War Declared in Israel

[Darzin]

22 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

One thing I also struggle to understand is why the Palestinians should demand their own state at all. From my limited understanding there really isn’t such a thing as Palestinian ethnicity, there has never been a Palestinian state, and the Muslim population from the 19th century was some nomadic tribes rather than any country.

I would think it makes more sense to just move away or become a vassal state of a friendly Muslim country than the current situation, which doesn’t seem to have a workable solution.  Yes obviously depending on other countries to allow that to happen but still.
 

 

Nationalism and religion, the same reason that Jews flocked to the levant, while Soviet Jews refused to move to the Jewish autonomous oblast.

They wouldn't even have to do that though it'd be pretty easy for Palestinians to get "a state" just not the state they want. Here is Trump and Bibi's peace plan (not exactly the most pro Palestinian people) and not the best deal yet it offers a state. Bibi may be bluffing but if the Palestinian leadership called that bluff they'd get a state. I think the Palestinian leadership and populace are pretty deluded about what they can get Israel has everything they want they don't have that much pressure to negotiate. The Arabs have lost every single war and now the Palestinians are in a weak position but they could easily get, a state, rather then moving away.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Darzin

[Heartofice]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Every ethnic group that's relatively small wants their own state. It's no different than Armenians or Kurds wanting a piece of land of their own. 

Sure but those are actual ethnic groups with historic claims to lands, which I'm not sure totally applies to Palestinians whose existence as a group is far more recent. Even then just because some groups want their own state doesn't mean they should have it. The Cornish want their own state from the UK.. not sure that makes sense.

[Craving Peaches]

13 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

One thing I also struggle to understand is why the Palestinians should demand their own state at all.

Because Israel treats them like vermin?

5 minutes ago, dbergkvist said:

Did you previously talk about how Netanyahu funded Hamas? Anyways, here is a source https://archive.ph/ABPWd for those who are unfamiliar:

I think this explains very well why Gaza was the way it was.

I meant other countries. But that doesn't surprise me. It allows them to keep attacking.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

26 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I just don't understand why no one did anything about it.

Politically… it’s difficult.  That doesn’t make failure to act appropriate.

[Craving Peaches]

11 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Even then just because some groups want their own state doesn't mean they should have it. The Cornish want their own state from the UK.. not sure that makes sense.

Well if the majority of people in Cornwall want an independent Cornwall, you have to grant it to them if you respect democracy. Historically, the Cornish were not treated so well by the English - language supressed etc. Also, Cornwall was for a while treated as separate from England. Cornish is recognised as its own distinct group. They were/are a distinct people.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, Craving Peaches said:

Well if the majority of people in Cornwall want an independent Cornwall, you have to grant it to them if you respect democracy. Historically, the Cornish were not treated so well by the English - language supressed etc. Also, Cornwall was for a while treated as separate from England. Cornish is recognised as its own distinct group. They were/are a distinct people.

Great pro-Brexit argument there. Thanks.

[Craving Peaches]

2 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Great pro-Brexit argument there. Thanks.

What?

[mormont]

Palestinian identity is as valid as any other national identity on Earth and, to be blunt, suggesting that it's not because of some stuff you read online about them not being 'an ethnic group' (let alone that being an 'ethnic group' is a necessary prerequisite for statehood) is playing with some very dangerous ideas. 

That said: I don't believe, and haven't believed for some years, that there will ever be a real Palestinian state. Not because Palestinians in some sense don't deserve one - they do - but because that is the political reality. Politically, Israel doesn't want anything that could meaningfully be called a 'state' for Palestinians, something that has meaningful political or economic independence or freedom. And nobody, including other Arab states, seems willing to force the issue. So I don't believe it will ever happen. 

[Craving Peaches]

1 minute ago, mormont said:

Palestinian identity is as valid as any other national identity on Earth and, to be blunt, suggesting that it's not because of some stuff you read online about them not being 'an ethnic group' (let alone that being an 'ethnic group' is a necessary prerequisite for statehood) is playing with some very dangerous ideas. 

Agree. Denial of Palestinian identity is used as an excuse by some to treat them badly.

[dbergkvist]

3 minutes ago, mormont said:

That said: I don't believe, and haven't believed for some years, that there will ever be a real Palestinian state. Not because Palestinians in some sense don't deserve one - they do - but because that is the political reality. Politically, Israel doesn't want anything that could meaningfully be called a 'state' for Palestinians, something that has meaningful political or economic independence or freedom. And nobody, including other Arab states, seems willing to force the issue. So I don't believe it will ever happen. 

Oh, I think that WW3, which world leaders everywhere are clearly gunning for, is going to shake things up. Although there might not be a use for states at all afterwards.

[Zorral]

Friedman is a dick about many things, but he has spent many years on the ground in these regions, reporting on the variety of hostilities, which is how he got to be at the NYT in the first place.

Quote

 

.... But for Israel to do what is most in its interests, not those of Hamas and Iran, will likely require some very tough love between Biden and Netanyahu. One must never forget that Netanyahu always seemed to prefer to deal with a Hamas that was unremittingly hostile to Israel than with its rival, the more moderate Palestinian Authority — which Netanyahu did everything he could to discredit, even though the Palestinian Authority has long worked closely with Israeli security services to keep the West Bank quiet, and Netanyahu knows it.

Netanyahu has never wanted the world to believe that there are “good Palestinians” ready to live side by side with Israel in peace and try to nurture them. For years now he’s always wanted to tell U.S. presidents: What do you want from me? I have no one to talk to on the Palestinian side.

That’s how Israel reached a stage where the increasingly costly — morally and financially — Israeli occupation of the West Bank has not even been an issue in the last five Israeli elections.

Or as Chuck Freilich, a former deputy Israeli national security adviser, wrote in an essay in Haaretz on Sunday: “For a decade and a half Prime Minister Netanyahu has sought to institutionalize the divide between the West Bank and Gaza, undermine the Palestinian Authority, the P.A., and conduct de facto cooperation with Hamas, all designed to demonstrate the absence of a Palestinian partner and to ensure that there could be no peace process that might have required territorial compromise in the West Bank.” ....

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/opinion/israel-hamas-.html

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

I've been hearing this a lot, but it dawned on me recently that this doesn't make sense. Because Gaza has a border with Egypt.

That is a preposterous statement particularly because yes, and you know this, Egypt has its borders closed to them too.

[Ran]

7 minutes ago, Zorral said:

That is a preposterous statement particularly because yes, and you know this, Egypt has its borders closed to them too.

I did not, in fact, know this particular fact. I keep hearing about all the stuff being brought in via Egypt and assumed the traffic was two ways. But, no.

But then this whole "it's a prison" thing is not about Israel alone, but about an Arab state also refusing to much to do with Gaza, all because of Hamas and the danger of having a terrorist-run territory on your border.

Like I said, Hamas is the immediate problem right now.

ETA: The Friedman piece is good. I did not realize, for example, that the attack from Hamas was only on areas within the pre-1967 borders, which may be a deliberate message fitting with Hamas's stated goal of creating a Palestine that runs from the River Jordan to the sea (i.e. no Israel) but maybe also has to do with what areas were the most surveilled and guarded. And he seems to concur that Hamas is lashing out to try and stymie Saudi-Israeli normalization.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Ran

[polishgenius]

43 minutes ago, dbergkvist said:

Oh, I think that WW3, which world leaders everywhere are clearly gunning for

 

I mean, no

[IheartIheartTesla]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Sure but those are actual ethnic groups with historic claims to lands, which I'm not sure totally applies to Palestinians whose existence as a group is far more recent. Even then just because some groups want their own state doesn't mean they should have it. The Cornish want their own state from the UK.. not sure that makes sense.

Based on this the United States has no right to exist, buddy. 

Anyway, I agree with the consensus that Hamas is the problem here, and they may have done more to destroy the possibility of a Palestinian state than anything the Israeli government could do.

[Kalbear]

56 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Sure but those are actual ethnic groups with historic claims to lands, which I'm not sure totally applies to Palestinians whose existence as a group is far more recent. Even then just because some groups want their own state doesn't mean they should have it. The Cornish want their own state from the UK.. not sure that makes sense.

Eh. Jews haven't had a state until fairly recently either. And ethnic identity is tricky, and is very often dependent on a fairly catastrophic event that binds people together - see Ukraine as an example. The best reason that Palestine should be given a state is that in the treaty that made Israel a state it was said Palestine should be as well. And they weren't. 

Beyond that I want to talk about the notion of giving Palestinians a state and basically pour water on it some. Mormont said it well here too. 

40 minutes ago, mormont said:

That said: I don't believe, and haven't believed for some years, that there will ever be a real Palestinian state. Not because Palestinians in some sense don't deserve one - they do - but because that is the political reality. Politically, Israel doesn't want anything that could meaningfully be called a 'state' for Palestinians, something that has meaningful political or economic independence or freedom. And nobody, including other Arab states, seems willing to force the issue. So I don't believe it will ever happen. 

To talk through this a bit more the reality is that Israel has what it wants right now and is able to get what it wants in the future. It does not want a Palestinian state that can self-govern; the Trump plan gave Palestinians a state that was ruled entirely by Israel in every way that matters, which honestly is what Israel has right now. Israel wants more of the West Bank and is getting more, with the more recent plans of annexation largely put aside because of Israel government dysfunction and Covid. Israel got Jerusalem recognized as the capital. Israel is getting normalized diplomatic relationships with most of the ME nations that it wants as well. They're continuing to get military aid and support from the US and Europe, with any overt acts to support Palestinians or punish Israel for bad actions being decried as antisemitic and in some cases outright outlawed by US states. And all of this has been going on while more and more atrocities pile up against Palestinians. 

Even before this terrorist massacre why would Israel give up anything at all? Keep in mind that the general political viewpoint of Israel (on all sides) is that only Israel can guarantee its security. It is far better to deal with a refugee population that does terror attacks occasionally than it is to deal with a state that can declare war on you at any time. Saying that the US will guarantee Israel's security is a meaningless promise  especially when our politics are such trash. Saying that the UN will do so is even more toothless in Israeli's eyes. Israel has seen what security promises mean with Ukraine as well as in previous history. There is no place that Israelis will ever feel 'safe'; that isn't a concept. The best you will get is feeling secure, and that security requires constant vigilance and self-determination.

After this, of course, Israel will be even less likely to seek to give Palestinians anything, but I can kind of see the logic Hamas has here. Israel needs to be given a reason to give up something, and the only thing that Hamas can do is make Israel want to stop the fighting by making it more costly than they are willing to deal with. That is literally the only option they have. Everything else has lost. That was, by the way, the position that Trump took with the peace plan - that Palestinians needed to realize that they lost, get over it, and get what little they could. 

 

[dbergkvist]

22 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Based on this the United States has no right to exist, buddy. 

Anyway, I agree with the consensus that Hamas is the problem here, and they may have done more to destroy the possibility of a Palestinian state than anything the Israeli government could do.

No, based on his statement, the US has no right to be a white ethnic state. (And only white supremacists do want the US to be a white ethnic state).

Edited October 11, 2023 by dbergkvist

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

But then this whole "it's a prison" thing is not about Israel alone, but about an Arab state also refusing to much to do with Gaza, all because of Hamas and the danger of having a terrorist-run territory on your border.

Historically it's been a strategy to cause more chaos in Israel that's been widely supported in the region. However that's changed as more Arab states want to have better relations with the West which means improving their relations with Israel. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

53 minutes ago, dbergkvist said:

No, based on his statement, the US has no right to be a white ethnic state. (And only white supremacists do want the US to be a white ethnic state).

So most Republicans, but that's a debate for the US thread Imo. 

[Padraig]

1 hour ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Anyway, I agree with the consensus that Hamas is the problem here, and they may have done more to destroy the possibility of a Palestinian state than anything the Israeli government could do.

Yes and no. Hamas is a huge problem but ultimately, somehow Israel has to build bridges with the Palestinians and build them up.  Rather than chip away at them.  You can declare that is unfair but Israel has nearly all the power in this relationship.  A Palestinian leader is simply not going to emerge advocating peace.  The people are simply too broken, the structure of government is too weak, the gun is too powerful there.

And obviously, it is not just Israel.  The West and Arab countries would have to help too but Israel would have to allow this.

While I said that a Palestinian leader is simply not going to emerge, you could equally say that Israel is simply not going to do that sort  of nation building.  I am old enough to remember Rabin but since those days filled with possibility, Israel has gradually moved more and more to the right and the Palestinians have done something similar.  So i'm not in any way confident of peace in my time (Kalbear touched upon all that).  We saw how good we are at nation building in Iraq.

But if things ever did change, it will be because the strong puts out their hand.

The moving people around may be the imaginative solution we need to this but "ethnic cleansing" hovers over that line of thought, which does make me uneasy (I know any proposal here is that the moving is voluntary).