If it's just to move troops around, why dig trenches and have a huge no-man's-land along the road? It's kinda like they're building Berlin wall v2. We'll see if they'll allow 1.5 million displaced Gaza populations to return to the northern part of Gaza later.
We'll see
Why wait and see when you can just take their word at face value? They won't.
The State of Israel will no longer be able to accept the existence of an independent entity in Gaza".
Yeah and it shouldn't. Gaza is a lawless place. There is no legitimate government there. Somebody has to rebuild it. Who's going to do it?
Palestinians?
The hubris and condescension from you people. Maniacal.
By what? By who? Hamas is the de facto leadership in Gaza. It was popularly elected, and then popularly canceled all future elections. More than half the world recognizes it as a terrorist organization. It will not have its own state. Not now, not ever.
Hamas has also proven that it does not care one iota about Palestinian people or it wouldn't have built their tunnels under people's houses, and it would surrender and end this bloodshed.
Maybe one day the US cancels elections, then I guess it would be okay to blow you, your parents, your children, and your dog into oblivion. You probably voted for this, so you deserve to die with no dignity under piles of rubble and pain.
You can't imagine how ashamed of yourself you will be when you realize what kind of genocide you were cheering for all day and night.
Since 2007, Hamas has been the de facto administration in Gaza and has ruled with an iron fist. However, Israel has never relinquished its overall control of the territory, and the UN considers Gaza still occupied. Israeli forces, in coordination with Egypt, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, have kept Gaza enclosed by land, air and sea.
People, food, fuel, internet, power and water cannot leave or enter Gaza without permission from Israel. Egypt has a land crossing in the south, Rafah, but in practice, the military regime in Cairo – an enemy of Hamas and ally with Israel’s most powerful backer, the US – acts as an enforcer of the blockade.
Israel says the blockade is for its own security, citing repeated Hamas rocket attacks and incursions. But UN experts say the blockade, and intense bombing during five wars on Gaza, amounts to collective punishment on civilians, a war crime under international law.
I disagree with the conclusions of this pro Hamas nonsense. You have all the evidence right there.
Since 2007 Hamas rules Gaza with "an iron fist."
Ya know stoning "infidels," assassinating Palestinians who want peace, cancelling all future elections. Nobody is going to miss Hamas when it is killed to the man. It's a far right Islamist terrorist group and part of the much large pan Islamist movement whose motto is "death to America and death to Israel." The singular difference between Hamas and ISIS is that they disagree as to who should be in charge of the world, Iran, the Syrian caliphate, or a new caliphate in the Levant after they literally genocide all the Jews.
And don't bring Egypt into this.
Egypt doesn't want terrorists using its border to smuggle weapons and fighters, either.
Food goes through. The mass starvation everyone has been warning of for five months hasn't happened. The daily death toll is dropping like a stone.
"UN experts"
may sound authoritative and conclusive to you but I went to school with some of these people and know how shitty they are with facts and reasoning when they get emotional, which is what Hamas counts on. They should surrender. Period.
There won't be a lasting ceasefire until it stops fighting and by fighting I of course mean targeting Jewish civilians and using Gaza and everyone in it as its personal suit of armor.
All this shit you have to say about the evil Jewish empire is only to say that Israel must stop defending itself. That's why for all your links you cannot give a rational explanation for Hamas's plan on October 7 that didn't end in a massive civilian death toll. 30,000 is awful but Hamas decided with the consent of Gaza to put every one of them in harms way and then rolled the dice with their lives.
I love reading this BS. Hamas sucks but they don't stone people. Why do you feel the need to make shit up?
If you stopped constantly dehumanizing palestinians for a second, maybe you'd recognize Hamas began due to the terrible material conditions of Occupation, and has the goal of ending the occupation. Maybe you'd even recognize collective punishment has been a deliberate Israeli tactic for decades with the Dahiya doctrine. Hamas is very different from ISIS, but they both were born out of Terrorism from Israel and the US respectively. Hamas wants an end to the Apartheid, not genocide. That claim is both untrue, and holds no weight when Israel is currently engaging in genocide. This is about the state of Israel being founded on ethnic cleansing and it's most recent ethnic cleansing campaign. Not Jewish people, stop being antisemitic by thinking they're the same.
Hamas in its early days, according to former Israeli officials, was seen by the government of Israel as a counterweight to the PLO. Israel supported Hamas as a way to break the PLO's hold on the region. Retired official Avner Cohen, who worked in Gaza in the 1990s and oversaw religious affairs in the region, told the WSJ in 2009, “Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation."
In the 2006 election, Ismail Haniyeh led Hamas as the head of Hamas' parliamentary bloc, while the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas, led Fatah, as well as the PLO and Palestinian National Authority (PNA). (Haniyeh is now chairman of Hamas' political bureau, and Abbas remains in his positions, as of this writing.) With Haniyeh at the helm, Hamas won around 44% of the votes across the region, according to a 2006 ABC News report, a total that secured a majority of seats in the legislature under election rules.
And in the backdrop of the 2006 election were geographic and political divides between Gaza and the West Bank. Contrary to what Bennett claimed, Israel restricted Palestinians from moving in and out of Gaza, as well as between the strip and the West Bank, since at least the 1990s, after the first Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, according to Al Jazeera. In addition to Gaza's borders, the Israeli government controlled its coastline and airspace, allowing for military incursions into the territory, and, in 2007, established the blockade on goods and people that still exists as of this writing.
Hamas was born out of pan Islamism. Israel didn't invent it. It's hundreds of years old.
Pan-Islamism and Pan-Arabism were both movements born out of anti-colonialism and opposed western political involvement, but they are not the same and have different history. There is no monolith in the middle east. Neither a Muslim nor an Arab Monolith. If you think all Muslims or all Arab people think the same you're just being racist.
Hamas, while associated with the Muslim Brotherhood in the past, is not the same as the Muslim Brotherhood.
When Israel occupied the Palestinian territories in 1967, the Muslim Brotherhood members there did not take active part in the resistance, preferring to focus on social-religious reform and on restoring Islamic values. This outlook changed in the early 1980s, and Islamic organizations became more involved in Palestinian politics. The driving force behind this transformation was Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian refugee from Al-Jura. Of humble origins and quadriplegic, he became one of the Muslim Brotherhood's leaders in Gaza. His charisma and conviction brought him a loyal group of followers, upon whom he depended for everything from feeding him and transporting him to and from events to communicating his strategy to the public. In 1973, Yassin founded the social-religious charity Mujama al-Islamiya ("Islamic center") in Gaza as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The idea of Hamas began to take form on December 10, 1987, when several members of the Brotherhood convened the day after an incident in which an Israeli army truck crashed into a car at a Gaza checkpoint, killing four Palestinian day-workers, the impetus of the First Intifada. The group met at Yassin's house to strategize on how to maximize the incident's impact in spreading nationalist sentiments and sparking public demonstrations. A leaflet issued on December 14 calling for resistance is considered its first public intervention, though the name Hamas itself was not used until January 1988
To many Palestinians, Hamas represented a more authentic engagement with their national aspirations. This perception arose because Hamas offered an Islamic interpretation of the original goals of the secular PLO, focusing on armed struggle to liberate all of Palestine. This approach contrasted with the PLO's eventual acceptance of territorial compromise, which involved settling for a smaller portion of Mandatory Palestine. Hamas's formal establishment came a month after the PLO and other intifada leaders issued a 14-point declaration in January 1988 advocating for the coexistence of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Again with the link spam of things I already know.
I don't think that all violent Islamist extremists are the same. I think they are substantially the same, not distinguishable in meaningful ways. As I said, the only difference is who gets to be the caliphate. For example, while ISIS and Hamas leadership are formally at war, Hamas just can't stop getting its fighters to join ISIS, too.
That's the thing, the links I provide are to show exactly what you're getting wrong.
Th really don't though. You're drawing your conclusions from the facts and I think your conclusions are shallow and poorly reasoned, and I think that you often cite to other people who draw the same conclusions as you because it makes you feel good.
We don't have to agree it's fine. I can still respect you. You're disgusted by 30,000 deaths, mostly innocent civilians; you're probably a very decent and justice-minded person, instincts that must serve you well. They are my instincts too, and serve me well.
I'm not interested in the chicken or the egg debate. though because it's not relevant to the next hundred years. I'm interested in not having a hot war with Iran and not having the worlds dictatorships laughing while they wipe democracies off the map, which is what happens if Hamas gets its way. Start there.
Obviously Hamas is not going to get its way. Its outmatched in every sense except it's martyrous zeal, and your instinct is what they count on as their only path to continued existence.
Again I ask, what did they think would be the result of October 7?
They expect everyone else to fix what they broke and protect them, while they mouth the hands that feed.
How long would they last without big daddy USA?
Okay then who?
Who what?
Edit: Nvm, I thought this was another conversation.
Israel should pay obviously.
They broke, they pay.
Okay we agree on that. You break it you buy it, as solid rationale as any. I think they not only pay but also have to administer the reconstruction, and that in addition to the work of rebuilding Gaza's physical structures and infrastructure, Israel must rebuild the institutions of Gaza, free of Hamas corruption and Iranian influence.
And Israeli influence
That's fantasy land talk. Laughable really.
Why?
Mainly geography. But also nobody else cares enough about Gaza to spend the time and money. The people that live there have no infrastructure or institutions in place to rebuild, let alone the materials and labor to do the work. Leaving Gaza to fix itself it not an option. Like where would Gaza even get the machinery or lumber if not from Israel?
Hamas's international benefactors only give money if Hamas is fielding fighters and killing Jews. If Hamas is gone, Gaza is just another failed-state, thrid-world hell hole with no natural resources.
I'm not bursting this bubble for you right? Like where do you think this goes from here? Talking about, either a fully militarized border across which nothing travels and the famine everyone is concerned about comes to fruition and the death toll goes from 30,000 to 300,000, which nobody with any say in the matter wants, or Israel takes full control of Gaza for at least some period of time, maybe forever.
Right now Gaza is a warzone. When that is no longer true, it will at least remain under martial law while as the last pockets of Hamas resistance are rooted out and the last tunnels collapsed. It's up to Hamas whether that takes one year or ten years. Hamas is in charge of Gaza and they do not follow any international laws or social norms. They will absolutely not be given a country to do whatever they please.
It's not a rumor, that was their official announced plan, or rather small parts of north gaza. The conspiracy is that they want all of Gaza which they didn't say, but is pushed by pro-hamas supporters.
I think you're either misinformed or spreading disinformation:
I've only point out what the IDF had said was their plan. Some Orthodox zionist have been calling for all the territory of West bank and Gaza to be theirs, but they are a tiny minority.
Did you see the article? Something like half of the Prime Minister's cabinet was at a rally celebrating that they're doing this.
Here's the thing: I can recognize that where people stand on this sort of thing is very hard to accurately gauge in the moment. It's as likely that I'm overestimating the support for this plan as it is that you're underestimating it
With that said, I have a strong motivation to rationalize that these people do not represent the center of public opinion. I really want that to be true. But as someone who has followed Israeli news and politics from before October 7th, and has been following it even more closely since, from the most on-the-ground sources I can find, I heard a phrase from a Lebanese Palestinian podcaster that has struck with me for months. He said,
"What we are witnessing is the Smotrich-ization of the Israeli public."
That's in reference to Israeli Finance minister and self-described fascist Bezalel Smotrich. I think it's true. To my horror, the Israeli center and even left are far more amenable to the full ethnic cleansing of Israel-Palestine than any time in my lifetime. I could be wrong. But I think you should ask yourself what you think you should be doing if I'm not.
Then: do that.
I heard a reporter sometime ago about speaking to an Israeli that lived in one of the raided kibbutzes. He was part of the peace movement and he and some other guys in the kibbutz were taking turns bringing kids from Gaza to Israeli hospitals. And now he didn't know how he had to feel anymore: several of his neighbors killed with their families, some kidnapped, ...
Ongoing violence (from both sides) can only result in the 'normies' radicalising.
It’s as likely that I’m overestimating the support for this plan as it is that you’re underestimating it
Indeed. It's hard to make a clear assumption on how Israel's geopolitical agenda plays out, and your assumption maybe more correct than mine.
To my horror, the Israeli center and even left are far more amenable to the full ethnic cleansing of Israel-Palestine than any time in my lifetime.
The origin of the Palestinian - Israel conflict is of statehood and governmental control, not ethnicities. Arabs who have never called themselves Palestinians but have lived in the state of Israel since it's founding have as much claim to the region as Palestinians themselves and are of the same ethnicity. In other words even if Israel remove all Palestinians from the regions they want, it will never be considered ethnic cleansing by the rest of the world, because Palestinians isn't an ethnical identity, it's a political identity.
I think the last part of what you said -- about them not being an ethnicity -- is unhelpful.
I don't agree with the take, but I don't want to get into a debate over semantics. I just want to try and get people thinking -- from many different perspectives -- about what is happening and what each of us need to do to stop it.
Millions of people are at risk of dying of deliberate starvation. Millions are being pushed off their land. The region is being destabilized, Jews and Muslims worldwide are facing increasing antisemitism due to a complex set of reasons, Israelis are facing a rapid erosion in civil liberties... and we need to say NO. We need to interrupt all of these.
We need to demand peace, we need to force from power leaders who pursue agendas designed to escalate conflicts because its in their interests, we need to halt the logistics operations that allow for people to be caged and starved and blown up and tortured...
I think you and I may disagree about a whole bunch of terms to apply, but I just want to find the common ground. Particularly among liberal zionists, because it's breaking my heart to see so many liberal zionists freezing up at a moment of crisis and allowing the religious zionist movement to take charge. It doesn't have to be that way, we all just need to find courage and act.
I'm not looking to cast blame or pick fights. As long as you and anyone else isn't actively supporting population transfers or a single Jewish state displacing Palestinians from river to sea, I just want to find where we agree -- stop the war, stop the march of global fascism in Israel, America, and every where else -- and get to work.
Millions of people are at risk of dying of deliberate starvation. Millions are being pushed off their land. The region is being destabilized, Jews and Muslims worldwide are facing increasing antisemitism due to a complex set of reasons, Israelis are facing a rapid erosion in civil liberties… and we need to say NO. We need to interrupt all of these.
Indeed. I agree globally the world need to find a way to end this impending genocide of the Palestinian people.
We need to demand peace, we need to force from power leaders who pursue agendas designed to escalate conflicts because its in their interests, we need to halt the logistics operations that allow for people to be caged and starved and blown up and tortured…
The problem is for us to demand peace, we need to have a solution that most people would agree with, including the majority of Israel and Palestinians. What would that solution be at this point in the conflict?
I have two answers for this.
First, I challenge the assumption that I have to provide a credible peace plan in order to demand an end to violence. The right-wing of the Zionist movement has made dismantling any infrastructure to work towards peace a key project, and they've been very successful. It was because of their deliberate actions that we have no good options, so I will not accept a lack of good options as a reason to delay. Those guys spent years fucking this situation up, and I demand they get to work unfucking it.
Second, I think the honest answer is that we design a peace process and we start on it, even if it's a long one. Carl Sagan famously observed "To make an apple pie from scratch, first you must create the universe." We don't have a partner for peace? Well then get to work creating partners for peace. The Palestinians have been facing tightening restrictions for years intended to cut off the development of internal political thought and leaders. Stop doing that. Demand that they get the right to say and think and debate things that Israel doesn't like. Build infrascturucture to make a peace plan possible and set a roadmap: first meeting this year, with goals to develop the boundaries of the first stage of the peace process, with an understanding that the first step is not going to be the creation of a new state or anything similar in scope. Increase the complexity of negotiations and their goals each year on a ten-year timeline toward imposing a plan meant to last for ten more years, with a plan to reassess after that period and decide whether to continue on the same plan or make major changes. Something like this.
We don’t have a partner for peace? Well then get to work creating partners for peace.
The US has been trying for years with the Saudi's, Egyptians, etc... to support and encourage a peace treaty between the Palestinians and Israeli. And when the Saudi's shifted, the Palestinians immediately went to Iran for support. Many other middle eastern countries nearby either hates the US, like Syria, or unable due to a crisis themselves, like Lebanon. So this policy isn't possible.
First, I challenge the assumption that I have to provide a credible peace plan in order to demand an end to violence.
The reason for this war is because neither Hamas or Israeli wants to back down, and unfortunately thousands of Palestinians are caught in the cross-fire. At this point in the conflict, it doesn't seem either Hamas or Israeli cares what happens to the civilians of Gaza, they just want to win this war. So unless you offer them a viable solution to peacefully end this conflict, they will not accept a cease fire.
Yeah just like when they said they were going to starve and terror bomb everyone in Gaza and then did exactly that.
So the rumor that Israel wants to take over the northern part of Gaza has finally come true?
The IDF, that very reliable source (/S), says they'll only use it to move troops around.
One very easy tell that the IDF is lying: their lips are moving.
If it's just to move troops around, why dig trenches and have a huge no-man's-land along the road? It's kinda like they're building Berlin wall v2. We'll see if they'll allow 1.5 million displaced Gaza populations to return to the northern part of Gaza later.
Why wait and see when you can just take their word at face value? They won't.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-minister-calls-voluntary-emigration-gazans-2023-11-14/
Yeah and it shouldn't. Gaza is a lawless place. There is no legitimate government there. Somebody has to rebuild it. Who's going to do it?
Palestinians?
The hubris and condescension from you people. Maniacal.
By what? By who? Hamas is the de facto leadership in Gaza. It was popularly elected, and then popularly canceled all future elections. More than half the world recognizes it as a terrorist organization. It will not have its own state. Not now, not ever.
Hamas has also proven that it does not care one iota about Palestinian people or it wouldn't have built their tunnels under people's houses, and it would surrender and end this bloodshed.
Maybe one day the US cancels elections, then I guess it would be okay to blow you, your parents, your children, and your dog into oblivion. You probably voted for this, so you deserve to die with no dignity under piles of rubble and pain.
You can't imagine how ashamed of yourself you will be when you realize what kind of genocide you were cheering for all day and night.
Gaza is under control by Israel's Blockade
I disagree with the conclusions of this pro Hamas nonsense. You have all the evidence right there.
Ya know stoning "infidels," assassinating Palestinians who want peace, cancelling all future elections. Nobody is going to miss Hamas when it is killed to the man. It's a far right Islamist terrorist group and part of the much large pan Islamist movement whose motto is "death to America and death to Israel." The singular difference between Hamas and ISIS is that they disagree as to who should be in charge of the world, Iran, the Syrian caliphate, or a new caliphate in the Levant after they literally genocide all the Jews.
And don't bring Egypt into this.
Food goes through. The mass starvation everyone has been warning of for five months hasn't happened. The daily death toll is dropping like a stone.
may sound authoritative and conclusive to you but I went to school with some of these people and know how shitty they are with facts and reasoning when they get emotional, which is what Hamas counts on. They should surrender. Period.
There won't be a lasting ceasefire until it stops fighting and by fighting I of course mean targeting Jewish civilians and using Gaza and everyone in it as its personal suit of armor.
All this shit you have to say about the evil Jewish empire is only to say that Israel must stop defending itself. That's why for all your links you cannot give a rational explanation for Hamas's plan on October 7 that didn't end in a massive civilian death toll. 30,000 is awful but Hamas decided with the consent of Gaza to put every one of them in harms way and then rolled the dice with their lives.
I love reading this BS. Hamas sucks but they don't stone people. Why do you feel the need to make shit up?
If you stopped constantly dehumanizing palestinians for a second, maybe you'd recognize Hamas began due to the terrible material conditions of Occupation, and has the goal of ending the occupation. Maybe you'd even recognize collective punishment has been a deliberate Israeli tactic for decades with the Dahiya doctrine. Hamas is very different from ISIS, but they both were born out of Terrorism from Israel and the US respectively. Hamas wants an end to the Apartheid, not genocide. That claim is both untrue, and holds no weight when Israel is currently engaging in genocide. This is about the state of Israel being founded on ethnic cleansing and it's most recent ethnic cleansing campaign. Not Jewish people, stop being antisemitic by thinking they're the same.
People Claim a Majority of Palestinians in Gaza Elected Hamas — Here's Why It Isn't That Simple
Hamas founding charter and Revised charter 2017
Hamas was born out of pan Islamism. Israel didn't invent it. It's hundreds of years old.
Pan-Islamism and Pan-Arabism were both movements born out of anti-colonialism and opposed western political involvement, but they are not the same and have different history. There is no monolith in the middle east. Neither a Muslim nor an Arab Monolith. If you think all Muslims or all Arab people think the same you're just being racist.
Hamas, while associated with the Muslim Brotherhood in the past, is not the same as the Muslim Brotherhood.
Again with the link spam of things I already know.
I don't think that all violent Islamist extremists are the same. I think they are substantially the same, not distinguishable in meaningful ways. As I said, the only difference is who gets to be the caliphate. For example, while ISIS and Hamas leadership are formally at war, Hamas just can't stop getting its fighters to join ISIS, too.
That's the thing, the links I provide are to show exactly what you're getting wrong.
Th really don't though. You're drawing your conclusions from the facts and I think your conclusions are shallow and poorly reasoned, and I think that you often cite to other people who draw the same conclusions as you because it makes you feel good.
We don't have to agree it's fine. I can still respect you. You're disgusted by 30,000 deaths, mostly innocent civilians; you're probably a very decent and justice-minded person, instincts that must serve you well. They are my instincts too, and serve me well.
I'm not interested in the chicken or the egg debate. though because it's not relevant to the next hundred years. I'm interested in not having a hot war with Iran and not having the worlds dictatorships laughing while they wipe democracies off the map, which is what happens if Hamas gets its way. Start there.
Obviously Hamas is not going to get its way. Its outmatched in every sense except it's martyrous zeal, and your instinct is what they count on as their only path to continued existence.
Again I ask, what did they think would be the result of October 7?
Not the fucking Israelis.
They expect everyone else to fix what they broke and protect them, while they mouth the hands that feed.
How long would they last without big daddy USA?
Okay then who?
Who what?
Edit: Nvm, I thought this was another conversation.
Israel should pay obviously.
They broke, they pay.
Okay we agree on that. You break it you buy it, as solid rationale as any. I think they not only pay but also have to administer the reconstruction, and that in addition to the work of rebuilding Gaza's physical structures and infrastructure, Israel must rebuild the institutions of Gaza, free of Hamas corruption and Iranian influence.
And Israeli influence
That's fantasy land talk. Laughable really.
Why?
Mainly geography. But also nobody else cares enough about Gaza to spend the time and money. The people that live there have no infrastructure or institutions in place to rebuild, let alone the materials and labor to do the work. Leaving Gaza to fix itself it not an option. Like where would Gaza even get the machinery or lumber if not from Israel?
Hamas's international benefactors only give money if Hamas is fielding fighters and killing Jews. If Hamas is gone, Gaza is just another failed-state, thrid-world hell hole with no natural resources.
I'm not bursting this bubble for you right? Like where do you think this goes from here? Talking about, either a fully militarized border across which nothing travels and the famine everyone is concerned about comes to fruition and the death toll goes from 30,000 to 300,000, which nobody with any say in the matter wants, or Israel takes full control of Gaza for at least some period of time, maybe forever.
Right now Gaza is a warzone. When that is no longer true, it will at least remain under martial law while as the last pockets of Hamas resistance are rooted out and the last tunnels collapsed. It's up to Hamas whether that takes one year or ten years. Hamas is in charge of Gaza and they do not follow any international laws or social norms. They will absolutely not be given a country to do whatever they please.
Well if the road is only for troops then I suppose any Israeli on it will be a legitimate target moving forward.
Well attacks on the military (troops and installations) have been described as terrorism, so there's that too.
It's not a rumor, that was their official announced plan, or rather small parts of north gaza. The conspiracy is that they want all of Gaza which they didn't say, but is pushed by pro-hamas supporters.
I think you're either misinformed or spreading disinformation:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/12-ministers-call-to-resettle-gaza-encourage-gazans-to-leave-at-jubilant-conference/
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/religious-zionist-party-mp-urges-government-to-occupy-gaza-annex-to-israel-demolish-all-homes/3099741
I've only point out what the IDF had said was their plan. Some Orthodox zionist have been calling for all the territory of West bank and Gaza to be theirs, but they are a tiny minority.
Did you see the article? Something like half of the Prime Minister's cabinet was at a rally celebrating that they're doing this.
Here's the thing: I can recognize that where people stand on this sort of thing is very hard to accurately gauge in the moment. It's as likely that I'm overestimating the support for this plan as it is that you're underestimating it
With that said, I have a strong motivation to rationalize that these people do not represent the center of public opinion. I really want that to be true. But as someone who has followed Israeli news and politics from before October 7th, and has been following it even more closely since, from the most on-the-ground sources I can find, I heard a phrase from a Lebanese Palestinian podcaster that has struck with me for months. He said,
That's in reference to Israeli Finance minister and self-described fascist Bezalel Smotrich. I think it's true. To my horror, the Israeli center and even left are far more amenable to the full ethnic cleansing of Israel-Palestine than any time in my lifetime. I could be wrong. But I think you should ask yourself what you think you should be doing if I'm not.
Then: do that.
I heard a reporter sometime ago about speaking to an Israeli that lived in one of the raided kibbutzes. He was part of the peace movement and he and some other guys in the kibbutz were taking turns bringing kids from Gaza to Israeli hospitals. And now he didn't know how he had to feel anymore: several of his neighbors killed with their families, some kidnapped, ...
Ongoing violence (from both sides) can only result in the 'normies' radicalising.
Indeed. It's hard to make a clear assumption on how Israel's geopolitical agenda plays out, and your assumption maybe more correct than mine.
The origin of the Palestinian - Israel conflict is of statehood and governmental control, not ethnicities. Arabs who have never called themselves Palestinians but have lived in the state of Israel since it's founding have as much claim to the region as Palestinians themselves and are of the same ethnicity. In other words even if Israel remove all Palestinians from the regions they want, it will never be considered ethnic cleansing by the rest of the world, because Palestinians isn't an ethnical identity, it's a political identity.
I think the last part of what you said -- about them not being an ethnicity -- is unhelpful.
I don't agree with the take, but I don't want to get into a debate over semantics. I just want to try and get people thinking -- from many different perspectives -- about what is happening and what each of us need to do to stop it.
Millions of people are at risk of dying of deliberate starvation. Millions are being pushed off their land. The region is being destabilized, Jews and Muslims worldwide are facing increasing antisemitism due to a complex set of reasons, Israelis are facing a rapid erosion in civil liberties... and we need to say NO. We need to interrupt all of these.
We need to demand peace, we need to force from power leaders who pursue agendas designed to escalate conflicts because its in their interests, we need to halt the logistics operations that allow for people to be caged and starved and blown up and tortured...
I think you and I may disagree about a whole bunch of terms to apply, but I just want to find the common ground. Particularly among liberal zionists, because it's breaking my heart to see so many liberal zionists freezing up at a moment of crisis and allowing the religious zionist movement to take charge. It doesn't have to be that way, we all just need to find courage and act.
I'm not looking to cast blame or pick fights. As long as you and anyone else isn't actively supporting population transfers or a single Jewish state displacing Palestinians from river to sea, I just want to find where we agree -- stop the war, stop the march of global fascism in Israel, America, and every where else -- and get to work.
Indeed. I agree globally the world need to find a way to end this impending genocide of the Palestinian people.
The problem is for us to demand peace, we need to have a solution that most people would agree with, including the majority of Israel and Palestinians. What would that solution be at this point in the conflict?
I have two answers for this.
First, I challenge the assumption that I have to provide a credible peace plan in order to demand an end to violence. The right-wing of the Zionist movement has made dismantling any infrastructure to work towards peace a key project, and they've been very successful. It was because of their deliberate actions that we have no good options, so I will not accept a lack of good options as a reason to delay. Those guys spent years fucking this situation up, and I demand they get to work unfucking it.
Second, I think the honest answer is that we design a peace process and we start on it, even if it's a long one. Carl Sagan famously observed "To make an apple pie from scratch, first you must create the universe." We don't have a partner for peace? Well then get to work creating partners for peace. The Palestinians have been facing tightening restrictions for years intended to cut off the development of internal political thought and leaders. Stop doing that. Demand that they get the right to say and think and debate things that Israel doesn't like. Build infrascturucture to make a peace plan possible and set a roadmap: first meeting this year, with goals to develop the boundaries of the first stage of the peace process, with an understanding that the first step is not going to be the creation of a new state or anything similar in scope. Increase the complexity of negotiations and their goals each year on a ten-year timeline toward imposing a plan meant to last for ten more years, with a plan to reassess after that period and decide whether to continue on the same plan or make major changes. Something like this.
The US has been trying for years with the Saudi's, Egyptians, etc... to support and encourage a peace treaty between the Palestinians and Israeli. And when the Saudi's shifted, the Palestinians immediately went to Iran for support. Many other middle eastern countries nearby either hates the US, like Syria, or unable due to a crisis themselves, like Lebanon. So this policy isn't possible.
The reason for this war is because neither Hamas or Israeli wants to back down, and unfortunately thousands of Palestinians are caught in the cross-fire. At this point in the conflict, it doesn't seem either Hamas or Israeli cares what happens to the civilians of Gaza, they just want to win this war. So unless you offer them a viable solution to peacefully end this conflict, they will not accept a cease fire.
Yeah just like when they said they were going to starve and terror bomb everyone in Gaza and then did exactly that.