361–370 of 610 posts
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Israel has been expanding at the cost of Palestine for decades. This is just the last bit. Killing or displacing the 2.2M Palestinians is what it takes for Israel to finally complete their occupation.
In the West Bank, yes. Not in Gaza, where Israel did the exactly opposite of expanding by deoccupying Gaza in 2005, even kicking out thousands of Israli Jews who were living there.
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Again. I don't have that but you don't have the counter evidence that it didn't exist. Show me evidence of any bombing from any western country in any campaign ever... I get that Israel should be held to a higher standard than the Hamas. But your specific attitude makes no sense. Intelligence information is internal, wartime bombings target decisions are privileged information.
> I don't have that but you don't have the counter evidence that it didn't exist This is not the problem, people who claim something have to provide the evidence if asked, you don't respond to them by re-directing the question and ask them for counter-proof. At least in the normal world. I don't know about you. > I get that Israel should be held to a higher standard than the Hamas Providing evidence to claims is now…
No we don't. However, I did provide evidence which you choose to ignore. You also claim that the army would bomb a place for no real reason which just doesn't make sense. Especially for the first target in a campaign. It's you who should provide evidence, not me.
> > But your specific attitude makes no sense. Intelligence information is internal, wartime bombings target decisions are privileged information > > So they can attack and kill anyone and claim they were military targets, and when asked for evidence then they will not provide because it is internal?
Nonsense. This is an attack on a building. Bombing is a coarse instrument and the IDF holds regular briefings where they provide evidence.
All the papers spent a day claiming Israel bombed a hospital killing 500 people. Total lie and the Hamas knew it when they came out with it. The IDF gathers and provides evidence for relevant situations (e.g. the Hospital bombing). It is accountable unlike the Hamas which is not.
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Yes, that's true, but that wasn't what killed Rabin. If Rabin had not been murdered I would have put a good chance on the Oslo process becoming ratified and that at least would have established some way of de-escalation. Just like in Northern Ireland: you need goodwill on both sides to make progress, regardless of what happened before. The fact that both of those conflicts are at the root religious conflicts is proba…
This is a tough one. I don't think it's anything like Northern Ireland. Likely the only workable solution is a single state solution with some special protections for the Jewish people. Maybe a federation of some sorts. This is not going to happen in this generation. Given the demographics of the region I'm not sure it'll ever happen. Unfortunately the future looks bleak, more so for the Arabs, but really for everyon…
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> > Hamas is a cancer on the Palestinian people. > > You are seeing a cause, I'm seeing a symptom. Nonsense. There were two major Palestinian terrorist organizations. The PLO was the older and back in the day the more violent of the two. It was able to get over its aggression and come to a peace settlement with Israel who also put everything behind it. The Hamas blew up busses, cafes etc. Killed MANY civilians in sui…
Terrorism is - historically and in the present - almost always a symptom of a political movement that has radicalized possibly as an outgrowth of a population under occupation or backed into a corner. That's why to me it is a symptom. As for the rest, we are mostly in agreement, I think the latter bit is the key but for that Israel would have to back off of certain policies and they would have to be able to accept th…
A symptom would be a fight for freedom. The Hamas is a symptom of religious extremism first and foremost. The PLOs terrorist period is indeed a symptom of Israels bad policies.
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Except of course for those who ended up living in Gaza without that being their choice.
I'm afraid the sarcasm didn't come across well. The article makes it sound like Israel was just peacefully minding its business when Hamas attacked, forcing it to retaliate, which we all know is not the case.
History suggests expunging determined, fortified, modern militants embedded in a civilian population never goes well. The expunger loses or gets a pyrrhic victory, even with a huge economic advantage. Honestly, however dire the need, I don't see what Israel is thinking. If Israel, the US, Europe, China and Russia all held hands and invaded the Gaza strip together, they still probably couldn't route out Hamas.
I don't think that's true and I don't think Israel has a choice. It won't get every single Hamas operative but it can get most of them and leave the rest in hiding. Israel needs to prove that it *can* do that otherwise it won't have the deterrence factor that keeps it safe. The question is what will fill the void after Israel withdraws. Biden discussed something that sounded a lot like a marshal plan which I hope wil…
When has this ever been a success in recent military history?
Hamas is dug in like a tick, in a big city, with international Patrons. Israel is not a superpower. Major powers have "gotten most of them" but unequivocally lost much more favorable insurgent situations.
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I don't think that's true and I don't think Israel has a choice. It won't get every single Hamas operative but it can get most of them and leave the rest in hiding. Israel needs to prove that it *can* do that otherwise it won't have the deterrence factor that keeps it safe. The question is what will fill the void after Israel withdraws. Biden discussed something that sounded a lot like a marshal plan which I hope wil…
> It won't get every single Hamas operative but it can get most of them and leave the rest in hiding. When has this ever been a success in recent military history? Hamas is dug in like a tick, in a big city, with international Patrons. Israel is not a superpower. Major powers have "gotten most of them" but unequivocally lost much more favorable insurgent situations.
Furthermore, if this is coupled with a peace process, Israel can get help from Palestinians who despise the Hamas.
But yes, it would be an amazing accomplishment.
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> I'm just watching this from the sidelines like everyone, how exactly do we stop causing more wounds? By focusing on that which can be influenced which is usually limited to your own side. Go back to the Oslo accords, enable a UN peacekeeping mission (with teeth) and abandon any territory settled. That should be a good start. Not that I even dream of the hardliners on either side thinking that is acceptable.
Didn't we just try this in Gaza? Abandoned the territory settled? Imagine if Hamas controlled both Gaza and the West Bank? Israel would be destroyed. UN peacekeeping is bullshit. What country is going to trust the UN to guarantee it's security. There is UN peacekeeping in Lebanon where attacks against Israel are and were coming from, they do zilch. The history of UN peacekeepers in the region is that at any hint of v…
Not really. The territory abandoned was systematically kept down to the point where any kind of improvement was destroyed again. And much more is being destroyed right now. What do you think all these bombings will do short of just creating the next 20 years of personnel supply for Hamas?
> Abandoned the territory settled?
No, it wasn't just abandoned. The houses that were there were gone and the houses that were built were demolished. So the land was barren. That's not giving the other party a chance, that's the kind of scorched earth tactics that make things worse.
> Imagine if Hamas controlled both Gaza and the West Bank? Israel would be destroyed.
Yes, Hamas is a problem, we are in agreement on that. But so is the Israeli government, the problem is to get them both to back down from their violence-begets-more-violence cycle. And it looks like things are going to get a lot worse rather than better. So you can expect many more Israeli lives to be lost as well as many more Palestinian lives.
> UN peacekeeping is bullshit. What country is going to trust the UN to guarantee it's security. There is UN peacekeeping in Lebanon where attacks against Israel are and were coming from, they do zilch. The history of UN peacekeepers in the region is that at any hint of violence they move away.
I have had family members in Unifil deployments and that's not what I hear. Both sides criticize the UN peacekeepers as being on the side of their enemy, that's usually a good sign.
> On the Israeli side nobody will trust the Palestinians over anything.
Makes you wonder why there isn't a solution possible. But: with the dubious ways in which Hamas was financed there may be enough blame to go around for everybody.
> There's also a minority that believes the entire land belongs to Israel and screw the Palestinians.
Unfortunately that minority has a disproportionate effect on Israeli politics. It should be obvious that this is one of the root causes of this ongoing conflict.
> On the Palestinian side (IMO) there's a majority that is unwilling to take any settlement other than all the Jews should leave the middle east. There's fractures and nobody that represents all of them that can agree and/or enforce any agreement. So here we are.
I'm missing the proxy war that the Arab world has been fighting against Israel using the Palestinians in just as much a cynical way as the right wing in Israel has been using them to keep the conflict alive as much as possible.
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I would disagree that Israel is dehumanizing all Palestinians. Examples? I have heard the Hamas referred to as sub-human (I don't recall where). Unfortunately they are very human. De-humanizing is not genocide and genocide is not a reality. What it is is propaganda. But yes, Germans and Hitler did dehumanize the jews to support their genocide. How did we get to Iran? It's easier for Israeli intelligence to operate in…
> I would disagree that Israel is dehumanizing all Palestinians This article has some examples. Many more on social media. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/16/the-la...
The article talks about how schools in Israel view Arabs. Well, you should see how schools in Gaza or the West Bank view Israelis:
https://www.memri.org/reports/plo-summer-camps-%E2%80%93-par...
https://www.memri.org/reports/palestinian-authority-schoolbo...
I would agree there's likely some stereotyping of Arabs and some "freedom" with the historical narrative. But there's also lots of teaching of principles of free society, equal rights, etc. The evidence is the large number of Israeli who have been trying to work towards some sort of peace, helping Palestinians, fighting against injustice.
"Other Israeli political, military and religious leaders have at different times described Palestinians as “a cancer”, “vermin”, and called for them to be “annihilated”. They are frequently portrayed as backward and a burden on the country." -> references?
If you ask a mother whose child has been killed or kidnapped what that mother thinks about the killers or kidnappers you might get "animals" as an answer. Emotions are definitely running high right now everywhere and you're going to get some of that coming out. As a rule though Israel does not de-humanize all Palestinians, there are many Palestinian Israelis (> 1 million) living side by side with Israelis. That's just a false narrative.
At this point, I think Gaza is pretty much doomed. There won’t be much left at the end of this special military operation.
It's estimated that Hamas has between 30,000 and 40,000 soldiers(1), which is about 6% to 8% of Gaza's entire adult male population. There's no way of getting around it: if Israel finishes the job of eradicating Hamas, a large percentage of the Gazan population will be killed or captured, purely because so many of them are actively involved in Hamas. Anyway, if Gazan citizens learn the lessons of their mistakes, they…
OK, let's for a second assume that all this crap started on Oct 7. What exactly have the Palestinians' in West Bank got to do with any of this shit? 1k arrests, settlers gunning down people walking down the street there. This whole shit is absolutely disgusting and the fact that people sit in the comforts of their home and preach about teaching "Gazan's their lessons", whatever the hell that means.