Israel - Hamas War V

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

20 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

Of course it isn't totally misguided. The UK, especially, having been the colonial power who help create this powder keg, has little excuse to NOT take Palestinian refugees in this situation. If they disagree, they can measure their illegal colonial profits from the time they ruled this region, add interest, and transfer that wealth back to the region. If they won't do that (and I'm 99.99% sure they won't), they at least have an obligation to the civilians caught in the crossfire.

Then that theory should apply to everyone in the region as well, no? 

14 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

It is part of why such a large part (perhaps even a significant majority) of Jordan's population is Palestinian.

Which circling back is why the WB is where ideally a new Palestinian state should exist. 

[fionwe1987]

8 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Then that theory should apply to everyone in the region as well, no? 

Never said it shouldn't. I am not saying the UK and France should take refugees, and Egypt and Jordan should not (though I wouldn't wish Syria as a refugee destination on anyone). But you'll note that Egypt and Jordan were themselves colonial possessions also, as were Syria and Lebanon. 

13 minutes ago, Hmmm said:

Someone who has done more research on that topic could well correct me, but I would guess that amount would be a net negative. Modern day Israel, Palestine and Jordan had few natural resources and small populations during the 30 years Britain controlled them. They also had quite annoying insurgencies that Britain had to devote troops and money to fight. In general, it was not particularly uncommon that colonies cost significantly more money to maintain than what they generated during the age of imperialism. Of course, for particular groups of people, like colonial elites and business magnates, they could be incredibly valuable. But I don't know if Britain even had so much of that for this region in question?

You cannot put this in a profit and loss column. No one asked for the colonial powers to take over. The profitability of colonialism (or slavery) is always in doubt, and in fact, in the long run, such systems tend to be unprofitable and unsustainable. 

You're absolutely right that whatever profit existed was funneled to a very few people, but the losses incurred are nobody's business but the colonial powers. Its not like the people reached out for the superb administrative skills of the UK as demonstrated by mass famines and economic ruination elsewhere, and therefore the failure of that adminstration should cost them. They never asked for it. The profits the colonial powers made were theft. Their losses are their folly. The net negativity of colonialism doesn't change the fact that it represented the greatest transfer of wealth in human history, and the associated loss of political, cultural and societal degradation in administered regions, of course, is additional loss that can scarcely be calculated, let alone paid for.

Edited October 22, 2023 by fionwe1987

[Ran]

2 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

No one asked for the colonial powers to take over.

The League of Nations did. You know, the UN of its era. 

You're the one who called on the UK to consider paying reparations, and then admit that there probably weren't any profits in that area to take reparation from. Very strange.

 

 

[fionwe1987]

10 minutes ago, Ran said:

The League of Nations did. You know, the UN of its era. 

Are you kidding me with this, or is this a serious reply? I know we've had discussions on antisemitism and the failure of people who don't take that history into account when discussing this conflict. Now I'm going to call this out. I know deliberate lack of education about colonialism is fairly typical in the West by design, but it has no place in this discussion.

Neither the League nor the UN is free of colonial influence. The fact that countries of a few hundred million people get to have veto power over the billions of citizens in former colonies is all you need to know how deeply unjust and captured these orgsanizations are. The League was even more blatantly an organization meant to benefit colonial powers, so I'm at a complete loss at you bringing this up as any kind of justification. 

10 minutes ago, Ran said:

You're the one who called on the UK to consider paying reparations, and then admit that there probably weren't any profits in that area to take reparation from. Very strange.

Ok. So I come to you, and steal your money. Turns out, I have to pay my henchmen, and fuel my getaway car, and pay for a hideout while you try recover your money from me. If all these things cost me more than what I stole from you, I will have made no profit from my actions.

Can I now claim that my net loss means I owe you nothing?

Edited October 22, 2023 by fionwe1987

[Ran]

2 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

Are you kidding me with this, or is this a serious reply?

The Ottoman Empire ceded its lands following WWI, the League of Nations issued the British Mandate of Palestine, and we are where we are.

Or, what, were the Ottomans the colonial power you're referring to? Or do we go further back, to the Muslim conquest of Byzantine Palestine in the 7th century that displaced the Christian and Jewish populations? Or shall we go earlier still? The Romans, maybe?

Colonialism is just a canard. It is the past, it's gone, there's no unspilling the milk.

The fact is that Israel is not going anywhere. Neither is Palestine. They need to work out how to make that work, but jawboning about colonial powers is just intellectual masturbation that has no pragmatic, real relevance. 

Edited October 22, 2023 by Ran

[Hmmm]

15 minutes ago, Ran said:

The Ottoman Empire ceded its lands following WWI, the League of Nations issued the British Mandate of Palestine, and we are where we are.

Or, what, were the Ottomans the colonial power you referring to? Or do we go further back, to the Muslim conquest of Byzantine Palestine in the 7th century that displaced the Christian and Jewish populations? Or shall we go earlier still? The Romans, maybe?

Colonialism is just a canard. It is the past, it's gone, there's no unspilling the milk.

The fact is that Israel is not going anywhere. Neither is Palestine. They need to work out how to make that work, but jawboning about colonial powers is just intellectual masturbation that has no pragmatic, real relevance. 

Yes. A lot of states have done a lot of things wrong throughout that entire conflict. But I think if any group is to be blamed more than the others it should really be the neighbouring Arab countries, as well as to some degree the early Palestinian leadership. That region had been ruled by various empires since antiquity, so turning it into a number of new nation states would always become pretty arbitrary. The fact that the neighbouring Arabs could not tolerate that even a tiny coastal sliver of that region could become a Jewish dominated state, when the vast majority of the rest of the region got turned into various Muslim countries, or a tiny mixed Muslim and Christian country (Lebanon), was not reasonable.

These countries' subsequent policies of denying their Palestinian refugees and their descendants full citizenship, in order to prevent them from assimilating, is another very cruel and cynical policy that is not talked about enough in Western circles. 

Edited October 22, 2023 by Hmmm

[Werthead]

19 minutes ago, Ran said:

The Ottoman Empire

Oh no. Whenever the Ottoman Empire enters the conversation, that's a sign that the thread is about to go completely off the rails.

[Derfel Cadarn]

2 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Oh no. Whenever the Ottoman Empire enters the conversation, that's a sign that the thread is about to go completely off the rails.

Oh, the rolling hills of Turkiye…

Edited October 22, 2023 by Derfel Cadarn

[Ran]

1 minute ago, Werthead said:

Oh no. Whenever the Ottoman Empire enters the conversation, that's a sign that the thread is about to go completely off the rails.

Now, Wert, you know that the topography of Israel is especially important to understanding the actual territory in question. The hillier regions have outsized land area despite their compactness.

 

I mean, the Golan Heights? Hello?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

55 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Oh no. Whenever the Ottoman Empire enters the conversation, that's a sign that the thread is about to go completely off the rails.

The American Civil War would like a word! 

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Now, Wert, you know that the topography of Israel is especially important to understanding the actual territory in question. The hillier regions have outsized land area despite their compactness.

 

I mean, the Golan Heights? Hello?

*firm noed*

[Varysblackfyre321]

I do without question condemn Mike Pence. I stand with Israel/s

Kidding. On a serious note I heard actual Nazis in response to Israel’s attempt to smear Greta decided to actually resurrect this more archaic notion of using a squid to symbolize their anti semantic beliefs. The more this conflict draws out I fear the more zealous Israel will be to silence dissent of their war crimes with fallacious accusations of anti-semitism giving cover to more bad faith actors.

 

[Kalbear]

5 hours ago, Relic said:

Of course the truth matters. But in this case it's more a desire to silence people talking about civilian casualties than anything else.  Next time I post about it I'll include the same disclaimer used by media outlets. Bottom line, Palestinian kids are dying to Israeli bombardment.

As for the hospital, how? US assessment places the dead between 100 and 300

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/19/politics/us-intelligence-assessment-gaza-hospital-blast/index.html

More accurately it's at the low end of that range. Which means the number usually used by the PHO is anywhere from 66 to 500% inflated.

That's kind of a big deal!

It's especially a big deal when so much of the initial reporting was so flawed and unsorced. 

And it's a big deal when in this case, said kids died most likely from hamas or Islamic jihad bombings, not Israeli ones. Doesn't excuse the other bombings! Doesn't make it better. But it does make it clear that it will take both sides stopping before civilians are safe.

[fionwe1987]

3 hours ago, Ran said:

Colonialism is just a canard. It is the past, it's gone, there's no unspilling the milk.

I will get to the rest of your post at some point, but this is so so fucking wrong. Can I say the same thing about the Holocaust in this board and get away with this?

I'd like to report this, honestly. I find it deeply offensive that colonialism is apparently a "canard". That is, frankly, racist. And if it isn't to this board, then I have no place here. 

[Kalbear]

@Rippounet, I thought that you would appreciate this long article by Benjamin Wittes at lawfare - about the legality and morality of Israeli and Hamas actions. The author does have a bias - lawfare is very pro-jewish in their practice and looks for a number of ways in deed to support fighting antisemitism - but I found this relatively well argued and well-sourced. He comes to many similar conclusions that you do.

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/on-strategy-law-and-morality-in-israel-s-gaza-operation

[Rippounet]

Thanks. The article does make a few points that I'd meant to voice, namely:

Quote

This brings me to my third major point, which is that Israel’s friends do it no favors in excusing brutality in the current campaign because of the legitimate self-defense rationale that lies behind the operation.

While I understand that people who have actual stakes in the conflict (i.e. Jews) would struggle to reconcile their anger and fear with concepts of universal morality, I have been somewhat distraught by the tendency of people with no apparent stakes to chime in to support retaliation. I strongly agree with one of Wittes's points:

Quote

 

To wit, as I see it anyway, to wage this conflict even in self-defense without a coherent strategy is morally dicey. It is not, to be clear, a war crime. There is no principle of the law of armed conflict that makes it a crime to respond flailingly and without a well-thought-through strategy to an armed attack. 

Yet when a lot of civilians (many of them children) are going to die in a conflict, that fact imparts a certain responsibility to think things through carefully—and specifically to think through the question of how things are going to be better at the end of the conflict than they are now. This same point, by the way, flows from the fact that a lot of Israeli soldiers—for whose lives the Israeli government is more directly accountable—are also going to die. Without a strategy, a sound, well-thought-through strategy, the operation is really just a giant reprisal attack.

 

I also believe that Israeli and Jewish interests require a strategy that will in fact leave Israel better off at the end of the conflict, not worse. Hence why the protection of Palestinian civilians (through the principle of proportionate response) is actually in Israel's best interests, in order to avoid Hamas's "trap" that would see Israel lose credibility on the international scene, jeopardize its budding alliances with other regional actors, and fuel anti-semitism worldwide.

Also, as someone with actual stakes in the conflict, I do want the lives of Israeli soldiers/reservists not to be thrown away in the name of "self-defense," which I think often stands for retaliation, but for military intervention to be carefully considered, with clear objectives that will actually make everyone better off in the long-term.

Edited October 22, 2023 by Rippounet

[Ran]

Funny, I was listening to Wittes yesterday on the excellent Lawfare podcast, from the episode recorded shortly after October 7th. He thought removing Hamas from power was doable but would be hard.

I have no qualm with anything Wittes says. I think everything he's said is exactly right, especially in regards to what would and wouldn't constitute war crimes. That was from the 17th, and 5 days later aid is beginning to flow and I saw a report claiming that by tomorrow or the day after they hoped they'd have it worked out to have a constant flow of supplies and not just distinct convoys. Hopefully that will ramp up (and Hamas will not attempt to undermine or capture it for their own uses).

I did not give much credit to the talk of individual ministers and MKs tweeting this or that. I think Wittes is right that the shock certainly left a lot in the air to begin with, that the first target was securing Israel itself by hunting down and defeating the terrorists, and then to respond to the unprecedented rocket attacks from Gaza and what was essentially a declaration of ar from Hamas. But I also think that it seems clear that Israel is beginning to coalesce around a strategy to eliminate Hamas's power in Gaza, and (per reporting I saw on the BBC, I believe) is discussing with the US and other parties how to set up an interim government for Gaza. The US in particular has pressed them to think hard about the strategy and goals, as they should.

Wittes cited Michael Herzog, the current Israeli ambassador to the United States and a former brigadier general in the IDF (also brother to President of Israel Isaac Herzog), as someone who he feels the government should consult because he's had some wise thoughts about how to deal with the Gaza problem in the past. Back in 2006, he shared great concerns about the working theory/hope that involving Hamas in the political process in the PA would have a moderating influence, thinking the conditions weren't there for Hamas to moderate because in fact Fatah was so weak and corrupt that they wouldn't have to do much to win power, and so would feel no reason to change and become moderate... and it turns out he was right.

More recently, I found him holding a talk where he discussed the policy proposal of rebuilding of Gaza in return for demilitarization, and basically improving material conditions for the Gazans as a way forward. A demilitarized Gaza would be much closer to statehood than the current situation. Which, I can't help but note, is something I remarked way back when was part of the point of having to remove Hamas, because they actively fear any improvement in the material conditions of the populace they control.

ETA: I see they also had a live event that I've yet to watch:

 

Edited October 22, 2023 by Ran

[Zorral]

If Gaza is to be rebuilt, the Israeli blockade has to go.

Not only have Bibi and his cohorts been treating the West Bank like Andrew Jackson's white settlers pushing out Native People from their territories and lands, they have been severely blockading Gaza for years -- even for fishing.

https://www.channel4.com/news/israel-seizes-gaza-bound-ship-carrying-european-mps

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/07/world/middleeast/gaza-blockade-israel.html

There's a small area allowed for fishing surrounded by a blockaded area, and they stop ships entering or leaving. 

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/10/10/the-gaza-strip-blockade-explained-in-one-map_6162224_4.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has estimated that Gaza fishermen need to journey at least 12–15 nautical miles from shore to catch larger shoals, and sardines in particular are 6 nmi (11 km) offshore. Shoals closer to shore have been depleted. The total catch pre-blockade in 1999 was nearly 4,000 tons, this was reduced to 2,700 tons in 2008. In the 90s, the Gaza fishing industry was worth $10 million annually or 4% of the total Palestinian economy; this was halved between 2001 and 2006. 45,000 Palestinians were employed in the fishing industry, employed in jobs such as catching fish, repairing nets and selling fish. Fish also provided much-needed animal protein to Gazans' diet.

Gazan fishing boats were restricted to 6 nmi by the blockage, reduced to 3 nmi in 2018.

[Rippounet]

16 minutes ago, Ran said:

The US in particular has pressed them to think hard about the strategy and goals, as they should.

I think it's worth saying that the US reaction to the conflict seems to have been outstanding so far, providing not just military support, but much needed strategic thinking. I can't help but shiver to think about what this would have looked like if someone like Kushner had been put in charge.

[Ran]

1 hour ago, fionwe1987 said:

I will get to the rest of your post at some point, but this is so so fucking wrong. Can I say the same thing about the Holocaust in this board and get away with this?

"The Holocaust justifies Israeli war crimes" is a canard. See? Easy.

"Colonialism is the proximate cause of this crisis and recognizing this will solve things" is also a canard.

You need to take a break, IMO, if you are unable to contextualize what other people are saying to you.