Israel - Hamas War IV

[Ran]

The PLO and Fatah had majority support for a long time, and they were secular socialists. They still had a near-majority in the 2006 legislative election. I think this tells us that the population has a robustly complicated set of political views, but through the trials and tribulations of the present one half is overseen by Fatah and the other half by Hamas. 

[Spockydog]

Yeah, try putting yourself in their situation. I think your own views would become robustly complicated, pretty quickly.

Edited October 19, 2023 by Spockydog

[Heartofice]

4 minutes ago, Crixus said:

I agree with your premise, but I do think that some of the posts are subtly implying that Palestinians naturally would/probably do support Hamas because they are who they are (ethnicity, religion) - despite many posts in here and previous threads talking about pop demographics, the date of the last elections and other facts. Some posts also seem to have different standards for this case vs. other similar situations with people of different ethnic backgrounds.

Saying something outright isn't the same as implying it, of course, and I may have confirmation bias because of some posters' history, admittedly. You're the mod, so I'll defer to you here. Thanks. 

I raised the idea that Hamas might actually have support from some portion of the Palestinian population because everyone here seems to be under the assumption that Hamas would be overthrown if only Palestinians had the power, with very little questioning of the premise behind it.

However, polls in Palestine have had varied results and it's not clear Hamas are universally disliked, I've also seen interviews with Palestinians who are generally supportive of Hamas and wouldn't condemn the attacks. If your main enemy is Israel it would be hardly surprising that you would support a group fighting Israel. So let's cut out these vague accusations.

 

[Relic]

"ive seen interviews with XYZ" is the new "I can't be X cuz I have XYZ friends"

Edited October 19, 2023 by Relic

[Spockydog]

The enemy of my enemy, and all that.....

[Luzifer's right hand]

43 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

The opposite here would be the more they expanded the less they terrorized the Palestinians, the less likely they are to say because of the forced acquisition they can never move back.

Where does Israeli expansion rationally end for you? Because it has to end somewhere, and the tactic of you’re advocating to me looks to either be something that will end with Apartheid or ethnic cleansing. Something we both don’t want.

I'm not what you would call an optimist and every increasing ghettoization is probably what will happen in the West Bank. It has nothing to do with what I want.

Personally I would prefer that Israel withdraws its citizens from the West Bank as I feel that would most likely lead to less suffering overall(utilitarianism I guess). However I don't think such a withdrawal would benefit Israel itself.

In the long term things in the area will probably get much worse even if this conflict is somehow resolved as the region only functions because of massive depletion of groundwater reserves and desalination plants. But that is the doomer in me speaking.

[kissdbyfire]

18 minutes ago, Ran said:

The PLO and Fatah had majority support for a long time, and they were secular socialists. They still had a near-majority in the 2006 legislative election. I think this tells us that the population has a robustly complicated set of political views, but through the trials and tribulations of the present one half is overseen by Fatah and the other half by Hamas. 

And Netanyahu was not happy, he wanted Palestinians divided and thought a stronger Hamas would be good for Israel. And yes, this is not the only reason we are where we are now, but it sure as shit didn’t help. 
 

https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/netanyahu-money-to-hamas-part-of-strategy-to-keep-palestinians-divided-583082

[SeanF]

I’d be terrified, frankly, to take on Hamas, if I lived under their rule.

[Crixus]

21 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I raised the idea that Hamas might actually have support from some portion of the Palestinian population because everyone here seems to be under the assumption that Hamas would be overthrown if only Palestinians had the power, with very little questioning of the premise behind it.

However, polls in Palestine have had varied results and it's not clear Hamas are universally disliked, I've also seen interviews with Palestinians who are generally supportive of Hamas and wouldn't condemn the attacks. If your main enemy is Israel it would be hardly surprising that you would support a group fighting Israel. So let's cut out these vague accusations.

 

You said 'who is to say Palestinians generally don't support Hamas?' Generally implies most/a majority, not 'some'. Also, every group has people who support violent, bigoted, controversial elements: there are loads of people who support white supremacists, illegal settlers, misogynists This isn't a unique phenomenon - I've seen plenty such interviews, most recently from reps of the Israeli govt/IDF who support violent, blanket reprisals. Does that mean Israelis 'generally' support this?

 

Honestly, this seems disingenuous to put it politely. Yeah, tone is hard to decipher with text, but we have also all likely seen such neutral questions raised with specific intent at some point in our lives, I'd wager. 

[Tywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Crixus said:

Last, to be very clear: Hamas and other such groups need to be eradicated in their entirety.

.......

Getting rid of Hamas doesn't justify killing loads of civilians

I hate to break it to you, but the former cannot happen without the latter also happening. Hamas will not go away willingly and will kill their own people to defend themselves. In turn Israel can't throw Hamas into the sea without killing a lot of innocent people. There's no clean way to defeat Hamas.

[Heartofice]

2 minutes ago, Crixus said:

You said 'who is to say Palestinians generally don't support Hamas?' Generally implies most/a majority, not 'some'. Also, every group has people who support violent, bigoted, controversial elements: there are loads of people who support white supremacists, illegal settlers, misogynists This isn't a unique phenomenon - I've seen plenty such interviews, most recently from reps of the Israeli govt/IDF who support violent, blanket reprisals. Does that mean Israelis 'generally' support this?

 

Honestly, this seems disingenuous to put it politely. Yeah, tone is hard to decipher with text, but we have also all likely seen such neutral questions raised with specific intent at some point in our lives, I'd wager. 

Well maybe Israeli's generally do support the attacks on Gaza? Would you be surprised? 
Either way, I found the conversation very strange to act under the assumption that Hamas have little support in Palestine, but I think that assumption should be questioned. 

[Crixus]

6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I hate to break it to you, but the former cannot happen without the latter also happening. Hamas will not go away willingly and will kill their own people to defend themselves. In turn Israel can't throw Hamas into the sea without killing a lot of innocent people. There's no clean way to defeat Hamas.

You're probably right, which is why I said 'justify', not something like 'necessitate'. It can be unavoidable at times, but it should not be excused/handwaved. At the very least, there should be appropriate weight given to civilian deaths, not some sort of cavalier 'collateral damage, move on' attitude (I am not saying you're doing this at all, FYI). And it should be avoided whenever possible, at least by rational actors - terrorist cunts don't give a shit, obviously. 

Edited October 19, 2023 by Crixus

[fionwe1987]

1 hour ago, Bironic said:

 I would have been much more sympathetic for the apartheid regime in South Africa if the guys opposing it would be people whose dedicated goal was to kill every single white South African… or if the goal of the Dalai Lama would be to kill the Chinese etc. or if Selenskyj would chose as method of resistance the bombing of the Moscow metro etc…

there are just certain leaders and their respective people that make it easy to support their cause and others were it’s basically impossible 

Your ease doesn't matter. Freedom for a people cannot be predicated on your ease in liking their leaders.

I loathe Hamas. But I find the idea of telling Gazans that their lives are fair game unless they get rid of Hamas to be atrocious. 

Flip the script a little please. Would you accept restrictions on who Israel can elect to leadership as a price for it's continued existence? 

Meanwhile, I see we're back to the argument that the only way forward is to "eliminate" Hamas. Does this mean an air assault or ground assault on Doha, where most of the leadership of Hamas is ensconced? 

If not, sure, you may be able to kill every Hamas fighter in Gaza today. The leaders will just cash in and recruit from a populace that has just been told it's ok for them to lose family but not for Israelis. I don't see why exactly this plan is anything but vengeance/retribution. Call it what it is. It isn't a solution to the problem, just more fuel to the conflagration.

Edited October 19, 2023 by fionwe1987

[Varysblackfyre321]

17 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Either way, I found the conversation very strange to act under the assumption that Hamas have little support in Palestine

Where was that  said or even insinuated?

 

[JoannaL]

Someone said something about  the conflict between "white" and "brown" people a while back and I want to mention that more than 60 % of the Jews in Israel are of Mizrahi descent (from the middle east, central asia and north africa).

which means in this conflict there are "brown" people against "brown" people and therefore all arguments in this direction do not do justice to the complexity of the problem.

[Tywin et al.]

15 minutes ago, Crixus said:

You're probably right, which is why I said 'justify', not something like 'necessitate'. It can be unavoidable at times, but it should not be excused/handwaved. At the very least, there should be appropriate weight given to civilian deaths, not some sort of cavalier 'collateral damage, move on' attitude (I am not saying you're doing this at all, FYI). And it should be avoided whenever possible, at least by rational actors - terrorist cunts don't give a shit, obviously. 

I don't think that's entirely possible. Obviously you want to avoid as many civilian deaths as possible, but they will happen, often times in situations where hindsight shows bad decisions were made.  That's just the reality of war. The situation is made worse by the lack of aid coming in to Gaza and Arab states mostly refusing to take Palestinians as refugees. I give Jordan a break because they've already taken in so many Syrians, but overall most Arab states don't really want to help and find it to their benefit to let Palestinian women and children suffer. If they approached this conflict over the years differently Hamas could possibly be removed with far fewer deaths. 

[Crixus]

Just now, JoannaL said:

Someone said something about  the conflict between "white" and "brown" people a while back and I want to mention that more than 60 % of the Jews in Israel are of Mizrahi descent (from the middle east, central asia and north africa).

which means in this conflict there are "brown" people against "brown" people and therefore all arguments in this direction do not do justice to the complexity of the problem.

Sure, but Israel is generally perceived as a 'Western' country with all the implications that includes. For instance, that is how Haaretz refers to it in this article headline: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-06-22/ty-article/.highlight/survey-most-of-the-world-prefers-biden-to-trump-but-not-israel/00000181-8ba3-d2c2-a3a5-cbbf21fe0000

Anyway, when I made that comment I was talking about how the world at large perceives both groups, and it might have been simplistic, sure. Either way, I think it best not to go down this route. 

[Crixus]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I give Jordan a break because they've already taken in so many Syrians, but overall most Arab states don't really want to help and find it to their benefit to let Palestinian women and children suffer. If they approached this conflict over the years differently Hamas could possibly be removed with far fewer deaths. 

On this I agree. 

[Spockydog]

5 minutes ago, Crixus said:

Sure, but Israel is generally perceived as a 'Western' country with all the implications that includes. For instance, that is how Haaretz refers to it in this article headline: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-06-22/ty-article/.highlight/survey-most-of-the-world-prefers-biden-to-trump-but-not-israel/00000181-8ba3-d2c2-a3a5-cbbf21fe0000

Anyway, when I made that comment I was talking about how the world at large perceives both groups, and it might have been simplistic, sure. Either way, I think it best not to go down this route. 

I think most of the world percieves Israel to be the last white European colony. 

[Ran]

49 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

And Netanyahu was not happy, he wanted Palestinians divided and thought a stronger Hamas would be good for Israel.

As I said 8 days ago now. You'll find no argument from me.

The policy of handing Gaza to Hamas and containing them has been a failure. It was a mistake to begin with. But what is done is done. Hamas has evolved to a new level of jihadist, genocidal activity. It must go. It should have gone long ago, but there were arguments for why they could stay as a "useful" wedge. Now, that's clearly gone.

14 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

Would you accept restrictions on who Israel can elect to leadership as a price for it's continued existence? 

I think the world, US included, would rightly condemn Israel if its government proposed seizing the West Bank and Gaza permanently, annexing it to form Greater Israel, expelling the Palestinians from all that land while they were at it, and setting up a Jewish theocracy.

Even Likud doesn't go that far. There's a minor fringe party, Otzma Yehudit, that is basically espousing that position (read about Kahanism), and they have a ministry or two in the government (and are a part of why the unrest in the West Bank is increasing), but that's parliamentary political systems for you. But they are, again, a minor party.

I think, again, it's a very small ask of the people of Gaza to want a government that does not lay claim to all Israel in its charters. Regardless, Hamas needs to go, even if the people of Gaza would prefer it. Israel and Hamas cannot work together, and Israel certainly isn't going anywhere.

Edited October 19, 2023 by Ran