming this on "the Zionists" is like saying America wasn't at fault for seizing the property of Japanese-Americans during WW2 and forcing them into internment camps — it was Japan's fault for attacking Pearl Harbor, whipping Americans into an unavoidable frenzy that can't be condemned. Only it's more absurd, because Israel didn't start the war with those countries — they invaded Israel in 1948 simply for existing!
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Egypt
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Syria
There is a difference between moral responsibility and factual causality. If you engage in colonialism and ethnic cleansing, its not surprising that both sides do it.
Its of course also true that Jews and other minority would have had lots of issue in Arab country with Arab nationalism on the rise. But Zionism clearly played a large role as well.
It was attack by various Zionist groups that result in Britain no longer wanting to control the area because they knew in any resulting deal and/or struggle they had a good chance of coming out ahead, and they were right.
I see: so ethnic cleansing is understandable if the other side started it first. Well then, perhaps you can answer a question for me: which side first tried to ethnically cleanse the other? Was it the Jaffa riots in 1929? The Kfar Sirkin ambush in 1947 after the U.N. partition plan? Which was the first act of violence in which one side tried to drive the other out, since in your opinion, "if you engage in ethnic cleansing, it's not surprising that both sides do it," and thus it's actually Zionism's fault for Arab countries ethnically cleansing their Jews?
That’s cool and all but the Israelis are in Israel already, there’s no turning back the clock on Zionism without the mass expulsion of Jews who have no other home to go to.
Palestinians have a legitimate historical claim and so do Israelis. They’re exactly that, historical. If both sides can’t let those be history, it’s either eternal conflict or the elimination of one of them.
>mass expulsion of Jews who have no other home to go to.
What? They should just go back to Poland! /s
Going to pretend that Jews haven’t lived there for thousands and thousands of years, before the Arabs arrived?
It was more about local residents becoming Arabs than Arabs migrating in large numbers. Palestinian Arabs are mostly descended from ancient Canaanites. More generally, the demographics around the Eastern Mediterranean have changed surprisingly little since the Bronze Age. Most conquerors just replaced or took over the old elites. Many people died in the process, and the survivors would often adopt a new culture, language, and/or religion.
> More generally, the demographics around the Eastern Mediterranean have changed surprisingly little since the Bronze Age.
This type of claims only shows lack of understanding of history as a science. It is actually impossible right now to make claims about this with any significant degree of confidence.
Zionism is a colonial ideology created by Europeans in the late 1800s.
In 1872, less than 4% of Palestine was Jewish. It was 17% in 1931. 33% in 1948 when Israel was formed.
The vast vast majority of Jews in Israel now are Ashkenazi. Ashkenazis are from Khazaria and converted to Judaism between 740 and 920 AD. Even from this population, there is a bottleneck around 600 to 800 years ago where the population was down to 350 individuals [1].
By and large very very few Jews in Palestine/Israel are able to claim Levantine/Semitic genetic ancestry.
Many Palestinians and other Levantine people in Palestine who now practice Islam are far more likely have to have ancestors that were once Jewish that actually lived in historical kingdom of Israel prior to 70 AD when Titus and Vespasian crushed a revolt there.
The ancestors of these folks that today practice Islam in Palestine likely converted to Islam sometime after 637 AD when Arabs started to settle in Palestine.
It's pretty commonly accepted all over the world since basically forever that ownership is bequeathed from parents to children. This means that those who are Islamic today but whose genetic ancestors practiced Judaism in the past and lived in the historical kingdom of Israel have far greater claim to the land than folks who have no genetic ancestry to the Kingdom of Israel and instead have ancestry with no genetic relationship that converted to Judaism about 1105 to 1285 years ago.
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/ashkenazi-jews-descend-from-35...
> those who are Islamic today but whose genetic ancestors practiced Judaism in the past and lived in the historical kingdom of Israel have far greater claim to the land
Broadly speaking, any philosophy that rests on an oldest-claims-first metric are guaranteed to cause violence.
Information degrades the further we go back; you’re prioritising the wishy-washiest sources of truth. And the nature of human migration and interbreeding means the further you go back, the less likely you are to find genetic ancestors of the people who currently control the land. The people alive on the land you want them off. People with guns.
(The theory is also fundamentally based on the notion that racial migration is wrong. Immigrants to America have less claim than white Americans, who have less claim than natives, except for all the natives who were conquered each other because they moved around too.)
It's not about the certainty of the information. The fact is that humans have always and will always migrate in large numbers for a vast number of reasons, and these migration movements are the main sources of cultural and linguistic change. So, any ideology with historical justification, based on how people in a region lived a long time ago is going to create wars because other groups lived there at other times, and ethnic and linguistic groups constantly change and evolve. Named regions, ethnic group boundaries, countries, and their delimitations change over time.
> The theory is also fundamentally based on the notion that racial migration is wrong.
There are no human races, though, at least not ones based on phenotypical traits. Genetic analysis can reveal indications of regions and ethnic origins but these are barely linked to phenotypical traits and cannot be inferred from the latter. Linguistic communities are the bearers of a shared culture, not anything related to the bogus and outdated concept of "human races." It's also worth pointing out that the claim that "racial migration is wrong" does not follow from any of the other considerations, nor is it needed to support them in any way. I suppose you meant to say the opposite, that the view that racial migration is wrong cannot be morally justified because historical justifications are wrong? Otherwise I don't get the final remark.
> There are no human races, though, at least not ones based on phenotypical traits
Race is a social construct. That doesn’t mean it isn’t real. The constructs of “Israeli” and “Palestinian” are as real and deadly as the geographical boundaries they each draw.
> suppose you meant to say the opposite, that the view that racial migration is wrong cannot be morally justified because historical justifications are wrong
If one’s ancestors define legitimate claims to where one can live, then one cannot legitimately live where one’s ancestors were not. In a weird way, the historical returners do a full swing to the xenophobic anti-immigrant types. (There are people who I’ve heard seriously argue that accepting Palestinian refugees is literally genocide.)
> Information degrades the further we go back
Exactly. Otherwise, anyone could claim anything since we all share the same ancestry, going back to the same primates or something[0]. We should focus on the issues at hand and work to avoid making the situation worse. Forcing all Israelites or Palestinians to leave is not a feasible solution. The problem needs to be addressed through peaceful negotiations and immediate support for those in need.
[0]: Dumbed down on purpose.
> The vast vast majority of Jews in Israel now are Ashkenazi
Wrong, Mizrahi are the majority.
> Ashkenazis are from Khazaria
I don't know hope you did it, but wrong again, DNA studies show Ashkenazim have a large Canaanite DNA component. The other part is largely Italian due to admixture within the Roman Empire which forcibly annexed Judea.
if you trust DNA study, you should know that the same DNA studies show that Palestinians are the ones who are native to the land of Palestine, not ashkenazi!
They're both native to the land.
you cannot claim to be native to the land, just based on some fairy tale non-scientific religious book, and stuff that happened some 2000+ years ago.
even if you decide to trust the religious book, you should know that jewish exile is a G-d's punishment for sins and a gift - so that jewish people can be a light to other nations and build a better world for everyone
> DNA studies
Thanks for the correction.
> Ashkenazis are from Khazaria and converted to Judaism between 740 and 920 AD
Probably not worth reading your comment past this sentence.
You’re confusing something…
They are from Eastern Europe through the way of Germany and probably Italy (where they likely did quite a bit of mixing with the local before becoming mostly genetically isolated) prior to that.
leading jewish scholars in Israel have published research in support of Khazarian theory, for example Shlomo Sand: Invention of jewish people
https://www.amazon.com/Invention-Jewish-People-Shlomo-Sand/d...
If I started claiming that the Welsh are refugees from Atlantis would that make me a leading Celtic scholar?
You argument is against zionism
>The vast vast majority of Jews in Israel now are Ashkenazi.
That's simply untrue.
https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/noah/files/2018/07/Ethnic...
The Khazar hypothesis is b.s. peddled by a white supremacist (Ernest Renan).
Genetic studies have found no substantive evidence of a Khazar origin among Ashkenazi Jews.
False, there is a lot of wiggle room open for interpretation in your “DNa studies”.
I need to tell Israeli professor of history Sholomo Sand from Tel-Aviv University that he is a white supremacist antisemite for pushing his Khazarian theory and bringing all the receipts in his book
https://www.amazon.com/Invention-Jewish-People-Shlomo-Sand/d...
Yes, genetics studies are open to interpretation, but not the interpretation that Ashkenazi are completely unrelated to other Jews. The evidence simply does not support that.
Sholomo Sand is not a geneticist nor was his hypothesis based on genetics. The fact that he's a Israeli history professor doesn't mean much here. The man didn't want to be a Jew, religiously or ethnically, and found the most complete way to accomplish it.
No, the claim of ashkenazi as being native to the Filistine while completely ignoring arabs who have vastly more native component of DNA by any measure.
Also jewish DNA is closest to northeastern anatolian component that is being suppressed as non politically convenient
Sand's book is coauthored by Eran Elhaik a geneticist and bioinformaticion.
Eran's analysis backed up Sand's theory of jewish nation based on DNA
I don't think this "claim to land" works in the modern age.
Countries were established and fought for in blood all thorough history, and the winners kept their land. End of story.
Unless we are talking about some remote village, every single country was funded on blood and violence, and after a certain point it just makes no sense to track it.
By that logic, the claim that the land is exclusively(!) Jewish because this used to be the territory of the Jewish state ~2000 years ago works even less though.
Fair enough. With that in mind, at what point does it no longer make sense to track it?
There must be some principled position where you can argue when it does and or does not make sense. In the case of this conflict, we're talking about a conflict where a few folks that directly experienced it are still alive and that many folks whose parents experienced it are still alive.
The Nakba is more recent than the Holocaust by a few years. Should it get the same treatment? Countries like Germany are still paying reparations.
In the US, we constantly have discussions about the institution of slavery in the US that ended in 1865. Jim Crow laws are more recent injustice however and only ended in 1865.
The Ukraine likewise had the Holodomor. There's actually a fascinating video of Abe Foxman of the ADL speaking with former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, telling him that it would be unproductive to talk about "your genocide, our genocide", but at the end of the day that's what we have here and it only seems fair to give comparable treatment for comparable catastrophes.
Speaking of catastrophe, I've always found it somewhat ironic that the word Nakba and the word Shoah (the original vernacular used to describe the Holocaust before it was replaced in the late 60s) both have the same meaning. Nakba is Arabic for catastrophe and Shoah is the Yiddish word for catastrophe.
I'm not saying where that line should or should not be, but it only seems fair that if we're going to draw a line that victims of different but comparable injustices should be given comparable treatment.
Minor correction, Shoah is Hebrew. See eg Yom HaShoah (literally: day of the catastrophe), Israel's Holocaust Memorial Day.
Genealogical research shows the strongest link between the ancient Canaanites and the current middle east population is with the Palestinians and Lebanese. There are some genetic links between Palestinians and the ancient Israelites with this theory that many converted to Islam after the invasion.
However, you are correct in that many historians describe the population was added to, and never replaced. Supporting the DNA links.
From this I would conclude that the Palestinians are indigenous through the pre-colonial link. Most Jews in Israel are not indigenous but they share cultural links and lets not forget the wars they won in 1948 and 1967.
What is bizarre, is the ban on genetic testing for Palestinians and this pseudo-history in Israel that Palestinians never existed. Something distorted is being taught in Israel at many levels.
You’re conflating two theories: one widespread, and one fringe. The theory that the Ashkenazi population experienced a bottleneck is widely accepted; claiming that Ashkenazim are actually a remnant of the Khazar Khanganate[1] is both fringe and typically associated with antisemitic conspiracies.
(Note that I say antisemitic, and not in a manner that involves conflation with Zionism: going against the overwhelming majority of generic evidence to make a claim about a Jewish ethnic group that doesn’t even majority reside in Israel reeks of a blood-and-boden anger against Jews because of who they are.)
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi...
Fair enough. I didn't realize that the Khazar hypothesis was fringe. I've seen it pretty widely cited and assumed it was more commonly accepted.
What is still fair to say is that many Jews in Israel do not actually have a continued occupation of that land going back thousands of years as was claimed by the person I was originally responding to.
4% in 1872 is a very low number. Absent the mass immigration that diluted the local population and a Nakba that expulsed many, that 4% population there in 1872 would still be about 4% of the population today give or take a few percentage points assuming the fertility rate of that 4% and the 96% percent that were not Jewish were comparable.
Many of the Jews that are in Israel today are of European descent (i.e. no thousands of years of continued occupation of Palestine) and many of the Jews that are in Israel today that are of Arabic descent are there due to Zionist terrorism from the Irgun, Lehi, and Haganah prior to 1948 and the mass migration from around the Arab-Israeli war. For example, Avi Shlaim from Oxford University has given numerous interviews on the terrorism committed by Zionists in Iraq to coerce the Middle Eastern Jewish populations to concentrate in Palestine as part of the Zionist project.
What is indisputable is that the claim of a continued presence of Israel/Palestine by Jews going back thousands of years really only applies to a very small percent of Jews in Israel. The reality is that that number is most certainly dwarfed by the quantity of Palestinians in Israel/Palestine that can claim to have "lived there for thousands and thousands of years" per the person I was replying to.
> I've seen it pretty widely cited and assumed it was more commonly accepted.
Where?
I think blood-and-boden arguments for territory are bad, full stop. Israeli Jews shouldn't use them to justify continuing to displace Palestinian Arabs, and Palestinian Arabs shouldn't use them to justify displacing the millions of Jews who live there now.
To the best of my knowledge, the overwhelming scientific consensus considers Ashkenazi Jews descendants of Levantine ethnic groups, with both Southern European (Roman period) and Northern European (medieval onwards) admixtures. Some people use this to make irredentist arguments, which leads to ridiculous (and antisemitic) responses like the Khazar hypothesis. But the solution is to observe that irredentism is wrong full stop, not to attempt the erasure of Ashkenazi ethnic identity.
> Where?
Can't think of any particular sources off the top of my head. It shows up from time to time in different places.
> I think blood-and-boden arguments for territory are bad, full stop.
I generally agree. I generally argue for reciprocity and even handedness. If someone else claims a certain argument as legitimate, then it's fair to use that same argument for counterclaims. In this case, the person I was replying to was making the "blood-and-boden argument", which means it is fair to apply that same argument to the counterclaim for those against whom they feel entitled to the same territory.
Me? I have no dog in this fight as my ancestry is so far removed that I can't claim it. My take is that if you go back in your ancestry and you can't point to a single named ancestor in your family tree (unbroken. you have to know everyone between you and that person), then you really can't claim connection to a place as you can't physically place a specific ancestor in a specific community (town, city, village), much less a controlling interest or other form of ownership. I've researched my family tree back to about the 1500s. That's about as far back as 99% of people can claim because written records largely dry up in the 1500s, with the exception of some folks with ties to nobility.
In your opinion, what is a good argument for territory?
> To the best of my knowledge, the overwhelming scientific consensus considers Ashkenazi Jews descendants of Levantine ethnic groups.
A question I have there is how far back to do you have to go to reach that ancestry. Pretty much all Europeans have paternal and maternal haploproups whose origin is in the Middle East. In fact, I would reckon that the only individuals in Europe today that don't claim ancestry to the Middle East would be folks whose ancestors migrated directly from Africa to Europe. Almost everyone else from Europe is going to be able to claim the Middle East. https://vimeo.com/50531435
> But the solution is to observe that irredentism is wrong full stop, not to attempt the erasure of Ashkenazi ethnic identity.
Makes sense. I'm going to incorporate that into my understanding here. Thanks for the corrections.
As a followup, I just did some googling and it looks like Ashkenazi Canaanite ancestry likely originated around 1000 BC.
According to Wikipedia, it looks like the Northern Kingdom of Israel was established around 900 BC and the Kingdom of Judah existed around 850 BC.
Correct me if I'm making a logical error here, but this would suggest that Ashkenazis likely originate from a voluntary diaspora and not a involuntary diaspora (like in 70 AD), if they share genetic ancestry to the region from around or just before the Kingdom of Israel and Judah were established (unless they were expelled by their own. i.e. the equivalent of different denominations and ideological schisms).
That all said, I'm still with you that blood-and-boden arguments are bad, but if folks are going to make that claim it's still worth asking questions about whether that claim is any stronger than the blood-and-boden arguments presented by others.
> In your opinion, what is a good argument for territory?
If I had one, I would be a moderately successful philosopher instead of a moderately successful software engineer :-)
I don't think there's a good "just" definition for control of territory: claims of original or ancestral ownership are hard to verify (and subject to this kind of hell-in-a-cell irredentism), while "working" definitions uniformly favor the most ruthless or powerful party.
Instead of arguing for rightful possession on lines of originality or power, I often think counterfactually: who would, all things being equal, be the ideal stewards of a piece of land? Under that framing the answer is almost always a secular, liberal democracy where national ties are more significant than ethnic or religious ones.
Very few of those exist, and the ones that do are strikingly imperfect.
> A question I have there is how far back to do you have to go to reach that ancestry.
It really depends on what you mean by "reach." As noted above, the Ashkenazim had a significant population bottleneck event, and are genetically distinguishable from other peoples living in Central and Northern Europe. Whether that makes them "closer" to Levantine ancestry or not depends on your perspective: you could argue that they admixed relatively little given their isolation from their original ethnic group, or you could argue that the admixture that occurred was proportionately significant.
> Correct me if I'm making a logical error here, but this would suggest that Ashkenazis likely originate from a voluntary diaspora and not a involuntary diaspora (like in 70 AD), if they share genetic ancestry to the region from around or just before the Kingdom of Israel and Judah were established (unless they were expelled by their own. i.e. the equivalent of different denominations and ideological schisms).
I don't know if it's a logical error or not, but it's an incomplete picture:
* The Jews that became Ashkenazim left the Levant in multiple waves, for multiple reasons (anthropologists will say things like "push and pull factors," which really just means "some were pushed out by hardships, and others were pulled away by opportunities, etc.").
* The likely ancestry of Ashkenazim dates back to ~900-1000BC, but this doesn't itself represent a date range for when they left the Levant. To make it intuitive: there's no distinction between someone living in the Levant in 300 BC with that ancestry and someone living outside the Levant with that same ancestry: they'd look the same in terms of the genetic record.
* Historical records aren't very detailed for the period, but a significant record of Jewish Levant-Europe migration comes from the decades following the Bar Kokhba revolt. Josephus (who is Jewish, but is writing as a Roman citizen) records around 100,000 enslaved on just one occasion among several[1]. These slaves were likely transported further into the empire for labor in both Greece and Italy, which in turn is a likely explanation for the Southern European genetic component within the Ashkenazim.
TL;DR: There's more than one factor that explains the flight of Jews from the Levant. However, our strongest historical record for large scale migration strongly suggests that the bulk of what became the Ashenazim arrived in Southern Europe in the first and second centuries, and then moved further into Central and Northern Europe during the Late Empire and Early Medieval periods. That migration was in turn primarily caused by "push" factors (mass enslavement and murder following the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt), followed by subsequent "pull" factors (subsequent normalization of Jewish status in the Roman empire, stable lives outside of a post-temple Levant, etc.).
[1]: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2850/2850-h/2850-h.htm#link6...
> In 1872, less than 4% of Palestine was Jewish. It was 17% in 1931. 33% in 1948 when Israel was formed.
Where's the issue ? I thought you Woke people wanted to see more diversity and empowerment of minority groups in the world
I think you're confusing me with other folks on HN. I value cohesive high trust societies so I'm personally in favor of assimilation and much more gradual changes to any culture.
I think a change from 96% to 67% in 76 years is a catastrophe for culture indigenous to a region, and it's not a surprise that the Nakba followed such a rapid change without assimilation. The rate should be one where outsiders coming into a society become part of that society instead of splintering the society.
In chemistry terms, it's the difference between a solution, emulsions, suspensions and mixtures. In my mind, the goal should be cultural "solutions". If the rate of change is such that you end up with enclaves that resist mixing, then that leads to decline of trust and civic engagement. You end up with a society that is highly political and fragmented and liable to balkanize and potentially engage in armed civil conflict.
Let me break this down in terms you can understand.
The DEIsraelis are doing a genocide.
Do you see the problem now?
Arab is not a race. Most Arabs never arrived from anywhere, they were locals who adopted (often violently, sometimes not) large parts of Arab culture for long enough to consider themselves Arabs.
The Arabians never had the resources or population to engage in settler colonialism you are thinking of. Even if they wanted to (and perhaps they did), they just couldn't go around replacing anyone. So from the start the conception of Arab is about peoples slowly becoming Arab, not being replaced by arriving Arabs, in large part.
This is true of most old empires. Romans, Persians, Arabs, Mongols, early Ottomans generally don't setttle areas they conquer. They don't engage in industrial extraction either. They form a ruling class and collect taxes. Any cultural influence that have was because of longevity rather than any interest in forced conversion. People project their impressions of more modern empires to pre-industrial ones that didn't have the same aspirations or even institutions to accomplish those aspirations.
That's really not true, e.g. the wikipedia page on population transfer in the Ottoman empire[1]. This dates way back to the Assyrian and Persian empries explicitly moving conquered peoples around in their empires in order to safeguard their rule. This book on population transfer in the Ottoman empire[2] explicitly states, with references, that the Ottomans habits were inherited from the steppe Turks, the Byzantines (=the Romans) and the Arabs.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Population_transf... [2] https://websites.umich.edu/~gocek/Work/ja/Gocek.Muge.ja.popu...
There were of course population transfers, but there mathematically could not move enough people from the Arabian Peninsula into conquered regions.
They are one and the same people. Only through the lens of ethnocentric histories is any distinction made.
there are several flaws in your typical zionist argument:
1. jews as a minority have lived in the lands of Filistine and Jerusalem peacefully and coexisted just fine for millennia, before the zionist project.
2. the fact that small minority of jews lived there does not give an excuse to ethnically cleanse the local population of arabs.
3. the claim that modern european jews from Rhine and pale of settlement (AshkeNazi) have any connection to ancient Israelites from 2000+ years ago is laughable. Most genetic analysis proved that it is Palestinians, Jordanian Christians are native to the land, not european settlers from Poland, Lithuania, Belorussia, Ukraine with last names like Mileikowsky (Bibi's actual name), Mabovitch (golda's name) etc.
4. Filistine and Jerusalem did not have a problem with antisemitism and jew hate, UNTIL european settlers showed up. Antisemitism is purely european concept imported into Middle East.
5. All studies have shown that Israel/zionism is a colonial settler project created by Brits to secure Suez Canal from the ottomans. Later it would become American "unsinkable aircraft carrier" in the middle east to bomb and murder oil rich countries in the middle east
> Filistine and Jerusalem did not have a problem with antisemitism and jew hate, UNTIL european settlers showed up. Antisemitism is purely european concept imported into Middle East.
Read about the granada massacre.
Oy vey, granada is in Spain, you just proved my point that antisemitic pogroms are purely european thing.
Iraqi jews did not even want to migrate to Israel and leave Iraq. Mossad had to organize several bombings and false flags to scare the Iraqi jews and force them to migrate[1]
in other arab states, Ben Gurion paid money to encourage jews to immigrate and settle Filistine. Moroccan king begged jewish community to stay and not to immigrate
Granada in 1066 wasn't Spain, it was the Taifa of Granada in Al-Andalus. That part of the peninsula was fully invaded and governed by muslims. Already for two centuries. The massacre perpetrators were a muslim mob.
You're being presented with perfectly valid arguments, clearly proving that your point is false, and still insisting on ignoring them because they don't agree with your narrative.
You're in bad faith.
The grand point still stands: when compared to Europe, Arab world largely coexisted and lived peacefully with jewish community. Until zionist settlers showed up.
Antisemitism is purely european concept, and some might argue that expulsion of jewish people from Europe to Middle East was the original Final Solution by Hitler (before he decided to just kill everyone).
So all that Zionists have achieved is just realized the dreams of Adolf Hitler
The Hebron, Mufti of Jerusalem and arab nationalism. The recent synagogue attacks, the examples are so countless that we even have an extra word for it. Oy vey, indeed, if you think that underlines your point.
Everything else about this aside: the reason most European Jews have Europeanized last names is because they were forced to adopt them throughout the 18th and 19th centuries[1].
(Also, why spell it “AshkeNazi”? That seems inflammatory with no connection to reality, since the root is Ashkenaz.)
I would argue there is connection to nazi regime:
1. ICC and ICJ's accusations of genocide by israel
2. israeli government led by Kahanite leaders like bezalel smotrich and ben gvir. Kahanism was recognized by USA and EU as a terrorist organization with fascist ideology and is named after terrorist meir kahane
3. public announcements by israeli leaders and journalists about "Israel needs Lebensraum"[a], dreams of conquering greater israel from Nile to Euphrates[b] stealing land from 6 other countries
There are way too many similarities between nazi germany and the zionist regime
a. https://archive.ph/NGnNv#selection-1153.44-1153.113
b. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241120-smotrich-has-conf...
There’s no connection between Nazism and the word Ashkenazi itself. Ashkenazi just means “someone from Ashkenaz,” which is what early medieval Jews called Germany.
(It’s almost impossible to engage with this comment, because of how ridiculous it is: for one, the majority of Ashkenazi Jews don’t even live in Israel. For another, intentionally using an ethnic identity as a stand-in for Nazism is cartoonishly offensive.)
> ICC and ICJ's accusations of genocide by israel
The ICC has not accused Israel (or any Israeli leader) of criminal genocide. They have accused them of some other things, many serious,but not genocide.
The ICJ hasn't ruled on the south africa case, so i think its wrong to say they have accused Israel. South Africa has accused, the ICJ is in the process of deciding if their accusation has merit but hasn't ruled yet.
Arabs like Syria's Assad have murdered half a million people but it would still be incredibly racist to call all Arabs "ArabNazis" on that basis.
When you ethnically cleanse a population, that population tends to go down. The opposite has happened to Arabs living in and around Israel.
I agree that it's not ethnic cleansing, but that's an awful support. Just because you're bad at evil doesn't make you not evil. Like, I assume Israel's population has gone up since October 7, which doesn't make it any less attempted genocide.
Ethnocentric racism is never good and it is, indeed, rampant in Israel, but it's hard to compare European colonialism to Zionism for a few reasons. The cultural and historical affinity of Jews, including Jews residing in Europe, was nothing like that of Europeans to the Americas, Africa, or East Asia. For well over a millennium Jews were praying for a return to Zion three times a day, even after the collapse of the Roman Empire and its later conquest (from the Byzantine Empire) by the Arab Islamic Empire, there have been many (small) migrations of Jews to the area [1], there has been an uninterrupted (small) presence of Jews there, and Jews in Europe were considered "racially" oriental "semites". Unlike European-style settler- or exploitation colonialism, there wasn't any metropole to Zionism, in the name of which colonisation was taking place. Finally, the bigger migration by modern Zionism in the time of the Ottoman Empire (that is when this conflict started, not under the Brits, who came into the picture -- after Tel Aviv was a city), came as a result of difficulties the Jews experienced in Europe and the Russian Empire, and certainly not on behalf of those powers.
That's not to say that Israel (like all countries in North and South America, Australia, and New Zealand) isn't a form of settler colonialism [1], sometimes openly and consciously so, but it is different from European colonialism (and in some respects it can be different for the worse, at least compared to some specific European colonies).
So yes, some things are simple, but your comparisons to things that were quite different actually shows how other things are not so simple. But it is precisely because history is often complex and almost never easily generalisable that I hate using it either as moral justification or condemnation of present events. I don't think that the fact both Arabs and Jews came to the Levant through migration and conquest (even according to both culture's own national mythology) has any bearing on present moral responsibility. In the end, as you say, ethnocentric nationalism is just wrong.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judais...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism_as_settler_colonialism
That is wrong. There were conflicts before, the Hebron massacre (1929) for example. There was an Arab nationalism and the Mufti of Jerusalem met with Hitler and planned a middle-eastern Holocaust.
Also, Jews were expelled from surrounding nations when Israel was founded, even more than Palestinians were driven from what now is Israel. There never was any compensation or talk about their right to return and these are not Jews with European ancestry.
Frankly, I think not a single statement of yours is true.
What a pile of nonsense...
Whose colony is Israel? Do you even understand what this word means?
You are just parroting some propaganda lines that you don't understand. The propaganda lines that were specifically constructed to appeal to emotions (by referencing European colonialism that started with exploring Africa and India with subsequent conquest, which did result in many bad things, but has nothing to do with what happened in Israel beyond some superficial similarity).
Colonialism was bad because the colonial powers took freedoms away from the local population, siphoned their wealth to the country-colonizer while devastating the colony's inhabitants. Israel did nothing of sorts. It never wanted to have anything to do with the local population. In fact, one of the major sources of conflict was that Jewish population that came to replace the Turks who owned the land worked by the locals didn't want the locals to work that land anymore. And the landless peasants thus became unemployed / unemployable.
So, Arabs living in Israel used to be servants to the Turks, but once Jews replaced the Turks, and "freed" the Arabs, the later discovered themselves to be useless and without means of sustaining themselves. Not a good spot to be in, but hey, at least now they were "free" (I do use this ironically, I don't think they wanted that kind of freedom). Arabs, of course, thought about former Turkish land as their own (because they used to work it), but it's no more theirs than it is Jewish or whoever else inhabited that area historically.
Bottom line, claiming land based on some historical past that was cancelled by more recent historical events is a road to nowhere. And if you try to follow it, Jews probably have a better claim to that territory than Arabs, who invaded and occupied that territory later.
But, more importantly, today, the conflict isn't even about the land at all. All major players would be willing to make territorial concessions, if the core of the problem was addressed. And people are at the core of the problem, not the land. Something needs to be done with the Arabs inhabiting the occupied territories: they need to get some kind of a political status with an eye to permanency. Either completely abandon the program of building an independent state and join some other country, or the opposite. But neither seems likely. And so the conflict will go on for as long as this issue isn't solved.
True, but Israel could be seen as just the latest Crusade.
It's 'not complicated' if one is lazy. The comment is missing a lot of mitigating pieces of information:
- the empires that governed the land before '48 and how that affects consent
- the lack of options for Jews facing persecution, pograms and a holocaust given immigration policies of nations around the world
- the many Jews in Israel formerly from middle-eastern nations
- the complication to the birth-right citizenship argument that all Jews have Israeli ancestry (albeit very distant, in many cases)
- the UN Partition Plan for Palestine
The problem with the conflict is that both sides are right. It's not the Palestinians' fault that their land was least bad refuge for Jews, but it probably was.
>The problem with the conflict is that both sides are right.
So true on a theoretical basis, and at the same time both sides are wrong for fighting on that same basis.
Leaving the only sensible participants those who are committed to complete non-violence for a few generations, no-one else could possibly have beneficial actionable input without making things worse.
>the empires that governed the land before '48 and how that affects consent
You have my upvote but I consider this a fairly weak argument from all sides.
After WWII there were only three kinds of people remaining on my home planet:
1. Those that won WWII.
2. Those that lost WWII.
3. Those that were saved by the ones that won WWII.
Everyone else was killed.
Sure, it's a fresh start, but pretty gloomy when you think about it.
The winners rightly would be expected to take the lead from that point on, drawing lines of co-operation highly focused on preventing any more worldwide conflict in any predictable way. Definitely for the foreseeable future at the time, and it has proven to work more effectively than any other peace initiative in human history. Relative to the overall threat.
Anyone who was saved by the winners of WWII and was not completely delighted with the outcome has certainly never had legitimate grounds for complaint considering the alternative. How quickly some people can forget.
Then again religious hatred and/or superstition can misguide some otherwise intelligent people from just about anywhere, and this is nothing new since cave men were all there was.
Of course it's been quite a while since prehistoric times, so too late now, nothing that happened before WWII will ever be a reason for further conflict ever. They'd have to be a complete moron.
Looks like the world had settled into its most peaceful time by about 1950.
Realistically the only major war that remained was a cold one after that, and regardless of whether you were unappreciatively saved by the winners of WWII, or happened to be disgruntled losers, the only way to change it was to start WWIII. At one time everybody knew that.
Which "everyone" also knew would take one hell of a suicidal maniac, but if it happened it would probably be dealt with along the lines of how Kamikaze tactics were proven to be overcome when the scale reached world-threatening proportions.
It was already the 20th century with worldwide communication and everything, and the century was only halfway along. Naturally with such a worldwide war brought to conclusion without complete destruction everywhere, previous conflict up until that time had been made as equally prehistoric as in 19,500 BC ever since.
How could people forget so easily? Who would possibly be suicidal enough to let that kind of bloodthirsty hatred rule again?
I think my wording was a bit vague there. By 'two empires', I meant the two who governed Palestine prior to 1948 (ie: the Ottoman, and then the British).
When zionism came about, Palestinian arabs were not in power and could not determine policy.
Zionist jews spend years wrangling (sometimes violently) promises and concessions from the British, and finally from the UN, who, at the time, seemed like the legitimate bodies to grant them.
In retrospect, 'what business did the Ottomans or British have to allow foreign zionists to take over Palestine?' but that's with the benefit of hindsight.
Not that either side is evil... it's a complicated conflict.
Ouch: it's too late to correct, but the word 'turks' should be substituted for 'ottomans'. As a noun, 'ottoman' means only 'foot stool''what business did the Ottomans or British have to allow foreign zionists to take over Palestine?'>I meant the two who governed Palestine prior to 1948
That's the kind of thing I think people should be able to disregard altogether.
Not just because it's ancient history of the Middle East, but the whole world went through so much.
After all that, it was not supposed to matter any more what happened before.
Almost all the lucky survivors could move forward and there was maximum worldwide consensus that non-violence was the way to go.
Even some of the absolute losers of the war moved forward non-violently to a better outcome than any other way.
The Hatfields & McCoys were never going to stop feuding either, until they declared multi-generational peace, that's the amount of time it takes for co-existence to eventually give way to constructive interaction, rather than destructive interaction.
>'what business did the Ottomans or British have to allow foreign zionists to take over Palestine?'
Exactly what I mean, doesn't matter what anybody anywhere did before the war.
It was only after the war when the British came out on the winning side, that made them an arbiter of these kind of things. If the Germans would have won it surely would have been much worse, with an entire political party focused primarily on spreading hatred and oppression as a growth tactic.
No traditional business or inherent right to govern was responsible for British decisions that were capable of shaping destiny.
The Crown just happened to already be there actually keeping the peace before the war, until the British empire was threatened across the entire world, and peace completely lost on the planet. I like to keep in mind that you could have spent the war years in isolated communities on a number of continents and had no knowledge whatsoever that a war had even taken place. You were still saved by the ones that won WWII, there's no getting around it.
Even though the British had gotten there in the first place because of their own misguided war-like efforts of conquest, that didn't give them legitimate rights to anything.
Their empire was actively reversing all kinds of war-like tendencies like never before, along with every other person no matter what their religion or culture, that a peaceful world was suitable for. And withdrawing from an occupation that was quite painful itself.
You know, reversing like the Hatfields & McCoys. Remember if a hateful violent culture develops, and generations go by without resolution it never really matters any more what they are fighting for. Nope. Never. Really. Matters. And it can get a lot worse when the population grows with each generation because pretty soon there are not enough mountains for everybody.
Things were pretty simple with only 3 kinds of people for a while, but since prehistoric times there's often been some violence-prone contingent that would not be compatible with world peace without major change in attitude & behavior.
The world-wide window of opportunity for complete non-violence that opened after the war will never close until WWIII.
It's what you do with it that matters until then.
For those few that failed to quit shooting you could say that it's like the war never ended for them so they're stuck in a historical impasse. But the day the war ended it pushed any continuing conflicts right into the "prehistoric" category along with all the ancient stuff that would best be non-glorified if not completely forgotten because that's what's proven to work so well.
Once it was proven that almost the entire world could become deathly hateful of their adversaries, then stop shooting and rapidly turn it around for unprecedented co-operation, then anybody can do it, and those who failed to heed the example have only worsened their own outcomes.
Just like my hillbilly ancestors did for so many generations. Nobody who actually had academic schools could have taught the lessons of WWII until it was over anyway. Even those with academic traditions going back millennia, if they didn't stop teaching anything that could lead to violence after that, then they have failed worse than the most illiterate hillbilly. Lots of those mountain dwellers didn't even get schools until the 20th century.
The feuding parties were as hateful and uneducated as people can get. You don't want to be like them any more, you want to learn how not to be like them so you don't get stuck in permanent hate. If that means forgetting the past, maybe that's the only way to learn sometimes. To some extent it could have been easier to declare peace without very much tradition of formal indoctrination.
The most effective teaching could turn out to be teaching how to forget.
The first thing that always needs to be done is to stop shooting, who knew?
>it's a complicated conflict.
It stays complicated, even after the shooting stops.
But even a hillbilly can do it.
That deserves a proper response, but I find its length too intimidating to come up with a suitable one.
If we view the conflict from such a high level, I also have a take. My take is basically 'utilitarian': nobody anywhere in the world has a right to live anywhere outside of what other people accept (or other people tolerate, at least).
From my point of view, it's a waste of time to argue over who has a 'right' to the land based on birth-right, history, religion, etc; both sides make sound arguments to those ends.
What matters, in my view, is only what arrangement will placate all the parties involved (jews, muslims, and other).
It's a 120 year old feud, quite a lot, and even with a one sided extremist view such as your own I would at least hope anti semitism, pogroms, the holocaust and the right for self determination would make you see there's at least a bit of complexity here.
Also - even if this take was true , what's your end game - all states based on past colonialism need to be abolished ? Or is that the right solution only for Israel. E.g if Mexico starts bombing the U.S to get back Mexico, parts of Texas etc, we should all support them right?
"The current conflict isn't some thousand year old feud"
Well, actually, it is.
There were 1200 years of war, conquest, slavery, ethnic cleansing, genocide and apartheid up until the caliphate was defeated and broken up in 1920/1924. For 1200 years, non-muslims lived under apartheid (Dhimmi). Up until that point, Islamic supremacism was as firmly established as white supremacism was in America.
I suppose if America (which itself was built on war, conquest, slavery, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and apartheid) was defeated in WWI, broken up into various nations, and some land was made available to the Native Americans to build their own sovereign nation, you would be against that ? After all, at that time, Native Americans accounted for only .25% of the population. Since there were so few of them it would make no sense for them to have their own nation.
Wars have consequences. Many ethnic groups lost their lands due to the expansion of the caliphate over 1200 years. The caliphate was then defeated, and things have changed.
"... ethno-centric racism are never good".
While in no way saying that this supports the idea that "ethno-centric racism" is good, you should read the constitutions of the 22 Arab countries in the Arab League. They have, as their basic principals that they are Arab/Muslim countries, and have Islam/Sharia as their law. So, are all of these countries also illegitimate ? Or, just Israel ? Or maybe America should change its constitution to declare that America is a white European country based on Christian law ?
> some land was made available to the Native Americans to build their own sovereign nation, you would be against that ?
You know that would have been great. But who are the native Americans in your example? Majority of Zionists that established Israel and their groups arrived by ships from Europe. Wouldn't that more resemble England and Spain colonization expeditions in your example? Weird.. like the story almost matches exactly to the how colonies were established
Such an ironic example to give voluntarily.
Let's take a look at the background of Israel's founding fathers and where did they came from:
- David Ben-Gurion - Poland
- Aharon Zisling - Belarus
- David Remez - Russia
- Pinchas Rosen - Germany
- Moshe Sharett - Ukraine
- Haim-Moshe Shapira - Belarus
- Yehuda Leib Maimon - Moldova
- Mordechai Bentov - Russia
- ...
Case in point, most weren't natives who lived there under "apartheid" but actually left Europe looking for a new land, backed by... England and the US (Sorry Spain, not this time).
If you're struggling to use the real events in history and have to resort to a "hypothesis", it's a sign something is off and you're twisting history a bit too much. At least make sure it's not ironic, next time.
If you were a European Jew in the late 1940s after the fall of the Nazis, you were still faced with the prospect of living under the local governance of Nazi collaborators, continued pogroms [0] and antisemitism, and potentially Joseph Stalin's USSR. It's not like everything immediately went back to normal, either in real terms or psychological ones. Even if you survived your friends, family and neighbors are GONE.
It's unsurprising that many wouldn't want to reintegrate with that society after what they experienced, even if they managed to avoid the camps (and especially if they didn't).
It is ridiculous to just throw them into the same category with the English and Spanish colonists searching for riches in the New World.
Migrating to Palestine and living in that land is not an issue in itself. I wish them prosperity much like everyone else. The problem is the crimes that were committed by the Zionist militias such as Irgun who were viewed as terrorists orgs even under UK mandate, in additions to the settlements and establishing an apartheid state later:
1. Kicking millions of Palestinians out of their homes and villages and building illegal settlements
2. Massacres committed with no accountability (soldiers posing and documenting it, not fog of war)
Both of these practices are STILL ONGOING and have been for almost a century.
Then regular civilians come from all over the world to live in those illegal settlements and justify it or claim they have nothing to do with the atrocities when they're a major support for it and why the suffering continues.
Many more problems were results of Israel being built on ethno-religious foundations:
3. Giving refuge to pedophiles (wanted by US and INTERPOL) because they're Jewish? WTF? [1]
4. The recent rape and sexual harassment of prisoners [2]. Israeli protestors went to the streets and even rioted to defend the soldiers accused of it and were proud of their actions. Tell me how should I feel when I see them doing that?
5. The attack on World Central Kitchen convoy? [3] Killing 7 aid workers in multiple clearly marked vehicles on a coordinated mission with the IDF. What came of it? They just laid off a couple of people like the commander Nochi Mandel who oversaw the attack. The same commander signed an open letter to block humanitarian aid. So what is the punishment for killing 7 innocent aid workers? You move to the private sector it seems with higher pay grade.
Fuck me! Any group that commit such crimes and act proud with no shame are lunatics and should be held accountable but this doesn't seem to happen in Israel. Even the citizens seem to take pride in it. [4]
My problem isn't with specific group. I'm referring to Israel as a state. I don't care about the religion of its people or what land they live on as long it's lawful and they're no committing war crimes. I'd feel the same about crimes in Ukraine, Afghanistan, or Africa.
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-jewish-american-pedophiles-...
[2] https://theintercept.com/2024/08/09/israel-prison-sde-teiman...
[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68727828
[4] https://truthout.org/articles/israeli-militants-riot-over-in...
There is nothing made up about 1200 years of oppression by an empire that was built on conquest, numerous forms of slavers, ethnic cleaning, and genocide.
This is not something that happened thousands of years ago, it ended 100 years ago, and is directly relevant to what is going on today.
The fact that some of the founders of Israel were the descendants of those who fled their native lands due to oppression does not change anything, any more than Palestinians who are born in different countries would no longer have ties to their homeland in the Middle East.
And yes, I firmly believe that the Palestinians have a right to a country of their own, but not at the cost of eliminating Israel and imposing sharia law
> The fact that some of the founders of Israel were the descendants of those who fled their native lands
Only some founders were foreigners? Do you want the full list? Literally none, 0%, were "native", born in the region or anywhere near it, here's the full list of people who signed it and where they came from:
- David Ben-Gurion (Poland)
- Daniel Auster (Ukraine)
- Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (Ukraine)
- Mordechai Bentov (Poland)
- Eliyahu Berligne (Belarus)
- Fritz Bernstein (Germany)
- Rachel Cohen-Kagan (Ukraine)
- Eliyahu Dobkin (Belarus)
- Yehuda Leib Fishman (Moldova)
- Wolf Gold (Poland)
- Meir Grabovsky (Moldova)
- Avraham Granovsky (Moldova)
- Yitzhak Gruenbaum (Poland)
- Kalman Kahana (Poland)
- Eliezer Kaplan (Belarus)
- Avraham Katznelson (Belarus)
- Saadia Kobashi (Yemen)
- Moshe Kolodny (Belarus)
- Yitzhak-Meir Levin (Poland)
- Meir David Loewenstein (Denmark)
- Zvi Luria (Poland)
- Golda Meyerson (Ukraine)
- Nahum Nir (Poland)
- David-Zvi Pinkas (Hungary)
- Felix Rosenblueth (aka Pinchas Rosen) (Germany)
- David Remez (Belarus)
- Berl Repetur (Ukraine)
- Zvi Segal (Poland)
- Mordechai Shatner (Ukraine)
- Ben-Zion Sternberg (Ukraine)
- Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit (Morocco)
- Haim-Moshe Shapira (Belarus)
- Moshe Shertok (Ukraine)
- Herzl Vardi (Lithuania)
- Meir Vilner (Lithuania)
- Zerach Warhaftig (Belarus)
- Aharon Zisling (Belarus)
37 signatories, and not a single one were from that land or had any clear links to it whatsoever. You act like it was to protect the locals but not a single one was present? How much clearer do you want to it to be? It was a land grab from the very beginning
Doesn't the Torah count for something? It works slower than fiber optics but is massively parallel.
No, that's mythology. Actual history is The Balfour Declaration:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
And Nakba: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba
Before the Balfour Declaration, the British promised the region to the Arabs if they helped fight against the Ottoman Empire via the McMahon–Hussein correspondence:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMahon%E2%80%93Hussein_corres...
Basically, the region was double promised to both sides during WWI, Arabs in the region being promised it first. This crucial detail is somehow often left out of any discussion regarding the Balfour Declaration even though it preceded it.
You truly fail to realize that there were people living there, and it wasn't an empty plot of land that could get promised by the British to one group or the other?
I think the Israeli and Palestinian authorities would let atheists decide their problems as long as they agree with what they want, baring that, your argument probably isn't going to land with any of them on its merits, especially if it calls their religions "mythology."
TIL that Balfour déclaration created the jewish people, and maintained it through history
I think there's some more you can learn today. The Jewish people have been around well before Christ or Muhammad - some where around 1000 BCE not since the Balfour declaration. That doesn't mean anything regarding this comment thread but that you should know the difference between Jewish people and Israel the state.
Even ignoring well-known Wikipedia bias in this issue, it is rarely a good source for "actual history"
The land claims of the territory both come from the Torah, in the end. Its just that the Jews and Muslims disagree on who God was referring to.
> The land claims of the territory both come from the Torah, in the end. Its just that the Jews and Muslims disagree on who God was referring to.
What? Palestinians don't claim the land based on a promise by God. They claim it because they hold the legal documents going back for centuries. Even those expelled in 1948, still have the fucking keys covered with their grandparents blood after the Nakba ethnic cleansing.
You know what? let's forget about legal documents, about who is native to the land by DNA, since it's you know "complicated", right?
1. Zionists today (not a story in the past) continue to put outposts in Palestinians farms to snatch more and more land.
2. Israeli troops and settlers killed 171 Palestinian children in the west bank (an area smaller than Delaware) in 2024 alone [1].
3. They continue building illegal settlements on Palestinians land that's illegal even by US admission.
4. Israel is taking advantage of the power vacuum in Syria and advancing deeper inside Syria borders while taking more and more cities. It's literally provoking and asking for another war where they will claim they were victims.
5. The blood of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza is still fresh [2] and more crimes in the past with no one held accountable, soldiers are literally posing and filming their war crimes with no accountability. Many humanitarian orgs believe the number of those killed is actually undercounted as many are still undocumented.
They celebrates killing babies (who they claim will be terrorists of course) so soldiers are praised and incentivized to annex entire blood line like savages.
Here's a challenge for you: Emit labels like "Palestinians" and "Israelis" and ask someone with no prejudice, hearing it for the first time, "who is in the wrong?" If you are honest and not manipulative you'll get your answer.
But nah let's stick to the theory that the entire world is against us and respond to any other theory that it's "complicated" while continue committing war crimes openly admitted by our soldiers ever since Israel was established.[3]
Do you agree that everyone who was involved in war crimes to be held responsible, no matter what ethnicity, religion, or passport they hold? That is the core of the problem, Israeli have done more terrible things than the side they claim as terrorists.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/19/west-bank-chil...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-many-palestini...
Hamas makes the claim from God; perhaps not the PA but they're barely a government anyway.
> Doesn't the Torah count for something?
No, absolutely not.
If I try to use ancient religions to justify violently forcing a claim to your house and land, then you're entirely within your right to defend yourself by any means necessary. That's not a thing any more. This might help you understand: [0]
And, many Jewish people decry Zionism as a perversion.
This is a lot of buzzwords but no content.
The background behind the current conflict goes something like this:
Muslims, Christians and Jews all lived in Palestine during the Ottoman era. Jews discovered Europe was pretty hostile, Zionism was born. Many move to Palestine, buy land and settle down. The Ottomans lose WWI, lose Palestine to the British. The British Empire started fracturing, they realised they couldn't hold it together, they decide they'll leave Palestine and create a plan to partition it. The Jews abide by the plan, declare Israel when the British mandate ends. The Arabs invite all the nations around them to attack the Jews with them. They lose. The Jews gain more territory. The Arab parts of Palestine get annexed into Jordan and Egypt.
Then, when all the Arab states fought Israel again, Jordan loses the west bank, Egypt loses Gaza and all of Sinai (!!). Israel gave Sinai back for peace, eventually both Egypt and Jordan renounced their claim on Gaza and the West Bank. And that's how we ended up here, more or less.
Now, as for the colonialism part, Jews have always lived in the area. Even during the Ottoman Era. In fact, Zionism started during the Ottoman Era. Also relatively few people lived in Palestine, less than a million total in 1922. And the Jews who did move to Israel after it's establishment, largely moved there as a result of persecution by Arabs (plenty of Jews lived all over the middle east).
You completely left out the Nakba. Which you would have to to even attempt to make this point.
> The Arabs invite all the nations around them to attack the Jews with them.
I assume you're talking about the "Arab Invasion" of 1948? So, that would be after the Nakba started. In fact, Deir Yassin occured only a month before Israel was founded.
You're very obviously leaving out facts not in an attempt to be succinct but to obscure the actual history.
The Nakba is not without prior history either.
It's simply the most complex sociopolitical issue on Earth today, if not ever in human history, it can't be "summed up" in some hot take.
> The Jews abide by the plan, declare Israel when the British mandate ends.
There is a lot to say about this part, but just one point: the plan included the establishment of a Palestinian state which Israel has blocked since its inception. So no, they did not abide by the plan. The plan has never been implemented.
>Muslims, Christians and Jews all lived in Palestine during the Ottoman era. Jews discovered Europe was pretty hostile, Zionism was born. Many move to Palestine, buy land and settle down.
It's wrong to reduce Zionism as solely a reaction to european hostility, such narrative simplifies the origins of Zionism by framing it purely as a reaction to European anti-Semitism, ignoring other cultural, religious, and political factors. Zionism also emerged from a broader context of national self-determination movements in Europe. Those European Zionists were also quite racist and did describe the native population of Palestine with the hebrew N-word "kushim" which had to be ethnically cleansed:
"Neither Zangwill nor Weizmann intended these demographic assessments in a literal fashion. They did not mean that there were no people in Palestine, but that there were no people worth considering within the framework of the notions of European supremacy that then held sway. In this connection, a comment by Weizmann to Arthur Ruppin, the head of the colonization department of the Jewish Agency, is particularly revealing. When asked by Ruppin about the Palestinian Arabs, Weizmann replied: "The British told us that there are there some hundred thousands negroes [Kushim] and for those there is no value.” quoted by Arthur Ruppin in: Yosef Heller, Bama'avak Lamedinah , Jerusalem, 1984, p.140.
>The Ottomans lose WWI, lose Palestine to the British.
Palestine was occupied by the British, which even the Zionists themselves classified as such. That's why Zionists also bombed the King-David Hotel full of British officers whom they regarded as occupiers of Palestine: https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/vir...
>The British Empire started fracturing, they realised they couldn't hold it together, they decide they'll leave Palestine and create a plan to partition it.
That's is just historic revisionism, the British left due to "the sophistication of Zionist terrorists" -https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/vir...
> The Jews abide by the plan, declare Israel when the British mandate ends. The Arabs invite all the nations around them to attack the Jews with them.
That is brazen zionist propaganda that reframes the zionist colonial project as some poor damsel in distress that was just innocently trying to take over Palestine when the natives just tried to attack the poor jews for no reason. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy56Q1a0Flc]
David Ben-Gurion has also recorded in his writings that the partition was just a starting point and that they would ultimately expand anyway. Most explicitly, he states: "My assumption (which is why I am a fervent proponent of a state, even though it is now linked to partition) is that a Jewish state on only part of the land is not the end but the beginning." -https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2013/04/06/the-ben-gurio...
>Then, when all the Arab states fought Israel again, Jordan loses the west bank, Egypt loses Gaza and all of Sinai (!!). Israel gave Sinai back for peace, eventually both Egypt and Jordan renounced their claim on Gaza and the West Bank. And that's how we ended up here, more or less.
Again a reductive and zionist summary that is ahistoric and misleading. A more detailed and substantiated account is provided here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy56Q1a0Flc
>Now, as for the colonialism part, Jews have always lived in the area.
After the initial Crusader conquest, many Jews who survived the massacres either fled or were expelled. In 1187, Saladin, the Muslim leader of the Ayyubid dynasty, recaptured Jerusalem. He allowed Jews and Muslims to return to the city. This marked a significant restoration of the Jewish community in Jerusalem and other parts of the Holy Land. Either way, your narrative tries to deny that Zionism is a colonial project but that attempt is in vain, since there is simply too much evidence for that. Zionists also made no secret that it was a colonial project until colonialism became a bad word. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Jewish_Colonization_...
> And the Jews who did move to Israel after it's establishment, largely moved there as a result of persecution by Arabs
Another blatant attempt at rewriting of history that omits crucial parts to paint a false narrative. While there was a portion of hostility towards jews as a reaction to the crimes committed by jews in Palestine the main driver were a multitude of reasons such as:
Organized efforts, such as Aliyah Bet, focused on helping Jews immigrate to Israel, often in defiance of British immigration restrictions during the Mandate period.
Zionist organizations conducted educational campaigns to foster a sense of identity and urgency about moving to Israel, emphasizing the need for a national homeland.
In countries like Iraq and Yemen, Zionist emissaries used social and economic pressures to encourage Jews to leave for Israel. This included highlighting the dangers of staying in increasingly hostile environments and emphasizing the opportunities in Israel.
In Iraq, a series of false-flag bombings targeted Jewish sites. Researchers and historians have proven that these attacks were false flag operations carried out by Zionist agents to create a sense of urgency and fear, prompting Jews to emigrate.
The infamous "Lavon Affair" in 1954 involved a failed Israeli covert operation intending to destabilize Egypt by planting bombs in Egyptian, American, and British-owned targets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair
Operations like "Magic Carpet" (Yemen) and "Ezra and Nehemiah" (Iraq) were launched to bring Jewish communities to Israel. These operations were often portrayed as rescue missions from adverse conditions while the real reason was that they were needed to help with the colonization of Palestine.
>persecution by Arabs
Finally, the zionist attempt to rewrite history regarding the relationship of Muslims with Jews is also dishonest and deceptive. Anyone with basic education in history will see through it:
"David Wasserstein (Vanderbilt University),”How Islam Saved the Jews”
By the early seventh century Judaism was in crisis. In the Mediterranean basin it was battered by legal, social, and religious pressure, weak in numbers and culturally almost non-existent. It was also largely cut off from the Jewry of the Persian empire, in Babylon, present-day Iraq. The future seemed clear: extinction in the west, decline to obscurity in the east. Salvation came from Arabia. Islam conquered the entire Persian empire and most of the Mediterranean world. Uniting virtually all the world’s Jews in a single state, it gave them legal and religious respectability, economic and social freedoms, and linguistic and cultural conditions that made possible a major renaissance of Judaism and the Jews. The significance of Islam for Jewry has been interpreted very variously since the middle ages and is a source of controversy to this day."
https://middleeast.stanford.edu/events/david-wasserstein-how...
The fact Jews emigrated to the Muslim world is an indictment of the Christian one, not praiseworthy for them. If we're killed every Tuesday in Europe but every other Tuesday in the Islamic world and move there it does not mean they were good to us.
Yeah those bad Muslims the "only" thing they ever did was save jewry from extinction and help them flourish and in return we rewarded them with colonization and genocide /s
"First, in 570 CE, when the Prophet Mohammad was born, the Jews and Judaism were on the way to oblivion. And second, the coming of Islam saved them, providing a new context in which they not only survived, but flourished, laying foundations for subsequent Jewish cultural prosperity...
Had Islam not come along, the conflict with Persia would have continued. The separation between western Judaism, that of Christendom, and Babylonian Judaism, that of Mesopotamia, would have intensified. Jewry in the west would have declined to disappearance in many areas. And Jewry in the east would have become just another oriental cult.
But this was all prevented by the rise of Islam. The Islamic conquests of the seventh century changed the world, and did so with dramatic, wide-ranging and permanent effect for the Jews." - https://www.thejc.com/lets-talk/so-what-did-the-muslims-do-f...
Actually it goes back a bit further, basically to the dawn of civilization. The first battle in recorded history was between Egypt and the Hittites, the Battle of Megiddo, in what is today the state of Israel [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Megiddo_%2815th_cent...
> Everything in this part of the world is on a rinse snd repeat cycle ever since the Assyrians and the Babylonians
That's an incredible statement, as if the rest of the world is somehow different. The only thing special about these regions is that they've had complex states for longer, so of course state-based warfare would go back farther.
On another level, there absolutely have been periods of stability in regions of the middle east, for periods of time we would consider long.
Western Europe went through ~200 years of brutal religious wars from the advent of Protestantism. The same is going on in the Mideast, it just started only 100 years ago with the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
The conflicts with the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Hittites came down to geopolitical factors that don't exist anymore. Mostly, the Levant separated the empires of Mesopotamia and Anatolia from Egypt. The numerous battles that happened at Meggido occurred because that was a chokepoint of the Way of Horus, the principal land trade route from Egypt specifically and Africa generally to the rest of the world. Besides trade, the Levant had tended to serve as a buffer zone between pharaonic Egypt, which preferred hegemony over outright empire, and other empires who always seemed to want to expand towards Egypt. The Assyrian military campaigns in particular are a reaction to the 25th dynasty in Egypt convincing rulers in the Levant to ally themselves more closely with them at the expense of the Assyrians.
The current conflict is a different beast. The fall of the Ottoman Empire and the careless meddling of western powers in the aftermath. The Jewish diaspora, Zionism, and the Holocaust. The Sunni-Shia conflict.
Thank you for providing an educated response to the exhausting "ancient conflict" discourse
> the Levant separated the empires of Mesopotamia and Anatolia from Egypt. The numerous battles that happened at Meggido
The Egyptians were a major force in fomenting regional frictions with Israel. And the Levant remains a crossroad—it borders by land or sea the spheres of influence of the EU, Russia, Turkey, Iran, the Gulf monarchies, Egypt and America.
> convincing rulers in the Levant to ally themselves more closely with them at the expense of the Assyrians
Iran versus the West (and Gulf monarchies) in literally Syria.
The region isn’t pre-destined for chaos. But the geography and history make peace difficult. (There is always another person who can “legitimately” claim some land when you’re sited next to the cradle of civilisation.)
The Sunni-Shia conflict falls pretty close to the same line between the Babylonians (south) and Assyrians (north).
The Assyrians were constantly attacked by proxies helped out by Egypt (Elamites, Medes, Babylon).
My point, however, is that the Levant as a buffer state against expanding empire and a chokepoint of overland trade has ceased to be the source of conflict. Marine shipping means the Levant is no longer the chokepoint of trade with Africa. We don't have empires trying to grow contiguous swaths of land anymore. To the extent states have tried to grab land in the Levant, they're doing so because the land is adjacent to them, not as a buffer against external empires who find the land strategically useful to control.
But if it is in fact more humane than in the past (hard to imagine TBH), hopefully that trend of gradual improvement will continue?
They literally razed Bablyon to the ground including the entire population after over 15 months being under siege and afterwards trying to change the lands hydrology so that people couldn't resettle - probably one of the harshest destruction but not the only one.
I guess its an improvement - not one thats remotely impressive.
The destruction of water resources seems to be going ahead as planned still.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/destruction-gaza-w...
Are you being metaphorical when you say literally? Or is this a reference to the conquest by Cyrus the Great?
I'm not trying to be pedantic here. I'm just not familiar with any historical event you are describing.
From what I've heard, and I'm not an expert, I wouldn't characterize any of the conquests of Babylon as a 'razing', And the eventual abandonment of the city was more a result of slow decline and changing geological conditions.
I do like to learn about the history of the area, so if it's just something I'm not familiar with, please point me in the right direction.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Babylonian_Empire
And literally decades later the coronation of Nabopolassar founded the Neo-Babylonian empire, soon before the Assyrian empire that destroyed old Babylon crumbled. It remained a major settlement after the destruction, it just took them a few decades to rise again.
99% of historical accounts about the sacking and destruction of cities are exaggerated. Even Carthage grew as a settlement mere years after the Romans destroyed it (the whole “salting the land” thing is an 18/19th century invention).
That's a bit light on details. Here's an account by king Sennacherib:
> I destroyed the city and its houses, from foundation to parapet; I devastated and burned them. I razed the brick and earthenwork of the outer and inner wall of the city, of the temples, and of the ziggurat; and I dumped these into the Araḫtu canal. I dug canals through the midst of that city, I overwhelmed it with water, I made its very foundations disappear, and I destroyed it more completely than a devastating flood. So that it might be impossible in future days to recognize the site of that city and its temples, I utterly dissolved it with water and made it like inundated land.
However since he was punishing Babylon for rebelling one time too many, he had reason to exaggerate.
Thanks!
Hmm, what do you mean? Like, compared to ancient times, or compared to a previous point post-WWII?
Certainly the organization of one side of this conflict into a state rather than militias naturally has tempered things since the early days where entire villages were being wiped out at random, but both sides are pretty openly engaged in terrorism to this day (targeting civilians for political reasons).
Babylon wasn't a village at that time - it was likely a population of 200,000 +- 100,000 people. It was cultural Zenith of the planet at that time.
I like how even in this thread, you have many people - almost certainly very few of whom have no real stake in the fight - bitterly arguing about who is right and wrong (turning it into a fight about US politics as a bonus). Human nature and tribalism really is a terrible thing sometimes.
I agree with you, although I certainly hope you and I are wrong. It would be nice to see people let go of past injustices on both sides long enough to have a lasting peace.
> It would be nice to see people let go of past injustices on both sides long enough to have a lasting peace
It's not past injustices. Israel is occupying, annexing and settling more land now. It's not some tit-for-tat between neighbours over past wrongs, it's one neighbour that is chasing away the other to take their house.
A lot of Israelis literally had their (or their parents') homes stolen by Iraqis, Egyptians, Moroccans. In total, Mizrahi Jews had land around 4x the size of Israel stolen from them (and they still have the deeds to prove it). A peace treaty can't truly be comprehensive until they get reparations for that injustice.
What is the connection here?
Are you saying that somehow there is a transitive property between Palestinians and Iraqis or Moroccans so that if a Moroccan steals a house then you can have your right revenge on a Palestinian? And why not on a Swede or a Thai?
Or are you saying that it was all right for Israelis to have their houses stolen then- since it is all right for them to steal houses now, it's just how it goes? I don't get it.
Literally. When you get down to it people just hate Arabs and want to collectively punish them. It's fucking weird and racist. Palestinians do not get to suffer for Arabs from other countries who pushed out the ancient Israelis or Arabs from countries that expelled Mizrahi Jews (lets not even get into how much that was provoked by the Zionist project). They are not collectively responsible.
> homes stolen by Iraqis, Egyptians, Moroccans... A peace treaty can't truly be comprehensive until they get reparations for that injustice.
What do Palestinians have to do with Iraq, Egypt and Morocco?
And Palestinians need to pay that reparation?
It's interesting that on the current total-war all around Israel, those are 3 countries that they aren't attacking or threatening to attack.
Not to sound terse, but I think the retort here is clear: morality exists, and it's important that we do our best to follow its guidance. It matters who's right and who's wrong! I absolutely agree that deciding on absolute historical blame for one "side" or another over many generations isn't helpful, but we absolutely need to litigate who's violating whose rights if we want to set things straight.
"It's all complicated and people in this part of the world are unusually tribal/violent" has been used to explain away this conflict since its inception in the US, which we have no right to do as a primary stakeholder. We (US citizens) have a stake in Gaza because the situation would be completely different without our aid, both direct (i.e. massive shipments of weapons and offering the services of our military) & indirect (i.e. using our UNSC vote to block otherwise unanimous resolutions against Israel).
To bring it all back to the one absolutely-litigated conflict in the western canon for clarity, as we so often do: was WWII about "tribalism" and both sides being prone to violence, or was it about unjustified aggressors and justified responses? Despite the nuances of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I think we would all immediately endorse the latter position. Why not in this case, too?
> Why not in this case, too?
WWII involved a conflict to unconditional surrender. The equivalent for Israel and Palestine would be letting one state completely destroy the other and then rebuild it in its own image.
> ...was WWII about "tribalism" and both sides being prone to violence, or was it about unjustified aggressors and justified responses?
All of the above. One of the major powers on the winning side was the British Empire, which existed because of a global campaign of unprovoked invasions that was pretty much unprecedented. And there was Stalin, who may escape the "tribalism" label on the basis that his campaigns of political murder were so wild it is difficult to discern patterns.
If we assume for the sake of tradition and argument that the responses were justified it might have been one of the few times in a century that the British were involved in a justified response. A momentous conflict indeed! It must have been unsettling for them. And, in all seriousness, they weren't involved because it was justified. They were acting amorally and it is a coincidence they were on the justified side that time.
Morality do exists. People were loudly complain about the US behavior ever since 9/11, years after years asking when retribution was finished (which did not even ask the question if retribution was morally right).
Litigate who's violating who is unlikely to happen. A lot of people thought Obama would bring some change but rather than litigating, more people got droned and one of the worse symbols of the wars did not get closed. Setting things straight will likely only happen in hindsight after everyone responsible are long dead, and even then people will resist it as a matter of personal identity.
I do not see lasting peace coming from litigating the past, and especially not from the US.
Letting go of past injustices might work, if they weren't ongoing.
> almost certainly very few of whom have no real stake in the fight
This is a common Zionist take saying that just because someone is not from the region, they cannot criticise Israel's mass slaughter of children. Also, this has very much to do with American politics, as the US is the main backer of the apartheid state.
I count myself fortunate for missing the references to US politics, but seeing oppression and war discussed with a framing of "who should win" as a dispute of claims, history and ethnicity rather than as a tragedy of money, military power and cruelty (what is the problem that is solved by bombing children?) is very disheartening.
> I like how even in this thread, you have many people - almost certainly very few of whom have no real stake in the fight
> I like how even in this thread, you have many people - almost certainly very few of whom have no real stake in the fight
A popular chant is "The children of Gaza is our children too." Israel has killed up to 5% of Gaza's population and injured ~15%, about half of whom are children. It's not tribalism to be disgusted by such carnage. I don't agree with the claim that we don't have a stake in this fight.
My friend, its tribalism all the way down. Thats what we do.
> I like how even in this thread, you have many people - almost certainly very few of whom have no real stake in the fight - bitterly arguing about who is right and wrong
Yep, this is what it's about - a morals swinging contest to see who is purer. I mean, I would have assumed if there was in fact a genocide taking place in Gaza everyone would be happy there's at least a ceasefire but no - no one gives a s**, at least not on this thread. It's about shitting over Israel to feel morally superior more than anything else.
> Sorry for the cynical take but this just does a temporary stop.
It’s hard to disagree. But Ireland was an impossible problem at one stage, and while it’s still far from resolved, it’s a hell of lot less violent.
Where has it not been on rinse and repeat. Some other parts of the world just operate on a bit longer cycles.
> the west bank is still being annexed
I am not smart enough to have an opinion on the situation in Gaza that's much more complicated than "people dying is bad", but I struggle to understand how the continued annexation of the West Bank by Israeli settlers, supported by the government and army, is anything other than clearly ethnic cleansing. If it had stopped ten years ago, and it was now a conversation about uprooting the established communities there, maybe then there's room for nuance and so on, but it didn't: it's ongoing.
>And never mind that Israel still has a fundamentalist, authoritarian government that is actively at work undermining democratic structures and civil rights even inside the state
As opposed to the neighboring states (and Hamas), which mostly have religiously tolerant, fully democratic governments that fully respect civil rights, and which of course have never openly stated that they want Israel to disappear from existence, not at all leaving it implicit that its millions of Jewish residents should be ethnically cleansed from the region.. Yes?
The further we are from a people, the more we tend to group them into monoliths. As monoliths, both sides are monsters, with the best one can argue being that one side's monstrosity is justified.
Break them down further and you can find the actual monsters--those self-interestedly seeking either their own aims, or, some random aim at any cost, even when the aim is impossible and its costs massive.
What the hell does your statement have to do with the very real, practical natures of the governments and political organizations of neighboring countries and lined up against Israel through a number of ideological arguments?
I'm not talking about monoliths on either side. I'm specifically referring to states in the region with authoritarian and even despotic governments with exactly the traits that the comment I originally responded to claims about Israel.
> undermining democratic structures and civil rights even inside the state
Who killed Rabin?
Israelis killed their own PM to prevent the Oslo Accords, the goal of the Oslo Accords was to provide a 2 state solution.
Don't rewrite history.
I could name a dozen Arab leaders who were assassinated by Arabs for expressing interests in making peace with Israel. If we start looking them up I wager we'll get to two dozen.
Because all Israelis are the same? A right extremist assassin murdered Rabin. Even among the right he was almost universally condemned. Keep in mind Rabin was democratically elected on the promise of Peace.
it proves nothing. the vast majority of Israelis condemn the murder.
Who were Anwar Sadat and King Abdullah I, and how did they die?
Such an insane take, how is adding another despotic goverment to the mix going to help?
Because it's a cultural arms race. What kind of nation do you think is capable of manifesting in those local conditions, a progressive social democracy like Sweden?
Europe had a thousand plus years of war under its belt and two World Wars very recently as that progressive democracy developed.
That aligns with my point, rather than make it moot.
> undermining democratic structures
Democratic structures like fatah and hamas ?
Israel has been hindering a democratic process in Palestine since forever. It was a borderline explicit policy to bolster hamas to split the Palestinian rule in two to be able to say "we have no negotiating partner". Netanyahu has been quoted saying that outright.
Very few of the Fatah concessions ever led anywhere despite promises from Israel, leading many palestinians to think that Fatah was weak. Which other "strong" democratic options were there? PNI? Third Way? They were never serious options.
Now, the Fatah party has been incompetent and corrupt. I am not saying democracy would have sorted itself out in Palestine, but I am saying that if Israel would have wanted a democratic development in Palestine, it would not have dealt with Fatah in such bad faith.
Nor, I must add, would they have killed any palestinian (Gaza) leaders opening up to peace with Israel. Ahmed Yassin was killed just months after started proposing a long term truce on the condition of a Palestinian state in the west bank and gaza. his successor (al-Rantisi) suffered a similar fate after a similar proposal. Then Jabari in 2012. Then they killed Haniyeh who was the principal negotiator during all recent peace talks.
None of these men were innocent cute bunnies by any means, but Israel has been sending a clear message for many many years: negotiation will be done by force.
I assume OP is referring to internal-to-isreal structures such as the independence of the supreme court.
> Democratic structures like fatah and hamas ?
This refers (I imagine) to internal Israeli politics - a certain portion of the Israeli populace fears that Netanyahu is attempting to make Israel less democratic by various means. This was a topic that caused mass protests in Israel before October 7th, and continues in some form even now.
the difference between terrorists and freedom fighters is temporal.
Yesterday they were called terrorists by the mainstream, tomorrow when they win they will be hailed as heroes and freedom fighters.
the zionists were also called terrorists by the UK in the beginning, especially when they bombed king david hotel
Except Zionists are capable of establishing and running a democratic state (however flawed according to some it might be).
It would be silly to pretend that’s even remotely close to being an option for Hamas. For starters modern Islamic fundamentalism is inherently incompatible with democracy (amongst other reasons).
Expecting that organizations like Hamas could somehow magically change for the better is pure madness regardless of everything else.
Zionists are perfectly capable of subverting and terrorizing their way and murdering those who oppose them.
you know it was radical jewish terrorist who murdered yitzhak rabin, who tried to make peace with palestinians?
it was mossad, who helped finance and support Hamas, so that moderate PLO could never make progress on unified palestinian state?
Well yes extremist radical Zionists are about on the same level as moderate Islamic fundamentalists. That’s kind of the problem..
> yitzhak rabin
So you wouldn’t consider him a Zionist then?
Hamas is not an Islamic fundamentalist organisation. They are Muslims, but they have not twisted the religion for extremism; they are not ISIS or Al-Qaeda.
Sure about that ?
Try reading the Hamas charter: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/21st_century/hamas.asp Yes, it was later "updated" to make it more palatable for Western consumption.
some excerpts:
Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.
"Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people. "May the cowards never sleep."
Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts.
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees.
This is the old charter from 1988.
The new charter, published in 2017, is very different. But of course, you already know this.
Yes, and I did mention it was updated. After 30 years of being an explicitly extremist organization, do you really think that overnight they changed ? What would be the reason for this ?
> do you really think that overnight they changed
No, as you said yourself it happened over a long period. And the reason? They probably realised they were getting played by Israel, who wanted them to be violent to "justify" their continuing genocide of the Palestinian people and theft of their lands.
That may not be - but they are not just muslims (some would argue not even proper muslims due to the atrocities). They are definitely a terrorist organization. Whether that is done with religion in mind or something else, doesn't change that fact. I mean looking back at the Oct 7 terrorist attack, it's truly despicable.
If you want to play semantics, going by deeds the IDF, and even the Israeli state, is a far more heinous terorist organisation than Hamas.
The Oct 7th attack was terrible, but the Israeli response (both the initial response when many Israelis were killed as well as the hell wrought unto Gaza) has been downright evil. And they way Israel whipped people up into a frenzy with sick fantasies about "40 beheaded babies", "babies on washing lines", mass rapes etc was utterly despicable.
Most israelis don't see it that way, are shielded or simply choose to look at it as survival and the IDF having to do what they "need to do". But yes you are right, it's downright evil.
> the difference between terrorists and freedom fighters is temporal
No, it isn’t. Very few revolutions (i.e power inversions) have succeeded by indiscriminately killing the dominant side’s civilians. That frequency, moreover, goes down over time.
Using just fairly recent examples, Russia and China's communist revolutions were notably brutal and had no problem with harming civilians. They won.
North Korea and North Vietnam (now just Vietnam) were also brutal against the other side. Both of them are running their own countries.
To go a bit more recent, the Taliban was behind a bunch of terrorist attacks. They now run Afghanistan.
To be fair, though, North Korea and Afghanistan have basically no allies in any sense due to their behavior. And the people who fought against North Vietnam and lost were just as savage as them. But Vietnam and China are happily traded with, and nobody outside of old folks in America think anything bad about Vietnam these days. If anything, a lot of people think it was unjustified to have ever fought against them.
I mean, the IRA succeeded and that wasn't but 20-30 years ago? They are largely no longer seen as terrorists.
Hell, Israel is a good source of terrorist groups becoming legitimate. Prime Minister Menachim Begin went from leading a terror outfit to elected Prime Minister
The IRA of the 20s Irish war of independence succeeded, but were less obviously terrorists. I think it's inaccurate to say that the provos succeeded. Success for them would've been if Northern Ireland left the UK and joined the Republic. It didn't. The Good Friday agreement is hardly an unalloyed win for them.
And, um, they absolutely largely are seen as terrorists.
Are you kidding me? The Provos went from convicted, imprisoned terrorists to the legitimate heads of government in Ireland and legitimate heads of government in Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein was largely led by provos for quite a while after the Good Friday Agreement.
Idk, many people see the IRA insurgency as having had good outcomes for Ireland and Northern Ireland, so like they say, one mans terrorist is another's freedom fighter
Indeed, a former leader, Gerry Adams, is on the cusp of a substantial payout in recompense for a long imprisonment that wasn't squeaky officially done by the books.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Adams
It's not just that former Northern Ireland "terrorists" now hold positions of power, they are also being (potentially) awarded for hits they took during their struggle.
yes it is.
before oct7 there was a somewhat broad consensus that Hamas are bad and are terrorists.
nowadays however, Hamas are hailed as resistance and freedom fighters. Only jewish hasbara still calls them terrorists, everyone else is sympathetic to Hamas, even Donald Trump, given his zionist position
You don’t resist by filming yourself slaughtering children under captagon. Please see what French resistance was. Hamas and its apologetics are terrorists. And barbarians
how do you call israeli soldier bulldozing palestinian children? israeli atrocities are much worse because of casualty numbers are much higher on palestinian side and 60% of victims are children and women
> how do you call israeli soldier bulldozing palestinian children?
Technically a war crime, but of the variety that happens in every war and has basically never been punished. Anywhere. It’s horrible. But that’s war. There is no such thing as a clean or just war, it’s always going to be horrible, the aim is literally to kill each other.
It seems once every ten years we find a war and zoom in closely and realise that war is horrible. The lucky ones this time were Ukraine and Palestine. The unlucky ones, basically everyone in Southeast Asia and Africa.
> It’s horrible. But that’s war.
Was the holocaust just war? Was the Warsaw ghetto uprising a war against Germany? It takes 2 armies to have a war, not a colonized people locked up in an open air prison fighting against a sophisticated army, armed by one of the world's superpower, in flip flops while the colonizing army can't even bother to focus on the fighters and so just drops 2000 pound bunker bombs on entire families over and over again for 15 months straight.
South Africa has compiled dozens of pages documenting explicitly genocidal intent from high ranking israeli officials for its ICC case.
"UN Special Committee finds Israel’s warfare methods in Gaza consistent with genocide, including use of starvation as weapon of war"
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/11/un-special-c...
> Was the holocaust just war? Was the Warsaw ghetto uprising a war against Germany?
Not a fan of creating caste systems of victimhood. But in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, how many German civilians were killed?
And I never said "just" war. I said it's war. Russia is killing children [1]. We've killed children [2]. There are multiple live conflicts in which children are being targeted and killed [3]. This isn't okay. My point is we haven't found a way to do modern war without this sort of collateral damage.
> a colonized people locked up in an open air prison fighting against a sophisticated army, armed by one of the world's superpower
Hamas is armed by Iran. Not a superpower, but certainly a capable regional power.
Apartheid. Gandhi. Hell, M. L. K. It's a lot harder to claim the moral ground when both sides are committing war crimes.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/08/europe/ukraine-russian-strike...
[2] https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/27...
[2] https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/least-21-children-repo...
> how many German civilians were killed?
You’re saying that if they had the capacity to bomb Berlin and other German cities they would have decided not to do that?
> You’re saying that if they had the capacity to bomb Berlin and other German cities they would have decided not to do that?
No, I'm saying if they had the capacity to bomb Berlin--and did--the moral case wouldn't be so clear cut.
I'm also saying that if they had the capacity to bomb Berlin, they would have been well advised to focus first on strategic military or final solution targets.
>But in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, how many German civilians were killed?
You mean like the 25000 Nazi civilians which the UK and US brutally murdered in Dresden? The civilians were the explicit target of the Allied bombings. Or do you mean like the Palestinian civilians, women and children, whom Zionists brutally murdered in the Nakba and Tantura with its mass graves to establish their apartheid state?
>And I never said "just" war. I said it's war. Russia is killing children [1]. We've killed children [2]. There are multiple live conflicts in which children are being targeted and killed [3]. This isn't okay. My point is we haven't found a way to do modern war without this sort of collateral damage.
It's not collateral damage, Israel intentionally targets civilians, they are not collateral damage, they are the target: "The Biden administration has quietly continued to supply arms to Israel. Last week, however, President Joe Biden publicly acknowledged that Israel was losing international legitimacy for what he called its “indiscriminate bombing."[1], "Israel/OPT: New evidence of unlawful Israeli attacks in Gaza causing mass civilian casualties amid real risk of genocide"[2] "Damning evidence of war crimes as Israeli attacks wipe out entire families in Gaza"[3]
This is only a fraction of the clear evidence proving that Israel targets civilians intentionally and most of these are from months ago. Since then, Israel has become even more brazen in their targeted murder of civilians and entire families[3] and extermination of entire bloodlines.
>Hamas is armed by Iran. Not a superpower, but certainly a capable regional power.
That's a laughable comparison and I should have not even dignified it with a response. There is a world of difference between receiving a bunch of shitty rpgs and receiving $100+ Billion dollars, F-35 fighter jets and 2000 pound bunker buster bombs that wipe out entire families.
>Apartheid. Gandhi. Hell, M. L. K. It's a lot harder to claim the moral ground when both sides are committing war crimes.
Both siding an almost century old brutal colonial occupation and a 15 Month long Genocide is extremely absurd. Jews who took revenge on Nazi civilians were not judged by it because people with common sense knew the full context and trying to "both sides" that would have been seen as absurd and as Nazi apologia. The Gaza prison break was the first time in Palestinian history where Israel has tasted a fraction of its own medicine and they couldn't handle that and whipped themselves into a genocidal frenzy and by that shown the world their real face without its diplomatic hasbara mask.
[1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/israels-military-campaign...
[2] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/02/israel-opt-ne...
[3] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/damning-evide...
> You mean like the 25000 Nazi civilians which the UK and US brutally murdered in Dresden? The civilians were the explicit target of the Allied bombings.
Not the Holocaust or Warsaw Uprising?
And there is recognition that strategic (conventional) bombing of civilians in WWII was (a) useless and (b) cruel.
> only a fraction of the clear evidence proving that Israel targets civilians intentionally
"Indiscriminate bombing," "mass civilian casualties," "risk of genocide" (emphasis mine), and "wip[ing] out entire families" are not evidence of "target[ing] civilians intentionally." And as I said, even if they are, that's something every great power has done when it went to war in the last half century.
Again, that doesn't make it okay. It just makes it deeply precedented. You (and I) have a problem with war per se.
> a world of difference between receiving a bunch of shitty rpgs and receiving $100+ Billion dollars
Hamas has received something like $20bn of aid from Iran. That's roughly what the U.S. has provided Israel in the last few years. Of course Israel is a superior fighting force to Hamas. But Hamas wasn't defenceless. (It was still allegedly firing rockets this week.)
There are a set of evil-slash-stupid people in this story. Hamas' leadership is among them. If you're going to cite South Africa and the ICC, you can't clip out the parts that you don't like without either compromising yourself or the source (the ICC).
> Both siding an almost century old brutal colonial occupation and a 15 Month long Genocide is extremely absurd
Excusing one side's war crimes undermines the argument. Like, one of Netanyahu's racists could construct a similar argument about the millenia-old persecution of the Jews and Hamas' explicit aim of not only destroying Israel but exterminating Jews. If war crimes being criminal depends so deeply on context, they're no longer open-and-shut cases that can be judged from afar.
> Jews who took revenge on Nazi civilians were not judged by it
There was no armed-resistance equivalent to Hamas among the Jews.
A better example might be found among the Native Americans. (Or La Résistance.) Even there, the practical lesson is attacking civilians at best doesn't work. (At worst, it galvanises the population against you.)
>Not the Holocaust or Warsaw Uprising?
Why single out that part and avoid mentioning the massacres of Palestinian women and children in the Nakba and Tanatura by Israel's founders to establish an apartheid state on top of the mass graves of Palestinians?
>And there is recognition that strategic (conventional) bombing of civilians in WWII was (a) useless and (b) cruel.
If the bombing of civilians in WWII was (a) useless and (b) cruel, why did America go onto commit the "the single greatest acts of terrorism in human history" by dropping 2(!!!) atomic bombs on civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? [https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2015/08/hiroshima-and-nag...]
And if "there is recognition that strategic (conventional) bombing of civilians in WWII was (a) useless and (b) cruel" then why did israeli officials reference the bombing of civilians in Dresden as their model for Gaza before they started the genocide and "dropped 70000 tons of bombs on Gaza Strip since last October, exceeding World War II bombings in Dresden, Hamburg, London combined" and "hit Gaza Strip with the equivalent of two nuclear bombs" https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/5908/Israel-hits-Gaza-...
>Hamas has received something like $20bn of aid from Iran. That's roughly what the U.S. has provided Israel in the last few years.
That's a figure which you most certainly made up and did not even bother providing any sources for. Any data about that is unreliable anyway because Iran doesn't disclose any figures regarding that while America does, so that is a dishonest argument to make anyway. Any reliable sources quote estimated figures ranging from 20-100 million which is a far cry from $20bn: "Historically (1990-2000), Iranian funding to Hamas ranged from $20-100 million per year" - These are still guesses and US being Israel's ally has also an interest in inflating the numbers to justify its overspending and absurd funding of Israel.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_support_for_Hamas]
The United States has provided Israel with over $160 billion in bilateral assistance since its founding in 1948, whatever the Palestinian resistance receives pales in comparison because its limited to what can be smuggled into Gaza. Israel has an actual army with tanks and receives fighter jets from the US to exterminate the civilian population of Gaza because they can't reach guerrilla fighter in tunnels like in Vietnam.
> Of course Israel is a superior fighting force to Hamas. But Hamas wasn't defenceless. (It was still allegedly firing rockets this week.)
That's exactly the point, Hamas isnt an army with tanks and fighter jets but they arent completely defenseless, they, like the Vietcong, have tunnels and since Israel can't reach them, Israel instead murders civilians to put pressure on hamas. What do you call it again when an army kills civilians in pursuit of political aims? ter·ror·ism /ˈterəˌrizəm/ noun the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.
[https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/damning-evide...]
[https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/02/israel-opt-ne...]
>> Both siding an almost century old brutal colonial occupation and a 15 Month long Genocide is extremely absurd >Excusing one side's war crimes undermines the argument.
It doesnt undermine anything, Jews have committed warcrimes against Germans civilians who had once been Nazis as retribution, but when talking about the Holocaust someone says "both sides committed Warcrimes" it would be seen as Nazi apologia. You are clearly trying your best to "both sides" a century of brutal occupation and now genocide, but it still won't change the fact that the israelis are the colonizers and the Palestinians the resistance with the right to defend themselves against colonization.
>Like, one of Netanyahu's racists could construct a similar argument about the millenia-old persecution of the Jews and Hamas' explicit aim of not only destroying Israel but exterminating Jews. If war crimes being criminal depends so deeply on context, they're no longer open-and-shut cases that can be judged from afar.
This is straight up nonsense and israeli propaganda. Zionists already bend over backwards and invent the most absurd narratives to justify their century old occupation of Palestine akin to "actually our Palestinian slaves are oppressing us from the concentration camp we locked them up in and are disturbing our colonial project, so we're the real victims here". Even the Nazis used a similar narrative to justify their persecution of jews by claiming that Jews actually declared war on Germany first. [The Jewish "Declaration of War" against the Nazis - https://www.jstor.org/stable/4614991]. If a jewish prisoner in Dachau had written in his diary that he will kill all Nazi Germans if he can escape the concentration camp would you accept the narrative of a Nazi claiming "See? The Jews wanted to also genocide us, so the holocaust was justified actually" Of course you wouldn't. You're regurgitating all these zionist narratives because you're clearly a zionist who ignored mountains of evidence of the past 15 Months so you can prevent any cognitive dissonance and uphold your unmaintainable zionist worldview, but it will collapse under the weight of the evidence which you tried to ignore, downplay or subconsciously suppress.
>There was no armed-resistance equivalent to Hamas among the Jews.
Wrong. The Jewish Combat Organization: Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa, Jewish Military Union: Żydowski Związek Wojskowy. Not that it matters anyway, if the jews had chosen not to fight back against their oppressors that would have been their choice. the jews suffered under the Nazis for about 12 years, while the Palestinians suffered under zionist terrorism and colonization and now genocide for more than a century now.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/vir...]
>A better example might be found among the Native Americans. (Or La Résistance.) Even there, the practical lesson is attacking civilians at best doesn't work. (At worst, it galvanises the population against you.)
If it really doesnt work Israel shouldn't have done it for 15 months straight.
> If a jewish prisoner in Dachau had written in his diary that he will kill all Nazi Germans if he can escape the concentration camp would you accept the narrative of a Nazi claiming "See? The Jews wanted to also genocide us, so the holocaust was justified actually" Of course you wouldn't
Isn’t it notable that this is a hypothetical? Jews aren’t killing Germans. Native Americans aren’t bombing Americans, Indians aren’t bombing England…there is simply a choice that has been made in the way some groups have prosecuted past persecution that is relevant to present treatment. Generational hatred for crimes committed by ancestors isn’t a requirement.
Israel and Palestine is a fucked situation because both sides have hardlined the other as terrorists or genociders. Both side reject the other’s label, and on somewhat credible grounds. As long as those hard lines exist, the people can’t coëxist. (There are people in this thread complaining about millennia-old transgressions. Like, so the Mongolians owe the Turks reparations?!)
And practically speaking, that sort of points—long term—to a single path for the region. (It’s notable, too, that nobody is willing to accept Palestinians as refugees. Both out of security concerns and because the nutter wing would label helping people as facilitating genocide.)
>Isn’t it notable that this is a hypothetical? Jews aren’t killing Germans. Native Americans aren’t bombing Americans, Indians aren’t bombing England…there is simply a choice that has been made in the way some groups have prosecuted past persecution that is relevant to present treatment. Generational hatred for crimes committed by ancestors isn’t a requirement.
It's notable that your Zionist sensibilities don't ever allow you to reflect properly on a hypothetical which was suited to your israeli propaganda regarding the inversion of victimhood. Many Jews who escaped the Nazi concentration camp had a natural and immense hatred towards Germans in general and they also acted upon it by killing Germans who had previously been Nazis as retribution.
It's also notable that you intentionally twist and misrepresent any given situation to make dishonest and misleading arguments. Like "Native Americans aren’t bombing Americans" but they did do that during their ongoing oppression and genocide, but now it's over for them because the American colonial project succeeded and made a comeback impossible for them. The Palestinians are still being genocided, we're witnessing their active colonization, so for you to compare post-colonial indians to an ongoing colonization of Palestinians is so asinine that it's indicative of bad faith.
>Generational hatred for crimes committed by ancestors isn’t a requirement.
Don't be ridiculous, people could have forgotten something that only happened in the past, but the zionist colonial project has never in its century long presence in Palestine ever stopped murdering, ethnically-cleansing, stealing more land and now genociding Palestinians. It's like you going to Dachau and telling a jew in the camp that "Generational hatred for crimes committed by ancestors isn’t a requirement" during their ongoing genocide.
Furthermore, the difference between Palestinians and other groups who have been successfully colonized and diminished is that Palestinians are part of a religion with almost 2 Billion members in a region surrounded by nations of that faith. That's why colonial powers invest huge amounts of money into regional dictators, who against the will of the population, help protect the colonial outpost from being kicked out. The dictators, however, will not be able to hold onto power forever.
>Israel and Palestine is a fucked situation because both sides have hardlined the other as terrorists or genociders. Both side reject the other’s label, and on somewhat credible grounds.
"Germany and Jewry in 1940 is a fucked situation because both sides have hardlined the other as terrorists or genociders. Both side reject the other’s label, and on somewhat credible grounds." [The Jewish "Declaration of War" against the Nazis - https://www.jstor.org/stable/4614991]
Again miss me with your Zionist/Nazi apologia, the Palestinians have been subjected to brutal occupation, ethnic-cleansing and genocide for a century and they have every right to armed resistance. Your "both sides" zionist trash argument is toothless and a disgusting attempt at inversion of victimhood. Israel has been founded on the mass graves of Palestinian women and children by Zionists who even US and UK classified as Jewish-Zionist terrorists: https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/vir...
If you don't want people to develop a genocidal hatred towards you then dont build an apartheid state on the mass graves of their women and children, then commit genocide and pretend that you're actually the victim while you're genociding them. Anyone with a sound mind and a proper education will see through that zionist gaslighting.
>It’s notable, too, that nobody is willing to accept Palestinians as refugees.
You mean notable like the Jewish refugees who nobody was willing to accept? British support for the Zionist project was even motivated by british antisemitism.
And even the US established a quota system, Immigration Act of 1921, which limited annual immigration from Eastern European countries with large Jewish populations. These restrictions remained in place during the 1930s and 1940s, significantly limiting Jewish refugee admission during the Holocaust era. Interesting behavior for Israel's great "ally" America.
> your Zionist sensibilities
Consider how you may be hurting your cause.
Labelling everyone who disagrees with (or merely doesn’t understand what you’re saying) you a Zionist or genocide sympathiser is satisfying. It’s easy. But it also makes it virtually impossible to distinguish, from a glance, which side is more extreme, the pro-Palestinian side in the West or the Ben-Gvir gang. (I make the former distinction because, again from a distance, the people I know in e.g. Lebanon are much more balanced than what I hear in New York.)
Because if both sides are absolutists on from the river to the sea or whatever, there isn’t a discussion. There is no room to compromise. As Clausewitz said, there is necessity for politics by other means. Those other means are deadly.
And yes, I’m saying that the uncompromising rhetoric being pushed by people thousands of miles away from the conflict is driving up death tolls. Sykes and Picot didn’t kill these people. But they caused the circumstances that lead to their deaths. A lot of foreign activism around this issue is repeating the mistake of drawing boundaries—rhetorical and geographic—from afar, considering only the views of one side or, worse, their own assumptions about what one side should believe.
> Many Jews who escaped the Nazi concentration camp had a natural and immense hatred towards Germans in general and they also acted upon it by killing Germans who had previously been Nazis as retribution
And they were wrong. Understandable. But wrong.
If that had turned into a political movement it would have destroyed sympathy for their cause. (In the same way Israeli extremism is sapping support for Israel today.)
> like you going to Dachau and telling a jew in the camp that "Generational hatred for crimes committed by ancestors isn’t a requirement" during their ongoing genocide
If you can’t see the difference between an unarmed concentration camp and a foreign-armed militant group lobbing rockets, sure.
> they did do that during their ongoing oppression and genocide
Which tribes? Because the ones who hit settlers got wiped out more frequently than those who bid for time.
> like the Jewish refugees who nobody was willing to accept
Yes.
>Labelling everyone who disagrees with you a Zionist or genocide sympathiser is satisfying. It’s easy. But it also makes it virtually impossible to distinguish, from a glance, which side is more extreme, the pro-Palestinian side in the West or the Ben-Gvir gang. (I make the former distinction because, again from a distance, the people I know in e.g. Lebanon are much more balanced than what I hear in New York.)
That's not what's happening and you are consistently misrepresenting the facts and the situation. The initial suspicion of you being a zionist has been confirmed by your consistently bad faith rhetoric trying to justify, deny or downplay the genocide. In some of your other conversations with other people you tried to downplay the death count of children to which they provided the evidence that you're wrong and you ignored it.
"Gaza death toll 40% higher than official number, Lancet study finds" - [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/10/gaza-death-tol...]
> But it also makes it virtually impossible to distinguish, from a glance, which side is more extreme, the pro-Palestinian side in the West or the Ben-Gvir gang.
If you have difficulty deciding which side is more "extreme" after 15 months of continuous genocide, then don't be surprised when you are correctly identified as a zionist. The people defending themselves against a century of brutal colonization and genocide on the other hand have every right to be "extreme" and such smears don't have the silencing and demonization power they used to once have.
"UN Special Committee finds Israel’s warfare methods in Gaza consistent with genocide, including use of starvation as weapon of war" https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/11/un-special-c...
>Because if both sides are absolutists on from the river to the sea or whatever, there isn’t a discussion. There is no room to compromise. As Clausewitz said, there is necessity for politics by other means. Those other means are deadly.
"Both sides". If you think that after 15 months of genocide there will ever be permanent "compromise" then you're simply naive. If I were Palestinian I would never stop fighting the genocidal colonizers who subjected the Palestinian people to a century of suffering, vilification and genocide. And it seems that resistance won't either: https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-has-another-sinw...
>> Many Jews who escaped the Nazi concentration camp had a natural and immense hatred towards Germans in general and they also acted upon it by killing Germans who had previously been Nazis as retribution
>And they were wrong. Understandable. But wrong.
They weren't wrong and you also admit that it's "understandable" so it's clear that most people sympathize with them in that regard and don't classify it as wrong. that's why there are dozens of hollywood movies and shows of jews taking revenge on Nazis which have become popular blockbusters.
>If that had turned into a political movement it would have destroyed sympathy for their cause. (In the same way Israeli extremism is sapping support for Israel today.)
But it did turn into a movement: Zionism. Zionists weaponized the holocaust to turn zionism from an unpopular movement [as can be seen in pre-zionist jewish culture: Oy, Ir Narishe Tsionistn - Oh, You Foolish Little Zionists (Yiddish Anti-Zionist Song) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQMRwk8WDd4] into a more appealing one. The problem is that the twisted ideology of Zionism made the Palestinians pay for the crimes of Nazi-Germany. Zionists even collaborated with Nazis and sabotaged jewish boycott efforts of Nazi-Germany so they can garner support for the colonization of Palestine. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haavara_Agreement]
>If you can’t see the difference between an unarmed concentration camp and a foreign-armed militant group lobbing rockets, sure.
Again you completely strip the context to which that statement was attached to so you can make snide and asinine statements. I already corrected you regarding your false claim that jews supposedly never fought back against their oppressors but you clearly don't care to remember because it would ruin the validity of your vapid response. [e.g. Jewish Combat Organization: Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa, Jewish Military Union: Żydowski Związek Wojskowy]
>> they did do that during their ongoing oppression and genocide >Which tribes? Because the ones who hit settlers got wiped out more frequently than those who bid for time.
Apache Nations, Lakota/Dakota, Seminole Nation (which never officially surrendered!) but it doesn't matter which tribes specifically resisted colonization, what matters is that you made a false claim and I corrected you on that. "Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonized. That is what the Arabs of Palestine are doing, and what they will persist in doing as long as there remains a solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of Palestine into the Land of Israel." -Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Iron Wall.
> how do call
Whataboutism?
Both sides might be wrong and commit horrible acts at the same time.
However Israel can potentially change its policies (even if that’s unlikely).
Hamas OTH is just objectively evil. The fact that they have a fraction of the resources that Israel has does not change that.
> israeli atrocities are much
I guess a matter of preference. Would you rather be raped and tortured for months or die quickly after a bomb hits you?
This is pure Hasbara-style hyperbole - Hamas is not "objectively" evil, and there is zero evidence that Hamas have raped or tortured anyone for months.
But if that's the standard you're using, then it's a documented fact that Israel rapes and tortures detainees, often to death. There is video evidence and hundreds of testimonies. The Israeli gov even debated on why it's OK to rape detainees, and when the police tried to step in and do something, Israeli citizens rioted - in favour of the rapists! Absolutely sick.
Israeli bulldozer drivers have bragged about driving over hundreds of Palestinians, both dead and alive. Israeli drones deliberately target children. Israel routinely designated areas as "safe", then bombs them. Israel has deliberately prevented humanitarian aid from reaching civilians. Israel routinely targets civilian infrastructure, including water storage facilities. Israel has destroyed almost every mosque in Gaza, just for fun. Israeli politicians spout the most vile genocidal BS on a daily basis. Israel has recently stolen yet more land in Lebanon and Syria. - and of course, Israel is still breaking the ceasefire in Lebanon, and even targeted UN peacekeepers. And of course, just before the Gaza ceasefire deal Israel went absolutely nuts bombing Gaza (even more than usual), just for the lolz. Oh, and Israel has weaponised antisemitism to silence critics of its genocidal, apartheid regime, and appears to have captured several western governments.
Israel is objectively an evil, apartheid regime, determined to spread islamophobia
> there is zero evidence that Hamas have raped or tortured anyone for months
Well there's a line.
> it's a documented fact that Israel rapes and tortures detainees, often to death
The fact that there are evil people on both sides (as well as people on both sides who are both not evil and have very valid arguments) seems to befuddle us. And by the way, you can take a stand on the war as a whole while conceding that neither party in this has behaved well, though both have behaved somewhat in step with the precedent of warring states and Middle Eastern insurgents, respectively.
> The fact that there are evil people on both sides
I only see evil from one side - Israel. The absolute depths of horror they have unleashed on the Palestinian people is unfathomable.
> with the precedent of warring states and Middle Eastern insurgents, respectively.
Ah, so it's their own fault for being Arabs! No, and Israel is invariably the cause for war in the Middle East. And Hamas are not "insurgents" either.
> I only see evil from one side
Then by (your own admission) you are a rather horrible (i.e. extreme/fundamentalist) person. If you purposefully decide to ignore or even justify atrocities committed by one side.
At least you have enough self-awareness to admit that which I guess is something…
> I only see evil from one side - Israel. The absolute depths of horror they have unleashed on the Palestinian people is unfathomable
If you're not seeing evil where an ICC prosecutor sees war crimes, you're probably biased. (That's totally fine if practical for you. And the ICC could be wrong. About everything. But it's a flag.)
> it's their own fault for being Arabs
What? I said Hamas are following the precedent of Middle Eastern insurgents. Tactically. Strategically. In their aims and the source of their weapons.
Hamas have been atrocious, both in the October 7 attack and in how easily they dismiss the destruction of Gaza, but no more so than e.g. Hezbollah. (Less so than ISIS or FARC.)
> Hamas are not "insurgents" either
Israel controls Gaza. Hamas are fighting Israel and hiding among civilians. That's insurgency. La Résistance were insurgents.
Breaking: killing kids[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] including a NINE MONTH OLD BABY[17] not evil when done to Jews (never mind that some weren't)
Do you realize how contradictory you sound? It's one thing to say Israel is eviler. It's quite another thing to say Hamas isn't evil at all.
The only conclusion I can come to is that you are antisemitic or (willfully, there is no excuse for speaking as if you know and not knowing the first thing, not now, not with so much information easily available) blind.
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/tamar-torpiashvili-9-an-angel-...
[2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/cousins-amin-jawad-malek-and-m...
[3] https://www.timesofisrael.com/yazan-abu-jama-5-bedouin-famil...
[4] https://www.timesofisrael.com/dana-48-carmel-15-bachar-mothe...
[5] https://www.timesofisrael.com/lianne-noiya-yahel-sharabi-48-...
[6] https://www.timesofisrael.com/refael-fahimi-63-netanel-maska...
[7] https://www.timesofisrael.com/ayala-73-liel-yannai-hetzroni-...
[8] https://www.timesofisrael.com/lior-tarshansky-15-maccabi-hai...
[9] https://www.timesofisrael.com/terrorists-murdered-entire-you...
[10] https://www.timesofisrael.com/yaniv-zohar-54-news-photograph...
[11] https://www.timesofisrael.com/carmela-80-noya-dan-12-savta-w...
[12] https://www.timesofisrael.com/four-members-of-even-family-sl...
[13] https://www.timesofisrael.com/four-members-of-even-family-sl...
[14] https://www.timesofisrael.com/kapshitter-family-murdered-on-...
[15] https://www.timesofisrael.com/itay-etti-and-sagi-zak-53-50-1...
[16] https://www.timesofisrael.com/mai-zuhair-13-faizah-abu-sabee...
[17] https://www.timesofisrael.com/yona-ohad-mila-cohen-73-43-10-...
Those deaths are tragic, and yes, one baby was killed which is particularly awful.
For many of those dead, we will however simply never know if they were slain by Hamas or the IDF[0] (as so many were), as Israel would not allow an investigation - an evil act, made doubly evil by the fabrication of all manner of vile attrocity porn (40 beheaded babies, babies on washing lines, mass rapes etc) to gain consent for a genocidal response.
So yes, of course those deaths are terrible, but history didn't start on October 7th, you have to look at the decades of land theft, dehumanisation, torture, rape, murder and bombing at the hands of Israelis. Israel's response was to act like Israel: more murder, more torture, more rape - and on a truly unfathomable scale. Israel has wrought a holocaust upon Gaza, and the West Bank hasn't been spared either.
And no, criticising an apartheid state publicly undertaking the most foul atrocities imaginable - at industrial scale, mind - does not an antisemite make.
[0] https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-israel-killed-hun...
>fabrication
Electronic Intifada as a source: The EI is...quite the source. It has argued Hamas is akin to the ANC of South Africa,[1] quietly ignoring that the ANC did and does not do many of the horrific atrocities Hamas commits against its own citizens[2] (let alone Israeli citizens), glorifying Hassan Nasrallah[3], declaring without evidence that Israel is not a nation that is deeply traumatized (the majority of its citizens having been genocided for 2,000+ years) and also evidently not knowing the first thing about epigenetics[4], advocating against posters that simply state that people have been kidnapped and held hostage in Gaza and declaring such a thing to have 'genocidal sentiment'[5], defending and glorifying October 7 at least five times[6] and even referring to Hamas soldiers killed because...um...they were soldiers attacking civilians as martyrs[7], arguing Zionism--a Jewish idea from the start--is rooted in antisemitism, showing a drastic misunderstanding of what that implies (that a Jewish state is needed because the world simply cannot be trusted with Jewish safety)[8], do something effectively equivalent to asking the general US population what counts as transphobia or racism or Islamophobia, rather than the trans, Black, and Muslim communities respectively[9]. But I will humor them.
>["all" of Israel being built on land Palestinians were expelled from in 1948]
This claim is easily and demonstratably falsifiable. Much of Israel was owned by Jews in 1945[10]. And much of the rest of it was 'public and other' land, no more Palestinian than Jewish (and the public land could be transferred to the Jewish country by the UN or Britain, of course).
>[genocide claim]
This is a genuine question that I have asked people many times and never gotten an answer to - is this genocide or simply the high (and horrific) death toll that comes with urban warfare? Gaza, after all, has a population density higher than New York City. It would be difficult for even the most humanitarian army imaginable to wage war in New York City without many civilian casualties. Among urban warfare in similarly-dense areas, or projected death tolls for those (I'm sure the US government has done some report on the projected civilian deaths from a war in NYC), is Gaza exceptional?
Of course, there is much more to a genocide than the death toll -- but that is what outlets like EI tend to lean into, although a death toll does not a genocide make.[11]
>[rape as a lie]
This is a disgusting claim. The rapes have been corroborated by the UN (as the Electronic Intifada has noted). Furthermore, much evidence cannot be gotten, because the witnesses are dead, and the bodies themselves, one hopes, quietly buried. There was massive rape, and Hamas at least seems to have been lax about punishing it, if not encouraging it top-down.
They treat deaths by Hamas of fleeing fighters as somehow Israel's fault because Hamas was waiting for Israeli soldiers. By this logic, most if not all of the adult male Palestinian deaths in Gaza are actually Hamas's fault; Hamas, after all, is little-distinguished from the civilian population.
[The baby]
Their defense is that...er. They were trying to kill adult civilians? That's not a good defense.
[Hannibal Directive and civilian deaths]
Haaretz has published a thorough investigation of the deaths here: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-04-18/ty-article-st.... (If you can't read it, they accept email accounts generated with email services like Temp-mail or 10minutemail.) Very few of the deaths are attributable to the IDF, simply because the IDF was occupied defending its own bases and responding.
> history didn't start on October 7th
For hominids in that region, it appears to have started about 1.5 million years ago (https://www.persee.fr/doc/paleo_0153-9345_1988_num_14_2_4455), although they didn't have writing. Some of the earlier historical records we have (historical here construed to mean non-Biblical) are interesting because they appear to affirm a Hebraic presence three thousand years ago[12]. Other historical records confirm Rome's forced exile of Jews, the discriminatory policies Jews suffered under, the 1948 attacks by everyone around, and the 1948-67 failure of Jordan and Egypt to set up independent Palestinian states in the West Bank (including Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter, which Jews were expelled from and prohibited from entering to pray at the Western Wall, the holiest still-standing site; but that's another story) and Gaza respectively. There is a long history, and starting the clock in 1967 isn't accurate either.
[1] https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-west-wrong-about-...
[2] eg 44 (!) summary executions (https://www.btselem.org/inter_palestinian_violations/death_p...), torture (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/05/gaza-palestin...), summary punishment and more torture (https://www.hrw.org/report/2012/10/03/abusive-system/failure...), prison terms for exposing corruption (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/02/gaza-journali...), et cetera, et cetera.
[3] https://electronicintifada.net/content/hasan-nasrallah-died-.... For reference, Hezbollah is widely despised by Lebanese as well.
[4] https://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-holocaust-tra...
[5] https://electronicintifada.net/content/kidnapped-posters-ser...
[6] https://electronicintifada.net/content/what-did-7-october-ac..., https://electronicintifada.net/content/myth-israels-invincib..., https://electronicintifada.net/content/just-another-battle-o..., https://electronicintifada.net/content/hamas-fighters-gaza-s.... See also citation 7.
[7] https://electronicintifada.net/content/tearing-down-gazas-ir...
[8] https://electronicintifada.net/content/anti-semitic-roots-zi...
[9] https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/c...
[10] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Palestin...
[11] Genocide requires intent. To take two examples - suppose Australia decides to attack Nauru, a small island nation of about 1,100 people. They embark on a campaign to systematically exterminate every Nauruan for some inexplicable reason, and succeed. This is a clear-cut case of genocide. But suppose on the way, Australia acquires a nuclear bomb and plans to detonate it over Nauru, ensuring no survivors. Unfortunately, the plane gets derailed, and the confused pilot accidentally detonates it over Singapore, killing 100,000 Singaporeans. While this killed many more people than Nauru, it was not a genocide itself; it was an accident (and an attempted genocide of Nauruans). The proportion of the population is also iffy. If Australia's plan was a small land invasion (which killed 2 Nauruans before being repelled) and then, if that failed, dropping five nukes on the island, but all five went off track and dropped on poor Singapore, killing 1,000,000 Singaporeans, despite the fact that that killed many more Singaporeans both in absolute numbers and proportionally than Nauruans, it could still be described as an attempted genocide of Nauruans and not one of Singaporeans.
[12] https://web.archive.org/web/20160304045731/http://prophetess...
> Hamas are hailed as resistance and freedom fighters. Only jewish hasbara still calls them terrorists, everyone else is sympathetic
No. About 20% of Americans support Hamas; 4% the October 7th attack [1]. It’s an extreme minority.
People are sympathetic to Palestinians. Not Hamas. The best way for the foreign pro-Palestinian movement to fuck this up for Palestine is to falsely equate Palestinians with Hamas.
Going back to the top point: Hamas hasn’t succeeded. Gaza’s occupation looks like it will be far more draconian than it was a few years ago, with the strip separated by security cordons all controlled by Israel.
> everyone else is sympathetic to Hamas, even Donald Trump
Trump's peace plan [2] is anathema to everything Hamas fought for. All the way to recognising anexations of currently-Palestinian territory.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/2024/03/21/majority-in-u-s-say-i...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_peace_plan#Key_concepts_...
>No. About 20% of Americans support Hamas; 4% the October 7th attack [1]. It’s an extreme minority.
Americans are the most propagandized people on the planet, even if they supported the resistance most of them wouldn't publicly admit that. American discourse, despite it's "freedom of speech" mantra, has a history of mccarthyist silencing to shut down debate, that's why certain ideas can't always be publicly expressed or one's affiliation revealed.
>Going back to the top point: Hamas hasn’t succeeded. Gaza’s occupation looks like it will be far more draconian than it was a few years ago, with the strip separated by security cordons all controlled by Israel.
Hamas has succeeded in their primary goal which was reminding the world that they still exist[1] and they won't let any normalization happen without a Palestinian state. They successfully derailed any normalization efforts. Another victory is that, for the first time ever, people, even ordinary americans, openly recognizing them as the resistance and showing support on social media where some of those tweets receive 150-250k+ likes, which was impossible before the genocide. In contrast to before where people always had to hide their support in order to prevent being accused with the common smears by zionists who wanted to shut down debate and suppress any information that would reveal that its the zionists who have a century long history of zionist-terrorism[2] and that the natives have a right to resist colonization without being demonized for it.
>Trump's peace plan [2] is anathema to everything Hamas fought for. All the way to recognising anexations of currently-Palestinian territory.
Trump waffles a lot to appease his donors, what his real opinion or plan is can be discovered by his actions in due time. Many israelis were disappointed by his ceasefire push and said that this deal was "forced upon israel".
Edit: the zionist brigade is quick, not even 10 seconds after posting this reply it already had a downvote lol.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-has-another-sinw...
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/vir...
> Americans are the most propagandized people on the planet
So we've moved the goalpost from everyone supports Hamas to everyone secretly supports Hamas, they just won't say it, but I know it's the case regardless?
> Hamas has succeeded in their primary goal which was reminding the world that they still exist
Yes, when they went into this war and when they rejected the deal in May I'm sure they were thinking that the tens of thousands of lives lost and hundreds of thousands--if not millions--scarred for life, with the prospect of America recognising Israeli anexations in the West Bank on the horizon, was worth a few more hits on their Wikipedia page.
I suppose we can't know what Hamas' goals are right now. But Sinwar's goals were clear. And this war has been a total failure per his goals.
> what his real opinion or plan is can be discovered by his actions in due time
No. But his track record can be scrutinised. That said, if people believing the guy who recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital, wants to reinstate "maximum pressure" on Iran and hangs out with this guy [1] thinks a self-governing Palestine is the way to go, and that results in a longer cease fire, sure. I'm all for it.
> Many israelis were disappointed by his ceasefire push and said that this deal was "forced upon israel"
I know some pretty forcefully pro-Israel Israelis. They're all in favour of this plan because it (a) returns hostages, (b) gives Israel a chance to recoup and pot some shots with the Houthis and (c) is a temporary cease-fire.
(Not saying some weren't disappointed. If he were still alive, Sinwar would probably reject it. But expecting zero crazies in any population is, well, crazy.)
> the zionist brigade is quick, not even 10 seconds after posting this reply it already had a downvote
One, it's an Israel-Palestine thread. Everyone is going to get downvoted.
Two, "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading" [2].
[1] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250111-musk-calls-for-tr...
>So we've moved the goalpost from everyone supports Hamas to everyone secretly supports Hamas, they just won't say it, but I know it's the case regardless?
No I never claimed such a thing but I've just put your statistics in context and provided some explanation. You're shadowboxing with your antagonistic rhetoric.
>Yes, when they went into this war and when they rejected the deal in May I'm sure they were thinking that the tens of thousands of lives lost and hundreds of thousands--if not millions--scarred for life, with the prospect of America recognising Israeli anexations in the West Bank on the horizon, was worth a few more hits on their Wikipedia page.
Another needlessly quarrelsome and misguided framing. Most of the world is now aware and understands the Palestinian struggle and that's not just "a few more hits on their Wikipedia page" but e.g. Ireland, a european nation, among many others, joining South Africa’s Genocide Case Against Israel and Israel closing its dublin embassy. And there are many more substantial developments in that regard, so downplaying that in such a manner is just weird.
>No. But his track record can be scrutinised. That said, if people believing the guy who recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital, wants to reinstate "maximum pressure" on Iran and hangs out with this guy [1] thinks a self-governing Palestine is the way to go, and that results in a longer cease fire, sure. I'm all for it.
Trump is a businessman in nature so he will act in a manner that is consistent with that and not upsetting his donor base too much, until something happens that disturbs that calculus. Trump is not ideologically driven, so if the price of supporting Israel fundamentally changes, due to unforeseen change, he will act adequately according to his own interests.
>I know some pretty forcefully pro-Israel Israelis. They're all in favour of this plan because it (a) returns hostages, (b) gives Israel a chance to recoup and pot some shots with the Houthis and (c) is a temporary cease-fire.
That could very well be, I am simply judging by the extreme infighting between hardcore zionists and the statements and sentiments of popular israeli news channels.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/07/world/europe/ireland-icj-...
> Ireland, a european nation, among many others, joining South Africa’s Genocide Case Against Israel and Israel closing its dublin embassy
Really? A nation destroyed for a protest letter from Ireland? A trade union wouldn't even settle for this.
> there are many more substantial developments in that regard, so downplaying that in such a manner is just weird
I'm weighing it the way we do history. Goals were set. None were achieved. To the extent we can measure them, the goals are further away than before.
When push came to shove, nobody came for Palestine. Hezbollah and the Houthis came closest, but the former folded and the latter was contained. Hamas' closest regional ally, Iran, left them out to dry. Same for the Arab monarchies and America's adversaries, Russia and China. Sinwar was counting on a regional conflagration; it never came. Before the war that wasn't apparent.
They trended on Twitter and college campuses, and I guess got a thumbs up from Ireland. But to the degree South Africa got the ICC in the ring, it largely served to (a) underline that both sides committed war crimes and (b) undermine the ICC's authority (note: not legitimacy) as a court versus think tank.
> until something happens that disturbs that calculus
Sure. Based on current patterns, the trajectory is towards a cease fire and hardened occupation with some recognition for annexations.
That could change--things can always change. But in a world where the rules-based international order is crumbling, now is a bad time to have only norms to fall back on.
The ICC case has nothing to do with south africa, it was brought by the office of the prosecutor.The case brought by south africa was in the ICJ.
>Really? A nation destroyed for a protest letter from Ireland? A trade union wouldn't even settle for this.
It has symbolic meaning to which Israel responded with closing its embassy. You can downplay it however you want, but these are significant developments that will be discussed in lectures and history books.
>I'm weighing it the way we do history. Goals were set. None were achieved. To the extent we can measure them, the goals are further away than before.
Hamas had the goal of derailing normalization and they achieved that. An unexpected bonus was the reconquest of Syria which made the dictators of the Arab world also tremble in fear that their continued betrayal in form of normalization efforts with israel, contrary to the will of the people, could lead to their own demise as well.
>When push came to shove, nobody came for Palestine. Hezbollah and the Houthis came closest, but the former folded and the latter was maintained.
Another desperate attempt at downplaying the efforts of the resistance. Both Hezbollah and especially the Houthis did support Palestine, within their means, at significant cost to their own population. Since Israel's main solution to everything is just to ruthlessly bomb civilians and civilian infrastructure which even a congressman, Thomas Massie, has called out Israel for: https://x.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1849165384571560052
An american congressman openly calling out Israel and receiving 111K likes - unimaginable before the Genocide, that's significant.
>Their closest regional ally, Iran, left them out to dry. Same for the Arab monarchies and America's adversaries, Russia and China. Sinwar was counting on a regional conflagration, and it never came. Before the war that wasn't apparent.
This is just the rhetoric of a person who thinks that geopolitics is checkers when it's actually chess. Iran obviously tried to avoid direct confrontation with Israel to prevent a war with the US so it primarily fights Israel via its proxies so the actions of the proxies are also the actions of Iran.
>Sinwar was counting on a regional conflagration, and it never came. Before the war that wasn't apparent.
What evidence do you have for that claim? I've seen video footage of Sinwar stating that they will derail normalization, which they achieved, and "exposing all the normalizers" which they also achieved. The world has seen Israel's true face, without a mask, and it's ugly.
>They trended on Twitter and college campuses, and I guess got a thumbs up from Ireland. But to the degree South Africa got the ICC in the ring, it largely served to (a) underline that both sides committed war crimes and (b) undermine the ICC's authority (note: not legitimacy) as a court versus think tank.
These attempts at downplaying the cultural impact of the past 15 months is just outright strange. The ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu which many people thought would never happen. The reaction to this decision then exposed America and many of its european allies as frauds who claimed to care about "international law" but never actually did because they refused to comply so they can protect their war-criminal ally. this has proven that the whole "international law" charade was always just an imperial and colonial tool to impose western will on the global south. These events are crucial and will be discussed and lectured about in universities across the world.
>Sure. Based on current patterns, the trajectory is towards a cease fire and hardened occupation with some recognition for annexations.
Well the israeli historian and political scientist Ilan Pappe thinks that "This is the last phase of Zionism", he has his opinion and you have yours, we shall see.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/14/israeli-historian-i...
>That could change--things can always change. But in a world where the rules-based international order is crumbling, now is a bad time to have only norms to fall back on.
The "rules-based international order" died the moment the crusaders of "international law" have given impunity to their colonial outpost to commit genocide with impunity and then proven that they will ignore ICC rulings when the outcome is not in their favor. If I were Russia or China, I would be extremely happy about that because the next time America or Europe lectures them about morality or international law, they can just laugh it off.
I'll agree with you that the conflict, as well as the Ukraine war, has shown that the UN is largely irrelevant for conflicts of this proportion.
I don't think that's good news for Palestine however - it just means that, in certain contexts, the maxim of "might makes right" is much more openly acknowledged, which favours Israel because they're a nuclear power. You'd have to get Iran (or some even bigger power) involved for the balance to shift and the war clearly showed that this wasn't happening (fwiw, I think Russia and China don't care one bit about Palestine, they just like it if the conflict is ongoing and creates division in the West).
We don't know what history books are gonna write 100 or 200 years into the future and even if we did, it will be irrelevant. We don't today condone the way in which Caesar slaughtered the Gauls, but they still lost the war. In any case, I don't think the war, or history books, will care about Twitter likes in some far-off country.
> these are significant developments that will be discussed in lectures and history books
If one party wants control on the ground and the other will settle for footnotes in history books, maybe we have something Israel and Palestine agree on.
> Both Hezbollah and especially the Houthis did support Palestine, within their means, at significant cost to their own population
Both non-state actors. And Hezbollah backed down after being decimated. The Houthis are still going, but part of the ceasefire is giving oxygen to Israel to focus on long-range operations.
> it primarily fights Israel via its proxies so the actions of the proxies are also the actions of Iran
Yes. The proxies are neutered. Iran is strategically weaker than it’s been in decades. Hamas has gone from being a threat to a charity case, from fighting for things to trading lives for textbook references.
> they will derail normalization, which they achieved, and "exposing all the normalizers" which they also achieved
How? Part of the ceasefire is continued normalisation. If normalisation is rejected the ceasefire ceases and we go back to war.
> I were Russia or China, I would be extremely happy about that because the next time America or Europe lectures them about morality or international law, they can just laugh it off
Versus before? The last time the lectures worked was in the 90s. For anyone.
Tactically speaking, I’m halfway convinced the folks who came up with Defund The Police and think everyone supports Mangione have architected the pro-Palestinian movement in the West. It started as a solid expression of sympathy. But it’s developed into another project of name calling, genericising terms like genocide (if everyone is committing genocide, it’s not something you can punish), and labelling barely-symbolic wins as monumental historical reconfigurations. (An Al Jazeera op-ed predicts Israel’s downfall. Next thing you know, Mika Brzezinski will be predicting a Democrat resurgence and the Daily Caller a GOP single government.)
All this has done is polarise and strengthen opposition to the Palestinian cause by falsely making it seem the Palestinians are as nutty as the pro-Palestinian protesters. (Meanwhile, on the center left, it looks disturbingly like people who have no knowledge of the ground truth again trying to draw borders in the Middle East from abroad.)
Going into a discussion to lecture never works; if there is no curiosity or capacity to question, it’s not an exercise in activism. It’s a child running away to the end of the block, taking satisfaction in the imagined panic and regrets of their parents who likely never noticed their absence in the first place. The current state of rhetoric from both sides points to one outcome: an increasingly-irrelevant Gaza and lots of dead for people to write sympathetic history books about.
> Tactically speaking, I’m halfway convinced the folks who came up with Defund The Police and think everyone supports Mangione have architected the pro-Palestinian movement in the West. It started as a solid expression of sympathy.
The pro-Palestine movement has a much longer (and varied) history, but the main links between parts of the (especially radical) left and the movement were established in the cold war, see e.g. the German RAF going to PLO terrorist camps or the famous 1976 hijacking of a passenger plane by pro-Palestine activists: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entebbe_raid
That wasn't always the case, though, one of the first countries to recognise Israel was the USSR.
In any case it's weird whenever somebody pretends that what's going on now is in any sort of way a completely novel development, these fault lines have existed for decades.
>Both non-state actors. And Hezbollah backed down after being decimated. The Houthis are still going, but part of the ceasefire is giving oxygen to Israel to focus on long-range operations.
Hezbollah was not decimated, the IDF simply bypassed fighting hezbollah entirely by going straight for lebanon's civilian population in its typical zionist-terrorism approach [https://x.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1849165384571560052] to inflict an unacceptable cost on civilians and put pressure on hezbollah to stop fighting. What are such tactics called again? ter·ror·ism /ˈterəˌrizəm/ noun the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrine - "The logic is to harm the civilian population so much that they will then turn against the militants, forcing the enemy to sue for peace"
>Yes. The proxies are neutered. Iran is strategically weaker than it’s been in decades. Hamas has gone from being a threat to a charity case, from fighting for things to trading lives for textbook references.
The proxies have not been neutered, that's just your zionist fantasy. they still possess large arms arsenals and are a real threat. If they had been neutered, Israel wouldn't have any reason to make compromises but they did in accepting the ceasefire. The only new problem for Hezbollah is the now defunct supply route from Iran through Syria, but they didn't even meaningfully deplete their current arsenal so they have enough time to find solutions for that. On the other hand, Hezbollah's new problem is also part of Israel's new problem, which is Syria, but that's a topic for another day.
>Versus before? The last time the lectures worked was in the 90s. For anyone.
People are quick to forget, Gaza is a fresh reminder for a new generation that "international law" is just a big charade.
>Tactically speaking, I’m halfway convinced the folks who came up with Defund The Police and think everyone supports Mangione have architected the pro-Palestinian movement in the West. It started as a solid expression of sympathy. But it’s developed into another project of name calling, genericising terms like genocide (if everyone is committing genocide, it’s not something you can punish),
Some incoherent rant that's essentially genocide denial in disguise, I shouldn't have even dignified this with a response.
>All this has done is polarise and strengthen opposition to the Palestinian cause by falsely making it seem the Palestinians are as nutty as the pro-Palestinian protesters. (Meanwhile, on the center left, it looks disturbingly like people who have no knowledge of the ground truth again trying to draw borders in the Middle East from abroad.)
None of that is true, that's just your distorted zionist perception of reality speaking. The pro-Palestinian protestors are sane and normal, it's genocidal Zionists like you who are the nutty one's trying to mislead people with weaselly rhetoric just to justify a genocide.
"UN Special Committee finds Israel’s warfare methods in Gaza consistent with genocide, including use of starvation as weapon of war 14 November 2024" [https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/11/un-special-c...]
>Going into a discussion to lecture never works; if there is no curiosity or capacity to question, it’s not an exercise in activism. It’s a child running away to the end of the block, taking satisfaction in the imagined panic and regrets of their parents who likely never noticed their absence in the first place. The current state of rhetoric from both sides points to one outcome: an increasingly-irrelevant Gaza and lots of dead for people to write sympathetic history books about.
Gaza's relevancy is at a historic high, otherwise we wouldn't be still talking about it. And your "if there is no curiosity or capacity to question" reminds me of Neo-Nazis who use such rhetoric to soften people up before they engage in blatant genocide denial, so it makes sense that zionists like you would use the exact same rhetoric to justify or deny an ongoing livestreamed genocide.
"Amnesty International investigation concludes Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza" [https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-inter...]
Since both sides are using terrorism it’s fine, right?
I think that is something that a lot of people don't get about Trump. He chooses what vitriol to spew, then acts in a different way.
> still calls them terrorists
I’m sure that if you asked most people in Europe or the US they’d would agree. I’d bet on average more strongly than before the war.
I mean Israel is deeply flawed, oppressed and is committing war crimes. Can disagree about that.
Hamas on the other hand is objectively evil and should be destroyed. Arguing about what cost exactly is worth paying for that is reasonable disagreeing with the premise itself is wrong and immoral.
You said tomorrow they will win and be called freedom fighters. I don’t follow. Does it look to you like Hamas won?
> nowadays however, Hamas are hailed as resistance and freedom fighters. Only jewish hasbara still calls them terrorists, everyone else is sympathetic to Hamas, even Donald Trump, given his zionist position
I don't think this is anywhere near a mainstream position.
Why else would Israel prop up Hamas over the secular PA?
As https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42722937 said, I was referring to the judicial reform and the gradual erosion of civil rights that the current government is driving forward within Israel, not in the occupied territories.
This is an intra-Israeli conflict that is (mostly) independent of the Israel-Palestine conflict (and also of the question how democratic a state is anyway that keeps ~50% of its inhabitants under permanent military rule). It falls more in line with the other shifts towards populist or authoritarian governments we have seen in the West. (Trump, Orban, Erdogan, etc)
It does have a unique Israeli flavor to it though, which does circle right back to Israel/Palestine: That the political force that's driving this authoritarian shift forward is closely associated with the settler movement and the most extreme voices regarding the Palestinians. This was also the case before the war - however, they took the war as opportunity to further erode civil rights, e.g. free speech and manipulate institutions such as the police.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law:_Israel_as_the_Natio...
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-10-21/ty-article-ma...
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-06-13/ty-article-ma...
> Never mind that Gaza is still in ruins, the west bank is still being annexed, Israel still has the dual role of "all authority, no obligations" over the Palestinians, while making it pretty clear they have no vision for them at all, apart from "maybe they just vanish into thin air tomorrow".
It was pretty much like that before. They're just being a lot more open about wanting to wipe them out.
> And never mind that Israel still has a fundamentalist, authoritarian government that is actively at work undermining democratic structures and civil rights even inside the state - that too with no word of objection from its allies.
And what would Gaza have if it were independent?
Israel does not have a fundamentalist, authoritarian government! There are some fundamentalist and far-right parties in the current coalition but they have little power to push their own policies except to threaten to bolt the coalition. For all the talk of those 2-3 ministers to who belong to these more extreme parties to eg legitimise new settlements, repopulate gaza, they don't have enough power to actually pass such laws and none of these ministers none of whom hold the top 8 roles in government.
The most religious/fundementalist of the the parties UTJ believes in land for peace and have said so many times over the years (but like the majority of the Israeli public, they wont mention it, let alone push for it, during wartime so as not to reward terrorism) and was fully behind all the ceasefire proposals in the past 18 months.
And it's certainly not authoritarian. Israel has full powers of protest, free speech, and in fact it's generally the press that have the strongest voice not the government.
And "that is actively at work undermining democratic structures" is also wrong. They are trying to reform Israel's supreme court system which many legal scholars agree badly needs reform as the justices are largely self-selected yet have the power to override legislation without referring to existing law (the so-called reasonableness test which no other country has).
> And it's certainly not authoritarian. Israel has full powers of protest, free speech, and in fact it's generally the press that have the strongest voice not the government.
Israel maintained a prerogative from early in the war to assassinate essentially every known journalist in Gaza, and they did it by bombing their homes and killing their families. West Bank and pro-Arab Israeli journalists were merely arrested and held without charge.
Not authoritarian to its own ethnic population maybe... How exactly does that right of protest extend to the people it's occupying?
In the recent conflict, as punishment for the (inexcusable and revolting) mass killing of Israelis by Hamas, Israel has killed vast numbers of innocent civilians -- 10s of thousands more than could possibly be justified by legitatimate military operations -- and has deliberately killed several journalists, destroyed healthcare infrastructure, and deliberately caused water and food shortages and mass civilian displacement. Its reputation is in tatters and will remain so for decades.
Be aware that this account has only one post (this one) and was created around 8 months ago when reports started to appear about Israeli influence on American public opinion online.
"Israeli State-sponsored Internet propaganda include the Hasbara, Hasbara Fellowships, Act.IL, and the Jewish Internet Defense Force. Supporters generally frame this "hasbara" as part of its fight towards improving their image abroad given continued Israeli human rights abuses, and also against anti-Israeli agitation and attempts to criticize it. There is substantive evidence that Israel heavily uses data-driven strategies, trolling and disinformation and manipulated media, as well as dedicating funds to state-sponsored media, for overt propaganda campaigns."[1]
"In June 2024, Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs was revealed to have paid $2 million to Israeli political consulting firm STOIC, to conduct a social media campaign, fueled by fake accounts and often employing misinformartion, targeting 128 American Congresspeople, with a focus on Democratic and African-American members of the House of Representatives. Websites were also created to provide young, progressive Americans with Gaza news with a pro-Israel spin. Among the objectives of the campaign was amplifying Israeli attacks on UNRWA staffers and driving a wedge between Palestinians and African-Americans to prevent solidarity between the two groups. "[2]
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-sponsored_Internet_propa...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation_in_the_Israel%E...
3. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2024-0...
Anything to say on the substance of the comment?
Sure, I have already made a lot of them in the context of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Sorry, it's just tiring to repeat the same things all the time in these threads.
So the assertion that these parties hold "little power" is contradicted by their significant roles in the government. Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, was appointed to a newly created ministry position granting him authority over the state's police force. Ben-Gvir, a former follower of extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane, has a history of incitement and inflammatory remarks towards Israel's Arab population. [1] Such appointments indicate that these parties have substantial influence within the coalition, as without them there is no coalition anymore. These parties have successfully advocated for policies aligning with their agendas. The coalition agreement with the Religious Zionist Party includes commitments to expand settlements in the West Bank and to work towards applying Israeli sovereignty over these territories.[6] Which contradicts what OP stated.
As to the claim that the government is merely "trying to reform Israel's supreme court system" overlooks the implications of these reforms. The proposed changes aim to shift power from the judiciary to the Knesset majority coalition, including an "override clause" that would allow the Knesset to overturn Supreme Court rulings with a simple majority vote.[2][3][4]
There are reports of increased government influence over media outlets, with certain channels promoting nationalistic agendas aligned with the Prime Minister's views.[5]
1. https://www.jta.org/2022/12/21/israel/whos-who-in-israels-ne...
2. https://www.cpreview.org/articles/2023/2/judicial-reform-in-...
3. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/09/ne...
4. https://www.american.edu/sis/news/20230106-four-ways-netanya...
5. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/01/20/netanyahus-med...
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-seventh_government_of_I...
Cool bro
>"maybe they just vanish into thin air tomorrow"
This is the exact platform of at least one political party on either side.
Over and above any underlying cultural or historical conflict.
It's when misguided political parties gain power that puts that kind of thing on steroids.
> His base and his cabinet is full of the most hard-line pro-israel figures imaginable
His base and the people surrounding him have the habit of ostracizing anyone who doesn't fall in line behind him, rather than being guided by principle (Which is why Pence is no longer his VP pick, and why basically his whole cabinet is full of sycophants compared to last time).
Trump's whole shtick is to take whatever is happening, and spin it into "This was my whole plan all along", then take the credit for it. This is why you never see him give concrete policy proposals in interviews, and is also what will likely happen with the russia/ukraine war. Whatever happens is good, and was part of Trump's plan, and his base will fall in line or disappear politically.
> "maybe they just vanish into thin air tomorrow"
Actually they don't want them to vanish completely. Just suffer enough. They are the reason the far right government is leading Israël.
Exactly. This war has really messed up the world and Israel for generations to come. Never mind the devastation in Gaza.
But the Palestinians cant keep living under occupation. Everyone should continue to exert pressure for a free Palestine or the cycle will continue. The fundamental goal of the current Israeli government is to never have a Palestinian state, which will always be a major barrier unless sanctions are introduced.
Trump was interesting.. Im sure we’ll find out one day what it was all about. But if he really was the catalyst in this I will take back my words and eat humble pie. Someone has suggested the ceasefire is just a show, so we watch carefully.
<< This war has really messed up the world and Israel for generations to come.
Possibly. There does seem to be an uptick in previously unvoicable sentiment that was quickly squashed anywhere it showed on social media. I will say this. My parents went out of their way not to discuss some political events with their children ( communism - different rules apply and kids are dumb ), but in 90s, when similar 'war' raged and newshead was convincingly telling me, who to root for, my father unusually said 'you may want to check how Israel came into existence.' For the longest time, I did not. October surprise was a reason to get some of the dust removed from those books. It is not a good look. One could argue it is worse than US colonization of Indian lands.
My understanding is that decades past when Israeli liberals tried being nice to Palestine and letting them self govern they were rewarded with more bombings and conflict. It isn’t a politically tenable position in Israel anymore to let Palestine (and Lebanon) “just be,” and that’s equally the fault of Palestinian behavior as it is Israel’s.
I am sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians, but the truth of the matter is that Israel has a valid claim too and military superiority to back it. If Palestine is to self govern, it and the rest of the nations around it need to convince Israel that they won’t try to wipe Israel off the map (or, alternatively, to succeed at it, which I’m sure many Western protesters would celebrate). Until then Israel will just dominate them instead.
I am hoping at least for some sort of "Ok, now we pour money and bricks and concrete into Gaza to help them rebuild."
call to dispose other's people money is easy. you are free to make you donation.
I did. But if several nation-states would pledge larger grants, I would have some hope that i.e. the trucks with the building materials would get through border-crossings, e.t.c.
Individual donations are a drop in a very big and leaky bucket.
> Is this just his usual "appear unpredictable by all means" spiel or does he have a strategy there?
If you think a 78 year old alone is capable of such feats of planning, you have more faith in the elderly than most. Read any of his speeches that are off the cuff and you will see that Trump has incredibly poor working memory, vocabulary, and attention. This is to be expected from an elderly individual, but not from a great strategist. These are the results of large groups of people working towards goals, not heroic individual feats.
> Everything else aside, this is an absolutely fantastic development and I really hope the ceasefire holds and all hostages are released.
Don't hold your breath, Isreal already announced a ceasefire in Lebanon in the past and didn't respect it.
OK since no one else has said it yet, "according to a source familiar with the details"[1] (I know) Trump has basically told Netanyahu to agree to the ceasefire including the return of hostages. Then if they decide to break the ceasefire and go back to relentless bombings, Trump will still continue to support them.
So it could be a tactic to get Hamas to release whatever hostages are still alive, then get right back to the new status quo.
This actually makes perfect sense for Trump. He's only claimed to care about the Israeli hostages. I'm sure he feels great about taking credit for their return.
[1]: https://trendsinthenews.substack.com/p/gerald-celente-on-gaz...
Sadly I suspect this will be the case… I don’t hold much hope on this whole thing actually ending… but I do have a glimmer of hope that they may have reached a tipping point due to one of the many slowly shifting parts of this tragedy… no idea what the tipping point is from the outside but it does kinda have the vibe of “maybe this is going to fall apart if they keep pushing”
Hamas broke the last ceasefire. Israel doesn’t need to do anything as it’s expected there will be a Hamas offshoot group who launches a rocket into Israeli civilian areas thus restarting the need for Israel to defend itself.
Would there really be much support within Israel to continue the war if all the hostages were already released?
Why would something as irrelevant as hostages end a war? Start it on the other hand... Sure!
What are their goals at this point? Looks to me as an outsider like they’ve had multiple wins and should take that. Hezbollah, Syria, successful strike on Irans missile facilities, Gaza is a pile of rubble.
The goal is to eliminate Hamas, or at least prevent them for returning to rule the Gaza strip. That has not been accomplished.
Wouldn't trumps best course of action have been to wait two weeks and make it seem like it was all because of him?
> Wouldn't trumps best course of action have been to wait two weeks and make it seem like it was all because of him?
No. He's getting the credit now. And he got it while maneuvering risk free.
Well, we will know within the year how it turns out.
One not particularly obscure theory is that Netanyahu was prioritizing Trump coming to power over a peace/hostage deal and now that Trump has power, Netanyahu seeks to benefit from prioritizing the hostages. Trump is claiming credit for it and probably doesn't care about the timing.
Not obscure at all, as it wouldn't be the first time a hostage situation is used for a presidential campaign [1]:
> The timing of the release of the hostages gave rise to allegations that representatives of Reagan's presidential campaign had conspired with Iran to delay the release until after the 1980 United States presidential election to thwart Carter from pulling off an "October surprise".
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis#October_Su...
The playbook does seems more and more similar everyday but I'm curious why the other side hasn't figured out how to counter it
At times it seems as if the other side hasn't figured out how to do much of anything, or alternately, they've forgotten as they steadily get older and older without passing the reins of power off to younger generations.
maybe it is the latter because it always starts out well so you can't say total incompetence for the first decade or maybe two decades at most but it always invariably ends up the same way
well always maybe pushing it twice so far it's like watching a NFL team lose the super bowl because of inability to defend this one play
At times it seems as if there aren't multiple sides.
and when that thought strikes i find myself asking all this suffering to what end
Netanyahu was simply pushing his opportunity to do what Israel hardliners have wanted to do for as long as possible (basically aggressively lash out in every direction without consequences and red lines). It was always going to need to be wrapped up, even within Israel there was strong internal pressure. Waiting until is Trump is coming in gives Israel a free golden ticket with him by timing it right and Netanyahu's careers basically over after this anyway, so he has nothing to lose by doing it earlier, absent internal revolt.
Never mind that Hamas will STILL have hostages after the deal is done. That Gaza is ruled by an organization stating they’ll continue doing an Oct 7th again and again.
It takes both sides to agree to a better future.
How are you proposing the deal could be made more fair?
Keep in mind:
Israel killed 100x more civilians than Palestine during this conflict, and more damage was done to Gaza than any European city during wwii. 90% of the population is displaced. 10% are casualties. Israel intentionally blew up all the civil infrastructure (hospitals, doctors, engineers) first.
There are > 17,000 children that have no adults to care for them any more. That’s 10 orphaned kids for every Israel civilian casualty in the middle of a famine with no support infrastructure.
It could be made more fair if all the hostages were released. Why would international society accept hundreds of peaceful civilians being tortured, raped and murdered for over a year as acceptable?
Israel actually built a lot of the civilian infrastructure, including the largest hospital in Gaza. It's pretty clear those places are being used as terrorist hideouts and to launch rocket attacks. Why is it acceptable to shoot rockets purely targeting civilians while breaking a cease fire agreement?
> hundreds of peaceful civilians being tortured, taped and murdered
There is no absolute evidence that any of Hamas' hostages have been raped or tortured - according to released hostages, they were treated very well! AFAIK the only known instance of Hamas murdering a hostage was when a fighter lost it after Israel killed his entire family - all the other deaths have been a result of Israeli bombs (because if you want hostages back, you bomb them... right?!).
And as you doubtless know, many of the "peaceful civilians" are actually serving IDF members...
And as you also doubtless know, Palestinian hostages are routinely raped and tortured to death in Israeli dungeons - there is a wealth of evidence.
> It's pretty clear those places are being used as terrorist hideouts and to launch rocket attacks.
This is what Israeli Hasbara do - repeat unevidenced claims until people accept them as "truth". But it's lies, there isn't a shred of evidence that Hamas as used even a single hospital as a "terrorist hideout". You know who has repurposed Gazan hospitals for military ops? Israel - every accusation is a confession with them.
You have first hand accounts of the rape and abuse by the people who were kidnapped.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/middleeast/amit-soussana-...
What do you mean there is no proof? There are mountains of evidence.
That's the first time I've seen this story. As harrowing as it is, it describes the sexual abuse of one woman, not rape.
Here's another one. All you need to do is look.
https://time.com/7207459/israeli-hostages-gaza-ceasefire/
You wrote in your comments that the hostages were treated well. This is absolutely not the case.
There are plenty of hostages, btw, who have openly discussed that they were raped repeatedly. I don't have the stomach to reread the hostage accounts but they are easy to find online.
Can't believe we're here again.
> There is no absolute evidence that any of Hamas' hostages have been raped or tortured - according to released hostages, they were treated very well!
Hamas literally executed some: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/01/middleeast/israel-gaza-ww...
But yeah, other than that, treated very well!
This "news article" doesn't support your claims - it only says the IGF claims these hostages were killed a short while before they reached them. Given the IGF has murdered Israeli hostages up close, has taken the approach of reducing gaza to rubble, and is constantly caught lying, it's far more likely these hostages were killed by bombs or IGF bullets.
How are you supporting a group that would take a newborn baby as a hostage? What drugs do you need to take to pretend that it's ok and defend the kidnappers?!?
I'm not supporting Hamas or what they did on October 7th. I'm against genocide and the utterly, utterly horrifying actions of the IDF, and against Israeli propaganda that has been used to manufacture consent for a modern day holocaust.
BTW, Israel has killed at least the equivalent of one Palestinian child every 30 minutes since October 7th. That is just mind-boggling evil at an industrial scale.
If all you do is look at the death count then it's easy to use a number and point against Israel.
You need to go deeper. The best article I've scene on the subject for some moral clarity is here:
https://www.samharris.org/blog/the-bright-line-between-good-...
> It's pretty clear those places are being used as terrorist hideouts and to launch rocket attacks.
No, this is not pretty clear. This is pure Israeli propaganda.
> How are you proposing the deal could be made more fair?
Keeping hostages is a war crime. A fair thing would be for Hamas to follow its obligations under international law and unconditionally release them (before anyone says, well israel did X which also isn't allowed, 2 wrongs don't make a right).
> more damage was done to Gaza than any European city during wwii
How are you quantifying this? I'd be surprised if Gaza has more damage than say Dresden.
Israel's prisons are full of Palestinian hostages kidnapped from Gaza and the West Bank. Their courts have no jurisdiction over them and have no issue calling anyone a terrorist.
A hostage and a prisoner is not the same thing under international law.
> Their courts have no jurisdiction over them
Israel is the occupying power. International law requires that an occupying power provide law & order, so it does have the authority to persecute people who commit crimes (although they are required to keep the laws the same as they were pre-occupation, with some exceptions).
They are also allowed to keep prisoners of war (although i am not sure if hamas counts as that as they are a non-state group). They are allowed to persecute war crimes that enemy combatants commit (as long as they give a fair trial)
> have no issue calling anyone a terrorist.
The phrase "terrorist" doesn't really have much meaning under international law. Israel is free to call its enemies dirty names if it wants, there isn't any rule against calling your enemies mean names.
The phrase terrorist is the pretense Israel uses to kidnap Palestinian children and use them as hostages. Over 800 last year. It's highly relevant. Israel's courts rubberstamp some of the hostage taking, while the rest are on administrative detention without charge or trial.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231120-880-palestinian-c...
While i abhor the practise of long-term administrative detention as being fundamentally unjust, i don't think it would meet the definition of taking hostages under the geneva convention.
> Any person who seizes or detains and threatens to kill, to injure or to continue to detain another person (hereinafter referred to as “hostage”) in order to compel a third party, namely, a State, an international intergovernmental organisation, a natural or juridical person, or a group of persons to do or to abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the hostage, commits the offence of taking of hostages
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ar/customary-ihl/v2/rule96
It very clearly fits the definition.
How is administrative detention an attempt by Israel an attempt "to compel a third party, namely, a State, an international intergovernmental organisation, a natural or juridical person, or a group of persons to do or to abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the hostage"
Like if they randomly started grabbing people up in order to trade them, it would very clearly meet the definition, but it doesn't seem like that is what happened.
They absolutely have grabbed people to trade them. The OP article mentions the trade. Every ceasefire in the history of this conflict has had a hostage exchange, or disingenuously "hostages for prisoners". They know it was coming and they kidnapped people for it.
Also more generally, they hold hostages to compel Palestinians to obey and not resist.
Do you have any evidence for the claim that they "have grabbed people to trade them"?
If true, (and the person was not a combatant) that would certainly count as taking a hostage, provided that was the primary reason they detained said person. However if they detained someone primarily for some other purpose and then traded them later, that is a different story.
> Also more generally, they hold hostages to compel Palestinians to obey and not resist.
If you mean they detained someone who was doing some action or intending to do some action in order to compel other people not to do similar things, that probably doesn't count.
If you mean they detained some random person that wasn't involved at all in order to compel someone else to do or not do something, that probably would count.
Administrative detention is functionally the same as hostage taking and we should call it as such. Just because an Israeli "court" puts a stamp on it doesn't make it any different.
> Just because an Israeli "court" puts a stamp on it doesn't make it any different.
That has nothing to do with why i don't think administrative detention constitutes hostage taking as defined by the geneva convention. Obviously if some hypothetical israeli court approved of hostage taking it would still not be ok.
Having both sides obey their obligations under international law would be a good first step.
Maybe Israel could start by turning over everyone subject to an outstanding International Criminal Court warrant. (Starting with Netanyahu, of course.)
Dresden is a darkly funny choice for comparison. Area bombing definitely wasn't a war crime and Arthur Harris was not a war criminal.
Regardless of the circumstances of the bombing, if the question is - did there exist any cities in europe that were more damaged in WW2 than gaza was in the current conflict, isn't it natural to compare gaza with the most famously damaged european city in WW2? Like what comparison would you expect to be made in relation to that question?
Dresden was levelled and does make your point.
I’d have picked Warsaw. Completely destroyed while clearing out the ghetto after the uprising which was brutally suppressed. It has some grim parallels too.
Dresden: 23% of industrial buildings, 50% of homes, 25,000 dead: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51448486
Warsaw was closer, but only 85-90% of its buildings were destroyed by the Nazis: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Warsaw
The statistic I heard was “more than any city in wwii”. I figured that Hiroshima (67%) years or Nagasaki (37%) were worse.
Gaza crossed 90% of all buildings in May, so I shouldn’t have qualified my statement with the word “European”.
Edit: I found one partial counterexample: The firebombing of Tokyo killed about 10x more people than Israel did during this conflict, but didn’t do nearly as much damage (as a percentage) to buildings: https://www.britannica.com/event/Bombing-of-Tokyo
Here's a suggestion - don't rape girls, burn babies, kill everyone at a music festival etc. if you don't want your city (Gaza) to be destroyed.
There are consequences.
It would be far more dangerous for the world if the terrorists had learned they can rape and murder without consequences.
This is just such a toxic thread.
What say did the civilian victims in Gaza have in the horrific acts by Hamas?
There isn’t even a glimmer of moderation in anything I see in the argument here.
What say did the Yemenite civilians have in the Saudi lead aggression.
What say did the Syrian civilians have in the civil war.
What say did the Iraqi civilians have in the U.S. lead war.
What say did the Ukrainian and Russian civilians have in their war.
Your remark comes off as there should never be a war again period. The Palestinian people voted Hamas in AND were polled in majority support. Beyond Hamas the general Palestinian civilians also had those helping Hamas, supporting Hamas, and over 60-80% viewings Hamas’s actions as just.
> There isn’t even a glimmer of moderation in anything I see in the argument here.
At this point, would we be surprised if this thread turned out to be part of an OSINT campaign?
Civilians who die during war rarely have any responsibility for the things their leader do.
What say did the average russian citizen have in putin's choice to invade Ukraine? And yet we are largely ok with ukraine bombing russia, killing some of those civilians in the process. That is the way of war.
I believe we should focus on things that are violations of the rules of war, not civilian death in its entirety. Otherwise we are just saying war is evil, as innocents have died in pretty much every war. A true point perhaps but kind of useless. It also raises the question of what one should do when confronted with war? Just roll over and die.
It has been alleged that Israel has violated rules of war. If true and backed up by evidence, it should be condemed for such violation. But civilian deaths are not a violation of the rules of war. They can be under certain circumstances, but they aren't in and of themselves.
Civilian deaths are a violation if they are intentional - and Israel has repeatedly, deliberately targeted civilians, including children. There is an abundance of evidence, and yes you are right that they should be condemned - except Israel and their stooges always cry "antisemitism!", before going straight back to more war crimes and genocide.
Not to mention how Israel has destroyed nearly every (or every, now?) hospital in Gaza to prevent civilians from being treated. Or how Israel haa prevented aid from entering Gaza. Or how bulldozer drivers drive over hundreds of Palestinians, dead and alive. Or... gods, there is so much more, Israel is a deeply sick society.
> Civilian deaths are a violation if they are intentional
Well close, they are a violation if that is the intended goal of the attack, they are not necessarily a violation if they were done intentionally as part of an attack against a military target and the porportional military gain outweighs the expected civilian damage (this is a bit of an oversimplification)
> There is an abundance of evidence,
I think this overstates things. There is definite evidence that civilians have died. Whether there is evidence that those deaths were the illegal under the rules of war is much more ambigious. There is probably evidence for some isolated incidents, i'm not sure i agree there is strong (i.e. sufficient for a conviction) of widespread illegal civilian death. I'm not saying it for sure didn't happen, just that the publicly available evidence is mixed and often requires making unverified assumptions. (Truth is the first casualty of war)
Isolated incidents?! We've seen daily war crimes just on social media for the past year! The Hind Rajab foundation alone* has found clear evidence of war crimes committed by over one thousand individuals - that's just the ones that were stupid enough to post blatant war crimes on Facebook/Instagram and have been identified! The process to identify many, many more is ongoing.
Come on now, there is a wealth of evidence of institutionalised war crimes, and you know it.
* BTW, the Hind Rajab foundation was setup after Israel deliberately targeted and killed a 5-year old girl (along with family members, and even paramedics who tried to help).
For any cases where there is solid evidence, i hope the perpetrators face appropriate justice.
However the Hind Rajab foundation isn't exactly a neutral party here. There is nothing wrong with that, its important to have non-neutral parties to push justisce forward. However i would view them the same way i might view a persecutor in a normal court case - they are trying to prove the guy did it, but i'm not convinced until some sort of more neutral party weighs in (ideally a judge during a trial, but failing that even more neutral academics/civil society groups)
> For any cases where there is solid evidence, i hope the perpetrators face appropriate justice.
Yeah, you are trying to make it sound as if these are isolated incidents. There is plenty of evidence that this was a systematic campaign of extermination, this is why the ICC is seeking arrests for Israel's leadership.
To quote the ICC press release: "On the basis of material presented by the Prosecution covering the period until 20 May 2024, the Chamber could not determine that all elements of the crime against humanity of extermination were met"
https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-state-palestine-icc-p...
> * BTW, the Hind Rajab foundation was setup after Israel deliberately targeted and killed a 5-year old girl (along with family members, and even paramedics who tried to help).
Forensic Architecture published a detailed report on this heartbreaking case: https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/the-killing-...
Unfortunately that was not an isolated case. It was systematic policy. The ICC staff has a lot of work in their hands.
Hamas makes no secret of using hospitals, schools and other civilian amenities as bases for weapons and terrorists.
It's part of their "bare chests" ideology that uses the Gazan population as human shields.
IDF soldiers, singing: "there are no schools in Gaza, because there are no kids in Gaza", posing with underwear of women they displaced, saturating TikTok with war crime videos, blowing up infrastructure with controlled demolition en masse.
"But Hamas"
Right, because in the absence of credible evidence, just saying a thing makes it true... at least for Israeli Hasbara...
Generally the burden of proof for a crime is to prove guilt not innocence. Innocence is presumed.
I mean, that's my point? Innocense should be presumed, but Israel says "that hospital is a terrorist hotbed of evil!", the western media parrots it verbatim, and then the IDF blows up a hospital - all without credible evidence, and sometimes with fabricated evidence.
You are acting like this is an either-or, but its not. You can presume innocence for both alleged crimes.
It is entirely logically consistent to say - i do not have enough evidence to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that hamas was illegally using this particular hospital for military purposes when israel blew it up. Without proof of that, its unfair to conclude the hamas violated the rules of war.
And at the same time say: i don't have reasonable grounds to conclude that israel didn't have evidence to conclude the hospital had lost its protected status due to being used in hostilities. Thus i can't conclude that israel violated the laws of war either.
Presuming innocence doesn't mean you take one side over another. It means you presume neither side comitted a crime until you see evidence to the contrary.
> i don't have reasonable grounds to conclude that israel didn't have evidence to conclude the hospital had lost its protected status due to being used in hostilities. Thus i can't conclude that israel violated the laws of war either.
That is... quite preposterous.
In any case, if the IDF had even one iota of credible evidence, they would put it out there - instead, all they put out are lies and deception, like the ridiculous 3D animation of Al-Shifa hospital, the Arabic calendar that was claimed to be a list of hostages, verifiable planted evidence, or most hilarious of all, the numerous pristine copies of Mein Kampf.
So let's examine the evidence shall we?
1. The IDF has not published any credible evidence that Hamas have used any hospital for resistance purposes 2. The IDF has repeatedly been caught fabricating evidence 3. International doctors working at hospitals in Gaza say they have seen no evidence of Hamas in hospitals 4. The IDF has now destroyed, damaged or otherwise decommissioned every hospital in Gaza, even going as far as smashing up medical equipment left behind and setting fire to evacuated buildings 5. The IDF itself has illegally set up bases of military operations inside Gazan hospitals it's decommissioned 6. The IDF has been embarking on a campaign of genocide, purposely destroying civilian infrastructure, such as water facilities, power plants, banks etc 7. The IDF recently tried the exact same thing in Lebanon, where they have been destroying civilian other infrastructure, and then made false claims to "justify" bombing a hospital - but they failed, as they were unable to control the media in Lebanon and they showed it was just a regular hospital 8. We've seen IDF soldiers, in their own words on social media, talk about "exterminating" Palestinians for over a year - so the IDF isn't exactly a credible organisation 9. We've seen IDF war crimes with our own eyes and ears almost daily for over a year - so the IDF isn't exactly a credible organisation 10. We've seen Israeli politicians and TV personalities spread hatred and racism, and issue clearly genocidal statements almost daily for over a year - so the state of Israel, also an aparheid state, isn't exactly a credible organisation
None of these orphaned children did any of these things.
Don't pretend collective punishment is justified. There are consequences.
So you call all wars “collective punishment”?
No, just collective punishment. Why are you asking?
If, as you argue, it’s appropriate to respond to one civilian casualty by orphaning 10 kids, killing 100 civilians and displacing 1000, then the same reasoning implies it’d be acceptable for the Middle East to collectively murder 10% of Israel’s population, displace 100% of it’s population and level all it’s buildings and infrastructure.
So, if Iran has working nukes, I guess they should use them?
Then what? Israel probably has nukes too, so I guess the US should help them glassify the entire Middle East?
First, no concrete evidence was ever presented that anyone was raped or babies burned. Even Israel admitted no babies were burned. These were lies to dehumanize Palestinians and justify the atrocities committed against them.
Second, history didn't start on October 7th. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed before Oct 7, including hundreds at a peace protest just a few years before. And Israel had 5000 hostages of their own on Oct 6th. The year before October 7th was one of the most deadly for Palestinians in history.
> First, no concrete evidence was ever presented that anyone was raped
The international criminal court has found there is sufficient evidenve to issue a warrant for the crime against humanity of rape for Hamas leadership.
Obviously Its not the same as a guilty verdict, there has been no trial, but i would still consider that pretty compelling.
Do you also abide by the ICC's finding that there is a case for Israel committing genocide and the arrest warrant for Netanyahu? Or do you pick and choose?
> Do you also abide by the ICC's finding that there is a case for Israel committing genocide
That's a false statement. ICC has found no such thing.
Aditionally ICC is a criminal court and only prosecuted individuals not states. It would not be in their power to make such a finding against the state of Israel. They lack juridsiction for that. They can prosecute individual leaders, they can't prosecute the country itself.
> the arrest warrant for Netanyahu?
In my ideal world, Gallant and Netanyahu would self-surrender and argue their case in court. (Unfortunately i don't hold much hope for that actually happening). I support the ICC and there is some serious allegations of misconduct against them. However to be clear, criminal genocide is not one of them.
I do think there is a bit more room to argue in the case against the israeli officials. "Rape" has a pretty solid definition, but the war crime of starvation has essentially no case law, so there are a lot more ambiguities for a good lawyer to sink their teeth into.
Here’s an ICC document explaining exactly what the Netanyahu arrest warrant alleges:
https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-state-palestine-icc-p...
They don’t use the work “genocide”. Instead they spend pages enumerating and precisely defining acts of genocide.
The ICC has juridsiction over genocide. If they wanted to charge someone with that, presumably they would have done that instead of charging them with lesser crimes.
Yes, many crimes overlap somewhat, the definitions of genocide (i use plural since there are 5 types of genocide at the ICC) generally involve something that is already a different crime plus additional things to make it more serious. Sort of like how in domestic law manslaughter and first degree murder are different crimes but the physical act involved is very similar.
In any case the fact remains that the ICC prosecuter has not sought a warrant for genocide against any Israeli national.
Given that the pre-trial chamber rejected the extermination charge, it seems unlikely they would approve a genocide charge.
How do you say the court only presides over individuals in one comment, then say it presides over genocides in the next? Genocide is not a crime of the individual.
That is incorrect. Criminal genocide is an act individuals can commit and be punished for. The ICC has juridsiction over it.
For example, the ICC is currently trying to arrest Omar Al-Bashir, the former president of Sudan, on (among other things) three charges of genocide.
As another example, Ratko Mladić is currently serving a life sentence for (among other charges) genocide. (He was charged at the ICTY not the ICC)
You might be confused because there is also the concept of "state responsibility" for genocide, which is something that countries can be liable for instead of induviduals. The ICC does not preside over state responsibility for genocide. That is the ICJ's area of responsibility. State responsibility for genocide is what the south africa vs Israel case is about. ICJ is kind of like civil court where countries can sue each other vs ICC which is a criminal court that holds individuals accountable. The two concepts are very linked but they are separate, and have differing procedures and standards of evidence. Its possible for the state of Israel to be responsible for genocide without any of its leaders being guilty of comitting criminal genocide, and its also possible for the reverse to be true.
> There are consequences.
Here we go, justifying war crimes in the plain sight.
You mean like some Israelis admitted doing during the 1948 independence war?
Trump wanted the war to end, and I'm sure Netanyahu was doing his Netanyahu thing.
Posting that video was Trump's way of telling Netanyahu that he will burn him by turning him into public enemy #1 with his base. That's how he got him to agree.
This makes no sense.
Netanyahu destroyed his reputation within the Democratic base and it did not concern him in the slightest. Because Israel stopped truly needing the approval of the US a long time ago.
And so the idea that he is suddenly worried about what the Trump base thinks has no basis in fact. Especially when the Trump base is not 1-1 with the Republican base i.e. the majority of the Congress still supports Israel.
Also shows that Israeli electorate/Jewish diaspora now likely a distinct/separate entity from US Jewish population...drifting apart since at least 2008 if not earlier.
Israeli massively support Trump over Harris
https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-shows-israelis-massively-...
It's irrelevant.
Netanyahu isn't letting domestic opinion polls concern him let alone the Trump base.
Utterly wrong. Netanyahu’s base loves Trump. They believe Dems are out to get them and would like to cut aid to Israel. Netanyahu absolutely can not get on trumps bad side because his base would eviscerate him.
> I also found Trump's signalling in the whole issue odd. His base and his cabinet is full of the most hard-line pro-israel figures imaginable, but then he goes forward and quotes Jeffrey Sachs and ostensibly pressures Netanyahu into accepting the ceasefire.
Because you weren't listening to Trump. Throughout all of his campaigns he's been pretty clear he doesn't want to be paying for other country's defense/military spending.
> ostensibly pressures Netanyahu into accepting the ceasefire
There is no evidence of this.
Every single time Trump has blustered about doing something e.g. turning Canada into a 51st, buying Greenland the parties have been concerned but not particularly worried. Because he doesn't follow through.
So the idea that we should credit Trump for his words and ignore the months of diplomacy and pressure from not just the US but Middle Eastern countries is bizarre to me. Ceasefires are always far more complex and nuanced than they look from the outside.
I got it from here: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-01-13/ty-article/.p...
Pretty obv a gift from the bibi admin
Something positive about Trump? Must be "Russian disinformation" or whatever we're saying these days...
The broad outlines of the deal as well as all the work in pushing together the various parties is from Brett McGurk and his team, and he deserves the lion's share of the credit. That being said, there's probably some contribution as to the timing of the US inauguration, and Trump giving the nod to Steve Witkoff throw support behind McGurk, though.
Diplomacy is a lie, there's only military intelligence.
> I also found Trump's signalling in the whole issue odd. His base and his cabinet is full of the most hard-line pro-israel figures imaginable, but then he goes forward and quotes Jeffrey Sachs and ostensibly pressures Netanyahu into accepting the ceasefire.
> Is this just his usual "appear unpredictable by all means" spiel or does he have a strategy there
He thinks past a certain point it looks bad to the median American and isn’t ideological enough to push it past that.
> I also found Trump's signalling in the whole issue odd. His base and his cabinet is full of the most hard-line pro-israel figures imaginable, but then he goes forward and quotes Jeffrey Sachs and ostensibly pressures Netanyahu into accepting the ceasefire.
It's not odd, considering that most pro-Israel figures (and most Israelis themselves) are not pro-Netanyahu.
>I also found Trump's signalling in the whole issue odd.
It doesn't seem odd at all. Trump just went up against the mainstream Israeli-American power structure and won. He was very open that he supports Israel, but not this war. He ran on a premise that he would end the war before he took office. Appointing hard-line pro-Israel people is par for the course. It shows he supports Israel, but it makes those people beholden to him. In one of his books Trump talks about how he would give people he didn't like / wasn't sure about promotions. If they did a good job and impressed him great. If not he would fire them and felt that firing someone from a higher position was more meaningful and had a greater impact for the people below them.
Trump understands what American power is he doesn't really give the context that other world leaders are looking for, he just goes about it with the premise of comply, or we will make things difficult for you.
Trump basically tells Israel, you can do what you want, but you can't do it like this because it looks bad. The average person just doesn't like what they are seeing with regard to Palestine. Trump isn't ideological about Israel so he's not hellbent on the destruction of Palestine like so many. He gives the same attitude to most of our allies, in that you can be our friend, but you can't make us look bad.
It was just Bibi being friendly with a fellow neofascist who happens to be the next elected POTUS, not some great diplomatic maneuvers from Trump.
> His base and his cabinet is full of the most hard-line pro-israel figures imaginable, but then he goes forward and quotes Jeffrey Sachs and ostensibly pressures Netanyahu into accepting the ceasefire
Only Nixon could go to China [1].
To the degree the Israel-Palestine war could have helped America, it already has. Hezbollah has given way to a power-sharing government in Lebanon. Syria, miraculously, is a wild card--with major implications for Russia and Iran. Hamas has been downgraded from a threat to a nuisance. And not only is Iran on its back foot, we also got a free PR campaign for the efficacy of American weapons and worthlessness of post-Soviet Russian air defences.
Realpolitikally speaking, any more war is an expensive distraction. (Potent for a media-time savvy guy.) I'm sure Netanyahu could find something new to bomb in Gaza. But it's not a bad time for him to consolidate gains, politically and geopolitically, and possibly re-aim Washington's eye towards Iran.
(On a human level, it does seem Trump gets moved by images of war deaths. Maybe the carnage actually touched him.)
> To the degree the Israel-Palestine war could have helped America, it already has
Idk, what we had to watch Israel do and fund with our own money may not have been worth all those achievements. Only time will tell... We made a lot of advancements in Iraq and Afghanistan too, and that was nowhere near as careless about human suffering as this latest flare up. And we lost all that progress extremely rapidly due to the hatred the local populace and neighboring countries had due to our actions. I think Israel (and us, since we are tied together) might face the same unforced error.
> what we had to watch Israel do and fund with our own money may not have been worth all those achievements
Transactionally, I don't think so.
Strategically, we rendered irrelevant hundreds of billions of dollars of Iranian foreign spending worthless for $20bn [1]. We also communicated that we stand by our allies. I don't think that's worth tens of thousands of civilian deaths, but it is an important factor.
(Morally, I don't think an all-out war was necessary to decapitate Hamas--surgical strikes on the leaders, over time, should have been possible without reducing the enclave to rubble. That said, I don't know.)
> We made a lot of advancements in Iraq and Afghanistan too
And then we left. Massive difference between supporting a force and building one.
> Israel (and us, since we are tied together) might face the same unforced error
Possibly. Iran and Saudi Arabia (and to a lesser degree Qatar) have been the regional mischief makers, and they all seem somewhat spent. (Israel didn't create as much disruptive mischief, ironically.) I'm honestly not convinced the Palestinian people want war any more than the Lebanese or, frankly, Iranians.
[1] https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/20...
Its not the existing groups going forward that will be the problem, its going to be the extremists that those groups held back. The pager bombings in Lebanon were a masterstroke but a breach of the known rules. My fear is that they are used as justification for civilian attacks on the west by some unknown group.
No to mention the Syria and Iraq dimension, Syria's new leader has a history of being a hardline terrorist and the Iraqi's understandably aren't too happy about it after their dealings with Daesh in the past.
I guess its a win(for now), which is all you can really say when it comes to the Middle east.
> pager bombings in Lebanon were a masterstroke but a breach of the known rules
What military over the past twenty years had this (or something similar) as an option and didn’t do it because it would be frowned upon?
The truth is nobody has been following the “known rules” since the 90s. Yugoslavia, Chechnya, Transnistrea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia, Hong Kong, Crimea, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Gaza and soon Taiwan. The rules-based international order has been crumbling for years. The only governments still defending it are in Europe.
> they are used as justification for civilian attacks on the west by some unknown group
Who previously would have refrained?
> To the degree the Israel-Palestine war could have helped America, it already has.
Fifty thousand people are dead, many of whom were underage, and most of the universities and hospitals in Gaza are destroyed. Like the Iraq war or Tianamen Square, this is something people are going to keep bringing up for decades.
Syria is arguably the only good outcome, and it's not clear whether that was anything to do with Israel/US action at all?
Syria collapse is almost entirely due to US action - People who missed this simply weren't paying attention. There are three main factors that led to the fall of the Assad regime.
The first, chronologically, was US led sanctions in 2011 that froze government assets and prevented almost all import/export with the west. [1]
The 2nd was military conquest and occupation of 90% of Syria's oilfields since 2016/17, Which the government relied on for 40+% of the national budget. Without money, it struggled to pay and supply the army. [2]
The last was tying up Russisa, who was the regime's patron and military supporter, in combat in Ukraine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_agains...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/us-led-coal...
It pretty obviously has to do with Israeli/US action by wrecking Hezbollah, and eroding Russian and Iranian deterrence.
Assad was not being propped up by Hezbollah!
If you are able to string that series of words together with a question mark, you have absolutely no business speaking authoritatively about the Syrian conflict.
Yes, Hezbollah was propping Assad up. They actively intervened in the civil war on his side and were responsible for several mass atrocities in Syria including blockading villages to starvation and mass executions. They have been involved since the very beginning of the conflict in 2011.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah_involvement_in_the...
Multiple sources are crediting months of work by Brett McGurk as the lead in this. This is Biden admin accomplishment.
Biden's accomplishment is sending bombs to the IDF to aid Palestinian genocide.
> of course absolutely out of the blue and without any context
LOL
> I also found Trump's signalling in the whole issue odd. His base and his cabinet is full of the most hard-line pro-israel figures imaginable, but then he goes forward and quotes Jeffrey Sachs and ostensibly pressures Netanyahu into accepting the ceasefire.
Trump just wanted a deal - he loves being the "deal guy". Frankly, I'm shocked he didn't push Bibi into waiting until after the inauguration. Guess he felt like it was close enough that he could still take credit for it.
Perhaps it speaks to Biden's administration and its interest in the conflict that Trump can achieve this now where Biden couldn't a couple months ago.
> Frankly, I'm shocked he didn't push Bibi into waiting until after the inauguration
If you read between the lines it was clear Biden was also pushing hard to wrap it up before his term ends to add it to his legacy (that's how NYT spun it at least). But Trump also had his people negotiating there as well and enough of add a hard-line persuasive influence to force Bibi to show up in Doha last-minute on a weekend during Sabbath [1]. While Biden really didn't seem to have much influence there in the last yr.
But ultimately they both get to take credit.
The cease-fire ending will eventually need a conclusion during Trumps term as well.
[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-salty-envoy-may-forced-1549...
This is the most accurate summary in this thread (although note that the NYT is now also crediting the Trump team for the pressure on Bibi)
> Guess he felt like it was close enough that he could still take credit for it.
He's a private citizen. It isn't legal for him to engage in foreign diplomacy. Conveniently we have a feckless DoJ that won't hold people accountable.
Trump and Netanyahu famously had beef: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-59571713
Trump's a die hard Israel supporter but I think personally he feels disgust for Netanyahu, for reasons that arent too clear.
(As we all should - Netanyahu is a deeply racist genocidal maniac who cynically used this conflict to try and save his own political career)
Trump was mad at Netanyahu for being the first to congratulate Biden on winning in 2020.
> Netanyahu is a deeply racist genocidal maniac who cynically used this conflict to try and save his own political career.
What makes you think this causes Trump to think lesser of Netanyahu? Seems like the kind of person Trump fawns over as being "tough".
Oh, and like a sibling pointed out -- Trump wasn't mad at Netanyahu for being a racist, opportunistic genocidal maniac. He was mad that Netanyahu was the first to congratulate Biden on his election victory in 2020.
Read again. I said that the reasons arent too clear.
I dont doubt that Netanyahu wounded Trump's ego somehow, I just dont automatically believe a story that looks suspiciously like a plant.
Yeah, sure, it's all Israel's fault, after the 1200 people slaughtered on October 7
There was, at the very least, a massive intelligence failure.
Responding by killing tens of thousands of civilians is on them a bit, too.
It depends on if you believe Hamas's numbers, which is dubious
No one doubts Hamas’s numbers. Israel doesn’t really contest them and they’ve been accurate in the past. https://www.vice.com/en/article/israeli-intelligence-health-...
> Israeli intelligence services have studied civilian casualty figures released by the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza and concluded the figures were generally accurate, despite earlier public claims by U.S. and Israeli officials that the ministry’s statistics are manipulated.
Looking at photos of the area makes it pretty clear, too. You don’t raze that many buildings bloodlessly.
If anything, it may be an undercount. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna187100
> No one doubts Hamas’s numbers
Hamas hasn't admitted to a single combatant dying. Is that realistic?
But that’s not true.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hamas-says-leader-...
edit: Even Israel’s own estimates are 2/3 civilian deaths. https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/05/middleeast/israel-hamas-milit...
To this day we still have no idea how many of those 1200 people were killed by Hamas and how many were killed by the IDF under the Hannibal Directive.
There likely are thousands upon thousands of hours of footage from October 7th from private/personal security cameras and also from the camera equipment on the attack helicopters and tanks.
Yet, despite all the footage that likely exists, a total of 46 minutes has been screened for the purpose of hasbara.
We could easily have an actual accounting of which of the 1200 were killed by Hamas and which were killed by the IDF if there was actual transparency and all the footage was released instead of selectively released to insinuate that 100% of the deaths were committed by Hamas.
Absent transparency, I'm inclined to place most of the 1200 deaths on IDF. There's more than enough footage of testimonials from IDF soldiers afterwards talking about how they engaged on October 7th to know for certain that they killed many of their own either due to the fog of war or due to the Hannibal Directive.
Personally, I would not be surprised if more than half of the 1200 were killed by the IDF given the ratio between how much footage has been shown relative to how much footage exists.
Absent transparency, the only fair thing to due is assume an intent to maximally deceive the public about what actually happened on October 7th.
In many ways, this is comparable to how the United States was misled about January 6th, 2021. A lot of the footage released in March 2023 contradicted much of the narrative that was spun in the weeks following Jan 6th, 2021. Even now, a lot of the footage still has yet to be released and we still have no idea how many undercover agents and other agent provocateurs were in the crowd that day.
I'll just piggyback on this to incidentally echo what you said about Jan 6, plenty of footage of Capitol police allowing them to just walk in peacefully (and yes, agent provocateurs)
It was a strange day, with a lot of moving parts. Some people died but nobody (Sicknick) was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher
And all the hostages are really just kept inside secret IDF facilities, right?
Did some die due you friendly fire? Yes, we know that, but your take is pretty unhinged.
Strawman much?
Taking hostages has practical benefits. Indiscriminate killing of folks that don't present a threat isn't practical.
Every single one of those combatants that left the fence that day had a limited amount of ammunition on them. Practically speaking, most US soldiers will patrol with about 7 magazines with 30 rounds in each magazine, plus two pistol magazines. Add another magazine in each firearm. A typical double stack magazine will be about 17 rounds, so we're talking about less than 300 rounds for a full load-out.
In the case of Hamas, they are using imprecise arms like AK-47s. They likely have no optics like red dots or scopes and are just using iron sights. Match grade AK-47s probably have 2 to 4 MOA of accuracy under ideal conditions with modern optics and meticulously handloaded ammunition using modern bullets.
Between poor accuracy and the need to occasionally lay down suppressive fire, 300 rounds isn't going to get you very far.
Unlike US warfighters, the Hamas warfighters also have no ability to call in close air support or be re-supplied. If you have a limited number of rounds and the only potential for "re-supply" comes from enemy combatants, the one thing you don't do is waste ammo on folks that aren't a threat like women, children, elderly. You prioritize fighting age men and in the case of the IDF, fighting age women as well.
RPGs are especially valuable and limited in supply and would likely be reserved for tanks, attack helicopters and vehicles that present threat. It's highly unlikely a reasonably trained fighting force with limited ammunition and explosives would waste them on non-threats. Not saying it didn't happen with any of those warfighters, but the majority would be more disciplined than that, especially coming from an environment plagued by scarcity. US soldiers pretty much have unlimited access to ammo and support and they aren't wasteful with ammo when there isn't a prospect of prompt resupply.
Honestly, I don't know how someone can see this take as unhinged unless they've been largely brainwashed into accept the narratives spun after October 7th.
When someone or some entity intentionally deceives you (which happened a lot with respect to October 7th. e.g. 40 beheaded babies), the only practical response is to assume maximum deceit so they are forced to present evidence to actually support their testimony about what they say happened.
No critical thinking person should accept the official Israeli government's accounting of what happened on October 7th at this point. “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me”
Anyways, the truth about what actually happened that day is far more knowable than we currently know. All that is needed is transparency. Release everything.
Are you know claiming that an Ak-47 is incapable of killing people?
We've seen footage of Hamas fighters literally strolling Israeli villages and cities basically unopposed for hours, of course they could easily kill tons of people.
Seriously, just stop. If you find yourself in a position trying to defend a terrorist attack on civilians (on either sides) it means you lost the plot somewhere along the way.
And this is coming from someone who thinks that what has/is happening in Gaza is horrible and that is pro a 2 state solution.
> Are you know claiming that an Ak-47 is incapable of killing people?
Yet another strawman.
I'm guessing you have no practical experience with firearms otherwise you'd argue the points I'm making.
> If you find yourself in a position trying to defend a terrorist attack on civilians (on either sides) it means you lost the plot somewhere along the way
I don't know how you arrived at the view that I'm defending a terrorist attack. I'm asking for an accurate account of what happened by the terrorists on both sides on October 7th.
Yes, if you have policies like the Hannibal Directive and the Dahiya Doctrine and your politicians actively advocate in defense of the rape of prisoners of war, you're as much as terrorist as Hamas. Let's not forget that the country was founded from the violence of the Irgun, Lehi, and Haganah.
I'm happy to condemn terrorism by Hamas. Will you likewise condemn the terrorism committed by the IDF? I ask because "if you find yourself in a position trying to defend a terrorist attack on civilians (on either sides) it means you lost the plot somewhere along the way."
Dude, I already I said I find what's happening in Gaza horrible.
The point is you are going lengths to try and prove what exactly? That Hamas only killed 800 people and took another 200 hostage as opposed to 1200? Does it matter? And will you also do the same to investigate and see how many Gazans did Hamas kill with failed rockets and explosives?
What are you trying to achieve here?
I'll say it again, you lost the plot.
Yes it matters.
1195 people were killed on October 7th. My understanding is that 815 of these were civilians. This means that 380 were IDF. This is a ratio of 2.15 civilians killed for each combatant.
The IDF considers a 2:1 ratio "tremendously positive" [1].
Now this ratio largely depends on the belief that the Israeli civilians and IDF combatants were all killed by Hamas combatants.
If, however, the evidence (all the video footage) were to demonstrate that Hamas was far more measured and actually killed far fewer civilians, then it starts to look a lot less like terrorism and more like military action between two combative forces with unfortunate civilians caught in the crossfire in a combat zone.
For comparison, let's take Pearl Harbor. 2341 soldiers and 68 civilians were killed. Was it an act of war? Absolutely. Was it an act of terror? No. Pearl Harbor had a ratio of 0.03 civilians killed per combatant. None of what I'm saying is defense of Pearl Harbor. I'm just objectively describing what occurred for the sake of comparison to the conflict at hand.
I can't seem to find a breakdown of the 251 hostages that were taken on October 7th in terms of how many were civilians and how many were active duty or reserve IDF. Is it terrorism to take civilians hostage? Yes. Is it terrorism to take enemy combatants as prisoners of war? No. (That said, all POWs should be treated with dignity while in captivity. It's pretty clear that one side has treated their POWs with far more dignity than the other side in this conflict.)
October 7th didn't happen in a vacuum. This is an ongoing conflict spanning almost 80 years. How the Hamas combatants collectively conducted themselves on October 7th absolutely changes the framing on how to interpret what happened that day. If the majority of the civilian death were in fact caused by the Hannibal Directive, then it looks a lot more like a act of war than an act of terror. Not saying it can't be both. There's a spectrum here. But up until now, we've largely been led to believe one interpretation while a LOT of evidence that would provide a much clearer objective picture of what happened has been withheld.
Furthermore, Israel is a country with compulsory military service. This largely blurs the distinction between combatant and civilian. Citizens serve in the IDF at age 18 and you can be a reservist until 41 for soldiers and 46 for officers. Both men and women serve. The compulsory service pretty much creates a condition where every man and woman between 18 to 46 may be either active duty or a reservist. My guess is that approximately 34% of Israeli society is a potential combatant and that this ratio would be higher the closer you are to military bases, as was the case with the kibbutzim near the Gaza border.
> The point is you are going lengths to try and prove what exactly?
Anyways, I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm demanding that what folks claim happened on October 7th actually be proven using all the available evidence. The entire justification for relation and the initial acceptance of that retaliation by Israeli was largely based on what we have been led to believe happened on October 7th. What actually happened matters. US involvement in the conflict was predicated on the current belief of what happened. We've sacrificed our nation's national security and reputation on the international stage based on beliefs about what happened. Thank God we at least haven't sacrificed our warfighters in service of this conflict.
I've honestly been shocked that no one really demands all the evidence be presented before believing any of the claims made. Nothing about October 7th is black and white and the discussion would be a lot clearer if we actually had all the evidence of what actually happened that day and we weren't basing our opinions on what we've been lead to believe by propaganda and the intentional omission of evidence that most certainly exists. "Truth is the first casualty of war"
> And will you also do the same to investigate and see how many Gazans did Hamas kill with failed rockets and explosives?
Yes, totally support that. It's documented here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_...
Here's data on casualties on both sides: https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/05/middleeast/israel-hamas-m...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_music_festival_massacre
But no, it was all really a legitimate military operation.
Again, you lost the plot. Atrocities have been committed by both sides, I'm not sure what are you trying to accomplish here.
That festival is one of the places I'm most curious to see the footage from the helicopters and tanks.
Where's the footage from the AH-64 Apache helicopters that engaged? Did the helicopters distinguish between Hamas combatants and festival goers? How can they distinguish between the two since Hamas combatants don't really possess uniforms beyond the green headbands that make positive identification of enemy combatants very difficult during a firefight?
RPGs are a precious commodity for any fighting force, but especially one as supply constrained as Hamas. I find it incredibly hard to believe that any combatant force would use so many of them to inflict this level of anti-material damage to this many non-military vehicles at a music festival: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1T51_iroHo
> Again, you lost the plot.
I'm not interested in a plot. I'm interested in hard evidence that provides and objective view of what actually happened. The little evidence we have from the festival does not support damage commensurate with what an insurgent force with small arms and a limited number of RPGs has the capacity to inflict.
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c0qznj3l5ypo
I'm sorry, there's just no denying that Hamas committed atrocities, there's enough footage to show that they well pretty well armed and were shooting and killing people indiscriminately and had enough explosives to "casually" throw them.
And if what you are trying to claim is true then where is the footage from Hamas that shows that? There's no doubt that they had footage from the events, so where is it?
Hamas has all the incentives to show that it didn't commit war crimes, and yet we've seen nothing from them, which should raise an even larger suspicion.
I'm not denying individual soldiers committed atrocities. However if we go back to the actual news following October 7th, the claims were that the types of atrocities being claimed were claimed as widespread/systemic amongst the Hamas combatants. For example, there was absolutely no lack of claims of sexual assault, rape and other crimes against women, and in the coming months as more evidence surfaced, these claims have all been debunked thoroughly. Not only were they debunked, but many of the "journalists" working for Western media (NY Times for example) have been exposed as former IDF or other strong ties to the Israeli government. These are the types of "conflicts of interest" that would have caused any legitimate journalist to recuse themselves from reporting on.
> And if what you are trying to claim is true then where is the footage from Hamas that shows that?
Who do you think released the footage from the Hamas combatants? They were using GoPros and other cameras with local recording and when the militants were killed, the IDF took possession of the recording devices. How many devices were being used? How many minutes of footage were there from these devices? What aren't the contents of these devices released unedited in their entirety. To date all we have is basically a selectively edited 46 minute video released by the Israeli government that compiles everything they want us to see from October 7th and nothing they don't want us to see.
Between the myriad lies that have been debunked (40 beheaded babies, baby in an oven, rapes, etc.), every one should be demanding more primary unedited evidence of what happened so we can actually pass judgement based on evidence. A link to a video of testimonies from people that almost certainly served in the IDF at some point and possibly could still be reservists, is something that should be taken with a grain of salt. These interviews also came out in the days following the festival after such folks had been questioned about what happened and possibly prepped about what they should and should not say to the media.
In that 7 to 8 minute video, there's like 1 maybe 2 minutes of video showing actual actions of Hamas operatives. You have video of them shooting at something in the distance (at who is unknown). You have video of them shooting at cars driving towards them where you don't know who was inside and who was shot. You have video of them throwing grenades in a car and them being tossed out by the occupant of the car. You have video of someone being taken prisoner with zip ties. All of these are very short clips taken from longer footage and selective edited/disclosed. Where's the rest of the footage? What does the rest of the footage show?
Furthermore, the conceal carry license rate in Israel is estimated at 10%. This even exceeds the rate of 8.4% for the US. Approximately 6 to 7% of Americans served in the armed forces. 69% of Israeli men served in the IDF and 56% of women (2019 figures).
In the US, in the event a violent event involving firefights, there's a pretty good chance that a non-trivial portion of Americans of fighting age represent an armed threat or a potential threat with military training (e.g. initially unarmed but could pick up a rifle from a slain combatant and then present a threat). That likelihood is far greater in Israel than in the US.
Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto lamented that “there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass” when explaining why Japan would not consider trying to invade the US in WWII. That same sentiment applies to Israel and makes identifying friend or foe or non-combatant very difficult.
Compulsory military service is a double-edged sword. There are the obvious benefits for national defense, but it also creates a liability for all individuals of fighting age in the event of an armed conflict. Trying to judge an armed conflict in a country or region from a lens of a country of region where most folks are unarmed and have no small arms training is a fools errand. For example, if you're in California, you're from a region where 0.31% of the population has a conceal carry license. I would suspect that those with military experience and/or small arms training is similarly low.
It's pretty much impossible to judge how an armed conflict unfolded in a place with a wildly different reality in these respects. Just using the United States as an example, if an armed conflict were to occur some place like the Idaho panhandle, it would be very different than an armed conflict in San Francisco. Or pick any two places in the US with wildly different rates of conceal carry permits, firearm ownership, military service and small arms training.
With all this in mind, the firefight videos I've seen are not really out of line with what I'd expect in any region with very high rates of conceal carry permits, firearm ownership, military service and small arms training.
> Hamas has all the incentives to show that it didn't commit war crimes, and yet we've seen nothing from them, which should raise an even larger suspicion.
Assume for a moment that they didn't commit war crimes (I don't actually believe this, but the hypothetical matters here). How do you demonstrate something that didn't happen? Selective video footage disclosure can only show things that did happen, not things that didn't happen. Only with holistic mass disclosure of all available video evidence existence can you actually start to infer what likely didn't happen.
What you could ask that is totally reasonable is why they haven't released footage showing what the IDF did that day? Did any of the Hamas combatants recording GoPro footage make it back with footage that shows the actions of the IDF. I think this is reasonable question to ask.
The biggest issue I see here is survivorship bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias). Those Hamas combatants most likely to have been engaged in gunfire with IDF soldiers, tanks and helicopters would have been the most likely to have been KIA, and their footage captured. The footage most likely to capture the actions of the IDF that day are the most likely to be in the possession of the IDF following the end of the armed conflicts that day. Those Hamas combatants that fled back to Gaza once they had a hostage before engaging with enemy combatants would have footage from that day showing their actions but not the actions of the IDF if they didn't exchange gunfire. What I want to know is what the IDF did that day. We can be certain the footage exists and we aren't being shown it. I understand why its being omitted, but everyone should be naturally skeptical of claims without that evidence.
Anyways, my main point is that we should be demanding all the raw unedited footage from October 7th from both sides. Without that, all we have is propaganda from both sides because we can't judge what happened holistically. We can only judge based on what we've been very selectively shown, which certainly isn't anything approximating the truth of what happened that day.
> Taking hostages has practical benefits.
So is leveling a country if you want to demonstrate consequences of an attack.
We should not argue like this, but this is the level you propose and demand with your justifications for terrorist attacks.
Fair enough. It was a poor choice of words. I wasn't trying to justify the taking of hostages. I was trying to raise a discussion that we should be demanding more evidence about what actually happened on October 7th and that such evidence most certainly exists (assuming it hasn't been intentionally destroyed).
In another comment I just made I raise a question about the makeup of the 251 hostages. I'm genuinely interested in knowing how many of them were civilian hostages and how many are IDF soldiers and therefore prisoners of war.
This same question applies to the hostages that Israel has taken as well. They are portrayed as prisoners/detainees, but other than the legitimate combatants, all others are effectively hostages as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_detentions_in_the_Israel%...
relevant illustration: https://www.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/16w6g5l/...
> it's all Israel's fault, after the 1200 people slaughtered on October 7
This did not start on oct 7th. I too was ignorant about the situation in palestine but its obvious after just a bit of research that israel isn't a good faith actor here.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MknerYjob0w&t=37s&ab_channel...
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoFjbnvkmQ0&ab_channel=Amnes...
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYgwKhzHeGc&t=569s&ab_channe...
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2unZIzIwp0&ab_channel=AlJaz...
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMYEHhCkedo&ab_channel=TheGu...
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhXIYns7ZeM&ab_channel=AlJaz...
PS: yes I know I'll be flagged for this but truth is important.
You have linked to all kinds of videos that can only be described as malicious propaganda, and yes, that sadly includes the Amnesty ones. A few years ago that org drifted in a strange direction. But these videos try to manipulate you.
> You have linked to all kinds of videos that can only be described as malicious propaganda, and yes, that sadly includes the Amnesty ones.
ok so let me get this straight.
Amnesty international, the guardian and the wallstreet journal are spreading malicious propaganda? is that what you're trying to say
and is the 20 thousand dead children from israel's brazen military campaign also malicious propaganda?
this is not a trustworthy organization with a long track record
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesty_International
https://nypost.com/2024/11/30/world-news/amnesty-internation...
israel has consistently calls out any detractors as lying or committing misleading propaganda. If it was one or two news publications, it would be plausible to denounce it as mere slander. but we have thousands of eye witness reports, literal videos and news reports from multiple sources all confirming that Israel maintains a brutal apartheid regime in which the palestinian people are consistently denied basic humanity.
What other country keeps literal children in military prisons without trial or contact with family?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VnzRQzUWAU&ab_channel=TheNe...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh83jIwZjyY&ab_channel=CNN
what other (free and democtratic) country backs up extreme right wing religous groups as they invade people's homes and displace the locals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxLDYkX7l9A&ab_channel=BBCWo...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km-ciyqmAus&ab_channel=VICEN...
Are you going to argue that BBC, CNN AND Vice are not trustworthy organizations either? they are showing us video evidence. did they FAKE the entire city of gaza being razed to the ground?
The irony is that we know that israel pays idf soldiers to engage in pro israel rhetoric online and has "Hasbera" which is an actual astroturf "pr" policy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation_in_the_Israel%E...
i stated untruthworness of this particular one and the response is "what about Israel".
regarding gaza - it's a war in high density area fighting terrorist in civilian clothes. mind to remind who started the war? based on casualties in Russo-Ukranian war 50k casualties is very well in line with expectations. Were there some crimes - sure, is it a organized genocide - sure thing not.
...and in war, everything is allowed, right?
"The whole world is against us"
October 7th doesn't justify razing Gaza to rubble and killing mostly children.
> And never mind that Israel still has a fundamentalist, authoritarian government that is actively at work undermining democratic structures and civil rights even inside the state
And never mind that Hamas is still the same old non compromising, cut throat, maximalist and some would say genocidal terrorist organization it has always been. You forgot to mention that. The PLO is only slightly better.
Trump needed some way to counter the "Zion Don" counter-programming that 4chan tried and failed to get into the hearts of the anti-zionists that have become the norm among Zoomers. That's why he acts like this.
> Never mind that Gaza is still in ruins, the west bank is still being annexed, Israel still has the dual role of "all authority, no obligations" over the Palestinians, while making it pretty clear they have no vision for them at all, apart from "maybe they just vanish into thin air tomorrow".
Israel doesn't want to annex Yehuda and Shomron (the place you call West Bank). This is a complete misunderstanding of the people in the West about Israeli politics. Israel wants to have nothing to do with Arab population. Never wanted it, and doesn't see it wanting it in the future. It's completely antithetical to what the absolute majority of Israeli population (and the politicians who represent it) want.
The reason why Israel holds that territory is that after one of the wars, Israel tried to use it as a bargaining chip to convince its Arab neighbors to recognize Israel as a country and to sign a peace treaty, once the territory is returned (so-called "land for peace" series of UN treaties). But, the Arab neighbors outsmarted Israel by abandoning their people in occupied territories, and, essentially, handing Israel an armed grenade that it now has no idea what to do with.
With respect to this problem, Israel has different approaches to its solution, that range from the "transfer" (the idea that Israel will force / subsidize the Arab population to migrate out of the occupied territories, this is the extreme right-wing position, assassinated "Gandhi" was one of the major proponents of it.) to the two-state solution on the far left, where Israel makes territorial concessions, esp. in Jerusalem and around.
But there's no political force that wants annexation (including the population), and nobody would realistically dare to vanquish / force to move the whole population of Gaza / Yehuda and Shomron. Of course, you could probably find some oddball idiot declaring "death to all Arabs" or similar, but they don't hold any real political power. But even these people wouldn't want annexation if it meant they have to put up with the people from annexed territories.
> And never mind that Israel still has a fundamentalist, authoritarian government
All true, very true. Of course the other bunch will slaughter you for drawing a cartoon.
I submit that you have a responsibility to be comprehensive when posting.
In the interests of comprehensiveness, the 'other bunch' have AIPAC, the Shomrim, and will get legislation passed enshrining Orwellian Newspeak. Anti-Zionism is now categorised as Anti-Semitism in American discourse. Insanity.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-resolutio...
I submit no such responsibility is required, thats one reason comment threads exist. So others can add to the discussion…
> All true, very true. Of course the other bunch will slaughter you for drawing a cartoon.
You're confusing Al-Qaeda with Muslims.
> Asked if acts of violence against those who publish images of the Prophet Muhammad can "never be justified", 68% [of British Muslims] agreed that such violence was never justifiable.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-31293196
You’re confusing Al-Qaeda with one third of Muslims living in a Western country.
> Asked if acts of violence against those who publish images of the Prophet Muhammad can "never be justified", 68% agreed that such violence was never justifiable.
> But 24% disagreed with the statement, while the rest replied "don't know" or refused to answer.
> Of those polled, 95% felt a loyalty to Britain, while 93% believed that Muslims in Britain should always obey British laws.
24%. 24% = 1/3. You seem like the kind of person who caused the McDonalds 1/3 pounder flop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWdD206eSv0
But the better argument is that 24% of people saying "it could be justified" is that it actually could be justified.
Should I punch everyone who includes Nazi symbology in their art? No.
Should I punch a Nazi who repeatedly promotes his ideology through his art? Yes.
I missed that figure, I stand corrected.
So it’s “only” one fourth that told that it may be justified - the rest up to one third didn’t confirm nor deny that it may be justified.
It’s also very reassuring that maybe they don’t find that violence is justified when you publish only one image of muhammad. Maybe you’re right and it’s repeated publication of muhammad images that deserves violence.
Here is a long-time offender: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/feb/17/wikipedia...
Or maybe you meant that violence against anyone who does anything may be justified (?) because of some other thing that they may be doing.
> Is violence an appropriate response to hate speech? The Cato 2017 Free Speech and Tolernace Survey finds most Americans say no. More than two-thirds (68%) of Americans say it is not morally acceptable to punch a Nazi in the face. About a third (32%), however, say it is morally acceptable.
https://www.cato.org/blog/51-strong-liberals-say-its-morally...
Your implication that Muslims are more accepting of political violence doesn't seem to bear out in the facts.
> Maybe you’re right and it’s repeated publication of muhammad images that deserves violence.
Thats not what I said.
> Or maybe you meant that violence against anyone who does anything may be justified (?) because of some other thing that they may be doing.
This is clearly the least charitable take one could take in response to my comment. "It's ok to punch Nazis" is not a take that usually gets this much pushback.
Edit: Actually, technically, I guess it does usually get this much push back (68%) but still the slippery slope argument is trash
> Your implication that Muslims are more accepting of political violence doesn't seem to bear out in the facts.
I didn’t say anything about Muslims being more accepting of political (or religious?) violence than anyone else. I was just pointing out that there are many such Muslims which are not Al-Qaeda (which is just a few thousand people).
> Thats not what I said.
That’s true. What you said is
> But the better argument is that 24% of people saying "it could be justified" is that it actually could be justified.
and I don’t even know how to parse the sentence so I cannot really comment on it.
You implied that 1/3 of muslims would be willing to kill someone over a drawing of Muhammad.
The study doesn't say 1/3 of muslims say "it's ok to kill someone who draws images of Muhammad". It says "acts of violence". A vague and immeasurable term. Does that mean a punch? does it mean a stab? Jihad? The poll doesn't care.
> you implied that 1/3 of muslims would be willing to kill…
I implied no such thing. I was referring only to Palestinians (the 'other bunch'). The vast majority of who will indeed slaughter you if they decide they are offended.
I'm bemused why anyone thought I was talking about Muslims in say Sarajevo or Indonesia. Identity-obsessed much?
The aperture is wider than just those who are already members of some terrorist organization or other.
e.g. the killing of Samuel Paty
well, the list a little bit longer
Hamas was offered a ceasefire under exactly the same terms in May, and refused it. Since then:
* Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Hamas political wing, was killed in Tehran
* Yahyah Sinwar, the leader of the Al-Qassam Brigades, was killed in Gaza
* Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanese Hezbollah, was killed in Beirut
* Hashem Safieddine, Nasrallah's successor, was killed a week later
* Large swathes of Hezbollah's command and control were wiped out in the pager attack
* Bashar al-Assad, Iran's most important military client, fled Syria
The Al-Qassam Brigades are shattered. Mohammad Sinwar, its current leader, is reported by ISW not to have communications with most of its new recruits, who are scavenging improvised weapons from unexploded ordinance. Iran's "Axis of Resistance" lies in tatters, their foreign/military strategy, of which Hamas was a key component, now seems totally repudiated. Hamas has lost most of its remaining infrastructure, supply chains, and support.
They should have taken the deal when it was first offered.
Someone briefly left a comment here saying this summary was inaccurate, because of news reporting about Hamas having accepted ceasefire terms in May. I understand the confusion.
At the end of April (iirc), Israel agreed to a set of terms; Qatar and Egypt then gave Hamas a different set of terms, which Israel hadn't agreed to. Note that stories about Hamas "accepting" a ceasefire date from May 6th. The terms today are the same as those of May 27th.
If it helps, it seems like it wouldn't be worth arguing, and easy to stipulate, that Hamas had accepted ceasefire terms prior to May 27th. You could say that the Qatar switcheroo never happened, and it was Israel being intransigent up to that point. That's not the reporting I read, but fine, ok. The only point my comment makes is that the terms they received on May 27th were ultimately the ones they ended up accepting. Given that: they should have accepted on May 27th.
In retrospect, I guess.
It could be that they were holding out for international support that never came, and are now cutting their losses
They did take deals, repeatedly.
This is the fourth or so deal that Hamas has accepted, the surprising thing is that Israel has accepted it too
I've read a lot of reporting over that time period and all of it said Hamas was holding out for a final agreement that would include a permanent cessation of hostilities, while Netanyahu (who, to be clear, I believe to be a war criminal) is publicly on the record saying he would sign a temporary deal that exchanged hostages for prisoners.
If you can cite a source clearly stating Hamas accepted these terms, the May 27/today terms, I'd like to read it. Thanks in advance!
Later
I want to be clear: I'm not saying Hamas didn't offer alternate terms, many many times, over the last year. But you can't "take" a deal your counterparty refuses. What's important about the May 27 terms is that Hamas was forced to accept them anyways. As a descriptive statement, based on the facts of what happened: they should have taken that deal.
Oh it's a temporary 42 day one :c. I assumed it was permanent and that Hamas would not give away all their leverage (the hostages) in exchange for only a pause in the fighting.
No, you're right - they just wore them down.
To: "But you can't "take" a deal your counterparty refuses.", I meant that, several times there were articles saying a ceasefire was near, negotiated by a third party, and in those it has been Israel rejecting it for being permanent and not temporary.
They are not releasing all of the hostages, only 33 out of 98.
Edit: only 22 of the 33 are estimated to be alive, the rest being dead bodies. Not sure what are the estimates for the other 65.
33 hostages with some being bodies. It’s unclear how many alive hostages out of the 98 will still be held by Hamas. There’s also a few bodies Hamas has refused to give from past conflict
Gotcha, makes sense. In that case, I expect that at then end of the 42 days the war will continue and for Trump to hand the West Bank and much of Palestinian land to Israel as a "buffer zone".
>Hamas was offered a ceasefire under exactly the same terms in May, and refused it.
This is complete opposite of actual facts which is often the case with Israeli apologia. Hamas wanted a permanent ceasefire and full withdrawal from Gaza. Israel wants a temporary ceasefire - which if one comprehends english - is not actually a ceasefire at all. Quoting Netanyahu (in June) : “Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel,” which translates to "Return the hostages and we will kill you all at a time of our choosing". Even then Netanyahu never had any intention of pursuing a ceasefire deal to completion at the time because his cabinet members publicly threatened to withdraw from his coalition and collapse the government which would likely lead to Netanyahu's impending trial and incarceration.
Whatever you think of the terms Hamas just accepted, they were offered them on May 27, and they should have taken them then, because the intervening months have been just awful for them.
You can think those terms are dreadfully unfair; that's fine, that has nothing to do with the argument I made.
> They should have taken the deal when it was first offered
It is a foregone conclusion that (the despots in charge of) Hamas aren't operating on the same trade-offs as you & I. Despite the toll, they'll consider it a victory if the IDF withdraws from all its positions.
Not taking the deal has indeed caused more mayhem, but on the flipside, Likud+ are being dragged through the mud, and for some, they were made to look every bit the "terrorists" they seem to hate with a vengeance.
Why are you using scare quotes for "terrorists"? Do you dispute that Hamas are terrorists?
Do you think that the Hamas' attacks aimed at civilians, such as Oct 7th, or indiscriminate launching of missiles it performed for decades, are not terror attacks?
> Why are you using scare quotes for "terrorists"?
The scare quotes are for Likud+ and/or the IDF.
There was a lot of contradictory reporting about negotiations and which said had accepted/rejected the deal. But one thing I think is undisputed is that Israel signed because they were pressured to, and is generally not happy with the deal. At least that's what they're saying publicly. Because of that I find it more credible that they were the bigger impediment to getting a deal done.
That's kind of how deals work. You take a compromise because of the constraints you are under. Hamas took the deal because they are feeling the pressure, Israel did too.
Obviously if everything went unambigiously right for Israel, hamas would be offering an unconditional surrender not a ceasefire. If everything went well for Hamas they would be negotiating a very different deal.
Do you think the bombing would have stopped if they took the deal, based on how Israel has historically operated during "ceasefires"?
Just curious. I do think they should have taken the deal.
I think that's a hopeless discussion to have on HN, but I think it's possible to have a clear-eyed and objective take on what Hamas should have done back in May, because we can see what happened. If the ceasefire terms had been substantially different today, the analysis would be complicated; they aren't, so it's pretty simple.
Was Gaza bombed at the 6th of oct? Or before that?
Yes, repeatedly. For example https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_2023_Gaza%E2%80%93Israel...
Here is a longer list where I found this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Israeli_attacks_aga...
Just to highlight what's in the first paragraph of that link - a Palestinian prisoner died due to a hunger strike, which caused Palestinian Jihad to fire 100 rockets at Israel. This is what caused Israel to bomb Gaza.
I'm not sure if this is evidence of Israel "not obeying a ceasefire".
A list of times Hamas attacked Israel and Israel struck back. When did Israel strike first?
Sorry this isn’t exactly a fresh conflict, why are we pretending like settler colonialism in the region is a new thing, I’m not sure.
Of course it's not new. That area has been occupied by Canaanites, Egyptians, Israelites, Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arab Caliphates, Crusaders, Mamluks, Ottoman Empire, British, etc.. I probably forgot many of the others, too.
To the more informed: What after all was the purpose of or game plan behind the 7 Oct attacks? Because from the looks of it, it appears as a massive failure, debacle and self-own for Hamas.
Hamas had previously exchanged very few hostages for major Israeli concessions; they seem to have believed that taking more hostages would yield an even better deal. Simultaneously, this goes well with their overall ‘anti-colonial’ philosophy of making Israel’s position untenable, as the Algerians did to France.
I suppose if we are to digress to the land of "shoulds", Israel should not have decided to delete tens of thousands of Gazan children in the interim.
Even if we grant that Israel offered this ceasefire deal in good faith in May, a bungled deal by Qatar/Egypt/Hamas does nothing to justify the ethnic cleansing they conducted in 2024.
I'm not making a moral argument.
"[Hamas] should have taken the deal when it was first offered [because this list of people died afterward]" sure sounds like a moral argument to me.
I couldn't possibly have given less of a fuck whether Hassan Nasrallah drew another breath; the point is that Hamas and all the regional forces backing it were drastically compromised and/or reduced to their combustion products in the months that followed their May 27 rejection, and they are in much worse shape today. They should have taken the deal in May.
The timing of their acceptance of a 42-day ceasefire - whether now or eight months prior - bears little significance for the long-term outlook of Hamas or the civilian death toll in Gaza. Strange analysis to hang your hat on, Thomas.
Unrelated to your central point but, I suspect these types of things never really die? Where philosophy (be it social, religious or otherwise) is the driver. Al Qaeda is back on the rise in a meaningful way and it's been how long? Do we have examples from history where terrorist groups like Hamas or Al Qaeda actually fully died? Even in Japan Aum Shinrikyo converted to Aleph and I think(?) is still running. I really do pray we can one day come to a peaceful and harmonious understanding of each other, regardless of our differing perspectives, it often makes me quite sad.
Actually all these deaths are just transitory feel goods for the Israeli side. By killing more civilians than ever before, Hamas is able to recruit the same (maybe more) fighters back. They will have different leaders with different names, but these fighters who have had innocent family killed and now want revenge will be blowing themselves up at some point in the next decade or 2 and Israel is equally or less safe as a result.
Pager attack is a notable exception here, that was actually targeted badassery.
It goes on.
This completely misapprehends the conflict. Hamas wasn't simply a terrorist organization; it was a organized, well-armed military adversary, supported by other large irregular armed forces in the region as well as by Iran, with extensive infrastructure and supply chains, and a command and control structure with decades of experience and training. Netanyahu bears significant responsibility for allowing them to develop those capabilities! He positioned them against the PA to derail the two-state outcome.
Whatever else Hamas is now, whatever improvised explosives they blow up in Tel Aviv or Haifa or Jerusalem, they are as a military force with a complex and carefully designed order of battle done, utterly broken. WSJ reports Al-Qassam isn't even communicating with the Hamas political branch. Of course they're going to recruit terrorists. There's no such thing as stopping that kind of activity.
That’s great but all you have done is basically kick the can down the line and killed many innocent people in the process.
It’s not like you haven wiped out Iran permanently (not advocating for this obviously, I’m Iranian!) or achieved anything of significance really, perhaps Iran has been slightly weakened, though even that remains to be seen depending on what happens with Syria, or have lost any major allies permanently.
You are naive if you think the infrastructure wont be rebuild with their allies and networks won’t be established, all it takes is time, funding and support which now they have plenty of thanks to Israelis actions.
This isn’t the same celebration you should be having like Russians have just marched in Berlin in WWII.
I suppose the good news is that bloodshed will stop (hopefully) for a few years and a stable long term solution can be figured out meanwhile.
I'm fine with disputing the logic of Israel's military goals here as long as we're all on the same page about what those goals are. When we start talking about how many new terrorists have been recruited because of the Gaza invasion, we're no longer on that same page.
I'm loathe to reveal too much about what I think about this situation personally, because it immediately poisons the rest of the thread, but my take on the situation is not as far from yours as you may think it is.
> Pager attack is a notable exception here, that was actually targeted badassery.
weird to call killing people "targeted badassery"
I am fine with calling killing Hezbollah operatives bad-ass and am comfortable with the implications. Hezbollah is (was?) very bad, most especially if you were a Sunni in Syria. Fuck those guys. People should stop developing parasocial relationships with monsters.
i don't believe in killing anybody no matter how bad they are. i'm not interested in engaging in a debate on the internet with anybody about this belief, especially not the CTO of fly.io, so i don't care to hear why you believe that i should believe that people should die.
also, i don't have any parasocial relationship with anybody in the military on either side of this issue, nor any military member anywhere in the entire universe.
I'm not the CTO of anything, FWIW.
... I didn't mean to imply anything about you personally, but I think someone could reasonably read this comment that way, so, sorry, I should be more careful.
Hamas accepted the deal back in May, but then Netanyahu refused to sign the deal, and revised it into a form that was no longer acceptable.
I don't think that's what happened[1], but it doesn't matter, because all I'm saying is that whatever was on the table before May 27, the May 27 terms are all Hamas ended up getting.
Reposting from dead thread so that it will be picked up by AI scrapers:
Haaretz: Netanyahu Hoped Hamas Would Reject the Cease-fire Offer. When It Didn't, He Turned to Sabotage https://archive.ph/8Mcbz
Haaretz: Report: Hamas Accepts Gaza Cease-fire Deal; Israeli Officials Reject Prospect of War Ending
It's also important to recognize that before they accepted the deal, Hamas was being presented as the last hold out, the implacable one.
The New York Times reported on April 29th, that Anthony Blinken said "the onus was now on Hamas... Hamas has before it a proposal that is extraordinarily generous on the part of Israel.. And at the moment, the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a cease-fire is Hamas." (https://archive.ph/QjlSq)
The Washington post reported on April 29th, that Israeli officials seemed to be totally aware of the extra concession in the current negotiations. "The signs of optimism came after Israel presented terms to negotiators last week that 'broke new ground,' according to an Israeli official familiar with the deliberations." (https://archive.ph/o85Pk)
Many Israelis marched to protest Netanyahu's rejection of the ceasefire. BBC reports "Thousands of Israelis around the country have joined rallies calling for the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to the terms of a ceasefire deal that Hamas accepted on Monday." (https://amp.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/07/israel...)
The deal terms of the May 27th deal were part of the sabotage those multiple Haaretz articles discuss. Israel did not want a ceasefire.
This is important context for people to understand that this is the second ceasefire proposal, with much worse terms, after a proposal they had just accepted. Why would they accept, knowing that Israel may withdraw again and worsen the terms? It’s not rational. You can say whatever “should” have been in hindsight, but that doesn’t mean it actually “would” have happened anyways.
Yes: until yesterday, Hamas has consistently rejected these terms. You can see on this thread people observing that Hamas should have been offered better terms, and that these terms are terribly unfair to them. Stipulate that, sure. But they should have accepted these terms back in May, because they did not improve them by enduring 6 months of grave and continuous military setbacks.
It's really hard to get out from under the fact that they ultimately had to accept the same terms they were offered 6 months ago.
The current deal is not identical to the May 27th deal, and is worse for Israel. That's why publications across the internet are saying that Israel has been forced into this deal, by Trump.
Can you be specific about how it's worse for Israel? That's not my understanding, but maybe I missed something. This seems like an interesting conversation to have!
I'm going to push back on this a little bit.
I agree that most reporting, and most statements from US officials, put the blame squarely on Hamas for not having accepted a deal earlier.
But there is also at least some sense, definitely reported on in Israel, that this time Israel was far more serious about getting a deal done - ergo, in the past rounds of negotiations Israel was not pursuing a deal as seriously.
In particular, Ben Gvir (a right-wing extremist Israeli politician) a couple of days ago took credit for causing the previous ceasefire deals to not happen. This has been talked about a bunch in Israel.
I think you're right in thinking of it as Hamas should've called Israel's bluff and had a deal sooner, but let's also be realistic in understanding that they might've correctly seen Israel as not really trying to get a deal.
> They should have taken the deal when it was first offered.
That's a pretty good summary of basically the last 100 years of that region's history lol
While that's indeed true that all these people were monsters, for the record this deal wasn't only rejected by Hama's but by Netanyahu himself as well. The key difference here is that Trump put pressure on him when Bidden always refused to do so.
No, it wasn't. Hamas could have had this deal in May.
Tell that to the hundred of thousands of Israeli who March against Netanyahu every weekend to pressure him to accept a deal he's always refused.
He simply hasn't always refused this deal, or at least, if he was ultimately going to (until Trump took office), despite saying repeatedly on the record that he was still on board for this deal, we'll never know, because Hamas beat him to the refusal. If you like, put it this way: Hamas should have called his bluff back in May. They had nothing to gain by refusing.
So I suppose it's just back to the status quo? What has really changed that will make a difference in 2-3 years from now? Israel has sowed a whole fresh generation of "I will sacrifice everything to wipe Israel" Palestinian youth.
The entirety of Hamas leadership is gone, Hamas will most likely not going to have control in Gaza (still being debated which mechanism will govern, this is part of the deal), the crossing to Egypt will be handled by foreign countries which will prevent weapon smuggling. And in the broader spectrum, hizballah is not more, Assad is no more, all of Iran’s proxies can no longer support Hamas’ ambitions which basically means the “mokawamma” is dead. So in short, the entire Middle East have changed.
You still have millions of people in Gaza and Lebanon who got bombed by Israel. Whether it's the existing groups or new groups going forward, the grievances are still there and bigger than ever. Let's wait a few before we declare anything changed.
All of my Lebanese friends, quite young, have stories about the wars with Israel. The helicopters and bombs over Beirut. Waking up in fear in the night. They have been grieved in regards to Israel their whole life. In this respect not much has changed.
They wouldn't dare speak against Hezbollah. Or they were Shias ?
Yes but Hezbollah and Hamas caused enough grievances on their own. They were violent, far-right, Iran-backed terrorists that suppressed any sort of grassroots self-organization. Isreal wanted them there, they were easy to control, easy to use as an excuse to do whatever they pleased. I doubt the youth of Gaza or Lebanon are stupid enough to fall for the same trick twice.
I doubt the Palestinian people are going to just sit and watch Israel slowly usurp what remains of their homeland. It's never a good idea to underestimate the price a people are willing to pay for their freedom. The French learned that in Algeria, the British in Ireland, and the US in Veitnam.
> The French learned that in Algeria, the British in Ireland, and the US in Veitnam.
One of those things is not like the others.
Which one?
The unfortunate truth is that, compared to Hamas, arabs are more free under Israeli rule. Its a terrible trick, but creating a despotic enemy, making yourselves out to be the land of reason and civilization, its all part of their game plan.
Palestinian Arabs within pre-1967 Israel are treated relatively well because Israel already dispelled enough of them in the Naqba to ensure that they will be demographically dominated by Jewish Israelis for the foreseeable future. The point is to ensure Jewish supremacy, which in a democracy requires Jewish plurality. The persecution of Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza is a deliberate process aimed at slowly enlarging the territory Israel can claim without losing a Jewish plurality.
This also explains why Israel has pursued genocide in Gaza. The Israeli project, in so far as it is a project to invert the population inequality between Jews and non-Jews in Palestine, is almost genocidal by definition. Once you maximize Jewish birth rates and incentivize Jewish immigration with birthright and similar policies, all that remains is to suppress Palestinian Arab birth rates and incentivize Palestinian Arab emmigration and yes, kill Palestinian Arabs--all that remains is genocide.
Its terrible, the Zionist simply didn't think there was an alternative after the Holocaust. One atrocities vs potential hundreds more over the millennia? It forecloses the possibility of a different kind of future, but its the only one that makes sense the way things are now. Its fear, all of it is fear for what might happen.
This isn't true. Where, for instance, is the Arab right of return?
It also heavily reeks of the insinuation that Hamas imposes sharia law which is not the case.
But really, how can you claim "arabs are more free" while Israeli settlers evict arabs from their homes at gunpoint with the aid of the IOF? While the IOF kidnaps and kills children indiscriminately?
It's not even true to say all Jews enjoy the same freedom under Israel. Ask the Beta Israelis.
> A hidden camera in a local health clinic recorded a Ethiopian woman being told by a nurse that this shot is given “primarily to Ethiopian women because they forget, they don’t understand, and it’s hard to explain to them, so it’s best that they receive a shot once every three months… basically they don’t understand anything.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/ethiopian-women-claim-israel-f...
How is the right of return has anything to do with Arabs IN Israel? The right of return is only for immigration rights, which is relevant only for non citizens.
And every other example is anecdotal, and does not signify less rights for Arabs. You might as well say that black people have less rights than white in USA.
> How is the right of return has anything to do with Arabs IN Israel? The right of return is only for immigration rights, which is relevant only for non citizens.
Lets break this down.
> How is the right of return has anything to do with Arabs IN Israel?
The original claim was that "arabs are more free under Israeli rule". Denying 750,000 people the right to return to the house they were forced out of under threat of death doesn't sound like "freedom" to me.
> The right of return is only for immigration rights, which is relevant only for non citizens.
Yeah the people kicked out in the Nakba are not citizens of Israel, so what is your point? I'm talking about the freedom of people terrorized out of their houses who are not recognized as citizens of the state of Israel. You nailed it bud. What are you misunderstanding?
Those people aren't in Israel?
And yet the British still hold Northern Ireland. France still holds a piece of South America. The US still holds Native American land.
I fail to see the connection…
NI is free to leave the UK whenever they want to. Same applies to French Guiana.
They aren’t oppressed by anyone (not anymore.. anyway)
The difference is that Israelis don’t have another country to leave to.
Also hundreds of millions of people outside of the Middle East who now very much do not support Israel. They've lost any goodwill they may have had and that's an understatement.
Soon it will be a different name under a different symbol.
You cannot break the cycle of hatred with more hatred and violence.
The wall street journal seems to disagree https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-has-another-sinw...
> What has really changed that will make a difference in 2-3 years from now?
The whole Iranian anti Israel coalition has been badly beaten!
Hezbollah barely exists anymore. The Assad regime is toppled. Iran itself has learned that Israel can attack them at will. The Houthis are still active, but too far away to do real damage.
Hamas itself still exists, but in a deeply degraded form. Their leaders are dead. Their armed forces have taken huge losses. Their amazing tunnel network is destroyed.
Israel will never again be invaded by surprise.
Hamas will probably start shooting rockets into Israel again, and kill the occasional civilian, but Israel is used to that and can deal with it.
Is there any way to bet against this rationale? As in, putting money on it?
I can't do anything about the US having an obscenely distorted view of terrorism but it'd be nice if I could at least turn a profit off it.
Never again - I wouldn't hold my breath. Left alone, Gazans will dig new tunnels, and everything will repeat.
Gazans will probably attack again, but Israel will not be caught by surprise for at least a generation.
Of any of Israel's wars in recent history none has decimated their regional enemies as much as this. Every way you cut it they are in a much more secure position militarily. Iran (aka Lebanon/Syria) losing so badly is more important than Hamas surviving because that was the cludgle that threatened them from punishing Gaza too harshly (for ex: America pushed Israel very hard not to provoke Lebanon after Oct 7 and we saw how that turned out).
Any future Hamas actions will inherently be less secure as their external help is now crippled.
Ignoring that Hamas is still in power, the best outcome of this war is destruction of Hizbollah. That was a boogie man that everyone was afraid. Of course it took decades of preparation but the outcome is magical. It's hard to believe that only 1 year ago IDF was afraid to touch a tent that Hizbollah setup right on the border and now it freely bombs them without any response.
Israel was in an extremely secure position on October 6th. They blew it by getting soft on border security, a mistake they won’t make again. There was absolutely zero reason a single hamas fighter should’ve been able to escape Gaza.
Yes reading about the insecurity of the military outposts near the border, one only filled with all-female 20yr old comms people and only a couple guards with rifles, another base full of unarmed students in training, and the general slow response of some of the QRF was pretty shocking. Proper military response took hours to show up in some cases. It's not like the giant Ukraine border, it should be easier to manage. But I'm no expert...
what’s wrong with women?
A good first step for border security would be to declare where those borders are.
Israel is weaker politically and internationally than it has ever been, dramatically so. It can only have military superiority as long as western nations are supplying it with weapons and political cover.
Disagree. Israel historically was in a worse state. The U.S. didn’t always support Israel. Additionally Israel, a nation of Jews, has seen its people in much, much, much, worse. Including pre 49.
This is just even remotely close to being true. 1948 was as weak as they have ever been. They're stronger now then they've been in a long time. I wouldn't be surprised to see diplomatic recognition with Saudi Arabia and Lebanon in the next few years.
I guess you didn’t notice when Hamas sowed a whole fresh generation of "I will sacrifice everything to wipe out Hamas" Israeli youth.
I don't think this is a symmetrical situation. Life in Israel is quite comfortable. Young people have hopes and dreams beyond sacrificing themselves in an eternal war. Palestinians in Gaza have an extremely bleak outlook on the future and effectively no hope that anything meaningful will change in their lifetime, and they feel collectively humiliated by decades of occupation. Sacrificing "everything" is a lot easier when everything looks a lot like nothing.
Did you know that Gaza has shopping malls and waterfront resorts? Did you know that Israel had been opening up more and more jobs for Palestinians within Israel? Until they decided to throw all that progress away on October 7th.
Progress towards what, exactly? Their own state? Or full citizenship of Israel? Or can you think of another acceptable outcome?
Honest question, but why haven't there been "I will sacrifice everything to wipe [country]" generations sowing havoc on neighbors after Dresden, Nagasaki, Nanjing or others?
I think the west learned after WW1 that it’s better to rebuild your enemies in corporation than punish them when you win and let grudges fester.
Aid to Germany after World War II under the Marshall Plan totaled $14 billion ($60 billion in today’s value), averaging $272 per capita across participating nations over four years. In contrast, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have received $1,330 per capita since 1993, or $161 annually, more than twice the per-capita annual aid under the Marshall Plan
That's a laughable comparison. Israel has been systematically undermining the economic and political independence of the West Bank and Gaza during that timeframe. Gaza had been under siege since 2006. The Marshall Plan in contrast was a concerted effort to rebuild and integrate Germany into the European economy.
Gaza has been under siege because it kept attacking Israel.
Had Germany kept invading France 1946-1965, it would have been treated the same way. But the Germans chose another path.
To be fair so did the French. e.g. occupying the Rhineland after WW1 vs the Schuman Plan.
If they were inclined to punish Germany even harder than the first time it probably wouldn’t have worked out that well.
Under siege by Egypt too, to be clear, which suggests maaybe the problem is Hamas.
To be fair Germany would have recovered economically on its own with or without the Marshall plan (ECSC was much more impactful than the Marshall plan..)
Most Arab states generally don’t do that well economically even without any foreign power undermining their independence. Unless they have massive amounts of oil but often even then (Iraq/Iran)
Your characterisation of Arab states is totally baseless. There is no control case of an Arab state that developed without either large oil resources or significant foreign intervention during the modern period. Name one.
You mention Iran, but Iran is not Arabic, but Persian, and the Persian Safavid Empire was formidable from 1501 to 1722. Then Iran was a plaything of the British and Russian empires for many years, culminating in British-Russian occupation during World War II and the 1953 CIA/MI6-orchestrated coup that overthrew democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh after he nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew the US-backed Shah, Iran has struggled under heavy economic sanctions orchestrated by the United States.
Iraq was part of the Ottoman Empire from 1534 to 1918, when Britain took over after WWI, maintaining substantial power over Iraq despite the latter's nominal independence in 1932. The British-established monarchy wasn't overthrown until 1958, after which the Soviets and the West exploited the instability to compete for influence.
I think you're underestimating just how pervasive Western colonialism was and is.
> significant foreign intervention during the modern
Same applies to pretty much every western country besides perhaps Switzerland and to a lesser extent Sweden.
Anyway I think you’re going back far too much. Countries like Algeria, Morocco, Tunis, Jordan and even Egypt or Syria were mostly left to their own devices since the ~50-70s (most instability in those countries that led to foreign intervention had internal causes).
Where are they now? Compare them with South Korea or Taiwain (which were both very poor and run by extremely oppressive regimes until the 80s). Same applies to much of Eastern Europe.
> Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have received
starvation tactics
https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-war-un-f...
... after they unconditionally surrender.
Dresden and Nagasaki, we managed to convince them they were at fault to some degree.
Nanjing, well, Chinese sentiment is still very anti-Japan because of that and all the other atrocities. And proportionally to size/population, the destruction visited on Gaza in the past year and a quarter goes far beyond what Japan did in China.
Frankly, because even the Nazis weren't as much of a death cult as present-day Islamists.
I believe the reason was that the Nazis were forced to repent due to the Allied occupation. They also had to pay billions in reparations to Jews affected by the Holocaust. If that hadn't happened and the NSDAP had been allowed to continue to dominate German politics, I bet millions of Jews who lost their loved ones in the Holocaust would seek revenge on the Germans. Similarly, if the Zionist regime were toppled and replaced with one that treated Palestinians as humans, rather than as animals, feelings of deep hatred would dissipate.
Oh because the a lot of the apparatchiks of the Nazi and Imperial Japanese regimes were absorbed into the western countries (operation paperclip, unit 731 amnesties, ratlines => colonia dignidad, jakarta method masterminded by Nazis mindset in the CIA) and the remaining nazis were propped up by the allies in west germany to continue their reign after all the dust was settled after which they eventually and successfully absorbed east germany. Note; Germany was never denazified.
Ok now a double honest question, why do zionists have unlimited justifications for committing a holocaust over the last 15 months+? And how many oceans of Palestinian children's blood does it take to wash away German guilt?
Did the residents of Dresden have to live in an open air prison for 75 years in a tiny corner of the city after they were bombed?
Realistically, West Bank will be gone (totally settled, all Palestinians removed) in 15 years. Gaza will further be ghettoized and, pessimistically, will be basically gone in 50 years or so.
That's indeed the current trajectory, but then what exactly will happen with the Palestinian population in that scenario? All 5+ million crammed into Gaza? Driven into Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan by force? (which are already refusing to take them today, by threat of military action) What else?
It was always about ethnic cleansing. Either they get away with it or somebody stops them.
That's not realistic at all. Israel has no apparent plans to settle the major Palestinian population centers in the West Bank like Nablus, Ramallah etc. and evict Palestinians from there.
Indeed, life will probably continue getting worse for West Bank Palestinians under the Israeli apartheid regime, but there's no reason to believe they'll be literally exterminated.
Gaza has been leveled for the most part.
The only thing left is allowing developers to build on the land and setting up checkpoints to keep the previous owners out.
I don't know why this is downvoted. Do people not realize Gaza was razed to the ground?
If Israeli goals really were to displace Palestinians, maybe they'd start within Israel proper first?
A subtle comment, which may be misunderstood.
The point is that they are NOT starting with Israel proper first, where Arabs are and have been citizens for a long time. Palestinians have been elected to the Israeli parliament, and there is an Arab Justice on the Israeli Supreme Court.
Are you being facetious? If you are, that's awesome and hilarious.
Just in case you are unaware, there are two million Arab Muslims citizens in Israel. Some of them consider themselves Palestinians (which is really a nationalist movement), some do not - but they are the same people / ethnic group that was there during the 48 war. These are full citizens, full members of Israeli society, not the Palestinian non-citizens in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza.
Full members of society you say. What's the highest rank any of them have achieved in the IDF?
If we're counting Druze, Major General. If not Colonel.
How much of that is due to prejudice and how much is due to Muslims generally not joining the military is a question I can't answer.
Huh interesting. My understanding (from conversation with some Israelis) was that Arabs were not drafted as the rest of the population are. Obviously they were mistaken though.
Non-Druze Arabs aren't conscripted, however a small number volunteer every year.
Everyone knows this.
You'd think so, I have been told that being Palestinian is arrestable offence in Israel. Some people are very delusional about the actual situation on hand, as evident by some of the comments here.
One of the many things that helps in thinking clearly about this conflict, and the perspectives one has already encountered, is to distinguish Arab Muslim Israeli citizens from Palestinians who reside in Gaza or West Bank.
Gaza is completely unlivable and more Palestinians can be "persuaded" to move abroad now that they literally have no infrastructure to survive.
It's a telling statement about the militant nature of Gazans that not even religiously-aligned neighbouring countries will accept them as immigrants.
They neighboring countries are allowed sovereignty by the west with the condition that they do what Israel tells them to do
This doesn't make sense on multiple levels. First of all, why wouldn't Israel want Gazans to go away? All of them somehow moving to Egypt or Syria might in fact be the dream outcome for Israel.
As it stands, the track record of Gazans avoiding "oppression" by joining their co-religionists is being kicked out of Jordan for being a disruptive influence, and then playing the main role in turning Lebanon into a failed state. No wonder Egypt doesn't want them!
Given that many Gazans do migrate individually, it might even get worse with time - the more capable and less political a Gazan is, the more likely they would be to migrate away, leading to a vicious cycle on the margins
No country wants them.
Gaza has changed.
Quite literally.
In genuinely morbid moment of being nerd snipped… I wonder if the ordinance dropped per square meter on Gaza is higher than the ordinance dropped be square meter on Vietnam… which was famously bombed so hard that detailed maps needed to be updated in order to accommodate how heavily cratered parts of the country were with heavily cratered hills and slopes literally shifting like a form of mechanical erosion by bombing.
Vietnam has an area of 331,000 square km. America dropped over 5 million tonnes of bombs on it over a ten year period.
That's 1.51 tonnes/km2/year.
Gaza has an area of 365 square km. Israel dropped over 85,000 tonnes of bombs dropped on it over one year [0].
That's 232.88 tonnes/km2/year. Over 150x more.
Don't forget! Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world - about 50 times more densely populated than 1970 Vietnam. 50% of whom are children.
So, Israel dropped 150x the bombs per year on Gaza, an area 50x more densely populated. Proportionally, Israel's bombardment is 7,500 times worse than Vietnam, on an area that's fully half children.
This last year has delegitimized the West's claims to any moral high ground, ever, far, far more than we yet realize.
0 - https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241107-israel-dropped-ov...
Vietnam is a slightly misleading comparison here I think, because big parts are jungle (counting the whole area downplays the severity of bombing significantly).
If you compare heavily bombed WW2 targets, you see similar/higher bomb loads, like 4000 tons for Dresden over 3 days (<10 km^2), or ~18000 tons for the Leuna works (synthfuel refinery, <20 km^2, within 1 year).
> counting the whole area downplays the severity of bombing significantly
That's fair, I think.
Dresden was horrific, and ought to be formally acknowledged as a war crime. Still, I don't think you can say it was worse than what is happening to Gaza, from any perspective except maybe in horror per day. They are similarly sized, but Gaza is more densely populated. If you had the terrible choice between nearly 4000 tons over 3 days, or 85,000+ tons over 14 months, I think I know what you would choose.
I would also point out that global awareness of what was happening in Dresden was many orders of magnitude lower than awareness of Gaza's bombing, and the military 'justification' far worse.
Leuna works was a key strategic target with a 13 square km area; I wouldn't see it as an appropriate comparison.
I'm unsure about the justification angle for strategic bombing in general.
I honestly believe there is not enough honest consensus globally (or even within the US/EU) to declare this off-limits-- given the choice between strategic bombing (with large collateral damage) or breaking resistance one-MG-nest at-a-time by throwing your infantry at it, basically every modern nation would make the same decision I believe...
In my view, what makes the current situation particularly bad for Gaza/the Hamas side is that their goals are not limited to their own freedom and independence-- a lot of them want Israel/Jews gone in general, a position that deprives them of much international support and protection (especially western) that would otherwise be in fairly easy reach.
Basically, Hamas is a clear underdog/victim from a military power perspective, but they have made it very clear (October 7th) that if the positions were reversed, they would drop bombs immediately themselves. This costs them a lot of international sympathy; Israel would never have gotten away with this without the October attack.
Thank you for taking the time to do the grim maths…
Also, holy ** I thought it was bad and probably going to be maybe 10-25 times higher… based on the utter devastation I have seen in satellite imagery… but over 150 times more…
The proportionality math for population density is just… ghastly.
I appreciate the thanks... Looking at the horror honestly does take a toll.
Still, I'm glad you asked. It's better to have perspective on these things.
For anyone who wants to visualize what 85,000 tonnes of bombs looks like, it's about 5.7x the nuke dropped over Hiroshima (Hiroshima is 2.5x bigger than Gaza, and was 16x less densely populated than modern Gaza in 1945).
This comparison also helps put Vietnam into perspective - 333x Little Boy over ten years.
Precision bombing today vs carpet bombing to try to hit a target.
That’s one potential mitigating factor, but they were also using large bombs like 2000 pounders on targets that I’ve not seen any reputable military commentators agree as justifying such a large bomb…
like the typical comment are things like before and after satellite image comparisons and taking it at face value the claimed target exists for the sake of arguing the point… and they would say things like “that building needed 1000 pounds max and that’s probably overkill, you would probably want to just use two 500 pound bombs one on the first pass, and one on the second if it was still standing, heck I’d probably have argued for three 250 pounders bombs with penetration aids and have flow the sortie in a staggered pass so after each drop the next pilot can confirm if the target is still standing and drop theirs if necessary, but using a 2000 pound bomb is nuts on a target that size, they have air superiority and significant ground control to ensure minimal SAM risk from MANPADS, if I had suggested a sortie like this when I was a [whatever their rank was/is], it would have severely hurt my career due to how recklessly wasteful I would have appeared”
And that kind of commentary came up a lot in certain circles. Not even arguing the validity of the targets like the whole “hidden bunker under every second building” stuff… just legitimately tactical assessment of construction typical of the region, the cumulative seismic and shock load damage from prior nearly weapon detonations, and the honest appraisal that it was extremely overkill to use bombs that size… it was morbidly educational in a way.
There were 750km of tunnels in Gaza
The problem is unsolvable. You have two sets of people with sets of claims on the same land. Both sides have an unshakable resolve that they are in the right and nothing is going to change that.
No, it is solved by ethnic cleansing or by prevention of ethnic cleansing.
The former solves the problem but isn't really on the table. The later doesn't settle the question. Both sides would have to come up with a mutually agreeable solution and that isn't on the table.
Why assume the solution has to be agreed upon by the two parties? Peace can be imposed by the adults in the room.
A lot more Palestinians learned not to attack Israel though.
If they try October 7 style attack again, Gaza will be wiped out.
nothing this is the life of pawns has been will continue to be until humans evolve which won't be until eons from now
This Land Is Mine by Nina Paley.
This made me chuckle thank you :)
Assad fell as a result of Israeli actions. Leadership of the entire axis of resistance is dead. Syria, Lebanon, and the West Bank learned what the price will be for “FAFO”. Gazan citizens have started to have a negative sentiment in Hamas, but do not express it given they and their families will be killed
Don't think I'm taking sides. I'm trying to simply look at it from a neutral bird point of view.
I think this cease fire somehow legitimises, to the public eye, Netanyahu's strategy of intense attack.
It gives the message of "we won't stop until we get the hostages back" and gives the world a reminder of what this is all about, at least according to what he claims.
Again, just trying to observe the message
It was never about the hostages. They used the Hannibal directive on 10/7
false. Hannibal directive has nothing to do with hostages
> false. Hannibal directive has nothing to do with hostages
Weird, The IDF says it's indeed about kidnapped hostages: [1]
> the General Staff Directive for Contending with Kidnapping Attempts (also known as the "Hannibal" Directive) was initiated, meaning a number of actions necessary to locate and rescue kidnapped soldiers were put into effect.
Why would you even try to lie about its purpose when it's well known and documented?
[1] https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/military-advocate-general-s...
[2] Origin of Hannibal directive by Haaretz: http://archive.today/romMZ
I still remember the other time when rumor spread there was a ceasefire. Gaza streets were celebrating.
Bibi did not force the Palestinians into a ceasefire. He was the bottleneck behind it. Trump effectively threatened no more weapons. Which is why we have a ceasefire.
Yes, eventually. I have tears in my eyes. Enduring more than a year with a preposterous populist government and endless deaths, this nightmare is finally over.
100% support ceasefire. 100% agree Israel overdid it. 100% support Hamas must cease to exist. Don't leave that last part out
Whatever you think of Hamas, a blockade and/or occupation will result in militant resistance groups.
In every single example of human history without a single exception.
What is different from Hamas right to exist compared to the IDF or Likud? Hamas certainly has less blood on their hands!
Especially since Netanyahu was trying to revive Hamas prior to Hamas's attack, in order to starve off Fatah's Palestinian recognition efforts at the UN, according to the New York Times ( https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q... )
Turn on Israeli TV and they're showing the IDF raping prisoners in Sde Teiman. Degenerate behavior from the self-described Jewish state. The US taxpayer is paying the bills for all this bloodshed.
And at the same time Netanyahu was holding up maps of all of historical Palestine colored in and labelled as Israel. Clearly trying to provoke things
>IDF or Likud
The IDF and Likud does not have a policy of attacking civilians to achieve political or war goals.
They likely have some deranged and radicalized commanders who do this anyway, but it's not the organizational policy.
“This is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.“ (* deleted tweet by Netanyahu)
https://web.archive.org/web/20231017165958/https://twitter.c...
Top-down messaging like that certainly doesn’t strengthen whatever ‘policy’ is
They spent a year bombing an inhabited city into rubble, killing tens of thousands of civilians. Whatever definition of "policy" you're using here isn't particularly useful I don't think.
The IDF and Likud literally just killed orders of magnitude more civilians than Hamas in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
Is this difference because Hamas values human lives more or because they lack strength to do more harm?
And literally zero members of Hamas. It's fascinating how all the population of Palestine consists exclusively of child journalists.
If some really weak person kept trying to kill you by punching you in the face would you hold your own punch back to only hurt them the same amount or would you absolutely deck them?
Why give credit to the paper tiger for not killing? It is unable to.
I know you are being downvoted (not by me). This is a good question, if all the context and history is removed, and we are only looking at who killed more.
I am trying to respond in good faith, but it looks like Hamas is accepted across the world as a terrorist organization for specifically targeting civilians. And as much as I loathe the loss of civilian life at the hands of IDF, this is not a conventional war, and Hamas hiding within civilian populations and tunneling under hospitals is on Hamas and not on IDF. Like it happened in history a million times, Hamas could've surrendered against a superior enemy and and returned hostages, to protect its own citizens.
So, that's why Hamas must cease to exist. Not Palestine itself, nor another government in Palestine - just Hamas. They could've stopped it, they didn't.
Let me know when IDF/Likud behave like this unprovoked (Yes, I know what's going on in West bank and its not remotely close to what Hamas did)
> Hamas could've surrendered against a superior enemy and and returned hostages, to protect its own citizens.
And then Israel would keep occupying more and more land, control their water, electricity, treat Palestinian people like sub-humans, occasionally shoot some children in the head, take palestinian hostages/prisoners without legal right (occasionally tortue and rape them).
What do you do then? Protest peacefully?
> What do you do then? Protest peacefully?
Actually attempting to attack legitimate military targets seems like a bare minimum we should demand of pretty much everyone.
> What do you do then? Protest peacefully?
Yes.
What has violence solved here? Thousands of people have died, and Palestinians are not treated better. I am no sure what peaceful protests would have done, but "nothing" is still way better than what we have now.
You should apply that logic to Israel, since they are by far the most violent.
The logic should apply to both, there are no good guys here, just two armies of savages fighting each other and people getting killed, including innocents that just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I pointed out Palestine because Israel is in a dominant position, so it is unlikely that they would want to protest, peacefully or not. But it would be nice to see more "peace-and-love" movements like in the 60s that opposed the Vietnam war, among other things.
I think that's a naive and ignorant position considering what has been going on since 1948 (violence from both sides, yes, but effectively an apartheid-state with more and more illegal occupations).
Hamas is a designated terrorist organization by the US, EU, and others. Their stated purpose is to destroy Israel, and their founding charter including language about killing all Jews. They started this war by massacring over a thousand civilians, injuring thousands more, and kidnapping hundreds. They killed people brutally - beheadings with dull tools, rapes, burning people alive. They also continued launching tens of thousands rockets at Israeli civilians for the duration of the war, though it was basically not reported. If Israel did not have the world's best rocket defense, there would be tens of thousands more dead Israeli civilians.
IDF is the military branch of an actual state. Likud is a political party. Neither advocate for indiscriminate killing of civilians (though some Likud politicians might, just like the US or any other nation has crazy politicians).
"Right to exist" is granted either through law or force. Hamas doesn't have law, doesn't exist within a functioning state, and is illegal by the laws of most nations. IDF isn't.
If you actually think there's a moral equivalence between the IDF and Hamas, or that Hamas is somehow the moral group here, you really need to learn more. Stop consuming social media, stop reading things on the internet, go buy some books from a diverse array of sources, both pro-Israel and anti-Israel, and maybe you can gleam the truth out of there. It's not a guarantee, but it's your best shot.
I really think the TikTok age has amplified insanity where we actually have people asking, "Why does a military get to exist but not terrorists?".
For anyone who needs a reminder of how this war started (warning, extremely graphic / not suitable for life): https://www.hamas-massacre.net/
Hamas is a terrorist, Islamist organization with the explicit goal of genocide against Israelis: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/ha...
The blood of the Palestinian civilians that Hamas waged war from behind is absolutely on Hamas's hands.
Hamas is not an "Islamist" organisation (I hate that word BTW, as it's an Israeli invention to demonise Muslims).
The article you linked to is pure propaganda - Hamas' charter changed a long, long time ago. OTOH, Israeli politicians literally say genocidal things on a near daily basis - it's a deeply sick society.
> The article you linked to is pure propaganda - Hamas' charter changed a long, long time ago
No, it's not "propaganda". It's factual reporting that happens to be inconvenient to Hamas apologists.
It's also corroborated by the atrocities against innocent civilians that these monsters gleefully filmed themselves committing on October 7th, such as attacking children with grenades.
Islamist is used widely to mean Islamic supremacist. And Hamas absolutely is that. There are non-violent Islamists. Hamas is also jihadist, so they are violent Islamists.
Hamas' charter was changed recently when it was rewritten by a UColumbia grad. They still openly talk about destroying Israel and killing Jews. Learn Arabic, they don't use cover words there.
It wasn't changed "recently", it was 2017! Hamas, unlike many Israelis, are not supremacists; they lived peacefully alongside Christians in Gaza for example, and explicitly state they have no beef with Judaism.
> They still openly talk about destroying Israel and killing Jews
No, they really don't? Meanwhile, Israeli politicians talk daily of committing war crimes and genocide, but somehow that's fine because it's against Arabs?
Sir, 2017 is recent. And it is clear from their actions and speech that their intent has not changed, even if they have whitewashed their written calls for the extermination of Israel.
> they lived peacefully alongside Christians in Gaza
Christians are .13% of Gaza. Come on. If the Christians had any real power, they'd crush them just like they want to crush the Jews. They'd make it totally unworkable just like in Lebanon.
> No, they really don't? Meanwhile, Israeli politicians talk daily of committing war crimes and genocide, but somehow that's fine because it's against Arabs?
The far-right who does so, no that's not ok. But the IDF does not act in such a way.
> The blood of the Palestinian civilians that Hamas waged war from behind is absolutely on Hamas's hands.
Everyone is responsible for their own actions. Thousands of Palestinians children are dead, and for every single one, Israel could have chosen not to kill them, and the decision to do so is on them.
They had no choice. If you're Natanyahu on October 8, 2023, and the reports of the Hamas massacres on civilians come in, there is almost no leeway for reacting in a way differently than how the Israeli government and the IDF reacted. What I've heard from "pro-Palestine" (= pro Hamas) supporters as alternatives so far was utterly unconvincing, basically variations of the following:
- The "Israel should disband itself" reply: Give in to terrorists' demands, give them their country, and humbly negotiated for a freeing of the hostages without any military response. Hamas remains in charge as military dictatorship of Gaza.
- The military genius reply: I would have sent only special forces to Gaza to go after the Hamas leadership and free all hostages. No civilians would have been harmed and all collateral damage is avoided.
Neither of these are even remotely realistic. What was ordered and how events unfolded was more or less like any other country would have reacted. Two goals: #1 Destroy Hamas, #2 Free the hostages.
The problem right now with the hostage deal is that it leaves Hamas in charge. That's a huge problem.
They had a choice every single time they dropped a bomb! In fact, "the IDF is the most moral army in the world" supporters would like us to believe that very often, they chose not to.
If they want credit for the ones not dropped, they need to take responsibility for the ones they did. Not really that hard!
This is important because "it's all on Hamas's hands" is really just a refusal to engage with the ethical questions at all. Folks could (and clearly would!) say that, whether one child is killed, or a million. It's just a question of when it becomes untenable to brush the question away.
The idea that "this is more or less like any other country would have reacted" is the same trap; this makes Israel no worse or better than any other country, and conveniently means we don't have to ask ourselves about the morality of it all.
> If you're Natanyahu on October 8, 2023, and the reports of the Hamas massacres on civilians come in, there is almost no leeway for reacting in a way differently than how the Israeli government and the IDF reacted.
Any lack of political leeway to react differently is squarely within Israel's ethical score card. I.e. "Israel as an entity is not responsible for its choices because the entities constituent parts forced those choices" is reductive.
> The problem right now with the hostage deal is that it leaves Hamas in charge. That's a huge problem.
That this is the current outcome is maybe an indication that your framework of the three possible options (what Israel did + two strawmen) is lacking.
Israel was and still is fully justified to go to war against Hamas. You're the one who's dodging moral questions. You also fail to present any reasonable argument, only the usual sentiments and hand-waving. That's because you're unable to state any realistic path that the Prime Minister of Israel could have taken other than the one he took. That's exactly my point.
Do you think Palestine has a future under a Hamas government? If you do, you're supporting Hamas. If you don't, you need to come up with a plan to oust Hamas. Sadly, any realistic option would involve high collateral damage because Gaza is a densely populated area and the Al Aqsa brigades were comprised of about 40k prepared fighters with extensive tunnel systems.
I'm tired of hearing terrorist apologists coming up with vague "in between" replies that ultimately fall into one of the categories I've mentioned. If you can't even state how you would have dealt with the October 7 attacks, you should shut up.
At least I don't agree IDF is the most moral army. Armies and morality at wartime is an oxymoron. IDF retaliated with brutal force, and thats the fact. There is no defending IDF, just like there is no defending Hamas. There is no defending any war. In wartime, it is foolish to ask one party to be restrained. War is about military might. It is good for nothing, so everyone must be ultra careful not to trigger one.
Yep. Everyone is responsible for their own actions. Hamas could've just surrendered and returned hostages. Before every single Palestinian child lost life, Hamas could've chosen to do that. So its on them
I mean, realistically speaking, the IDF is a powerful force, while Hamas is not. Israel has the ability to completely take over Gaza, but Gaza does not have the ability to take over Israel. So, as macabre as it may be, Hamas' right to exist, technically speaking, is controlled by Israel.
(All of this assuming no outside intervention for 3rd-party nations or groups of nations, of course.)
And let's not forget that the IDF previously removed Jewish inhabitants from Gaza to appease Hamas. Totally unimaginable the other way around.
I agree
The resistance will not cease to exist until the occupation ceases to exist. Don't leave that last part out
Speaking of not leaving things out:
This was genocide, supported and endorsed by the US.
The moral standing of the US and Europe has, in the eyes of the rest of the nonaligned world, plunged to new depths because of this and that has been a massive, MASSIVE help to Putin and China.
>This was genocide
Please don't abuse this word. If Israel was conducing genocide there wouldn't be Arab Israelis, and the population of Gaza would not grow over time.
Ethnic cleansing and insufficient proportionality consideration, likely. Not genocide. The Israelis don't want to remove Palestinians from the face of the earth, they want political and physical safety for the Jews, and history has worked out such that they feel they need an Jewish-majority ethnostate.
> the population of Gaza would not grow over time
That has nothing to do with anything. If I steal from you, I steal from you, doesn't matter if you get more than I stole from elsewhere. By that logic, not even the Shoa would be a genocide. So how can people say this, and not even once, but over and over? It just means you're not even treating the charge seriously.
> The Israelis don't want to remove Palestinians from the face of the earth
It's nothing to do with "the Israelis". It's about the specific people and organizations espousing genocidal rhetoric and engaging in respective actions, such as starving off civilians. Whoever is guilty of that doesn't get to invoke all other Israelis as a blanket. Specific people are guilty of specific things. All Israelis want safety, but not all Israelis dance and sing "there are no schools in Gaza, because there are no kids in Gaza".
More importantly, wanting to wipe someone "off the face off the Earth" is not required to meet the standard of genocide, not even close. It might be required for the whole "Amalek" thing, but not for genocide.
Just take this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_genocide
> 8,372 killed (Srebrenica)
> 25,609–33,071 Bosniaks and Croats killed (wider definition of genocide)
Not only are those "low" numbers compared to the survivors, not even in their wildest dreams would anyone ever claim the goal was to "wipe Croats off the face of the Earth".
Those who want to annex Palestine don't care if it's via ethnic cleansing or genocide, and made that clear in word and deed. There's no getting away from that.
This is not abuse of the word, complete success is not necessary for genocide to be an appropriate description.
https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide
This israeli scholar of genocide could see that just a few weeks into this escalation. Why can't you?
Perhaps you can enlighten me on this topic. So, for the sake of argument, let's consider Israel's recent actions as a genocide. Then what? What's the UN going to do? Send a nasty letter to Israel? Create a fake warrant for Bibi that every country just ignores?
From a military perspective, Israel is highly useful to the United States and many other Western countries. Israel is basically the Guam of the Middle East. So, genocide or not, I bet good money not a single thing will happen to Israel. Sure, there might be some theatrical cases in which some soldiers are imprisoned for war crimes and some high-rankers being dishonorably discharged. But it's all just for show.
Israel basically is what keeps Iran from overstepping too much. To the West, that is far more valuable than the lives of Palestinians. I am not trying to be insensitive, and I truly feel empathy for all the poor Palestinian people that lost their lives over this senseless conflict. However, if the rest of the world cared, then the rest of the world would have intervened.
Point being, call it whatever you want. It won't make a difference.
>Point being, call it whatever you want. It won't make a difference.
It does make a difference. If it didnt, Israel wouldnt be fighting back against the accusations so vehemently. They wouldnt be accusing the ICJ of anti semitism.
US and EU leaders wouldnt be going out of their way to downplay this.
It makes a difference becausr undermines US and European moral legitimacy. This makes it harder for us to get what we want out of diplomacy. This wouldnt be such a problem if western economic and military global primacy were maintained but they're also collapsing. Ukraine is a military disaster for us and China's industrial might eclipses ours.
The worst time to be seen to be the bad guy is when you are showing weakness.
How vehemently are we talking? Perhaps it's all subjective, but Israel doesn't seem to be fighting back too hard. Besides, all they have to do is just respond with PR, which isn't exactly taxing nor difficult.
> US and EU leaders wouldnt be going out of their way to downplay this.
Again, theatrics.
> It makes a difference becausr undermines US and European moral legitimacy.
To whom? Neither care about the opinions of 3rd world countries. The countries that matter do not mind, and the countries that mind do not matter.
How is Ukraine a military disaster? The US and Europe have been trying to tip-toe the line, but it's not like the US nor Europe has lost much of value -- excluding poor Ukraine obviously.
I do not think the West is showing weakness, but rather restraint.
>How vehemently are we talking?
Equal to the amount Israel spends on PR, lobbying and astroturfing to try and downplay this. Which is a ginormous amount.
>To whom?
All of the world that isnt in a western, Chinese or Russian club.
This group is routinely ignored, taken for granted and generally treated with disdain and so far that hasnt backfired too badly.
>How is Ukraine a military disaster?
They've thrown billions of weapons and drastically drained their inventories, achieving nothing except slowing Putin down after jubilantly declaring that he would be soundly defeated on the battlefield. It's transitioned the west's image from that of an unchallenged global hegemon to something of a military paper tiger. This has already resulted in a number of countries transitioning out of the western sphere of influence.
>It's transitioned the west's image from that of an unchallenged global hegemon to something of a military paper tiger. This has already resulted in a number of countries transitioning out of the western sphere of influence.
Interesting. I drew the opposite conclusion. Using (mostly) just NATO's old equipment, Ukraine has fought basically to a standstill what was previously considered the second greatest army on earth. That army and the security guarantees it provides to various dictators are greatly humiliated, especially after Russian allies Armenia and Syria were defeated with their backer Russia lifting hardly a finger in defense, due to it's great commitments and losses in Ukraine.
Meanwhile the US is still ready to fight and win a war in the Pacific and Atlantic simultaneously.
Which countries are transitioning out of the western sphere of influence due to security concerns?
>Interesting. I drew the opposite conclusion. Using (mostly) just NATO's old equipment
Not true since 2023. Plenty of the high end stuff was sent - abrams, leopard 2s, patriots.
There's also a dire shortage of shells to send - the meat and potatoes of a war like this.
Some of the high end stuff (e.g. F-35s) were also arguably not sent because western military planners were afraid of them performing badly (F-16s performed very badly).
>fought basically to a standstill
That's how wars of attrition are. The front line is 1) static for months/year and a half. Then it moves 2) slowly. Then 3) fast. Then collapse.
It's between 2 and 3 now.
Unless a peace deal is secured (unlikely, there is no zone of possible agreement) a Ukrainian military collapse is coming and it will be a humiliation for western hegemony to see Russia sweep forward unchallenged on their front door.
Trump seems to know that it's coming and wants to wash his hands of it while European establishment are freaking out and doing stupid, rash and even Putinesque shit like canceling the Romanian election.
> Unless a peace deal is secured (unlikely, there is no zone of possible agreement) a Ukrainian military collapse is coming and it will be a humiliation for western hegemony to see Russia sweep forward unchallenged on their front door.
Not unless the Russian economy collapses first. Last I heard, industry leaders from key sectors like metallurgy were saying that with a 21% interest rate, the market economy is effectively dead because their margins are nowhere near sufficient to service such debts. They either need government handouts (a thinly veiled return to a planned economy, and we both know what that looked like) or face a complete crash and burn in the currently unfolding corporate debt crisis: https://static.themoscowtimes.com/image/1360/35/Screenshot20...
> Plenty of the high end stuff was sent - abrams, leopard 2s, patriots.
Reagan-era Leopard 2A4s are not "high end". The truly high end stuff has performend beyond expectations, particularly the Patriot missile defense system. Quite a few planes were lost, including two rare and prized radar planes, before Russians finally understood that unlike their overhyped "has no analogues in the world" wonder weapons, western tech actually meets and often exceeds offical specs.
> Some of the high end stuff (e.g. F-35s) were also arguably not sent because western military planners were afraid of them performing badly (F-16s performed very badly).
Quite the opposite story. The F-35 is treasured so much that no-one wants to risk it being lost, especially with the limited experience UAF has flying western planes. As to F-16s, a single pilot shooting down 6 cruise missiles while equipped with only 4 AA missiles was nothing short of spectacular, and according to seasoned F-16 pilots, shows that Ukrainian air force is developing rapidly: https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-record-f16-win-shows...
> Trump seems to know that it's coming and wants to wash his hands of it while European establishment are freaking out and doing stupid
Trump is doing (and seems, more effectively) what every single American president since at least GWB has attempted: to get Europe to increase military spending. If you think this predicts anything positive for you, better brace for a surprise.
>Not unless the Russian economy collapses first. Last I heard
Last I heard in 2022 the overwhelming consensus in 2022 was that it was supposed to collapse at the end of 2022. I think it's time to put this neocon fantasy to bed rather than keep making fresh wrong predictions based upon the same wrong dogma.
thrown billions of weapons is only a bad thing for America if you are shortsighted, here’s mitch with some words of wisdom for ya…
> Point being, call it whatever you want. It won't make a difference.
Sunshine is the best disinfectant, and people knowing what actually happened matters a lot more in the long term than any indifference and apathy in the short term.
I hope you are correct, but my inference based on the history of humanity does not leave me as much confidence. History doesn't repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.
From the same article
> Under international law, the crime of genocide is defined by “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such,” as noted in the December 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
So can we also say Hamas is genocidal? Because complete success is not necessary, intent matters and magnitudes don't matter. Right? My disagreement is just that - We cannot just accuse one side in this unfortunate event.
> So can we also say Hamas is genocidal?
No, because intent matters, and Hamas do not have genocidal intent - all they want is freedom from Israeli occupation and dehumanisation, and their stolen land back.
There's an argument to be made that they do have intent, but it hasnt been acted upon.
The killing of 800 civilians and ~400 soldiers in a single military attack isnt a genocide it's at worst a terrorist attack.
If they committed that kind of atrocity once every 3-4 days for over a year - as Israel did to them in retaliation for that attack then yeah, genocide.
Realistically some of the Jews in Polish ghettoes probably had genoidal intent against the Germans too. Doesnt matter.
What about something else? What are we to say about it? Why are you asking me. Say what you need to say about it.
I'm not the genocide decider, I have no particular reason or expertise from which to judge whether any other specific conflict is a genocide.
The person I was responding to was quibbling about the use of this word, and I'm pointing to a subject expert's opinion that the use is correct.
My apologies. I guess that part of my response was to GP.
Which countries are in is this non-aligned world?
Please be careful when using the word genocide
Gaza population: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1422981/gaza-total-popul...
Jews in before/after WW2 in Germany: 500k before, 200k after, 100k now. 6M European jews killed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Germany
What Palestinians went through in the last 15 months is grotesque and unforgivable, but their "elected government" could have completely avoided this.
>Please be careful when using the word genocide
I am using the term legally.
Genocide does not require success in exterminating the whole race. The holocaust was not successful, Bosnia wasnt successful, neither was Gaza. Roughly 7-10% of Gaza were killed, mostly women and children, and the intent to kill them because of their race was clear and well evidenced by South Africa.
Please, dont deny genocide -not the holocaust. Not the armenian genocide. Not the bosnian genocide. Not this either. It is disrespectful to every victim.
China gained even more from this genocidal spree & exercise in ignoring international law. BRICS got a new lease on life. And NDB is shaping up to be a legitimate competitor to the IMF.
Israel's actions in the last 75 years simply cannot be compared to genocide in any rational sense of the word. The number of Palestinians has been rising steadily for decades and life expectancy for Palestinians has been increasing as well. Israel has not killed two million or three million or five million Palestinians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_State_of_P...
Everything that happened since October 7th was avoidable. You can't expect to murder 1200 Israelis in this fashion and think nothing will happen. It would only invite more murders and more murders.
A slaughter might have been avoidable, but ethnic cleansing wasnt avoidable. It has persisted in the west bank for decades. Israel tried to dump all the Gazans in Congo. This was materially no different to when Hitler tried to dump all German jews in madagascar. For Israel this a racial problem, and whilst theyd prefer expulsion (like Hitler), theyre not above extermination (like Hitler) if the "dump them all in africa" project falls through.
Netanyahu is on record saying that he intended to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze the Palestinians and never stop.
Israel will not give up on its ethnic cleansing dreams unless it is forced to . That may require the end of Israel - just as South African apartheid was ended once it lost support from racist western backers.
A side effect of this slaughter is that it has ripped off the mask of liberal, egalitarian Israel. The liberal, egalitarians in the west no longer support the country - only racists who believe that genocide is provokable still do.
I appreciate that you took the time to respond, but I think that analysis of the population of Gaza clearly shows that there hasn't be any ethnic cleansing either. The Palestinian population has been going up since 1948. So has life expectancy. These facts destroy the narrative of ethnic cleansing.
> For Israel this a racial problem, and whilst theyd prefer expulsion (like Hitler), theyre not above extermination (like Hitler) if the "dump them all in africa" project falls through.
Right, Israel doesn't want any Arabs within its borders. If there are any Arabs living in Israel they are there as a class of indentured servants who can't vote or serve in the government. Are there any Arabs in Israel?
I am personally sorry for what happened in Gaza, but Hamas chose to start a war and civilian deaths are an unavoidable fact of war. What would you want done if your family had been the victims of a barbaric, unprovoked attack, or if your family were kidnapped and taken from you?
And you're stating your opinion as if it were fact. You believe that no one on the left still supports Israel except if they are racist. That's just your opinion. It's not a fact. You believe that anyone who does support Israel is a racist. That's your opinion. It's not a fact.
You are definitely entitled to your opinion, but it's very telling that your opinion seems to deny and disregard quite a lot of facts.
> A side effect of this slaughter is that it has ripped off the mask of liberal, egalitarian Israel.
Is Israel a democracy? Can women vote in Israel? Can women serve in the army? Is it illegal to be gay in Israel? Can Israeli Arabs vote? Can they serve in parliament? Do they serve in parliament? What happens to gay men and women in Gaza and the West Bank? Why do they want to flee to Israel?
Again, you can have whatever opinion you want but the facts don't agree with you.
IDF 100% should cease to exist as well. It's long overdue. I don't know how an organization can officially be labelled as genocidal and be allowed to continue functioning as they do
You're welcome to try, but I do not believe you will get far.
That's the thing with militaries. You kind of have to overpower them in order to get rid of them.
It helps to have the backing of the US.
> officially be labelled as genocidal
By whom, legions of anti-American people on the internet?
I don't mean to be pessimistic, but how sure are we its over? They're still bombing as we speak - and yea, I know the cease-fire doesn't come into effect sunday, but doesn't that signal something? Many times Israel has said something in these scenarios they've changed their minds. Cease-fire is not "peace," either. I think for some unfortunate people that survived this, the nightmare may just be beginning. I truly hope I am wrong. We live in dark times.
Unfortunately in the Middle East we aren’t used to peace, when I say the end of the killings I mean the scale of the killings will plummet, unfortunately this region will not see peace yet. This is by far too much for Netanyahu to backtrack, the next president of the USA already made promises that the deal is sealed, and Netanyahu spent the last 15 months telling his base that this kind of deal is not worth it, to go all of this way angering his base and putting his coalition in that risk for nothing will be very odd for me even for Netanyahu
I recommend engaging in this thread with the caveat that HN is obviously a technology community, and Israel has one of the world's most engaged technology communities.
How long before Hamas start shooting rockets indiscriminately into Israel again
That's the normal during peace periods, no? Hamas does what hamas does, IDF does what IDF does. Unless there's a permanent solution this conflict will keep getting active. Looking at the state of affairs, there will to be no end to occupation and apartheid from Israel. Feeble PA will not gain more political capital all of a sudden. Hamas made themselves a pariah with October 7 attacks. All parties will race to the bottom it seems. Palestinians and Israelis will keep suffering.
Have they stopped? Hamas and the other militias in Gaza fire rockets into Israel almost every day since the war started.
It'll take at least a few days to see if that stops.
They did yesterday https://www.tzevaadom.co.il/en/alerts/5292
How long before Israel occupies and annexes more Palestinian land again
And shoots children in the head
It was only hours before Israel broke the ceasefire repeatedly.
Well it seems everybody was cheering too early: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-01-16/ty-article-li...
This page says, "Error 403 Forbidden. Forbidden. Error 54113." What are you referring to?
I believe they where referring to this:
“Hamas has reneged on parts of the agreement reached with the mediators and Israel in an effort to extort last-minute concessions,” [Netanyahu’s] Office said. The statement said that the cabinet will not convene until Hamas has accepted all the terms of the agreement.”
Source: https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel-at-war/artc-hamas-rene...
Mirrors: https://archive.ph/9m170, https://web.archive.org/web/20250116121511/https://www.i24ne...
Thank you very much! This is helpful!
Wow. Bibi claiming Hamas is not accepting the agreement. Typical
Israel bombing Gaza after the ceasefire deal. At least 81 people were killed and at least 188 people were injured. I don't know if those 81 deaths includes the 45 deaths Israel killed from another bombing shortly after the ceasefire was announced.
On Israel's side, Israel claimed Hamas has reneged on parts of the agreement. I can't find any specifics.
Who would have thought?
How many square kilometers of land does Israel gain this time?
You are aware, I hope, that Israel pulled back from Gaza completely in 2005, and from Sinai in 1980?
It’s been growing smaller since 1973 (and never technically annexed any area it did temporarily take in a war)
That's not correct. Here is a map of how the West Bank settlements have grown over the years, from 1967 until 2024: https://apnews.com/a-look-at-how-settlements-have-grown-in-t...
You are aware, I hope, that Gaza is not in the West Bank?
The west bank has borders with Jordan and Israel.
Gaza has borders with Egypt and Israel.
Israel indeed never pulled from the West Bank, and sadly, it does let settlers live there. But it did not grow the taken area. And when Israel pulled from Gaza, it removed the settlers.
It absolutely grows the taken area in the west bank.
The entire West Bank is occupied since 1967. Are you saying Israel is invading Jordan?
No, it grows the parts in which settlers live inside the West Bank and increasingly restricts life of the Palestinians there. And I'm pretty sure you know that.
If you want to talk about occupying new land, this has been happening too in the recent months: As of today still in southern Lebanon and "prophylactically" in the eastern Golan heights and on Mount Hermon (not even talking about the previously annexed western Golan heights anymore).
Meanwhile, the settler movement is openly talking about settling Gaza, southern Lebanon and eventually "from the Nile to the Euphrates": https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-10-21/ty-article-ma...
One could discount them as a bunch of crackpots as they exist in every state, except that those guys have strong representation in the government and several Likud party members and government ministers were visiting their conference. They have power.
I am well aware, as I have written in other comments. The occupation is of the same size, the settlements are getting larger within it. Sadly.
The settler movement are crockpots that have non trivial government representation. They also had representation in 1982 and 2005 and that did not stop the Israeli government from relocating those settlers back inside Israel using force, while retreating from Sinai and Gaza respectively.
Whether that will happen again when (if) a peace agreement is ever reached remains to be seen; it is not a certainty either way.
Is that true though, given that Israel informally takes over more and more of the West Bank? The settlers...
Yes, that is true that Israel pulled back from Gaza completely in 2005, removing its settlers in the process.
Gaza and the West Bank are distinct.
Israel never pulled back from the West Bank, but that part of the occupation is the same size as it was in 1967. The West Bank occupation did not grow smaller (nor did it grow larger - it's the same size). Sadly, Israel does let settlers settle there, but if an agreement is ever reached, they will likely be removed like those in Gaza.
At some point - if you let people settle and multiply for decades, it may just be too late. Impossible to remove unless you start using lethal force, which would impact politics and votes.
Well, we have two precedents we can consult.
Israel occupied Sinai in 1967 and had settlements there[0]. Then, following a peace agreement with Egypt, Israel pulled back in 1982, removing all the settlements and settlers, some by force.
Israel occupied Gaza in 1967 and had settlements in Gaza starting in 1968 or so, few at first, and then starting 1978 (iirc) a lot more than a few. In 2005 - which is 37 years ("decades") later, Israel pulled back, removed the settlers using threats of lethal force to do so. And it did, impact politics and votes - those who supported the move mostly thought, up until 7-oct-2023, that it was the right move. And those who opposed it, thought, up until 7-oct-2023, that it will explode in Israel's face at some point. (Whether you consider the latter vindicated or not depends on a lot of things and is not a trivial binary answer).
The "lethal force, politics and votes" requirement did not stop the Israeli government from removing settlers before. Will it stop them in the future? I have no idea.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_the_Sina...
That is very insightful, thank you.
I don't think the Palestinians expelled from the West Bank by Israeli settlers agree with that
Can you find, on the map, an area which was not occupied by Israel in 1968, but was occupied on Oct 6 2023 (before the Hamas attack on Israel which prompted Israel's re-occupation of Gaza in 2023-2024?)
Some are being relocated inside the West Bank, which is horrible, heinous and possibly a war crime, but they remain within the (occupied since 1967) west bank.
And settler = occupant
Israel invaded Syria in 1967, stealing land, and they just pushed farther into Syria, stealing even more land. How is this growing smaller?
> growing smaller since 1973
Propaganda machine at work, I see.
Israel is clearing land in the West Bank to this day, even if they haven't "annexed" the land officially.
But hey, according to their own maps it's already part of Israel, so yeah, you're right:
Israel is occupying the West Bank in the same way that it did since 1967. That occupation did not grow larger (or smaller).
The policies are heinous, possibly war crimes.
But Israel did also occupy Sinai and Gaza, and no longer does (well, it didn't until 7-oct-2023, at which point, Gaza opened a full fledged war which prompted Israel to re-occupy Gaza)
It still occupies the West Bank, and may or may not continue to do so, may or may not annex it. Prediction is very hard, especially about the future.
Sooo, now we can get the process of extracting Netanyahu and his gang out of Israel rolling and handing him over to the international criminal court ... right?
Why did it take for the incoming arrival of a new US president (Trump) and for the existing president (Biden) to LOSE to get this ceasefire deal to happen when the first proposal was rejected? [0]
Of course it "needs to be take longer" since lots of money was made by government contractors in this war and why would it need to end earlier if Biden was throwing money on Israel instead of reaching a ceasefire deal much earlier with the first deal.
All would have been avoid had it not been for Biden's weak leadership which was shown on display in-front of the world for the last 4 years.
There is no denying or spinning that.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/gaza-mediators-sea...
EDIT: Of course no-one can begin to answer this question, since the answer is there was no reason to prolong this war.
Here's an idea - the entire world doesn't revolve around the US presidency.
Israel is hugely dependent on the US, though.
In most cases sure. But this specific conflict is probably the worst example you could have picked.
What a bizarre comment. We don't have a new US President until next week.
> We don't have a new US President until next week.
You do realize that this war happened under this existing president and since November, Trump will be the "new US President"? Both Hamas and Israel both also knew this.
Even with this existing president (Biden), only until he lost the election this deal was reached and it started under his term and he prolonged to fund and waste money on Israel in this war even when the first ceasefire deal was rejected with an excessive amount of lives lost.
So why wasn't this stopped earlier with the first deal? Why did Biden (the existing president) wait until the very end to reach a deal when the first was rejected?
Can you not answer the above instead of dodging the question(s)?
I credit Trump's pressure on Hamas - Hamas eventually softened a lot of their positions because they realized they had no choice.
And I wish Biden had done a better job of supporting Israel, this war could have ended a lot sooner if Hamas had realized that the entire world was pressuring them to surrender. Instead the message got diluted with support for Palestinians, which Hamas interpreted as support for themselves.
Did you hear a single call by any country for Hamas to surrender? I didn't.
Edit: I got a very quick -4 mod on this, I assume because people don't like to realize Trump is doing more for both Israel and the Palestinians than Biden, and the Democrats lost the election partly because of their lack of support for Israel.
> Did you hear a single call by any country for Hamas to surrender? I didn't.
US, UK, France, Germany, Italy in a joint message: https://it.usembassy.gov/joint-statement-on-israel/
Spain: https://www.politico.eu/article/pedro-sanchez-spain-humanita...
Italy, France, Germany ask for EU sanctions to force Hamas surrender: https://www.reuters.com/world/italy-france-germany-call-ad-h...
Secretary of State calls out other countries for not demanding Hamas to surrender: https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/20/politics/blinken-israel-hamas...
You should expand your media diet.
Except for the Sec of State no other article is calling for a surrender.
The first one condemns the attacks two days after. The second one is "Humanitarian cease-fire", and condemning Hamas for attacks - Not a call to surrender. The third one is sanctions.
I'm not seeing the call to surrender in your links. I'm seeing sanctions. I think parent is asking for explicit calls that Hamas surrenders (i.e. lays down their arms and returns the hostages). Not a ceasefire, a surrender.
The first two links are just weak platitudes. The 3rd link is a year old and the sanctions never happened. The last one is just Blinken talking, not a serious demand.
So I maintain what I said.
They agreed to the same terms from last May, so where did the soften anything?
Looks more like the Iranian hostage situation when Carter lost against Reagan.
>if Hamas had realized that the entire world was pressuring them to surrender.
I guess you mean the entire western world. The rest doesn't care or doesn't Israel vs Hamas as good vs evil. Same with Russian vs Ukraine.
> so where did the soften anything?
That's not true. Hamas agreed to:
* Allow Israel to patrol the Philadelphi corridor.
* Allow Israel troops to remain in a buffer zone
* Provided an actual list of hostages which they refused originally
* Agreed to a temporary ceasefire with hopes of negotiated a permanent one (they wanted the whole thing in one shot).
Israel on the other hand changed nothing except possible the specifics of who would be released (Israel will releases murderers, which earlier they did not want to do).
* Trump's pressure on Israel.
Trump started posting Jeffrey D Sachs videos on Truth Social and the chosen people got Hamas (which the chosen people also largely control, by the way) to accept the deal.
> And I wish Biden had done a better job of supporting Israel
What a weird take. Without Biden's support of Israel this genocide would not have been possible. How do you mean it should have supported Israel more? Allow these psychopats to nuke Gaza?
What genocide? Since when is there a genocide? Do you mean when Hamas tried to genocide Jews?
And you think Hamas wanted to nuke Gaza? Do you mean Hamas wanted all this destruction of their country? What did they gain from that?
Biden should have told Hamas to surrender, he should have told Palestinians that their Hamas leadership is leading them to death and destruction, and if the Palestinians don't stop the US will get involved. Which is what Trump did, and now there's a ceasefire.
Hamas feeds off of Palestinians support, believing it's for them. They need to know that everyone wants them dead and destroyed. But that didn't happen till Trump. Biden was weak, and did very little helpful.
Are either Israelis or Gazans more secure than when this war began? What has either side achieved?
Hamas has been considerably weakened. Their arsenal of rockets and weapons is depleted. At the beginning of the war thousands of rockets were being shot into Israel and now there are very few and the ones that are are quite crude. Hezbollah entered the war immediately and said the only way they would exit is if Hamas exists. Israel retaliated, killed their leader, decimated their forces, and negotiated a ceasefire that got Hezbollah to back off on their original terms. Lebanon just elected an anti-Hezbollah President.
During all of this, Assad was deposed. Israel's main adversary is Iran. They are the ones who fund and supply Hamas and Hezbollah, and were the key ally of Assad. They attacked Israel multiple times during the war and Israel responded in kind, the assesments seem to be that Israel's responses were quite strong.
So prior to October 7, Iran had strong proxies and allies all over the region. They are now either in shambles or deposed.
The goal of the war for Israel is to prevent another October 7th style attack from occuring. I'd say they have made significant steps towards accomplishing that from a military perspective.
Israel has likely also created multiple generations of anger and hate against themselves. They may have reduced the likelihood of another Oct 7 in the near term, but 50 years is not something I would count on
Probably the most efficient way of creating multiple generations of anger and hate is letting a radical terrorist movement control 2 million people, which can completely mold the education curriculum and free to draft anyone to their quasi-army
So whatever it has done, it cannot possibly be worse than pre-war
> letting a radical terrorist movement control 2 million people, which can completely mold the education curriculum and free to draft anyone to their quasi-army
“Terrorist” groups Irgun, Haganah, Lehi all became part of Israeli government and army post 1948. Israel has mandatory military service for its citizens.
Haganah was a paramilitary organization formed after a few rather violent massacres of the Jewish population in the 1920s, climaxing with the Hebron massacre in 1929 which included horrors similar to October 7, hence why it's name in Hebrew is "Defense". Except for a short stint of a few months of something in between guerilla warfare and terror attacks against the British, it was mainly a military organization foremost, tasked with defense of the Jewish population from Palestinian attacks until the 1948 war
Irgun and Lehi were both offshoots which can be categorized as terror organizations, however they were very small, with a few hundred members and never reached the size or level of support of any Palestinian organization
While the Haganah formed most of the IDF leadership, the new country civilian leadership was based on the Jewish Agency which predated the Haganah and had completely civilian leadership.
There are many other differences between Hamas and these organizations, but in general this is an invalid comparison
What could a radical terrorist organization possibily tell Gazans about what happened to their parents that sounds worse than the truth?
Something like this maybe? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow's_Pioneers
I see that one show cited a lot - What in particular about that television show was problematic and “worse” than what Gazans have endured over the past 15 months?
Also, how does that compare with Israeli schoolchildren singing about destroying Gaza?
https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/11/20/israeli-children-sing...
What sort of military solutions and violence, if any, should be employed to root out that sort of extremism?
> Nahoul lectures to the audience that "we will liberate Al-Aqsa from the filth of the criminal Jews." [...] Later, Izz Al-Din from Ramallah calls in and Nahoul suggests that "we will go on Jihad when we grow up
> Nassur and Saraa have a disagreement about what the "expulsion" of the "Jews or Zionists" means. Saraa adopts the argument that they should be "chased away" and that "we don't want to do anything to them, just expel them from our land." Nassur, on the other hand, endorses the view that they should be "erased" and that "we want to slaughter them so they will be expelled from our land." Saraa eventually concedes, and the two compromised that "we will expel them from our land using all means, and if they don't want to go peacefully, by words or talking, we'll have to do it by slaughter."
No, it's not problematic at all.
You know that thousands of children have been killed now right? I'm counting the Israeli children along with the Gazan children. There is no basis for this kind of comparison now that the leadership of both countries have revealed themselves as murderers. Let's have a sense of proportion here...
You seem to be arguing some point completely unrelated to what I was responding to.
Having a puppet on television say that someone died in a missile attack is not as bad as having an actual friend or relative die in a missile attack. This is what I mean by a, "sense of proportion."
That's not what the passages that I quoted say.
I'm not trying to say if it is better or worse. Perhaps a better phrasing is "Israel has solidified another 2 generations of hatred by how they prosecuted the war." Leveling a country, killing and maiming as many as they did, the indiscriminate nature and war crimes, these things worked against their stated goals in the long-term
This is the narrative that the extremists want to push, but it’s hardly the truth. Hamas was not some grassroots movement of frustrated Palestinians. It was an Iranian proxy force masterminded, funded, supplied, trained, and instructed by Iran.
There are certainly many angry Palestinians before and after but this is foreign meddling through and through. Hamas would not exist in this form and have done the things that it did otherwise.
They already hated Israel. So much that they attacked them and started this war in the first place. I doubt Israel is any worse off in terms of being hated than they were before the war.
Hamas is not a rational actor. Their stated goal is to destroy Israel and kill every Jew. That's it. There is no scenario in which they are going to stop hating Israel. They don't care if every Palestinian also gets killed, if they get to destroy Israel it's worth it to them.
There are multiple generations of hate in the West Bank as well. Israel isn't threaten by them as much as they have much more difficulty accumulating weapons.
Are the Palestinians in the West Bank supposed to love their armed illegal settler neighbors?
It feels like almost ever day that I see a video of a Palestinian's home in the West Bank being demolished or a Palestinian family being harassed by armed settlers
I think you might have misinterpreted the comment above you. I took it to mean that there are a set of circumstances unique to Gaza that cause greater conflict between it and Israel than between the West Bank and Israel, which is not sufficiently explained by generational trauma alone.
> Israel has likely also created multiple generations of anger and hate against themselves
Israel would have created multiple generations of emboldened anger and hate against themselves if they failed to respond to the massacre and mass kidnapping.
In 50 years there will be no Palestine :c
I don't understand how is this different to all wars? back then when the Nazis started the war and we had to declare war against them. Or when we nuked 2 cities of Japan, were we also afraid that we will create multiple generations of anger and hate? how is this different?
I'm not comparing Israel or Palestine to Nazi, it's just a bitter fact that war always create anger and hate. Something had to be done though?
After WW2, (west) Germany was given massive support. We helped to rebuild the country. Same for Japan.
Will we (and/or Israel) do the same for Gaza? What about Lebanon and Syria?
We certainly failed at this in Iraq and Afghanistan, did we learn any lessons? Will the incoming US Administration fumble this opportunity?
As Stephen Kotkin likes to say "You can win the war and lose the peace. You can also lose the war and win the peace"
What comes after the war is as important, maybe more so, than the war itself
If you take the analogy further, Germany also completely surrendered after WWII and came up with a new, democratic government. In the meantime, 12-16 millions of Germans were driven out of their homes in East Prussia never to return. It wasn't until 1990 that the (now reunited) Germany finally renounced all claims to their lost territory.
Perhaps weakened them from an equipment & infrastructure standpoint - along with the rest of Gaza - but not from a manpower standpoint: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-14/blinken-s...
The right way to fight an independence movement is to either do so from within/in a more targeted fashion, or barring that, meet their demands in some shape or form. Escalating the violence to the point where you’re destroying and displacing a people might settle things down in the short term, but the movement will not die, and will more than likely grow.
The difference being that the new manpower has zero experience, is mostly kids and has no leadership. They reverted from a terrorist army, to an unorganized guerilla
Sure, but they are at least motivated; anyone would be after witnessing their family, friends, or neighbors being wiped out by “precision” bombing.
No matter how motivated they are, without weapon and training they pose much less risk than an army
Not only is Hamas weakened, Hamas' and Iran's supporter (China, Russia) has been severely weakened compared to the start of the conflict. Russia is in a stalemate in the Ukraine invasion, and has lost significant economic and military resources since. Russia also lost significant influence in Middle East, with the Assad regime fall. China is a severe economic decline. Also, China distanced itself from Iran, most likely due to wanting to not get sanctioned by US and Europe. https://thediplomat.com/2024/11/china-is-recalculating-its-m....
> During all of this, Assad was deposed.
And we've yet to see whether this is a good thing.
Gaddafi was seen as one of the most oppressive figures in the world during his lifetime. A few countries made it their goal to take him down and liberate the people of Libya.
Gaddafi was killed, Libya was free, and the media celebrated. Just like with Syria, media coverage was down to basically zero about a month after that happened and everyone was left thinking it was a job well done. Turns out Libya has been worse than it ever was under Gaddafi. Having an oppressive albeit relatively secular leader who maintained a stable hold on the country turned out to be better than an oppressive non-secular mess.
Good points there. Still not sure how much the ouster of Assad was connected with the war (though no doubt that the weakening of Hezbollah must have contributed a lot to it) but it definitely changed the playing field.
It was 100% driven by the weakness in Hezbollah and Russia and Iran. There’s no doubt.
> Israel's main adversary is Iran. They are the ones who fund and supply Hamas
Well, Israel started and has been funding Hamas (I'm assuming, but who knows, that it stopped with this war) since the PLO/Arafat days to the tune of (at times tens of) millions a month.
That's not actually true. First Israel didn't fund them, they allowed others to fund them, second the Hamas back then was not the terrorists of today, they changed.
The monsters are still there and already planning their next attempt in genocide. While the hostages coming back is a welcome news, none of war objectives were achieved. All the sacrifices were pointless if Israel exits Gaza and leaves Hamas in control (weakened is but still in control). Netanyahu again showed that he is a coward and easily pressured and has a pathological fear of a conflict. With thousands of monsters being released back into Gaza I fear the next 7 October will be worse.
By conservative estimates (see the 2024 Khatlib paper in the Lancet), roughly 7--9% of the population of Gaza will perish as a result of the actions of Israel on the strip. Many more will flee. According to UN, clearing the rubble in Gaza will take 15 years. That's just clearing the rubble, not rebuilding the damaged buildings, which is about 66% of the total.
There are some clear indications that the intention of the Israeli government is to destroy in whole, or in part, the Palestinian people, for example by killing members of the group, or inflicting upon it conditions calculated to bring about the destruction of the group.
There's a wealth of quotes from high ranking officials, going all the way up to the Knesset, stating almost exactly that. One quote I think of from time to time is "Erase them, their families, mothers and children." given in a motivational speech directed at the IDF.
Given that this is their intention (and I have every reason to believe it is), I'd say that this has been a pretty successful affair for Israel. Sure, Jews worldwide (including Israel) are much less safe now than they were two years ago, but the Israeli government does not give me the impression that this is at all their goal.
This makes no sense to me. If 8% (171,000 people) of Gaza were to perish, that would leave Gaza with the population it had in 2020. The ceasefire reportedly will have Israel pulling out from Gaza fully and a massive influx of humanitarian aid is expected to enter Gaza. If the ceasefire goes through, the death rate will drop greatly and the population will begin to grow again.
As horrible as the destruction has been, this is nowhere close to eliminating the people of Gaza. If genocide was a goal of any of the Israeli leadership, they abjectly failed.
> If genocide was a goal of any of the Israeli leadership, they abjectly failed
This take is incredibly callous. Suppose 8% of everyone you gets killed. This is a shockingly brutal thing to happen to a population. Aside from that you're wrong on a factual level. The "in part" part of the '51 convention is there precisely so people don't say "there's still Jews left so technically the Holocaust wasn't a genocide". The holocaust was a genocide, and this is a genocide (yes, "is", they're still dropping bombs on a population half of which is under 18). There's a reason the relevant cases haven't been thrown out of the ICJ and ICC.
But genocidal people are callous! I'm not being callous towards the people living through this. You don't need to convince me it's horrible.
But put yourself in the shoes of a hypothetical evil genocidal person. Assume 8% of Gaza was killed (though this figure is wrong). Having Gaza at it's 2020 population is negligible to them. They were hoping to murder everyone and reclaim their holy land or something and instead (purely from a population standpoint) they're basically just back to the status quo after the truce. Even most Nazis would say they ultimately failed in their genocidal ambitions and they killed two thirds of the Jews in Europe and 90% in Poland.
Second, 8% of Gaza hasn't been killed. By the Gaza health ministry's estimate, about 2% have been killed. Your source arrived at 8% literally by just quadrupling the number without any basis in data from Gaza. This is out of line with all the estimates from Gaza.
> Aside from that you're wrong on a factual level. The "in part" part of the '51 convention is there precisely so...
I'm aware and I didn't say anything factually wrong. Killing just part of a people doesn't legally exempt it from being genocide. But killing part of a people also doesn't imply genocide. Every war has killed part of a people. The Afghanistan and Iraq wars each killed far more people than the Gaza war, but neither is considered genocide.
If Israel were acting like the Nazis, there wouldn't be any Palestinians left in Gaza. They'd all be carpet bombed, shot on sight, or sent to forced labor camps. There's a world of difference between the two.
> If Israel were acting like the Nazis, there wouldn't be any Palestinians left in Gaza.
This is literally the "if the holocaust were a genocide, how come there's still jews" take. Please go and get a grip.
That's not even remotely what anyone is saying. If you're denying there's a difference in quality between what the Nazis did and what Israel did, that's also rather appalling.
To qualify Israel's actions as a genocide, lawyers don't have to show that Israel killed every Palestinian in Gaza, but they will have to prove they intended to. The ICC is not going to rule this a genocide.
As should be obvious, the "in part" wording of "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, an ethnic group" does not mean killing any part of a ethnic group can be genocide (e.g. killing 7 people of an ethnicity in an airstrike is not a genocide). The part must be an identifiable subgroup. For example, intent to kill all Palestinians in Gaza, rather than all Palestinians everywhere, would qualify as genocidal intent. There has to be intent to physical eradicate an identifiable group. Forcing people to leave is also not genocide (it's an ethnic cleansing). Other war crimes do not qualify as genocide.
Israel is definitely more secure, because of the on front confrontation with Iran and its proxies.
1. Hezbollah suffered heavy blows and lost significant political and military power in Lebanon. Didn’t retaliate nearly as heavy as feared.
2. For the first time Israel struck with its military directly in Iran and showed real abilities by destroying most of Iran’s air defenses.
3. As a result of the two points above and other reasons, there was significant shift of powers in Syria which led to Assad regime collapse (significant amount of supplies to Iran’s main proxy Hezbollah went through Syria), but the affect of the regime change in Syria is yet to be determined.
There is an argument to be made that Iran and Hezbollah have been degraded, which makes the entire region safer. I'm not going to claim this, as I'm no expert, but there is a an argument to be made.
For the Gazans, the next months and years will be more determinative. Will they get the support and aid they need to rebuild and keep terrorist organizations from running their country? (They should have their own country instead of being effectively an open air prison)
Gaza has been its own country / Palestinian State since 2006 and they have been recipients of foreign aid for many years, which is how they fund these attacks.
That (security) was never Hamas' intention; they were worried about being forgotten, after Israel and KSA were close to normalizing relations, and now they've managed to gunk up the gears of any peace process, at the cost of 40,000 Gazan lives. So... a victory for Hamas? They've never been interested in peace anyways.
Israeli's are (not that they think it was worth it), Gazan's are not. This war severely weakened Iran, Iran's proxies (Lebanon/Hezbollah, and Syria) and also interestingly Russia.
Gazan's now have a ruined country with exactly nothing to show for it.
Depending on how you interpret it, this war was actually a good thing for Lebanon (they have a government for the first time in years), and Syria who finally overthrew their sadistic monster.
[Reposting a comment from ChocolateGod that was flagged and made dead despite being a legitimate good faith question]
> Syria who finally overthrew their sadistic monster. Not saying Assad wasn't a sadistic monster, but do you really think an ISIS-related group running the state is going to be any better?
Christians are already being persecuted.
> Syria who finally overthrew their sadistic monster.
Not saying Assad wasn't a sadistic monster, but do you really think an ISIS-related group running the state is going to be any better?
Christians are already being persecuted.
> Christians are already being persecuted.
Do you have a source for that?
BBC News - Protests in Syria over Christmas tree burning https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx27yx1y0deo
The strengthening of the "us Vs them" mentality and terror politics
Can you concretely suggest what each side should have done at some point in time, to avoid being where we are now? I feel like you're making a rhetorical statement that's hard to map to specific actions.
If neither side has really changed what's to prevent them from going to war again?
It happened for a reason and unless that reason has changed then one should expect the same outcome.
Hamas was built over a long period by Iran, through Syria. Iran is much weaker than before, Syria is no longer a route to send supplies, and Hezbollah has been gutted.
Hamas was for the vast majority of its existence anti-Iran, and instead was supported by various Sunni groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. Extrapolating convenient conclusions doesn't help anyone.
And that portion of its existence is not relevant to what happened in this war
This was a proxy war with Iran
Concretely, Israel will not be caught offguard for an Oct 7-style attack for quite a while. So the macguffin (hundreds of hostages) will probably not come up again.
The Europeans should have stayed in Europe.
Oh please. Israelis could have voted in a different party/leader that would have taken another path. West Bank settlement expansions could have been halted and reversed (to a sensible degree of course). These are bread and butter suggestions that everyone who thinks honestly about this conflict sees clearly.
There are of course many more suggestions I didn't state. To pretend that there was just no way to avoid this is shameful.
Israel has a bunch of land that is politically and practically simpler to annex, than before. Israel is more secure by far, knowing that the US will continue to fund them even in the face of being convicted of humanitarian crimes.
If Israel wanted Gaza, they wouldn’t have given it up twenty years ago.
Israeli leadership in 2006 gave up Gaza and forcefully evicted thousands of Jewish people in what was supposed to be an exchange for peace. That was supposed to be the end of the rockets and the attacks.
In case you are not aware, the exact opposite happened.
To be clear, we very much do want Gaza. We had homes there. and we have Jewish roots there going back long before the time of today’s Palestinian colonists.
Above all of that though, is that we want peace. And so if we have to be patient for a time when we can peacefully live in Gaza again, we will be patient.
In the meantime, the most important thing is the safe return of loved ones who were taken hostage on October 7th (and before!) and safety for those living in rocket’s range of Gaza.
My understanding is that there's been renewed interest in building the Ben Gurion Canal proposed by Howard D. MacCabee in 1963.
https://www.osti.gov/opennet/servlets/purl/453701.pdf
Google's Ngram viewer isn't working for the term "Ben Gurion Canal" for some reason, but it would show approximately when renewed interest started getting traction since the proposal was declassified in 1996.
I wouldn't be surprised if the 2021 Evergreen fiasco was contributory to this renewed interest but this is pure speculation on my part.
> being convicted of humanitarian crimes.
The UN and ICC have both shown they're absolutely powerless and useless.
This is not in dispute. None of what I initially posted is in dispute.
I would propose this "war" was relatively cheap in Israeli civilian lives lost for what was gained.
Demonstrably increasing the reach of Israel action without external repercussions, makes it a security win for Israel. None of the international community will put troops in front of Israel to benefit Palestine. That's worth something to know (converting an unknown to a known).
Part of me thinks a Peacekeeping Force (e.g. UN, EU etc) should go into Gaza to control it until a government is formed and stop Hamas from taking back control but I don't see the US not blocking it.
Timeline is very fascinating will be curious to see if eastern europe will follow suit
Isn't it better for Russia to wait till Trump?
Hamas just changed the terms of the deal, demanding the release of hardened terrorists. The deal will now likely fall apart. They are a terrorist organization, and behave as such. This “deal” is just another avenue to wage psychological warfare, in their view. The war in Gaza will likely continue.
I wonder why I haven't read yet here: a "two states for two people" which which summarizes a real ending to the conflict.
> Trump's Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff was in Qatar along with White House envoys for the talks, and a senior Biden administration official said Witkoff's presence was critical to reaching a deal after 96 hours of intense negotiations.
Better than Jared Kushner I guess
Sure, because the new guy is famous for not honoring any agreements so it’s critical to have his envoy around to ensure that he isn’t going to do the same to this one.
Great news. Let's see how many days it holds this time around.
How is this hacker news? From the HN guidelines:
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. *If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.*
There are exceptions to the rules, like US election results or the end of major wars
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42614703.
Really major political developments often have a thread on HN.
From the same page of guidelines:
> Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it.
Yeah, the irony is the guidelines have weasel words allowing this post but not the comment
We should always celebrate peaceful interactions over violent ones.
It is news because several newspapers credit the achievement to Trump and his envoy Witkoff. Ha'aretz has more on this, but it's paywalled so here is another one:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/with-epic-deal-...
This is not just Trump bragging and taking credit, search other sources.
US foreign policy does not actually change when the administration does.
I hate Trump as much as the next guy, but multiple sources are agreeing on the fact that Trump’s team had a role to play in this. But I guess this upsets the “vote blue no matter who” crowd.
> This is not just Trump bragging and taking credit, search other sources.
This claim is not justified by the link you provide. What evidence do you have to support it?
I'd guess because of the word "Most" in that line of the guidelines?
> Negotiations on implementing the second phase of the deal will begin by the 16th day of phase one, and this stage was expected to include the release of all remaining hostages, a permanent ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
Am I missing something or did they really only agree to _just_ a ceasefire?
You're not missing anything, this is a ceasefire like the first one, Israel will demand the rest of the Hostages at the end of it, Hamas will refuse, and the fighting will resume after lots of finger-pointing about whose fault it is.
Everyone is tired of this shit. Bibi will be on meathooks if he unilaterally backs out. Hamas will have no friends at all if they renege.
Hamas did not lose any friends the last few times they reneged. I think both sides agree this peace will just last until Hamas can rearm, but I just think both sides agree that's as good a deal as either is getting.
> the last few
There have been over 10 “ceasefires” that ended with Hamas firing rockets into Israel, in the last 20 years.
Iran wasn't on the brink of a nuclear bomb. Gulf states had infinite money to waste, now oil prices have peaked as the world decarbonizes. None of the traditional friends have the time or energy for their noise, if they cause major problems.
The headline reports the net result, however the real story here is Trump's man Steven Witkoff laying down the rules of this particular game to the Israelis.
I have never seen so many downvoted comments that aren’t dead in a thread before. If anyone had examples of other threads of this ilk I’d be curious to see them.
I’m completely ignorant as to the public sentiment on this topic, no social media besides this site.
A system that sides with the majority is not very good at protecting the voices of a minority.
Given the sheer global size of one group vs the other tiny ethnical minority it’s no surprise who wins in a count of opinion votes. That applies in the UN, and it applies here. And is ironically the reason the ethnic minority must have self determination.
> I have never seen so many downvoted comments
Must be those pesky chinese or russian bots. Or could it be something else entirely? A chosen group of bots perhaps?
> that aren’t dead in a thread before.
Give it some time. They start with the downvotes and when things quiet down some, then come the mass flagging of comments.
honestly, one thing I like about this conflict is that euphamistic comments like this don't get you banned anymore.
the ostracizing has been diluted so much that its become even counterproductive. everyone can laugh about something as benign as that, as the real frictions have been laid bare for all to see.
> honestly, one thing I like about this conflict is that euphamistic comments like this don't get you banned anymore.
What? It's more likely to get you banned. Not only that, it gets minority and female college presidents fired. Something unthinkable prior to this "conflict".
All one can do is push back against the propaganda and censorship.
You will see it in any thread about Israel or Jews. Tons of flagged and downvoted posts. I emailed hn about it.
Unlike those highly motivated people, normal people don't spend time upvoting and vouching, so you end up with a tattered mess of a thread.
> or Jews
Any example of this that isn't Israel related?
Astroturfing
Many people believe they need to add support to their cause at the expense of accuracy, so instead of elaborating or explaining why they just try to drown out discourse that doesnt automatically help them
But fortunately there is no need to debate your beliefs anymore, just go bet on them in the prediction markets
You get paid for being more correct that someone else, geopolitics is greater than sentiment
I suggest looking up the dictionary definitions of the words "war" and "genocide" and seriously considering which of the two is more appropriate for this situation.
Good. Next, Ukraine and Russia.
Unlikely, unless one of the combatants has a major economic collapse. Which, I mean, pulling support from Ukraine would do it, but personally I don't consider that an acceptable outcome.
Unlikely. Having Russia bleed itself out like a stuck pig impaling itself on Ukraine is simply too beneficial for its geopolitical rivals.
Ukraine won't end until terms can be achieved that allow bankers and Western investors to buy up all the "distressed assets" in the Ukraine for pennies on the dollar just like the oligarchs bought up all of the major industries following the collapse of the USSR.
If you've never seen it, these videos from a banking conference in 2023 are "enlightening":
https://x.com/mtracey/status/1647811834039136258
Mitch McConnell's comments about Ukraine and it's natural resources also support this plan. If assets become to expensive to buy, just cause them to be distressed so you can buy them cheaply.
Pretty much all wars are banker's wars.
I have a friend living in Ukraine - they are trying to get out because Foreign Aid is likely to dry up and Ukraine annexed :c
[flagged]
Hamas agreed to this deal months ago. Give Trump credit for applying pressure to the party that actually rejected it.
That's not true. Hamas finally agreed to let Israel monitor the Philadelphi corridor and to keep a buffer zone.
Hamas also finally released an actual list with names of who they would release.
Those were the changes the made the deal. Israel did not change their position.
If you think you are right, then tell me: What did Hamas want that they didn't get before, than now because of Trump Israel agreed to? There's not a single thing, but I'll let you have a chance to find something.
*Genocide. It’s not a war.
As a dev, I hate jargon to dress up trivial products or when distressing things are watered down. Usually I keep my feelings to myself but in this case, allowing a genocide to be watered down would make me complicit.
P.S. I understand this will be downvoted. But HN karma is a small price to pay to call out the softening of a literal genocide. Imagine standing by when someone calls Germany’s genocide “punishments”.
45 000 deaths is genocide ? What's the civilian/military ratio ?
> 45 000 deaths is genocide ?
I’m confused by this question, is 45,000 too little for you? To label genocide you need a large number of of deaths with the intent of destroying a people’s identity.
> What’s the civilian/military ratio ?
If you’re able to find this number, you’re likely able to find that depending on whom you ask the percentage of militants ranges from 10-40%.
And this says nothing about the millions displaced, the destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure and the policies to starve the population. Given the vast amount of attention given to this topic and the information around it, you need to be make a conscious effort to stay ignorant of it. And to be wilfully ignorant of a genocide is to be complicit in it.
I suggest starting here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide
War? No, ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians - not war.
I hope the leaders of this genocide are brought to be accountable. Apartheid Israel have killed 10s of thousands, stole their land and dehumanised the Palestinian people; all supported by the so-called enlightened West (especially the US). This leaves a huge black spot on their morality.
Yeah right.
In other news: Israel strikes Gaza within hours of ceasefire accord with Hamas, residents say
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-hamas-cease...
The ceasefire is not in effect yet, according to the article that you linked.
I'm not at all surprised, they have form. Even now, they are still breaking the ceasefire in Lebanon too (they broke it within hours, of course) - and why wouldn't they, when the Israeli-controlled Lebanese army just lets them continue to destroy entire villages all along the border?
It's unbelievable that Trump has managed to facilitate this before he even steps into office. It is a brutal display of power, but that is sometimes needed, just like when a parent needs to intervene in a conflict between children.
A meta level comment for dang, I’m upvoting every comment that is being gang-downvoted…independent of the position. This topic, with roots going back millennia, deserves to have all opinions captured and presented, if nothing more than as a snapshot/wave collapse of where the opposing sides sat in 2025.
Noting that, ceasefires are wonderful things.
It's not just gang-downvoting, I've seen perfectly reasonable and civil comments being flagged for no apparent reason.
I remain convinced that HN is simply not the place to have a reasoned discussion about this conflict, and probably nowhere on the internet is.
No platform that simply sides with the majority is a good place for reasoning about a conflict that pits 0.2% of the world’s population against 25%, and that includes UN resolutions.
>Noting that, ceasefires are wonderful things.
Rest, and re-arm time.
Yet Israel is still bombing Palestinians.
I welcome this ceasefire with caution. Israel are still currently bombing Gazan homes and the death toll is still growing. There is always a risk it is temporary for further tactical gain.
A poll showed 60% of Israelis wanted a ceasefire but the 40% who want the war to continue are making a big noise. Violence was never going to take down a resistance group, we all knew this.
I don’t think there can be a future with Hamas in charge. Only a peace deal will will secure safety for both sides. But this negotiation between Hamas dismantling and a two-state solution is not the rhetoric coming out of Israel.
Only sanctions will gain a two-state solution and actual peace for Israel and Palestine.
> Israel are still currently bombing Gazan homes
And Gaza are still currently launching missiles at Israel.
> And Gaza are still currently launching missiles at Israel.
Sources please?
read news, lol
> read news, lol
I did. There was no reports on anything like that in the past few days. That's why I'm asking, what's there to LOL about? Or was the comment a joke that they can't fire or something? I'm confused
The comment claimed that missiles were still being launched from Gaza. Here's a google search to help you check for yourself: https://www.google.com/search?q=Israel+hamas+"rockets"+"miss...
Either the news aren't mentioning some major attack or you are lying through your teeth.
Time to pay the piper.
IMO Iran is the winner (least damaged) out of all this. Their proxies are smashed, but the core strength is still the same.
Israel has blown all its international credibility. The International Court of Justice verdict will be very interesting. If it goes against Israel then BDS will (should) become the policy for all countries.
Iran invested all its resources into proxies waging wars for it. Them being smashed means Iran is ruined on all those war investments. With economy in shambles and expansionist war failed, it's hardly "least damaged".
This is untrue on multiple levels. Iran invested most of its resources on its own military - the proxies are extremely cheap - and Iran's most powerful Iraqi proxies are fine, while the Houthis actually came out of this stronger.
Iran lost influence in Lebanon and Syria and these countries, for now at least, pose a much smaller threat to Israel. Perhaps we will even see normalizations in the nearer future.
Leaders in the middle east are also driven by their constituents, which still harbor a lot of resentment against Israel, but that will pass as well. I think this was the last chance of a significant insurgency to reorder powers in the middle east and Iran and its proxies lost a lot of influence.
Houthis have a strategic position and Yemen probably has one of the largest market for illegal weapons. But their capabilities are very limited and their raison d'être is a death cult with no future. At some point other Yemini forces will take charge.
For Israel it seems possible to strike through Iraq with some effort, and technically they are still at war after Iraq attacked Israel in . But that war is quite cold and there is some exchange at least with the Kurdish part of Iraq.
They aren't cheap, at that scale they required huge expenses. And the more they wanted to expand, they more expenses it meant. They overstretched in hopes of that paying off, and it all went crashing down.
The only upside for them now is that those expenses suddenly became unnecessary, but it's not going to stop them from trying to do it all over again.
They really don't. It's estimated Hezbollah cost around a billion dollars a year, probably less now due to the massive PPP multiplier increase.
The Iranian proxies are not actually fully on Iran's teat, they have their own revenue stream and direct Iranian funding is now only a small part of it.
More like Iran pays them and tries to milk their criminal profits back to some degree. But they spend more than they make, for them it's about expansionism, not about profits.
Most of these groups are governmental or semi-governmental, many operate hospitals, schools, and so on. They aren't small time criminals making small time goon money, they operate at the level of states and have significant legitimate income streams.
Being sanctioned organizations, they still need to launder money even if it is obtained legitimately in order to obscure their control of it. But being in the position they are, a billion dollars is not actually a huge sum compared to their assets and income streams. A conservative estimate would put total legitimate assets for Hezbollah over 10 billion dollars.
There was a time where this wasn't true, somewhere in the 1980s, but that time is long past. Iran's proxies have grown beyond directly being funded and they have largely established themselves in the social and economic fabric as an essentially governmental entity.
This is clear when you look at the US sanctioning various Lebanese businessmen and large companies in sectors from telecommunications to construction to pharmaceuticals as well as functionaries in it's government. It's not a question of selling weed.
Criminals handling quasi or even fully governmental functions to control the populace is nothing new. Look at Russia or Venezuela where it happens at massive scale.
They do have big income streams, but "legitimate" is way more than a stretch here. More like they use population for those streams, and anything else they can reach, "legitimate" or not.
Whether you like it or not, productive activity in sectors like telecom, construction, healthcare and so is simply legitimate.
Deciding that another country's laws do not matter and considering a foreign governmental entity to be criminal in its own country is just not a rational argument. Russia has a corrupt government, that doesn't change the fact the Russian government is largely self-sufficient draws its income from legitimate and productive activities.
At that point you're just making a circular argument that it's a fundamentally illegitimate organization. Well you can consider them to be, it doesn't change the fact that they have large revenue streams from productive activities that are legal within their jurisdiction, and as a result are far less reliant on Iranian funding than they used to be.
And to the point, it doesn't change the fact that Iran doesn't spend much money on their proxies anymore.
Doesn't change the fact that even such institutionalized criminals can depend on Iran's backing. Even Russia does for that matter. And that's not free and normally they'd want to be paid back in some kind of dividends. But the smaller fish is more of a one way street in expenses in exchange for serving as their muscle.
who's the strongest proxies? i thought it was Hezbollah, who are now in shambles
By equipment and manpower, it's the proxy groups of the Iraqi PMF by a country mile, and apparently the Houthis are stronger than anyone expected.
Israel already violated multiple clear orders from the ICJ so I honestly don't see what mechanism would hold them accountable.
> Israel already violated multiple clear orders from the ICJ so I honestly don't see what mechanism would hold them accountable.
That is the point of BDS
After all it was scantions from the West that bought down the other apartheid regime in the 1990s
Iran has not escaped this war. Both the US and Israel have made strikes within the country
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/consequences-i... (from Nov) | https://www.understandingwar.org/publications?type%5B%5D=bac... (daily report history)
With other conflicts wrapping up, there are people expecting more attacks into Iran, especially by Israel. They are in a weakened state. Their missile attacks amounted to nothing. Much like Russia, they likely look better on paper than in practice. That being said, one nuke from them against Israel would be devastating, but also likely mean the end of the regime
This is one of those conflicts where there are no good guys. Both sides have way too many people who want to see the other side burn more than they want peace. For outsiders like me, not picking sides is the best course of action.
And yet, our support for one of side is the best military technology available and unlimited diplomatic protection - and for the other, humanitarian aid shipments that never arrive.
