Israel - Hamas War IV

[SeanF]

1 minute ago, Darryk said:

I was worried this thread would eventually go in the direction of "should Israel even exist at all?" 

...

When people say the Jews should have been given a state in Australia I want to throw up.

A Jewish State in Australia, the USA, Uganda etc. would still have plenty of enemies, bent upon its destruction.

[Lord Corlys Velaryon]

I've been following these threads for the past few days & finally caught up with this one. There's so many things I've wanted to react & reply to, however this is all I can muster:

1) Seven hells, some of the rhetoric from these discussions makes me want to throw myself down a spiral staircase.

2) Ellaria said it best, which should inform y'all of the sort of opinions that have almost singularly inspired that in me as events have developed.

3) Most importantly though, I hope that this war is peacefully resolved asap. For the sakes of the victims, including the hostages held by both Hamas & Israel; the innocents on both sides, in Gaza, Israel, Lebanon, & the West Bank; & the rest of the world, inc everyone reading this.

ETA:

Yes, that last won't happen - let alone, a resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict - but we're staring down the barrel of this potentially escalating to a wider war, & possibly even worse. And a true, ongoing peace is nigh impossible at this stage, yet it has to be attempted by all parties & their international supporters.

Violence of most any conceivable type, almost all of which has been committed by both Arabs/Palestinians & Jews/Isrealis, has only led to the current catastrophe. (The Arab & Jew distinctions to include the heinous actions of those in the past & present, especially from other countries.) And will just continue to do so as the genocidal extremists of each camp, along with their apologists & enablers, further entrench themselves & their cycle of atrocities/crimes against humanity.

Further:

A ceasefire, diplomacy, aid distribution, descalation, & compromises - from hostage exchanges to multi-state borders & everything in between - have to be undertaken by & for all of those involved. Including the international community. Yes, again, good fucking luck with that. However, the alternative is just more of this same, only all-but-guaranteed to become even worse.

Edited October 19, 2023 by Lord Corlys Velaryon
Added more, & again

[Kalbear]

Just going to point out to everyone again that Palestinians in Gaza (and in the west bank) have had multiple waves of protest and violence against Hamas. Similarly there have been cases of protest and violence by hamas supporters against fatah and other PLA leaders in the west Bank. 

The notion that people haven't risen up is clearly wrong. 

I'll also say that prior to hamas taking over Gaza was in a really horrible state. They did not have a functional government or systems. Gangs were the primary authority. There was no waste management, no regular schooling, no utilities of note. Hamas did change that. Part of their appeal (and they do still appeal at about a 35% rate) is that they did make things better when they took over.

Finally, most successful rebellions have support from external sources in the modern Era (and even before that). There is very little if any support of democratic or more moderate leadership in Palestine, especially for any kind of fighting hamas. Fatah isn't going to do that - they are not going to be seen as traitors or puppets of the US or Israel. It really is just complex, and the idea that it should be as simple as one person saying no more is both wrong (as many Palestinians have said this) and absurdly reductive.

[Bironic]

1 hour ago, fionwe1987 said:

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.

You seem to misunderstand me. I do not agree with what the Israeli government is doing right now or what it did in the past. I also don’t think it’s possible to „eliminate“ Hamas (You can not destroy an ideology or nationalist-religious movement by dropping bombs on them, their leaders or supporters, or worst of all innocent civilians). You can probably destroy their powerbase for a while but in 2,5 or ten years they’ll be back. And then the next cycle of violence will begin.

And yes I do think that I (as everyone in the world) can chose to support a cause because he thinks the leadership of them aligns with his ideals. (Just in the Case you think my ideals align with the Israeli leadership, current or in the past: it doesn’t). 
And I do think that there would be way more pressure on Israel by Western powers and way more sympathy for the Palestinians if they had a leadership that is more like Gandhi and less like Hamas/Fatah/Islamic jihad etc. And more pressure on Israel would significantly improve the living conditions of the Palestinians. But if the western powers are left with the choice between Hamas and Israel they will continue to side with the latter, and I can’t fault them.

And yes I do think that there are certain restrictions of leadership on both sides as they also exist in every other nation on earth. If a leadership wherever it is, in its Charta states that their goal is the destruction and killing of the other state and population including intentional targeting and killing of civilians and actually go through with that plan again and again then yes I think I am absolutely right when I oppose such a leadership and the western world should do the same. 
and yes I know that there are politicians in Israel that are more or less as extreme as Hamas but nowhere in the basic laws of Israel is it stated that you’re not allowed to be a Muslim or that you have to kill Palestinians or destroy their state. Which again Leads most people in the west supporting Israel in a choice between Israel and Hamas. Which then again leads to a bad outcome for the Palestinians.
Do I think that it is likely that the Palestinians chose a different Leadership: no I don’t really think so, but I do hope for their sake.

 

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

18 minutes ago, Darryk said:

I mean, where do people think the Palestinian Arabs came to Israel from anyway? They're not indigenous. Arabs come from Arabia, it's in the name. How is Palestine not an Arab colony?

Much like with Jewish identity, Arab identity is not so cut-and-dried as you make it out to be. Egyptians, for example, are considered part of the broader Arab world, but most Egyptians are descended from indigenous pre-Arab Egyptians. Likewise, many Arabs in Iraq are descended from the pre-Arab indigenous peoples who inhabited Mesopotamia. The indigenous peoples were not massively displaced by Arabian Arabs. Arabization involved a long process of imperial, linguistic, religious, and cultural assimilation. The same is true for many native pre-Arab peoples who were living in the Levant, who were primarily (but far from exclusively) Aramaic-speaking Christians at the time. 

[Craving Peaches]

For what it's worth, Al Jazeera says that Israel's claims about the airstrike were groundless.

Also, they report doctors in Gaza are now operating without anaesthesia due to lack of supplies.

[kissdbyfire]

1 minute ago, Craving Peaches said:

For what it's worth, Al Jazeera says that Israel's claims about the airstrike were groundless.

 

 

I have read a few pieces and watched a few videos on this earlier today. And even though I’m as far from being an expert as can be, some of this stuff I’ve read and watched seemed unbiased, and they all agreed on there being consistently more evidence of a failed rocket launch. Here’s a video I posted a few pages back, in case you missed it.

 

1 minute ago, Craving Peaches said:

Also, they report doctors in Gaza are now operating without anaesthesia due to lack of supplies.

JFC. 

[Ran]

Iron Dome doesn't intercept over Gaza. It doesn't intercept during launches, but in the terminal phase. Al-Jazeera should know this.

[SeanF]

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

Iron Dome doesn't intercept over Gaza. It doesn't intercept during launches, but in the terminal phase. Al-Jazeera should know this.

Al-Jazeera does know this.

[Frey family reunion]

20 minutes ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

Much like with Jewish identity, Arab identity is not so cut-and-dried as you make it out to be. Egyptians, for example, are considered part of the broader Arab world, but most Egyptians are descended from indigenous pre-Arab Egyptians. Likewise, many Arabs in Iraq are descended from the pre-Arab indigenous peoples who inhabited Mesopotamia. The indigenous peoples were not massively displaced by Arabian Arabs. Arabization involved a long process of imperial, linguistic, religious, and cultural assimilation. The same is true for many native pre-Arab peoples who were living in the Levant, who were primarily (but far from exclusively) Aramaic-speaking Christians at the time. 

I think we’re making this a lot more complicated than it really is.  It’s always been about religious beliefs.  When people of Muslim faith were in power, people of Jewish faith were second class citizens.  Now that people of Jewish faith are in power people of Muslim faith are second class citizens.  As long as religious identity is more important than any type of regional or national identity this conflict is never going to end.

[Ran]

4 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

  Now that people of Jewish faith are in power people of Muslim faith are second class citizens.  

This may surprise the Muslims in Israel who are part of the government, judiciary, military and all other aspects of life in Israel.

I think there's a religious dimension, but within a narrow set of Israelis. Mostly, I'd characterize the conflict as more ethno-nationalist than religious, at least on the Israeli side.

Edited October 19, 2023 by Ran

[Frey family reunion]

Just now, Ran said:

This may surprise the Muslims in Israel who are part of the government, judiciary, military and all other aspects of life in Israel.

The question is would the Israeli state allow for a majority controlled Muslim government?

[Ran]

1 minute ago, Frey family reunion said:

The question is would the Israeli state allow for a majority controlled Muslim government?

If day Arab target than Muslim, and I don't know. But something like 60%+ of Israeli Jews say they are atheists or not religious, so I think most of them would object to any theocratic government.

[Frey family reunion]

10 minutes ago, Ran said:

If day Arab target than Muslim, and I don't know. But something like 60%+ of Israeli Jews say they are atheists or not religious, so I think most of them would object to any theocratic government.

I think that’s the fear though.  People of Jewish faith or let’s just even put it as non Muslim faith, have a fear that they become second class citizens if people of Muslim faith all of a sudden become the majority government in the region.

It seems to me that we have a gerrymandering situation on steroids in the region.  The West Bank and Gaza are given their own separate political structure, so they can have people of Muslim belief in power, but also so the sheer numbers don’t start to threaten the current political makeup of Israel.  

Being from the South in the US, I see certain parallels with how political jurisdictions are shaped with the black and white communities were I’m from.

Edited October 19, 2023 by Frey family reunion

[Kalbear]

6 minutes ago, Ran said:

If day Arab target than Muslim, and I don't know. But something like 60%+ of Israeli Jews say they are atheists or not religious, so I think most of them would object to any theocratic government.

I think the answer has already been provided: no, they wouldn't. That was the goal of the 1-state solution and it was deemed 100% not viable by a very big chunk of the Israeli populace - because the goal of an ethnically Jewish state would not work.

And that is absolutely the goal of a big chunk of the Israeli populace and governments. (hence the often quoted statement that it can be Jewish or Democratic but not both). Per vaguely recent (2016) polling over half of Israel says that they want it to be Jewish (as ethnicity) first and foremost. 

Again, Jewishness is not about religion solely (and often not even most importantly) - it is about ethnicity. 

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Craving Peaches said:

For what it's worth, Al Jazeera says that Israel's claims about the airstrike were groundless.

Going to really push back on this - that is NOT what that link says or what the video says.

It says that Israel stating that the flash in the air was because of a misfire was wrong, and that it was consistent with Iron Dome. Which, as has been pointed out, is unlikely as Iron Dome works much closer to the rocket's landing target. 

[Tywin et al.]

53 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

The question is would the Israeli state allow for a majority controlled Muslim government?

Simple answer: no. That would defeat the entire point of the country existing. 

[Bael's Bastard]

The determination that one state was not viable was pretty well established before the partition plan, and not merely the determination of Israelis (the Palestinian Jews who founded Israel had every reason to believe one state would/could not make any attempt to protect Jews). Furthermore, the "one-state solutions" in Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq saw 2,000-2,500 Jewish exile communities completely ethnically cleansed.

[Bironic]

Let's say in the future there is a palestinian government that acknowledges Israels right to exist and there is an Israeli government that allows a Palestinian state to exist. How would that Palestinian state work? with one half landlocked in the Westbank and the Gaza strip only reachable by crossing Israel ? Doesn't strike me as very realistic...

Is there another country on earth that is split in two(i guess pakistan back in the day but that didn't work out either did it)? Would it be possible to govern it? I am not saying t's impossible but just very hard... idk

Edited October 19, 2023 by Bironic

[Kalbear]

8 minutes ago, Bironic said:

Is there another country on earth that is split in two(i guess pakistan back in the day but that didn't work out either did it)? Would it be possible to govern it? I am not saying t's impossible but just very hard... idk

Yes, there are several. The US is one such state. While Alaskans may disagree, the US has had relatively little trouble governing it. 

Kaliningrad is also separate from Russia. Azerbaijan is a good example of this being a problem, but it's another one (and Armenia doesn't let them cross via Armenia so they have to go through Iran to get to it). There are several others that are weird; the weirdest one, IMO, is Malawi, which has two islands in a lake that is partially controlled by Mozambique and partially by Malawi, and the islands are in Mozambique territory.