The pro-Israel information war
jackpoulson.substack.com
jackpoulson.substack.com
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
As this is probably the most divisive topic that exists right now, the comments should be as thoughtful and substantive as commenters can make them. At a minimum, that means no flamebait, no name-calling, and no snark. Thank you.
If anything the skew within the platforms is to prioritize pro-palestinian views https://twitter.com/committeeonccp/status/173279243496103143...
It also seems like these platforms create (rather than support) anti-Israeli views: https://twitter.com/antgoldbloom/status/1730255552738201854
US views skew pro-israel, and GenZ is closer to 50/50, so if there's something going on online, it's not in favor of Israel.
It's probably relevant that there are 1 billion Muslims to 16 million Jews, and that the largest relevant population of pro-Israeli internationals is India and Indian Hindus, and they are not on TikTok (blocked in India).
But conflating anti-Israeli views with anti-Semitic views does a disservice to Jews and Palestinians alike.
Looking at comments online, i'd argue that around 90%+ when someone uses the word "Zionism" they are just bigots.
If you genuinely want to criticize israel, just critique the country and its actions, the same you would do for any other country, no need to start talking about "Zionists" etc.
Nobody gets confused about what is what:
That is the #1 tactic used to build smearing campaigns against people critic of Israel. The difference between being a racist and expressing disgust for what Israel has done in decades to the people of Gaza and the West Bank is so huge that either people using the word "antisemite" in that context are deeply ignorant, or they simply have an agenda. To my knowledge, most journalists and/or politicians aren't that ignorant.
* Bibi's racist amalek "genocide the palestinians" trope.
* Ben gvir when he hangs a portrait of Israeli terrorist Baruch Goldstein up on his wall.
* Isaac Herzog when he calls race mixing a tragedy.
(To give an example of 3 people who obviously represent Israel, all of whom are proudly racist).
Then you have not been paying attention. Add this fact to your knowledge: US Republicans really ARE that ignorant. They certainly have an agenda, but they are most certainly ignorant to have such an idiotic agenda, too.
House Declares Anti-Zionism Is Antisemitism, Dividing Democrats
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/05/world/middleeast/house-an...
>More than half of House Democrats declined to back the Republican-written resolution, as some argued that equating criticism of the state of Israel with hatred of the Jewish people went too far.
>House Democrats splintered on Tuesday over a resolution condemning the rise of antisemitism in the United States and around the world, with more than half of them declining to support a measure declaring that “anti-Zionism is antisemitism.”
>The resolution denouncing antisemitism, drafted by Republicans, passed by a vote of 311 to 14, drawing the support of all but one Republican. Ninety-two Democrats voted “present” — not taking a position for or against the measure — while 95 supported it.
>That reflected deep and growing divisions among Democrats between those who have offered unequivocal support for the Jewish state and its actions, and others — especially in the party’s progressive wing — who have been critical of Israel’s policies and its conduct in the war with Hamas.
>“Under this resolution, those who love Israel deeply but criticize some of its policy approaches could be considered anti-Zionist,” Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the longest-serving Jewish member of the House, said in a floor speech before he voted “present.” “That could make every Democratic Jewish member of this body, because they all criticized the recent Israeli judicial reform package, de facto antisemites. Might that be the author’s intention?”
Both of my senators are active Mormons. There is a deep connection between Zionism and Mormonism that I would rather not spend the time exploring here.
A significant part of the United States' support for Israel is founded on religious preference. Disagreement on that preference very neatly aligns to party lines.
> there has always been a powerful campaign to equate any criticism of Israel to antisemitism.
If the people spouting anti-Israel sentiment spouted the same sentiment for the same actions done a dozen times over by other nations, then they would not be anti-Semitic. In fact, I would agree with the vast majority of them. But when they ignore the 300,000 killed in Syria, or the 600,000 killed in Ethiopia, or the situations in Yemen, Mail, Turkey, or even Gaza when Hamas murders hundreds of Palestinians, or in Syria where the regime kills thousands of Palestinians, then it is clear that they are not stewards of "human rights" or "civilians" or even "values". Rather, they are abusing these ideas to promote an anti-Semitic agenda. These people actually need dead Palestinians to further their agenda.
But that’s also a convenient excuse used by people who are actually antisemitic.
Both of these things can be true at once.
But it usually does.
They are, while doing this, implicitly or explicitly endorsing Bibi's "exterminate the palestinians" Amalek trope, Ben Gvir hanging a portrait of Baruch Goldstein on his wall (shot up a mosque, considered to be a hero by ~10% of Israelis) and Isaac Herzog calling race-mixing a "tragedy".
(i dont think it's too controversial to suggest that those 3 people essentially represent Israel)
This practice of calling all and sundry racist in defense of a state founded upon an ideology of racial purity is, of course, probably mostly racist projection.
Indeed, it's hard to be a dedicated anti-racist these days without being accused of being an anti semite at some point.
The current Israeli government has espoused their views that Palestinians should not have their own state, that all Arabs are terror supporters who are the enemy of Israel, who should be exterminated or removed. And this was happening regularly long before October 7th. I wonder why some Palestinians don't see Israel as a viable partner in peace or that they feel their only option is to destroy Israel before they are destroyed themselves?
(Imagine the US with Trump in his fifth term of office. Now you have roughly the right picture.)
The problem happens when nobody is given the benefit of the doubt about being in group 1.
"One could say the same for "the other part": being pro-Israel doesn't mean being a anti-arab racist who wants to ethnically cleanse Palestine, but that's also a convenient excuse used by people who are actually just that".
We could continue to bundle every criticism of Israel together, or we could confront each criticism directly.
Anti Israeli government: It's not antisemitic.
Anti Israeli people: It's antisemitic.
Criticizing Israeli settlements in the West Bank is not antisemitic. But suggesting that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state is antisemitic as it implies ethnic cleansing.
Both are arguably criticisms of the Israeli government.
You've got it backwards. The only way for Israel to exist as an ethnostate is through an ethnic cleansing. That's not specific to Israel; that's inherent to the concept of an ethnostate.
The assumption that Israel can only exist as an ethnostate is itself a political assertion - it's the hallmark of right-wing Zionism.
I had a discussion at length on this with some very historically learned people (far more than me) shortly after the attack, with the context of Biden's response.
The underlying cultural memory is that of the Holocaust, and of thousands of years of oppression and pogroms before, where nobody would ever help the Jewish people if they were in danger. Thus the belief that the second the Jewish people became a political minority in Israel, they would be immediately and inevitably subject to ethnic cleansing and persecution by the government. Jewish supremacy is viewed as the only way for Jews to be safe in a world full of people who either hate them or don't care enough to help.
This explains Biden's "bear hug" diplomatic approach as well, which as much as it was directed to Netanyahu, was actually directed at the Israeli population (and he is now much more popular than Netanyahu is, from approval polling). The only way to defuse the situation long-term is to convince the Jewish people that if they accept peaceful co-existence without enforced ethnic supremacy and apartheid; and the only way to do that is to convince them that if they are threatened, that they will not be left to die alone as they feel they have been so many times before.
You're describing the reason that some Jews say they support the creation of an ethnostate. That's still an ethnostate, and treating Israel as synonymous with a Jewish ethnostate is the defining right-wing characteristic of Zionism.
It's important to note that what you're describing is not representative of the general opinion of Jews, either globally or in Israel. Many Jewish Holocaust survivors and their descendants oppose the creation of an ethnostate through ethnic cleansing.
And it's odd to worry about what's "right wing" while Hamas wants the creation of a new caliphate that constantly chants about how they'd like to remove all the Jews from the area between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean sea. mirroring the ethnic cleansing done by many nearby Islamic states in the recent past.
But it is true that the average Israeli does not want to ethnically cleanse anyone, because if they did want that, Israel could have simply destroyed all of Palestine a long time ago.
> Two decades on, Israel has sounded alarms over the growing number of gunmen in Jenin and their stockpiling of munitions. Israel says the camp is a hub for planning and preparing militant attacks as well as a safe haven for fighters funded by Hamas or the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad group.
> Israel also says more than 50 shooting attacks have been carried out by Jenin-area militants since the beginning of 2023 and that almost half the population is affiliated either with Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/why-is-israel-atta...
I don't understand that logic. Would you mind explaining?
Do you live in North America? I identify this perspective with Americans and Canadians and not, say, Norwegians.
1. ethnostate: a country that values/prioritizes residents being of a particular ethnicity defined in law and either forbids people of other ethnicities from living there or discourages them by denying them equal rights
2. ethnic cleansing: (EU definition) Rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove from a given area persons of another ethnic or religious group
Perhaps you are saying that legal discrimination doesn't count as intimidation and therefore denying rights based on ethnicity is not ethnic cleansing? (I would disagree). Or are you using different definitions altogether?
When you dig into the history of the region, as an interesting topic in its own right, without reference to any current conflict, without motivation to prove any particular side right or wrong, just letting history tell its own story, some patterns emerge. I'll give you the Cliff Notes the way it seems to me, a non-Jew American, culturally leftists. If I'm wrong I'll hear a calm, considered, good-faith-well-sourced-not-weird fact I may not be aware of.
To answer your question, when Israel started, the new state invited its Arab neighbors to participate and this invitation was sincere. This fact is elided quite a lot, but it's true and I can show you receipts. This directly relates to your point. As you might imagine, Zionist Jews were really not interested in fighting. Many Arabs agreed to participate in the new state, stayed, were peaceful and their descendents are full Israeli citizens today. There was no intention for an "ethno-state" by point 2 of your definition at this time, but there was a Zionist desire to defend themselves. The borders of the new democratic state did demographically put Jews in charge, but there wasn't a desire to expel Arabs. I know, hard to fathom, but it's true.
Nevertheless, Arabs were expelled. From the Zionist perspective, they weren't expelled because they were Arabs, but because they participated in a genocidal war with the stated intention to expell and kill Jews.
Where did that intention come from? Surely the Zionists did something to deserve that hate? Stole land?
After really looking at it, from my Western, American perspective, they did no more than Jews did when they immigrated to my own country: start businesses, purchase land, prosper to the envy of some of their neighbors. If you can demonstrate that Zionists literally stole land, lmk. However, instead of emigrating to the Lower East Side, which was rough but still more or less had the rule of law, Zionists immigrated to a lawless backwater of the dying Ottoman Empire where they were were the target of explicitly genocidal attacks by Muslim Arabs. These attacks spilled over to historically Jewish villages, such as Hebron.
So, when I hear "Zionists stole land" I hear "Micks stole our jobs" and not "Boers violently displaced native tribes from fertile farmland". It's a better analogy for what actually happened.
Today, Israel controls lands, the West Bank and Gaza, populated by the descendents of the people who tried to ethnically cleanse them on first go. No one else wants that land and its people. Not Egypt, not Jordan, not Lebanon. Now it's on Israel to try to deal with this.
I assume you can’t bring yourself to agree or disagree with the definitions I gave and decided to talk around it instead.
If you have objections, please see if they are addressed in the response above.
Do you know what the Jewish populations were in Arab states back in the 1940s? It was about 800,000. It’s only the fact that the state of Israel existed, and gave them somewhere to flee to, that so many managed to escape with their lives.
It is true there were expulsions of palestinians during the 1948 invasion by the Arab armies, which is abhorrent, but this was in the context of a concerted, explicitly declared attempt at mass ethnic cleansing of the Jews. They were literally fighting to exist. Then-Secretary-General of the Arab League Abdul Rahman Azzam, said, "This will be a war of destruction and a great massacre." Other Arab leaders made it clear they intended to kill or expel the entire Jewish population, a policy which they actually carried out in their own countries. So we know this wasn’t just rhetoric, where they could do it, they did.
The Nakba.
Don’t get me wrong, I wish that law didn’t exist. It’s a mistake, but it’s mostly posturing by the Jewish nationalist faction.
The nakba was an appalling catastrophe. It shouldn’t have happened. But then the Arab invasion with the explicit aim of killing and expelling the Jews shouldn’t have happened either. Nor should the expulsion of 800,000 Jews from Arab countries. They were all terrible disasters. The world would be a better place if they hadn’t happened, but they did. Now we live in the world of today.
Are the Arab countries going to let the descendants of their Jewish populations back, and return the property and land confiscated from them? Are they going to grant them citizenship and let them serve in the police, army and judiciary with full democratic rights?
Posted under a throwaway because I am legitimately afraid for my employment for touching this issue.
Here you go, 30 seconds on Google: https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/08/middleeast/israel-arab-citize...
Will you stop spreading misinformation now? Or will you start splitting hairs, "Oh it's not due to the law, probably a coincidence haha"?
I quoted the Arab leader that orchestrated the assault in 1948 on that point. I can give more if you like. Here’s the then Prime Minister of Iraq Nuri al-Said: "We will crush the state with our guns and destroy any place in which the Jews seek shelter."
It’s true Jews and Arabs lived side by side for over a thousand years. Those Jewish populations in Arab regions were there in peace for a long time. It’s also true they were forcibly expelled after the Turks and Europeans left. That happened throughout the Arab world.
Why are you making such oversimplified, reductionist statements? Most Jews immigrated. There's so much history and back and forth between what happened. Like how Israel had Operation Ezra and Nehemiah which aimed to bring Jews from Iraq to Israel. And things like how there was rising tensions because of the illegal establishment of Israel and how that caused Jews to be killed in Arab nations like in Libya. And how there was reason to believe Jews were being guided by Zionists to be progressively aggressive. Then Israel helped Jews from Libya leave. Then in Egypt, there were anti-jews riots, but that was stopped by the Egyptian government in 1945. But 20K Egyptian Jews left in the 48' war betwee Israel and Egypt. Then some progressively left amid some more civil conflicts in Egypt. Then finally the largest chunk left when Israel invaded Egypt in '56. In Syria, the president allowed the immigration of Jews legally in 1949. In Yemen, Israel enacted Operation Magic Carpet to bring 44K jews. So I just gave a few examples which add more color to what actually happened rather than simple what you said "forcibly expelled" which is completely and utterly false. Again. Stop spreading bllsht. And back up your claims.
However the idea that this was the main driving force isn't compatible with the actual pattern of emigration. If the pull from Israel was the dominant factor we'd expect to see more or less uniform emigration from Arab countries. We don't, rather emigration was at different times from different places, driven by local conditions and government policies. For example the mass emigration of most Persian jews was very late compared to Arab countries, coinciding with the Iranian revolution in the 1970s.
> Nothing to do with the nation state law (which to be clear is a stupid mistake), as far as I can tell it’s not even mentioned in the article.
LOL.
A silly mistake, surely, to codify apartheid into law, teehee. And then one thing leads to another, and people somehow end up being discriminated. Completely unrelated, though! Could happen to any of us if we’re not careful!
I am simply pointing out that decrying Israel as an ethno-state while giving Arab countries a free pass on that, or even denying their mass expulsions and appropriation of property happened at all, is absurd.
Second of all, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
It's not whataboutism because I am in no way using Arab countries behaviour to justify, distract or change the subject from anything done by Israel or Jewish extremists, which I have recognised and criticised. I am pointing out obviously false claims, blatant hypocrisy, and arguing that illegal and immoral behaviours on both sides should be condemned.
And if you want to understand even an ounce of the terrorism that Israeli soldiers commit against Palestinians in occupied territory, what better way than to listen straight from the mouths of ex-IDF soldiers? Well, good news for you, ex-IDF soliders in early 2000 created an org called "Breaking the silence". Look it up. THere you'll find over 300 video confessions + 200 text confessions of IDF confessing to acts of terrorism. Examples include occupying a home just to watch the World Cup, or to sleep in it while ALL the family sits in one room. Using children as human shields to do their search operations. They literally coined the term "neighborhood procedure" where they use Palestinians to knock on suspected "terrorists" homes to scout them out (Such cowards). You'll come across videos of soldiers confessing to killing an innocent man on the rooftop bc he looked at them weird. Or killing a child 40 min after he threw a molotov. I mean the list goes on and on. All that I described are from the video confessions. No propaganda. No BS. All straight from ex-IDF soldiers. Watch the videos on "Breaking the silence" and then come tell me Israel is not an apartheid regime.
And wow, the utter lies and falsehood you're spreading. Arab leaders wanted to kill or expel the entire Jewish population? Really? Okay. Listen. Jews, Muslims and Christians co-existed peacefully under Muslims rule for 1300 or so years. And then all of a sudden you're telling me Arab leaders just felt like wanting to genocide Jews? LOL You do realize that Muslims protected the Jews the most right? From being persecuted? There are literally so many Jewish scholars like Dean Phillip Bell who've written books and papers on how the Jews THRIVED under Muslim rule. Not only that, scholars like Dean Phillip Bell actually say that Jews experienced something like the golden age just like Islam did under Islamic rule in Spain. Until the Christian massacred and drove everyone away.
Also, the Muslims conquered the lands of Jerusalem in 638 AD where the first Islamic Caliphate, Umar Ibn Khattab, besieged the city and the Christians surrendered. He took over without bloodshed. When Umar Ibn Khattab asked them, where are the Jews? He was surprised to hear they were all slaughtered or driven away by the Byzantine Christians sometime around 138-150 AD. He said, bring 20 Jewish families and establish them here. No lands were stolen, nothing was taken, no forced conversions were made. Jews Christians and Muslims co-existed. Then the Christian crusaders came in the 11th century and SLAUGHTERED everyone, Muslims AND Jews. Then, Islamic leader Salahuddin came 150-200 years later and liberated Jerusalem. Again, same thing. No lands were taken, no forced conversions. He even spared the Christians who slaughtered everyone 150 years ago. Then the Ottomons came and ruled over from 14 or 15th century and implemented the Millet system where every religious community had their own government. Again, Jews, Christians and Muslims co-existed. Then it allll went down hill from 1917 onwards. I won't go into details but it lead to the Nakba in 1948, where British soldiers were commanded to evict Palestinians. 750K Palestinians displaced. Tens of thousands were killed. Women were raped (watch Tarantulla, watch the Jewish soliders ADMIT TO THIS).
And then you tell us and the rest of the people that "Oh these Arab leaders man, they wanted to kill the entire Jewish population look how evil they are". BULLSH*T. Such lies. Shame on you. You literally cannot reference any material here where you can confidently say Jews were persecuted by Muslims en masse pre-1917. I bet you 100%.
It would be interesting to try this with jewish citizens of Arab countries, but oh well.
The non-Jewish populations are only allowed to exist so long as they provide labor and are second-class citizens under the law.
That kind of stuff doesn't fly in a non-ethnostate.
Antisemitism is a word that was coined in the 19th century specifically as anti-Jew.
The fact that Semite today can now refer to non-Jews doesn't mean Antisemitism refers to non-Jews as well.
But anyway that wasn't my actual point anyway and you picked this over the main point. It is still valid, and you are free to pick a name specifically for it. Antiarab, antipalestanian or whatever you want.
Similarly, I don’t understand is how expressing the personal view that all of the people living in the territory of Israel — Jews and non-Jews alike — would be better off living in a secular state, is somehow akin to anti-semitism.
Come on mate, thats possibly the most asinine and distasteful argument I have seen on this site.
> Japan isn't an officially Shinto state
You are just misquoting the comment
The parent was suggesting that there is a jewish religion and a jewish race and that the race is the qualifier not the religion.
Dubious to argue, but if thats the argument then bringing religion back in w.r.t. Japan is wrong and he knew it.
I focused on religion because it's how eligibility for Aliyah is defined. you're Jewish if your mom was Jewish, either because her mom was Jewish or because she converted. there are Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Mizrahi and Ethiopian Jews. those are all different races/ethnicities. specifically, Mizrahi Jews are ethnically Arab. so I disagree that race is the qualifier.
I also think that many (most?) people would object to France, Ireland, or Japan favoring people who were ethnically or religiously French/Irish/Japanese.
* Edit: I think that people are also objecting to the fact that many Palestinians don't have a place where they can be prosperous and debatably had their land stolen.
We have seen that in the western world that we do not abide the idea of ethnostates, e.g. it is considered bigoted to oppose unlimited migration from refugee countries into Europe or North America. Likewise it is not okay to say "only X race or Y religion can be in government". Why is it okay in the case of Israel?
Jews lived and existed before Israel was established and they were not ethnically cleansed.
I don't really have a dog in this fight and I'm not trying to controversial, I'm genuinely curious because the choice you offer seems like a false dichotomy.
This is precisely an example of the conflation of "anti-Israel" with "anti-semitic." It is entirely possibly for a person to disagree with the geopolitical decisions and military actions that led to the formation of Israel, without harboring ill will against anyone for being Jewish.
I've seen very few serious declarations that Israel has no right to exist. I have seen even fewer genuine existential threats to it in the past 2 or 3 decades, and that's not to discount how big of a deal or how sad an event Hamas's attack was.
But I have seen a lot of pro-Israel voices, e.g. at recent Congressional PR-stunt hearings, aggressively question anyone who doesn't bow in deference to their narrative whether they agree Israel has a right to exist. That whole line of tactic is a massive distraction from the question those voices don't want asked, either of themselves or anyone else, which is "do you think Israel has the right to do what it is currently doing to the Palestinians?"
As opposed to what's happening right now - which is ethnic cleansing in both Gaza and the West Bank. Netanyahu wants to "thin out the Gaza population" and is asking for the US and other countries to accept refugees after Israel destroys the place.
One is speech, and the other is action - one is being argued about, while the other is actively happening with 20k+ deaths.
Does it really implies it, or just the end of apartheid?
But chants like "from the river to the sea" (meaning destroying Jewish country) and calls for an intifada (de facto violence against Jews) are anti-semitic. Supporting Hamas, whose goal is to kill as many Jews as possible, or saying Israel shouldn't defend itself against Hamas attacks is anti-semitic (Hamas is also bad for Gazans, but that's another story). I can go on and on. People holding these views may hold them not because they hate Jews (for example, I don't think that people removing posters of kidnapped Israelis necessarily hate them), but the result is all the same. There is also obvious anti-semitism unrelated to Israel, like attacking synagogues, drawing stars of David on Jewish houses, etc., but that's not what I'm talking about.
And the most vocal anti-Israelis are naturally the most extreme ones and usually include some of the stuff I mentioned. As a result, people call out anti-semitism, usually not referring to anti-Israeli critics you are talking about.
What is the truth of that? I've seen Israeli advocates make that claim and many repeat it. I've also seen an explainer in legitimate source (maybe the NY Times?) say that it means both Palestinians and Jews should be free. Does anyone have some actual, authoritative information? Something from before October 7th might be good.
> saying Israel shouldn't defend itself against Hamas attacks
Who has said that?
The establishment of “Israel” is entirely illegal and contravenes the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and goes against their will and the will of the Ummah ... There shall be no recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist entity. ... Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967.
Again, people may use it trying to say something else, but slogans do not exist in a vacuum. Saying "from the river to the sea" means that all people should be free is akin to saying "arbeit macht frei" is a call for the financial independence of working people.
As for your second question, calls for ceasefire appeared while Hamas terrorists weree still in Israel, by no less than U.S. representatives [2].
[1] https://irp.fas.org/world/para/docs/hamas-2017.pdf
[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ceasefire-in-gaza-mirage-is...
Their "2017 charter" rather dramatically toned down the language. The original version makes no attempt to be politically correct.
Do you happen to know where to find it? Is there an English translation (not an English version published by them, but a translation by someone reliable)? Often all sides in Israel speak differently in English and local languages, afaik.
I'm not sure the source of the English, if it's an official English version or was translated by a third party.
Among other things, it calls for the "obliteration" of Israel by Islam, asserts that "death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of [the Islamic Resistance's] wishes", and cites noted anti-semitic text "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" among other conspiracy theories. It also says:
"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."
I don't have time to read the whole thing right now, but a few observations:
* Dated 1988.
* It is The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement, which goes on to say, The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of Moslem Brotherhood in Palestine. Moslem Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times. Is that the same as Hamas? The added page title (which doesn't seem part of the document), Hamas Covenant 1988, clearly says so.
* Just one thing I noticed, skimming it: Under the wing of Islam, it is possible for the followers of the three religions - Islam, Christianity and Judaism - to coexist in peace and quiet with each other. Peace and quiet would not be possible except under the wing of Islam.
> Hamas [...] an acronym of its official name, the Islamic Resistance Movement
However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.
And from p.2, where 'Palestine' is defined geographically, which seems to include much or all of Israel (including Israel in a two-state solution). However, a quick search did not turn up Ras Al-Naqurah or Umm Al-Rashrash.
The Land of Palestine:
2. Palestine, which extends from the River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west and from Ras Al-Naqurah in the north to Umm Al-Rashrash in the south, is an integral territorial unit. It is the land and the home of the Palestinian people. The expulsion and banishment of the Palestinian people from their land and the establishment of the Zionist entity therein do not annul the right of the Palestinian people to their entire land and do not entrench any rights therein for the usurping Zionist entity.
-------------
Second, though I think it obviously weighs significantly on the question, I'll point out some considerations:
* Hamas doesn't speak for Palestinians generally. What does the Palestinian Authority say? Optimally, we'd need information on the Palestinian public now or before Oct 7, when the issue was less politicized and information more reliable.
* Again, the document is significant, but generally, something in a document doesn't reliably tell us the beliefs of the public. Even scripture won't tell you what people are doing or thinking (even the leaders - compare some of their ideas with scripture).
* It's from 2017; I wonder how old the phrase is.
Anyway, hardly criticism; thanks for contributing. It's not an easy question.
> calls for ceasefire appeared while Hamas terrorists weree still in Israel, by no less than U.S. representatives
Warfare, including as currently conducted by Israel, is not the only means of Israel defending itself. IMHO elliding the two seems like an obviously disingenous attack, and it undermines all supporters of Israel by making their other claims equally suspect.
Ras Al-Naqurah, I think, is Rosh HaNikra [1], the current northern border of Israel. Umm Al-Rashrash is now Eilat [2], the southernmost Israeli city. For me, both were the first google links.
> Optimally, we'd need information on the Palestinian public now or before Oct 7, when the issue was less politicized and information more reliable.
You can check the polls from July 2023 [3]. For example, 50% thought that Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction.
> Again, the document is significant, but generally, something in a document doesn't reliably tell us the beliefs of the public.
Would you use a slogan actively used by some racist organization to call for white supremacy because it also meant something else you believe in?
> Warfare, including as currently conducted by Israel, is not the only means of Israel defending itself.
I don't see how else you can possibly defend yourself from armed people killing your citizens in their homes. Again, this specific call happened while Hamas was still killing Israelis in Israel.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosh_HaNikra_Crossing [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eilat [3] https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/polls-sh...
> Ras Al-Naqurah, I think, is Rosh HaNikra [1], the current northern border of Israel. Umm Al-Rashrash is now Eilat [2], the southernmost Israeli city. For me, both were the first google links.
If that's true (as expected), then IMHO the Hamas document effectively calls for driving Jews out of Israel. I expect that if they got their "formula for national consensus", essentially the two-state solution, they'd still aim for the bigger goal.
> Would you use a slogan actively used by some racist organization to call for white supremacy because it also meant something else you believe in?
Good point; I wouldn't (and I don't say that). Though the slogan could be appropriated by Hamas for that reason. We see that plenty these days and this is an extremely politicized issue.
> I don't see how else you can possibly defend yourself from armed people killing your citizens in their homes. Again, this specific call happened while Hamas was still killing Israelis in Israel.
Again, that doesn't seem genuine. You can't think of any other way? I'm sure the Netanyahu government discussed other ways. Almost everyone in the world can think of other ways.
Focusing on one specific statement (and citing an WSJ opinion piece!) also sounds like a call to outrage, not reason. Don't trust WSJ opinion pieces: They always end the same way, which tells you they will say anything to reach that end. Contrast the NYT op-ed page, which has opinions across the spectrum (with the major exception that the conservatives abandoned Trump). Don't trust any opinion pieces - they are all liars, on all sides, is my strong opinion.
I'm genuinely clueless. Possibly, you mean something different from what I'm talking about. What other ways of defending against ongoing military action (mostly against civilians) are you thinking of?
> Don't trust any opinion pieces - they are all liars, on all sides, is my strong opinion
I've cited it because it is the first link on Google. I can cite statements themselves [1] [2]. And I don't focus on it; I've given an example of prominent people calling for a ceasefire (basically letting the terrorists run away and prepare next attack) very early in conflict.
[1] https://ocasio-cortez.house.gov/media/press-releases/stateme...
Fair enough.
> letting the terrorists run away
That seems like finding the most outrageous possible interpretation, and in contradition to most of the statements which condemned the attacks in detail. If Ocasio-Cortez and Omar were posting on HN, you'd be violating HN guidelines.
"From the river to the sea, palestine will be free" implies a desire to see freedom not genocide.
If you're looking for slogans that genuinely impute racist genocidal intent look no further than the Israeli Prime Minister's references to Amalek.
People who say that they support Israel may not believe this imputed genocidal intent is what they support that in a practical sense it is.
To read it literally (and choose one of many possible literal interpretations), doesn't work in this situation, if it ever works. It's not a statement someone just now made up on the spot in an isolated context; it's a slogan in an extremely politicized situation, with many years of history and meaning upon it.
If you want to play join the dots from slogan to genocidal racism, Netanyahu's references to Amalak is what you are looking for.
You can draw a very neat line between the number of jews currently permitted to live peacefully in palestine vs the number of muslims living within israel.
its not complicated, confusing, unclear or opaque.
River to the Sea means to end the israeli state, and the end of that does not have a happy ending for any jews living on that land.
The end of Israel as an exclusionary apartheid state does not have to mean the end of Jews living there, in a pluralist state guaranteeing equal access to Christians, Jews and Muslims to their holy sites and shared ancestral homeland.
How do you see implementing that politically? What constituency is there?
If you doubt it ask a few Palestinians what would happen to the Jews living in the area if “Palestine is free”.
I'm open to the suggestion that (some?) people chanting this hope for this to be accomplished without violence, but speakers at such events have also glorified the actions of Hamas on October 7th.
For what it's worth, I don't support the actions of Israel, or the occupation of West bank and Gaza. I support a free Palestine in the sense that West Bank / Gaza should be left alone. There's a good chance that without the blockade, those territories would better arm themselves and it would result in a war which would impact Israel much more significantly as West Bank + Gaza would likely move to reclaim Israeli land. But at this point I don't see an alternative without Israel continuing its egregious human rights violations and genocide of the Palestinian people.
Kind of a shit situation all around.
It doesn't work beautifully or easily or perfectly, but it keeps a lid on things generally. Our recent abandonment of it is awful, and serves only the warmongers, hateful, and power-hungry - the people who benefit from the absence of things like universal human rights.
I believe we should start with 2 states, and maybe after trust is rebuilt we can look into unionizing them.
It's not Israel's choice or business, effectively. Every Palestinian person has the same right to self-determination as every Israeli/Jewish person. It's also international law about occupied territory seized in war, etc. Israel relies on those rights and laws too.
The ROI is the end of endless warfare, which is Israel's current situation (as is very evident). War is politics by other means; without a political solution, wars continue indefinitely.
> I believe we should start with 2 states, and maybe after trust is rebuilt we can look into unionizing them.
Do you mean a separate Gaza country and West Bank country, along side an Israel country - a three state solution? Again, it's really up to the Palestinians how they want to organize themselves. Who are you to tell them otherwise? Could they tell you what you do in your country?
Agree, that's why i believe in a 2 state solution.
> The ROI is the end of endless warfare
Israel has been prospering more or less, and of course it's a gamble but that's true either way (for example, there could be better and cheaper missile defense tech coming soon, so the risk of war would be lower)
> Do you mean a separate Gaza country and West Bank country, along side an Israel country
Yes, but we can solve that with either an air corridor / connecting road in the beginning and eventually a tunnel - the land mass is fairly small.
Sure it's not ideal, but Gaza + West bank is about a 10x larger land mass than singapore.
> it's really up to the Palestinians how they want to organize themselves
Sure, but i think it's silly to suffer for so long just due some specific piece of land when you already have land.
And like a said, a 2 state solution doesn't have to be the end all, after trust is rebuilt the countries could have an open border and migration policy.
They constantly say (understandably) how unhappy they are, they are attacked, etc. Look at the current situation. They don't seem satisfied at all.
> it's silly to suffer for so long just due some specific piece of land when you already have land.
That's not why, or not the only reason. The story is that Arafat (Palestine) rejected the two-state (IIRC) resolution in the 1990s, possibly for that reason. But these days the Israelis have opposed a two-state solution for many years.
Also, it's easy to dismiss others' claims.
And the argument is novel in international relations: Do we dismiss China's claim to Taiwan on the basis that China already has (far more) land? Ukraine's claim to their east and south? Etc.
Israel actually ranks very high in the happiness index, so they are mostly happy, doesn't mean they don't like to complain about stuff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report#2023_re...
> But these days the Israelis have opposed a two-state solution for many years.
Yeah, which makes me sad. But also i believe the younger palestinains have also moved to the right and are less accepting of a two state solution. That's why you need strong leaders on both sides that aren't just pandering to the people, but are willing to go against the public will - and sadly i don't think we will see such leaders in the current generation (and probably not the next one either)
> And the argument is novel in international relations
Not sure it's very novel, israel's recognized international borders are fairly clear, legally there's just dispute over the west bank and some part of the north, but israel proper isn't disputed.
As it happens, the Palestinians are slightly outnumbered in the area between the river and the sea, which means that when it crops up in the Hamas charter it's difficult to imagine that democracy is how they would seek to maintain control over the region, even ignoring recent history (And yeah, the same question marks about how exactly they would stay in power applies to all the Palestinian and Israeli groups before them that defined the "river and the sea" as the territories they thought their brethren should assume control of, as they pointedly focused on the idea of historical unity rather than self determination)
I'm sure there are people who sincerely believe in the position that a single state solution with some form of democracy would be best for the region and a moderating influence but I don't think they overlap much with the river sea border slogan people...
> As it happens, the Palestinians are slightly outnumbered in the area between the river and the sea, which means that when it crops up in the Hamas charter it's difficult to imagine that democracy is how they would seek to maintain control over the region
It's long been a basic assumption of experts that Palestinian's higher population growth would result in them having a much larger population in Israel than Jews. That's been a reason and incentive for the two-state solution: Israeli Jews would not want to be a minority in the 'Jewish state'.
The fact that the Israeli right wing has abandoned the two-state solution raises the question of what they intend. Clearly they don't intend being a minority; what other plan do they have?
That may well be the case in future[1], but I don't think Hamas or even the considerably milder supporters of "Palestine will be free" are proposing those river and sea borders on the assumption that it will remain a predominantly Jewish state for a couple of generations. Perhaps not all of them have in mind Hamas' October approach to the demographic imbalance, but I don't think the solution they're imagining involves leadership being chosen by popular vote either.
Israel's right of course, aren't any more democratic in saying essentially the same thing (the slogan seems to have lost currency, but you'll hear them arguing tha Gaza is part of Israel and they're not saying that because they think everyone there should have a vote in the Knesset)
[1] the other problems with such predictions is that both groups have large diasporas but if votes occur along sectarian lines then only one of them controls passports, and perhaps less darkly there is the possibility that relative population growth is outpaced by younger people becoming less interested in historic conflict dynamics (which seems to be the case in Northern Ireland)
QUOTE
The phrase was popularised in the 1960s as part of a wider call for Palestinian liberation creating a democratic state freeing Palestinians from oppression from Israeli as well as from other Arab regimes such as Jordan and Egypt.[6][7] In the 1960s, the PLO used it to call for a democratic secular state encompassing the entirety of mandatory Palestine which was initially stated to only include the Palestinians and the descendants of Jews who had lived in Palestine before the first Aliyah, although this was later expanded.[8][9] Palestinian progressives use it to call for a united democracy over the whole territory.[10] while others say "it's a call for peace and equality after ... decades-long, open-ended Israeli military rule over millions of Palestinians."
/QUOTE
Even in the most charitable interpretations about what happens to the Jews living there, it is a call to replace the state of Israel with a completely different state.
Completely different state appears to be roughly the same state, minus apartheid. If it worked in South Africa, why wouldn't it work here?
The article you linked said that blockading Gaza (before the war) is somehow Apartheid, that's just ludicrous on the surface, and is representative of the nonsense they peddle.
Now Hamas does play on the string of religion to get to people, and so does Israel (isn't it the promised land after all?).. but the main goal is to free the people from the oppressive occupation!
and when we chant "From the river to the sea" we don't mean to kill anyone! if we can be free and live together, but have dignity and human rights, so be it!
and like Bassem Youssef said, let's imagine a world where Hamas doesn't exist, and let's call it for example the west bank. how do you justify what's happening there and the settlements expansion?
Don't you think it may be useful to use a different slogan from the people who mean and do that?
> if we can be free and live together, but have dignity and human rights, so be it!
But we can't. There won't be a one-state solution that satisfies everyone, and the earlier we understand it, the better. For the same reasons, the right of return for every descendant won't work. We need to come up with a meaningful two-state solution, but that failed multiple times. So what's left? What solution do you think both sides may agree on, assuming good faith negotiations? Do you think any side is ready to give up West Jerusalem or their right of return stance?
> let's imagine a world where Hamas doesn't exist, and let's call it for example the west bank.
I think the situation in West Bank is much better both for Israelis and Palestinians than the situation in Gaza (even before 7/10), and more importantly, there are ways to improve it.
> how do you justify what's happening there and the settlements expansion?
I don't justify the settlement expansion; I think it is a wrong practice. Do you think removing settlements (plus, say, some territory exchange where removal is too complicated) would solve all West Bank problems?
The phrase was dreamt up by Western Israeli allies to promote an oppressive pipe-dream border arrangement that was not even remotely acceptable by any reasonable standards. Only propagandized westerners even speak of it.
This is done so the Western media can frame Palestinians as uncooperative.
Reminds me of "Defund the police." Led to people having to constantly explain that they didn't actually mean that police should have zero funds and be abolished. But, except, a lot of people on Twitter countered that they did mean exactly that, and that all cops are bad and they're all racist. :facepalm:
But yes, I agree that detractors will co-opt language. It's an effective tactic.
They're not responsible for what supporters of Israel infer from this phrase.
>But we can't. There won't be a one-state solution that satisfies everyone
Those who are unsatisfied with not living within a racist ethnostate would be welcome to leave and doubtless many would.
Many South Africans packed their bags and left after apartheid.
>We need to come up with a meaningful two-state solution, but that failed multiple times. So what's left? What solution do you think both sides may agree on, assuming good faith negotiations?
The two state solution failed many times because of a lack of good faith on Israel's side. They supported the creation of Hamas as an Islamist bulwark against the PA precisely to stymie a two state solution.
The only thing that would get them to negotiate in good faith is losing American support. That is key.
>I think the situation in West Bank is much better both for Israelis and Palestinians than the situation in Gaza
They are oppressed and murdered at a far lower tempo. If youve ever seen the way Israelis in, say, Hebron treat Palestinians (i.e. like subhuman scum) you wouldnt ever say that they had it good.
Israel needs to first admit that it's establishment was on the expense of another people that are still suffering until today, without that, it's difficult to move forward, as well as continuing this conversation.
> Don't you think it may be useful to use a different slogan from the people who mean and do that?
Maybe, I don't know what else can it be! the slogan is not calling for killing anyone, FREEDOM = Dignity, Human Rights, I personally just want to be able to go to the beach and travel from an airport nearby.
> But we can't. There won't be a one-state solution that satisfies everyone....
Why not?
>The right of return for every descendant won't work
Why not?
Strong disagree. History is important, but we need to solve present problems. It is possible to live a good life without returning to grandpa's home from 80 years ago. And while Israel did shitty things in 1948, I don't think Jordan or other Arab countries did better. It's impossible to say, but if the proposed borders were accepted, I'm pretty sure there would be much less suffering from both sides.
> I personally just want to be able to go to the beach and travel from an airport nearby.
But other Palestinians want more. You could get your beach in Camp David, any peace attempts included as much, and the disagreement never was around freedom of movement of Palestinians.
> Why not?
Because that would mean to displace people currently living there. Two wrongs do not make a right. And Jews were minorities in many different countries, and it turned out not that good many times. Specifically, Jews had to flee multiple Arabic countries not that long ago. How can we be sure it won't happen again?
> Strong disagree. History is important, but we need to solve present problems.
I'll go a step further. All history surrounding this must be forgotten, to move forward. There are grievances and counter-grievances, ancestral claims and counter-claims, and conflicting divine proclamations. Those have to all be thrown away, and instead consider only the current situation.
(And guess what, now I can go to Polish Silesia anytime I want! Not that I ever would, because my connection to that place is as tenuous as yours to Israeli land)
South Africa managed to pull it, and end apartheid. Why wouldn't it work for Israel?
Israel should end the apartheid in the west bank, but israel proper (67' borders) is a liberal democracy, there's no reason to give that up.
It's just dirt, there's nothing special about it. Almost all borders are the results of war and conquest throughout history, it's better to accept that and move on.
I'm pro a 2 state solution based on the 67' borders, fighting over some "right of return" to a place you've never been for generations just seems like a waste of life.
And if you even take the very long term view, a 2 state solution could eventually lead to open borders, and an implicit "right of return" (after decades of peace and building trust).
And then you argue for the ‘67 borders: that’s 50 years ago, what makes those the borders we should roll back to when almost no Palestinians of today were alive before then?
I can't comment on all the situations because I have very little familiarity with refugees in africa, but assuming they don't have a state to return to and they can form a new state where they are? Then yes, 100% yes.
The 67' borders are internationally recognized, so I'm saying accept that and move on.
My grandparents lived in eastern Europe before the Holocaust, I'm not crying to return there because I have a new home.
Throughout history humans have been nomadic and moved from place to place. If you take any person and go up along their ancestry line at some point you'd probably encounter some ancestor that was displaced (by another tribe, nation, lord, just some bastard, etc), and yet we don't dwell on that.
And israel should remove the settlements of course.
I'd like to think I have a somewhat decent understanding of the situation, but flawed and with its own biases of course.
Not only did Palestinians were forcibly evicted in 1948 (The Nakba), they're being continuously occupied by an apartheid, racist and terrorist regime.
This is not a matter of conquest my friend. Because look. And bear with me. This might be long. But it's worth it. The Muslims conquered the lands of Jerusalem in 638 AD where the first Islamic Caliphate, Umar Ibn Khattab, besieged the city and the Christians surrendered. He took over without bloodshed. When Umar Ibn Khattab asked them, where are the Jews? He was surprised to hear they were all slaughtered or driven away by the Byzantine Christians sometime around 138-150 AD. He said, bring 20 Jewish families and establish them here. No lands were stolen, nothing was taken, no forced conversions were made. Jews Christians and Muslims co-existed. Then the Christian crusaders came in the 11th century and SLAUGHTERED everyone, Muslims AND Jews. Then, Islamic leader Salahuddin came 150-200 years later and liberated Jerusalem. Again, same thing. No lands were taken, no forced conversions. He even spared the Christians who slaughtered everyone 150 years ago. Then the Ottomons came and ruled over from 14 or 15th century and implemented the Millet system where every religious community had their own government. Again, Jews, Christians and Muslims co-existed. Then it allll went down hill from 1917 onwards. I won't go into details but it lead to the Nakba in 1948, where British soldiers were commanded to evict Palestinians. 750K Palestinians displaced. Tens of thousands were killed. Women were raped (watch Tarantulla, watch the Jewish soliders ADMIT TO THIS). So mate, there's a massive difference. It's not just a piece of land. It's generations upon generations of families. And their homes being stolen. They're being KICKED off their lands. Generations where they've experienced so many atrocities. Atrocities that are being committed still to this day.
And if you want to understand even an ounce of the terrorism that Israeli soldiers commit against Palestinians in occupied territory, what better way than to listen straight from the mouths of ex-IDF soldiers? Well, good news for you, ex-IDF soliders in early 2000 created an org called "Breaking the silence". Look it up. THere you'll find over 300 video confessions + 200 text confessions of IDF confessing to acts of terrorism. Examples include occupying a home just to watch the World Cup, or to sleep in it while ALL the family sits in one room. Using children as human shields to do their search operations. They literally coined the term "neighborhood procedure" where they use Palestinians to knock on suspected "terrorists" homes to scout them out (Such cowards). You'll come across videos of soldiers confessing to killing an innocent man on the rooftop bc he looked at them weird. Or killing a child 40 min after he threw a molotov. I mean the list goes on and on. All that I described are from the video confessions. No propaganda. No BS. All straight from ex-IDF soldiers. Watch the videos on "Breaking the silence" and then come tell me if they can just "accept and move on". So it's not just about land my friend. It's about occupation, oppression, etc.
Did Israel commit some crimes during 1948? Sure, but it's kinda silly to expect Israel to not use a war that was forced upon them to better their situation, especially when when the Arab nations tried to wipe out Israel.
You can't start a war to wipe someone out, lose that war and later call foul play on such a response.
And again, I think Israel should stop the occupation in the west bank, which is what "breaking the silence" is all about, I'm not trying to protect israel's actions.
And if it's not about land and all about peace and prosperity, what's the issue with a two state solution?
And why didn't you go all the way back to the kingdom of judea in your history lesson?
Well, there have been many proposals for a 2-state solution but at many times, both sides have jeopardized and rejected offers.
Better their situation? Really? At the expense of displacing almost a million people? Come on man, are you hearing yourself? Not only have they displaced them, they've killed tens of thousands of them. On top of that, they've been taking more and more land as the decades have gone by. Not to mention the acts of terrorism they've inflicted on Palestinians in occupied territory.
1948 was a result of a war that Arab nations started? Can you elaborate on that? Why did they start it? Please elucidate me.
Yes I am. Do you think international borders around the world have been the same since the beginning of time? All nations have done the same and have shaped their own border through wars, in this case the war was a defensive one which makes it one of the more righteous ones.
Do you dispute the right to exist of the US or Australia? Why not? If anything jews are actually indigenous to the land.
Are you aware that not all of those 700k were displaced by israel? A large percentage of them fled on their own, and some also listened to the advice from arab nations and left their homes.
> 1948 was a result of a war that Arab nations started? Can you elaborate on that? Why did they start it? Please elucidate me.
Are you claiming that they didn't start it?
Like that makes it okay? And man, you don't even realize that you don't know what you're talking about. You keep making orthogonal points. Here's what I'm saying, land keeps getting taken. By Israelis. That's an international crime. Quite literally. The UN was established at the time. And guess what. The Israelis were promised a certain percentage of Palestinian land by the British, but they took more. And kept taking more and more with illegal settlements man. Even to this day man. They've kicked Palestinians off in 1948 and they continue to do that. That's what you don't understand and you keep glossing over it as if it's been done. It's happening NOW man.
A large percentage of them fled on their own? I don't know how true that is but that's effectively the same thing as being driven away. What compelled them to do that? You do realize tens of thousands were killed too right...? Like dude, I don't think you even hear yourself. Why wouldn't they leave on their own if they were being killed? And chased away? The British soldiers physically evicted Palestinians. Don't you know that? Why did they also leave on their own? Like don't you think about these things? You can ask the same questions to Jews when Muslims ruled over them. The Jews didn't leave when Muslims ruled over them. So why didn't the Jews leave when Muslims took over Spain? Hmm? Why didn't the Jews leave when Islamic ruler, Salahuddin conquered Jerusalem back in the 13th century? Why did they come back? Why did Umar Ibn Khattab, the first Caliphate of Islam, establish 20 Jewish families in Jerusalem when he conquered Jerusalem and found out the Jews were driven and slaughtered by the Christian? You see where I'm getting at? When Muslims ruled, Jews were protected. They weren't displaced. They kept their own lands. No displacement. And then the colonial British came and **ed everything up. Thanks Britain. Thanks a lot.
I agree about the west bank, I think Israel should remove the settlements.
I don't see what Muslim history in the are has to do with anything. Jews are indigenous to the area, border fights exist, and the current situation exist. Israel was founded and expanded after a few successful defensive wars - you just need to accept that as a fact.
Now we can be pragmatic and try a two state solution or we can continue arguing about history.
Palestinians can fight for what they view as justice for generations and get nowhere except more suffering, or they can decide that the west bank and Gaza are enough. It's their call. I know what I would decide
Do you know who Abraham is? Yeah. It all starts from him. Earliest historical records show, he was born in present day Iraq. And he emigrated to the land of Canaan. According to both historical records AND the Old testament. It literally says in the Old Testament that the Caananites were in the land where Abraham traveled to and also says God will promise the land to the children of Isaac and Jacob (who was later renamed Israel). T
So what I've told you alone tells you that Jews were NOT indigenous to present day Israel. It was the Caananites man. Like bro. You saying that alone discredits anything you know so far because you're quite literally just parroting sh*t you hear without doing any research. You're arguing for the sake of arguing. Seriously. Open a book. And read. Do more research.
And btw https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11543891 - Jews are not any less indigenous than Palestinians.
Palestinians as a people and identity only started to exist in the 1900s - please learn your history, these are basic facts.
I never said Palestinians did not emigrate to the area.
I'm refuting the fact that you're saying Jews are indigenous to the land there. That's completely false.
It's so ironic that you tell me to learn history and claim these are basic facts when the paper your OWN paper that you linked refutes you. It literally says Palestinians and Jews come Caananites. Which is true. Because the Jews and other folks mixed with Caananites. That's what I'm saying mate. Abraham emigrated from Iraq to the land of Canaan. He had Isaac who had Israel and then that's how the 12 tribes of Israel conquered the land of Judea. They spread their seed early on. But they were not indigenous.
You literally have no clue about what you're talking about.
Jews are indigenous to the land according to any normal "indigenous" definition.
2. Did you ask yourself why people in Gaza fight Israel? it helps to know how much you know about this subject in order to know how to reply to you
I can't imagine the average Palestinian person having the headroom to do anything about those 1%.
Does that mean that Israel should implement whatever response they feel like? That is what we are watching play out, and it's an ugly scene.
What if, alternatively, the average Palestinian person was actually in a position to help? What would that look like?
--
What this really seems to boil down to is that no Palestinian person gets a say about what happens in Palestine, except for that violent 1%. That's a pretty obvious motivator for people to join that 1% group. It's also a motivator that might potentially be eliminated without violence. It seems to me like that would be worth a try.
> Hello there, a Palestinian from the west bank here speaking,
> let me tell you something, our resistance has nothing to do with Israel being a Jewish state, if my brother stole my house and killed my children i will fight him just the same, and you would too and everyone else (I assume). jewish, muslim, christian, vegan.. doesn't matter.
I should address "stole your house" and "killed your children" separately. The "stealing houses" issue started during the 1948 war - what you call Nakba and I call Independence. The UN partitioned the holy land, and the Arabs were unsatisfied so started conquering land. Their specific intention was to "steal houses" or "steal land" or however else you want to phrase it. Ergo, this things happened though it did not turn out how they intended. Likewise, no fewer Jews than Arabs had their houses stolen. How many Jews remained in the West Bank after the 1948 war? Zero. How many Arabs remained in the new state of Israel? Hundreds of thousands. And do not forget the houses stolen from the Jews of Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Morocco, Egypt, Tunis, and other Arab states.
As for the "killed your children" there are so many ways that children both Palestinian and Jewish have been killed. Do you agree with me that Palestinian children are often involved in violence? I'll tell you that the first time I ever saw an Arab with a rifle he was shooting it in one arm (in the air, but towards Israels myself included) and a small child, maybe four or five, in the other. And I've seen enough similar things myself since. I have no doubt that innocent children have been killed - no doubt at all. But I do dispute the idea that the Israeli state is deliberately killing children. I served in the army, and anybody who would ever say anything remotely stupid to the hint of deliberately hurting a civilian was disciplined severely. I'm sure the entire army is not as my small battalion was, but I do believe that my battalion was representative.
> let's imagine a world where Hamas doesn't exist, and let's call it for example the west bank. how do you justify what's happening there and the settlements expansion?
Ottoman law since the 1850's stated that anyone who settles land (houses, farms, factories) owns it - Muslims and Jews and Christians alike. Their goal was to increase the population of the near-desolate holy land (which they called Greater Syria), and collect more taxes. Those laws still stand today, for better or for worse. There is nothing "illegal" about Israeli citizens building homes in the West Bank. What would be illegal would be if the Israeli state were to transfer its citizens - international law is binding on states, not citizens. But citizens moving is not banned by any international law, and settlement of the West Bank is actually encouraged by the laws in the West Bank dating over 150 years, because nobody since has had the authority to change those laws.
The Hamas charter that was used during the last elections in Palestine explicitly calls for the total destruction of Israel. To reach that goal, unrestricted jihad is necessary. Negotiated resolution are considered unacceptable. Hamas won those elections.
Hamas has since revised that charter in 2017; but retained the goal of completely eliminating Israel - it is till a constitutive element of their political beliefs.
> we chant "From the river to the sea" we don't mean to kill anyone! if we can be free and live together, but have dignity and human rights, so be it!
You might have a personal interpretation, but make no mistake about the intentions of the elected representatives of the Palestinian population when they chant that.
> https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
Then the Times of Israel is on the record with articles accusing Netanyahu of being anti-semitic. I don't think those things you list are anti-semitic - they just happen to be politically bad for Jews right now. There is a difference (an important one) between policies-bad-for-a-group and being motivated by an unreasonable hatred of a group.
Sure. You don't have to have anti-semitic views to say anti-semitic things. The thing doesn't become less anti-semitic if you weren't motivated by hatred. It is also an unobservable difference because I can't say what your motivation is, only what is the meaning of your words and actions. Someone may want to ban black people from attending universities so that white people have more spots, the fact that they are not motivated by unreasonable hatred doesn't magically make the ban not racist.
https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/2018-12-13/ty-article-opi...
You mean what's in the Lukud 1977 charter which was reiterated by Netanyahu recently after 10/7?
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/its-time-to-confront...
To claim that Israels use of this phrase (which explicitly calls for the removal/elimination of Palestinians) is ok while the Palestinian one is not is hypocritical.
When I hear that chant I don't assume that it means 'destroying Jewish country' but rather that the Palestinian nation (i.e. people) should be free between the Jordan and Mediterranean. There is no contradiction in the hypothetical chant "Palestine and Israel shall be free from the river to the sea" if we are talking about nations and not states.
The problem is that neither Israelis nor Palestinians can be free in a state that practices apartheid against them (be that an Israeli or Palestinian state). So you could interpret "Palestine shall be free from the river to the sea" as a call to end apartheid in Israel. Which brings us to the crux of this issue - Israel's determination to remain an ethno-religious apartheid state. The founding of a state where only a certain type of person can be a full citizen is the original sin here in my opinion.
The modern israeli's are not semites. Those that settled after WW2 were eastern european converts, khazars, with no genetic ties to the middle east. Those that are not ashkenazi are migrants from the surrounding countries, who largely did not move to the area until after the occupation of palestine.
The term "anti-semite" was invented to reinforce the lie that the ruling class of israel have some ancestral claim to the land. Using it is playing into that propaganda.
The modern attempt to make it refer to Arabs and other Semitic-language speakers is itself an anti-Semitic attempt to rob the term of meaning. Nice try, though.
* The anti-Semites are not idiots, mostly; they don't spew anti-Semitism publicly but say what is acceptable, which is to criticize Israel, and obviously anything anti-Israeli helps their cause.
* There's an implication whether people like it or not: Israel defines itself as The Jewish State. Also, many people are unware that Judaism is non-hierarchical overall; there's no pope-equivalent in Israel to which Jewish people have some allegiance (remember the old Papist accusation against Roman Catholics for dual loyalty); though Israel has some special things and history, it has no other role in non-Israeli Jewish people's religion, but people make that association regardless. Also, many are unaware that most Jewish people in the US oppose Netanyahu and the Israeli right, and afaik are sympathetic to the Palestinians. Anti-Semites will benefit from that implication, even though you don't want them to.
* Not everyone will respect that essential division between anti-Israel and anti-Semitic speech, and there's a significant risk that large-scale anti-Semitism could spill over. It was already at the highest levels in recent history (like other prejudices). It's easy to dismiss as as unlikely when you aren't at risk; a small risk of catastrophe is a big issue when it's your life.
People absolutely need to be able to criticize Israel, but I hope they are careful (not silent) and aware that there is no easy answer. You are anti-Israel (in this case, at least) and not anti-Semitic, but you will help the latter to some degree - hopefully a minimized one.
I think the major problem is that we've abandoned and actively attack the former social prohibition against prejudice, stereotypes, intolerance, race/sex/gender/religious discrimination, etc. It used to be verboten, but then we are all familiar with the contemporary reactionary attack on it (however you perceive it, whatever words you use), which seems to have been very successful. A very major loss is that without that high wall between us and the bad guys and bad behavior, without that bright line, there is much more spillover in what we do, and much more risk of them walking right in.
> But conflating anti-Israeli views with anti-Semitic views does a disservice to Jews and Palestinians alike.
If the people spouting anti-Israel sentiment spouted the same sentiment for the same actions done a dozen times over by other nations, then they would not be anti-Semitic. In fact, I would agree with the vast majority of them. But when they ignore the 300,000 killed in Syria, or the 600,000 killed in Ethiopia, or the situations in Yemen, Mail, Turkey, or even Gaza when Hamas murders hundreds of Palestinians, or in Syria where the regime kills thousands of Palestinians, then it is clear that they are not stewards of "human rights" or "civilians" or even "values". Rather, they are abusing these ideas to promote an anti-Semitic agenda. These people actually need dead Palestinians to further their agenda.
The videos of destruction and death in Gaza are far more horrific than corresponding videos in Israel, because the scale of what Israel is doing to Gaza is so much greater than what Gaza has done to Israel.
Another way of saying it is, it makes sense that someone who spends hours on apps optimized for empathy-based addiction would be more sympathetic to Gazans than someone who reads the newspaper or watches talking heads on TV news, since the latter portray the occupation as a two-sided tit for tat.
[Small addition: I've actually seen videos of (alleged) hamas torture, particularly the torture and killing of a specific woman, from Oct 7, not taken down from TOS. I just was under the impression, because there are literally more Palestinian dead people, there will be more photos of dead Palestinians.]
[Edited to add, since I'm apparently posting too fast: no, I really do mean there were censored videos of that naked woman in the back of a hamas truck from Oct 7! And that one video of an Israeli woman who lives close enough to the bombing that she can hear it in the context that it gives her peace to know the bombing is happening!]
> Another possible explanation for this skew is that TikTok and IG are primarily *video* platforms [...] The *videos* of destruction and death in Gaza are far more horrific than corresponding *videos* in Israel
TikTok's "Community Guidelines" [0] read:
> We do not allow gory, gruesome, disturbing, or extremely violent content.
If a video depicting torture and killing wasn't taken down, either the poor moderators stuck viewing all this stuff just hadn't gotten to it yet or it was a failure in some way to enforce the TOS; not an indication that the TOS allows it.
[0] https://www.tiktok.com/community-guidelines/en/sensitive-mat...
1. https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1729487180630786219
- Uniformed Gazan fighters (not just Hamas/Al-Qasam, but also PIJ's Saraya Al-Quds, PFLP and some others) breaking the fence infrastructure (cams, remote controlled sentry gun towers, fence walls, fence itself, drone footage, preparations the night before - it shows that fighters of various groups commingled quite a bit). Fighters attacking Israel's military installations (border crossings, destroying some stationary military vehicles not manned at the time, etc.)
- Gazan fighters running around, or riding on motorcycles and pickup trucks, shooting at people and vehicles from small arms, and kidnapping people. This is the bulk of actual action in available footage.
- Footage of masses going from Gaza and looting settlements in Gaza envelope.
- Some grenade throwing into enclosed spaces with people inside.
- Almost no footage of fighters fighting with Israel army's armor, almost no footage of torture.
- No footage of child killings (there's some footage where only parents were killed and children left living). Small children were ~1% of killed victims on Oct 7, so lack of footage is not surprising.
- IDF killing a group of people that was apparently surrendering.
- Videos of IDF attack helicopters shooting at crowds of people and cars.
Footage of aftermath:
- Lots of footage of dead, burned bodies, either in cars or in houses. It's not clear who these people are a lot of the time, or who caused the fire, or how they died. (Israel overcounted its casualties by ~2 hundreds, due to misidentification of burned bodies.)
- At least 7 videos of corpse abuse by Israelis in the aftermath.
Oftentimes it's clear who's doing what, whether fighters or mob. Sometimes it's not.
Lot of "barbarity" of "Hamas" as portrayed in the media or even by some politicians, is made up/overblown (oven baked babies, 40 beheaded babies, children/people collected together tied and burned alive intentionally, ...). It seems to be designed to show that Hamas is way different in humanity than IDF, or whatnot, but it just ends up throwing doubt on other eyewitness descriptions of gruesome things that may be truthful.
There's an article in Haaretz about this problem: https://archive.ph/2023.12.03-221527/https://www.haaretz.co....
In any case there are other evidence for that to happen.
I hope that's enough proof for you:https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/06/middleeast/rape-sexual-vi...
Maybe you haven't seen enough of what happened in 10/7 then. I would rather get hit by a bomb then tortured to death in the most horrific way possible.
And also we can't let them prove themselves to be as bad as the Nazis (if we start comparing numbers), it's about preventing it.
Lots of innocents are dying; there is IMO absolutely no amount of reasoning that can justify it, under any circumstances. It's just wrong. It must stop, period.
Unfortunately, I don’t see any other way. But I would be very happy to know of any that will eradicate hamas, and let both sides’ civilians finally live in peace.
In war there can be no justice. Now consider what is more just: not killing perpetrators, or killing innocents? Obviously, not killing is preferable. As Socrates said 2400 years ago, it's worse to commit injustice than to suffer it.
If you want an intelligent commentary on the current situation, please listen to Yuval Noah Harari on Sam Harris' podcast about this.
Israeli people must jail Netanyahu and his gang and negociate seriously for a two-states solution. There is no other way out. Military retaliation has exactly zero role to play here. It only creates more hatred and more Hamas militants to come.
https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-two-state-solution-is-still...
however, jailing Netanyahu and some of his buddies (I’d for sure also put Smotrich and Ben-Gvir in jail, but there are so many more), wouldn’t stop the rocket fire from Gaza – so what is to be done about the rocket fire and infiltration attempts (and, unfortunately, we know now that "iron dome" + "high tech fencing" is not the answer).
So what a civilised country that values human life (especially of its own citizens) should do? What country in the world wouldn’t be running a military action against the rocket launching, hostage capturing, blood thirsty group financed by oil money?
Not bombing people (killing some of the hostages doing so). Make a serious offer for peace. Nothing serious has been done since Rabin's assassination. Both Barak and Olmert's tries were ham-handed, at a time when both Barak and Olmert were about to be ousted from power.
Can't you understand that violence won't solve anything at all? Retaliation won't resuscitate any of the dead. "Eye for an eye" will only make everyone blind in the end.
If Israel want to get back its lost moral up-hand, it has to offer peace, for real. Nothing else will do. If Israelis are serious about being better than the opposing side, than they have to do better than the opposing side, not worse.
> If anything the skew within the platforms is to prioritize pro-palestinian views.
That platforms prioritize one over the other is just one possible explanation. An alternative explanation is that more people already have those views. And it's dishonest to present one explanation and omit the other.
Nothing inflames people like injustice.
I think they are saying that the composition of users of these apps skews one way rather than the other due to pre existing stances, and the fact that the apps are not available in some markets.
As a result, certain views are prioritised as a byproduct of the fact that all modern social media apps have an algorithm that shows you more of what you already agree with, in order to maximise ad profits.
I think the notion that the vast chunk of Twitter or TikTok had a pre existing stance on Israel/Palestine before Oct 7 is kind of silly, imo? Before this I could scroll Twitter without seeing anything about Israel or Palestine for... idk. Weeks, months at a time. I'll maybe see one thing on Palestine being oppressed, usually about West Bank settlements, from the one or two people who happen to be Palestinian. Now I literally cannot avoid it whenever I open either app.
I really struggle to believe anyone beyond a small minority even thought about Palestine or Israel before Oct 7.
I grew up in the 1980s and recall intense flareups on this subject matter for as long as I can remember. The arrival of the Web and social media simply amplified them.
This has little to do with the actual point, though.
Because otherwise it invalidates their opinion? So, are you ready to sacrifice yourself in the streets for Mr. Biden / Mr. Trump / Mr. Macron / Ms. LePen / etc etc, or to rehome the "victims" of their policies?
It provides some signal as to how “deeply” one (or a group) feels.
>So, are you ready to sacrifice yourself in the streets for Mr. Biden / Mr. Trump / Mr. Macron / Ms. LePen / etc etc, or to rehome the "victims" of their policies?
No, I do not deeply feel regarding this topic.
Because refusing diplomatic and business relationships, repeatedly condemning Israeli actions in the largest international forums they have access to, demonstrating in the streets of their countries, jeopardizing relationships with the richest countries in the world because of this topic, etc etc, are not sufficient signals...?
You can certainly criticize ambiguities in certain environments (e.g. Saudi rulers), but overall I don't think one can seriously challenge the depth of feeling on the matter when it's shared by literally billions of people. Maybe one doesn't get exposed to all that because most of these people are poor, living in poor countries that are largely ignored by the Western mainstream, but they are definitely there.
Given Israel's misleading and lying stances as other nations inspect the conditions of the conflict, and their regarding of Palestinians as less than human, I am not convinced they are interested or even capable of providing other cultures a better quality of life. Apparently invading other lands and engaging in colonialism is cool in 2023.
There also a similar weird gulf between the shouts about 'genocide' and the refusal to allow any to escape. Someone who truly believes that should always allow for refugees. I guess most people making these claims don't really believe them and except Israel to maintain reasonable-enough treatment.
It's not like the collective West (aside from USA) offered safe haven to Jews. We kinda just threw them into that corner of the world.
The important issue here is the obviously shrinking pseudo-state of Palestine. The 1947 borders of Palestine have shifted dramatically in Israel's favor, but Israel continues to send settlers to the West Bank.
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Hamas was wrong to attack Israel. But Israel is wrong to continue expanding its borders.
Around 1AD, the greatest concentration of Jewish people was Alexandria, Egypt, where they made up 1/3 the population, not Jerusalem. The actual history of the Middle East defies simplistic narratives.
Earlier today, I was listening to an interview with a child of early Zionists (he grew up on a Kibbutz in Israel, but now resides in the US, escaping the [his words], "Fascist turn" in Israel) who said that Israelis (referring to the European Ashkenazi Jewish Zionist settlers) were very happy to have the Mizrahi come. They referred to the Mizrahi as, "Jews at Arab wages." Israeli Ashkenazi Zionists were and are very racist; where it would be odd, but arguably correct to call them a brand of white supremacists.
Only about a thousand jewish refugees were let into the United States.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/nyregion/oswego-jewish-re...
Zionism is a very complex topic, and some elements seem quite murky.
But I certainly agree with your final point. Ignoring the religious angle, in terms of political dynamics this seems to be a fairly straightforward case of extremist nationalism.
I mean, the explicit goal post WW1 was to cut up the Ottoman Empire (which inevitably would divide the Muslim world, as the Ottomans were the major Muslim empire). The Jewish/Zionist cause is a useful means to that end. No better way to cut-up that region by offering it to Israel / a different religious group who had publicly lobbied for a place there.
I'd more rather blame 1917 / WW1 politics for this than the Jewish people per se. Cutting up and humiliating the Central Powers post-defeat was just one of the World War 1 issues.
Its Britain who signed it after all, and we all know what Britain wanted post WW1. (And one can argue that Britain treated the former-Ottomans with more respect than some other Central Powers...)
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I can imagine a parallel universe where Britain would cut up the Ottoman Empire differently without creating a Jewish land / start of Israel in years following WW1. But in most concievable alternative-histories I can think of, the four central powers / empires would be dissolved and otherwise cut up into tiny pieces and scattered into the winds in a humiliating defeat.
You don't see how being part of a large, well-regarded Muslim Empire (a true Caliphate) has an effect on the psyche of the largely Muslim Palestinians? Or why they'd be against Western-rule in the post-Ottoman world of 1918+?
I'm certainly not calling the Ottomans saints. But the Ottomans were stewards of the Muslim world for those centuries.
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If Britain realized how much trouble all of this Middle Eastern crap would be after the dissolution of the Ottomans, I'm sure they would have rewritten the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres.
Truth is since the Babylonian captivity in the 5th century BCE the area was not ruled by any indigenous people but held by interloping empire after empire, none of which were shy about relocating peoples into and out of that tiny piece of land.
Are you comparing that to being part of an empire for the preceding 400 years?
It also left Gaza in 2005, forcibly extracting settlers, and left no military presence. In Gaza, in every real sense, Israel contracted its borders.
As for the Berlin wall, I only used it for dramatic effect, to convey how serious the blockade is. Also why did you put “blockade” in quotes? Are you under the impression that Israel is not imposing a “blockade” on Gaza?
But you got me. You are better at debating than me. Congratulations.
Who controls the water, electricity and internet in Gaza?
Who controls the borders of Gaza?
Who has military ships control sea waters of Gaza?
Who randomly sends missiles, air strikes and “mows the grass” in Gaza?
Israel.
Actually, I don't know what the status of the Golan Heights is. I suppose it's Syrian territory, occupied by Israel. But I know that the State of Israel has never claimed the Gaza Strip. TTBOMK it was Egyptian territory in 1948, and its present occupants are mainly refugees from the Nakhba and their descendants - i.e. they are mainly the original occupants of the territory of the present State of Israel.
I suppose the Gaza Strip must still be technically Egypt; but it's quite clear that Egypt doesn't want responsibility for 2 million impoverished Palestinians, many of whom are aligned with the Moslem Brotherhood, a group that arose in Egypt that has always opposed the Egyptian government.
I don’t know why you are so fixated on how Israel defines their own borders. They very much control much more areas then what is formally considered within Israeli borders.
Here is a map of West Bank settlements in 2020 [1] These have de-facto expanded since then even before October 7th, particularly in East Jerusalem which is fully controlled by Israel. Pay special attention to the blue area of the map,area C, which is fully controlled by Israel, home to almost 500,000 Israel settlers who vote in Israeli elections, adhere to Israeli laws, pay with Israeli Shekels, etc. Israel is under international oblegation to cede this area to Palestine, but instead have been moving more settlers into it at accelerating pace.
Also look at where the border infrastructure are in this map, this is fences, walls, checkpoints, etc. It is not on the West Bank borders like you would expect if Israeli borders hadn’t expanded, but instead almost completely within it, and in some cases very deep within it (see e.g. South of Ramallah, North of Salfit, and around Bethlehem) also notice how East Jerusalem is completely cut off from the rest of the West Bank with border infrastructure, almost as if East Jerusalem has been completely annexed by Israel.
In this map you also see they plan to build a lot more boarder infrastructure very deep inside the West Bank. The only way to interpret that is that they are moving the boarder even further and annexing even more land. Even if they claim these settlements and these areas aren’t part of Israel, they very much are.
1: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/West_Ban...
Yes, the Arab states started wars to conquer the holy land from the Jews, and lost. Do you really think that if they had won anybody would be talking about how the Jewish state is shrinking? Losing territory in a war that they started in order to gain territory is somehow controversial?
> Israel continues to send settlers to the West Bank.
Israel has never sent a single citizen to settle the West Bank. People have moved to the West Bank of their own accord, which by the way is legal and encouraged under the legal frameworks applicable to the area (Ottoman law actually, because everything since had been mandate or occupation). But the state has not and does not move people.
I am against all violence and murder of civilians, but per international law, Hamas resistance fighters[1] had every right to attack Israel, the occupying power, but not civilians. And, as more comes out, there are more questions about who is responsible for the majority of the civilian casualties in the Hamas resistance fighter's attack. E.g., hundreds of the 1400 originally reported Israeli victims of the Hamas attacks have now been identified as Palestinian Hamas resistance fighters "burned beyond all recognition" [by Israeli forces]. And, the majority of Hamas targets were military. Whereas nearly 100% of the Israeli targets in the current massacre are civilians (including literally babies in incubators); the majority of the murdered have been women and children.
And, per international law, Israel, as occupying power, does not have a "right to defend itself" against the occupied Palestinians.
The International Criminal Court was investigating Israel for past crimes against humanity, but the Chief Prosecutor was replaced with one more friendly to the Zionists (no doubt under US pressure). Past Israeli activities and especially the current massacre is textbook genocide per international law, and while Israel refuses to sign onto the the ICC, Palestine has (which provides jurisdiction), but even if it hadn't, universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity such as the genocide being perpetrated by Israel allow for the prosecution of Israel's crimes. Israeli leaders (and hopefully soldiers) will eventually be brought to justice (as well as those who facilitated the genocide like Joe Biden, Anthony Blinken, Ursula von der Leyen, Nearly all Democratic members of congress and all Republican members of congress and many many more).
[1]There is also a lot of confusing Hamas the political wing with Hamas the militant resistance fighters. These are distinct, and there is good evidence that the political wing of Hamas was unaware the attacks were going to happen until after they had occurred. Think of it as Sinn Féin political wing of IRA vs. IRA resistance fighters, fighting the English colonizers, in Ireland. The political wing Hamas, is the democratically elected government of Gaza.
Regardless of that point, it's not their responsibility to facilitate Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Ironically, the USA IS SPENDING BILLIONS on the war in Ukraine with nothing for the Palestinians.
The population was small, up to about 5% of the region during the Ottomans (after heavy losses due to multiple Black Plague outbreaks), but the reason that specific area was chosen (as opposed to alternatives) was because there was already a community of Jews there.
Keep in mind that the vast majority of the area was uninhabited swamps until the 1940s and huge numbers of people died from malaria every year before resettling Jews completely changed the local terrain.
Look up details about the the late 1880s and the distinctions marking the difference between the Old Yishuv and New Yishuv.
Political aspirations of the Old Yishuv were pretty low due to the fact that they were broke as shit and depended on handouts from abroad, whereas New Yishuv resettlers came with money and dreams.
The biggest problem I find with the collective understanding people have of the conflict is that people largely think nothing of note happened before 1900 but the prior history determines a ton of why later decisions were made that people attribute to the start of conflict.
Ultimately, the security needs of Israel need to be balanced against the rights of the Palestinians, and as it stands, the Palestinians have no negotiating power, so they get nothing. If politicians around the world made it clear you cannot be 'the only democracy in the middle east' while having millions of people subject to military law, I expect the Palestinians would have enough negotiating room to force some kind of reasonable settlement.
History is complicated, yes, but it is how we got into this situation and everybody's idea of a solution is based on their preferred version of history.
> Are Palestinians citizens of Israel, or is it a foreign country
> that Israeli settlers are invading
League of Nations (and UN) mandates can not change the laws of the lands they administer - then can only issue temporary orders (usually limited to three years). So British orders are not valid in the holy land today. Likewise, military occupation (Jordanian, Israeli) also can not change the laws but rather can issue temporary orders. So the law of the land in the West Bank even today remains Ottoman law, modulo "temporary" Israeli military orders that are actually renewed (for the most part) every three years or so.
Ottoman law since the 1850's stated that anyone who settles land (houses, farms, factories) owns it - Muslims and Jews and Christians alike. Their goal was to increase the population of the near-desolate holy land (which they called Greater Syria), and collect more taxes. Those laws still stand today, for better or for worse. There is nothing "illegal" about Israeli citizens building homes in the West Bank. What would be illegal would be if the Israeli state were to transfer its citizens - international law is binding on states, not citizens. But citizens moving is not banned by any international law, and settlement of the West Bank is actually encouraged by the laws in the West Bank dating over 150 years, because nobody since has had the authority to change those laws.
I was thinking the other day, why doesn't Israel offer the west bank to Jordan?
I think that by permitting, providing security and infrastructure for, and aiding settlement activity, Israel demonstrates a lack of interest in actually passing off occupation. Because of the settlements already there today, it would be already very difficult to maintain the rights and security of Israeli citizens who live in the west bank without the military occupation.
So while I think your argument about Ottoman law is mostly sophistic (why is Ottoman law in 'force'? Because Israel has not allowed self-determination) I think it's really hard to argue that Israel has demonstrated any commitment to ending the occupation: rather, the settlement program makes the occupation a permanent necessity, even if the Israelis elected a government that had ending the occupation as a number one issue on the agenda.
> I was thinking the other day, why doesn't Israel offer the west bank to Jordan?
> I think that by permitting, providing security and infrastructure for, and aiding settlement activity, Israel demonstrates a lack of interest in actually passing off occupation. Because of the settlements already there today, it would be already very difficult to maintain the rights and security of Israeli citizens who live in the west bank without the military occupation.
> So while I think your argument about Ottoman law is mostly sophistic (why is Ottoman law in 'force'? Because Israel has not allowed self-determination) I think it's really hard to argue that Israel has demonstrated any commitment to ending the occupation: rather, the settlement program makes the occupation a permanent necessity, even if the Israelis elected a government that had ending the occupation as a number one issue on the agenda.
You need to understand that these organizations are for the benefit of a future state called Palestine, not for the benefit of the people who would live in that state. The people - and their suffering - are a means to an end to establish that state. I know that is very difficult for Westerners to comprehend, as Western states are _for_ the citizens.
I think this is really wrongheaded on a couple of counts. Because Israel as a state 'for the jews' is an ethnostate, it must keep a jewish demographic majority. So long as that is the case, there is no way for Palestinians to have rights without having their own state.
Second, that suffering is directly caused by Israel. You can't blame the political projects of the Palestinians for the actions of the IDF.
Thirdly, what form of self-determination would actually be acceptable to Israel? Would it include the banning of settlement activity, and the settlers having to live under Palestinian law? Would it include palestinian's right to border control? Or a military? The reason why people call Gaza a prison is because the Palestinians had absolutely no ability to leave, import, or export, because it did not have control over its own borders. That is obviously just as intolerable as an explicit military occupation.
> Because Israel as a state 'for the jews' is an ethnostate, it must keep a jewish demographic majority. So long as that is the case, there is no way for Palestinians to have rights without having their own state.
> Second, that suffering is directly caused by Israel. You can't blame the political projects of the Palestinians for the actions of the IDF.
> Thirdly, what form of self-determination would actually be acceptable to Israel? Would it include the banning of settlement activity, and the settlers having to live under Palestinian law? Would it include palestinian's right to border control? Or a military?
> The reason why people call Gaza a prison is because the Palestinians had absolutely no ability to leave, import, or export, because it did not have control over its own borders. That is obviously just as intolerable as an explicit military occupation.
Yes, but the kind of blockade that Israel employs around Gaza would be considered an act of war by essentially every state on earth.
I think this idea you have that Palestinians are oppressed by basically everybody except Israel is totally insane, and comes across as strategic blindness rather than honest conviction. If you just go to Hebron, you have to be pretty deluded not to see oppression, even if you're unwilling to think through the fact that Israel having defacto power in the West Bank entails that the rights of Palestinians are being denied by Israel, and it's immaterial whether that's by commission or omission, even if you're going to ignore any of the many ways in which the Palestinians rights are regularly infringed by Israeli security forces.
> You cannot be “the only democracy in the Middle East” and use the excuse that the other countries are making you be authoritarian despots.
If you can find a body to administer the West Bank, I'd love to hear your suggestion. The obvious bodies who have been tasked with developing this authority, such as the PA, have proven themselves time and time again of being incapable of such.
You have to go back to the 4th century, and earlier, for Judaism to have a significant presence in Palestine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palesti...
Note: The original European Zionist Jews called their own project settler colonialism back then, and they were opposed by Orthodox Jews, at the time.
You'll also note that League of Nations (and UN) mandates can not change the laws of the lands they administer - then can only issue temporary orders (usually limited to three years). So British orders are not valid in the holy land today. Likewise, military occupation (Jordanian, Israeli) also can not change the laws but rather can issue temporary orders. So the law of the land in the West Bank even today remains Ottoman law, modulo "temporary" Israeli military orders that are actually renews (for the most part) every three years or so.
The demographic numbers I cited came straight from that wikipedia article, and they do not agree with your "nearly-empty" claim.
I don't know where you are getting this from, it isn't true. The League of Nations Palestine Mandate [0] granted the UK "full powers of legislation and of administration, save as they may be limited by the terms of this mandate" (Article 1). You will not find any limitation preventing them from making permanent laws within it.
The UK imposed its own legal system on the Mandate, as Article 1 allowed. It ended up mostly abolishing Ottoman law, although it retained it in certain areas (especially family law, inheritance, religious affairs and real estate). The laws it imposed were not necessarily those of the metropolitan UK – the criminal code was largely copied from colonial India. The starting point of Israeli law is Israel's decision at the time of independence to continue the British Mandate's legal system, until such time as the Knesset decided to alter things. It wasn't until 1977, for example, that Israel completely replaced the British-imposed penal code with its own. Palestinian law has the same fundamental starting point, although with the added complexity of being overlaid with Egyptian and Jordanian legislation (in Gaza and the West Bank, respectively), and then a mixture of Israeli and Palestinian legislation laid on top of that.
As far as I’m aware, the reason why the UK retained Ottoman real estate law in Mandatory Palestine was pragmatic rather than due to any international obligation that they do so-all the existing land titles were based on Ottoman law, changing them to a different system of real estate law would have involved a lot of work for little practical benefit, so the British decided to leave the existing Ottoman system in place. But, if they’d felt strongly enough about it, they could have done otherwise
Not saying you're necessarily wrong, but I find this hard to believe because the majority of the area was not uninhabited swamps back during the time of the Roman Empire, so why would it have become uninhabited swamps at some point between then and the 1940s? Of course terrain does change over time, but I've never heard of the Levant turning into swamps in post-Roman times.
https://www.amazon.com/Zionism-Creation-Society-Studies-Hist...
For a couple of hundred years prior there were tens of thousands of Jews in the region, including at one point 30,000 counted just in Safed by the end of the 16th century.
Also keep in mind that in 1800 populations were an order of magnitude smaller than they are now.
Citation needed. Nearly 2M people called Palestine their home in the 1940s, the majority Muslim.
We also know that the Palestinian villages bulldozed by the Israeli European Jewish settler colonialists over the last 75 years had existed for many hundreds of years-- many of the parks in Israel are built on top of the ruins of these destroyed Palestinian villages, to hide these crimes from the world. We know that the Palestinian olive orchards bulldozed by the Israelis were filled with trees that were hundreds of years old. Gaza itself, was a prosperous ancient city that once stood upon a crossroads of trade. Besides the 10s of thousands of civilians majority women and children murdered by Israel (war crimes) in this latest massacre of the many massacres by the Israelis, the Israelis are destroying all the buildings and civilian infrastructure in Gaza (war crimes), there may be no more Gaza when the Israelis are finished.
Short version, you are spreading falsehoods in defense of genocidal behavior.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palesti...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38576719
Zionism is and was a European project. Here is a challenge for you, name a single Mizrahi in a position of power in Israel; it is all Europeans.
Just because Hitler blew his brains out, doesn't mean everything was hunky dory fine again. There were pogroms against people who had survived the concentration camps, Stalin was now in charge of the majority of nations where Jews had lived, local authorities that had collaborated with the Nazis were still in charge in many places...
I do think simply calling Israel a colonial state is insufficient. The Jewish people didn't have a place they could return to like the British or the French, and the contemporary events obviously created an extremely dire situation. I'm not sure that makes what was done to the native Muslim population in Palestine okay, and there were certainly elements of a colonial project on display that continue to this day (notably, the formation of Jewish settlements in the west bank in violation of international law). The zionist movement also pre-dates the rise of the Nazis. That they were vindicated doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't a colonial project.
This appeared repeatedly as important news, sadly mostly due to wars and terrorism.
Jerusalem relevance alone for multiple religions with its holy sites made it important topic for many.
As an example, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are among the top 10 countries in terms of Twitter users.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/242606/number-of-active-...
Yes, most Americans knew the conflict existed previous to this past October, but few who weren't Jewish or Muslim and/or Arab (I think most Arab Christians are generally/vaguely pro-Palestinian, but not sure) would have had strong opinions about it or been able to tell you much. I don't think the issue has ever featured this heavily in the US news cycle since oil embargoes in the 70s, and the issue is a lot more contentious now due to a few different factors.
Right now, unless someone consumes zero news media and has very curated social media feeds, I don't see how they could avoid understanding this has all been a major geopolitical event that is continuing to unfold.
That’s simply incorrect. Extensive news coverage of the flareups I referred to led to the subject matter becoming a common topic of conversation and public interest. Heck, I remember there being conversations and debates about it among kids in my school’s cafeteria, and that was in a part of the US where at the time way less than 1% of the population was Jewish or Muslim.
It has been a relatively prominent issue in Ireland, and especially Northern Ireland for some time. You can find plenty of images over the years of republican murals with Palestinian flags on them (e.g. 10 years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/189yeg/o... ), or conversely unionist bonfires with palestinean flags on it: (e.g. last year https://nitter.dafriser.be/M_AndersonSF/status/1542523209311... )
OP stated: "If anything the skew within the platforms is to prioritize pro-palestinian views".
They're explicitly stating that they believe pro-palestinian views are prioritized.
> They're explicitly stating that they believe pro-palestinian views are prioritized.
I'm also saying that they are prioritised, here is a sentence from my previous comment:
> As a result, certain views are prioritised
This is an important clause here. It means that they do not believe that pro-Israel views are prioritised but __if__ any it is the case that there are prioritised views are pro-Palestinian views.
Now, you could argue that this is a bad faith rhetorical device but it is not “explicitly stating that they believe pro-Palestinian views are prioritised”.
The majority of the global ruling class is for Israel's occupation of Palestine.
History is incomprehensible if we ignore class conflict.
The October 7th attack was carried out against civilians in their homes living on land that is internationally recognized as Israel by an overwhelming majority of countries.
I'm not sure what you are opposing. I wrote that majority of the world is against Israel's occupation. And it's not only West Bank, this is map showing all the lands occupied by Israel with timeline https://i.stack.imgur.com/0xM5P.jpg
> The October 7th attack was carried out against civilians in their homes living on land that is internationally recognized as Israel by an overwhelming majority of countries.
Pro Palestine doesn't mean pro Hamas or pro terrorist. Here is another general assembly vote, from 26th October where majority of the world voted differently than Israel, and in favor of Palestine:
The majority voted for a truce, which greatly favors Hamas at the expense of Israel.
Hostages are still being held in Gaza, and a truce agreement was sustained for as long as Hamas were willing to free 10 hostages per day of truce. Hamas stopped short with 137 hostages still remaining in Gaza. Why on Earth would Israel agree?
I define Palestine borders same as UN resolution from 1947.
> The majority voted for a truce, which greatly favors Hamas at the expense of Israel.
I believe that the need for a truce vote would be less pressing if Israel reduced civilian and child casualties. There are accusations of Israel committing war crimes. Recently, an independent investigation into the killing of a Reuters journalist suggested that it was a deliberate attack by the IDF on civilians, constituting a war crime. They told Palestinians to go south to be safe and then they bombed them there. Responding to atrocities from 7th of October with further atrocities is not justifiable. The strategy to eradicate Hamas might be counterproductive, potentially leading to the creation of more militants than are eliminated, due to the civilian casualties caused.
> Hostages are still being held in Gaza, and a truce agreement was sustained for as long as Hamas were willing to free 10 hostages per day of truce. Hamas stopped short with 137 hostages still remaining in Gaza. Why on Earth would Israel agree?
No one is advocating for a cessation of the fight against Hamas, but there has been a loss of world support due to the methods employed. Even the US, as indicated by Blinken either today or yesterday, has stated that there are insufficient efforts being made to protect civilian lives and that Israel is saying one thing but the reality and numbers coming from Gaza says something different.
In an ideal world what you’re saying would be true. Hamas could be eradicated without civilian casualties. No children would get hurt.
But you’re not proposing an alternative — and part of the reason is that Hamas has made it explicitly hard to do so.
Is the verdict that any territory that is sufficiently populated can’t be retaliated against?
> I define Palestine borders same as UN resolution from 1947.
> I believe that the need for a truce vote would be less pressing if Israel reduced civilian and child casualties.
The point under discussion above is the fact that the Arabs rejected the borders of this proposed Arab state. So they started a war and the borders were changed. That's the risk they took and lost. It is disingenuous to claim that Israelis stole Arab land at this point - the Arabs tried to steal land and lost.
> this is map showing all the lands occupied by Israel with timeline https://i.stack.imgur.com/0xM5P.jpg
1. The geographical area of Palestine, also often called The Holy Land among other names, that was not inhabited by Jews.
2. The area that the UN Partition Plan designated for an Arab state.
3. The areas that the Palestinian Authority has both civil and military control over.
The problem with the first definition is obvious: It displays a geographical area with a racial modifier. That would be like showing a map of France with all the areas where French people live highlighted, then assuming that 100% of the remaining areas are "Immigrant Land". In reality, the far majority of the land was not settled by Jews nor Arabs in time frame of this map - it was so empty that the Ottomans created laws specifically to increase both Arab and Jewish settlement in the area, they didn't care so long as the taxes were paid.
The UN Partition Plan was not perfect, but it for the most part proposed an Arab state in the areas that were Arab majority, and a Jewish state in the areas with a Jewish majority. The Arabs rejected this plan in an attempt to conquer more land - so complaining that the borders changed from these borders is disingenuous. The Arabs started a war (well, more than one) with the specific intent of changing these borders.
The map in 1946 is false, since all of it was British, zero of it was Arab or Jewish.
The UN plan never happened.
The 1967 map pretends like there was a country "Palestine" when there never has been.
And the 2010 map is just straight up fiction.
The aforementioned organization in no way represents “the majority of the world” or “the rest of the world”; it makes a joke out of the values of freedom and human rights.
I seriously doubt these videos are actually “in depth” in the require way if they simply start 70 years. I’ve also seen many videos myself and there’s zero depth and pure one sidedness, much of the pro-Palestinian content predicated on a dismissal of Zionism as racist but hypocritically an acceptance of all other 1st nation claims as well as the tactic acceptance of Hamas with its theocratic & genocidal goals.
For sure it’s a tragedy.
In my country (US) we've had ~200k deaths from opioid prescriptions. It gets attention but it's really not enough when the perpetrators should be in prison for life.
None of this is a good thing but "outrage of the week" is simply attention and attention span. We're all limited.
Meanwhile the Islamic world has ok’d (in the UN and other forums) China to literally create concentration camps to sterilize and erase the Uygur culture and Islamic religion.
Things are not so straightforward.
You think the "red scare" was actually about the commies attacking? No, it was about limiting an alternative economic system == resource control.
I don't adhere to an Abrahamic religion and frankly dislike monotheism on general principle. But while I don't believe in any of this, it's a fact that huge numbers of people do for different reasons. For example US Evangelicals are obsessed with events in Israel because many of them consider conflict there to be the harbinger of the Apocalypse prophesied in the Book of Revelation. The principal military and political actors in this conflict may be privately secularist or only nominally religious, but they're quite willing to leverage religion for financial and political capital.
That's funny, because you sound like the kind of person who says the same about every conflict.
Treading a fine line here between Bayesian priors and stereotypes, but the worldwide Muslim/Jewish population split is something like 112:1. Obviously that's not going to be the same proportion on a given media-service, but it should still inform our expectations of what is the "default" state before theorizing about platform algorithm-tweaking or propaganda-campaigns.
The war is shockingly unpopular on both sides of itself and seemingly the only people who are in favor of Israel's current plan of action is the Israeli government and the people who, for PR reasons, refuse to criticize Israel since Israel has done such an excellent job propagandizing people into thinking being anti-Israel in any way is synonymous with being anti-Semetic.
75% of Palestinians "support the military operation carried out by the Palestinian resistance led by Hamas on October 7th." 76% have positive views of Hamas (other armed terrorist groups have even larger support).
https://www.awrad.org/files/server/polls/polls2023/Public%20...
Today these are considered liberators, but during the colonial wars they were all considered terrorists who conducted inhumane acts. Perhaps people knew that but still supported their fight, simply because they considered the oppression inflected by their colonizers worth fighting against.
The amazing amount of historical revisionism where once it became so obvious and irrefutable that the causes of these various entities were, in fact, correct the entire time at which point colonial powers suddenly do an about face and call them freedom fighters instead of terrorists in genuinely nauseating. ALL groups in this vein commit various kinds of atrocities, because war, especially guerilla war, is itself largely an atrocity. And more war will only breed more of these groups as more people who do not belong in an area, do not share it's culture, and blatantly do not give a steaming shit about either of those things continue to meddle in their affairs.
Hamas will not do open battle with Israel, because of course they'd fucking lose, just like the Taliban would've to us, or the Viet Cong to us, or anyone else. They can't field an army and they know that, they aren't stupid. But what else would you have them do? Just waive the white flag and let the Western powers redraw their borders again, fuck up their cities and culture and treat them like brainless savages to avoid being killed?
What about caring for their civilians, not using them as meat shields, not using hospitals as bases, not starting rockets from civilian buildings; using the obscene amount of international aid responsible for the benefit of people, over selling it for profit in their supermarkets to fund rockets, digging up goddamn water pipes to turn into rockets, etc. Oh, also, maybe don’t shoot their own people trying to evacuate an active warzone?
Hamas is an utterly disgusting terrorist organization, this is an objective fact. Equating them to freedom fighters is just vile, and a disgrace to any decent movement that tried to overthrow their oppressors.
> One presentation that David shared made the case that Hamas intentionally stations its military operations near civilian sites as part of its strategy of deploying “human shields.” United Nations officials have discovered Hamas rockets hidden in a vacant school in the past, and indeed, the militant group's vast, underground tunnel network endangers civilians throughout the Gaza Strip. Yet the recent IDF document uses broad categories to identify Hamas military sites and Israeli targets, including a “Hamas bank” located next to a Palestinian kindergarten.
You are repeating the talking point of the Israeli propaganda machine. These may all turn out to be true, but as of now there are no evidence for it except Israeli propaganda.
But yet even if some of these are true (say digging up waterpipes, stealing aid money for weapons) history will probably state these as part of the liberation struggle (at least among Palestinians).
IRA in Ireland and the FLN in Algeria both did stuff like that and worse for their liberation from the British and French respectively. Yet both terrorist organizations and their political arms (Sinn Féin in Ireland) had plenty public support among the colonized peoples.
If you are not suffering from colonial oppression it may be hard to understand this.
And yeah, hamas is popular with Palestineans, they are very very radicalized, which is a sad state of affairs. There are plenty of populist parties even in democracies that are popular in spite of being harmful for their citizens. People en large are not the smartest.
> “Hamas does really good PR,” continued Schwarzbard. “We need to change the narrative.” She implored the group to use focused language. “We need people to see this isn't just a run-of-the-mill resistance, freedom fighter group. This is something equivalent of ISIS.”
You are literally playing their game. There is no evidence for the atrocities you cite. These are only anecdotes coming from the very same people who are so careless in leaking their propaganda techniques.
Put your self in the shoe of a Palestinian. Your family is dead. Your pets are dead. Your home has been bombed. You know who did these things. You know they will face no justice under the current order. Off course you support any resistance to this order, off course you support the people who are actively trying to make these offenders pay for their crimes.
Number [1] does not show anything, except a group of people trying to flee and then turn around after some load bangs. The bangs might as well be from unrelated firefight we don’t know. We have to believe the interpretations from the Israeli propaganda machine to conclude your claim of Hamas snipers firing at them is true. If you are a Palestinian, you are very unlikely to do that. Conveniently the IDF has a recording of a Palestinian doing exactly that [3]. However this is material recorded and distributed by IDF them self. IDF has been shown to release plenty of material of questionable origin. And if you are a Palestinian you are not going to take them at their words.
Note I’m not saying Hamas hasn’t done any atrocities, of course they have. As did FLN, IRA, Mau Mau, Viet Cong, ANC, etc. before them. However how we view these atrocities depends very much on whether you justify the colonizer or sympathize with the colonized. If you are part of the colonized and living their oppression, you are very unlikely to justify the colonial enterprise. And you are very likely to justify any actions against them, even the most horrible ones. In many cases history has joined the colonized and indeed justified the resistance.
1: https://twitter.com/alexhiggins732/status/172294287253666242...
2: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/viral-video-appears-to-...
3: https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-gaza-resident-says-hamas-p...
And again, as I said, even if Hamas was able to field a proper military, they would be slaughtered immediately because Israel has the full financial and tactical backing of the West. Their military is extremely akin to the United States, because we basically built it with them. That is why guerilla war exists and it's no coincidence that it came about and is used almost exclusively by colonized nations that cannot stand up to their colonizers in direct traditional combat.
And my point isn't that Hamas is akin to those other organizations, I don't know enough about this conflict to say that, and I'm guessing neither do you. What I do know is a long history littered with organizations that were, at their time, derided as terrorists and whatnot and were later vindicated when the history of the colonized people they fought for was finally allowed to be written.
But if you don't believe these numbers, here is one from the Washington Institute in July 2023:
"Overall, 57% of Gazans express at least a somewhat positive opinion of Hamas"
"But it is organizations like Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Lion’s Den that receive the most widespread popular support in Gaza. About three quarters of Gazans express support for both groups, including 40% who see the Lion’s Den in a “very positive” light, an attitude shared by a similar percentage of West Bank residents."
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/polls-sh...
You are speaking to the startup crowd. Anyone can put anyone's logotypes on their website and claim they are your partners. It's not even that hard.
Mind your sources folks.
[1] https://www.memri.org/tv/hamas-official-ghazi-hamad-we-will-...
And we DIDN'T EVEN GET BIN LADEN THERE. We captured him years after entering the region, in PAKISTAN, a FRIENDLY state, with a single company of marines. No invasion required, no massive civilian casualties, and to my knowledge, we didn't give any terrorist groups a fresh fleet of well maintained vehicles either during that particular one.
Like, at this point, if you still believe that the answer to these terrorist organizations is force, then you really need to bring some evidence to the table, because every time we go to places we are not wanted, and inflict our will upon people who do not want us there with fire and fury, we leave a decade later with an entire city's worth of PTSD afflicted soldiers, leaving behind billions of dollars in military assets, and accomplishing exactly nothing but giving the war profiteering class a fresh infusion of cash.
It doesn't come up on my Instagram presumably because I had previously unfollowed everyone who posted about whatever other injustice they'd been told to be pissed about, and shockingly I don't feel the need to go and vandalize property to spread the word.
Indeed, I would say that anyone older than 10 has participated in such conversations. The person you're responding to makes it sound like it's a new thing.
When I had the conversation about it in real life, I expressed sympathy and discussed a few aspects that they informed me of since I hadn't heard about the instigating attack, and then I went on about my life, thankful that my family and nobody I know personally is on either side.
Maybe around you. I probably wouldn't talk about the topic around you if we were in the same circles, because it might feel pointless.
> it does seem to be a suspiciously recent topic
You're right, it's not a coincidence! Recent conversation is driven by the recent killing of 20,000 Palestinian civilians.
> and then I went on about my life
Nothing wrong with that if you don't feel you have nay power to effect change. But it rather seems like you don't even care if it happens or not. However, many people do care and believe they can influence policy through conversation and protest. (Reminder: they can about the ongoing mass murders of civilians, which started recently and is happening at this very moment. It's time-sensitive.)
> But it rather seems like you don't even care if it happens or not.
It's easy to conflate what I've said with not caring, but really I'm just dismissing having a low bar for personal emotional investment, particularly when it comes to relatively superficial acts of bringing attention to the issue and letting external sources of emotional stimulation operate my consciousness.
Do you not feel like it's a better idea than ever to be protective of how much of your attention is captured by dopamine farms, whether it's ostensibly related to something people should care about or not?
Of course people care primarily about the actions of their own democratically elected government, that's the whole point. There's no need to protest when people agree with their government.
Agreed any real solutions are a nonstarter in current situation, but a lack of imagination or will about how to move forward just further normalizes the illegality of it all.
It could do a lot in the West Bank (where the fully or partially PA administered territory is divided into 166 non-contiguous regions), and anything there xould be done in a way that it looks like a win for the Fatah-led PA, weakening the perception that Hamas and its violence is the only entity capable of delivering for the Palestinian people, undermining Hamas politically.
OTOH, the whole reason Israel fostered Hamas during the direct occupation of Gaza was to create an Islamist competitor for the more secular and sympathetic to non-Muslim states PLO, and the reason they've (and government ministers have said this explicitly) continued to support them in between periods of active conflict is to deflect pressure for peace and a two-state solution, so there’s zero chance of the Netanyahu government doing this.
Not almost. The far right Israel factions (Netanyahu, Likud, etc.) have actually repeatedly encouraged and cultivated Hamas. They benefit far more from the polarization that Hamas brings than a mild and moderate PA who is willing to work diplomatically, because then that increases pressure on those far right Israelis to also be more temperate, which goes against their goals.
Funny since Israel originally supported (including arming) Hamas* hoping the religious Hamas would split the populations support for more secular nationalist movements in Palestine. But, you can be both religious and nationalist.
*Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood; Hamas grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Israel and especially its present governing coalition is not blameless for the situation (and nor are Palestinian factions and some of their supposed allies blameless for Israel's tendency to keep electing governing coalitions more interested in projecting power than continuing peace processes), but it's a lot more complicated than Israeli govts wanting Hamas to be a thing and nobody else in the region having agency. Undoing tacit support for an Islamist alternative to the PLO in the 1970s isn't really a policy option (if it is, someone should give the undo button to the US for Afghanistan!), that happened because there was open conflict long before Hamas and Netanyahu, and apparent diplomatic wins for the PLO did them absolutely no good in the noughties when Palestinians could still choose whether or not to vote for therm
Yet there's large protests in countries that aren't allied with the US or Israel, when no such protests were forthcoming in other analogous scenarios. And there were scarce protests in the US against Saudi Arabia's campaign in Yemen despite US alliance.
I do agree that your thesis is a partial explanation, but it is far from a full explanation. There's two other things going on.
Among Western leftists and minority groups, Israel is a symbol. It's perceived as the last vestige of Western/White colonialism. A symbol of someone with white skin punching down on brown skinned people. It harkens back to the reason that your ancestor was forced (either literally or by material circumstance) into the US in the first place, and why you are living today under systemic racism. Defeating this placeholder is therefore an important milestone in restoring their sense of historical justice. Needless to say this is oversimplified given how many Israeli Jews are indigenous to I/P or were ethnically cleansed from the surrounding MENA area and forced into the I/P area, but people do legitimately hold that dichotomous oppressor/oppressed worldview.
Among Muslim countries, this is an ethnoreligious blood feud. Assad killing Muslims doesn't cause the same anger because it's within the same identity group. So it's a classic case of identity divisions leading to disparate anger. I'm massively oversimplifying here, there are many other factors, but it's part of what's behind the energy.
Doctors were forced at gunpoint to leave premature babies to rot at Al Nasr hospital. And you're surprised that the world is horrified?!
Journalists and healthcare staff and schools have been targeted at a shocking rate. Civil infrastructure and historic churches blown up without the thinnest veil of a reason. More UN staff killed than any 'conflict' in history. Human rights groups and genocide experts are calling this genocide, ethnic cleansing, and worse.
And this wasn't done by some poor, decimated, tin pot dictatorship. This was done by a nuclear power, and it was supported by England and American politicians against the express wishes of a large majority of their populations.
There's no gain; none. No conceivable good can come from this. Believing that such acts will end Hamas/terror is profoundly delusional.
There is no end to this confit regardless. It will go on as you have 2 groups with claims on the same land. Wars are won when the loser accepts defeat I don't see that ever happening. There have been multiple attempts at a negotiated solution like the Peel commision, the 1948 UN partition, or the oslo accords. All have been rejected.
Approximately 600,000 people died in the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia in the two years from November 2020 to November 2022. 40% of the Ethiopian population is children.
The Yemeni civil war (2016-present) had killed at least 377,000 people, as of two years ago. By now, many more than that.
There are mass graves in Mali and Sudan where hundreds of bodies are just piled up on top of each other, visible from space, thanks to collaboration between Wagner Group and the local regime.
Syria is bombing their own population once again at this very moment, in continuation of their 10 year civil war which has killed at least 300,000. Notably, many, many images from the Syrian civil war have been recycled as supposed footage from Gaza (https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2023/12/08/images-of-syrian-...) for propaganda purposes - not that there isn't plenty of legitimate horrible footage from Gaza too.
None of them have higher civilian death rates per day.
None of them have so many murdered children, journalists, UN workers per capita per day (and often even in absolute terms).
None of them are so drastically David and Goliath, where one clear oppressor and occupier is killing so, so many more people.
Sudan, Libya, and Ethipoia aren't spending tens of millions of dollars funding propaganda to smear anyone who suggests they might stop genociding a people.
Even if these "events happening elsewhere" were as bad, or were as directly funded by the West, or were as one-sided - so what? What exactly is your point? What are you calling ignorant?
> It's not very effective.
I am curious though; what are you calling rumours? The murder of thousands upon thousands of innocent Palestinian children? The four premie babies left to rot in Al Nasr hospital? The hundred plus murdered UN workers? The targeted journalists and academics and poets? Reem and Tarek?
Those aren't rumours. They're all on video, and the world has seen them. You can go on Shaun King's Instagram and see hundreds of similar atrocities whenever you like, and so can the entire planet. They're not rumours, they're documented war crimes.
We can all see the residential blocks vaporised under cover of night. We can all see the aftermath of bombed refugee camps and humanitarian corridors and UN schools.
It is infuriating.
So, yes, I'm furious. But if anyone is rabid, it's the people committing these war crimes and atrocities, the people cheering it on, and the people accusing anyone who calls for a ceasefire of anti semitism.
If you're looking for rumours that lack evidence, try the Hamas command bases in hospitals, or the 40 beheaded babies, or the babies in ovens, or the pregnant women slit open, or the "mass rapes"; all proven lies that were spread by Israel and corporate media only to be debunked weeks later.
There has been no debunking of the fact of the October 7th atrocities. Hamas admits doing it, filmed themselves doing it and said they plan to do it again. You can watch their videos if you can stomach it.
These debunkings are paper-thin, special pleading rationalizations for Westerners with an incorrigible anti-Israel stance.
"Oh, a game of telephone in the fog of war led Biden to incorrectly refer to the fact of a baby cranium being found as '40 beheaded babies', so this is the excuse I will use to deny anything at all happened despite Hamas proudly admitting it"
It is sad that genuinely innocent Palestinian civilians are dying. They are another crime that Hamas will have to answer for.
This isn't a topic for awful reading comprehension leading to vile accusations. Settle down. Take a breath. Try reading again.
Or don't; because really, nothing productive is going to come from someone whose response to Israel's war crimes and atrocities is to put their fingers in their ears and blame Hamas 100%. That's an incredibly shitty thing to do. I hope you find your way out of that mindset; it's abhorrent to the nth degree.
I think the salient point is that we both care for Palestinian children. We both differ on what to do about it.
From my perspective, they live under a brutal, genocidal dictatorship who will fling them into the maw of war to tactically garner sympathy. This tactic is not successful for me, because I view it as emotional manipulation. It just makes me angrier at them.
I happen to be well-disposed towards Israel and its people. When Israel says they are sincerely trying not to kill children but that Hamas keeps putting them in harm's way, I will generally believe it until I have a good reason not to believe it.
This seems to contrast to how many people view the statements of Israel, including very powerful people in, eg, the BBC, HRW, WHO, UN, Amnesty International, Harvard, Justin Trudeau, etc. Many people seem to view every statement of Israel with suspicion. I don't really get it, but here we are.
However.
What you're doing here is abhorrent.
Children weren't 'flung' anywhere. They were at home, or in refugee camps after being displaced four times, before being vaporized without warning. They were in premie beds, before being left to rot and be eaten by wild dogs. That happened. It's happening now.
Blaming Hamas for it is the mark of a seriously disturbed mind. There were no Hamas terrorists forcing the Israeli soldiers to march doctors out of the care room at gunpoint, that was something they chose to do. They chose to leave those babies behind, after promising the doctors they'd receive care. No evidence of Hamas leaders in bombed refugee camps was ever offered.
Israeli programmed AI has decided that 100 civilians per Hamas leader is acceptable. It isn't. It really, really isn't. It's completely insane to think that it is, and yet they say it with a straight face, calling anyone who argues a Jew hater. It's so, so dangerous.
> Many people seem to view every statement of Israel with suspicion
They have lied so, so often. The lies are tissue thin, as if daring people to question them. 40 beheaded babies? Pregnant women cut open? Babies in ovens? Hamas command center tunnels under every hospital? These lies are still being used to justify atrocities, and it's beyond sickening. The whole world is aghast.
Israel have called stone throwing children terrorists for decades, shooting them on a whim. Their response to a 13 year old being raped was to designate the investigating charity a terrorist organisation. They've called the UN, the BBC, the Guardian, the Ivy leagues, and anyone who criticized their war crimes in any way anti-semitic. Slogans of freedom - "from the river to the sea" have been framed as calls for genocide. They've co-ordinated smear campaigns against well-respected thought leaders for simply stating casualty figures.
Again - nothing good can possibly come from this. If you love Israel, or even like it a little, you should be horrified at what they are doing to themselves. This stain will never come out, never; and it keeps getting worse.
If you care for Jewish people, and Palestinians, the only sensible action is to demand an immediate ceasefire.
I don't think calling people who disagree with you "a disturbed mind" as you did is helpful, nor leads to understanding. My advice is to assume those who disagree with you have information you do not have, ask them for their information, consider it, and only then reject it. Calling people "disturbed" does not lead to any understanding.
From my perspective, the Free Palestine movement only has emotional arguments. I do not think it can be rational because its fundamental premises are flawed. You can debate me, find out why, share your information, or you can dismiss me as disturbed. One leads to exchange of views and new information for both of us. The other leads to contention and endless flame wars that help no one.
Prove me wrong through information and arguing against the best version of my arguments, not through insults and dismissal.
That's disturbed.
I don't care to understand whatever is wrong with someone who can say something so abhorrent during a full on genocide, and ask for civil debate. It's demented beyond measure.
You are dismissed, no debate for you.
There is a phenomena in genocides called "Accusation in a Mirror" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusation_in_a_mirror The side that is committing a genocide genuinely believes, or cynically accuses, the targets of their genocide of perpetrating genocide. Right now you believe that is Israel. Right now I believe that is Hamas.
In your favor: the ratio of Palestinian civilian deaths to Israeli civilian deaths.
What I find alarming about all of this, is that there is genuine, physical and video evidence of genocide where the only explanation is genocide and its perpetrators admit that it is genocide. The world dismisses this as lying, or playing the victim.
In Israel's favor, these assertions:
"We are not targeting civilians intentionally." Dismissed as lies.
"Hamas is using civilians as human shields." Dismissed as lies.
"The high ratio of Palestinian to Israeli deaths is an artifact of Hamas policy." Dismissed as lies.
"Our women were raped." Dismissed as lies.
"Babies were burned alive." Dismissed as lies.
Every single assertion that Israel makes about its intentions are dismissed as lies no matter the evidence. The only acceptable explanation for people (such as yourself?) is that Israel wants to commit genocide and is lying to do so.
By contrast, Hamas explains to the world that they intend genocide and will try for it as long as Israel exists.
I don't know how much clearer it can be. What am I missing?
Oh and sorry, it wasn’t 40 beheaded baby, it was just killed babies and separate instance of beheadings, with goddamn shovels. Much better. Also, to question the mass rapes is just vile and utterly disgusting propaganda on your part - these untold evils have all been uploaded on hamas telegram channel by themselves and can easily be seen.
The only evidence put forward that I've seen turned out to be a ten year old picture of Kurds. If the Israeli government wants its claims to be taken seriously, it needs to stop making up crazy racist shit like beheaded babies and babies in ovens. "Those who can make you believe absurdities..."
The only reason to make shit up on top of the already terrible acts of October 7th is to break people's minds in advance of a land grab. Only the greediest, the most ignorant, and the highly delusional are falling for it. Most of the planet is horrified at Israel's response.
There was so much sympathy internationally on October 8th. Now it's universal condemnation. Human rights groups, every population, the UN, the ICC. That's not anti-semitism, it's a normal human response to Israel's actions.
Again, and again; this won't ever be forgotten. It will never be lived down. It could lead directly to Israel's end, if America is forced to stop supporting the genocide.
Netanyahu has created an unending source of national shame. The way the world sees Israel will never be the same. No amount of oil, or gas, or blood-soaked salt-ruined land is worth this.
The absurd claim was always based on testimony from one single guy (Eli Beer), with nothing else.
Why were you so convinced it was real? Try and justify it however you like; it was always absurd, and there was never any actual evidence.
Israel are running targeted assassinations on journalists, poets, academics, health workers. Ten thousand very real children have been murdered. And you're all worked up over a baby that never existed. Explain it to me.
> And you're all worked up over a baby that never existed. Explain it to me.
This is from the article:
A variety of evidence is available on Hamas' cruelty, which includes the murder of parents in front of their children and children in front of their parents. There were sexual assaults, rapes and mutilations, while some victims were bound and some of the dead were desecrated. Some homes were burned with the people still inside.
None of this is in dispute.
It goes into quite some detail.
So, I am worked up over this atrocity. I'm glad that I can relegate to fiction the image of a woman being raped while her baby burns to death in an oven, because that's nightmare fuel. It is important that the world gets the details accurate, so I would not say it doesn't matter. It does.
Just, I guess I don't understand - and again, I really want to understand your perspective - how, given all of the other depraved stuff that Haaretz confirms did actually happen, how that translates to Israel is necessarily lying? Like, Hamas admits to doing the other stuff, there's video of it. What is it about the story of the burned baby and 40 beheaded babies that, because it didn't happen, makes you so angry? Again, not attacking, I promise. Really trying to understand.
I say this with all kindness and good intent: if you struggle to understand that, there's something very wrong with your worldview. I can't be expected to diagnose that.
Why do you think lying about beheaded babies is okay?
I don't think lying about beheaded babies is ok. I employ the Principle of Charity whenever possible, though. I don't automatically assume someone is lying unless I have evidence for it. Just makes life easier. It means that sometimes people will get away with lying to me, but as a teacher and father, I'd rather that than assuming an honest mistake is a lie. However, when there is a lie, I'm certain, because I have eliminated all other possibilities first, so I have no doubt.
I don't assume 40 beheaded babies was a deliberate lie. Maybe you have information I don't, but it seems to me that while some people might say such things to be malevolently deceptive, I think in this case that particular untruth reasonably could have been down to shock + rumor + "the game of telephone". Do you have clear evidence that it was a deliberate deception?
I too once assumed that anyone who had the same information I had but held a different opinion was some combination stupid, crazy or evil. But in this case, I don't even have the same information you have.
In the same spirit of genuine kindness that you offered before, I can assure you that will not serve you nor your causes. If your cause is true, speak plainly without fear.
This is the apocryphal "pounding them into submission" (or, "display of overwhelming force"). The idea is to break them, and discourage them from thinking to ever try something like this again.
Problem is, you need to make sure they had anything to do with it in the first place. If someone launches a false flag op, you're being trolled into committing genocide against civilians.
I fear they're being played but they've become a schizophrenic dealing with their demons via Howitzer. Paranoia is easily exploited.
The other thing is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on for decades, and many people have formed strong opinions on it. The United States is deeply involved in the conflict, as it is Israel's major international backer. There are both Palestinian and Jewish diasporas all around the world that care deeply about the issue. There are many reasons why this conflict captures so many people's attention.
Because large numbers of formerly peaceful men will now be engaged in the fight, either from grief at losing their families, or the natural instinct to resist an invader.
The GP is just spreading falsehoods to justify genocide. There is a huge ops campaign by Israel and pro-Zionist organizations within the US. They are doxing, getting people fired, anything to scare people into self-censoring their critiques of Israeli genocide of Palestinian civilians. There are no doubt some useful idiots parroting Zionist propaganda, and also Zionists themselves spreading it in this discussion forum. But, no serious person can believe that over 10,000 women and children (including literal babies in incubators) murdered by Israel in this latest of many massacres, are "combatants".
(the US also used such a definition in Afghanistan to fake its civilian casualty numbers-- any male that appears 14yrs old and over was the American's definition of "combatant")
Ukraine lost a double-digit % of its population when you include permanent displacement (these refugees will not return), and its civilian casualties are absurdly underestimated (yea, Mariupol had 1K, right - when the Russians bombed places with the writing 'children' on them). Syria had an official 500K - only because they stopped counting - and millions of refugees. These are literally on another scale by both time and damage, without even going into Sudan/Yemen which are on a scale of their own.
Well, the only way to claim something absolutely idiotic like that is to have absolutely no clue:
During the fifty days of Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, Israel bombed and shelled the Gaza Strip, causing massive damage to civilian infrastructure and homes. About 18,000 residential units were either completely destroyed or heavily damaged, leaving more than 100,000 Palestinians – some 17,000 families – homeless. [...] Today, more than four years later, about 20% of the homes are still unusable and some 2,300 families – about 13,000 people – remain homeless. Some 1,600 of these families had been receiving rent subsidies from UNRWA at rates ranging from 200 to 250 USD per month, depending on the size of the family. In July 2018, however, following US funding cuts, UNRWA was forced to halt financial assistance, leaving families out in the cold. Families that are still renting are having trouble making payments.
https://www.btselem.org/gaza_strip/20190303_13000_gazans_hom...
The Gulf states you think are generous have changed their allegiances and are now Israel's friends. The current Israeli government has radicalized even further since 2014 and revel in the suffering of Palestinians and will likely prevent any future reconstruction efforts.
The number of refugees from Ukraine is 6.3 million or 14% with up to 30% of its infrastructure damaged. This is less destruction in TWO YEARS than Israel has inflicted in 60 DAYS.
https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-russian-invas...
[0] https://bnn.network/politics/erdogan-pledges-to-rebuild-gaza...
P.S. What you wrote about Ukraine just confirms what I wrote above.
> It's hard to reach these people.
"A United Nations-led aid consortium estimates that more than 234,000 homes have been damaged across Gaza and 46,000 destroyed, amounting to about 60 percent of the housing stock in the territory, which is home to some 2.3 million Palestinians."
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/11/29/as-truce-holds-...
“If they would tell the whole world that the [Islamic Jihad] offices on the 10th floor are not important as a target, but that its existence is a justification to bring down the entire high-rise with the aim of pressuring civilian families who live in it in order to put pressure on terrorist organizations, this would itself be seen as terrorism. So they do not say it,” the source added.
https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-cal...
This is the number provided by Hamas. Per Israel, 15k people have been killed, approximately 10k of whom are civilians.
> For comparison, it's more than the civilian death toll in the nearly 2-year-old war in Ukraine.
This is according to numbers sourced from Russians. According to Ukrainians, >20k civilians died in Mariupol’ alone (a city 1/5th the size of Gaza).
Oh much better! If true, seems perfectly justified and A-ok!
Comparing it to the Ukraine's invasion and we can see this is so much more "invasive". There's a literal wall around 2M ppl with little agency, while most of them are refugees from the other side of the wall.
To methis is one of the most abohorrent conflicts in earth in this day and age. Given South Africa is no longer segregated, and Rwanda reconciled.
I'd be interested to hear what's equally abhorrent in your view.
If they are blockaded by the country that they cant get along with then it is at least partially on Egypt and Jordan that they are given no way out.
*The existence of the agreement is not secret, but the contents are.
E.g., only a few years ago, there was a peaceful march of thousands of Palestinians demanding their right to return to their homes on the other side of the separation wall. The Israelis opened fire with live ammunition, murdering 200, and maiming thousands more-- it appears the Israeli snipers were aiming for the protesters' kneecaps to permanently disable them. The protesters were unarmed. Zero coverage in the western corporate press.
In a prior massacre of Gaza that the Israelis called, "Operation Cast Lead", the Israeli snipers wore shirts with a picture of a pregnant women in the cross hairs of a rifle, with the slogan (in Hebrew) below, "One bullet, two kills."
And, as has been ongoing continuously for decades, Palestinians were forced from their homes by Israeli settlers only days before the October attacks. And there was a murder of Palestinians by Israeli settlers also only days before the attack-- these things happen literally all the time, so it is expected that there would be.
Israel has also kidnapped more civilians including children than they released in the prisoner exchange since they began this most recent massacre of Gaza. If you paid attention, the hostages Israel released were in large part women and children, held for years without charge, and under indefinite detention. Two of the children they released were two 14 year old boys who were 11 or 12 when kidnapped by Israel, and they were released into an area where there is no way for a Palestinian to travel to the area their families reside, as Israel prohibits Palestinian travel. There were plenty of younger child hostages released by Israel as well. These kidnappings (without charge and indefinite detention) are also a constant occurrence. Pretty much a guarantee, if you are caught demonstrating against the occupation.
The closest thing to a just resolution, at this point, would be for Israel to allow Palestinians to return to their homes in what is now called Israel. Remove the laws from the books that favor Jewish Israeli citizens over non-Jewish citizens of Israel-- e.g., no more Jewish only roads. The demographics will change. Jews will be a minority. Place names will likely return to their original names. Jewish extremists will likely engage in terrorism, but hopefully the violence will be short lived. Many Jews (those of European decent, in large part, maintain dual citizenship with European countries / the US) will, likely, voluntarily leave. The rest will have to incorporate themselves into this new reality of a single state where the indigenous Palestinians are equal citizens.
The vast majority of Israeli Jews are living on recently stolen land, even inside recently stolen homes. Much of this must go back to their rightful owners for there to be justice. But, the Jewish newcomers can remain. Under Muslim Ottoman rule, the region now know as Israel/Palestine was multi-religious with mostly peaceful coexistence. It can be that again.
Israel has foreclosed any possibility of a "two state" solution with their continuous settling of Palestinian land. There no longer exists any Palestinian controlled land to create a Palestinian state separate from that major portion of their land that is now called Israel that was stolen and given to the Jewish settlers by the British after WWI.
What happened to Jews in Europe in WWII was horrific, but Palestinians had nothing to do with that. What is currently happening to the Palestinians is similar to what the Jews in Europe experienced. But, this time, the Zionist Jews are the oppressor. The actions of Israel are creating an environment around the world where people predisposed to antisemitism can point at an example of how evil Jews are as justification of their hatred. It was once possible to separate Jew from Zionist, but Zionists have been doing their best to confuse that. The peace organization, Jewish Voices for Peace is now "antisemitic". Things need to change in Palestine/Israel or Jews are not going to be safe anywhere. And, many many more innocent Palestinian civilians will be massacred.
So, yes. Right of return is not only required by UN resolutions, it is the only solution that will bring some semblance of justice, and thus bring peace.
Suppose an American president had said "I've killed lots of blacks in my life and there's no problem with that". Or that the US largest newspaper published essays arguing that America would have failed if it ever got a black president. Or that congress enacted laws saying that the right to national self-determination in the US is unique to white people. If the US was like that would you say that blacks had equal rights?
https://web.archive.org/web/20210201162924/https://www.jpost...
https://www.vox.com/world/2018/7/31/17623978/israel-jewish-n...
Boycott divestment and sanctions.
Although, in Israel's case, just losing the multiple billions of dollars it receives every year from the U.S., and loss of its uniquely favored trading status with the EU, might be enough, on its own, to motivate Israel to change course.
You know there are zero Jews in Gaza, right? No Israeli settlers at all. They are flat out forbidden to go there.
And the violence by Zionist settlers (with tacit approval of the Israeli state) in the W. Bank against the Palestinians has only gotten worse since the attack by the Hamas Palestinian resistance forces in Gaza.
the actual numbers in casualty count don't convince me that the IDF is acting any different.
PS: I know I'll be downvoted for this. look at the numbers of KIDS killed. hamas are not the only babykillers here.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-cr...
“If they would tell the whole world that the [Islamic Jihad] offices on the 10th floor are not important as a target, but that its existence is a justification to bring down the entire high-rise with the aim of pressuring civilian families who live in it in order to put pressure on terrorist organizations, this would itself be seen as terrorism. So they do not say it,” the source added.
https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-cal...
The destruction levied in Gaza is not about achieving any military aims. It is about satiating the Israeli public's monstrous appetite for blood. The primary goal of the government is ensuring that it wins the next election too. Benjamin Netanyahu wasn't joking when he said "remember Amalek".
“ What would you suggest Israel do if fighting hamas is not an option.”
Avoiding hard questions is easier as it doesn’t require responsibility. Are you able to provide your answer please to the hardest part of the parent comment?
Read the article I linked to. Then claim with a straight face that razing Gaza is the only option Israel has.
Great comment and again no answer.
You think question with suggestive answer is dishonest way of conducting debate? Ok. I get that. Let’s remove any suggestiveness from the question. “ What would you suggest Israel do if fighting hamas is not an option.”
I am not OP an I personally did not suggest anything, I just wanted to see your responsible answer.
So, what Israel should do in your opinion? And what outcome you expect after it does it?
PS: I’ve read the article. Disappointed by the quality of it. It is written with intention of emotional impact and to push predefined agenda. It twists meaning by playing with words. I notice those tricks and can’t read it with keeping my face ‘straight’( using your word).
The "agenda" is to make people aware of the fact that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians, based on sources within the IDF who work on targeting. The "emotional impact" is that any person with normal human emotions would be sickened by the fact that Israel is killing tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza.
I know I asked another person but the main question was :
“ What Israel should do in your opinion? What outcome you expect once it does it?”
Can you answer that question too?
As to the “agenda” I see different “agenda”.
What it definitely should not do is murder thousands of Palestinian children and destroy the Gaza Strip. However, this is what Israel has chosen to do.
Looking further ahead, what do you think the consequences of continued Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories (East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza) will be? Can you justify keeping millions of people under continued military occupation, without any rights and under constant harassment? Can you justify the continuation of the dual legal regime in the occupied territories, under which Jewish settlers have full citizenship rights, while Palestinians have no rights (this is what many now characterize as Apartheid)?
Sure this could be a possibility once you finish describing consequences of the action of withdrawal you’ve suggested Israel to take. Suggested alternative is incomplete without you describing realistic outcome of it an thus leaves the current option Israel took as the only one possible which makes discussing it irrelevant wether you like it or not.
Please responsibly describe outcome of the suggested alternative and then we can compare it with current situation.
Well what you have suggested would inevitably lead to what is happening already only on a bigger scale. Consciously or not it seems you do not mind that and thus the loss of life because it is too hard for you to analyse outcome of your own propositions.
The alternative, you claim, is "what is happening already only on a bigger scale," meaning more attacks on Israel, as on 7 October. You say that ending the occupation will lead to loss of life, which you accuse me of not caring about.
In other words, in your view, only Israel's security matters, and only Israeli lives matter. 20k Palestinians killed: a necessary price for Israel's security. Indefinite Palestinian subjugation to a foreign military power that slowly takes over more and more Palestinian land: necessary to preserve Israeli security. Israel withdrawing to its internationally recognized borders, as demanded by UN Security Council Resolution 242: unthinkable.
This is incorrect and it’s demonstration of putting words into my mouth. Another trick to be noticed.
Short reflection on this exchange shows clearly that I am deliberately trying to avoid putting words into your mouth in order to see your analysis of the outcome to the actions you’ve suggested for Israel to take.
And while I do that you are desperately trying to avoid answering second part of the question.
“What outcome you expect after Israel does what you’ve suggested?”
Since analyse of outcome did not arrive I did it for you.
>The alternative, you claim …
I didn’t. I have analysed your so called “alternative” which it is not. Israel has already tested this “brilliant” idea in 2005 by withdrawing it’s forces from Gaza together with all settlements in Gaza strip in case you didn’t know and it have led to the current situation with a bigger scale of loss of life. Not caring about this fact together with your repeated lack of wish to analyse deadly outcome of your own suggestion demonstrates your lack of caring about the loss of life wether it is intentional or not.
> In other words …
Well let’s leave ‘In other words’ as ‘another words’ that are just words. They ate yours, not my.
The confusion in your comment between some fantasies and my actual opinion rises questions about integrity of ways in which you’ve analysed this conflict in general.
Are you a parrot or something?
No, I am a person and you are exploring limits of my famous patience which is allowed only to my students as long as they wish to learn.
Also I am very persuasive in following logic and being responsible for own words. The only sensible way to discuss hard issues and to keep being in sync in conversation.
>Do you not understand that NOT killing 20k Palestinians in 60 days is an option (and answers your question)?
Help me understand what you suggest exactly and what outcome you expect after Israel does it? Make your statement so we would be on the same page to discuss it. Then it actually would be possible to discuss it.
Don’t you think you should be responsible with your words and understand consequences of things you suggest before opening your mouth about such sensitive topics? I am getting sick of irresponsible people spreading BS around without ever stating what they say or thinking through the consequences of the things they suggest.
>I've posed several questions to you and you keep not answering them.
This is because you didn’t answer one and only question I ever asked you in the first place.
Consider what the Israeli response might have looked like if they didn't have access to the munitions that they do (2000 pound bombs, etc). Likely they would have still invaded Gaza and fought a very bloody battle but with many fewer innocents killed at the expense of more of their own soldiers.
Essentially, Israel has made the judgement that the lives of their soldiers are (many times) more important than those of innocent people.
Also all countries military's inherently value its own soldiers over an advisory civilians. If I was a IDF general it would be my goal to minimize the casualties taken in securing what ever goal the political leadership sets forth within the laws of war.
Israel having too little “money, power, and resources” is not the reason Israel dropped nearly as many bombs on Gaza in the first six days of its reaction to the Oct. 7 attacks as the US dropped in the peak year of bombing in the Afghanistan war.
If anything contributed to that, it was a surplus of resources, not a shortage.
Not to be facetious, but if I were to drop 1,000 bombs on a village of 100 people, killing them all, it hardly matters that I can claim my 'kill rate' was 0.1.
I think people often have a very magical feeling about what is possible military-wise. There is no way whatsoever to be significantly more precise in a densely populated area with tunnels, hiding behind civilians, etc.
I would say you are right about this. Maybe what is so shocking in this particular situation (at least for many people) is how little relative value Israel places on the civilians of their adversary. The recent reporting by +972 Magazine[0] on the Israeli decision making process for selecting bombing targets makes this clear.
[0] https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-cal...
It's been said that the Iron Dome saved more Palestinian lives than anything else in living memory because it allowed Israel to ignore Gaza (well, up till now anyway).
Be very very happy Israel has the tech to minimize civilian casualties and the desire to minimize them - things could have been very different.
> To methis is one of the most abohorrent conflicts in earth in this day and age.
He agrees with you.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/9/26/gaza-and-the-cr...
Interestingly, the idea that Mandela called Israel an apartheid state was debunked on Stack Exchange, you can read that here: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/50771/did-nelso...
What Mandela did say about atrocities was directed at the US:
> If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don't care for human beings.
- Nelson MandelaIsrael is an apartheid state. Israel, last time I checked, had 19 laws which give preferential treatment of Jewish citizens of Israel over non-Jewish citizens of Israel (not talking about Palestinians in W. Bank / Gaza).
Palestinians are not permitted to repair their homes or even their mosques. Go up on the roof and make a repair, and you risk having your home bulldozed by the Israelis.
I once hitch hiked on a Jewish only road in Israel. Jewish only really means not Palestinian.
What exists in the W. Bank and Gaza, is much worse than apartheid. Israel has turned Gaza into an open-air prison-- a concentration camp, if you will. Israel controls all water, food, fuel, electricity, and people entering and exiting from Gaza[1]. And, their carpet bombing of the civilian captives has turned this concentration camp into a death camp.
[1]Israel's PM calls his periodic starving of Gazans, "putting them on a diet" when he blocks shipments of food. And, the water wells in Gaza are contaminated by salt water intrusion, so Israel cuts off fresh water to punish Gazans as well. No freedom of travel even when Israel isn't carpet bombing civilians (the Israelis call these periodic massacres from the air, "mowing the lawn"). Gaza is correctly called an open-air prison or a concentration camp.
> You are simply cherry picking.
> Israel, last time I checked, had 19 laws which give preferential treatment of Jewish citizens of Israel over non-Jewish citizens of Israel (not talking about Palestinians in W. Bank / Gaza).
> Palestinians are not permitted to repair their homes or even their mosques. Go up on the roof and make a repair, and you risk having your home bulldozed by the Israelis.
> I once hitch hiked on a Jewish only road in Israel. Jewish only really means not Palestinian.
> What exists in the W. Bank and Gaza, is much worse than apartheid. Israel has turned Gaza into an open-air prison-- a concentration camp, if you will.
> Israel controls all water, food, fuel, electricity, and people entering and exiting from Gaza[1].
> And, their carpet bombing of the civilian captives has turned this concentration camp into a death camp.
There is a really very simple solution for them to have all of the dignity, agency, independence, prosperity, peace, sovereignty, stability to raise children, etc that you and I want for the Palestinian people. They only have to - and hear me out - not kill Jews. It really is that simple. Don't kill Jews, not by rockets, nor suicide bomb, nor stabbing attacks, nor stealth attacks by terror tunnels, nor any of the varied and creative ways that Jews have been attacked in the region for more than a century.
Most people think that Free Palestine means independence and sovereignty. It does not. Sovereignty has been proffered many times in the last 75 years. So given that it decidedly does not mean what we Westerners expect it means when we hear Free Somewhere - "Free Tibet" "Free Donbas" or whatever - I would like my fellow Westerners to really meditate on the meaning of the term "free" in "Free Palestine". Really ruminate on what possible meaning that can have.
Then, when you are really ready to hear what it means, read the Hamas charter. Or read about the writings, life and times of al-Husseini, the architect and sire of the Free Palestine movement.
We Westerners, especially we Americans, really impose our own views on others. Let Palestinians speak for themselves. They are very clear what Free Palestine means. We just have to listen without preconception.
We know "free" does not mean "freedom" in the Western understanding of that phrase, because sovereignty has been proffered many times in 75 years. It is not what Palestinians want. You need to listen to Palestinians, not Westerners westsplaining. And then, when you are really clear on what they mean by "free", you must bravely make your own moral evaluation of whether the "free" they actually mean is something you can support. Only then, and I mean this honestly, will you be able to really understand the dynamic going on over there. Only when you understand what Palestinians, by their own words, want, will you be an effective advocate for peace and prosperity in the region.
"Would you be willing to share land equally with Jews in peace?"
"Would you compromise with Israel for peace?"
"Do you want to expel the Jews?"
"Why do you reject all peace offers?"
"Should Iran nuclear bomb Tel Aviv?"
"Is killing innocent Israelis heroic?"
"What is your solution to the conflict?"
"How do you explain Jewish archeology sites?"
Etc
After watching that it's instructive to listen to Israelis answer the question "Why can't you admit there is an occupation?"
Then "Did Israel steal Palestinian land?"
I had never heard of Ahmedi before.
Is there any way through for Israelis and Palestinians?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Yacoub_Abu_Al-Qia%2...
The expropriation of land seems pretty sketch. I'm glad that Arab Israelis found their voice though, at least according to the article. What are the prospects for this kind of thing ending?
In much of the west[0], you're pro-Israel because fuck Nazis - NEVER AGAIN. In America, you're pro-Israel if you're Republican, pro-Palestine if you're Democrat, or pro-Israel if you're Democrat. If you're anti-colonial, you're pro-Palestine. In Ireland, you're pro-Palestine because fuck England, or you're pro-Israel because fuck Irish nationalism. If you're Muslim, you're pro-Palestine because Zionism is an existential threat to you[1]. If you're an Islamofascist you're very pro-Palestine, if you're a Christofascist you're very pro-Israel. They're just labels you stick on yourself to signal virtue.
This is, of course, terrible for actually discussing the Israel-Palestine conflict, because anything you say about it gets a bunch of mutually contradictory political positions tacked onto it. It's especially difficult to delivering nuanced takes like "Israel and Palestine both have a lot to answer for and we'd be way closer to an actual peace agreement if every politician in both countries dropped dead tomorrow[2]", because I just stepped on like five different rhetorical landmines with that one sentence.
The homomorphism is also bijective: those political labels you're being slapped with get colored with the side of the conflict they're associated with. The most obvious example being Nazi Germany, whose war crimes and crimes against humanity are viewed through the pro-Israel lens. We talk a lot of the 6 million dead Jews but not so much of Hitler's political opponents, Soviet PoWs, black people, gay people, the Roma[3], Jehovah's Witnesses[4], Freemasons, ethnic Poles, Slovenis, and Slavs, and the mentally ill[5]. That's another 11 million victims that we just... don't even think of as victims of the Holocaust. That's how much we link everything to this one crisis.
[0] Japan inclusive
[1] Or at least this was the case in the 1970s
[2] Ok, maybe this doesn't sound nuanced to you. That's the standard of debate here... :/
[3] In America we still use "gypsy", which is terribly offensive in Europe
[4] Which itself has inspired a meme among JWs that lying to protect the faith is A-OK, which is really strange.
[5] This includes autistic kids, who were sent off to Hans Asperger - YES WE NAMED THE DIAGNOSIS AFTER A NAZI WAR CRIMINAL BECAUSE WE LEARNED NOTHING
Is it? In Spain we still call them "gitanos", heck, they even call themselves that: https://www.gitanos.org/
1) The algorithms of the platforms
2) The disinformation / astroturfing / asymetric warfare, driven from Russia, Iran, CCP, and many other 'interested parties'
3) The actual organic opinions
The drivers are in about that order of force. The point of #2 is to make it appear organic, so people can make the argument that 'it's just people's opinion', even when it is wrong.
They are per se responsible for what people see. If pro-Palestinian views are on TikTok at 36:1, that's what TikTok wants, they could easily promote content at a different ratio.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2023/10/11/hamas-attacks-isr...
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2023/12/08/images-of-syrian-...
What if that 1 (in 36 to 1, or 8 to 1) is specifically the pro Israel effort? (As in if there weren't, the pro Palestine would be consensus)
That’s one interpretation. Another is that the skew would be even more pronounced if not for platforms prioritizing pro-Israel content.
That's because TikTok is a global platform where the voices of 1.9 billion Muslims outweigh those of the 19 million Jews.
It's been interesting to observe that various official Israeli accounts have taken to posting tik-tok-like videos that quickly show images, footage, text commentary, all with very little context.
Of course pro-Palestinian people/groups are doing the same thing, but it feels odd to see a first-world government engaged so directly in pushing that sort of propaganda. I can't imagine the US army directly tweeting this kind of stuff. The US, I feel, would do it through proxy groups.
I don't have much to add about any of this, only that you clearly cannot trust the sort of videos, images, and statements all over the internet. As they say, in war, truth is the first casualty.
That could also mean that Israeli online propaganda is ineffective, not that it doesn't exist. Even if they haven't made ground online, pro-Israeli views are universal in the mainstream media, with pro-Palestine reporters being fired.
> there are 1 billion Muslims to 16 million Jews
The vasty majority of Muslims are not in the US, the area relevant to the article. Also, to complicate things, afaik most Jewish Americans oppose Israel's right wing, especially the current government, and are sympathetic to Palestinians. And afaik most Israeli support in the US is right-wing evangelical Christians (if I am defining the subgroup accurately), a much larger group than Jewish Americans.
I don't think any party has majority support in Israel, but the only reason Likud will lose the government is because someone else who promises to improve / overhaul security will win.
They could very well be more than that but you can't shut them all up. So that 36 to 1 might be after the fact.
Just from the populations you mention, which is obviously a super rough calculation, if we assume all Muslims to be pro Palestine and all Jews to be pro Israel, we would be expecting something like 60 to 1 ratio.
So the existence of that 36 to 1 might even be the result of the bias.
I am not saying this is the case, I'm just saying don't dismiss the claim simply based on the ratio you see.
No one group has a monopoly on reason.
The actual treatment of Palestinians on the ground mirrors the experience black Americans and others literally deal with in the US.
This is similar to how Israel prevents many muslims in the territories it governs from voting to make sure that it remains a jewish state.
Of course, Elon Musk decided to visit Israel after he came under criticism for agreeing with a blatantly anti-Semitic Tweet,[0] so some may question how sincere Musk's sudden change of heart is.
0. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/27/tech/elon-musk-isaac-herz...
More people live outside the United States and Israel than in them, and they use these platforms. Many of those people have been out are descendants of subjects of colonialism and Imperialism, whether at the hands of Europe or America. Many of those people view Israel as a colonial project.
And yeah, as you mentioned, a large portion of the world is Muslim.
Judging this by the method used (counts of uses of top 5 hashtags associated with the conflict) is ludicrously bad as a methodology, because, aside from not looking at sentiment, its prone to being radically wrong if one side is more consistent in hashtag use than the other.
Looking at Germany for instance, anyone remotely criticising Israel for even gross violations of international human rights or Geneva Conventions (for instance for withholding water, food, medicines, and electricity for 2.2mil civilians in Gaza) will be attacked, silenced, stigmatised, smeared by the majority of media, politician, police, attorneys, etc. Many artists, intellectuals, activists, thinkers, academics have been cancelled, smeared (for instance Greta Thunberg, Ai Wei Wei, Candice Brice, Ilan Pappe, and many many more). And even more people are afraid to speak about Israel critically, fearing to lose their job or called antisemite, when in fact Zionism is not Judaism and the state of Israel does not represent all jews around the world, and cannot be sacrosanct.
In the US the support is even larger. Just today the US vetoed a Security Council decision for a ceasefire in Gaza. And this inspite of many people in the state department internally rebelling against this blind support for Israels retaliatory move in Gaza.
Disclosure: I have family in Israel, some of them went to the streets in Tel Aviv every week for months to protest against the judicial overhaul. And who are in panic mode seeing the right wing coalition partners of Netanyahu getting stronger and stronger. And I have family members in the military who after 7/10 want to „kill arabs now“. I just do not think flattening Gaza and/or dehumanising Palestinians will make Israel any safer.
Well this should have caused those people to do something with Hammas controlling the area long before recent events. Isn’t it? This would have be much more Pro-human don’t you think?
You mean NATO with its orders of magnitude power encroaching East despite their empty promises in 90s?
That definitely came out of nowhere and not because Russian soldiers occupied Crimea and effectively occupied east of Ukraine. Ukraine gave up nuclear weapons and Russia was one of the guarantors of Ukraine’s sovereignty.
And regardless of all of this, Ukraine is a sovereign nation and can do whatever the f””” it wants.
Ukraine signed Budapest memorandum in 1994 and willingly gave up nukes for security assurances (ironically Russia is one of the guarantees).
So there is no choice for Russia: fight or be dismembered.
Anecdotally, all of my friends here in the EU are pro-Palestinian, and none of us is Muslim. It's also relevant to consider the context of Israel's occupation of Palestine and illegal settlements in light of the UN General Assembly's pro-Palestinian votes.
One of the examples from before current conflict[1]: Approve 128 nations. Against 9 nations: Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Togo and United States.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembl...
Today, there was another vote in the UN Security Council regarding a ceasefire. Thirteen nations voted in favor of it, the UK abstained, and the US vetoed.
I think it is currently about an order of magnitude more civilians deaths have resulted from the actions of Likud (Netanyahu etc..., who control the government and hence the IDF) than from the actions of Hamas. IDF is apparently disrupting civilian aid, destroying infrastructure including hospitals, and causing mass population movements into areas that cannot support them, so the risk of death from starvation and infectious disease at a massive scale as an indirect result is high. The Likud-controlled IDF are also apparently enforcing a 'lock down' of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank while allowing Israeli citizens to seize land by force and further expand the occupied territories.
So the scale of the atrocities seems to be much higher on the Likud side than the Hamas side, covers both the West Bank and Gaza, and it makes sense that the Palestinian victims of those atrocities would receive more support. That doesn't mean that all the people who care about the plight of the Palestinian population are anti-Israel (they are just not posting about it because they are likely prioritising issues).
It’s not always “right” to measure just action in terms of lives saved or lost, but it’s hard for me (and so many other American Jews) to see anything right or just about 10 dead Palestinians for every dead Israeli.
If your suggested law of war isn't 'majority or ruthless minority, get to do everything they want because they have more causalties', than you need an alternative. The alternative is the current laws of war, which allow for strikes with collateral damage (what Israel says it's doing), but not for terrorist attacks aimed at civilians.
* Suicide bombers, Iranian mullahs sending kids with 'plastic keys to heaven' to dismantle minefields, or current refusal of Hamas to allow civilians to use its tunnels as shelters. We could fill the page with examples really.
** Funny, I don't recall opposition to America's post 9/11 response based on counts. Almost as if the same rules don't apply.
The current laws of war do not allow, for instance, strikes at medical facilities: Israel’s argument is that they don’t have to follow the laws because Hamas is breaking them.
Very much on the margins if any. The overwhelming consensus ignored these considerations.
>The current laws of war do not allow, for instance, strikes at medical facilities.
This is wrong. Medical facilities can be struck if they are used for war.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/08/504815234...
Moreover, this is not what happened in Gaza - there were raids but not dropping bombs from airplanes, the former being much less destructive.
Not true.
I certainly wouldn’t refer to “the US did it” as a cite for “it’s not a war crime”, but that article appears to be saying they attacked a place not thought to be currently active as a civilian medical facility.
Some of us have direct memories of the time and it was very much true...
>I certainly wouldn’t refer..
They weren't even aware they weren't any patients. And it's not the only hospital attacked at Mosul. Most hospitals there were attacked:
https://reliefweb.int/report/iraq/iraq-rebuilding-hospital-r...
If you want the legal brief, see Article 8.2.e.iv. with an explicit carveout ("provided they are not military objectives"):
https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/RS-Eng.pdf#page=...
Make an argument, not just a contradiction. The fact is that public opinion on the Iraq war was far higher (47-60% in favor) initially than it is now (61% say we should have stayed out).
wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_States_on_the_invasion_of_Iraq#
That is neither what the laws of war say, nor what the Israeli argument is (or at least, it's a misrepresentation).
The laws of war say that if a medical facility (or any other civilian infrastructure) is used by militants as part of the war effort, then it loses its protected status. Israel's argument, whether you agree or not, is that this occurred, thereby making those targets legal.
“Collateral damage” is one of those bloodless wartime euphemisms for killing innocent men, women, and children. It’s a dirty, unavoidable reality. But I don’t believe for one second that Israel’s hands are so sufficiently constrained that the current degree of civilian death is necessary. I say that as a Jew, with family in Israel, who I worry about.
It's not a just a euphemism, because there really is a difference. Justified or not, Dresden wasn't collateral damage - it was directly targeting and killing innocent civilians. Collateral damage really is something different.
> But I don’t believe for one second that Israel’s hands are so sufficiently constrained that the current degree of civilian death is necessary.
(For the record, I'm Israeli)
This is a hard question to answer. No one actually knows, because given fog of war and given the incentives of both sides, it's hard to get real numbers for what's going on. Not to mention that what even counts as "necessary"? Obviously zero civilian deaths is the only legitimate goal, but just as obviously this is impossible to achieve in practice. (I'd also add that zero deaths of militants is the goal, if possible - anyone that can be stopped by arresting them or causing them to surrender should be dealt with that way - though obviously this is even harder to achieve.)
Given all that, I think a few points I'll say, again speaking as an Israeli citizen with my own particular biases:
1. While I highly mistrust our current government (like many Israelis), I certainly don't think most of our government would condone killing civilians completely unnecessarily. At least not the ones in charge, mostly.
2. More importantly, I trust the IDF a lot (and this is probably a big difference between me and most non-Israelis). While I'm sure that not literally every civilian death is legitimate, I do trust that the IDF is only attacking valid targets given reasonable intelligence, and that it's not knowingly targeting civilians for the most part.
3. Most importantly - taking the outside view - the IDF estimates that it's killing roughly 2 civilians for 1 militant killed. If you believe that number - it's roughly in line with similar wars fought by Western countries.
Note: While I talk about civilian deaths here as a "statistic", every death is a horrible tragedy. In a good world, no one would ever have to die of violence, and good people should mourn the deaths of any person on any side of this horrible situation.
1. I am not sure if you are saying that extremists like Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich are not in charge, but their rhetoric and speech has made it clear they do not care for Palestinian deaths, and rather would like to carry out more killings. If you didn't know about the people in charge of your government, I implore you to look into their history.
2. I would ask you to look more critically at the IDF, after all that B'Tselem has shown them to have committed. I would look to what the IDF did during the peaceful 2018 Great March to Return where they shot and killed hundreds of unarmed civilians, including women and children, and severely injured thousands of others. Only one Israeli soldier was slightly wounded in the whole conflict. They have also been killing children indiscriminately in the West Bank, what would justify that? There are dozens to hundreds of other cases where the IDF has been incriminated for unjustified violence but I am not able to collate them for you at the current time. If that is not enough evidence to change your stance on the IDF, that nobody can help to change your mind.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/08/28/west-bank-spike-israeli-...
Yes, I was saying that Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are not the ones in charge now, luckily for everyone. They are horrible people, and I believe that if they were in charge, they would commit crimes as bad as any that Hamas has committed. It's shameful that they are part of our government and as far as I'm concerned they should be barred from office in any decent country.
But no, they are not currently in charge, the majority of the government is not in line with their extremist views, and neither is the majority of the country. (Though views have certainly gotten more extreme after October 7th, predictably.) Their power in the current government is inflated because all decent politicians (the entire center and left) refuse to form a coalition with Netanyahu. And the populace have been protesting this government, with the backdrop of the judicial reform, in the largest protests in Israel's history, for the last year.
2. I do look critically at the majority of things the IDF does. It's not all perfect, there are many moral failures, like in any army. I think B'Tselem and the world in general look far more critically and without context at Israel and the IDF, compared to other armies.
Note, like most secular Israeli men, I served in the army (though not in any kind of combat way - I was a programmer). I also know many, many reservists serving today, as does literally every Israeli. There are a lot of Israelis with views I vehemently disagree with, but very few that would target civilians for no reason. (Though obviously take this with a grain of salt - my view of the IDF is still, at the end, anecdotal to me - my circle of acquaintences don't represent a true random sample of the army.)
I can't speak to The Great March of Return, I don't have any inside info here, I'll just note that the situation with the border is very complicated. Look at what happened when the border wasn't defended strongly, thousands of militants were able to storm in and slaughter thousands of Israelis, and drag all of us (Israel and Gaza) into a terrible war. Does this mean everything that happened there was justified? Of course not. But life's complicated.
I'll take specific note of something you said:
> They have also been killing children indiscriminately in the West Bank, what would justify that?
Nothing would justify that, but I don't believe that's happening. I don't think there are real, verified cases of the IDF targeting children, only of children dying as collateral damage.
> There are dozens to hundreds of other cases where the IDF has been incriminated for unjustified violence but I am not able to collate them for you at the current time. If that is not enough evidence to change your stance on the IDF, that nobody can help to change your mind.
I'll reframe this as a question, because I think it's a very good one. What would make me change my mind? Let's be specific, what would make me change my mind that the majority of operations the IDF is currently undertaking are "unjustified"?
1. Firstly, if I get convinced that the current aim of getting back the hostages or destroying Hamas is itself an incorrect/immoral goal, I'd be convinced current actions are unjustified. This is almost impossible to change my mind on - Hamas has invaded Israel and slaughtered civilians, and claim they will do it again and again. I don't see a way for Israel to avoid trying to seek Hamas's destruction. That said:
2. If I am convinced that the current war isn't the best way (or one of the best ways) of achieving the goal of Hamas's destruction, or of retrieving the hostages, then I'll consider Israel's actions unjustified. If we could pause the fighting, go back to the previous status quo, and stop Hamas by targeted assassinations or whatever over the next year, then it's not justified to risk so many civilians. I don't think this (or other ways) are practical, but I could be convinced otherwise.
3. If I see evidence that the IDF systematically targeted civilians without any justified reasoning, I'll consider the way Israel's waging this war unjustified. Note that I say systematic - I'm sure many individual horrible cases have happened (and anyone doing this knowingly should be arrested, though I doubt they will be), but on the whole targeting is aimed at legitimate targets.
4. If I see evidence that the IDF is knocking down civilian infrastructure without any legitimate military reasoning, but rather only in order to cause damage in Gaza, I'll consider this illegitimate, though a lesser crime than other accusations. (It would probably be considered ethnic cleansing if the goal is to e.g. make Gaza uninhabitable.)
I think those are all situations where, were I to change my mind on what is actually happening in reality, would make me change my mind on the legitimacy of the current war.
I think it would be a good idea for you to do the same as me - what would make you change your mind about the current situation?
> Note, like most secular Israeli men, I served in the army (though not in any kind of combat way - I was a programmer). I also know many, many reservists serving today, as does literally every Israeli. There are a lot of Israelis with views I vehemently disagree with, but very few that would target civilians for no reason. (Though obviously take this with a grain of salt - my view of the IDF is still, at the end, anecdotal to me - my circle of acquaintences don't represent a true random sample of the army.)
I'm sure that there are bad eggs in the IDF, but by and large the IDF as an organization completely rejects the idea of deliberately hurting civilians. And every single cog in that machine that I've met has upheld that standard.
Note: 'killing children indiscriminately' usually means 'not taking adequate precautions to avoid killing children' - which means that children as collateral damage is part of the problem. On the extremes I believe it's easy to agree on this: nuking Hiroshima hit some military targets but also killed unconscionable numbers of children and civilians as collateral damage.
To continue: What counts as evidence? Do these stories from Amnesty International of bombed civilian residential buildings with no warnings to the inhabitants fit your section 3? Or do they not meet the bar of being systematic, because it's possible they are e.g. hitting the wrong target, or being targeted based on incorrect information?
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/damning-evide...
Yes, I maybe should've phrased it as "Hamas militants" or the "Hamas organization", though I'm not sure to the extent everything is tied together. Is it possible to destroy Hamas militarily but keep the government part in charge? Idk enough to know the answer or what that means.
As for whether point 2 is true - whether the current war is the best way to destroy Hamas and prevent another October 7th from happening - my problem is that many people who think the answer to that is "no" also have no better idea.
Not that it's impossible to criticize something without having a better idea yourself, I think it's fair to do that. But if you're calling for a ceasefire, but offering no alternative to stop the people who say they will continue killing thousands of your citizens over and over - I don't really see how you can be sure that the current war is wrong in that circumstance. It really is a situation where, as many Israelis say, "Israel isn't allowed to defend itself".
> Note: 'killing children indiscriminately' usually means 'not taking adequate precautions to avoid killing children' - which means that children as collateral damage is part of the problem.
Ok, that's fair. Though note that, at least according to the IDF (and which I'm confident is true), we have another layer here - it's not just "kill civilians on purpose" vs "don't care about killing civilians" vs "try to avoid killing civilians". Here, we have an enemy that actively sends civilians into harm's way to use them as human shields. This is meant literally - Hamas will send rockets from within civilian buildings in order to either stop themselves from being killed, or to at least have civilian casualties on the way to make the strike look bad.
There's no country in the world that has figured out how to handle this situation, as far as I know. You can't just say "well, if they use human shields, we just won't attack", because all you are doing is making human shields be a thing that works, so that they'll use them more.
> To continue: What counts as evidence? Do these stories from Amnesty International of bombed civilian residential buildings with no warnings to the inhabitants fit your section 3?
That's a hard question. Evidence needs to come from a source that I trust, which is different for different people. It's hard for me to trust a source that is clearly starting with the conclusion in mind.
Also, while I only skimmed the article, the only actual documented "wrong thing" done there is that the people said they weren't warned beforehand. Which isn't by itself a war crime or even necessarily wrong, without knowing why that building was bombed.
Amnesty International says: "According to Amnesty International’s findings there were no military objectives in the house or its immediate vicinity, this indicates that this may be a direct attack on civilians or on a civilian object which is prohibited and a war crime."
While that's true, them not finding a military justification for that bombing doesn't mean that the IDF didn't have a justification. We have "no idea" which of these is true:
1. There was a real threat, valid military intelligence and justification, and the IDF did nothing wrong.
2. There was no real threat, wrong but valid military intelligence and justification, so while the IDF got the intelligence wrong, it didn't do anything wrong.
3. There was no real threat, there was some military intelligence, but the bar for whether or not that intelligence is enough is so low that it makes the action immoral/illegal. So the IDF is, while not bombing indiscrimanately, is not showing the appropriate care for civilian life.
4. There was no threat and no intelligence that there was a threat - the IDF targeted civilians on purpose.
Each of these levels has different moral and legal implications for what the IDF is doing. This single case doesn't prove anything, because it doesn't differntiate which of those happened, and doesn't prove whether whichever it is is systemic. Amnesty International has no access to the internal IDF decision-making here so also can't make the call (though the article right away leaps to assuming it's number 4 here - hence me calling it biased).
What would qualify as evidence to me? A bunch of things, like large scale external audits/reports by people in the know, like Israel itself conducting an inquiry of its actions (obviouisly most people wouldn't rely on this too much), and possibly most importantly - seeing casualty numbers that make it seem like the IDF is truly targeting civilians, and/or multiple confirmed non-biased cases of targeting civilians (and/or reports from soldiers within the IDF that say there were such orders/etc).
Hamas is an actual movement, not a cult around one leader. Moreover, it controls local media and education in Gaza. We can't cut off the radicalization pipeline when they control the local media. Dealing with that requires controlling the ground. Also, there's no amount of assassination which can dislodge a real movement, and it makes very little sense when the big leaders live underground in deep tunnels.
There are two ways to deal with the deep tunnels: Flood them with something, or lob 1t bombs from the air on every deep tunnel one can detect, when the deep tunnels are often under residential blocks. The first requires invasion and ground control. The second has a lot of collateral damage (There was a recent example in Jabalia where the houses above collapsed with a bad result after dealing the 1t bomb), to the point a serious assassination campaign may not even be ensuring less civilian deaths.
About 1: I don't know well enough the political landscape in Israel, but what is publicly visible, is there are many worrying statement made (some openly genocidal). I think this is factual. I read that polled opinion overall to this day in Israel, is supporting the level of Violence ongoing in Gaza. even having a majority asking for more. So from those 2 points (which I believe are true fact), i can understand the rational one would have to say, Neither Politician, nor Israeli Population is currently empathetic to Palestinian Civilians casualties.
About 2: Things I think we can agree on: - IDF do mitigate collateral damage to Civilian. By several factual means. - There is a lot of CODAM (Volume of it). - IDF knows, on most strikes expectable CODAM level. (there has been 10.000 + Bombs, Guided or Not, those Bomb were aimed at a target. each Target had to be CODAM evaluated)
What I don't know. is What is consider acceptable CODAM policy. I don't think anyone serious says that IDF is exterminating Civilian. What many people are saying is that, mitigation of collateral damage is not effective, and that it doesn't seem that the force used is proportionate to the threat. What I have a strong opinion about, is that, no, not everything possible is done to protect Palestinian Civilian to become CODAM.
About 3: If the ratio is 2:1, considering the level of firepower and engagement, it could be a lot worst, I agree. (=> doesn't mean it can't be critized and that if there are war crimes, they remain war crimes)
But here we have to trust the ratio of IDF, which are really on the "boarder" of credible data. For 2 Reasons in my opinion: - R1/ If figures from IDF of 5000+ Hamas militants killed is true ===> that would means a hell lot of militants are disabled. In urban combat, we should expect a 1 to 5 Killed vs Wounded ratio. that means already the complete Expected Military force of Hamas is KIA or WIA.
- R2/ That the amount of overall casualties reported, and stated credible by US / UN of 16.000+. ===> I personally think, these is an absolute minimum: and even if Cease Fire Occurs Now, that full "Humanitarian" help is put in place to treat the injured Civilians. The civilian deathcount will keep going up for Weeks.
=> So i am really doubting on that ratio of 2:1. BUT, I would accept, that when this conflict End / Pause, deathtoll is properly documented and true. if 2:1 ratio in CODAM that would be "reasonable" in the overall context. (even if all agree, that best would be prison for all criminals and a free life for innocent)
But, if it is 3:1, or 4:1 (which i think where it currently sits). Then in order to accept 4:1. I would have to face that on OCT 7th, Hamas ratio of 4:1 was a barbaric civilian indiscriminated attack. But that IDF vs Hamas 4:1 is "state of the art; taking all measure necessary to protect Civilian". I mean, my brain can't process that contradiction.
To end, where you finished on a relatively factual point. Dresden wasn't collateral damage - it was directly targeting and killing innocent civilian. True
Fact: In Dresden : 60% of the city / building were destroyed. how much of North Gaza / city is Destroyed already ? Satellite image reports already states 60%.
I hope for peace, tolerance, truth.
How do you know? hamas overstates death, has had ‘journalists’ with weapons, ‘children’ than are 15-16 year old fighters, lied about the hospital being destroyed, has videos of people crying over dolls, and MrFAFO, the Johnny Sins of Hamasniks.
Just do a web search restricted from 2001 to 2007 for discussions of the civilian death toll.
That is absurd. Israel bombs “facilities used by Hamas”, civilians going in Hamas tunnels will be a direct target for IDF.
https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/civilians-are-israel-un...
The Japanese killed a few dozen civilians in Pearl Harbor. America killed 10,000x as many during their bombings of Japan. Had they not surrendered, they likely would have killed an order of magnitude more. The only alternative would have been for the US to completely blockade Japan indefinitely to prevent them from rebuilding their military. Actually, they wouldn't be able to do that either because that would make Japan an "open air prison."
I don’t have easy answers here. But I think we’ve lost an important piece of the plot here if we can’t look at one terrible human tragedy, and then another, and then ask ourselves whether the first had to beget the second.
On TV in English, which atrocity is used to justify the current and growing civilian death toll in Gaza seems to depend on who the audiences. US audiences are appealed to with comparison to Hiroshima and UK audiences, to Dresden.
It's easy to read it cynically when it's an Israeli official excusing one war crime with another on television. It's stranger and sadder to see it done by an ordinary stranger online.
The basic argument is "If you think it was legitimate when X country did this, then what's different here?" I think it's very valid to find an X that the person you're speaking to will actually agree with.
The other details are mostly incidental.
You can legitimately think that those wars weren't justified, or that no war is ever justified. Some people think that way. I think most people don't think that way.
I certainly don't, and I think a war against Hamas is incredibly justified. That doesn't mean I automatically agree with everything Israel does btw, nor should it.
Dresden was defended as the justified bombing of a strategic target, a major rail transport and communication centre, housing 110 factories and 50,000 workers in support of the German war effort.
Had the technology of the time included GPS positioning and laser guided missiles there would not have been widespread bombing across the broader city area "just to be sure".
The issue here today is an incredibly high civilian to justified target ratio despite having centimeter precison targeting and high resolution overview of the region of interest.
Deeper issues go back into the history of strategies of minority groups with decision making powers on both sides that resulted in dragging a majority of civilians into this current situation.
You don't know what the civilian to justified target ratio is. I don't know it. No one in the world really knows, except the actual IDF. Their estimate, last I heard, is about 2 civilians killed for every militant killed. Which is awful, but is more-or-less in line with similar wars carried out by Western countries in the past, as far as I can tell.
> The issue here today is an incredibly high civilian to justified target ratio despite having centimeter precison targeting and high resolution overview of the region of interest.
You make it sound like a lot more precision is possible than I think reality warrants. According to Israel at least (and backed up by the US), Hamas militants are hiding in civilian clothes among civilians. No overview of the area and no GPS makes it easily possible to tell them apart.
No evidence of inflated mortality reporting from the Gaza Ministry of Health
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
and numerous others.
Are you saying the IDF has had troops on the ground in Gaza verifying the M&M stats? Or are you simply stating that you believe the IDF?
Either way, as neither of us are an expert here I suggest you take this up with The Lancet and the UN, etc.
I have stated as a simple matter of verifiable fact that vastly more precision is both possible and achievable today in 2023 than was the case in WWII night time bombing.
The IDF are hitting the targets that they have chosen to hit.
If they have poor intelligence then perhaps they should not fire their weapons.
> Are you saying the IDF has had troops on the ground in Gaza verifying the M&M stats? Or are you simply stating that you believe the IDF?
I do trust the IDF, yes. And obviously it has troops on the ground in Gaza, it's a ground invasion.
Their numbers are largely in line with the MoH reported numbers, except they add that they've killed 1 militant for every 2 civilians.
You might not trust this number, but there is no other number to use as far as I know. Though if you trust the MoH number but not the IDF's number, I'm... not sure why.
>I have stated as a simple matter of verifiable fact that vastly more precision is both possible and achievable today in 2023 than was the case in WWII night time bombing.
> The IDF are hitting the targets that they have chosen to hit.
Yes, I agree with this.
Note 1: While the historical numbers given by the MoH were accurate, this doesn't necessarily mean that in the current war their numbers are sound. The current war is very, very different from previous conflicts in Gaza, making both the fog of war and incentive to lie very different.
Some things that give pause on their numbers is that they have been shown to give vastly inflated numbers already (e.g. the "Hospital bombing", which Hamas claimed was conducted by Israel but wasn't as verified by numerous third parties, was initially given a death toll of 500, though later third parties put it at much closer to 50, iirc).
'The comparison' in fact varies according to what defenders of Israeli disproportionate violence against Gazan civilians actually say. That particular example is one I saw made on television: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewLx9XN8sLc
And indeed the comparison was made specifically to justify the measures that Israel has taken which indisputably affect primarily civilians (the siege, which there is very wide agreement constitutes a war crime). And the Israeli politician in the video does in fact react with opprobrium to the suggestion that the Allied bombing of civilians in WWII might not have been one of the just elements of the war.
I think a thing that should give you pause is if the conclusion to a train of thought is "and therefore, no war is ever justified". Some people think that's true! Some people think it's better for them and all their friends and family to die than to risk killing civilians. Most people (including me) disagree with that statement.
In general, ‘deserve’ should always be followed with ‘because…’. Just saying x deserves y assumes we agree on: what x did, an ethical/moral system, and that y is the best punishment/reward in that ethical/moral system.
They killed 20M Chinese.
>while condemning the massacre of civilians under the orders of Likud (and other far right parties)
When has Likud ordered massacres of civilians? Or when has any modern Israeli party? I also don't believe Likud is considered far-right in Israel; just "right". There are parties far to the right of them. Not that that's necessarily a good thing, but it's a relative designation.
- Israeli Prime Minister (!!) Benjamin Netanyahu: "You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember." [1]
- IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari: "we're focused on what causes maximum damage" [2]
- Israeli defense Minister Yoav Gallant: "I have ordered a complete siege on Gaza: no electricity, no food, no fuel, no water. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly." [3]
- Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir: “As long as Hamas does not release the hostages in its hands - the only thing that needs to enter Gaza are hundreds of tons of explosives from the air force, not an ounce of humanitarian aid” [4]
- IDF Reservist Major General Giora Eiland: “The State of Israel has no choice but to turn Gaza into a place that is temporarily or permanently impossible to live in" and "Creating a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a necessary means to achieve the goal." [5]
- Israeli President Isaac Herzog: "It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true." and "Of course there are many, many innocent Palestinians who don’t agree to this — but unfortunately in their homes, there are missiles shooting at us, at my children." [6]
- IDF Reservist Ezra Yachin: "Be triumphant and finish them off and don’t leave anyone behind. Erase the memory of them. Erase them, their families, mothers and children. These animals can no longer live." and "Every Jew with a weapon should go out and kill them. If you have an Arab neighbour, don’t wait, go to his home and shoot him." [7]
- IDF Reservist Major General Giora Eiland: "The international community is warning us against a severe humanitarian disaster and severe epidemics. We must not shy away from this. After all, severe epidemics in the south of Gaza will bring victory closer" and "there’s no reason why the Hamas generals in southern Gaza wouldn’t surrender when they have no fuel, no water, and when plagues will reach them and the danger to the lives of their family members will increase" [8]
- Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant: "Hezbollah is close to making a grave mistake. The ones who will pay the price are first of all the citizens of Lebanon. What we do in Gaza we know how to do in Beirut" [9]
- Israeli Minister for Agriculture and former head of Shin Bet Avi Dichter: "We are now actually rolling out the Gaza Nakba" [10]
- Likud Knesset member Galit Distel-Atbaryan: "Invest this energy in one thing; Erasing all of Gaza from the face of the earth." and "A vengeful and cruel IDF is needed here. Anything less is immoral." [11]
- Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz: "Humanitarian aid to Gaza? No electrical switch will be turned on, no water pump will be opened and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli abductees are returned home" [12]
- IDF Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, in response to Wolf Blitzer asking if the IDF knew there were civilians in Jabalya refugee camp before they bombed it: "This is the tragedy of war, Wolf — as you know, we've been saying for days, move south." [13]
[1] https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/11/benjamin-netany...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/10/right-now-it-i...
[3] https://twitter.com/marwasf/status/1711392643908071789
[4] https://x.com/davidrkadler/status/1714362716565979534
[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/15/opinion/israel-united-sta...
[6] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/israel-gaza-isaac-herzog_n_65...
[7] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-vete...
[8] https://twitter.com/hahauenstein/status/1726326606782984506
[9] https://twitter.com/alihashem_tv/status/1723369208191287738
[10] https://twitter.com/hahauenstein/status/1723441134221869453
[11] https://twitter.com/GalitDistel/status/1719689095230730656
[12] https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/energy-minister...
[13] https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/171941227835150748...
This is very propaganda. I've been following the conflict pretty closely and I speak Hebrew. The parent is correct, there is and was no order to massacre civilians.
It's probably safe to say that protecting Palestinian civilians is not Israel's main priority, but there's a big difference between that and painting a picture of Israel trying to massacre as many civilians as possible.
If the critics were clear about their issue being how Israel measures proportionality with respect to every single target they go after, and they were able to support their case comparing to other similar military campaigns, and there was a very clear outcome of that comparison, I think that's very fair and I'd even be able to get behind it. But that's not what the critics are doing.
> Israeli defense Minister Yoav Gallant: "I have ordered a complete siege on Gaza: no electricity, no food, no fuel, no water. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly."
This complete siege didn't happen.
> On 9 October 2023, Israel imposed a "total blockade" of the Gaza Strip, blocking the entry of food, water, medicine, fuel and electricity.
I think this (new) Wikipedia article is somewhat iffy. And maybe I'm misusing terminology. I think Israel's actions in this context constitute a blockade that is legal in times of war. I don't want to nitpick siege vs. blockage etc. or the fact that Israel doesn't control all the borders. Israel's actions here are legal.
You mean by not bombing rafah crossing in violation of international law as they did several times already?
> I think Israel's actions in this context constitute a blockade that is legal in times of war
> Israel's actions here are legal.
At least provide any sources during your quest to defend isreal actions. Even if it is straightout lies like that one [1]
Hint : the story is about Israeli military releases footage of a secret terrorist ‘roster’ that turns out to be a calendar (that was very obvious for any one with basic arabic knowledge) and that was their justification for bombing and taking out a children hospital bt force.
[1] https://www.dailydot.com/debug/israel-gaza-hospital-calendar...
This was not a calendar. The first day was Oct 7th. It had the operation's name as the title "Al Aqsa Flood". https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1724245759174791626
It's true that Hagari incorrectly said it was a "roster". But it's not a calendar. It was a mistake, not a lie. He shouldn't have done that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/17zu5x8/di...
What you hear instead are thinly-veiled justifications. Oh, we had to bomb those hospitals because there were tunnels there. So sorry about the civilian deaths at a refugee camp, but we just wanted to get that one commander.
Let’s be real here. Israel shut off food, water, medicine and electricity to Gaza. They’ve damaged over 2/3 of the buildings there [1]. As of a month ago, they’d dropped almost 2x the amount of explosives the US delivered to Hiroshima [2].
These are not the actions of a country “going after military targets even at some cost to civilians”. Israel is doing exactly what Hagari said: inflicting maximum damage.
[1] https://x.com/tksshawa/status/1732447886237974898
[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/11/9/israel-att...
Meanwhile, Palestine has shown no restraint at all in their 10/7 massacre and no Jews live in Palestine, whereas many Arabs live peacefully in Israel.
Do you realize that isreal is the side who killed at least 10x the number that the other side kill. I can see that you describe hamas's action as horrible but there is no way of condition that justifies what isreal did and is still doing to Palestinian civilians (no matter how you think you can)
As to the latter part, you're pulling a trick to imply that the 10x are all civilian non-combatants, which is just as bad as the other people pretending that all the teen-aged Hamas soldiers who have been killing people are non-combatant children.
https://time.com/3035937/gaza-israel-hamas-palestinian-casua...
Why are we playing this numbers game? If Hamas hypothetically had killed 30,000 Israels would you be saying that Israel still has 12,000 to go? Every person matters and in a war there are no targets for how many people are killed, in wars people get killed for achieving some other objectives. I would imagine that even if Hamas had only killed 150 people in Israel we'd be in exactly the same place and the ratio would be 100x because there's a point where Israel has to (well, at least they think) reoccupy Gaza at any cost. Israel was almost there in previous conflicts, but backed off.
There is no war in history, as far as I know, but willing to be corrected, where the measure or who is wrong and who is right, or when the war should end, was some threshold or ratio in the number of dead people. A war continues until both sides agree to stop it. Wars have a terrible human price. I think something like 400,000 people have died in the war in Yemen. I think there are hundreds of thousands of dead in the Russian-Ukraine war (mostly soldiers but they're people, and young people, too. Many civilians.). Sudan is pretty bad. 600,000 killed in the Syria civil war.
https://www.memri.org/reports/hamas-leaders-our-goal-establi...
Your second point is wrong, by the way. There are hundreds of thousands of Jews living in settlements in the West Bank.
The hospital they bombed had the parking lot damaged by a failed Hamas rocket. The "refugee camp" has been there for many years, not as huddled fleeing masses, but permanent structures from people who fled there long ago, the tunnel network is well known and there's video evidence, the aid was being supplied by Israel to begin with (including the water) and they were using the pipes to make weapons, etc.
So I'm not surprised to find that none of your other points make sense either.
- Killed almost 18,000 people
- Displaced 1.9 million people
- Cut off food, water, medicine, fuel, electricity and Internet access
- Limited press access except for footage reviewed by the IDF
- Dropped ~2x as much explosive as the US dropped in Hiroshima
- Damaged over 2/3 of buildings
- Bombed basically every hospital
- Bombed an ambulance
- Told people to move south and then bombed Rafah crossing, on the border with Egypt
- Kidnapped thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank
- Tortured Palestinian abductees
- Handed out weapons to West Bank settlers
- Stripped civilians and paraded them through the streets
This is all after October 7th — before that, Israeli settlers were responsible for pogroms and dozens of murders in the West Bank.
- Israel did displace a lot of people. Partly for their own safety while Israel attacks the area they live in. I think your number are correct.
- We already covered the "cut off" in another thread so I (edit: didn't want to but I guess I did anyways) want revisit it. Water was off, and then on, food and medicine are allowed in but maybe not enough, Internet access is on most of the time in this war zone, electricity is mostly cut off (partly because the power station ran out of fuel I think, not strictly because Israel cut it off). This is a snarky comment but I'm pretty sure the tunnel vents still have power. Northern Gaza and Southern Gaza are also different (with more restrictions on Northern Gaza). I would call this statement misleading.
- Israel did drop a lot of bomb tonnage on Gaza but we can't really compare this to the atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima. There were 60-80 thousand dead in Hiroshima which was much less populated/dense than Gaza (total population was about 350,000). As a piece of trivia, between 241,000 and 900,000 people died in Japan in the bombing campaigns of WW2. I would fact check this statement as misleading.
- There is plenty of press access from the Palestinian side. I think we're getting more footage from the war zone compared to many other war zones. Israel does review footage of press that embeds with the IDF in Gaza for operational-security reasons. I think that's pretty normal. I don't recall large complaints from the media about this, but they do note it in their reports. So correct but misleading.
- Do you have a reference for "dozens of murders by settlers prior to Oct 7th"? Are you going all the way back to Baruch Goldstein? Even with that "dozens" seems incorrect to me. There's no room for any violence by settlers but let's get the facts right. My very quick research has failed to substantiate this claim.
- Reference for "paraded them through the streets"? Also do we know they're all civilians? Israel strips people they arrest (to their underwear) to make sure they're not suicide bombers. I have seen those photos/videos as well. I agree it's pretty humiliating (and) the pictures didn't look good. I hope the people that are uninvolved will be released quickly. I know you're going to take issue with what I say here, but this was in Northern Gaza where civilians have been asked to evacuate and Hamas combatants operate in civilian clothing. Hamas has a lot of history with suicide bombers so it's not unreasonable to expect this tactic. I would call this partly misleading.
- I also take issue with "kidnapped" and "tortured". I would say arrested Islamic Jihad and Hamas activists. Torture is illegal in Israel (maybe allowed if there's a "ticking bomb", I don't recall) and while it's possible there have been cases I don't think it's systemic, any evidence to the contrary?
- You're technically correct about the move south and bomb the south but I think it's important to note there was significantly less bombing in the south than the north and Israel has said specifically they will still bomb the south if they have clear targets. Israel never said it won't bomb the south. It just said it's safer. And if you check the statistics you'll see that's true. This is where "technically right" can be misleading.
- West bank settlers have had weapons forever pretty much. Most of the handing of weapons these days is to people in Israel proper.
- I think there was a single incident with an ambulance where Israel claimed it was being used for a military purpose. There is a long discussion about the status and usage of ambulances here: https://lieber.westpoint.edu/attacks-misuse-ambulances-durin...
- I'm pretty sure "bombed every hospital" is false. Reference? We had the possible Islamic Jihad rocket falling in a hospital parking lot, we had some bombings close to hospitals, we had fake news from other conflicts presented as Israel bombing hospitals, but "bombed every hospital" is new to me. I think "did not bomb any hospitals" is closer to the truth. How many people were killed by Israel's bombing of hospitals?
- I've seen different accounts for the percentage of buildings damaged. 2/3 seems on the high side. References?
Israel should not use ambulances for military purposes. Israel is far far from perfect and you can find many examples of things we can agree on being "wrong". Perfection is not the right measure though, Israel doesn't do things like: https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj.p451 The question is compared to what its peers in the "free democratic west" would do in similar circumstances how does Israel measure. We know that most of the world doesn't even try to hold up the same standards.
- Re: Hiroshima, can we compare it to the amount of explosive the US dropped in the entire country of Afghanistan over a much longer period? The point is that this is an insanely high amount of bombing, even with respect to other wars. https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-dropped-as-many-bombs...
- Re: West Bank violence, I said settlers have killed “dozens” as a lowball number because I was too lazy to find a link. The actual number (including by Israeli security forces) is 192: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/22/while-fire-rages-gaza-we...
- Re: stripping prisoners, I imagine “paraded” is another word we’d disagree on like “targeted”, but Israel itself has said that it stripped “military aged men” and a number have been recognized by friends and family as noncombatants: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-hamas-war-images-p...
- Here’s a tweet from someone who recognizes a journalist firsthand. This is sexual violence, by the way: https://x.com/dima_khatib/status/1732797311846064541
- Re: abducted — yes, of course Israel will claim there’s a pretext for abducting people (although over 2,500 have been held without charges on “administrative detention”). This is kind of like someone in the antebellum US south saying “those runaway slaves were arrested in accordance with the law” — maybe true but not the point! Do you think the police are fair to Palestinians? The courts? https://www.npr.org/2023/12/01/1216643555/thousands-of-pales...
- Re: torture, I don’t know what you happens in prison. I guarantee it’s not better for political prisoners in apartheid regimes. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/11/israel-opt-ho...
- Re: bombing the south, there have been so many reported instances of Israel telling people to evacuate and then bombing the escape route. https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/16/middleeast/israel-palestinian...
- Re: arming settlers, this already sounds real bad, so if they’re handing out more guns in addition to that, it sounds… worse. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231011-far-right-israel-...
- Re: attacking the ambulance, of course the IDF says that there was Hamas there — that’s what they say about everything! I’m not going to look up a source here. If there’s any evidence that corroborates the IDF’s claim from an independent source, feel free to post it.
- Re: “bombed every hospital”, you’re using quotation marks but not actually quoting me directly. As of a month ago, Israel had issued evacuation orders for 22 hospitals in North Gaza and half of the 36 hospitals in Gaza had stopped operations. Unclear how many the IDF actually attacked but it’s a lot more than zero! https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/14/gaza-unlawful-israeli-ho...
- Re: 2/3, it was reported in the Financial Times. Also note that the damage the US inflicted on German cities in a matter of years, Israel has inflicted on Gaza in a matter of weeks. https://www.ft.com/content/7b407c2e-8149-4d83-be01-72dcae8ae...
I don't think changing "settlers" to "security forces" or conflating "issued an evacuation order" with "bombing", or "torture" vs. "things that happen in prison" is having a discussion in good faith. Many of those killed by the security forces were killed while they were attacking Israelis or during combat or clashes. If you're willing to have a discussion in good faith I'm happy to engage but you'll have to stop doing that. This is not helping some of the valid points you're making. "But what about the west bank" is a common anti-Israeli propaganda tool on social media. There's a lot to unpack there but I think it should mostly be an orthogonal discussion to the war in Gaza.
https://embassies.gov.il/UnGeneva/NewsAndEvents/Pages/Hamas-...
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/israel-middle-east/hamas...
I think specifically with ambulances there's a few ways to think about this:
- What is the benefit that Israel derives from attacking ambulances?
- What would be a reasonable standard of proof here? If forces come under attack from an ambulance, they bomb it, and it's destroyed, how do you expect Israel to prove that?
- Is the Hamas a signatory to the Geneva convention and are their methods typically in line with the laws of war? Are they generally honest? Moral?
- Did Israel order evacuation of those areas and give ample time for this evacuation to happen in accordance with the laws of war?
I think if you answer these honestly you'll say that Hamas would certainly use ambulances if they felt that was to their advantage and that Israel would not generally target ambulances intentionally. Is there a large gray area? Sure. Is it possible that Israeli forces would have a "light finger on the trigger". Sure. It's a war and it's their lives. Do I think that allowing Ambulances to operate within combat areas is a high priority for Israel? No. There's a big difference between actions that are within reason and actions that are intentionally evil. The goal of many people saying "Israel attacks ambulances" is to paint a picture of Israel being evil. They want to take a single ambulance that was attacked in a major scale conflict and use it as a propaganda weapon against Israel. That said Israel should be expected to follow the laws of war and we should demand that it does.
If our goal is to end the war and to make some sort of progress for the benefit of everyone involved I don't think inflammatory language or evoking anti-Israeli emotions is the way to get us there. I can get behind that goal if the methods are different.
> I think if you answer these honestly you'll say that Hamas would certainly use ambulances if they felt that was to their advantage and that Israel would not generally target ambulances intentionally.
So if I’m honest, I’ll say that Hamas doing something bad is normal but Israel doing something bad is exceptional. Why would I say that, exactly? Israel is one of the most powerful countries in the world, backed by one of the most vicious modern day empires, waging a one-sided war against people they have blockaded inside a literal ghetto. My allegiance is always with the victims of oppression; that is a core Jewish value to me.
This is not the pot calling the kettle black. The aforementioned empire is the US; we have truly horrendous skeletons in our closet and continue to add more. But goddamn, at least I’m not pretending they aren’t there.
I don’t think this is a productive conversation and I’m going to stop replying. Chag Hanukkah Sameach; may Palestine’s oil burn brightly forever.
I'd like to think you just have the facts wrong. Facts and truth are key. For example the fact that when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 it did not blockade it. It blockaded it in 2007 when Hamas took power. It has not "waged a one-sided war against people they have blockaded in ghetto". That is just factually wrong. The one-sided waging of war was from the Gaza side. Applying core/moral values should start with a correct evaluation of the factual reality (and yes, it's a complex reality, life is hard).
The Hamas states they want to kill all the Jews in Israel. They act towards that goal. The Hamas engages in activities that are morally wrong beyond any doubt. There is no context in this world where Hamas is justified because they are oppressed. They are antisemites. They are Nazi. The atrocities they committed against Jews on Oct 7th are a new standard of evil.
The US has its problems. I don't think that's directly relevant. The US might be supporting Israel for the wrong reasons but I think basing your evaluation of Israel's moral position on that is incorrect. Russia, China and Iran, support the opposing side here. I don't think those are clearly beacons of good.
EDIT: I want to clarify my "Gaza waging a war on Israel" position. I am referring to the entire period since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Not to the current situation. It is true, and factual, that Israel is at war with Gaza right now. A war started by Gaza. Israel is fairly powerful but I don't think that is a moral argument. If Israel was weaker does that really change the moral viewpoint? Israel has tried to avoid as much as possible the war it is engaged in right now, and possibly if it hadn't done so (i.e. if it went to war sooner) there would be a lot less lives lost, so the moral argument against Israel re-occupying Gaza or not attacking Gaza because it is more powerful feels a bit hollow. It was obviously not powerful enough to protect its citizens and we are dealing with an asymmetric war. With all its power it has so far been unable to stop rockets being launched from Gaza into Israel. Its power has pretty big limits.
EDIT2: I have a problem with the "oppression" narrative. I think generally oppression is not a justification for violence and we have plenty of examples of oppressed peoples throughout history that have not resorted to the kind of violence we see in this conflict. It is also intellectually shallow. I have a similar problem with the term that comes with it in this conflict which is "occupation". Again, occupation is the de-facto status of most of the planet, and it does not justify the kind of violence we see in this conflict. I'm just talking about the Palestinians here. Israel does many questionable things as well which we can go into if we wish. The other problem I have which I already pointed out in this thread is the redefinition of words. I think using words like "ghetto" is problematic. My dictionary says ghetto is either "a jewish quarter in a city" or "a poor urban area occupied primarily by a minority group or groups.". The use of this term by pro-Palestinians is meant to either equate Israel to the Nazis. I.e. they intentionally want to say Israel in this story is the Nazi Germans and the Palestinians are the Jews. Or the other intent is to try and diminish the original meaning of the usage, i.e. to belittle the historical suffering of Jews. This usage is factually wrong and I would say is insidious (to put mildly). I'm surprised to see that Jewish people adopt this terminology (Ghetto) but I guess nothing can surprise me at this point. I think points can be made without redefining words and appealing to emotions and conversely redefining words means we can't actually have a discussion because we're talking past each other. I would almost call some of the tactics we're seeing "intellectual terrorism". It seeks to broadly disable the ability of the other side to engage in a discussion and to intimidate them. I also want to make it absolutely clear that all the above doesn't change the morality of the conflict. I.e. I'm not saying "it is justified to attack civilians because they engage in tactics that I can consider insidious.". If you have a self defense situation as a person, the threshold for using deadly force isn't a function of the personality of the other side, it should purely be a function of their actions and the situation.
And yes, we agree to the facts of military aged men, in a combat zone where civilians have been asked to evacuate, stripped (EDIT: to their underwear) and arrested. That's what I also said in my reply. I explained why Israel strips potential Hamas combatants/activists ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_suicide_at... ). I took issue with the "paraded" part. It is most certainly not sexual violence.
Apparently there are new instructions to the IDF to provide them with clothing immediately.
Do I think the police and the courts are always fair to Palestinians... Nope. But at least they have some legal recourse. The Israeli Supreme court, which is independent (so far), can intervene and has intervened in the past. You can read one case here: https://casebook.icrc.org/case-study/israel-detention-unlawf...
By the way extreme right Jews have also been held under administrative arrest.
I still think "arrested Hamas and Islamic Jihad members" is closer to the truth than "abducted random Palestinians".
I won't engage much with your other points but I think they are a combination of leaving out critical facts (hospitals and ambulances were used by militants), misrepresentation ("Stripped civilians and paraded them through the streets" - they weren't paraded, quite on the contrary it was the people on Gaza who did this) and lies (at least last time sometime argued "Tortured Palestinian abductees" the only thing they showed for it was images of POWs with minor battle scars).
If that was the goal, wouldn't you think more Palestinians be dead by now? How does this goal benefit Israel in any way?
But it's a fair question what would it take to convince me. I think you'd need to show me enough incidents of Israel intentionally targeting civilians with the clear goal of maximizing civilian deaths. e.g. carpet bombing of civilians in the south with casualties in the 10's of thousands from one bombing raid or indiscriminate artillery firing on the south like we see the Russians doing in Ukraine.
Just a by the way, do you know what exactly "refugee camp" means in the context of this conflict? Can you describe what that is and why it's called a refugee camp. I'm asking because it seems many do not know (and if you don't, it's not actually what you think it is).
Haven't you seen large numbers of civilians walking from the north part of Gaza to the south part of Gaza right by Israeli soldiers and tanks? I've seen IDF soldiers give them water as they're passing by. There were photos of civilians arrested yesterday (and treated poorly, doesn't look good) ... but alive.
Israel does provide water now to Gaza. It did temporarily shut down its water supply to Gaza which is part of how Gazans get water (but not the sole source). How many people have died from lack of water? Food is restricted but is getting in. Probably not enough. How many people have died from starvation?. Medicine is coming in. Israel is not providing electricity. It's a war! Many, one might say too many, have died.
Can you provide references to other major wars where one side was providing the other side with water, food, electricity, medicine? When siege was laid on Mosul did the US provide all those to the citizens of the city? Did the Russians to Mariupol? And sure, I understand Gaza's situations is a bit unique so it's hard to find parallels (and definitely don't want Israel to be compared to Russia).
There is definitely wide scale destruction to structures. I've seen the figure 1/3 today. It's all one big combat zones, when tanks fire inside cities and airplanes drop bombs, and artillery shells targets there is widespread damage. Very much like major scale war in other urban areas around the world, Bahkmut, Mariupol, are two examples from the other active conflict. I don't take it as proof of targeting civilians. It is a tactic to avoid urban warfare, booby traps, remove cover that the enemy can use etc. I agree it's a pretty brutal tactic but not one specifically disallowed in the rules of war.
Have you ever been to Israel? I'm just curious. Do you know many Israelis?
> Israel does provide water now to Gaza. It did temporarily shut down its water supply to Gaza which is part of how Gazans get water (but not the sole source). How many people have died from lack of water? Food is restricted but is getting in. Probably not enough. How many people have died from starvation?. Medicine is coming in. Israel is not providing electricity. It's a war! Many, one might say too many, have died.
Shutting off these things is targeting civilians! You may think it's justified or that there's precedent, but that doesn't change the fact that the goal of the attack is to harm every human being there.
> Can you provide references to other major wars where one side was providing the other side with water, food, electricity, medicine? When siege was laid on Mosul did the US provide all those to the citizens of the city? Did the Russians to Mariupol? And sure, I understand Gaza's situations is a bit unique so it's hard to find parallels (and definitely don't want Israel to be compared to Russia).
I opposed the US conquering Iraq, I oppose Russia's invasion of Ukraine and I oppose Israel's bombing in Gaza (and, as you alluded to, Gaza's situation is unique among those examples in that they are more or less blockaded by and dependent on Israel). I don't really find "but what about other wars" a compelling argument — war is bad!
As to your last question, although I don't know why it's relevant: I'm a diaspora Jew who has not been to Israel from a fairly large Jewish community in the US. Not sure what counts as "many" but yes, I know some Israelis.
My problem is that the terms are not necessarily the common definition of those terms.
Clearly civilians are impacted by Israel's actions. Nobody can argue with that. And the impact is major. Someone used to live in a nice house and have their basic needs met, and now they're crammed in a tent somewhere with almost nothing. Their house could be destroyed. And yes, many civilians have died. This is not what I take to mean by "Israel is intentionally targeting civilians", what that means to me, and likely to many others, is that Israeli soldiers are looking for civilians and killing them wherever they can find them, intentionally, as many as they can. This matters. Words matter. By your definition every war targets civilians, and it's sort of maybe true, but again, not really how most people IMO think about it.
The reason I asked my "Israeli" questions is that I do think most Israelis are moral, decent, people. As a whole they would prefer not to be in this war at all. You can say maybe they're misguided but their goal is the security of their country, not inflicting pain on others. Intent does matter.
I think there's a minority of Israelis that are not that (e.g. we just had the case of an Israeli settler soldier killing an Israeli civilian who was no threat because he thought he was Arab and we had other similar cases).
I think you need to self reflect a bit harder. Unless you are the dali lama, i'm sure you can understand the need for revenge and looking for a sense of security. Not saying it's the right thing to do, but it sure is easy to grasp.
That doesn’t mean that “the highest ranking Knesset members are secretly ordering their soldiers to kill civilians!” I don’t think they have to, in the same way that high ranking police in the US don’t have to tell officers to target Black people. I think there is a culture of supremacy and racism, and the IDF is collectively taking advantage of this moment to act on their worst impulses. I think they are at best indiscriminately attacking and making only token efforts to avoid civilian harm. Insofar as they are showing restraint, I think it’s only from the vague threat of losing the support of the US — just tonight, the sole abstaining vote on a UN security council demand for ceasefire — and if they could get away with even more outright genocide or ethnic cleansing, they would.
And yes, if it’s not clear, I am talking about the state of Israel, its government and military, not its citizens (although if reports in the US are to be believed a lot of y’all are real bloodthirsty right now — not that many Americans aren’t just as bad). I certainly don’t equate a government with its civilians: 2/3 of all Americans and almost 80% of Democrats support a ceasefire even as our Democratic president continues to defend this war.
It looks more as a civilian massacre than a war. Yes, it's pretty obvious that they don't try to kill as many Palestinian civilians as possible. But they clearly show no consideration for civilian lives. What we're witnessing is extremely disturbing to say the least, and we should make Israel stop because nothing can justify what they do. They are entitled to live safely, not to kill thousands of innocents because it suits them.
> Have you ever been to Israel? I'm just curious. Do you know many Israelis?
How is that relevant to the discussion? having Israeli friends should make us accept these horrors? I don't think so.
If Israel stops now, and Hamas kills 2000 Israelis in 5 years, and then Israel kills 50,000 Palestinians because Hamas is much stronger and the war is much more complex and the population is denser, should we stop now? What is the probability of this outcome? What are the range of outcomes of stopping now, beyond the obvious of less people will die over the next week or 2 weeks, or month, until the next round flares up. We have had many rounds of violence.
How do we weigh the continuation of rocket fire into Israel from Gaza into the equation? What happens if Hamas figures out a technological solution to defeat the iron dome?
There are many many other factors.
How do we weigh the motivation/chances that Hezbollah would attack Israel from the north?
Clearly all the dead people are not coming back to live. All the damage that has been done is done. It's all extremely tragic. The question is where do we go from here. You're saying "we should make Israel stop". Assuming that's even an option (I don't think anyone can make Israel stop at this point) who is going to pay the price of that decision down the road? "we" or Israel?
I don't know. I don't have answers. My opinion is that stopping now will result in more deaths in the future. But I'm not sure. If I was convinced stopping now is the best option for peace I would certainly support it. I hope we are getting very close to the end of the war, at least the more intense phase of it.
I think knowing Israelis will give you some sense of what kind of people they are, and will let you relate to them as people. Something I think is missing from a lot of the discourse. I agree we're seeing horrors. By the way, you should also talk to some Palestinians and get to know them as well fwiw. I've had some pretty interesting discussions in the past with a Palestinian friend.
Yes, I get the logic.
But as someone who isn't either Israeli or Palestinian, I give the same value to any life and I'd like my government to 1. at the very least, not support the ongoing massacres 2. pressuring them to stop what they're doing 3. send help to gaza. I'm not american, but if I was, I'd be very pissed that my taxpayer's money is going to this.
Then one could argue that what is done isn't the best course of action of Israel's safety, regardless of any moral consideration.
> I think knowing Israelis will give you some sense of what kind of people they are,
I have no doubt that Israelis are no different than any other people on earth. But really, this isn't the question here.
Them living safely means winning the war by destroying Hamas’ logistics, assets, and ability to launch attacks. Them destroying Hamas means air strikes that unfortunately will inevitably include civilian collateral damage due to how Hamas operates. In my view, this justifies all actions Israel has taken so far.
Additionally, if successfully done, killing Hamas now means fewer Palestinian deaths in the future.
I have not met anyone who supports Hamas, or even read that on this forum (though I have seen a couple eyebrow-raising comments here and there), yet there are so many people only justifying the actions of the IDF and try to convince the rest of us that what it has been doing to the Palestinians is ok. Think about that.
(Which is not to say that partisans on the Palestinian side of this are somehow angels or anything--if anything, I think it's disappointing there aren't more Muslim or Arab groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, etc.)
Anyways, if I continue arguing like this, I am part of the problem, even if I am right. I don't want to pass up the opportunity in another one of these threads to try to plug these guys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGZlR_h96ek
I get the viewpoint from the Palestinian-American side. My problem isn't with their natural response, which is to do whatever it takes to protect their families and friends. My problem is with the demonizing rhetoric they use and the real world consequences of that. They have mass protests with calls for genocide against Jews. As a Jew in North America this makes me feel less safe. In the real world, Jewish businesses are getting attacked, Jews feel threatened and are threatened. There is a connection between the demonizing and antisemitism. There is no other context or way to look at attacks against Jews everywhere other than antisemitism. "The Jews" and "Israel" are used interchangeably in online discourse and on the street. Another real world consequence is IMO more Palestinian suffering in the middle east, not less. I also want my family in Israel to be safe, I don't go marching in the streets calling for all Palestinians to be expelled from the region or killed.
There are many Palestinians that support Hamas. In previous surveys it's been somewhere around 50% or more. In more recent surveys it's 75% ( https://thehub.ca/2023-11-27/amal-attar-guzman-palestinian-s... ). We also need to separate the question of support for Hamas from the question of supporting the goals and methods of Hamas. Many Palestinians believe in violent struggle until Israel is dismantled. Basically either kill all the Jews or force them to leave. I don't have a survey handy but that view is prevalent. I would challenge your assertion of "not met anyone that supports Hamas". People don't come out and say "I support Hamas" (well some do, but it's not exactly politically correct) but they act in support of Hamas. In my view if you're chanting "from the river to the sea" you support Hamas because that is Hamas ideology. A recent survey found many of the chanters don't know what's the river and what's the sea and once told many changed their minds but ignorance does not absolve. People have a choice of calling for peace or calling for violence and we see too many people calling for violence. A call for peace should be a call for peace for everyone. I am convinced the root cause of violence in the region is the Palestinian pursuit of indiscriminate violence as a means of solving their historical injustices.
I have no problem saying that I support the IDF and Israel. I think the IDF's actions are as moral as any other military in war. Israel didn't choose this war. It was forced on it. At the same time I do feel for the Palestinians. There is no conflict. I wish Israel's security could be achieved without this massive price in lives. I am as sad as anyone by the scenes of destruction, children being pulled from rubble, etc. I just don't make my moral decisions based on appeals to my emotions and attempts of the media to manipulate me. Whenever I see the IDF acting in ways that I feel are wrong I do add that to my overall evaluation, there might be a point where I reconsider. I also lived in Israel during Hamas' suicide bombing campaign against Israeli civilians. There are many injustices from the Israeli side. You need to form a complete picture though.
I feel like most of your message is emotional. This is a normal response to many things we're seeing. I'm not sure it's a way to make progress. I think likely you're also being manipulated. There could be a different media and social media narrative that would make you feel different given the exact same facts on the ground. Think about that. There's plenty of evidence to support this thesis.
EDIT: I also love cats...
I think most of us without direct skin in the game have the basic moral sense to fail to find the kind of incredibly biased take you're offering here particularly convincing, and to greet with skepticism the notion that the side which has had the upper hand for longer than most of us have been alive is purely a victim.
If a Palestinian person came on trying to say "well the people in Gaza are so oppressed, they had no choice..." I would roll my eyes at that too. That they would lash out violently is understandable, but it's not their only choice, and it doesn't make it morally acceptable. You guys are more alike than you realize, and I don't mean that in a "kumbaya brotherhood" good kind of way.
> I also want my family in Israel to be safe, I don't go marching in the streets calling for all Palestinians to be expelled from the region or killed.
You don't have to. It's been happening, and has just been accelerated.
Ofcourse I'm biased but so are you. I'm struggling to follow your logic. If the Allies had the upper hand against the Nazis does it make the Nazis the victim? If the west had the upper hand against the Soviet block is Russia the victim? What does that have to do with anything.
"That they would lash out violently is understandable," no it's not. You're just taking the "people in Gaza are oppressed" (by Israel) at face value. It's just a false statement. Even if it was true then Oct 7th is not justified. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and the course the Palestinians took from that point was mainly their own.
All Palestinians are not being killed or expelled from the region. That is an indisputable fact as of this time. But it's also got nothing to do with my argument. Supporters of Israel aren't marching in the streets calling for this but supporters of Palestinians are marching in the streets calling for the destruction of Israel. (EDIT: and this was true earlier in the war as well, as soon as Israel responded, when there were still many more Israeli dead and more damage than on the Palestinian side)
The only thing I will agree with you is that Israel does have choices. And their choices can be criticized. Israel acts to protect its citizens and that's an important context. If your starting point is that Israel should be destroyed and all its citizens be killed then naturally no choice Israel makes is going to be acceptable to you.
EDIT: I just want to add here that while I am biased about this conflict I think I am applying the same measures and principles that I apply when I look at other conflicts where I am not directly and emotionally involved. Ofcourse I have some biases for those as well. So when I look e.g. at the wars the US or NATO engaged at, or when I look at the Russia-Ukraine war, or I look at any other war that happened in my lifetime, I try to apply some objective measures. If we look at how countries wage wars we can look at their practices. For example, we can look at Russia's practices at Mariupol. Or we can look at practices in the battle of Mosul. and we can compare them to IDF practices. Or we can look at practices in the Syrian civil war. Or we can look at WW-I or WW-II. How do we know if Ukraine is right or Russia is right? How can we tell which side is fighting more "morally". We need a benchmark. What we have here is a war between Gaza and Israel. We don't say Ukraine's war with Putin. We say Ukraine's war with Russia. When the US went to war in Afghanistan it was likewise not the US vs. Al Qaeda, it was the US vs. Afghanistan. If we want to take the bias out we need to be able to benchmark things and make them comparable. Whenever I try to set some benchmark (for example what are protestors calling for) there's always some maneuver to try and get away from a benchmark to emotions and opinions. I'm open to figure out other ways of "discovering" the unbiased truths here as much as that exists. We have facts and we have the interpretation of these facts. In most discourse on this topic the facts/truth are distorted and benchmarking/interpreting this facts is not an interest.
Also, the point you and many others fail to understand is that there is no other way for Israel, this is a least bad option. No one is happy about the situation, and both Israel and the Palestin civilians are victims here, all because of Hamas. If you know of any other realistic solution that gets rid of terrorists, I’m sure IDF is happy to hear about that.
A lot of countries might act that way, but that position doesn't command anyone's deference or sympathy, whether in this conflict or others, and the rest of us are free to pile on in moral condemnation.
Moreover, given the conflict's history and a lot of the discourse many of us have witnessed from those who wish to suppress any acknowledgement of Palestinian death or suffering, we have plenty of reason to believe that there is something more sinister underlying a lot of this talk.
> Also, the point you and many others fail to understand is that there is no other way for Israel, this is a least bad option.
This is obvious bullshit. It's not up to anyone else to provide some specific plan of action; it is obviously the case there are a number options Israel can take short of murdering between 15k-20k civilians and displacing 2 million more.
To be clear, I do not begrudge Israel the right to take some military action here, especially because it has to rescue its hostages. But the onus of offering justification is on someone trying to justify the staggering death toll and the sheer cruelty the country is displaying right now, not on the ones who are looking at it for realistically what it is.
> I’m sure IDF is happy to hear about that.
Given what many of us have read and seen of the IDF's conduct, I think we have every reason to believe they are more than ok with what their current plan. The rest of us are not as naive or stupid as you seem to think.
With that said, any amount of civilian death is tragic - and we should absolutely mandate Israel to be as specific in their attacks as possible. But 0 civilian casualty is impossible to achieve. What we can know, even according to the biased hamas numbers, they are roughly in the 2 civilian to 1 military personnel ratio, which is absolutely realistic given the circumstances/other modern warfares, etc. Feel free to refute this statement of mine, if you do believe that they “want to kill as many civilians as possible”.
No it isn't. It might be impossible to achieve Israel's goals without any civilian casualties but those goals are not a given. Not doing anything would have caused less total suffering than Israel's current strategy.
I feel the "question of that cost" is where the differences in opinion lie.
For example, if Israel considered the civilians of Gaza as Israel citizens of equal importance to all other Israeli citizens, you'd expect them to consider that cost to be much higher, and it would force them to maneuver much more carefully in their military operations in order to minimize it. Yes, it would make it a lot harder for them to fight and make headway against Hamas as well if they did.
Some people hold the belief that this is how Israel should treat civilians, no lesser than they'd treat their own.
I think another contentious issue, is around the outcome of the war, and what it means for those civilians as well. Is the idea to force the One-State solution, but not as a binational state with equal rights for all citizens, irrespective of ethnicity or religion, but instead as a state with dominant Jewish identity? The impression to this question can change your opinion of the civilian casualties, are they an unfortunate price to pay towards their liberation from Hamas, and their incorporation into a more just, equal, fair, democracy, where they can live a better life? Or is it actually towards their further oppression by Israel?
Or if it is to force a Two-State solution, again, what would it mean of those civilians, would the Palestinian state be forced to harsh conditions as part of treaties if they lose the war, which would hurt those civilians further, etc.
It's complicated, but I do think most of it is about this "cost of civilian casualties", and what worth you attribute to it, and what worth you attribute to the end in order to justify the means.
The question of the outcome of the war is a reasonable one. That said the primary goal of the war is to ensure the security of Israel. The longer term outcome would depend on political processes in Israel and in the Palestinian side and likely all the other parties that are have been meddling in this conflict forever.
I don't personally know what's reasonable or not here to be honest, but I do know the differing opinion on it is a major contributor to the discourse and the disagreements around it.
I wanted to point that out, because you and another commenter were not able to convince each other, and this is why in my opinion.
That's like saying the Nazis just wanted Jews "gone", gassing them wasn't a priority.
Here is a German phrase you must learn:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorauseilender_Gehorsam
People murder -- to not mince words, some people act and think like Nazis, as Yeshayahu Leibowitz so very correctly pointed out -- and they know they'll get away with it. There are rarely "explicit explicit" orders, the general atmosphere, the words and deeds you saw others get away with, is enough.
[1] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231024-security-minister...
[2] https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17327731468585127...
[3] https://twitter.com/NimerSultany/status/1731736295666282707
[4] https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17330661183302657...
- [1] Weapons are distributed to civilians/cities/settlements all over Israel as a response to 3000 heavily armed Palestinians murdering (and worse) civilians. Clearly a matter of self defense against an enemy who have shown they have the means and the will to do what they've done. Itamar Ben Gvir is a right wing minister who is definitely leveraging the Oct 7th attack to his agenda. In the US everyone can get a weapon. Just the presence of these weapons, at least according to Americans, is not a problem. I'd rather Oct 7th didn't happen and we wouldn't see more weapons since inevitably these weapons are going to be used for bad things, just like in the US.
- [2] The video shows men, in fighting age, from the active combat area in North Gaza where civilians were ordered to evacuate a long time ago. They are in their underwear so they can not blow themselves up, a common Hamas tactic. They are loaded on trucks and they will be interrogated. Likely many or all of them are combatants. We've seen videos from Hamas of their combatants in civilian clothing who turn from a combatant to a civilian in a second. This is all there is to it. There is no support for the other claims made in the tweet. I'm sure they're treated much better than the way Hamas is treating the Israelis they're holding and much better than the US treated Al Qaeda or ISIS fighters. Because the combatants aren't fighting by the rules of law, e.g. they're not in uniform, they don't get the protection of the Geneva convention as war prisoners.
- [3] This is just a random panel on TV. The talking head there is saying maybe the intent is to prevent Hamas from ruling, maybe the intent is to saw chaos, or maybe the intent is for Palestinians not to go back to Northern Gaza at all. Not sure what "they openly admit on Israeli TV" means here. Who is "they" what is "Israeli TV". This is a random person on a random channel, not a policy maker. It's very common in a war to go after the symbols of the enemy's regime as part of trying to force them to surrender.
- [4] I am not familiar with this story. Israel is and has been blowing up tunnels with explosives. Israel also blows up buildings that can be used as enemy cover. I can't say anything about this specific incident, do you have more references? Do we know this isn't fake news? Not from Gaza? Not this conflict? Not the place the Tweet says it is?
There are tactical reasons for Israel to attack buildings. There are tunnel entrances in many buildings. There are booby traps. They're used as cover by the enemy. One thing that's interesting to note is that the footage from where the prisoners were taken seems to show buildings still standing. The camera pans around and gives us views up the streets where buildings are also still standing.
All that said I'm sure there's some element of retribution, deterrence, and trying to break the will of the enemy and get them to surrender, in the massive scale of destruction. It's also a show of force to others who might contemplate attacking Israel (like Hezbollah). Wars are ugly.
I reject any comparison to WW-II Germany. These is insulting and offensive to the victims. If you want to make comparisons look at the Hamas.
- Amichai Eliyahu, Israel's heritage minister: "that "there are no non-combatants in Gaza," adding that providing humanitarian aid to the Strip would constitute 'a failure.'" [8]
In the same interview: "When asked by the interview whether a nuclear weapon could be used on Gaza, Eliyahu responded: 'That's one way.' " [9]
[8]https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-05/ty-article/ne...
[9]https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-minister-suggested-nu...
Some of those statements are also reprehnsible and are should be and are rightly condemned, within Israel as well.
But do you have a similar list of all the statements that Israeli officials have made that go against these? Because there are far more of those, they just don't make it into circulation like these. There are many, many on the record statements of Israeli officials specifically saying that the war will be conducted justly, morally, while trying to minimize civilian casualties.
You can choose to dismiss those as "well they have to say it to please the world", and insist that these statements you've linked are the only ones that matter, but then you're just choosing what to believe based on your own prior beliefs going into this.
Begin is rolling in his grave as we speak. There is nothing between today's Likud and any historic version of that party. That's one thing.
The Likud (under the leadership of Sharon, who is also rolling in his grave) is also the party that withdrew from Gaza and handed it to the Palestinian Authority, dismantling settlements (by force). The Likud (under Begin's leadership) was the party that made peace with Egypt and gave Sinai back, also dismantling Israeli settlements (by force).
I don't think the history of the Irgun is really relevant here. At any rate, the views of the Likud shifted substantially and current party called "Likud" has really zero connection to the Likud at the time of Begin/Shamir/Sharon etc.
Strongly disagree. There are honest debates and questions here. I am learning from them, though I’m also fact checking everything that surprises.
You need to zoom in, zoom out, the history is vast, there's the big picture, there are details. Most of what you'll encounter online and in the media, on both sides really, is propaganda.
I hate sports analogies (doubly so with something as serious as this), but… you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take or the debates you don’t have.
Actually I find the discussion on HN has brought up many useful insights on a complex conflict that provokes emotional responses. It's a model that many other communities could learn from.
Do you have a reason to assume they don’t do so? The reported 2:1 ratio is absolutely in line with modern warfares, especially considering the very very densely populated urban environment.
And I'm sure you will accept Hamas strikes against Israel as justified as long as they deem the IDF as a terrorist organization? Or is it only your view of who is or is not a terrorist organization that matters?
We should never let labels like "terrorist" be used to justify using any means neccassary to ensure their removal. There is always the null option - do nothing. How much civilian casualties are there with that option vs. indescriminate eradication of anyone near Hamas?
I mean, fire the general in charge of security and put competent people on your walls to avoid any further incursions, and then work to remove the million settlers you've pushed onto stolen lands.
It's insane how Israel has managed to sell this fiction that they have a right to slaughter tens of thousands because a few terrorists must be hiding amongst them.
1) An air strike at the building, destroying it and killing most of its inhabitants, and leaving a minority of them wounded.
2) A squad of soldiers enters the building and executes most of the inhabitants at close range, and wounds and leaves alive a minority of them.
Most people would call scenario 2) a deliberate massacre that cannot be justified. Many people would, however, call scenario 1) a legitimate military strategy with unfortunate collateral damage that cannot be avoided. Question is, why? The outcome is the same, but for some reason the impersonality of striking from distance (air strikes, missiles, or artillery fire) seems to make it acceptable in many bystanders' eyes.
Nowhere in any civilised state in the world do the authorities just go in and kill everyone in a building to get to a few.
It's beyond insane.
The fiction you've created to rationilise this is that there is a "war", but there is no fucking war. It's an occupying force slaughtering its hostages to punish a relative handful among them.
If there's a war, where is the army that the IDF is fighting? How many losses have the IDF had? Where is the front-line of this war? Where is the footage of this so called "war"?
These answers are obvious. You would’ve been able to answer your questions yourself if you were earnestly looking to do so.
Considering that they killed 15K+ civilians in various ways in just a couple of weeks , and bombed two thirds of the buildings in north gaza including hospitals, refugee camps, they were certainly not trying very hard not to kill them. So practically, this doesn't make a big difference.
It seems the order were "bomb anything that may have a hamas member nearby, and don't bother about any civilian nearby (even israelis hostages).
That doesn't change the tragedy of innocents being killed - that's still a horrible tragedy. But Israel is not going around just killing civilians for no reason, as that number makes it seem.
Also, since you mention civilian vs militant casualties, it might be worth mentioning that hundreds of the Israeli casualties on Oct 7 were Israeli soldiers.
And yes, it's not a secret that in addition to the hundreds of civilians that Hamas targeted, it also attacked military bases. (Though also worth mentioning that it's illegal to kill soldiers too, if they've surrendered and/or don't have weapons on them.)
But yes, I think Hamas targeting bases is one reason I consider this to be an invasion into Israel. Since Hamas has promised to invade again and again, it's very clear that it cannot be lived with peacefully.
Besides, even if that were the order, that doesn’t make it illegal or immoral. Destroying military assets is an essential part of war. If you want civilian losses to be minimized, you’d do well to keep military assets clearly delineated from civilian zones. If you don’t and your people die as a result… well, that’s on you, not on the enemy you’re fighting.
The 1% most extreme on both sides want to drag you down to their level, don't let them.
Again, none of that, to me, vitiates the right of an Israeli person to live peacefully in Israel, but I don't take kindly to anyone's nationalist fantasy, and I find it absurd that people continue to trade in the kind of simplistic tribal patriotism that just regurgitates their ethnic narrative.
The US has huge military presences in both countries, and if they really wanted to shut down funding to those institutions they could do it tomorrow.
We know that Netanyahu deliberated supported these groups to shut down opposition in Gaza by his own accord and that he has even recently asked to send more funding[1]. The talking heads also want you to believe that this is some sort of protection money out of goodwill for the poor civilians in Gaza.
I listened to some Palestinians on twitter spaces the other day and they told explained to people how the political landscape is actually a lot more complex than we are led to believe from media.
One person breaking down Hamas really well has been Brian Berletic from the new atlas[2]. Some people here might not like him, because he very much in favour of China, but I still urge everyone to take a look at his Palestine analysis.
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/mossad-chief-top-general-visit...
How?
How did Hamas come into power? What are its goals? What have they promised to do to accomplish those objectives?
Their goals are of malicious intent, and they have demonstrated that they're willing to do anything to accomplish them.
About innocent Palestinians, I understand their fears (at least I hope I do). But, _as of this moment_, focusing the narrative on them and Israel is just a cunning way to further drive a wedge between them, and muddle the waters.
Re: "any other way is a can of worms". I agree with this statement.
Putting these two statements together means there will never be peace in Palestine. It sucks....
So what exactly is your solution then? To create 10-20 times the suffering that has led to the growth of Hamas to begin with?
But let's say, for the sake of the argument, that that line of reasoning is justified, which for the record, I don't think it is. How does that then justify the violence, and the killings happening in the West Bank? How does it justify shooting Palestinians in the US?
Nobody here wants to hear it, but the only country that has gotten a hold of its Islamist terrorism problem without mass bombing is China. And contrary to what people in the US like to hear the Organization of Islamic Cooperation which comprises dozens of Muslim countries, have praised Chinas efforts to build infrastructure and schools. The US shouts about Uyghur rights all the time and then bombs them the moment they hang out with the Taliban for training[1].
Even the guy who came up with the Uyghur genocide says that the people working in the factories are treated well, and yet that's somehow a bad thing[2].
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-targets-chinese-uighu...
[2] https://twitter.com/adrianzenz/status/1732406580623098274
The parents of Ethan Crumbley's victims asked for maximum penalty - sounds a lot like eye for an eye right and is right here in the US. A dad of one of Nasser's victims asked to be alone with Nassar for 5 minutes. When the judge (obviously) declined that request that guy jumped over the fence in the courtroom trying to get to Nassar.
What do you think regular people would do when their kids are killed? Or their brothers and sisters are killed?
For individuals, that is simply wrong. If my brother were to kill an innocent kid and that kid's father were to kill my brother, as much as I love my brother, I'd hate him for killing an innocent kid and I'd totally understand the father of the kid killing my brother.
Would I suffer? Sure. And I'd be ashamed of what my brother did. But I wouldn't go out and kill the kid's father.
It's totally ridiculous to consider killers doing mass shooting should be given a second chance to mass shoot again and it's totally normal parents of some of the dead kids want lifetime jail (or the death penalty).
And I don't think the parents of the mass shooter would, in turn, go on a killing spree. They know fully well what their kid got is well deserved.
I remember reading about a psychology case of two sisters getting constantly raped by their father.
One of them finally grabbed the dad’s rifle and shot him. One of them recovered and went on to live a normal life and the other spent the rest of her life in treatment.
But what’s ultimately clear is that Israel in its current form is not sustainable. Either they change, meaning they stop calling and treating people they don’t like, like animals, or they launch an all out war with all their neighbors in which case all bets are off. The media is guilty in this. If they hadn’t perpetuated this myth that the USA is infinitely powerful and will defeat anyone standing in Israel’s way they would have had to find a way to arrange themselves with their neighbors.
Yes
> What do you think a father who lost his kids in an airstrike will do next?
That’s not how people get radicalised. Students are taught in Gaza that the Jews stole their land, that Jews are from Europe, that dying as a martyr is the best death and that when they grow up they should kill as many Jews as possible. Many of Hamas’ fighters are only 15 or 16 years old.
How did Hamas come to power? Via democratic elections and by winning a subsequent civil war.
What are their goals? Total Palestinian liberation and the restoration of the pre 1948 borders (a.k.a one state solution).
How do they promise to achieve these goals? Via armed struggle, a.k.a. intifada and revolution.
Hamas came into power after a fair democratic election in 2006. Outside observers monitored the elections and all agreed they were correct and fair. The only major interference actually came from Israel which backed the rival political group Fatah. Following the election the Palestinian civil war broke out in Gaza, which Hamas won. After which they took full control of the Gaza strip. There has not been an election since then, neither on Gaza nor on the West Bank. Aside: The legislative council in Gaza was demolished by the Israeli army last November.
Meanwhile on the West Bank Fatah took power, where they control the Palestinian Authority. It is interesting to see the fate of the territory each faction controls. While Gaza suffers a blockade and constant military interventions, the West Bank is suffering from constant incursion from settlers and military raids as well as further partitioning of their lands, illegal settlements, military checkpoints, etc.
In simple terms, Fatah supports the two state solution, among with most of the international community, which is why many Western nations view them as the legitimate government despite Hamas having won the election fair and square. Hamas on the other hand at first did not recognize Israel as a state, and wanted all of historic Palestine under Palestinian control. Since 2006 they have somewhat eased their stance against Israel, but are still calling for decolonization and one state.
The Palestinian Authority (and Fatah by extension) is not popular among Palestinians. The way I understand it is that people view them as a colonial government, pandering to the interest of their colonizers. It is my understanding that Hamas is viewed favorably, as pandering to the interests of the colonizers has not left the West Bank in a nice state for the indigenous population.
In short, in simple terms (as per my limited understanding), the two state solution is not seen as the right path inside Palestine, so people actually support Hamas’ one state solution, and see the fight for decolonization as legitimate. This may be a tough reality for westerners to accept as Hamas is only portrait by their very real and devastating atrocities, but seldomly seen as liberation fighters and never recognized for their decolonization efforts.
Instead of relying on western analysis of the situation, I actually like to take in some historic comparisons. The Mau Mau in Kenya were indeed very brutal, and conducted very severe crimes against, however their fight—with the hindsight of history—was indeed very just, and resulted in the liberation of Kenya from the oppressive British colonial rule. Another example is FLN in Algeria, which probably had even more popular support then the Mau Mau, and were even more brutal in their fight against their French colonial oppressors.
This is an oversimplification. A few months before the election, Israel pulled out all its forces/settlements/infrastructure from Hamas-dominated Gaza, while keeping them in place in the West Bank where Hamas was stronger. This was a huge victory handed on a silver platter to Hamas, by the administration of Israeli PM Ariel Sharon (who the Palestinians call the "Butcher of Beirut" [0]).
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_from_Gaz...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_e...
Fatah had more support in elections (yellow) in areas with former Israel settlements.
> In the lead-up to the elections, on 26 September 2005 Israel launched a campaign of arrests against PLC members. 450 members of Hamas were detained, mostly those involved in the 2006 PLC elections. The majority of them were kept in administrative detention for different periods.[19] In the election period, 15 PLC members were captured and held as prisoners.[20]
> On 21 December 2005 Israeli officials stated their intention to prevent voting in East Jerusalem, which, unlike most of the Palestinian-inhabited areas that were planned to participate in the election, was under Israeli civil and military control.
> On the day of the election, the ballot boxes were held in Israeli Post Offices inside Jerusalem. Israeli police officers were present to monitor the proceedings of the election. At the end of the day the Israeli authorities transferred the ballot boxes to the Palestinian Authority.[19]
Question: How is withdrawing from Gaza interfering with the election while these actual examples of interference aren’t?
It seems to me if your narration of history were true (which I’m not sure it is) then withdrawing from Gaza but not the West Bank was merely a dumb move, not interference.
EDIT: To be clear, I don’t believe—as did observers at the time—that these interference efforts had a significant impact on the results. I believe these elections were fair and accurate despite some inference efforts by Israel. Whatever politics Israel conducted before the election was just that, politics. Every participant or stakeholder in election which holds any amount of power over the electorate does these politics before and during elections.
I made no narration of history.
In some perverse way, the objection to the two state solution forces the one state solution, which is likely the only solution that would ever work. Jews and Arabs living side by side in the same country as equal citizens. Hamas isn't interested in that solution either.
Except that Israel has Arabs already, living side by side with the Jews there. Palestinians have rejected that.
Palestinians did not reject a one state solution. Most Israelis don't want that. I.e. annex the West Bank and Gaza and have a single country, let's call it "Israel-Palestine".
I think the Israeli Arabs are a model/proof that it can work. It might need a generation or two to get there.
If you want more radical ideas then if all Palestinian Arabs convert to Judaism we can also solve the problem pretty quickly...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/unrwa-continues-to-teac...
Imagine that was done here (in the US), those teachers might get a talking to, but nobody would buy that they're teaching hate unless students or observers say something.
If someone were to scrub your social media accounts, would they find 0 likes or shares of 'hateful content'? Depending on who you follow, that could be anything from sharing videos of the IDF's attacks, Hamas' attacks, Likud's charter, or even some dude that edited their viral post to inject something positive about Mein Kampf
The reason Arabs supported the British against the Ottomans was because they wanted to create a unified Arab nation: https://awayfromthewesternfront.org/campaigns/egypt-palestin.... And Arabs got the overwhelming majority of the territory they wanted (notwithstanding the many minority groups they had conquered in the Levant), with the exception of what became Israel. Put differently, you could say that Arabs got 0% of Israel, and that’s technically true. But it’s not an accurate description of what they got in comparison to what they actually wanted.
I was (obviously) referring to their share of the population of Mandatory Palestine specifically.
Talking about “how much of Mandatory Palestine the Arabs got” is contrived, when it was just a part of a much larger Arab territory under the Ottomans, and was planned to be part of a much larger Arab territory after the Ottomans.
> The war had two main phases, the first being the 1947–1948 civil war, which began on 30 November 1947,[19] a day after the United Nations voted to adopt the Partition Plan for Palestine, which divided the territory into Jewish and Arab sovereign states, and an international Jerusalem (UN Resolution 181). Partition was accepted by the Jewish leadership, but rejected by Palestinian Arab leaders and the Arab states.
Many of these purchases were from wealthy Ottoman landowners who had in many cases never seen the land they owned. The peasant families that actually lived on the land for generations had no say in the matter. I'm not faulting the purchasers for conducting legal business transactions, if anything the fault belongs to the feudal system of the Ottoman Empire—but none of that matters to someone who has suddenly lost their home and livelihood.
> Arabs weren’t to be expelled from the remainder
I don't think the historical record bears that out. Why did Israel not let the civilians it displaced return once the war ended, if the displacements were merely a temporary military necessity? And certainly massacres like Deir Yassin were not military necessities, though they did scare many Palestinians into fleeing.
The question we were talking about above is: What caused the Arabs to attack Israel the day after the UN Declaration? Note: it was not just Arabs in Mandatory Palestine, it was Arabs in Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, and Iraq. All of them attacked Israel. Why? It wasn’t Arabs in Palestine being forced to leave their land. That wasn’t part of the partition plan, and hadn’t happened yet. The Israeli Declaration of Independence specifically asks Arabs to stay and become equal citizens.
As to why Israel hasn’t allowed Arabs who fled to return, I suspect it’s because the Arab countries tried to kill Israel in its crib, and then expelled a million Jews from their own lands.
I must admit I don't know as much as I would like about this, so please correct me if I say something stupid (and share reading recommendations), but: my understanding is, "Israel" at this point was composed of several factions who disagreed greatly about methods. Probably Ben-Gurion did not have ethnic cleansing in mind, but Irgun and Lehi did, which was enough—the most radical factions were also most willing to fight, which gave them outsize power. (Though even Ben-Gurion did not intend to stay only within the borders allotted by the UN, he intended to take control of even Jewish settlements outside the partition borders.)
As for the war: the invasion by the Arab countries upon Israel's declaration of independence was an expansion of a civil war within Palestine that had already been going on for more than 5 months, and that the Palestinians were decisively losing. The Arab states hoped mostly to save face and to stop the flood of Palestinian refugees that would result if the current trajectory continued.
As well, there was fighting in the streets. They had to turn off the lights at night and hide in the basement to avoid raids. There was a sniper who was shooting at their apt from a nearby mosque and they would find shells on their balcony. They lived on Ben Yahuda St.
Just thought readers might appreciate a first hand account of what it was like to be a Jewish Israeli at the time.
We live in a post truth era and not sure what can be done about that. You'd think that with the Internet and access to information people can do research but research is hard. There are many, sometimes conflicting accounts of historical events. It's so easy to be sucked into echo chambers. Any thesis you have can be easily supported.
Unfortunately, it’s part of a larger victimhood narrative that has become an important part of Muslim identity. “Our once proud civilization has been oppressed by the west, including ripping away our holy city of Jerusalem and giving it to the Jews.” And because the Muslim world was an important participant in the worldwide socialist movement, that narrative has taken hold among European leftists who otherwise wouldn’t have a horse in the race.
Why do the Arab countries care so much about Palestine? It’s not like they go around spending their blood and treasure to protect other oppressed groups. Saudi just bombed the shit out of Yemen. The reason they want to get rid of Israel is because they view this as a matter of Arab territorial integrity.
My Bangladesh family is posting the paratrooper meme on my FB. Why? Because they view the existence of Israel as an affront to territorial integrity of the Islamic world. You cannot understand the situation Israel is in from a western secular point of view.
Since after Israel's founding, the Arab states have initiated war against it exactly once: the 1973 Yom Kippur war. (Technically, I guess you could count Iraq's 1991 rocket attacks as a second time?) In all other cases, either Israel attacked first, or Israel's opponent was not a recognized state actor.
The implicit assumption is that any place with a majority of "Arabs" would ethnically cleanse all the Jews or become an Islamic theocracy, so we must view everything through the lens of competing ethno-states. It's important to challenge this assumption. Ethno-states are inherently violent because every population is a mixture of different ethnicities, and an ethno-state needs to maintain a majority of a certain population. If the "wrong" group's population grows in an ethno-state, it becomes a "demographic problem" that the government needs to "solve". This is why carving up the world into such states is never a lasting solution for peace.
Aside: "Arab" and "Jew" are not mutually exclusive. You can be an Arab Jew in the same way you can be a Hispanic Jew - Arab is a distinction based on one's mother language not one's religion. This is why the Arab League includes countries in north Africa where most people aren't descended from ancestral Arabians. The history of and literature of Judeo-Arabic is an interesting rabbit hole: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Jews
I'm sure Hamas feels the same way! I'm not going to say whether one or two-state solution is best, that's for Palestinians and Israelis to decide, but something's gotta give.
Yes, I don't think Palestinian Christians would love the idea of a caliphate in any case…
> Territorial gains from their conquest of the Levant
Again, for the daily life of the average resident of Gaza or the West Bank, this matters not a whit.
This is simply not true. Almost none of the world is ethnostates.
The biggest cosmopolitan countries are the United States and Brazil if I remember correctly. Maybe Canada too. Europe is moving in that direction. Countries that have a diverse citizenry are more of an exception though. Not that I disagree with your probable view that we should all live in diverse secular democracies, I just think your claim that almost none of the world is ethnostates is somewhat suspect.
I agree with the idea that Israel would ideally be a single secular state, but navigating that transition while preserving it as the safest place the Jews of the world can go would be an enormous challenge. The situation sucks and resists simple answers.
The UN doesn't have the firepower to force Israel to do anything it doesn't want to do, and doesn't have the desire to force Palestine to do anything it doesn't want to do.
As an outsider to this feud, perhaps the best thing for me to do is not to judge either of them. I think it’s human to want to pick a side, but they’re not making it easy either way, by now. War is ugly, and I feel sad about and disappointed in that region for reminding me how bad people can be…
I wish they would stop fighting and dying but i got no power to change that. If that’s what they wanna do, it’s up to them.
I was really looking forward to a trip to Israel this year but now i guess that’s on hold…too dangerous
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-adopts-divisive-la...
Or this? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaization_of_the_Galilee
These are simply not normal things for a country to do in the 21st century. That doesn't mean I don't have massive problems with what these other countries are doing, or what the US is doing, but to say they're ethno-states like Israel in my view is a false equivalency.
> but navigating that transition while preserving it as the safest place the Jews of the world can go
Is it though? I know Jewish folks in the US with family in Israel, and it doesn't seem like they'd feel safer in Israel. These policies don't seem to be making Jews safer.
> Saudi Arabia is named after the Arabs.
nit: It's named after Arabia which is a geographic region that's been named after the Arabs for centuries. The disturbing part of the name Saudi Arabia is that it's named after a specific family of despots, not that it refers to Arabia. But even being named after an ethnic group doesn't make your country an ethno-state.
I agree.
And I'm not saying that any countries are better or worse at being an ethnostate than Israel, just that there are many countries where racial identity is prominent. China as an ethnostate is complicated (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Dream for some examples), but 91% of people in China are Han Chinese. That culture is predominant and the Chinese state has an official language associated with that identity. Likewise, foreigners make up just about 2% of the population in Japan (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Japan). Japan is known to be an insular country that has a reputation for xenophobia. That's what I meant by de facto. Both countries have a dominant culture in a more pronounced way than the United States, for example. China also practices ethnic clensing with things like the Uyghur cultural genocide, which could be compared to some of the policies you linked.
Most European countries historically functioned like ethnostates. They’re trying to change that, but not successfully.
I don’t believe diverse countries are sustainable in the long run. Look at what happened to Jews in Europe. They were living in peace with their neighbors for hundreds of years, and then their neighbors turned on them and massacred them.
Progroms were not exactly a new thing in europe, but frequently happened over the centuries. The 19. and beginning of the 20. century was rather a quite peaceful episode, with jews getting equal citizen rights etc. but the hate did not go away, as can be seen, once the Nazis took over.
Calling France an ethnic state is saying the Normans are the same group as the Provençal. It's like doing the same in Spain; a sure way to lose new friends. France and Spain are also old empires.
Japan is something else. The description makes sense there. Maybe also for the Nordic countries of Europe.
At the level of spoken language, Han natively speak several mutually unintelligible languages; even at the written level, most of the mutually intelligibility only exists in the more formal registers. Are Han really one ethnic group then? Or more like a family of closely related ethnic groups?
> Japan is something else. The description makes sense there
Are Ryukyuans the same ethnic group as Yamato Japanese?
France officially rejects the idea of French ethnic nationalism. France’s nationalism is civic and linguistic - the French nation is defined in terms of citizenship and language, not in terms of ethnic ancestry - in fact, the French government does not even know the ethnic/racial composition of their country, since they refuse to collect statistics on it. So I disagree with the suggestion that France is an “ethnostate”
> Saudi Arabia is named after the Arabs
Both the Saudi royal family and the Saudi religious establishment have always opposed Arab nationalism; the only significant Arab nationalist force in Saudi politics was the outlawed Arab Socialist Action Party opposition, which was mostly crushed by the Saudi regime in the 1980s, and by 1991 or so was extinct.
If we waived a magic wand and made Palestine and Israel one country we wouldn't have peace. We'd have a a bloody civil war that makes the current conflict look like childs play.
Ethnostates are still highly relevant today, especially for Jews.
Freeing the slaves (a task which required us to fight the deadliest war in our history) was still the right and necessary thing to do. "You broke it, you bought it."
That's not what I'm asking for. In the US, Native Americans and descendants of slaves have full legal and political rights (in fact, Native Americans have extra political rights not granted to other citizens). Israel also can give Palestinians full legal and political rights, either in a separate state or as part of a one-state solution, without compromising its continued existence.
Because it would mean the end of a Jewish state. Combine Israel and Palestine and you get roughly 50% Jews, 50% Arabs. (5.3M Arabs in Palestine, 7.1M Jews in Israel and 2M Arabs in Israel).
What else is the long term trajectory here? Israel can't keep occupying Palestinians indefinitely (and I'm using the term "occupy" in the Israeli meaning, not in the Palestinian meaning, fwiw). Two states as we've seen is not going to work. Anyways, I know this is a hard time to talk about this.
Two states are much better than one in my opinion, and the PA-led pseudo-state is much better than Hamas-controlled Gaza. Israel and Palestine need a manageable divorce, not a forced and unhappy marriage.
Regardless, the PA does not advocate for one state, Hamas does not advocate for one state, and the vast majority of Israelis do not want one state, so I think this is kind of a moot point.
I think if Israel stated that is the goal, to make Palestinians equal citizens in the larger single country, and had a plan as to how that goal could be accomplished, that would be more constructive than the current stall until things blow up plan. I'd like to think many/some Palestinians would buy in and the rest would get no choice anyways.
This plan naturally involves dismantling the PA and taking complete civilian control over the entire territory including formally annexing it to Israel. It should also include some clear continuous benefits to Palestinians from where they stand today (which is pretty bad, so shouldn't be a problem).
A variation of this plan could be some sort of federation, where the country is "Israel" and there are two states under that country. Not unlike Canada or the US. That could also address the population ratios vs. democracy (just like democracy in the US or Canada isn't a proportional system). So we can have a parliament some fixed representation for different parts. I think Lebanon also has something along those lines. I'm sure over time we'll see coalitions that cross those "state" boundaries.
As long as there's a constitution, and there are the right mechanisms, checks and balances, to maintain that, and enough time to get beyond the current tribal let's kill everyone mindsets, it can work.
It it leads to a peaceful and stable state that would be a good thing.
Is there a need for a Jewish state? Lots of ethnic groups do not have their own state. Mine does not - a much smaller number of us, and we are disappearing through mixing.
So maybe there’s no strict need for a Jewish state, but I can see how going back to a collective of (often oppressed) minorities is not appealing.
But you don’t even need to look into history. Today Malaysia and Indonesia both have non-muslim minorities. Bosnia and Herzegovina has slight muslim majarity and is doing relatively fine.
When Turks left about 100 years ago Muslims were a minority but thanks to much higher birth rate they now want to set the rules in Bosnia. Serbs know that, that's why they resisted, and still resist, a unified Bosnia.
Ottoman Empire tolerated Christians, true, but to achieve anything in life you had to convert to Islam. Otherwise you could just remain a haraç-paying Christian peasant without any chance of education or growth. Haraç was a tax for being a non-Muslim.
It was super hard to be a thriving Christian under Turks. In fact the Turkish policy was to demographically and economically slowly bleed Christians and for those with ambition to convert to Islam.
Even though the current Israeli government may be more conservative than the ones previous, I see few possibilities for a more socially liberal government if Israel were to combine with the more-conservative majority-Muslim Palestinian states, given that there is not a single majority Muslim country in the world that is close to as socially liberal as Israel is, even now. Especially given that Muslim majority countries have a tendency to start employing Sharia law, even in Malaysia, far separated from the Middle-Eastern Muslim world.
> Even though the current Israeli government may be more conservative than the ones previous, I see few possibilities for a more socially liberal government if Israel were to combine with the more-conservative majority-Muslim Palestinian states
According to some forecasts, roughly 50% of all Israeli children born in 2065 will be Haredi. [0] If that's right, Israel could well end this century with a majority of the population being Haredi, and Haredi parties in control of the Knesset and Israeli government. I doubt a socially liberal Israeli government could be possible in that circumstance; whatever remains of the secular minority may not be "strong", it may be politically weakened, demoralised, and increasingly diminished by emigration and a low birth rate.
And all that's assuming there is no change to the relationship with the Palestinians. So maybe a change won't do as much as you think – it might just hasten the inevitable.
[0] https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-05-22/ty-article-opinio...
So destruction now or destruction some time after 2065? I know what I'd pick ...
Well, realistically, no big change is likely to happen to the relationship with the Palestinians in the near future. Maybe in another 20-40 years. So the time gap between the two scenarios may be smaller than you suggest.
October 7 was calculated to derail the peace negotiations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and in the short-to-medium term it succeeded. But, I expect that (privately) MbS is really angry at Hamas for doing that, and I think most other Arab governments likely feel similarly. That doesn’t bode well for Hamas in the long-run.
It also shows, of course, that Arab countries have not changed and have zero interest or respect for the ICC or the UN. But they do seem to respect that Iran wants to destroy them. And if stopping Iran requires war in Gaza, then they're perfectly ok with that. They have barely denounced Israel over it, in fact most haven't done that at all.
Hardliners in the current Israeli government (e.g Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich, Amichai Eliyahu) want to "annex Judaea and Samaria". There seems to be a bit of ambiguity about whether they mean only Area C, or the whole of the West Bank (or even annex Area C now as a precursor to annexing A and B later.)
If they did that, what would happen to the Palestinians living in those areas – would they become Israeli Arabs? Would they first have to request Israeli citizenship? Would they be entitled to it, or would it be up to the Israeli government to decide whether to extend it to them?
"One state solution" is an idea primarily associated with Israel's peacenik far left, but maybe the best way to achieve it might (paradoxically) be to let the Israeli far right get a big chunk of what it wants?
> If you want more radical ideas then if all Palestinian Arabs convert to Judaism we can also solve the problem pretty quickly...
Speaking of radical ideas, I find the "cantonization" proposals [0] for the future of Israel rather fascinating. Basically convert it into a federation of different "cantons" representing the different sectors of Israeli society (secular, religious, Haredi, Arab). These cantons might be partially geographical and partially personal – i.e. every citizen belongs to a canton personally, the canton also controls the territory where its members are a majority, but has to protect the rights of minorities from other cantons in its territory; individuals will receive some government services from the canton of residence (e.g. public utilities), others might be provided by their personal canton (e.g. education, family law)
[0] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-05-05/ty-article-ma...
Sort of apartheid.
It's more wishful thinking than a plan.
Under the "canton" proposal, there would still be a national government in charge of the military, intelligence agencies, diplomacy, foreign trade, the currency, the banking system, etc. The "cantons" would primarily control local matters, schools, housing, family law, religious affairs, etc. So I don't think it would make much difference to military.
It would basically be transforming Israel from a unitary state (like New Zealand) to a federal state (like the US, Canada, Australia, Germany, Switzerland) - however, with the added factor that the top-level national subdivisions would be based on cultural factors rather than purely geographical ones – which would be a system more like that of Belgium.
Regarding Lebanon-for all of Lebanon’s woes, it still survives, it hasn’t broken up into a new civil war; and for all the criticism of its political system, maybe its unique political system has been one of the factors preventing that outcome. And I think Lebanon’s biggest problem is that the national government lacks a monopoly on force, with sectarian political parties controlling their own militias beyond state control (of which Hezbollah’s is the most significant example.) I don’t think the “cantonalisation” proposal for Israel is going to lead to that, since all the versions of it I’ve seen have the military, intelligence, law enforcement, prisons, etc under the 100% control of the national government. Lebanon’s problem in that area is a leftover of its civil war; Israel is not going to have the same problem unless it has a civil war (which I still think is very unlikely)
I'm not doubting it will be grounded in peace, a stalemate can be a form of that as nothing will happen. A state not only keep residents safe (ideally they should try do this). It becomes a failed state when a state is no longer in control. When other government services like utilities are no longer delivered, that's when the failed state question can also come into being. Lebanon isn't quite there thank goodness but it's not great either.
Because they’re a minority. Look at what happens when Jews are a minority in a Muslim-majority country.
Even if Palestinian Arabs could get okay with Jews it would be a powder keg long term. Because the whole Muslim world hates the idea of Jews in the holy land, and uses Palestinians as a proxy against Jews. I’m from a “moderate” Muslim country. Out of thousands of Jews that used to live in the country, only a few families are left (openly). It’s really as bad as people think.
Why are your trying to blame all Palestinians, like as if they are a monolith and all of them are troublemakers?
If Egypt was smart they would ask for them all, ask the world for major help, look like hero's, and grow the economy.
I believe breaking things up into "us" vs "them" is the root of much evil in the world.
Would it be more meaningful to say "dads killing dads" or "this specific person killing that specific person" ?
That would be a nuanced view. The reality is that most people and especially most people who post their views online are not capable of seeing things that way.
What I would and do blame the current government for is that Oct 7th even happened, the scale, and the immediate response.
EDIT: I also blame the current government for trying to eliminate any possibility of a two state solution and effectively supporting the Hamas rule in Gaza as means of accomplishing that. I can probably blame them for lots more. That said the actual Oct 7th attack is all on Hamas and the response is pretty much the only response you'd have seen from any Israeli government (or anyone else in that position for that matter). We're in a place today that is a different place and we can talk all we want about what other possible places we could be.
I'll agree with you on the west bank policy being a Likud/right-wing policy in general. We can also talk about why the Israeli public is more right wing leaning and the left has all but disappeared.
I think those two groups are really more mutually exclusive than what you're trying to portray. At least to most Israelis they are. Because for most Israelis, when you say "peaceful within 1967 borders", it reads as "kill all the Jews in Israel". Many (most?) Palestinians will also not accept this statement because they consider Israel in the 1967 border to be the Palestinian state. If there was an overlap we wouldn't really be where we are, we'd have peace. I have not met many people who are in this overlap, i.e. they're both "pro-Israel" and "pro-Palestine" in a meaningful way. Most people do not hold nuanced views at all, don't know that much about the conflict, don't really understand what's going on, hold on to simplistic narratives and "windows" they get from the media and social media. For me as an (ex-) Israeli your equating the response of Israel to the Hamas puts you squarely in the anti-Israeli camp. You blank statement "massacre of civilians under the orders of Likud (and other far right parties)" feels like a blood libel. This is just my emotional response to how you phrase things. So that doesn't seem to be an overlap of pro-israeli and pro-palestinian.
* There really isn't any better deathrates when the other side is explicitly based on indifference to its own civillian casualties. Mosul had 40K civillian deaths in a 2.5x smaller city (by population)[0]. I fail to see why Israel can't use the same legal tactics** the US used to defend itself versus jihadists, except the Israeli death rate is lower and the US had far less justification.
* Focusing on the Likud is a mistake. Every Israeli political party would have counterattacked at Gaza, with about the same (legal) tactics, but probably much more aggressively. Leaving next door to a genocidal terrorist regime was unacceptable, actually moreso to the Israeli Left. After all, what's the point of two states if the other side can do _anything_ and get support afterwards?
And I mean anything - the attack was into 1967 lines, deathrates much higher than in Gaza. The irony is that many people that say they support 2ss are trying to enshrine impunity here, basically destroying any hope that either side will support 2ss. That's why Bibi was the pretend 'cautious' here, because of very cynical calculation - Hamas staying weakened but alive lets Bibi kill 2ss - WB Palestinians flock to 'victorious' Hamas, while Israeli Left approach is discredited - but his hand was forced.
* Focusing on Hamas is also somewhat of a mistake, given polls show widespread crosscutting Palestinian support to Hamas action[1].
[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/mosul-m...
[1] https://www.awrad.org/files/server/polls/polls2023/Public%20...
** When we ignore scaremongering about 'starvation/disease at a massive scale' when it's not happening, the only thing the list has are actions into hospitals which even the US believes are used by Hamas.
Murder is not just worse than manslaughter it is on a different level.
Western criminal codes generally allow for no punishment, perhaps even no guilt, for a manslaughter. If Israel could remove Hamas without injuring any non-combatants I think they would. It makes a difference. Almost by definition suggesting that scale is a factor is implying that collective punishment is acceptable.
Criminal punishments are more about the social consequences than about the crime itself. If someone gets X years in prison for crime A and another person gets 2X years for crime B, it doesn't mean that crime B was twice as bad. It only means that after taking a large number of factors into account, it made sense to give twice as long sentence for crime B.
Surely you jest. How is this attack supposed to remove Hamas? It seems designed to strengthen Hamas, just as Israel has been supporting Hamas since their formation.
The existence of Hamas prevents a united Palestinian people while simultaneously giving Israel the excuse to reject a 2-state solution. If Hamas didn't exist, Israel would have to create a Hamas from scratch.
My point is that Palestinians have their share of blame.
Parent comment blamed everything on israel when clearly Palestinians have a fair share of blame - you can't deny that.
This attack is supposed to remove Hamas by killing them, or forcing them to surrender. There's a lot of legit criticism of what Israel is doing, but if you think it's designed to bolster Hamas, then you're really misunderstanding what's happening.
They can be stopped by arresting/killing the members. Why wouldn't it be possible? Similar groups have been stopped.
Not once did you mention what atrocities were committed on Hamas’s side and instead you spent all your effort justifying Hamas by arguing how you think Lukid is worse.
What actions in your opinion would be an appropriate response for people (& government) of Israel to respond to the targeted rape, murder, beheadings of the elderly, men, women, and children, which was filmed by Hamas and sometimes live-streamed on the social media accounts of their victims to show off what they have achieved?
I’m not sure you can claim to be in the middle or support ‘both sides / both peoples’ when you only have bad things to say about one of them.
Also, a reminder that Putin and Hamas were also democratically elected, and I don’t see why that has any relevance to whether their actions should be condemned or not.
Democratic processes are good because it holds those in power accountable for their actions and should not just be hand waved away as if it doesn’t matter.
And no, what Hamas has done was not mentioned, all that was said was ‘the actions of Hamas’. What actions - did they hold a bake sale? It is unclear and minimized.
So there is a very real sense in which there _are_ two mutually exclusive groups. There is also a third group wishing for nuance and understanding and thoughtful discourse of the historical context, but that group gets coded as the “other” by both of the black-and-white groups.
For better or worse, the Likud-led coalition is the current government of Israel, and Hamas is the current government of Palestine.
Britain killed a lot more German civilians than Germany killed British civilians in WWII. Does that make the British the bad guys?
This is a surprising statement as I haven’t heard of such an event happening and I’ve followed these events fairly closely.
When was the civilian massacre? Do you have a source? Or did you make it up?
> peaceful Israel within the 1967 boundaries
Israel was previously peaceful within the 1967 boundaries, in 1967. Arab states tried to destroy it in 1967 and again in 1973, resulting in Israel gaining land, something arab states now blame on Israel.
To say nothing of conflating anti-Israel sentiments with antisemitism.
> US views skew pro-israel, and GenZ is closer to 50/50
The latest Gallup[1] says it’s about 50/50 in the US across demographics and almost 70% disapproval of Israel in the 18-34 age range (so a little bit of Gen Z and a little bit of Millennials). No polls specifically and exclusively break down responses to the exact Gen Z age range, but I doubt that would bring it closer to 50/50.
Now, there’s, of course, the chicken and egg debate. Still, explicitly on TikTok, I’ve seen Goldbloom-esque studies that document that the algorithm is led by the user’s preferences instead of the other way around. I’ll see if I can find the URLs in my history.
0: https://github.com/antgoldbloom/tiktok_israel_hamas/blob/mai...
1: https://news.gallup.com/poll/545045/americans-back-israel-mi...
In fact, less Israelis support the war than any of the American groups you mentioned. Only 29% support the war, with 49% against.
(Note: the poll you cite doesn’t allow for unsure, making the numbers incomparable. I worded the above to count unsure as “not supportive of”. If you count them as “supporting”, then Americans are still about as supportive as Israelis.).
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-poll-finds...
That’s the relevant question: are you pro- or anti-Israel in their actions against Palestine? I doubt that a poll exists that just asks, “Are you pro- or anti-Israel?”.
Perhaps some polls ask about the military action and polls that ask about the settlements in the West Bank or maybe polls that ask about the general treatment of Palestinians, but to say that a poll about the military action doesn’t measure any form of pro- or anti-Israel sentiments is a bit odd.
> In fact, less Israelis support the war than any of the American groups you mentioned. Only 29% support the war, with 49% against.
I take it the Reuters article you linked to is your source for this. Still, that article talks explicitly about polling the opinion on a ground invasion, which is even more specific than “military action.”
And even then you have the Alf Landon effect : : being perceived as a minority invites voluntarily action.
They've selectively[1] searched for multiple Palestine hashtags, which all show up under the same base hashtag[2], but then count all of the hashtags as separate data points -- and then compares them to a singular Israel hashtag that includes an emoji, which won't include most results regarding Israel. What's worse, is that including a Palestine hashtag doesn't remotely guarantee that the post is pro-Palestine or anti-Israel, and the same is true for posts including Israel hashtags not necessarily being pro-Israel, which can also be seen in [2]. In reality, the #palestine hashtag is used in pro-Israel posts all the time, so the sweeping generalizations made by Anthony Goldbloom aren't based on any legitimate statistical methodology.
Instead of echoing Goldbloom's manipulation of data as factual, it should be used as an example of pro-Israel disinformation and entirely backs the article's claim. In fact, even Goldbloom admits that he made mistakes[3], and the other graph was made by him and not the company who conducted the survey, who actually disputes his claim.
I think it could even be argued that your comment, without any supporting facts other than a very pro-Israel Twitter pundit who already debunked himself, is contributing to the misinformation discussed in the article, even if you're doing so unintentionally.
[1] https://twitter.com/antgoldbloom/status/1721561226151612602/...
[2] https://www.tiktok.com/@kituuuub/video/7298048299905355041?q...
[3] https://www.semafor.com/article/12/07/2023/tiktok-antisemiti...
Is that not a reasonable interpretation? Normally a country killing many thousands of innocent children, women and men, in an act of bloody revenge is not thought well of.
That's not to condone Hamas's acts on October 7th, but to point out that indiscriminate violence is usually not an answer to anything.
The pro-israel side is from heavy manipulation of the recommendation algorithms and billions of dollars worth of propaganda investments (including paying people to post).
Also worth noting the strong pro-israel sentiment in India is only amongst extreme far-right Hindus.
To put another way, the oldest generations are in 98% agreement that the Holocaust happened, compared to 50% of young adults.
[1] https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabRepor...
"Millions of Jews were targeted for persecution, imprisonment and extermination by Nazi Germany"
It's fine for people to use the word 'Holocaust' to reference that history if they want to but it's also a word that carries some baggage and some assumption of 'specialness'. A polling company shouldn't use it, in my view. I think they would have got a (much) higher degree of agreement if they had used my suggested phrasing (or something like it). People have become increasingly wary of the way that the persecution and genocide of the Jews in the 1930s and 1940s has been elevated (e.g. by Hollywood) above the many other great persecutions and genocides that also occurred during the 20th century.
(Also, getting young people to respond to a statement such as "the Holocaust is a myth" is unnecessarily provocative and will incentivise a certain proportion to agree to it, just 'for the lolz').
According to Israeli intelligence, Hamas’s primary goal was to cause as much death and destruction in Gaza as possible. The Israeli civilians were just collateral damage.
They needed Israel to over-react and commit so many war crimes that it would force other countries into the conflict, and also get a new generation of Palestinians to sign up for the cause.
Not only did they achieve all their goals, but they did it in one day! They had budgeted for three days of slaughtering Israeli citizens, since they thought it would be harder to force a response. Since they called it off early, they presumably have more resources in reserve than expected.
As it usually goes with these conflicts, Hamas and the Israeli hardliners won on day one, and literally everyone else lost:
The strong anti-Israeli sentiment online will just justify more military investment in Israel, and might even help them use fear to win an election or two.
At the same time, Hamas recruiters can again use rational arguments to get people to sign up.
The frontline of the Israeli military (including many draftees) get screwed, as do all the people that live anywhere near the conflicts.
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2023/12/07/one-in-fi...
One in four think it was exaggerated.
That’s a somewhat defensible position if you compare what Hitler did to what Stalin and the Japanese did. (At least when I was growing up, the Holocaust coursework completely ignored the Chinese, and mentioned Gypsies in passing, if at all. They covered homosexuals though.)
The online bot armies are not really indication of public sentiment.
I wish they would instead release the full list of the 30 CEOs just like how they are doxxing the students or targeting anyone on Linkedin(via scraping) with a pro-Palestine view. Instead these people are cowards.
Secondly, its been quite fascinating watching over the years the pro-Palestinian view be the minority but then seeing this event finally being the one that broke the camel's back. I always knew that the pro-Palestinian view would become the majority view but there was no way I could have expected it to grow this quickly. Over the last few years, we have seen an erosion of free speech in the US with all these Anti-BDS laws and it just drove me up the wall seeing the right cry about free speech yet have no problem with these laws. It really felt like we were going back for a decade before we could move forward.
But this reaction is just another way that Gen-Z has really surpassed my expectations. Before this event, it was like screaming into the ether but you know what can't be faked or gamed by the Chinese or whoever else hates the US? The enormous protests occurring in the West. These are people making their own decision to go out and spend their time. Thats when I knew this isn't just another internet manipulation hogwash.
Now the powers that be are brushing off all these Gen-Z people by complaining that they have a negative mindset of the world and using protest as a coping mechanism. Elon said this nonsense the other day and I couldn't believe how little he understand Gen-Z. These are the people that watched their older siblings get taken as fools by Obama's "hope and change". They entered the world on the cusp of post-9/11, watched the GFC take hold during childhood and then graduated with loads of debt into the COVID market. Of course they have a pessimistic outlook.
Eventually a Millenial or Gen-Z will take the white house and then things will get really spicy. This really does feel like a generational divide.
Regarding the Indian support of Israel: Now THAT definitely feels like internet manipulation nonsense. I have been following the conflict for over a decade on sites like Reddit, Twitter, and HN and never have I seen so much content from India over this. All of a sudden this is super important to them. Yeah right... :/
The tweets you see of "India Israel" and the like are largely from troll farms intending to use the event to antagonize local Muslims that fall on the opposite part of the political spectrum they support. The average Indian is neither aware of the nuances of the overall conflict nor does he care, since it actually has extremely little to do with his daily life.
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38582486
For the terminally-online students this issue has almost become a litmus test - "If you are pro-Israel, you are not one of us. They say so on TikTok."
This is a very good example of how social media completely takes over and leads the herd blindly in one direction, either through manipulation, or through just natural hype and bandwagon effect.
In the past we had a few friends who would subject us to peer pressure and convince us to do stupid shit.
Now these kids are in global peer pressure groups of millions.
* All those ignored UN resolutions
Don't make this about religion. Human beings do not want to see genocide carried out on concentration camp of 2.3 million people.
Is that even legal under US law? Apparently it is in some states. Federal law does not, apparently, prohibit political discrimination. But some states do - California, New York, DC, Colorado, and North Dakota.[1]
This should be reported to the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force.[2] Anyone involved in such suppression activities may be considered an "unregistered foreign agent".[3] Anyone or any organization attempting to influence US policy on behalf of a foreign government is supposed to register. Here's the database.[4]
[1] https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/political-aff...
[2] https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/counterintelligence/foreign-...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Ac...
[4] https://search.justice.gov/search?affiliate=justice_fara
I see this as a reason to strengthen the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Politico has some coverage of the current Israel-related lobbying push.[2] There are a lot of players. "An unsanctioned coterie of pro-Israel quasi-lobbyists has descended on D.C." Some have formally registered as agents of Israel. Some haven't.
The big issue here is when activities go beyond lobbying. Anyone can lobby Congress; that's a constitutional right in the US. Getting people fired on behalf of a foreign power, though, is a legally questionable activity.
[1] https://thediplomat.com/2023/11/the-rise-and-fall-of-confuci...
[2] https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/22/pro-israel-lobbying...
Incidentally, the founder of AIPAC, Isaiah Kenen registered twice with the U.S. Department of Justice under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) as an agent for Israel. Prior to leading AIPAC, he was the leader of the American Zionist Council. He was also chief information officer for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
AIPAC's mission is pretty clear: to promote the interests of Israel. This is fine, and not unique, but that seems to me to be the textbook definition of a foreign agent, and it should be registered as such.
AIPAC has a very large budget and will be spending over $100M in 2024 to defeat any candidate for US Congress that did not align with their pro-Israel goals.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/...
1. Does AIPAC's use of dual-citizens (American-Israelis) allow it to circumvent the Foreign Agent Registration Act?
2. Is there any other analog to AIPAC operating in the United States for a foreign nation?
2. Five China news agencies and Russia Today are registered as foreign agents. There are also over 200 foreign PACs, but they're mostly businesses. The Overseas Friends of the BJP (the ruling party in India) is registered as a foreign agent. That's probably the closest match.
From Wiki: 'FARA requires those who receive funds or act on behalf of a foreign government to register as a foreign agent. However, AIPAC states that the organization is a registered American lobbying group, funded by private donations, and maintains it receives "no financial assistance" from Israel or any other foreign group'
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15721106
The documentary "Boycott" explores the legislation passed in several U.S. states, including Arkansas, Arizona, and Texas, that requires individuals to pledge not to boycott Israel as a condition for receiving government funds. This legislation emerged in response to the Palestinian-led BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement against Israel. The film follows individuals who challenged these laws, including a publisher in Arkansas, an attorney in Arizona, and a speech pathologist in Texas, highlighting their legal battles and the implications for free speech
What I have seen is a confusion (perhaps intentional) between anti-semitism, and protesting Israel’s behavior since the Hamas attack in October.
Criticizing Israel’s response is not anti-Semitism- it is literally just criticizing the response.
If we compare # of people in each country. 10/07 for Israel was like 15 9/11s (this is a quote from a President Biden speech).
So not only is it worth asking - how many Americans didnt want to fight Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. But how many would be against some sort of war like that, if tomorrow morning they woke up to a 9/11 sized attack in 15 of the biggest US cities, happening at the same time
Not only did the US go far from home to destroy Afghanistan, but the whole world joined them to do it together
> Iraq never attacked anyone
I am not sure Kuwait would agree.
[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/9994/public-opinion-war-afghani...
US foreign policy isn't nice or morally sound, but one thing it was not doing in the run-up to 9/11 and its subsequent invasion of Afghanistan was directly fucking up Afghani lives and killing Afghani children. Same can't be said for Israel in its relationship to the Palestinians.
But that said, I agree with your general point: The relationship between the US and Afghanistan is and was very different to the relationship between Israel and Palestine.
Indirectly, perhaps, but yeah, not directly and not with basically the purpose of fucking them up.
With Palestine and Israel, we were able to see it with our own eyes. I remember specifically watching TikToks of a teenage girl in Gaza posting about the evacuations, hearing the bombs in the background, etc. It felt "real" to us, which is a terrible way to put it, but I believe that is why the protests are much larger than other conflicts.
We, as a world, are seeing civilian life and casualties during a war in near real-time. This is something that many of us have never experienced before.
Good question. 75 years of history those other two conflicts lack
A lot of people were upset about China and the Uyghurs as well, for a while, but not until after it became a thing influencers talked about. And then they stopped caring after social media moved on. Even on HN, where anti-China sentiment is rampant, people no longer seem to mention it.
They secretly introduced nuclear weapons into the Middle East and refused to sign any of the treaties which are responsible for humanities current existence.
According to Snowden the NSA provides them with whatever data they'd like, even that on Americans, without any filtering whatsoever.
Bibi clowned all over Obama for years and yet he still had to agree with nearly every policy he pushed. Biden has been practically begging them to cut back on West Bank settlements. They won't even meet us there and still we send over money for them to do whatever they please.
As an American it's embarrassing.
Now, remember - you are running Israel. And, most people on the right agree with you that there should just be one land, one humanity.
But, the folks in the camps - they don't want to surrender and accept citizenship to your "one land, one humanity" country.
Or do something else, I don't care; at this point one has to try anything but this slow-motion ethnic cleansing and "two states" bantustans.
There are Arabs who are full citizens of Israel, who have elected representatives in the Israeli parliament. There are also Arab judges in the Israeli supreme court. Oh, and the population of the muslim Arab citizens of Israel is much greater now than when Israel was formed. So, no ethnic cleansing there.
The Arab population in the Palestinian areas has also multiplied. So, no ethnic cleansing there either.
Israel is good at many things but it seems to be really bad at ethnic cleansing.
But they don't live in the occupied territories, duh. They are also second-class citizens de-facto, with a constant need to go through the courts to do everything they are technically entitled to but denied in practice. They are a fifth of the population but don't express anything near a fifth of the ruling classes - to pick the example you chose, 1 out of 15 supreme court judges is Arab.
It's very much like the condition of black people in the "separated but equal" era in the US, when theoretical legal equality was simply denied in the field.
> the population of the muslim Arab citizens of Israel is much greater now than when Israel was formed.
And this is the source of much public anguish in Israeli public discourse.
> The Arab population in the Palestinian areas has also multiplied.
But their land keeps shrinking. The land claimed by settlements is cleansed indeed.
> it seems to be really bad at ethnic cleansing.
Attempted murder is still a crime.
Answering more to the spirit of the question: I believe that the situation between Israel and Palestinians is broken and can't be fixed until something unexpected happens. Neither side has an acceptable way forward.
As a rule of thumb, people who talk about right and wrong don't want peace. Those concepts are far more useful for justifying wars than ending them. Peace is achieved by compromises that make both parties lose interest in the war. There was a genuine desire for peace in the 90s, but it failed, because nobody could find an acceptable compromise. The leaders of both parties realized that the sacrifices required to make the compromise acceptable to the other side were worse than status quo.
However, criticizing our government as weak would require believing it cares about Palestinian lives in the first place, which is a highly questionable assumption at this point.
There are so many other conflicts going on with many more dead, but if it's not interracial then somehow it is not talked about.
I'd note the Ukranians worked very hard to draw attention to their war as well, and they were quite successful at that.
- Jerusalem (and more globally Israel and Palestine) is holly for Jews, Muslims and Christians ; more than half of the word population and more than 90% of US population
- Israel is a key ally of the USA, and this is a topic important in US politics for long time - including for some evangelical voters for religious question
- Westerners have colonized (or inflicted violence to) most of the non western countries on this planet in "recent" history... Israel is seen by some as a Western country colonizing just another developing country, with support of other western countries... echoing recent history for many. It is as such a symbol for a long time.
- USA, France... have had some big Islamist attack, what happened in Israel echoed to this for some people... and echoes to the clash of civilization western word vs Muslim which is central in the ideology of a growing number of westerners
- It is easier to understand, more divisive, with more people or causes we can identify with, than in Syria (everybody hates ISIS) or Yemen (arabs fighting arabs fighting other arabs in a desert ?)... And we have more images
1. The extraordinary effective Hamas organization. Hamas has set itself up to benefit from atrocities committed upon the people of Gaza. Every civilian death is a point for Hamas, the more so the better publicized it is. A point for Hamas is obviously not a point for regular people in Gaza. And Hamas provoked Israel as much as it could manage, and continues to provoke Israel by engaging in military operations from civilian sites, leading to:
2. Israel doesn’t understand this, and is entirely willing to play right into Hamas’ hands, in the name of its own security. And it looks really, really bad.
Of course, a lot of criticism of Israel is rooted in antisemitism. But saying all criticism of Israel is antisemitic deflects legitimate criticism, and makes it harder to identify legitimate antisemitism.
Who is saying this? All I've heard are people on one side insisting that people are saying this, sounds like a straw man
[1] https://twitter.com/NikkiHaley/status/1720501916088590704
There are plenty of people in Israel who are opposed to Netanyahu and were protesting against him before the war started, but don't doubt that destroying Hamas is justified.
Anti-Zionism and antisemitism are orthogonal ideas. Conflation of them is pure propaganda.
[1] "Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the modern State of Israel, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palestine—the biblical Land of Israel—was flawed or unjust in some way." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Zionism
What does "making peace" with Israel look like? Why don't you consider the West Bank to be at peace with Israel?
Was modern Israel established by making peace with its occupants?
Israel was established by consent of the legal owner of Palestine that day, British Empire, and was attacked by what you would call Palestinians today (Arabs living in former British Palestine) on the first day of existence - and never had a day of peace since then.
I in all honesty don't know what peace could look like today. It should embrace recognition of State of Israel in its borders (that's the easy part, but was never delivered from the Arab side) and realistic guarantees that it will not be attacked again (that one is hard).
What state attacked what state?
Gaza is not a state, Hamas is not a state government, it's a terrorist organization.
But also, what of the West bank, which has been at peace with Israel for decades. Why don't the Arabs living there have rights? Why are they without state? Because of the actions of terrorists in gaza? Should you share a punishment because you share an ethnicity?
Wannabe Palestinian state in 1948. Alliance of Arabic states in 1967. That's irrelevant detail IMO.
> Hamas is not a state government, it's a terrorist organization.
Tell that WHO that sees Hamas Ministry of Health as reliable source of information. Or current leadership of the West Bank that sees Hamas as legitimate partners moving on.
> Why are they without state?
Because they themselves don't see themselves separate from Gaza population. Never in the history did the leadership of West Bank go to Israel and say "we recognize you as a state, and want to make peace with you. Oh, and don't worry about Gaza, they don't have anything in common with us apart from ethnicity". Without recognition it's not a peace, it's a forced ceasefire.
1. https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/hres894/BILLS-118hres894i...
This is not the same as being critical of that state, being anti-Israel isn't antisemitic (except when it is, obviously), but nor is it anti-Zionism. Saying Netanyahu should be dragged before the Hague, that the international community should demand an immediate ceasefire or force a two-state solution, that Israel must uphold the right of return: none of these are anti-Zionism, nor antisemitic.
If your position is not that Israel must be destroyed, good, don't call yourself anti-Zionist though. If it is, then yes, that's antisemitic, or the word is meaningless.
Similarly, find another slogan besides "From the river to the sea", because that is, in fact, a call to ethnically cleanse all Jews from Israel. It has meant that since the establishment of Israel, and you don't get to wander in and say it means something different at this point. If you don't mean that, don't say it. Find literally any other way to express yourself.
I think being anti-Zionist means being against both prongs, meaning that there should no longer be a Jewish state. Given the practical implications of that, it seems hard to justify without antisemitism.
Wikipedia has a whole section [1] on "View that [anti-Zionism and antisemitism] are not interlinked", but those supporting that view seem to be using an overly-broad definition of anti-Zionism.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Zionism#View_that_the_two...
Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin is professor of Jewish History at Ben-Gurion University. He criticises Zionism, and promotes binationalism as an alternative–the idea of a single state shared equally by two nations (Arab and Jewish)–also known variously as the "one state solution" or "Israeltine" or "Isratin". [0] Obviously if he had his way, there would no longer be a Jewish state–if by that one means an exclusively Jewish state. But, I find it hard to take seriously the idea that a Jewish Israeli academic is antisemitic – his views may well be impractical and overly idealistic, but where is the evidence he's an antisemite? And I think this is just one example of the several different forms of contemporary non-antisemitic opposition to Zionism.
[0] https://www.forum-transregionale-studien.de/kommunikation/de...
> [The belief that] the modern State of Israel, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palestine—the biblical Land of Israel—was flawed or unjust in some way
This is very different from "Israel must be destroyed".
Similarly, your interpretation of "From the river to the sea" is extreme. It's only really been a scrutinized slogan since Hamas started using it in 2017. Its previous ~60 years of use were consistently about creating a secular, multi-ethnic, democratic state for all the people inside its borders.
There has never been an official Palestinian position calling for the removal of Jews.
If we did take that to be the definition of anti-Zionism, then it seems one could be both a Zionist and an anti-Zionist, if they supported the existence of a Jewish state but didn't approve of the particular way Israel was established.
Anti-Zionism was the mainstream Orthodox Jewish position prior to the Holocaust; and contemporary mainstream Haredi anti-Zionism essentially continues that historical position largely unchanged. According to that viewpoint, it is a sin to establish a Jewish-ruled state in Eretz Yisrael prior to the coming of the Messiah. So, classical Jewish anti-Zionism supports the existence of a Jewish state (in the future messianic age) but doesn’t approve of the particular way Israel was established (by mostly secular Zionists in 1948 instead of by a divinely appointed Messiah at some point in the future). Still, it clearly is an anti-Zionist position not a Zionist one.
The majority of contemporary Haredim are neither anti-Zionist (the mainstream being Satmar, Edah HaCharedeis, Central Rabbinical Congress, and then there are extremists such as Neturei Karta) nor explicitly Zionist (as in the Hardal), rather non-Zionist. Haredi non-Zionists agree with the anti-Zionists that the 1948 creation of the State of Israel was a sin, but now it exists, they say (contrary to the anti-Zionists) that it is okay to cooperate with it by voting in its elections, running candidates in the Knesset, accepting its handouts, etc. Sometimes the boundary between non-Zionism and soft Zionism is rather murky - my impression is that is particularly true of contemporary Chabad, whose non-Zionism has grown closer to Zionism over time
I think there is an important (but often ignored) distinction here between theory and practice - whatever one thinks of the rights or wrongs of Zionism as an ideology in the abstract, doesn’t necessarily decide one’s practical attitude towards the State of Israel - e.g. a person (whether Jewish or non-Jewish, whether in Israel/Palestine or on the opposite side of the planet) can theoretically oppose Zionism as an erroneous ideology, yet simultaneously decide to support the State of Israel on pragmatic grounds-and there is no necessary logical inconsistency in that
Say one supported the establishment of Israel in Palestine in 1948, but took issue with the expulsion of Palestinians from some areas. How would you characterize their view? In my mind it's still a Zionist view, not anti-Zionist (or both?) as the definition above would suggest.
What I’m saying is that position could be either Zionist, anti-Zionist, or non-Zionist, depending on the particular reasons why one thinks it was “flawed or unjust in some way”
The phrase was also used by the Israeli ruling Likud party as part of their 1977 election manifesto which stated "Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty."
So it hasn't always meant that, really.
That’s not true. Rebbe Teitelbaum was an anti-Zionist, he opposed the creation of the modern state of Israel as sinful, and he opposed Haredi Jews cooperating with the state (such as by being elected to the Knesset or accepting government benefits.) But he did not support the physical destruction of Jewish communities in Eretz Yisrael. And that remains to this day the mainstream anti-Zionist position of Satmar, Edah HaChareidis in Israel, and the Central Rabbinical Congress in North America - the belief that the existence of the state of Israel is a sin, and that it is a sin for Jews to cooperate with it, but at the same time strongly condemning extremist anti-Zionist groups such as Neturei Karta who ally with non-Jews who seek to physically harm Jews who live there, and rejecting any cooperation with the Palestinian cause-Rebbe Teitelbaum viewed his anti-Zionism as an internal Jewish issue, and in any violent conflict between Jews and non-Jews he would pray for the Jewish side, even though those Jews happened to be his Zionist opponents.
As well as mainstream Haredi anti-Zionism, there are other varieties of anti-Zionism which don’t entail support for the physical destruction of Israel. Zionism is Jewish nationalism. Some people have a principled ideological opposition to all forms of nationalism - they are anti-nationalists - and a consistent anti-nationalist must also be an anti-Zionist. That principled opposition to all nationalist ideologies does not entail any particular position on practical questions, and is completely compatible with pacifism, and hoping that the majority of the population of Israel/Palestine eventually comes to peacefully reject nationalism.
Nationalism comes in many varieties - civic, linguistic, ethnic, religious, ethnoreligious, etc - and Zionism is a nationalism of the ethnoreligious kind. As well as anti-nationalists who consistently oppose all nationalisms, there are also those who support some types but oppose others - for example, many civic nationalists have a principled opposition to non-civic nationalisms. A consistent civic nationalist who took such a position would have to be an anti-Zionist, but would have no in-principle objection to Israeli civic nationalism.
It is undeniable that many people who identify as “anti-Zionist” do end up espousing antisemitic views, and sometimes even use “anti-Zionist” as a more socially acceptable synonym for antisemite - at the same time, there are several ways someone can be anti-Zionist without necessarily being antisemitic, and many people who are. The equation “all anti-Zionism is antisemitism” which the US Congress is promoting here is a very ignorant oversimplification
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Israel#Suppressio...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/05/0...
The goal, in my opinion, is division. Without it, they have nothing.
Peace above all!
It's sad, and in the long run completely self-defeating, but nobody seems to realize that. The more Israel and their lobby overreacts to honest, legitimate and peaceful critique of their actions, the more extreme that the responses will inevitably be....especially in times like these where Palestinians have legitimate reasons to be angry with Israel, and when Israel's citizenry has the right to be angry with their government.
Nobody is right, and everyone is wrong. Everyone has blood on their hands. Pretending otherwise is dumb. Likud and Hamas are responsible, not the innocent Israelis nor the innocent Palestinians.
Fuck Hamas, fuck Likud.
Okay - then what should be Israel's response? For me what they are doing is the bare minimum with the minimum casualties from the options they have. Hamas is Gaza's government. Hamas has intertwined the civilian and the military infrastructure. Hamas has made sure that the civilian Palestinians will suffer if you target Hamas. And it was Hamas that made sure with organized rape, torture and atrocities on Oct 7 that it can't be overlooked or forgiven.
Here is a good rule of thumb - if you are going to stir shit - stick to just killing. Don't livestream torture and rape, so diplomacy will have something to work with.
So what should Israel do specifically in Gaza?
The conflict is not limited to Gaza. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel continues to build its illegal settlements, to subject the Palestinian population to a humiliating and brutal military occupation, and to kill Palestinians regularly (several hundred in the West Bank this year).
Until Israel leaves the occupied territories and allows the Palestinians to live as normal people, there will be Palestinian resistance. A few years ago, the people of Gaza tried nonviolent resistance, protesting at the border fence. Israel responded with live ammunition, killing hundreds of protestors.
The Palestinians have tried every way to obtain their freedom: protest, negotiation, armed resistance. Nothing works. Israel is, by far, the stronger party, and it does what it wants to the Palestinians with no consequences.
I guarantee that Palestinian resistance won't stop if Israel maintains its occupation.
What you're doing here is just giving a justification for unlimited military repression of the Palestinian people by Israel. It reminds me of the phrase, "The beatings will continue until morale improves." The Palestinians will take their beatings until they completely prostrate themselves before their oppressors and accept what they're being offered: nothing.
The blockade is for fear of Hamas gaining even more weapons, a fear that seems incredibly justified given what Hamas did. The bombing campaigns were mostly responses to Hamas firing rocket attacks at Israel.
> The conflict is not limited to Gaza. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel continues to build its illegal settlements, to subject the Palestinian population to a humiliating and brutal military occupation, and to kill Palestinians regularly (several hundred in the West Bank this year).
Yes, I completely agree that Israel's actions in the West Bank, the settlement program and the resultant military rule are terrible and should be condemned.
> The Palestinians have tried every way to obtain their freedom: protest, negotiation, armed resistance. Nothing works. Israel is, by far, the stronger party, and it does what it wants to the Palestinians with no consequences.
I'm sorry, but this is a misread of history. The Palestinians have been offered a state multiple times, and have walked away from the negotiations every time. Israel has successfully negotiated a peace with historic enemies like Egypt, given back huge amounts of land in the process, these peace agreements have lasted for 40 years now.
Only with the Palestinians this negotiation has not worked, despite Israel having offered between 95% and 99% of the land Palestinians claimed they wanted.
Though to be clear, Hamas's official position, near as I can tell, remains that Israel itself must be completely destroyed and all the land given "back" to Palestinians.
The backdrop of most Israeli's having "given up" on the idea of a peace agreement was the failure of multiple attempts at reaching a deal, attempts that the Palestinians walked away from, and that resulted in terror attacks killing Israeli citizens.
That all said, Israel has more-or-less checked out of the peace process for the last 15 years, if not actively undermined it by weakening any serious leader that could've helped achieve peace. And given that Israel is the stronger party, I think it's not morally justified to "give up", Israel must keep striving for peace, and trying to make conditions on the ground that will allow for an eventual peace agreement.
No Israeli government has yet offered the Palestinians a sovereign state. The offers that have been made have been for some sort of entity with limited autonomy, but under effective Israeli control. The Palestinians have not simply "walked away" from negotiations. They have repeatedly tried to negotiate something better. After the Camp David negotiations broke down, the Palestinians returned to negotiate at Taba. Those talks ended because of the upcoming Israeli elections (which were won by the hard Right, which absolutely opposes any Palestinian state).
If you go back and read about the history of the Oslo process, the Israelis systematically reneged on their promises throughout the 1990s. The PLO made major concessions which were not reciprocated, and it ultimately got nothing.
Israel didn't just make peace with Egypt out of the goodness of its heart. Egypt gave Israel an enormous scare in the 1973 war. That experience made the Israelis realize that it was possible for them to lose a war against Egypt in the future. The Israelis have no such fear of the Palestinians now. If the Palestinians had an army like Egypt, things would be very different.
Israel is also able to make peace with Egypt, Jordan and the other Arab states because Israel doesn't covet their land. But the desire to have all of historic Palestine is fundamental to Zionism, and Israel never intends to leave the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
I'm not sure why you think that, that's exactly what the peace process of the 1990s and early 2000s was about. E.g. the Camp David Summit.
> If you go back and read about the history of the Oslo process, the Israelis systematically reneged on their promises throughout the 1990s. The PLO made major concessions which were not reciprocated, and it ultimately got nothing.
That's not at all true. The Palestinian Authority was formed and given control in the West Bank, independently of this Israel left Gaza and gave Palestinians control there. The peace process broke down in part due to the terror attacks that were happening in Israel, many carried out by Hamas in order to stop the peace process.
> But the desire to have all of historic Palestine is fundamental to Zionism, and Israel never intends to leave the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Some people in Israel certainly think this. Not a majority of Israelis. And the peace processes did offer land to the Palestinians including the WB.
I'm not saying Israel has done everything right, it's certainly done a lot of things wrong, and the for the last fifteen years has done things against the peace process. But it is still a true fact, attested to by people involved in the peace processes, that Israel did make offers, the Palestinians did reject them and walk away. And that has happened multiple times, including the founding of the state of Israel. (People like to relitigate this one, and there's certainly a compelling reason that Palestinians disliked the UN's partition plan - but it's still a fact that the Palestinians and Arabs generally rejected the peaceful offer, chose war instead, lost the war, and therefore lost more territories than they could've had had they accepted the partition plan to begin with.)
Actually, one of the fundamental flaws of the Oslo process was that Israel did not have to commit, at the outset, to recognizing a Palestinian state. The PLO recognized the state of Israel, and in return, Israel agreed to negotiate with the PLO. What the final status of the Palestinians would be was very much up in the air.
Yitzhak Rabin, who signed the Oslo Accords, said that there would be a Palestinian "entity," by which he meant something with partial sovereignty, under significant Israeli control.
Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli right-wing extremist, and Netanyahu came to power. Netanyahu was totally opposed to the peace process, and both he and his party have always fundamentally opposed any Palestinian sovereignty. Netanyahu refused to carry out the promised military withdrawals, and generally stalled and sabotaged the peace process at every turn. He simply didn't believe in the process.
Ehud Barak won the elections in 1999, and tried to revive the Oslo process. However, he was unwilling to make an offer that met the Palestinians' bottom line: a sovereign Palestinian state based on 1967 borders. The "state" that the Palestinians were offered in 2000 at Camp David would not have controlled its own borders, airspace or water. The Israeli military would have maintained bases in the Palestinian state, overseen the Palestinian borders, and had the right to conduct military incursions into the Palestinian state. The Palestinian state would have been demilitarized (except for the IDF, of course), and the Israelis would have had veto power over its foreign policy.
Beyond that, Barak was demanding major territorial concessions (the Palestinians would have had to give up the most important parts of East Jerusalem, and Palestinian territory would have been cut up by corridors annexed to Israel), and refused any meaningful right of return for Palestinian refugees. That's the offer the Palestinians rejected at Camp David.
The Palestinians continued negotiating with Israel in 2001 at Taba, but those negotiations ended because Barak was facing another election.
The hard Right won again in the Israeli elections in 2001, and that was really the end of any peace process.
> The Palestinian Authority was formed and given control in the West Bank, independently of this Israel left Gaza
The PA was given partial control in a minority of the West Bank. To put it crudely, the Israelis offloaded the duty to take out the garbage and do the laundry to the PA, but maintained ultimate control. The PA has no army, and its police forces act to a large extent as auxiliaries of the Israelis, tasked with keeping the Palestinians quiet.
But.. there wasn't a Palestinian state to recognize. Agreeing to negotiate with the PLO was what made the PLO the internationally-recognized party representing the Palestinians, which didn't exist before.
> Netanyahu refused to carry out the promised military withdrawals, and generally stalled and sabotaged the peace process at every turn. He simply didn't believe in the process.
Yes, I'm hardly a fan of Netanyahu (I think Hamas is responsible for the murders on October 7th, but if any one person is most responsible for there not being peace, it's Netanyahu).
As for the rest of your post - yes, Palestinians were offered terms that they didn't like. That's part of negotiations - you don't like an offer, you come back with demands you will accept. And more importantly, it's part of compromise.
Some Israelis also believe Israel should own the entire land. Israel agreed to compromise on that. In 1947, Israel agreed to the UN partition plan, which was also a compromise.
Look, the Palestinians are in a shitty situation that's only getting worse, and there's a lot of legitimate grievances (on both sides), there really are. But at multiple times in this history, Israel agreed to what it views as compromises in order to get peace, and Palestinians have not agreed to similar compromises. This is, as far as I can tell, an accurate read of history, as told both by Israelis, but also by e.g. participants of the process.
Israel has done a lot of crappy things that minimize the chance at peace, especially over the last 15 years, but the Israeli left really did have the majority buy in in the country and the country really did try to make peace, the Palestinians could've had their own sovereign state by now, but they rejected it. I don't think in hindsight you can possibly consider this justified, given where it's lead.
There actually was - the PLO declared a state in 1988. More than that, Israel did not commit to future recognition of a Palestinian state, or declare that the Palestinians had a right to a state. Those are things the Palestinians pushed for in the lead-up to Oslo, but the Israelis refused to do them. On the Israeli side, the dominant view was that the Palestinians could maybe get some sort of autonomy within Israel, but not a state. Up until this day, no Israeli government has ever recognized the right of the Palestinians to a state.
> That's part of negotiations - you don't like an offer, you come back with demands you will accept.
That's exactly what the Palestinians have done, over and over again. Arafat walked away because Barak gave an ultimatum: either accept this offer, or nothing. Arafat didn't accept that offer, so that was it.
The Palestinians and Israelis met again several months later to restart negotiations in Taba, Egypt, and those continued until the Israelis walked away (because of the upcoming elections).
> the Palestinians could've had their own sovereign state by now, but they rejected it.
Again, I don't know what you're referring to, because no Israeli government yet has ever offered the Palestinians a sovereign state. If you think a demilitarized entity with highly non-contiguous territory (broken up by Israeli settlements and military corridors), with Israeli military bases, Israeli control over all border crossings, Israeli control over airspace, and Israeli veto power over foreign policy is sovereign, then we disagree about the meaning of that word.
> But at multiple times in this history, Israel agreed to what it views as compromises in order to get peace, and Palestinians have not agreed to similar compromises.
Giving half of Palestine to the Zionists was not a "compromise." It was an unbelievable imposition by outside powers on the local population of Palestine. Remember that in 1947, the overwhelming majority of the native population of Palestine was Arab. Almost the entire Jewish population was made up of recent European arrivals (i.e., within the last decade). The demand that the native population accept that a foreign people get half the territory was objectively insane, and no people anywhere would ever have accepted it. The Zionists accepted it because they believed that it was a springboard towards obtaining all of Palestine - Ben Gurion was very clear about that.
Leading up to the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians gave up most of their central demands, forswore armed resistance to the occupation, and limited their aspirations to a Palestinian state on just over 20% of their historic land, leaving the other 80% to Israel. The Palestinians recognized the state of Israel, without reciprocal recognition from Israel, and simply asked the Israelis to let the Palestinians have their little bit of Palestine in peace. It took years for the Palestinians to even persuade the Israelis to agree to negotiate on those terms. Until 1993, the Israelis refused to meet with the PLO. It was only the outbreak of widespread civil disobedience, protests and riots in the occupied territories that finally led Israel to begin negotiations with the PLO.
> I don't think in hindsight you can possibly consider this justified, given where it's lead.
My view is that the PLO made a fatal error in agreeing to the Oslo Accords. They gave up almost everything Israel wanted, with only vague hints that the Palestinians would get something at the end. The Palestinian Authority has no real power, and actually lessens the burden of the occupation for the Israelis, since the Israelis no longer have to provide basic services to the occupied population. The Israelis did not promise to accept the 1967 borders. They did not promise that they would recognize a sovereign Palestinian state. They only really promised to negotiate a "final status," which was left vague.
As I said a few comments above here, Israel is, by far, the stronger party. It holds almost all the cards: it has overwhelming military superiority over the Palestinians, is able to operate almost unhindered in most Palestinian land, is far richer, and is backed by the world's foremost superpower. Israel is able to maintain its occupation of Palestinian land with almost no consequences. It can continue to expand its settlements in the occupied territories and to build new settlements, without having to fear anything more than the occasional wagging finger from some American or EU diplomat. The Israelis really believe they can have it all. The only problem, from the Israeli perspective, is that the Palestinians still exist on the land, but the Israelis will eventually move to "solve" that problem. We may be seeing their solution now in Gaza, as Israel destroys almost every single building and pushes the remaining, 100% homeless Palestinian population towards the Egyptian border.
Israel is stronger than Palestine, sure, but that's not the most relevant comparison to think about. Think about all the neighboring countries that do not recognize Israel's right to exist. Think about their financial and military support for Hamas. Think about all the extremists that come from Syria and Iran to help Hamas.
Notes: I'm offering these statements in a self-contained way that I hope is fair. / I'm not claiming any one side is blameless. / I reject any moral equivalence between the IDF and Hamas. / I reject belief systems that say adherents should kill non-believers. / I don't support Netanyahu; he's not fit for the job. / I want to reduce the suffering of all people, including the people of tomorrow. / The past is gone; we can only work for a better future. / I hold out hope for a moderate 'middle' of everyday Israelis and Palestinians wanting peace. / Moderate views can only traction if the extremist elements on all sides are reduced. / By reduced I mean with minimum coercion. / But I'm not a pacifist; violence is sometimes necessary albeit never to be celebrated.
From Wikipedia: > The Palestinian legislative election took place on 25 January 2006 and was judged to be free and fair by international observers.[18][19] It resulted in a Hamas victory, surprising Israel and the United States, which had expected their favoured partner, Fatah, to retain power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaza_(2007)#2006_Pal...
I'll be as polite as I can about this, and take it one step at a time.
> Okay - then what should be Israel's response?
The world has been clear about this. Stop killing civilians and treat Palestinians as humans with rights.
> what they are doing is the bare minimum with the minimum casualties from the options they have.
That's not remotely true. Human rights groups and genocide experts around the world are screaming at world leaders to take action. Schools and refugee camps and humanitarian corridors and civil infrastructure and entire residential blocks are being vaporized without warning.
> Hamas is Gaza's government
The last election was in 2006, so this talking point is real stale.
> Hamas has intertwined the civilian and the military infrastructure.
The only proof that has been offered of that has been incredibly shoddily made, as if daring people to believe it.
> Hamas has made sure that the civilian Palestinians will suffer if you target Hamas.
That doesn't excuse war crimes, and it's highly fucked up to think that it does somehow.
> And it was Hamas that made sure with organized rape, torture and atrocities on Oct 7 that it can't be overlooked or forgiven.
The only evidence of organized rape that I've seen presented turned out to be a 10 year old photo of Kurdish women [0]. Torture? No evidence. By atrocities, do you mean the debunked beheaded babies? Or the debunked babies in oven claim? The debunked pregnant women cut open claim?
What Hamas did was atrocious, killing civilians and kidnapping people. So why embellish so devilishly? Only to excuse genocide, and grab land.
> Here is a good rule of thumb - if you are going to stir shit - stick to just killing. Don't livestream torture and rape, so diplomacy will have something to work with.
Again with the claims of "livestreamed torture and rape", which no one has actually seen.
You know who can be documented to have tortured and raped people in the last couple decades? Israel and the US. On many, many occasions. But in your view, at least they're smart enough not to livestream it - they only took photos.
0 - https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1724688009293873502
The problem from Israel's perspective regarding a ceasefire is that Hamas isn't just an ideology that can be charmed out of existence with good behavior. It's also an autocratic/theocratic government. These government structures don't go away even if the conditions that lead to their initial support are addressed, because they have a regime survival incentive to maintain power. For example, Iran. Some of the reasons (colonial interference) that caused the Iranian revolution are no longer there, but the governance structure is nevertheless perpetual because that's how autocracies work.
Maybe Hamas can moderate in the future, but this moderation historically has happened after the nationalist (and in this case, irredentist) aims are fulfilled, such as in Vietnam or with the IRA. I don't know if that can happen with the continued existence of Israel and lack of right of return, which, let's face it, it's a pipe dream, Jews will never accept being an ethnic minority after the last few thousand years of endless pogroms including from MENA countries, literal survival will always trump everything else. Right or wrong, that's the reality, and we only have reality to work with.
I lean towards the idea that Israel shouldn't invade but instead build a DMZ around Gaza to contain Hamas. While simultaneously sowing the seeds for peace in the next generation by withdrawing from the West Bank, and implementing a Marshall-like plan with oversight from the UN to lift the standard of living. Then hoping hoping the West Bank doesn't fall to Hamas in the power vacuum (and if it does, another DMZ around the West Bank might be a practically unfortunate necessity pending Hamas' moderation...).
Thoughts? I want to hear from the "ceasefire" people the practical steps required and what it may actually look like along with an assessment of where it can go wrong, and what should happen in the cases where it goes wrong.
> that's the reality
I'm not convinced that you're actually looking for a peaceful solution. The best you can imagine is a permanent DMZ so that Israel maintains an ethnic majority? Do Palestinians get to decide what they want to do at all, or is that just for Israel?
A ceasefire is not really optional. If Israel continues with this genocide, as they seem committed to doing, then America's support will grow untenable. All Israel's atrocities - undeniable, caught on video and seen by the world atrocities - are only possible with the support of the US war machine.
The US just vetoed the UN's call for a ceasefire, despite 61% of Americans wanting a ceasefire. Do you see that?? That's 61% of Israel's staunchest ally, telling them they're going way too far. People are waking up, and they're wondering why the fuck we're complicit in war crimes in full view of the world (again).
How long do you think America can sustain this support of mass murder? It's morally indefensible, and a permanent stain on our history.
The DMZ is to keep Hamas on one side of the border following any ceasefire, because Hamas aren't going to moderate overnight, and Hamas aren't going away because of their autocratic structure. What's the alternative? This is why I asked you to sketch out your plan. If there is a realistic alternative to what I'm suggesting, I want to hear it. To convince the median Israeli (excluding the religious zealots) that a ceasefire is a good idea, you need to address their #1 (by far) issue, which is security concerns. Without attempting to do this, we are just yelling at clouds.
The same response I have concluded should have been the US' response to 9/11: turn the other cheek, and invest heavily in reconciling with "enemy" forces while rebuilding "enemy" infrastructure and institutions, while dealing with individual bad actors on a case-by-case basis as a matter of legal (rather than martial) procedure.
And I'm not joking.
I feel bad for Israelis who have let their government doom them to a generation of government mismanagement and expensive, arduous military adventure. My single-payer health insurance and my friends' free college education went into a couple Patriot missiles, and I do wonder what they're going to have to give up.
nobody will immediately make friends after a massacre and mass rape. Especially after decades of tensions and double especially when the muslim world once descended on Israel at once.
2) Quiet reminder that there are 1B followers of Islam and there has always been a wish (especially from Iran) to end the existence of Israel: the Palestinian people are unfortunately a pawn in that game. - Winning over the palestinians wont actually win you over anything. Instead you will have terrorist attacks by “palestinians” until the tensions are stoked again.
Establishment of a Palestinian State with a stake in peace and stability would win you something.
> Instead you will have terrorist attacks by “palestinians” until the tensions are stoked again.
One of the things this would win you is someone with interest and capacity to respond to this where the occupation/colonialism/ethnic-/religious-conflict narrative would not be applicable.
But, I empathise fully with Israel and also with the Palestinian people.
On Israels side you have what amounts to a large motivated but not universal contingent of people who will literally slaughter themselves to make you look bad on the world stage, pulling out long protracted altercations where the intent is clearly to provoke the most disgusting outcome and whom have a history of invading, slaughtering and rioting. Sometimes bringing in half the Muslim world to do it.
I would be fucking terrified.
But for the Palestinians, you have an interloper, stealing the best of your ancestral lands, relegating you to tiny torrid stretches of impoverished city because they claim that they “don't trust you” based on nothing but your accident of birth. living every day knowing that this tiny population of privileged people who dont look like you at all and are so heavily financed that they live significantly better lives on your land. Meanwhile hearing constantly that they continuously kill your countrymen. For all you know: for the crime of existing.
I’d be pissed too, and I wouldn't let up either.
Both sides feel like the victim, its easy for us to sit here half a world away and conjure up idealised scenarios. But Israel is scared of the entire middle east and having an irate and catastrophically motivated population bent on its eradication and tries to handle it the best it can.
Palestine is scared of being obliterated and is outright hateful towards what it considers oppressors.
Trust is hard earned and fragile, and there are external actors involved that would like this tension to go on indefinitely.
Lets also not pretend that 141sq miles is tiny. It's small sure, but there are many other countries that have and do make do with it.
Beyond that, "ancestral homeland" is stupid. Jordan is their ancestral homeland and the Jordinians keep them in camps as second class citizens. The impoverished city thing is self inflicted too. They receive bilions in aid.
The real issue is that the Palestinians cause has been hijacked by Iran and other governments that hate israel in order to engage a proxy war. Other than that, other muslim countries want nothing to do with the Palestinians
Many? Here’s a full list of independent states that are not larger in land area than that:
Vatican City, Monaco, Nauru, Tuvalu, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Marshall Islands, St. Kitts and Nevis, Maldives, Malta, and Grenada
There's nothing about contrivance. The initial claim was that Gazans should be happy in a country of 141 sq miles, with 2.4 million people, making it one of the densest populations on earth...
... while the Israel government routinely turns off electricity to the entire country for days at a time, and at times the fresh water. The miracle there is that there aren't epidemics just ravaging the population.
This argument carries no weight.
Countries smaller than Gaza, and their populations:
1. Vatican City (0.19mi^2): 764 (4,038/sq. mi.)
2. Monaco (0.78mi^2): 39,050 (48,624/sq. mi.)
3. Nauru (8.1mi^2): 10,834 (1,243.2)
4. Tuvalu (10mi^2): 11,900 (1,232.5)
5. San Marino (24mi^2): 33,660 (1,346)
6. Liechtenstein (62mi^2): 39,584 (613.8)
7. Marshall Islands (70mi^2): 42,418 (603)
8. Saint Kitts and Nevis (101mi^2): 47,606 (424.8)
9. Maldives (120mi^2): 590,297 (5,130.4)
10. Malta (122mi^2): 519,562 (4,270.9)
11. Grenada (133mi^2): 124,610 (825.1)
Gaza: 2,375,000 @ 16,853/sq. mi.
Most of those countries with three exceptions have less than one per cent of the population of Gaza (even the biggest exception is at less than 24%). With the exception of Monaco, the population density of these countries is approximately seven per cent of Gaza.
The only countries in the world that are more dense than Gaza are Macau, Monaco and Singapore and no-one with a straight face could credibly claim that they are remotely comparable.
The commentary of "they should be able to make do just fine" is insulting to the extreme.
Certainly, Israel has seen to it that it will be much more difficult. Which would be my point.
>Quiet reminder that there are 1B followers of Islam and there has always been a wish (especially from Iran) to end the existence of Israel: the Palestinian people are unfortunately a pawn in that game.
As a black American, I understand the Israeli hypersensitivity to even the whiff of anti-Semitic violence as the harbinger of a possible repeat of history that should never be repeated. I also understand that lashing out at every perceived slight as the harbinger of a possible repeat of history that should never be repeated is a great way to make allies unsympathetic, as they get caught in the crossfire. The real enemy is the war you want.
I would like Israel to reach a state where it doesn't constantly fear for its existence. The road there passes through, "Not doing another Nakba."
We both know that solution only works if the other side wants peace. Most gazans want death to Israel and death to all Jews globally (see the recent polls). The schools teach it is good to kill a Jew in America, Europe, or Israel.
Admittedly, some of this could credibly be attributed to some aspect of Japanese culture and its approach to defeat. On the other hand, we made a point not to bomb Kyoto because of its status as an important historical and cultural treasure. Meanwhile, in Palestine: https://www.npr.org/2023/12/09/1218384968/mosque-gaza-omari-...
Here’s the passage from Matthew 5:38-39 KJV:
“38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”
What Jesus is advocating is nonviolent resistance, not walking away. MLK Jr. understood this passage well.
Good thing I'm not one of them. The point is that the way to resist effectively is to not let yourself be drawn into a quagmire or an opportunity to show the world your ass (which is what Israel and the US have done). Responding with the intent to do good works (which you will admittedly fall short of, because you're human, landing you somewhere at least justifiable) is better than responding with the intent to wipe out the opposition, indiscriminately and by any means necessary, and accidentally committing a form of genocide. (Note: we (Americans) did that too. The fire next time, and I hate it.)
Really? Israel routinely turns off Gaza's electricity (to the entire country) for days. It has also turned off all fresh water for similar durations.
I think we have different definitions of "bare minimum". That comes across looking a lot more "punitive".
In this conflict it told Gazan civilians to move to Southern Gaza because of the extensive bombing in Northern Gaza. Then it began increasing bombing in Southern Gaza.
There is a lot of Gazan support for Hamas. But Hamas also makes up a very small minority of Gazans (I believe 40,000 in a country of 2.3 million). Hamas is also the people who are armed (thanks to both Israeli blockades, oh, and when Israel found it politically expedient to encourage Hamas' militancy because a more moderate Palestinian Authority would make the far right Israeli government look worse by being more willing to compromise).
Which isn't a one sided phenomenon. The reverse is true as well, where often the most vocal voices rationalizing Israel's actions and behavior around civilian casualties often have anti-Muslim perspectives crop up as back and forth conversation goes on.
One of the litmus tests I've noticed is the capacity to acknowledge and condemn the civilian suffering of both sides. The commenters who recognize and condemn both the Oct 7th terrorist attack and the targeting or indiscriminate killing of civilians in the response to it tend to be rational and level headed driven by humanitarian concerns.
Those who only recognize the suffering of one side and dismiss, dehumanize, or rationalize the suffering of the other side - or worst of all propagandize the denial of it's occurrence or scope - tend to quickly fall into revealing rather abhorrent views with a mere scratching of the surface.
Not everyone who criticizes Israel is antisemitic nor everyone who criticizes Hamas is anti-Muslim, but many who are antisemitic or anti-Muslim seem keen to defend their respective side of the conflict quite emphatically and unilaterally.
Which is, I suspect, the point - to weaken those viewpoints.
And to address others in this thread around US actions around the world, I am critical of the U.S. war on Afghanistan and the second Iraq war as well as the Israeli attacks on Gaza.
One can be critical of a government without despising it.
And not that perhaps my point is to highlight the opposite effect, by which the continued rhetoric of anti-Zionism as distinct from anti-Semetism weakens the voices of those experiencing a documented rise in genuine anti-Semitism by dismissing it as mislabeling?
Polarization around the human tendency for tribalism and side picking has led to increases in both anti-Muslim and antisemitism - people have been stabbed, had homes invaded, attacked, etc because of both those identities as rhetoric has become increasingly inflamed.
As I said - the times that I tend to see good faith discussion on this topic typically correlate with the voices that recognize the humanity of the civilians on both sides of the conflict, with the voices unilaterally humanizing one side while dismissing the suffering of the other side far more often tending to extend significantly greater underlying biases.
Denying the rise of antisemitism and trying to label it all as simply Zionism upset it isn't in favor has its own impact of conversation weakening I'd encourage you to consider.
To me, it seems pretty easy to both recognize that there's been a marked increase in antisemitism and anti-Muslim rhetoric tied to this topic without impacting my ability to both recognize and condemn actions of people in power in this conflict when targeting civilians or not taking internationally recognized measures to prevent civilian harm.
The US could provide humanitarian aid, but not military aid. Cut military aid to Israel. Maybe still provide Iron Dome reloads, but that's about it. Bring in a hospital ship off Gaza, to care for the injured. Send a few frigates to protect it from all parties. Discourage outside interference. Then wait to see how this plays out. It's not the US's fight, after all.
Creating a lot of noise over the issue tends to force people to choose a side and eliminates middle options. That may be part of the intent of this campaign. "Are you with us, or against us". No, we're fed up with both of you.
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/why-a-sta...
Also, if Israel takes the control of the Gaza Strip, a lot of refugees will spread in the region, creating more tension in the long-term. I deem this more sensitive than the religious strife, because it can leave concrete, direct, and explicit marks on the neighboring societies.
I think the best scenario for US is that Israel eventually stands down and falls back to the pre-war state - that is, no Israel control over the Palestinian territories. Israel won't have much choice here.
Less of an issue than it used to be. The US is now a net oil exporter.[1]
[1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc...
This situation is not a good look for western response in general. The world is watching. Reminder that Srebrenica was 8000 deaths, but 17100 palestinians are justified losses.
It's very normal for EU to be pro-Israel, that's EU's official position and IMHO it's the correct one but EU's position is also pro-Two states solution and EU has significant humanitarian missions and political support for many of the Palestinian demands. Some EU countries are also very sympathetic towards the Palestinian cause and some countries which have huge importance for EU, like Turkey, the issue is very emotional.
Very wrong of Vdl to act as if EU is all-in for the Zionist aspirations. As EU Commission president, should have strongly condemned the terrorist attack that Israel suffered and offer any help possible and at the same time she should have pushed for a solution of the root cause(Israeli occupation and extremist antisemitic politics seeking the demise of the Israel - both unacceptable).
Maybe the bigger lesson here is that you should never go all-in on one side of a very complex issue. A kind of an issue where the rights and wrongs are quite evenly distributed and there's no way you end up on the correct side of it. Whoever-pro you are, you lose and she lost.
The truth is that the Commission President continues to be a job in search of political weight and legitimacy, but you can't get that after you are nominated to the post by scheming national rulers - it has to come from the ballot box. She tries hard to compensate for what is a structural weakness that was supposed to be fixed by the spitzenkandidaten process... a process that she blew up herself.
What has the current conflict to do with Zionist aspirations?
Why would supporting ethnic cleansing be a correct position? Can you explain?
Obviously you can still think that Palestinians have legit grievances without supporting massacre, and likewise you can support the Israeli right to defend itself. But at some point the actions of the Israeli military looks less like an effort to root out Hamas and more like ethnic cleansing.
Well, well, well. That felt coordinated. Turns out it was.
https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1733146138226614465?ref_src...
I think the greatest thing the Moscow-Teheran-Beijing "bot army diplomacy doctrine" is showing us is that you can radicalize both the US right AND the US Left at the same time by speaking to each side's idiocies at full throat.
We are nearing Elders of Zion territory here where the ratio of 2 Billion Muslims to 15 Million Jews, and thus the constant stream of anti-Israeli propaganda, now contains propaganda suggesting that we are deceived and in fact there is more pro-Israeli discoursem when in reality it is being drowned out.
I started getting ads obviously funded by the State of Israel and pro-Israel organizations on Youtube, on Twitter, on Instagram, and on TikTok (for a day or two). There were "Missing Person" posters of October 7th victims in my neighbourhood street which is located more than 10000+km from Israel (I feel bad for them and hope they will return home safe and sound, but what are these posters trying to achieve here in my neighbourhood? My local representative legislator is already supporting Israel and condemning Hamas). I'm not going to stop recognizing propaganda for being propaganda even if I mostly agree with its underlying message. That's a basic critical thinking skill and evidently that skill is lacking even mong highly successful and "intelligent" people on HN, tech Twitter, and so on.
So while I'm sure your statistics are correct, I think it's a misnomer to say that there is more anti-Israel propoganda or pro-Israel or anti-Palestinian, etc. It's a moot point. The most clear point to me is that most gov't officials are supporting Israel's war no matter what.
Back in Oct about a week after the attack Bloomberg 's reporting on the attack and the beginning of the ended up being flagged on NH and only has 23pts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37910148
It seems that anti-Israel propaganda is way more successful than this pro-Israel information war.
On the contrary the IDF is pretty open about its online media budget, spend, and goals. So isn't it natural that people would study it more?
https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/social-media-is-a-warz...
Ah yes, there it is. You didn't even wait untill the second sentence to use this empty term. Because of comments like yours this word completely lost its meaning. Intelligent people just ignore it now.
https://www.euronews.com/2021/02/06/israel-netanyahu-denounc...
If Israel has its way, even thinking about Gaza as a concentration camp would be anti-Semitic.
"anti-Semitic" has been thrown around so much that it has lost its value. A red balloon, a walrus, or a nice cup of tea can be anti-Semitic nowadays.
I'm reminded of the "Come out - we have you surrounded" meme where the mentally insane man is hiding behind a desk with a shotgun screaming "Get out of my head" or "I hate the Antichrist", because that's how thinking about these groups make me feel
The Holocaust and Hitler basically define modern Western morality, and Zionism's claims to legitimacy are closely related to those concepts. Associating someone with "Hitler" or "antisemitic" is worse than calling them "bin Laden" or "slavemaster".
Other popular foreign lobbies in Washington, from Ukrainian, Taiwanese, Kurds, Uyghurs, don't have nearly the same influence.
There is no better-coordinated or -funded lobbying group than the military-industrial complex, which is, of course, all in on Israel.
Ethnically cleansed in Nakba? You mean when Arab countries declared war on Israel and then lost?
Non-violent protests? You mean using molotov cocktails, rifles, and grenades?
You're describing effects but ignoring the causes.
Yes, Nakba was an ethnic cleansing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba
Yes, they sniped peaceful protesters at the March of Return: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%932019_Gaza_border_...
I encourage people to read these links for themselves.
EU nations accepted more than a million Syrians with more or less same issues along with way more Ukrainians.
But suddenly another Arab, another Muslim, immediate neighbor just coldly keeps the border shut.
Who is dominant militarily? Does it look like the U.N. is going to be able to continue the theater of pulling the reigns on Israel?
There is a logical reason as to why civilians shouldn't be used as pawns in war. It green lights all civilians and tragically opens the door to ethnic cleansing.
And yet here you are arguing that the war can't end until Israel is removed. Literally demanding the terms, and guaranteeing the results, for the removal of Palestinians. Crazy talk, from someone who pretends to have the interests of the Palestinians at heart.
As an analogy, the South African apartheid state was dominant militarily. Over time, through internal and external military and political pressure, this state was defeated and abolished. The indigenous resistance that won established a new state, after which the more violent elements withered away.
Currently, Hamas are a part of the Palestinian resistance. When apartheid ends and the resistance wins, Hamas will either change or end.
It will come to pass unless it doesn't.
If you'll forgive the glibness, all good gamblers know that the past does not predict the future.
I'd suggest that the SA State is not allegorical to Israel, except in the minds of those who have an interest of believing that to be the case. Which is fine, for them.
However, what should be pointed out is the difference between a subjective moral analogy and a military-political analogy.
I believe that the only reasonable analogy that could be subjectively held is a moral analogy, for people whose self-interest is aligned with arranging the facts just so.
However, your point correctly rests with the more pertinent political-military analysis. But I think that your analogical analysis and conclusion is off, respectfully.
The SA State was fighting against a Western Media whose general position was determined at the beginning of the American Civil War. Even still, I'd suggest that it is a mistake to believe that such pressure as they exerted on the SA State is not a choice for them. The Media, and the associated political class, can and often do ignore or otherwise force contrarian positions on governments within the context of opposing internal politics.
Second, there is the popular concept of the nature of the Israeli-Palestine conflict and then there is the military geopolitical concept of which the majority oif the population is seemingly mostly unaware.
Which is not at all related to South Africa.
What escapes the awareness of the general population will continue to drive the actions of Western governments.
Last and probably least, the Palestinians aren't indigenous.
There's nothing more dangerous than setting up camp on the most hotly contested piece of land on the planet. As unlike most anywhere else, those fighting for it will be referencing the deepest available histories to internally justify their claim. Even hidden histories, and deeper than one might think.
> Hamas are a part of the Palestinian resistance.
Repeat that POV all that you wish. They will continue to be treated as an opposition military until they no longer exist. And then their replacements will be treated as the same.
Israel kept taking more Palestinian land and expelling more Palestinians as internal refugees in an increasingly smaller space, but even then the resistance was secular and largely led by socialists.
Only much later after Israel assassinated many resistance leaders did Hamas finally emerge to fill the gap. In many ways, Hamas is Israel’s chosen enemy.
The causality I presented is correct. It’s entirely natural for indigenous people to resist their occupiers, violently if needed. The entire resistance and Hamas in particular only exist because the occupation existed in the first place.
Obviously it does not. There is a difference, however, between giving Hamas everything they want and giving Palestinians absolutely nothing, ever. Pulling back settlements and occupation from the Fatah-dominated West Bank would be a start.
I recommend optimizing for prosperity in the presence of Israel. That would be a very good choice. It’s possible to thrive, as an individual and as a people, if you stay focused on that.
I love the Palestinian people and want them to thrive. The best way to accomplish that is to love God and to love your neighbor.
Broadly speaking, the Jewish people like to be lawful (according to their own conception of the law). It’s possible to work with that system and to be successful.
People often say “It’s complicated” or “It’s intractable.” I don’t believe that at all. It’s only intractable if you dig in your heels.
Perfection doesn’t exist this side of heaven, but it is possible to live and to be happy.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
Anyway, we can make a similar argument about the Netanyahu regime: it is actively making Jewish, Israeli, and American people around the world less safe. It is almost treasonous that our elected officials are supporting this dangerous regime so uncritically.
It's fully treasonous imo. Has been since Biden repeated the "beheaded babies" lie twice, even against the express disapproval of his own staff.
This particular pro-Palestinian argument being so imprecise and tactically wrong, at this crucial time to saving the lives of Palestinians, only guarantees an unsovable hurricane of noise with no outcome but more civilian deaths and more war.
As the other side can not and will not reward the spark of the initial massacre to force a benefits negotiation, obviously. Let alone one that discusses ceding territory.
It's morally logical to be aghast at the Palestinian Civilian death toll, regardless of the argument as to who is ultimately responsible.
But it is morally unforgiveable for people, living in safety and ostensibly in support of voiceless Palestinians in a war zone, to decide to put a territory argument above Paelstinian lives.
This argument further endangers Palestinian lives when it radicalizes them in a manner, within the context of an unwinnable situation, that all but assures their deaths.
Hamas has been clear about their choice of the promise of territory over the lives of the entire Palestinian population.
Less doomed and morally clearer people need to make the choice to discharge the Palestinian population from their duty as pawns. Even if it means living a long life in another desert that isn't under terrorist militia control. In the context of an absolutely unwinnable situation.
Israel is clear, whatever one thinks of the nature of that clarity. That the Palestinians are unclear is why there will be a continued "information war" until the exact point when there isn't the possibility of Palestinians tolerating a single further death. At which point the rallying cry will focus solely on Palestinian lives.
We should all hope that this mutual clarity comes in this very minute. If not in this minute, then in the next. So that the maximum number of lives can be saved.
People can rail against that reality forever, but it will remain reality.
The West Bank shows what happens if they only stop being bombed without actually being free. Palestine needs to be free in order for there to be peace.
There won't be a single outcome but the most negative one for radicalized Palestinian civilians as a result. Hopefully, morally clearer voices will be raised higher.
It's the exact same mentality that drove normal Afghan people to support the Taliban.
It is very clear that in the US the life of an israel citizen is valued way above the one of a palestinian. It is sad to lose that level of humanity.
all of the discourse also conveniently ignores that Israel created a large-scale open-air prison in Gaza and removed any hope left for people living there.
On the contrary it seems more like a power play on Israel’s part. “Take our prisoners we will just defeat them again!”
thats exactly what its like. If israel wanted their hostages back they needed to give up twice as many palestinian prisoners.
[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Occupied_Protes...
If there were indigenous guerilla forces with popular bases of support in some reservations I don't doubt that we'd see the use of bombs and tanks.
Exactly.
There's a religious dimension, too. Some kinds of Protestants see a modern Jewish state in Palestine as a precondition for the Second Coming of Christ, and actively want to urge that by supporting Israel. This is very common among religious fundamentalists in much of the US.
The most relevant comparison seems to be with the Russians. Russia has no credibility in the West and Israel is rapidly losing any they had, at least with younger people. My general impression is of a Russian-level intensity of destruction, too.
But perhaps these impressions are wrong. I would normally assume the Israelis aren’t complete idiots. I’d like to read a “steelman” case for this military campaign, if anyone knows of one. Why are these impressions misleading? What’s really going on?
(Yes, a major difference is that this is a counter-attack, but beyond that?)
Maybe you need a quick history refresher but the Jews were not doing that in 1930s Germany.
I'm at a loss of words. What kind of explanation are you missing?
However, as we saw after 9/11, that doesn’t necessarily mean that whatever war a government proposes is a good idea. A counter-attack could still be foolish or unnecessarily brutal (as it seems to be). It might still result in a strategic failure.
The kind of explanation I’d be interested in would be why the way Israel is prosecuting this war is something the US (and other countries) should support.
(Your comment is about what Hamas did, and that’s a different sort of thing than a justification for what the Israel military is doing.)
But invading Afghanistan to capture/kill the al Qaeda organization, to prevent another 9/11? It is widely understood that the US was in the moral right and on the right side of international norms for its policy actions in 2001-2002.
If one accepts that, then how is what Israel is doing in Gaza any different?
You do make a utilitarian justification with your claim that attacking al Qaeda helped to prevent another 9/11 attack. I haven’t studied it enough to know whether it did that. There have been similar terrorist movements since then. Perhaps increases in airline security did more against that particular attack?
Also, al Qaeda was hiding in the mountains, not under a city. The consequences for civilians are different enough that I don’t think it’s a fair analogy.
For historical background about changing attitudes towards civilian casualties, Bret Devereaux’s latest post [1] seems pretty good.
[1] https://acoup.blog/2023/12/08/fireside-friday-december-8-202...
On October 7th Hamas killed or captured ~1400 Israelis in an indiscriminate and violent cross-border attack, then unleashed a barrage of rockets on Israeli cities. Many failed, and the iron dome intercepted most of those that got through, but not all, and at great cost.
This was an active state of war, started by Hamas, not Israel. Hamas uses the people of Gaza as disposable human shields. These militants will use every unfair trick to gain advantage and kill more Israelis. They have consistently violated cease fires in the past, and turned humanitarian aid into instruments of war (the rockets, for example, are built using water pipes provided by European countries for the Gazan people).
Evil regimes that treat their own people as disposable need to be gotten rid of, and are unwilling to negotiate in good faith for a settlement. War is really the only viable option here, and the IDF tactics have been chosen to make this war as quick as possible, for a variety of reasons including the safety of the populace.
The military goals aren't very clear. "Ending Hamas" is vague. It's not all that clear where Israel wants to end up after the war is over. What's supposed to happen to Gaza?
Also, what are the rules of engagement, and can they be justified? (A bare assertion that IDF tactics are justified is not enough to satisfy my curiosity about what's going on.)
Explaining all that would be more in-depth than I'd expect anyone to write in an Internet comment - it would take a longer article. But these are the things I'd expect if Israel were serious about justifying its actions to an open-minded but skeptical audience, and I haven't really seen it. Perhaps I've missed it, though?
(Although I don't think the invasion of Iraq was justifiable, it's notable that the Bush administration tried to justify it. For example, famously sending Colin Powell to the UN to make a speech about weapons of mass destruction that turned out not to be true. I also remember reading about serious planning for occupation after the war. That didn't go like they expected.)
Meanwhile, half of the population of Gaza is under the age of 15, in one of the most densely populated areas of the world. It's unadulterated genocide in service of an expansionist, right-wing extremist government. Another difference is this media (and social web, down to HN) effort to silence and smear any and all criticism of it, to turn it into a dichotomy of who you're for (rather than what international law and basic fucking human decency would require), while Joe Biden talks about having seen photos of beheaded babies. Contrast to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_war_in_Af...
[1] https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/misc/634kfc....
[2] https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17330661183302657...
[3] https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17328125940611608...
[4] https://twitter.com/NimerSultany/status/1731736295666282707
[5] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231024-security-minister...
You can't just do random shit and say "it's for X" and that makes it okay. I can't just take everything you own and say it's to achieve world peace, you know? Or nuke the world to prevent car theft since no more world means no more cars means no more car theft. That's the level of the argument you have; zilch, backed by brutality and nothing else.
(I am looking for serious, well-written arguments for Israel and they seem hard to find?)
When responding to the second largest terrorist attack ever, step 1 isn’t “sit down and write a long-form justification of your right to defend yourself, in English, for the benefit of skybrian’s curiosity.”
The reason I’d expect Israel to justify the war to an international audience isn’t to satisfy me, but rather because Israel needs allies. PR is part of that.
You might have noticed that opinions on Israel among Americans are heavily skewed by age [1]. The old guard isn’t going to last forever. If they lose the US, what then? They need to be able to convince young people that what they’re doing is justified, and written articles are part of that.
So I’m somewhat surprised that there aren’t more things like that being shared in places where I’d see them.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/12/08/views-of-the...
Is this a serious comment, or satire? I honestly can't tell. I mean... we're talking about a country whose official social media accounts tries to pass off pics of the Lebanese war as the current situation in Gaza; who posts doctored images to try to disguise executions; who posts edited footage of their military commanders pointing at calendars saying they are a roster of terrorist names. I could go on and on, but that last bit is still too surreal.
What (true) version of reality are you talking about here? And besides that, you do realise that one of the things this article is pointing out is how certain groups work together to punish people who post things they don't like - even if it's just an opinion?
Nevermind, your post simply has to be satire...
But the muslim community is at war with Israel and the jews, given the rabid antisemitism in every corner of MENA and beyond, like in Indonesia and Pakistan. Antisemitism is the normal in all these places.
I guess it's also the new normal on US college campuses too.
I saw many a Muslims quote Quran on how all Jews are evil and such.
And this is so rampant.
What ground? Kibbutz Be'eri and all the other Israel towns where families are mourning their slaughtered loved ones? Or Gaza refugee camps where families are mourning their own dead children?
[1] https://www.transcend.org/tms/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/sf-...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHEvpbppx_4rgC8q0TVMf...
Reddit, at least, seems to be (rightfully or not) dominated by a strongly anti-Israel narrative.
Even the "great" BBC is not willing to call a spade a spade.
I decided to never look at those subreddits ever again.
It's not quite based on nothing: there is footage of Hamas (or maybe Islamic Jihad?) digging up pipes to use for rockets and a Guardian article saying that Hamas could use the EU-financed pipes to make rockets, but as far as I can tell there isn't any evidence that the pipes Hamas are using are from critical in-use infrastructure.
One reddit commenter posted that the video of the pipe being dug up was to supply an abandoned Israeli settlement. Israel shut that water off a long time ago. I can't verify that's correct, but it sounds plausible.
I'm sure it depends on what subredits you look at. The moderators are essentially free to enforce their politics.
When Russia does this on Ukraine, we call them war criminals but when Israel does it on Palestinians we call it business as usual.
The idea of military revenge doesn’t get us anywhere.
Defense is the best offense. Little gains the world made in Middle East stability have now been reversed for decades.
As technology progresses, the drones and missiles will become cheaper and more destructive.
An eye for an eye makes the world blind.
I really wished US provided weapons based on condition of only making precise targeted attacks for specific terrorists.
That means our a big chunk of $800B defense money, funded by our tax money is used to obliterate civilians in Gaza. That makes me sad.
It’s likely this turns into another Afghanistan multi decade war with trillions spent and nothing to show for it. The only winners are defense contractors.
US could have played peace maker role. Be the party to stop missiles flying everywhere. Provided humanitarian and medical aid.
Demilitarize and deescalate.
The current strategy of destroying hamas by destroying Gaza and its inhabitants is pretty stupid.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
But the mistakes happened way before by moving troops away from the Gaza border to West Bank to protect illegal settlements and also supporting Hamas as an opposition to PLO. Don't get me wrong. Don't get me wrong the world would be a better place without Hamas however your policy has to be strategic and not emotional (i.e. revenge)
What about border security?
Doing what you say would basically be letting Hamas have their win. It would absolutely embolden them to plan an execute further attacks.
The game theory is absolutely clear here. When an attack of this magnitude is carried out, you need to respond with overwhelming force to cutoff the possibility of further escalation. Stop it cold.
When Hamas invaded Israel and massacred civilians en masse, an invasion of Gaza was made inevitable. Restraint here is the significant effort that has been taken by the IDF to minimize civilian casualties.
Legit question and there would have been negotiations happening to exchange hostages for prisoners (like it was done in the past)
> What about border security?
What about it? I didn't say that Isreal should not secure its border. The entire reason why Hamas was successful in the first place was because the border was not secured because the troops were moved and Israel's security services didn't take the warnings and threats seriously that Hamas was planing such an attack.
> The game theory is absolutely clear here. When an attack of this magnitude is carried out, you need to respond with overwhelming force to cutoff the possibility of further escalation. Stop it cold
First, I don't think game theories applies in this conflict and second when did this ever work in the past? At least I would argue that the "war on terror" after 9.11 was anything but successful. Actually compared to the current reaction of Israel the reaction of the US after 9.11 looks very restraint.
> Restraint here is the significant effort that has been taken by the IDF to minimize civilian casualties.
That's a bold claim, looking at the number of civilian deaths in that relative short period of time. Yes I know that the numbers come indirectly from Hamas but they were relatively accurate in the past when they were confirmed afterwards. Most people say Hamas to blame for this because they hide behind civilians. However I would argue that it's neither morally right nor strategically smart to killing dozens of civilians for one Hamas operative. Also Israeli officials were quoted with: "We’re focused on maximum damage and not accuracy" (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/10/right-now-it-i...).
Hamas members are entrenched in civilian buildings and tunnels, and they are well equipped to attack tanks, and they wouldn't hesitate to blow themselves up
it would be suicide for the IDF to do a slow invasion of Gaza, the IDF doesn't have such a big army, and this would drag along and allow hamas leaders to run away, and would allow hamas to regroup.
also, the more time passes, the more it gives hezbollah and other actors to attack.
maybe the US army would have enough foot soldiers to invade by foot and check every street, but again, with human shields and guerilla tactics, it's not sure it would be that much better, because US militaries are probably not really trained enough to deal with such a big hornet's nest that is gaza.
to me this topic goes to show that if you remove the US-centric discourse out of a world event, you get to actually see the real nuances in what the direct parties are doing.
https://www.youtube.com/@CoreyGilShusterAskProject/videos
It's fascinating to hear opinions on the ground from both sides. Some things I've learned or concluded:
Young Palestinians are much more radical than older ones, who seem more flexible.
I personally think the two-state solution is a non-starter, and watched these videos to see if a one state solution is at all viable (meaning make Palestinians into Israeli citizens with full rights- basically the Zionists conquered the land, but they must also take the people). The problem is that neither side wants this.
Many Jewish Israelis think the Arabs would outnumber them due to birth rate, but recently Ultra-Orthodox Jews have an even higher birth rate, and Palestinian birth rate has fallen (I speculate due to increased education). Extremist settlers absolutely won't have it, and there is rampant racism. Palestinians want the Jews gone from their lands, but when pressed would probably accept those of Palestinian descent.
Sadly, I think we are going to continue with the one state with Apartheid. And, an interesting thing has happened in post-Apartheid South Africa: the realization that they are collectively poor, and not a rich first world country. One example from SA is that the electrical infrastructure was sized for only the whites, now that the full population is counted, there is just not enough, it's a big current problem. Any per-capita measurement of Israel should include the Palestinians to see the depth of this problem.
They have internet, but unfortunately it's not a force for moderation.
After the 2nd Intifada and Hamas's takeover of Gaza, Israel cracked down on Palestinian migrant workers and began importing labor from Thailand, Nepal, and other countries.
The situation is not like Apartheid in South Africa.
In Apartheid, the white minority controlled South Africa, and did things like denying the black majority the vote.
In contrast, Israel has a ~20% Arab minority (excluding Gaza and West Bank). The rights of that minority are respected. Arabs can vote in Israel, and in fact there is an Arab party in the Israeli parliament.
Gaza was largely self governing until the Oct 7th attacks. Israel has not shown any desire to "rule" Gaza.
I'm reminded of an anecdote (probably false) of when someone was asked in an interview why all manhole covers are round. He replied that not all manhole covers are round. They countered "Well, just consider the round ones".
West Bank is more complicated, but the same concept applies.
If Israel was motivated by racist or other tendencies to want to impose apartheid, they would start with the areas they have full control over. Why would they allow Arab voting if they are trying to impose apartheid?
"OK don't worry about oval ones. Just consider the round ones."
All this aside, I don't think you understand what is meant by Apartheid. This is coming from a South African who grew up during that era.
Gaza does not have borders it controls, Israel controls Gaza's air and sea borders.
Let's just say that on a scale of 1 to apartheid it's not a 1.
1. It was surprising to me that Hamas believed that filming and publishing their atrocities was a good idea. And more surprising that the response hasn't been a bigger backlash.
2. That makes me think that despite the fact that both parts think that infowar is necessary, the real war is fought on the ground, with weapons, bullets and bombs. Not with protests, declarations and tweets.
Neither Israel nor the Palestinians' supporters in the West give a fuck.
But they have no problem showing Hamas propaganda.
https://www.societyofeditors.org/soe_blog/the-first-casualty...
Reading up on the conflict, I support Israel more and more.
“Success”, whatever that looks like, lies in getting the rest of the world to care more about your side and/or be too apathetic or paralyzed to side when your enemies.
That’s always been the case to some degree, but this conflict is dropping on a hyper-connected video world that is new.
It’d be foolish for the heads of either camp to not try to manipulate popular opinion. Sadly that makes it harder—though not impossible—to grok the truth, but practically I don’t see it ever changing for the simpler.
Right now 2 million Palestinians are displaced and, so far, 1% of Gaza's population has been killed by the Israeli army offensive. With many more injured, crippled, psychologically scared.
The saddest part? It doesn't look like this horror will end. Many more will die
No suffering is justified No killing is justified
Since then I realized I cannot just let what's happening over there stay over there. I would want him to have cared and known and tried to help if I were in his place.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2007/11/19/gaza-israel-blocks-670-s...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/palesti...
From a cursory reading[1], it seems Israel had for a long time the ability to veto any human's exit from Gaza through the Rafah crossing in Egypt. Seems to only be the last 5 years where they were not able to do this and that border crossing was open. I graduated from University in 2017.
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/redscarepod/comments/18dp0jp/mental...
I just don't want my tax money to fund these weapons
We clearly see moderation policies being biased against pro-Palestinian points of view. All the "mistakes" moderators make are in the same direction.
The challenge of balancing equity, justice, and personal security, and how conversations around this challenge are positioned is certainly not unique to the conflict in Israel/Palestine. I’d love to hear thoughts about how to have these conversations in ways that will lead to long term growth/positive change…
This alliance seems to be turning about two billion people and dozens of muslim-majority nations against America, driving them towards alliances with countries like China. American taxpayer money is being heavily invested in Israel. We're talking about a staggering $260 billion given to Israel, seemingly without direct benefits to the U.S. Ethically, the U.S. is on shaky ground. By consistently supporting Israel, even in cases involving civilian casualties, the U.S. appears to be undermining international law and the United Nations, often standing alone against global consensus. Looking at the U.S. presidency, it seems like candidates from both major parties have to win the favor of the Israeli lobby to secure their nomination. Take Obama, for example. Despite his apparent disdain for Netanyahu – remember the leaked conversation with Sarkozy where they called Netanyahu a liar? – he still seemed unable to counter the lobby's influence. This focus on Israel is a massive distraction from more pressing issues, like the rise of China.
And let's be clear – Israel's loyalty as a Western ally is questionable. It's kept friendly ties with the Kremlin, hasn't joined in sanctioning Russia, and has turned down requests to send defensive weapons to Ukraine. It seems Israel would not hesitate to shift its allegiance to China if it suited its national interests.
It also doesn't hurt that any aid, is defense spending in the US which is a stimulus for jobs or manufacturing for defense.
Overall it's cheap expenditure for the US.
It is not at all. This funding is only occurring because of AIPAC and similar organizations including Christian groups who want to see the end times happen and supporting Israel is apparently important for that. Israel is not a counter balance to Russia at all. And Israel (specifically Netanyahu and AIPAC) undermined the Iran agreement that was going to see them stop their nuclear program.
They invaded the Suez Canal when Egypt tried to nationalize it. They did it for France and Britain.
During the Cold War, they provided of information to the US govt about Soviet assets. They also tell the US information about other countries from their intelligence.
The fact of the matter is Israel’s neighbors hate Israel so they need to get support from whoever they can, so they try to appease Europe and America. America goes along with it because it works out for us. Israel also also economically and technologically in a better spot than a lot of other Middle Eastern countries which are already semi-hostile to America, so they’re one of the better allies to have in that region.
America doesn’t give a damn about Israel anymore than France. It’s the working relationship that keeps it going — for both parties.
The problem right now is that both Israel and Palestine are both run by extreme right wingers. Extremist right wingers are always trying to start wars.
However, US foreign policy generally prefers having a working relationship than caring if a country is democratic or ticking the “is good” boxes. Most countries in the world make terrible allies. They’re weak, or they’re unstable, or every 30 years, their system of government will have completely changed. Despite the shit Israel does, they are consistent and stable, two traits many countries have not figured out.
If we're going to be discussing facts, I think we should be fair to all sides, not just a minority.
The fact of the matter is those people decided to pick up everything and move into a region that already had people living there, and with neighbors that didn't like it then, nor now.
What's that meme where someone is riding a bike and puts a pipe in the spokes just to blame someone else called?
Jewish immigration to Palestine was not particularly great. Jewish people were not really heavily trying to move to the Middle East where people didn’t like them.
What happened is that Great Britain, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire and the division of that region between itself and France, decided to make the Israel state, make it official through the League of Nations, and then encourage Jewish people to move there. It was the ultimate solution to the several century old “Jewish Question” that Europeans had. Of course people started moving to a territory controlled and sanctioned by none other but the British Empire.
By sending them to the Middle East, Europe could get rid of the Jews and Britian can get an ally. Win win for Europe. Jews, Palestinians, Arabs and everyone else be damned.
Of course, after hell obviously broke loose, Britain realized that their mandate was not working and they pulled out of a problem that they created.
…And nooowww we’re here.
Historically, Jews faced widespread animosity in Europe. The Roman Empire's destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD is a notable early example. Jews were wrongly blamed for the Black Death, leading to widespread pogroms and massacres. During the Crusades, particularly the capture of Jerusalem, both Jews and Muslims were massacred. In 1492, the Spanish Inquisition resulted in the expulsion of Jews from Spain, which had one of the most significant Jewish communities in Europe. Many of these expelled Jews found refuge in Palestine. The history of Jewish persecution also includes severe instances in Russia and Poland, and the situation in Germany is widely known.
By the 1900s, Jews and Palestinians were coexisting relatively peacefully in the region now known as Israel and the Palestinian territories, even though Jews constituted only about 3% of the population. However, relations began to deteriorate with the onset of mass Jewish migration, which saw the Jewish population in Palestine increase to 30% within a few decades. Tensions escalated dramatically following the British decision to allocate over half of Palestinian land to this minority population.
It is also misleading to suggest that there wasn't a significant effort by Jewish people to relocate to the Middle East. The choice of Palestine was intrinsically linked to Jewish historical, religious, and cultural identity. For the Zionist leadership, any location other than Jerusalem was unacceptable.
In essence, this was a chiefly European problem outsourced to the Middle East.
And there is a significant effort by a lot of people to split California into two or more two states but it’s all talk.
The Jewish relocation happened because of the British Empire.
And what's happening now that I think you might be missing is the complete and total subjugation of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government despite it being universally condemned by 95%+ of the Earth.
1. It's a Western-style democracy in an Eastern anti-democratic location.
2. It doesn't hurt that there have been plenty of ethnic Jews in foreign policy positions.
3. The military industrial complex doesn't see costs as costs.
In US politics there are the Jews, the pro-Israel Lobby, and also part of the Evangelical Christian who strongly support Israel for religious reason (while sometime being a bit antisemitic). More generally American people strongly support Israel - even if some are criticizing decision made by Israel. Electorally all that is important.
Election aside, everybody have his own interest, but for many decade Israel had been a solid ally of the USA in the middle East - which is/was a key region. And the coming decades it is hard to see how it can change as both have interest to work with each other
Muslims that are unhappy with the current situation with Israel, were probably not huge fan of the USA and Israel in the first place... This did not prevent leaders of many Muslim countries to work closely with the USA and growingly more with Israel : national interest first. Of course the current event increase the pressure of the street over their leader to not work with Israel on the short term...
If USA were dropping big time a key ally in a key situation for this ally, this would send a very very bad signal to all allies. But we see that Biden is much more critical about Israel than USA used to be. While still being an ally.
If Israel goes against Russia, then Russia will prevent Israel attacks that prevent Irans control of Syria and Lebanon.
life is way more complicated than you presented it
These lobbies then reach out to every lever of power and funds Israel friendly politicians (and even ones who are opposed to what Israel does - to neutralize their opposition - google "AIPAC AOC"). These offers of help (carrots) come with threats to primary the politician (sticks) if that politician goes against AIPAC's policies.
The only difference for Israel vs. other client states like Egypt, Japan, etc is the lack of vote required to keep funding going to Israel.
I remember reading a column in an English-language Israeli newspaper (probably Haaretz) – sorry I can't find it now – arguing that US defence funding actually hurt Israel. It isn't that much money in the grand scheme of things (around 0.6% of Israel's GDP) – from a purely financial perspective, Israel could survive fine without it. It comes with all these strings attached, which are basically designed to keep the IDF dependent on the US defense industry, and discourage Israel from developing indigenous replacements for various US military technologies. The greater reliance on US technology, instead of indigenous Israeli replacements, holds back Israel's defense industry, causes Israel to lose out on defense export opportunities (you can't export military technologies you haven't developed), reduces Israel's national sovereignty, and gives the US leverage to use to control the Israeli government (if the US doesn't like some Israeli plan, it will send behind-closed-door threats to delay military supplies that the IDF is dependent upon.) It also sustains a talking point which opponents of Israel can reliably call upon.
The column said that the defenders of this arrangement within the Israeli establishment concede that many of these drawbacks are real, but argue that they are outweighed by the arrangement's biggest benefit – it sends a signal to neighbouring countries that "the US has Israel's back".
> The only difference for Israel vs. other client states like Egypt, Japan, etc is the lack of vote required to keep funding going to Israel.
I think there is another big difference – many Americans (both Jewish and Christian) have an emotional attachment to the US alliance with Israel, which transcends whatever its practical benefits might be; far fewer Americans feel that way about the US alliance with Egypt or Japan.
There are waivers allowed from the executive branch and I believe Pakistan got one after 9/11 with some antiterrorism benchmarks (conditional aid).
As I understand it the US doesn't acknowledge Israel is nuclear armed and so doesn't give them a waiver congruent with the law.
The permanent members of the UN's Security Council do not abide by laws they force other members to abide by. This is because there really are great powers in the world, which, despite being difficult for people in the West to understand, is very obvious in the rest of the world.
Also, "lobbying" is a boogeyman here. Americans support Israel for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with lobbying. Israel is a settler society, it's a country of immigrants, much like the US. Israel has a rule of law, it's a democracy, much like the US. Israel has long existed within a sea of hostile Arab nations, none of which are democracies (okay minus Lebanon, kind of) and none which particularly resemble of the US. People are starting to look at the Israelis as bullies today but for most of the 20th century, they were viewed as the underdog. And finally there's a religious element: Americans are fairly Christian and feel a fellowship with Jews and view Israel as a custodian of the Holy Land. As a result of these factors and more, there's a strong affinity between Americans and Israel.
I’ll also add that despite only being 2% of US population 4/10 of richest Americans are Jews and they dominate both finance and media, two very influential industries. Their outsized representation/power/influence biases American popular opinion and foreign policy in favor of Israel.
That's the insanity about this whole thing. The Zionists don't believe Palestine nor the Palestinians deserve a homeland while many Jews believe they do. Zionism is an incredibly powerful entity that even brought Musk to his knees.
That's the real story here.....
Just saying....
Which she said after Israel was a victim of a terrorist attack. Quite tone deaf, no?
Life's ironies I guess.
Are you not just allowed to have an opinion without you being classified as some sort of adjective? The same thing is happening with politics, you're either a republican or a democrat. Well, what if you're just a regular guy who pours concrete for a living. Why can't you just be Bob Smith?
https://www.afp.com/en/inside-afp/journalists-killed-and-inj...
Instead of building things and relationships (which according to our very humble observation can be more fulfilling than building billion dollar companies), the culture as it is (and you can figure out which) is still today so attached to the ideas and conceptions that no longer serve humans and their fulfillment, living in times where no-one should be lacking anything.
If we start discussing if blocking water and food is can be excused by any God or highest of the dearest reason, then we should ask ourselves who brought these leaders to their positions and what is the fundamental flaw in the unfortunate human psyche.
Sadly today our narratives are shaped by algorithms and I'm afraid that most of the people are not very well aware of that.
Not gonna lie. That gives me mild anxiety.
Speaking as an early online person, who has long believed in the democratizing power and goodness potential of the Internet... Contemporary "social media" are usually wastelands, both of rampant manipulation, and of people who haven't yet learned critical thinking nor even seen much examples of same.
I would like to call for there to once again be eminently credible and respected journalists, academics, and officials, who research and understand various global situations, and report accurate assessments that people can trust.
Trustworthy experts could answer immediate questions, and also show everyone else by example, how to think and speak better, to answer future questions.
There are signs about 'stop the occupation' literally all over my city.
Sorry, but it looks like the Palestinians are the ones winning this information war. They broke the peace, they attacked israel, they are the ones responsible for this ongoing war.
If you condemn Russia for them breaking the peace and starting a war. Then you condemn the Palestinians just as much.
I have two conclusions:
- Whoever is in charged for this "pro-Israel" information war failed miserably. Even in Jewish communities.
- Putin is clearly the winner here.
The mistakes are the following:
- They focused way too much on the mainstream media. And nearly nothing on TikTok, forums, etc.
- They did nothing about China's and Russia's influence and their own info-war.
- They assumed Biden is popular - or maybe they hoped his support will help in public. It did not.
- They pushed "canceling" but public option about canceling changed considerable in last 6 months.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/uproar-university-presidents-remar...
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/09/business/upenn-board-of-trust...
Doesn't seem coordinated to me...
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/stefanik-applauds-resignati...
I’m inclined, more than ever, to just stay quiet, but as a social animal that’s exceedingly uncomfortable.
The fact that it is a story at all is concerning.
- Is TikTok Really Boosting Pro-Palestinian Content? [1]
- TikTok: ‘The biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis’ says actor Sacha Baron Cohen [2]
- Apple, Disney and IBM to pause ads on X after antisemitic Elon Musk tweet [3]
- How Bad Is Antisemitism Online? It’s Increasingly Hard to Know. [4]
[1] https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/right-...
[2] https://www.euronews.com/culture/2023/11/20/tiktok-the-bigge...
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/17/elon-musk...
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/17/technology/israel-hamas-w... [4]
I feel like we had this war's WMD moment and its just not being covered!
The Al-Shifa hospital is a pretty interesting place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_Hospital
In 2014 it was called "...a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices." From: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/while-israe...
The US and Israel claim that the hospital is again being used by Hammas: https://web.archive.org/web/20231205215049/http://www.reuter...
"Hamas is using bunkers built by Israel under Al-Shifa Hospital, former Israeli prime minister says" From: https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-wa...
Israel takes the hospital: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67436154 and this is one of the few reports from the time. I find it odd that there is more coverage on getting there then on everything they found (or did not find).
It takes almost a week to get footage of the "tunnel" that they found: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/19/idf-israel-arm...
I have yet to see a diagram, or some solid on the ground reporting. I hear mixed messages that the tunnel is on the "hospital compound" or was found "Under a wall" that the tunnel is under the hospital or to a pharmacy next door. I get that there is a fog of war, but the BBC and CNN and all our other normal news sources just quit covering or explaining at that point.
Israel has a history of bombing hospitals (2014): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/21/gaza-crisis-un... so not exactly the first time this sort of thing has gone on.
I would love for someone to COVER this, to explain what happened, what went right and what went wrong. To put all the peices in one place and paint a more accurate picture, because right now there isn't one, and I think that's indicative of this entire war.
That was such a depressing and infuriating experience for me that it turned watching the censorship play out into my main interest in HN for a few weeks, and eventually turned me off of the site altogether.
I understand some of the tensions at play for moderators here and the kind of online space they want to facilitate, and the work that controversial topics put on small moderation teams. But it still ultimately damaged my relationship with this site and broke my habit of frequently using it. I can't be the only one.
It's no wonder that when the moderation team finally decided that a post closely relating to this conflict deserves to remain on the front page, it shot up into the thousands of comments. I appreciate this post's presence here, and I hope the discussion stays manageable.
I wonder how many people will be doxxed for their comments here on this very post, just like Carey in the OP.
https://twitter.com/sama/status/1732925866836210151
"for a long time i said that antisemitism, particularly on the american left, was not as bad as people claimed.
i'd like to just state that i was totally wrong.
i still don't understand it, really. or know what to do about it.
but it is so fucked."
When Israel imprisons Palestinians for years without charging them with crimes and there is documented proof of them raping and torturing them [1] why doesn't Palestine have the right to defeat Israel to make sure that never happens again?
Why isn't everything Israel wants also allowed for Palestinians?
[1] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231205-resigned-us-state...
I can't see how any leftist could support Oct 7 events, and call it resistance or freedom fighting in some form. Just for context, if Hamas would have targeted military positions in the attack, then it would have been possible to say they are fighting for some liberation goal. But as this is not the case and they clearly targeted civilians locations like a rave party and villages, it's clear that this was not their goal, but their goal was to inflict terror on Israeli population.
My take is that in this long fought battle both sides made wrongdoings, but we need to be very clear and nuanced about each event. In this case it's clear that Hamas, and I may say that since Hamas is a popular movement, the Palestine public in Gaza in genera, made a grave mistake and now suffer the consequences of that decision as there is very little possibility for Israel to defeat Hamas without causing civilian casualties when they are some embedded within the population.
In this sense President Biden approach makes perfect sense; defeat Hamas with minimal civilian casualties.
The Palestines deserve better, but I think that as long as they stay fixated on the results of the 1948 war, and do not agree to let that stay in the past, there will be no end in sight.
That's an interesting claim, since Israel is definitely not a exclusivist state. Yet again, 'anti-zionism' seems to be used as a dog whistle for anti-semitism
This article is pretty bad, it screams the typical "jews run the media" trope
The authors also collaborated on an article called 'Moderna is spying on you'. So they are anti-vax conspiracy theorists as well? Yikes
Basically every human rights org has come out and declared it an apartheid state based off how non-Jews are treated within Israel proper and in Israeli-occupied territory.
* Illegal Settlers living in Palestine can vote in Israel but not Palestinians; Israeli settlers all the rights of being a citizen of Apartheid Israel while the Palestinian neighbour doesn't have any. Apartheid South Africa did the same, they put the people in their own "country" and so couldn't vote. Israel doesn't want 2 states as that would mean millions more voting.
* There were 5,248,185 Palestinian refugees neighbouring countries in 2020; that's equal to half the population of Israel. Israel is committing genocide in trying to ethnically cleanse the land.
* Israel has ethnically cleansed and fragmented areas into [isolated cantons divided by Israeli settlements](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_enclaves), and implemented [lebensraum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum) tactics. This was called [Bantustans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantustan) in South Africa.
* The Apartheid Separation wall - https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d0/73/81/d07381fffef632350bcb...
* The settlers killing in the West Bank, and burning homes to get rid of people and destroying olive tree groves.
* They control the water completely - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in...
* They get 12 hours of electricity a day - https://www.ochaopt.org/page/gaza-strip-electricity-supply
* Palestinians didn't have 3G until 2018, their access is also spied on and restricted.
* Segregated road system - https://s3.amazonaws.com/VP2/visuals/en/4db97391fe7cb2462249...
* 50% of Palestinians are children.
As someone from South Africa, I've seen ethnic cleansing and Israel is doing worse. Israel is absolutely an Apartheid state. Various human rights organisations have already stated this.
Not to mention the Israeli government's rhetoric of calling Palestinians rats and that their lives are less important than an Israeli's. Hamas wouldn't exist if not for Apartheid Israel's actions, in the same way uMkhonto we Sizwe doesn't exist now that Apartheid has been disbanded in South Africa.
And it seems in the comments here and elsewhere on the interent, Zionism is conflated with antisemitism. Zionism is extreme nationalism (at the expense of innocent Palestinians), not anti-Jew.
Money sent to Israel could have gone to Ukraine. Instead, Americans sponsored the massacre of innocent Gazans. I didn't vote for that, most of us didn't vote for that. Why should we accept it, or approve of Israel's genocidal war? The least they could do is be honest about how much they hate people showing the world the truth.
I truly have no respect or love in my heart for human beings who are comfortable killing to cover up their war crimes. As an American I'm sick of my tax dollars going to a bunch of desert conflicts that won't improve life for anyone.
There are many other recent instances of ethnic cleansing that nobody seems to care about. The number of ethnic Germans who were permanently expelled from their homes in Europe and the USSR (at about the same time as Palestinians) exceeds the number of Palestinian refugees by more than an order of magnitude (10-12M, with at least 500K dead), making it the largest ethnic cleansing in modern history, but this episode is basically forgotten (presumably because sympathy for Germans was rather scarce after WW2). The hundreds of thousands of Turks and Greeks who were mutually expelled from their homes after WW2 will never get to return either. Nor will all the ethnic minorities in the former Yugoslavia who were "cleansed" from their historic homelands. So my question is, given that ethnic cleansings are not uncommon in the recent past, and that the Palestinian Nakba is not even close to the worst case, why is it basically the only one that anyone seems to care about?
Did you know about the Israeli killer drone sales demo for the Azeris that practiced on live Armenian soldiers?
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2017-08-15/ty-article/is...
Strange, I saw a lot of coverage of it in Western media when it happened (and a kot today, because of an apparent diolomatic breakthrough.)
Its true that a lot of the coverage during the event was colored by relating it to the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war, Armenia’s status as a CSTO ally of Russia.
> So my question is, given that ethnic cleansings are not uncommon in the recent past, and that the Palestinian Nakba is not even close to the worst case, why is it basically the only one that anyone seems to care about?
In the West and the US specifically, the role of Israel and the local governments degree of positiive engagement with Israel creates a rather different context to most ethnic cleansings elsewhere in the world.
Note that the issue in not the Nakba anymore. From memory Oslo was about giving to a demilitarize Palestinian state about 10% of the Palestine mandate territory mostly in "islands" controlled by Israel, then progressively over a long period, increasing it to 22%, with quite no hope to get East Jerusalem back. And now (even before oct. 7) that seems impossible, far too much for the Israelis. (in 1992 89% of the population was "Palestinian")
In general westerners don't care about what happen abroad when there is nothing connected to them. In French media we have seen many stuff about Nagorno-Karabakh (with an Armenian point of view), because there are Armenian in France, and because it fits the narrative of the clash of civilizations Christian Vs Muslim. But it was far, in unimportant countries for us, few dead, no suspense, nothing spectacular...
Israel Palestine is another beast :
- Jerusalem in Holly for half of the world population and most westerners
- Israel as been important in US politics for decades (partly because of the first point) and the USA are direct and strong ally
- Most non western country have been colonized or assaulted by westerners in "recent" history... This conflict is also the echo and symbol of this : westerners assaulting non westerners (while giving moral lesson to the world)
- For some westerners that is the echo of Muslim and terrorists attacking westerners - us (9 11, Paris attack are in all minds), and for some kind of a symbol of the clash of civilization
- And this is happening now, with a lot of pictures, media coverage, with new images everyday, some suspense, some twist...
> If you see a [dead] post that shouldn't be dead, you can vouch for it. Click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click 'vouch' at the top. When enough users do this, the post is restored. There's a small karma threshold before vouch links appear.
I should revisit the guidelines and the FAQ sometime.
Also, here is a link that explains undocumented features and behaviors of HN for anyone interested:
Anti-Semitism, "antisemitism", anti-Judaism, anti-Zionism, and anti-Israel are all different concepts.
Semitic peoples include both Jews and Arabs. To erase the latter (as Zionism does) and replace them with Europeans is by definition anti-Semitic, therefore Zionism is anti-Semitic.
To address that, Zionism coined the term "antisemitism" as a synonym for "anti-Zionism".
Being pro-2-state-solution is pro-Israel (and pro-Palestine, pro-Semitic) but anti-Zionist.
Anti-Zionism is also not anti-Judaism, because there are many non-Jews that identify as Zionists, e.g. from Winston Churchill to Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
(There are also distinctions between ethnic and religious Judaism)
All this said, there are unfortunately real anti-Semitic, anti-Jew, anti-Israel individuals and groups out there that also leverage this confusion.
This does not take away from the fact that anti-Zionism is an extremely sound moral and political position, akin to anti-Nazism and other anti-totalitarianisms.
It refers exclusively to hatred of Jewry not because Zionists, but because the term was was popularized in Germany in the 19th century by people who hated Jews prior to being brought into English.
Not exactly comparable.