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Israel Is Winning in Gaza

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Re: Israel Is Winning in Gaza

#11

Post by NomDePlum »

weatherlite wrote: post #10
NomDePlum wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel is now in a similar position to South Africa in the '80's for a considerable population of the world. Defending actions that others find indefensible. Enshrining societal culture and positions that for most is extermely unpalatable, at best. I don't see how Israel come back from it's current position, even with U.S. backing. Deliberately killing and maiming children and the vulnerable in the many thousands is…

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You are right few societal/cultural choices are irreversible, the case of South Africa being a case in point. They are just extremely rare to occur. I do think you miscategorise those that have misgivings. The US and Israel are very isolated currently.

The challenge for Israel is that there appears to be few limits on what they are prepared to do. Putting aside more recent examples, the decades long encouragement of settlements and displacement of the Arab population and accompanying violence is something I'm not sure how Israel reverses.

I'm not sure most, or even many, people see Israel as the root of all evil. Where does that perception come from? Unfortunately the actions Israel is involved in now most would classify as evil and deliberately so. Rightly, or wrongly they are perceived to have the backing of the majority of the population, which is what makes me think that Israel is not going to fully recover from this period, unless of course they can change course in a similar way to South Africa.

Re: Israel Is Winning in Gaza

#12

Post by runarberg »

weatherlite wrote: post #9
runarberg wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or, Israel could have avoided going to war with Hamas altogether and tried to release the hostages with a deal by giving in to all of Hamas demands [...] can't imagine any other country on earth taking that option I do wonder whether history backs up this statement. When I hear about hostages taken by terrorists in the news, most of the time, if they are released, and if I remember accurately, they are released via…

You are ignoring the fact that Hamas wants to bring Israel down by force, it explicitly said it would repeat October 7th. So getting back the hostages is only a part of the problem, there is the issue of existential threat to Israel. And this is all speculation anyway, who knows if Hamas would have been willing to free all hostages - why would it, it could have kept humiliating Israel right after massacring its popul…

The allied bombing campaign and the US war on terror are hardly patterns in history (and neither were responses to hostages). A much more common pattern is what we saw e.g. after the Madrid train bombings in 2004, or the recent Moscow concert hall attack, where there is increased police presence and perhaps domestic political persecution of some groups by the police and with discriminatory laws. Nothing close to a genocidal rampage.

There are plenty of terror groups which the rulers of plenty of countries say are existential threats to those countries, some of them even take hostages, Israel alone responds to those attacks with genocidal rampage.

I think the closest behavior to Israel here is ironically Turkey who engages in brutal military campaign against Kurdish communities on a regular basis. But those reactions don’t come anywhere close in scope as the Gaza genocide.

EDIT: And just to flip the narrative here a little bit. The terror attacks by Hamas is actually something we see quite often in history. Occupied peoples usually resist, and if political means of resistance is not available, they almost always use violent and armed forms of resistance. You want to make the case that Israel’s behavior is to be expected. I don’t believe that, but if you do that, you should also apply the same logic to Palestinian resistance.

Re: Israel Is Winning in Gaza

#13

Post by aguaviva »

weatherlite wrote: post #9
runarberg wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or, Israel could have avoided going to war with Hamas altogether and tried to release the hostages with a deal by giving in to all of Hamas demands [...] can't imagine any other country on earth taking that option I do wonder whether history backs up this statement. When I hear about hostages taken by terrorists in the news, most of the time, if they are released, and if I remember accurately, they are released via…

You are ignoring the fact that Hamas wants to bring Israel down by force, it explicitly said it would repeat October 7th. So getting back the hostages is only a part of the problem, there is the issue of existential threat to Israel. And this is all speculation anyway, who knows if Hamas would have been willing to free all hostages - why would it, it could have kept humiliating Israel right after massacring its popul…

There's simply no comparison between the Afghanistan occupation and what Israel is doing in its occupied territories.

Stupid and ultimately futile though the former mission was, the allied countries never thought they had a historical claim (or even any specific interest) in Afghanistan the way Israel covets (and certain factions within it openly proclaim their intent to fully displace the native population from) the West Bank and Gaza.

We save that rhetoric [accusations of genocide] only for Israel.

Plainly false, given the plethora of genocide rampages in recent decades.

And the extremely prominent media coverage of these situations, which cannot possibly have escaped your notice.

Re: Israel Is Winning in Gaza

#14

Post by weatherlite »

NomDePlum wrote: post #11
weatherlite wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You are right few societal/cultural choices are irreversible, the case of South Africa being a case in point. They are just extremely rare to occur. I do think you miscategorise those that have misgivings. The US and Israel are very isolated currently. The challenge for Israel is that there appears to be few limits on what they are prepared to do. Putting aside more recent examples, the decades long encouragement of…

> I'm not sure most, or even many, people see Israel as the root of all evil. Where does that perception come from?

I think there is a huge proportion of Muslims world wide who believe this is the case and also a pretty sizable amount of left wing (especially 'Woke') people in the West. Unfortunately some of these people don't even make a full distinction between Israelis and Jews, so it became bad news to Jews everywhere. I can go on and give a bunch of news stories and anecdotes (your own comment - the words you choose to use btw kind of reinforces my theory) but I don't think anything I write here will change your mind.

Re: Israel Is Winning in Gaza

#15

Post by weatherlite »

runarberg wrote: post #12
weatherlite wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are ignoring the fact that Hamas wants to bring Israel down by force, it explicitly said it would repeat October 7th. So getting back the hostages is only a part of the problem, there is the issue of existential threat to Israel. And this is all speculation anyway, who knows if Hamas would have been willing to free all hostages - why would it, it could have kept humiliating Israel right after massacring its popul…

The allied bombing campaign and the US war on terror are hardly patterns in history (and neither were responses to hostages). A much more common pattern is what we saw e.g. after the Madrid train bombings in 2004, or the recent Moscow concert hall attack, where there is increased police presence and perhaps domestic political persecution of some groups by the police and with discriminatory laws. Nothing close to a ge…

> There are plenty of terror groups which the rulers of plenty of countries say are existential threats to those countries, some of them even take hostages, Israel alone responds to those attacks with genocidal rampage.

Such as ? When the U.S felt it was under existental threat it definitely responded.

The Madrid/London attacks don't resemble at all the situation between Hamas and Israel - even if Spain wanted to go to war against the terrorists - where would the war happen? Who would they attack? Hamas is right on the border, hell bent on recreating October 7th again and again (their words). And its not just their words Hamas has built an entire army with whatever means they could find, and had fired rockets on Israel repeatedly throughout the years. Madrid and London was one or more sophoisticated terror cell, without knowing what happened there in detail I find it hard to believe it was more than a hundred people involved. Hamas has/had tens of thousands of members, rpgs, explosives, tunnels and tens of thousands of rockets (low quality, but still). Not to mention the fact Israel was immediately attacked by Hezbollah and later on Iran. This comparison to Spain or the UK is simply silly. You simply choose to view Israel as uniquely evil due to your political ideology/own biases and thought processes.

Re: Israel Is Winning in Gaza

#16

Post by weatherlite »

aguaviva wrote: post #13
weatherlite wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are ignoring the fact that Hamas wants to bring Israel down by force, it explicitly said it would repeat October 7th. So getting back the hostages is only a part of the problem, there is the issue of existential threat to Israel. And this is all speculation anyway, who knows if Hamas would have been willing to free all hostages - why would it, it could have kept humiliating Israel right after massacring its popul…

There's simply no comparison between the Afghanistan occupation and what Israel is doing in its occupied territories. Stupid and ultimately futile though the former mission was, the allied countries never thought they had a historical claim (or even any specific interest) in Afghanistan the way Israel covets (and certain factions within it openly proclaim their intent to fully displace the native population from) the…

> Stupid and ultimately futile though the former mission was, the allied countries never thought they had a historical claim (or even any specific interest) in Afghanistan the way Israel covets (and certain factions within it openly proclaim their intent to fully displace the native population from) the West Bank and Gaza.

There's no much talk of historical claims on Gaza from Israelis besides very fringe groups who don't number a lot of people. Palestinians on the other hand are pretty much 100% united in their view that history necessitates they "free Palestine from the river to the sea", so if there are major historical claims they mostly come from the Palestinian side and their fans in the West and the Muslim world.

> Plainly false, given the plethora of genocide rampages in recent decades.

> And the extremely prominent media coverage of these situations, which cannot possibly have escaped your notice.

No not really, there was nothing resembling the circus around Israel not even close. Which ones do you mean were vastly talked about or protested against even with 1/100 the amount this does?

Re: Israel Is Winning in Gaza

#17

Post by aguaviva »

weatherlite wrote: post #16
aguaviva wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's simply no comparison between the Afghanistan occupation and what Israel is doing in its occupied territories. Stupid and ultimately futile though the former mission was, the allied countries never thought they had a historical claim (or even any specific interest) in Afghanistan the way Israel covets (and certain factions within it openly proclaim their intent to fully displace the native population from) the…

> Stupid and ultimately futile though the former mission was, the allied countries never thought they had a historical claim (or even any specific interest) in Afghanistan the way Israel covets (and certain factions within it openly proclaim their intent to fully displace the native population from) the West Bank and Gaza. There's no much talk of historical claims on Gaza from Israelis besides very fringe groups who…

There's no much talk of historical claims on Gaza from Israelis besides very fringe groups who don't number a lot of people.

They're certainly quite obnoxious, these groups. But they can't be called "fringe" anymore, now that they've been made coalition partners in the 37th government (receiving very prominent cabinet positions to boot). Meanwhile Israel's expansionist claims on the West Bank have been the de-facto national consensus (and have been supported by every government to one degree or another) since the late 70s.

If there are major historical claims they mostly come from the Palestinian side

These aren't "claims" coming from their side as it has always been their land to begin with.

Re: Israel Is Winning in Gaza

#18

Post by weatherlite »

aguaviva wrote: post #17
weatherlite wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stupid and ultimately futile though the former mission was, the allied countries never thought they had a historical claim (or even any specific interest) in Afghanistan the way Israel covets (and certain factions within it openly proclaim their intent to fully displace the native population from) the West Bank and Gaza. There's no much talk of historical claims on Gaza from Israelis besides very fringe groups who…

There's no much talk of historical claims on Gaza from Israelis besides very fringe groups who don't number a lot of people. They're certainly quite obnoxious, these groups. But they can't be called "fringe" anymore, now that they've been made coalition partners in the 37th government (receiving very prominent cabinet positions to boot). Meanwhile Israel's expansionist claims on the West Bank have been the de-facto n…

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Re: Israel Is Winning in Gaza

#19

Post by dunekid »

weatherlite wrote: post #18
aguaviva wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no much talk of historical claims on Gaza from Israelis besides very fringe groups who don't number a lot of people. They're certainly quite obnoxious, these groups. But they can't be called "fringe" anymore, now that they've been made coalition partners in the 37th government (receiving very prominent cabinet positions to boot). Meanwhile Israel's expansionist claims on the West Bank have been the de-facto n…

[flagged]

What is the complication in West Bank? It is under occupation by all means. And also under apartheid. Occupying West Bank completely might also be just fringe ideas, that are not worth paying attention to? Is it the complication of Smotrich price-tagging Palestinians by creating as many illegal occupations as the number of countries recognising the Palestinian people's lives?

Re: Israel Is Winning in Gaza

#20

Post by weatherlite »

dunekid wrote: post #19
weatherlite wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What is the complication in West Bank? It is under occupation by all means. And also under apartheid. Occupying West Bank completely might also be just fringe ideas, that are not worth paying attention to? Is it the complication of Smotrich price-tagging Palestinians by creating as many illegal occupations as the number of countries recognising the Palestinian people's lives?

By saying its more complicated I meant to say that the settlements in the West Bank don't really have mainstream support in Israel as the parent comment suggested. There's a very powerful national religious minority that is able to keep them alive but that's more due to political deadlock than due to widespread support (I'm not arguing some support exists but its not huge, and Smotrich btw is expected not to make it into the next parliament because he's leaking tons of voters). Curiously, the most religious Israelis (the ultra orthodox) generally don't care about the settlements at all. Now dismantling the settlements would be very hard now but that's much more due to a reluctance of most Israelis to see a Palestinian state in the West Bank due to fear for their security - not out of love for the settlements. If conditions for peace ever arrive I don't think the majority of Israelis would have a problem to dismantle them (Israel already did dismantle quite a few settlements in the past, also in the West Bank). But yeah we'll cross the 'peace bridge' when we get there.
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