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The destruction of Gaza's internet is complete

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Re: The destruction of Gaza's internet is complete

#601

Post by edanm »

jacquesm wrote: post #600
edanm wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But unless all parties climb down from their respective religious high horses - and that includes Iran - this isn't going to be resolved. So either we accept the fact that Israel will be forever at war or something will have to change. Agreed. > No, that's clear. What conquering was done was after Israel had been founded. But it almost immediately led to the displacement of a large number of people and that alone s…

> I mean, yes, but it was mostly conquering because Israel was attacked. The UN did decide to partition the land into a "Jewish" part and "Palestinian" part, and the Palestinians are the ones that rejected it, while the Arab world attacked Israel. It's not that Israel decided to go out a-conquering. That's true. And I could see how a buffer zone would have made good sense after the six day war, but to turn it into a…

> effectively they are executing on an undeclared agenda that suits a much larger swath of the Israeli population than I was aware of.

I mean, I don't want to overstate things. I haven't done statistics on this, and obviously I'm a fairly left/liberal leaning Israeli, so I tend to look on all pro-settlement people fairly critically. I'm giving you my personal sense of things.

> It's clear that the USA didn't have any real friends in the region (not for lack of trying) and Israel may well have been viewed as some kind of forward base or staging area.

I think US support of Israel was far smaller in the 1960s, back then France was a closer ally iirc. But I wasn't alive back then, I'm not sure how accurate this is.

> That's true. And I could see how a buffer zone would have made good sense after the six day war, but to turn it into a landgrab was effectively not letting a crisis go to waste and that in itself became a serious problem.

Yes. I wonder what would've happened if we hadn't gotten that land, and the Palestinians had just continued to be refugees of other countries.

I'm not sure, but I think it was well understood by the Israeli government at the time that taking that territory, along with the refugees, would be a problem.

Re: The destruction of Gaza's internet is complete

#602

Post by rinka_singh »

The feeling I get from the article AND some of the comments here is that the Palestinians / Hamas did nothing but to sit and wait for Israel to invade & bomb Gaza to dust. It is completely Israel's fault... Wondering why they didn't go into Gaza before Oct 7th...

This is also called playing the victim...

Re: The destruction of Gaza's internet is complete

#603

Post by jacquesm »

edanm wrote: post #601
jacquesm wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, yes, but it was mostly conquering because Israel was attacked. The UN did decide to partition the land into a "Jewish" part and "Palestinian" part, and the Palestinians are the ones that rejected it, while the Arab world attacked Israel. It's not that Israel decided to go out a-conquering. That's true. And I could see how a buffer zone would have made good sense after the six day war, but to turn it into a…

> effectively they are executing on an undeclared agenda that suits a much larger swath of the Israeli population than I was aware of. I mean, I don't want to overstate things. I haven't done statistics on this, and obviously I'm a fairly left/liberal leaning Israeli, so I tend to look on all pro-settlement people fairly critically. I'm giving you my personal sense of things. > It's clear that the USA didn't have any…

Thanks again for the conversation, it has definitely given a lot of valuable background and insights. If you ever want to mail off-site then my email is in my profile. Best of luck there and stay safe!

Re: The destruction of Gaza's internet is complete

#604

Post by tptacek »

jacquesm wrote: post #596
tptacek wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a popular western myth that Israel consists mostly of Europeans. In fact, a majority of Israeli Jewish people are Mizrahim, all of them of middle eastern origin, and themselves victims of a series of counter-Nakbas that took place during and in the wake of the Arab-Israeli war. Yemen, for instance, was once a center of middle eastern Judaism, but the Yemenite Jewish community fled pogroms there en masse. (For th…

> It's a popular western myth that Israel consists mostly of Europeans. I wasn't even aware of that myth so I wonder how popular it really is. Israel consists of original inhabitants of the extended region around present day Israel, population expansion and immigration (about 3 million immigrants). The part that is most visible to Europeans though is the fraction of the latter that stems from Europe because of contin…

That myth is the essence of the "settler colonialism" charge levied against Israel, which is not really about the (vile) expropriation of property from Palestinians in the West Bank --- the "settlements", which virtually everyone, including the Israeli public, opposes, but rather based on a notion of Israeli Jewish people as white occupiers oppressing brown people. It's the kernel of "from the river to the sea", that there is (1) a precise moment in (relatively recent) history that establishes who the legitimate residents are, and (2) that moment establishes that Jewish Israelis are illegitimate foreign interlopers.

You'll often literally hear opponents of Israel use the term "European settler colonialism", which lays the misapprehension bare.

Re: The destruction of Gaza's internet is complete

#605

Post by srazzaque »

edanm wrote: post #520
matsemann wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2. Who are "they" shooting rockets at you? The children you're killing? The civilians in a hospital getting treatment form previous bombings? I stand by my statement. You're defending war crimes and terrorism. It's what it is, no matter how justified you believe it is to kill these innocent people.

> Who are "they" shooting rockets at you? The children you're killing? The civilians in a hospital getting treatment form previous bombings? The Hamas militants that are using hospitals as a base of operations. If you honestly want to discuss this, then here's my suggestion - let's set aside the factual question for a second. If it's true that Hamas is firing rockets from within hospitals and/or using hospitals as a…

I'll preface this with the fact that I appreciate the opportunity for discourse without degenerating to our base/tribal/Neanderthal brains. And, also, a chance to converse with someone outside my own echo chambers. Most of my circle is non-Israeli, and non-Jewish.

> I'm literally running to a bomb shelter multiple times a day as rockets are fired at me

I'm sorry to hear this. This must be a terrible way to live, constantly in mortal fear of attacks from the other side. I will be the first to admit that I cannot relate to this, I've always lived in peaceful/stable environments (touch wood).

Can I pose a completely hypothetical counter-question, based on your own question with one variable changed: If it were somehow true that Hamas was firing rockets from _within Tel Aviv_ hospitals and/or using _Tel Aviv_ hospitals as a base of operations, would you consider it justified for the IDF to bomb that hospital?

Re: The destruction of Gaza's internet is complete

#606

Post by edanm »

srazzaque wrote: post #605
edanm wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who are "they" shooting rockets at you? The children you're killing? The civilians in a hospital getting treatment form previous bombings? The Hamas militants that are using hospitals as a base of operations. If you honestly want to discuss this, then here's my suggestion - let's set aside the factual question for a second. If it's true that Hamas is firing rockets from within hospitals and/or using hospitals as a…

I'll preface this with the fact that I appreciate the opportunity for discourse without degenerating to our base/tribal/Neanderthal brains. And, also, a chance to converse with someone outside my own echo chambers. Most of my circle is non-Israeli, and non-Jewish. > I'm literally running to a bomb shelter multiple times a day as rockets are fired at me I'm sorry to hear this. This must be a terrible way to live, cons…

> I'm sorry to hear this. This must be a terrible way to live, constantly in mortal fear of attacks from the other side. I will be the first to admit that I cannot relate to this, I've always lived in peaceful/stable environments (touch wood).

Thank you. I will say that there are people in much worse situations, we still feel relatively normal, except for running to bomb shelters a few times a day and except for the worry that worse is coming. But we're in the center. Many Israelis have had to evacuate their homes and probably won't be back for months.

And of course, the Palestinians in Gaza have it much worse than us, even on a good day.

> Can I pose a completely hypothetical counter-question, based on your own question with one variable changed: If it were somehow true that Hamas was firing rockets from _within Tel Aviv_ hospitals and/or using _Tel Aviv_ hospitals as a base of operations, would you consider it justified for the IDF to bomb that hospital?

An interesting question. I suggest you think about it the same way as what would happen if bank robbers took over a bank in New York, and were firing rockets at the population - would you consider bombing the bank justified? If it were the only way to prevent mass casualties outside the bank, then yes, I think it would be (and would be effectively what the police/army would do.)

But here's what makes this situation unrealistic/different: If Hamas had taken over a hospital in Tel Aviv, the hospital wouldn't continue to operate like normal. The people in the hospital would either evacuate, or would fight Hamas. If Hamas somehow managed to take over the hospital anyway, we'd be talking about a hostage situation where Hamas had a hospital-full of hostages. Then probably what would actually happen is we'd send in soldiers and/or police to try to root them out by force.

If they were somehow holed up in there, and were actively firing rockets that were killing people, then I assume there'd be some determination of whether the army/police were able to remove them quickly, before the death/damage from their rockets proves too much. If not, then for sure there'd be a discussion of whether bombing the hospital is the right choice, though it would have to be a pretty extreme situation (since ground troops probably would be able to get in, and the hostage casualties would be far too high in directly bombing it.)

The difference with the situation in Gaza is obvious IMIO. Whereas in a hospital inside Tel Aviv, Hamas is surrounded by an endless amount of Israeli ground forces that have access to it, inside Gaza that's not the case. I imagine this is actually one of the reasons for the large bombing campaign - to prepare the way for ground forces to invade, so that among other things we can surround any building with troops.

Re: The destruction of Gaza's internet is complete

#607

Post by edanm »

jacquesm wrote: post #603
edanm wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> effectively they are executing on an undeclared agenda that suits a much larger swath of the Israeli population than I was aware of. I mean, I don't want to overstate things. I haven't done statistics on this, and obviously I'm a fairly left/liberal leaning Israeli, so I tend to look on all pro-settlement people fairly critically. I'm giving you my personal sense of things. > It's clear that the USA didn't have any…

Thanks again for the conversation, it has definitely given a lot of valuable background and insights. If you ever want to mail off-site then my email is in my profile. Best of luck there and stay safe!

Thanks to you as well.

I've been a fan of yours on this site for many years :)

Re: The destruction of Gaza's internet is complete

#608

Post by culi »

spixy wrote: post #468
culi wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The percentage of civilian deaths of Palestinian casualties to Israel is around 70%. Their goal isn't really to target soldiers > It's estimated that Hamas has between 30,000 and 40,000 soldiers(1) This article does not provide a source for that figure but it's definitely on the high end. The number of members of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas' armed wing) has been estimated anywhere from 15-40k.

correlation != causation their goal can be to target soldiers, and at the same time they kill civilians (because they are near soldiers which are being attacked)

70%... Are you seriously defending that? I get your points but that's an unheard of figure. There's absolutely no way a state can be that careless without being to the point of violating the Geneva convention

Israel's illegal settlements have a history of state-sponsored pograms and brutal violence against Palestinians in both Gaza and West Bank

Re: The destruction of Gaza's internet is complete

#609

Post by jacquesm »

tptacek wrote: post #604
jacquesm wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a popular western myth that Israel consists mostly of Europeans. I wasn't even aware of that myth so I wonder how popular it really is. Israel consists of original inhabitants of the extended region around present day Israel, population expansion and immigration (about 3 million immigrants). The part that is most visible to Europeans though is the fraction of the latter that stems from Europe because of contin…

That myth is the essence of the "settler colonialism" charge levied against Israel, which is not really about the (vile) expropriation of property from Palestinians in the West Bank --- the "settlements", which virtually everyone, including the Israeli public, opposes, but rather based on a notion of Israeli Jewish people as white occupiers oppressing brown people. It's the kernel of "from the river to the sea", that…

I have never heard that term used. Universally, here, in conversations and in the news settlers only refer to the current affairs issues, as in Israeli settlers staking claims in the West Bank.

Re: The destruction of Gaza's internet is complete

#610

Post by srazzaque »

edanm wrote: post #606
srazzaque wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll preface this with the fact that I appreciate the opportunity for discourse without degenerating to our base/tribal/Neanderthal brains. And, also, a chance to converse with someone outside my own echo chambers. Most of my circle is non-Israeli, and non-Jewish. > I'm literally running to a bomb shelter multiple times a day as rockets are fired at me I'm sorry to hear this. This must be a terrible way to live, cons…

> I'm sorry to hear this. This must be a terrible way to live, constantly in mortal fear of attacks from the other side. I will be the first to admit that I cannot relate to this, I've always lived in peaceful/stable environments (touch wood). Thank you. I will say that there are people in much worse situations, we still feel relatively normal, except for running to bomb shelters a few times a day and except for the…

Interesting analysis.

I think it suffices to say that quite a bit of thought and justification would precede striking a hospital in all of these scenarios. I do hope that this level of thought and consideration is standard operating procedure in the retaliations right now. Mainly to restore some morcel of faith I have in humanity. But I, and those disconnected from internal Israeli military comms (ie most of us) can't be sure.

The political optics/rhetoric aside, the images that I see of wounded children are heartbreaking. The recounts I've read about what happened on October 7th are horrifying. If the stats are accurate, they are depressing as hell. This war has amassed almost a fifth of the total civilian death toll of the 20-year long US War in Afghanistan. In. One. Month.

Collectively I think we can agree that this needs to stop. I hope it stops. But given the track record of skirmishes and hostilities in the region, I'm losing faith.

If the statistics of civilian and children deaths are even 50% accurate, even if Israel succeeds in destroying Hamas, I fear the collateral damage and the cost of human life will just create a future generation of armed boys who all lost their parents in air strikeS in October 2023. They might just call themselves something different.

And so the cycle continues.

I know many people on both sides alike want peace. But it will take a truly superhuman person to walk across that border and say "I forgive you."

When that day comes, a person who's death would be mourned by both sides, we may have some hope.

Until such a day, stay safe. I'll go give my kids a hug now.

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