War Declared in Israel

[Rippounet]

10 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Wait (tinfoil moment) so if the guy in charge is a corrupt, fascist POS who openly told his party that they should support Hamas financially back in the day, who's to say that this IDF intelligence failure wasn't purposeful?

I can confidently say that the thought has crossed a lot of minds... Now may not be the moment, but you can be sure the idea will be looked into as soon as feasible.

Edit: though honestly, that has so much potential to backfire, that it's a bit crazy even for him. But... yeah, still worth looking into.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Rippounet

[Craving Peaches]

https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/amp/

He cannot really be allowed to have any sort of political career after this, surely? He has created the whole mess!

[Ran]

53 minutes ago, dbergkvist said:

, so that Netanyahu would have justification to blow up the civilians!

It's reductive to say that the whole point of all this was that Netanyahu wanted to blow up civilians.

Hamas provided Netanyahu justification to not continue towards Palestinian statehood. He was cynically splitting Palestinian solidarity to satisfy demands of the ultra-hawks in his coalition, and more recently to prop up his attempts to keep himself out of jail over corruption charges. 

But Hamas was a terror organization using Gaza to launch attacks against Israel and hiding among the civilian population long before Netanyahu was prime minister.

All that said, one can hope that the fallout from all this may have the unintended consequence (from the perspective of Hamas) of Netanyahu finally being dislodged, once and for all. But Israel's political system is so disfunctional right now that I'm not sure it will lead to much but paralysis and more status quo.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Ran

[Padraig]

3 hours ago, Bael's Bastard said:

Barak in the late 90s and Olmert in the late 00s went much further than Rabin in their offers of a Palestinian state (something Rabin didnt entirely support). Even Netanyahu in the late 90s played a significant role in implementing Palestinian control of parts of the West Bank. The move further rightward mostly followed the rejection of Barak's offer by Arafat, 2nd Intifada, election of Hamas, and Hamas' seizure of Gaza. Even then, Netanyahu has faced increasing difficulty forming coalitions, and most indications are he would have even more difficulty in another election.

I'm obviously a few steps removed from this so I could be wrong, or maybe I became a lot more cynical after he was assassinated, or maybe the media became more cynical then, but when Rabin was alive, the environment seemed much more positive (than afterwards).  So yes, there were further initiatives after he died (although, Labour lost the next election shortly after to Netanyahu), but I never felt the same level of positivity again.

I took an especial interest in the peace process in the 1990s, since for a time, they were getting somewhere while Northern Ireland wasn't.

And sure Netanyahu has trouble forming a coalition but that's because people hate him.  Politics have moved in his direction though (and beyond).

1 hour ago, Craving Peaches said:

I think people either don't want to believe, or ignore that he funded Hamas.

Sorry.  I'm pretty sure this is very misleading.  He allowed money to go to Hamas from countries like Qatar.  The Israeli tax payer wasn't funding Hamas.

If he wasn't allowing funds to go to Gaza, then people would be starving to death.  (What is happening now).

And sure, it was a way to undermine the PA.  That is bad.

[Bael's Bastard]

Netanyahu is a shitty asshole who only cares about himself (including his "reputation" of keeping Jews safe), but it's wild seeing people talk like he masterminded Hamas' murder of 1200+ Israelis and foreign nationals.

Not because Netanyahu isn't garbage, but because Hamas exists for no other reason than to kill Jews (per their own charter), and this attack irreparably destroys Netanyahu's decades-cultivated self-styled image of protecting Israel and Jews from harm.

And as if Israel could have denied Qatar's billion+ in aid to Gaza without being accused of starving/killing them even more than Israel is already accused of doing.

One need only look at a decade and a half of failed Hamas/Fatah attempts to form unity governments to see how and why they have failed without Israeli help. Which is not to say people like Netanyahu encouraged Palestinian unity, but were hardly a major cause of their disunity. Abbas is out there denying the Holocaust and Jewish history in the land, Netanyahu didn't need to fabricate or facilitate Hamas to find a Palestinian to portray as a villain.

Assholes like Netanyahu and Smotrich say shit like this to justify to their bases why they allow billions to pass to Palestinians when they run on cutting them off from such aid.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Bael's Bastard

[Spockydog]

Israeli ambassador to the UK telling Newsnight it's okay to murder thousands of Palestinian civilians just to teach Hamas a lesson. 

 

[Bael's Bastard]

12 minutes ago, Padraig said:

I'm obviously a few steps removed from this so I could be wrong, or maybe I became a lot more cynical after he was assassinated, or maybe the media became more cynical then, but when Rabin was alive, the environment seemed much more positive (than afterwards).  So yes, there were further initiatives after he died (although, Labour lost the next election shortly after to Netanyahu), but I never felt the same level of positivity again.

I took an especial interest in the peace process in the 1990s, since for a time, they were getting somewhere while Northern Ireland wasn't.

And sure Netanyahu has trouble forming a coalition but that's because people hate him.  Politics have moved in his direction though (and beyond).

Sorry.  I'm pretty sure this is very misleading.  He allowed money to go to Hamas from countries like Qatar.  The Israeli tax payer wasn't funding Hamas.

If he wasn't allowing funds to go to Gaza, then people would be starving to death.  (What is happening now).

And sure, it was a way to undermine the PA.  That is bad.

Rabin got the ball rolling on the peace process, but did not actually support a Palestinian state, but something closer to what hypocrote Netanyahu pitched in the last decade.

Netanyahu won an oddball election in which the PM position was detached from Knesset elections, which Peres' Labor won. Netanyahu oversaw handing over parts of the WB to Arafat and lost overwhelmingly to Barak's Labor.

Barak offered the most significant offer of two states but was rejected by Arafat, who launched the 2nd Intifada. Olmert offered even more land in the late 00s, but Abbas rejected it and Olmert probably would have had more difficulty getting it accepted by enough parties by then anyways.

Barak's was definitely THE missed opportunity, even a counter offer to his offer could have led to a real deal, but Arafat just walked away and launched the terror campaign that enabled Hamas to surpass his party after his death.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Bael's Bastard

[Spockydog]

The double standard with Israel and Palestine leaves us in moral darkness

Quote

 

I always dread watching US news coverage of wars, and now is no exception. After Hamas’s deadly attacks in Israel and Israel’s hellish bombardment of Gaza, I checked in on MSNBC. Before long, I heard one of their reporters talk about “the violent history between these two nations” – as if Palestine were a country – and had to turn off the TV to get a break. Palestine is not a country. That’s the whole point.

Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel all live under various regimes of organized discrimination and oppression, much of which makes life nearly unlivable, and if the US media can’t even frame the issue correctly, what use is there in even covering it?

It’s not just laziness either. The reflexive identification with Israel, by both US media professionals and politicians, always obscures the fuller picture of what’s happening between Israel and the Palestinians.

On 7 October, the national security council spokesperson Adrienne Watson stated that the US “unequivocally condemns the unprovoked attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians”. Every one of us must stand up and denounce the killing of every civilian, Israeli or Palestinian or otherwise. But Watson’s use of the word “unprovoked” is doing a lot of work here.

What exactly counts as a provocation? Not, apparently, the large number of settlers, more than 800 by one media account, who stormed al-Aqsa mosque on 5 October. Not the 248 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces or settlers between 1 January and 4 October of this year. Not the denial of Palestinian human rights and national aspirations for decades.

One can, in fact must, see such actions as provocations without endorsing further murderous violence against civilians. But if you watched only US news, you would be likely to presume that Palestinians always act while Israel only reacts. You might even think that Palestinians are the ones colonizing the land of Israel, no less. And you probably believe that Israel, which holds ultimate control over the lives of 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and yet denies them the right to vote in Israeli elections, is a democracy.

To be considered a political being you must at the very least be considered a human being. Who gets to count as human? “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant said. Human animals? How can such language and an announced policy of collective punishment against all the residents of Gaza be seen by Israel’s supporters in the United States or elsewhere as defensible? Let’s be clear: Gallant’s language is not the rhetoric of deterrence. It’s the language of genocide.

 

 

[Rippounet]

32 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

Netanyahu is a shitty asshole who only cares about himself (including his "reputation" of keeping Jews safe), but it's wild seeing people talk like he masterminded Hamas' murder of 1200+ Israelis and foreign nationals.

We need to be careful with such stuff. No one said anything about "masterminding" the attack - you're the one immediately jumping to such a crazy interpretation. But negligence and complacency can easily be criminal if it means not acting on intelligence signals that something is up, and it's not easy to know exactly why people in power are negligent at any given time.
In such cases, it's best to initially dismiss accusations of intent and focus on what the available information was, who decided to ignore it, and when. In other words, investigate the possibility of negligence with an open mind - because yes, it's not uncommon for people in power to be fools with no regard for human lives.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Rippounet

[Bael's Bastard]

I consider my post(s) more careful than those suggesting Netanyahu funded Hamas so it would attack Israel so he could attack Gazan civilians. Netanyahu cares about his reputation and this has obliterated it with the people who actually believed it. Killing Gazan civilians is/will be no substitute for failing to uproot Hamas even for the most extreme in his government and base. And he will not be any more capable of uprooting Hamas from Gaza this time than he was in any previous operation. Not because he wants Hamas to remain in power but because when the shit hits the fan, Hamas leaders in Gaza can hide where the IDF cannot find them until pressure compels the IDF to withdraw from the inevitable ground invasion. This whole thing fucked Netanyahu's carefully cultivated bullshit image.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Bael's Bastard

[Tywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

Sure, I don't think anyone here is saying Israel is on the level of Hamas, but 

And yet the need to pivot like you just did there is constantly on display. It's so frustrating. 

[dbergkvist]

54 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

Not because Netanyahu isn't garbage, but because Hamas exists for no other reason than to kill Jews (per their own charter), and this attack irreparably destroys Netanyahu's decades-cultivated self-styled image of protecting Israel and Jews from harm.

Do you consider it equally implausible that Hamas did what they did because they wanted to provoke Israel into attacking Gaza with overwhelming force and inflict a heavy death toll on the civilians, which would put Israel in a bad light, so that the people of Gaza would join Hamas in even greater numbers?

It's the exact same theory (only applied to different actors), and has the same "problem": by doing this, Hamas would be actively endangering the very people they are pretending to want to protect, and thus risk losing credibility.

Edited October 11, 2023 by dbergkvist

[Rippounet]

32 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

I consider my post(s) more careful than

I apologize for having mentioned the thought. When something deeply tragic happens, the mind searches for meaning beyond the tragedy. Oftentimes, there is not that much meaning to be found beyond stupidity (whether through negligence or hatred).
In time, there will be an investigation providing some answers ; in the meantime, I will do my best not to mention this again.

[Padraig]

50 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

Rabin got the ball rolling on the peace process, but did not actually support a Palestinian state, but something closer to what hypocrote Netanyahu pitched in the last decade.

Netanyahu won an oddball election in which the PM position was detached from Knesset elections, which Peres' Labor won. Netanyahu oversaw handing over parts of the WB to Arafat and lost overwhelmingly to Barak's Labor.

Barak offered the most significant offer of two states but was rejected by Arafat, who launched the 2nd Intifada. Olmert offered even more land in the late 00s, but Abbas rejected it and Olmert probably would have had more difficulty getting it accepted by enough parties by then anyways.

Barak's was definitely THE missed opportunity, even a counter offer to his offer could have led to a real deal, but Arafat just walked away and launched the terror campaign that enabled Hamas to surpass his party after his death.

I'm aware of the above, although I know some people would argue the context of some of those points.  But it doesn't change my point.  Rightly or wrongly, I felt things changed after his death.  There was momentum and then there wasn't.  People tried to regain that momentum a few years later and maybe with a bit of bravery it would have worked.  But it didn't and down we went.

1 hour ago, Bael's Bastard said:

Which is not to say people like Netanyahu encouraged Palestinian unity, but were hardly a major cause of their disunity.

I don't know whether he should have encouraged unity but he certainly could have actively tried to build up the Palestinians.  Maybe he would have failed but peace can't be found via violence.  (Obviously, Netanyahu wasn't going to do this but that was the only way to peace).

I do hope you are right that Netanyahu wouldn't recover from this.  I assume he will survive the next few months because the focus will be Gaza instead.  But after, we'll see.

[GrimTuesday]

As the shock of the last few days wears off, and I see the blood thirsty reactions on TV and on social media, the reality of the situation is becoming more clear in my mind. The fact is that Israel is an apartheid state that has created a reactionary resistance movement through their actions. Terrorist groups don't just spring up out of nowhere, they are formed as a reaction to decades of brutality and humiliation at the hands of their colonialist oppressors. They have no protections, the courts don't protect them, the security apparatus exists to abuse them, and the government has ensured that they are forced to scrape and scrabble for their very existence through blockades and through displacement in favor of far right wing, often violent settlers.

Hamas is only able to inflict a fraction of the suffering they experience at the hands of Israel and the illegal settlers. Since 2008 through September this year, for every one Israeli that was murdered in a terrorist attack 20 Palestinians are killed at the hands of the Israeli state. Israel holds all the power and to pretend that asymmetry doesn't exist is gross. We recognize that Israel has the right to defend themselves, but the question becomes, at what point does Palestine get to fight for their existence? Should they just lay down and hope Israel allows them to live in a state of permanent oppression? Should they just abandon their homeland, where they have lived for generations? Should they just die?

The question becomes at what point does violence become permissible. Was it wrong when slaves rose up against their masters? Was it wrong when the ANC used violence to throw off the yoke of apartheid in South Africa? What about in when Ukraine fights back against Russia? Because I can guarantee that if they started making attacks into Russian territory a large number of those who are currently condemning Palestine would be celebrating their bravery. I don't have an answer to this, I hate that there are people dying, i don't care if they are Israeli or Palestinian, but I recognize that there is one side that is fighting for freedom, and one side is fighting to ensure they do not achieve it.

This is likely delusional and naive to think, but there is part of me that thinks something good might come of this, namely the shared suffering of the Israelis and the Palestinians will wake people up to the reality that neither side can live in peace while Israel creates the conditions that cause events like this. Even the moderates in Israel support the continued apartheid and the violence that is required to maintain that system, so this would take a paradigm shift that is all but unheard of, but a small part of me holds out hope.

[Darzin]

32 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

Hamas is only able to inflict a fraction of the suffering they experience at the hands of Israel and the illegal settlers. Since 2008 through September this year, for every one Israeli that was murdered in a terrorist attack 20 Palestinians are killed at the hands of the Israeli state. Israel holds all the power and to pretend that asymmetry doesn't exist is gross. We recognize that Israel has the right to defend themselves, but the question becomes, at what point does Palestine get to fight for their existence? Should they just lay down and hope Israel allows them to live in a state of permanent oppression? Should they just abandon their homeland, where they have lived for generations? Should they just die?

The question becomes at what point does violence become permissible. Was it wrong when slaves rose up against their masters? Was it wrong when the ANC used violence to throw off the yoke of apartheid in South Africa? What about in when Ukraine fights back against Russia? Because I can guarantee that if they started making attacks into Russian territory a large number of those who are currently condemning Palestine would be celebrating their bravery.

Hamas has controlled Gaza a place with fairly hard borders no settlers, no soldiers and no occupation for more than a decade. Rather than building it up into any kind of state they have used their sovereignty to launch endless futile attacks into Israel. These attacks have no purpose except to kill to civilians. There is no military utility to blindly firing thousands of rockets into populated areas. There is no goal for a Palestinian state in sending militia out of Gaza to kill festival goers and people in their homes. If Ukraine started raiding Russia just to kill Russians I'm sure the vast majority would condemn it.

In fact these acts of "resistance" have irreparably harmed the chance for a Palestinian state. Many (most?) Israelis see Gaza as proof that any Palestinian state will only be used to launch endless attacks against them. The Israelis disengaged in Gaza dismantled their settlements and  ended the occupation there and for their trouble have received sixteen years of futile attacks and war.  

Edited October 12, 2023 by Darzin

[Makk]

42 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

This is likely delusional and naive to think, but there is part of me that thinks something good might come of this, namely the shared suffering of the Israelis and the Palestinians will wake people up to the reality that neither side can live in peace while Israel creates the conditions that cause events like this. Even the moderates in Israel support the continued apartheid and the violence that is required to maintain that system, so this would take a paradigm shift that is all but unheard of, but a small part of me holds out hope.

 

EDIT - I have to be careful here. I have just now read that claims made about all the beheaded babies may be a fabrication. I'll leave what I said below for now but I don't know what to make of this.

 

Absolutely not going to happen imo. This will only make things much worse. Throughout my life I have been placing significantly more blame on Israel. They were the participant with more power and therefore they had the responsibility to fix things since they were the only ones that could. Instead they created more oppression which, while not justifying terrorist attacks on civilians, did at least explain it and it was a predictable reaction that Israel did somewhat bring upon itself.

But these Hamas attacks far exceed that. Watching clips where they cut off babies heads while gleefully recording it is inherently abhorrent and completely unexplainable by anything Israel has done. Whereas it perhaps starts to explain the hatred that Israelis feel towards Palestine. I am really starting to question everything I thought was happening in this conflict and whether terrorist attacks around the mid 20th century, without cell phones to record everything going on, were a similar level of barbarity.

Israel is going to react by bombing Gaza to pieces. It's really depressing and I hope they show restraint, but for the first time I can actually understand why they are doing this and how they grew to be so cold and inhumane themselves. I can't see how this conflict will ever be resolved.

Edited October 12, 2023 by Makk

[GrimTuesday]

12 minutes ago, Darzin said:

Hamas has controlled Gaza a place with fairly hard borders no settlers, no soldiers and no occupation for more than a decade. Rather than building it up into any kind of state they have used their sovereignty to launch endless futile attacks into Israel. These attacks have no purpose except to kill to civilians. There is no military utility to blindly firing thousands of rockets into populated areas. There is no goal for a Palestinian state in sending militia out of Gaza to kill festival goers and people in their homes. If Ukraine started raiding Russia just to kill Russians I'm sure the vast majority would condemn it.

In fact these acts of "resistance" have irreparably harmed the chance for a Palestinian state. Many (most?) Israelis see Gaza as proof that any Palestinian state will only be used to launch endless attacks against them. The Israelis disengaged in Gaza dismantled their settlements and  ended the occupation their and for their trouble have received sixteen years of futile attacks and war.  

Palestinians are a people who have been traumatized by generations of oppression and humiliation, expecting them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps is absurd. They're trapped, cornered in a small strip of land where 2 million people, with an average age of 18 who have never known a life of real freedom. When they get violent, they are condemned, when they peacefully marched on the walls of their prison, IDF snipers shot them, but of course, that was fine because they had kites, and burning tires and rocks. You say there is no military utility into populated areas, that sending out militias to kill innocent civilians is not achieving the goal of the formation of a Palestinian state, but I think you misunderstand what is going on. These people have been deprived of hope for generations, they barely choose how they get to live their lives, at least this way they choose how they die, and Hamas preys on that by telling they they can die fighting for Palestine.

Israel is an oppressive state that has a monopoly on violence in the eyes of the world, and they wield it viciously. Hamas is bad, and the murder of civilians is repugnant, but the root cause of this is Israel.

 

[GrimTuesday]

5 minutes ago, Makk said:

Absolutely not going to happen imo. This will only make things much worse. Throughout my life I have been placing significantly more blame on Israel. They were the participant with more power and therefore they had the responsibility to fix things since they were the only ones that could. Instead they created more oppression which, while not justifying terrorist attacks on civilians, did at least explain it and it was a predictable reaction that Israel did somewhat bring upon itself.

But these Hamas attacks far exceed that. Watching clips where they cut off babies heads while gleefully recording it is inherently abhorrent and completely unexplainable by anything Israel has done. Whereas it perhaps starts to explain the hatred that Israelis feel towards Palestine. I am really starting to question everything I thought was happening in this conflict and whether terrorist attacks around the mid 20th century, without cell phones to record everything going on, were a similar level of barbarity.

Israel is going to react by bombing Gaza to pieces. It's really depressing and I hope they show restraint, but for the first time I can actually understand why they are doing this and how they grew to be so cold and inhumane themselves. I can't see how this conflict will ever be resolved.

Of course it won't, but I hold out hope for that tiny, infinitesimally small sliver of hope that Israel feeling a fraction of the daily life of the Palestinians living under the brutality of the Israeli apartheid state will wake some of them up to the realities of their homeland.

To my knowledge there has been no confirmation of the whole baby decapitation thing, but that is only relevant in the realm of media literacy because one way or another, they're dead, but the narrative that happened, which was repeated and subsequently retracted by the white house, is all part of a propaganda campaign to absolve Israel's crimes and paint Hamas' already unconscionable crimes as even more brutal to convince people like you that their bombing campaign in Gaza isn't criminal and is instead justifiable because of the inhumanity of Hamas.

 

 

[A True Kaniggit]

21 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

iand the murder of civilians is repugnant, but the root cause of this is Israel.

 

Eh? How far back do “Root Causes” go in your non biased opinion?
 

Remember when Israel was first created after WWII, but it was immediately invaded by every country around them? But Israel only held them off through the sheer power of boner?

So isn’t the root cause the current conflict the previous invading countries?

Edited October 12, 2023 by A True Kaniggit