Israel-Hamas War 2023

[Josquius]

That the Palestinians are only going down the Hamas path because of desperation. Which is a theory. My issue is that I think there is hardcore on both sides who want nothing but total victory and while they are not the majority, they are numerous enough and fanatical enough to still drive things.

I mean you only have to look over at Israel, and their neighbors in the region for that matter, for evidence of that.

"Remove the Jews from Palestine" has been the animating spirit of the Palestine movement since it's inception.  That is the default position.  That's what they have always wanted.  They've always been eliminationist.  It's only in the 1990's did the Nationalists come to the conclusion that it was impossible.  One of the reasons Hamas is so popular is that they reject the idea that Israel can't be destroyed by the Palestinians.  They really believe they will win, because God has promised them victory.

Worth remembering here how recent the arrival of the bulk of those Jews was.
Go back to the 1940s and we weren't talking remove a people who've been here for centuries genocide-level stuff here. We're talking people who've just came in the last decade or two- of course 'go home' would still be a million times easier said than done what with how unpleasant recent history had been for Jews in Europe. But it wasn't really comparable to saying the same today.

Even disregarding Israel's dominance in recent decades its a pretty natural evolution for "Invaders go home" to transition to "...well you were born there as were your parents. You're not really foreign to the land. But we still have issues over how this came to be".

As to Hamas not being a genocidal threat just because they lack the power... If the Palestinians were in a position where such an idea was remotely within the bounds of possibility then it's unlikely Hamas would have prospered as they did.

This is kind of weird, Jimmy Carteresque claim.  You're in effect saying as power increases so does empathy.  History shows that is not a universal correlation.

Jimmy Carteresque?
I'm curious what you mean here, its a new one on me. I know who he is of course but not the relationship here.

What I mean is less about 'power' and more quality of life and feeling of control over your circumstances.
When everything is going well in a country and people feel like they have viable options open to them in life, they tend not to vote for war mongering extremists.

Your argument contains the seeds of its own undoing.  Hamas are angry enough about something, whether it's Jews still being alive, or living on their sacred land that extends from the river to the sea, or Israel not negotiating a two state solution in good faith, to stuff Israeli babies into ovens.  Western protestors are angry too, whether about university endowments that include Israeli stocks, or US weapons sales to Israel, or whatever, to occupy university grounds and buildings, and to sometimes chant violent slogans and sometimes threaten Jewish students and sometimes destroy university property.  To my eyes the implied violence of the protests is increasing.  So if the trend line of implied violence moves closer to actual violence, what does it mean to support Palestinian civilians and oppose Hamas?

I'm not sure I get your point.
People are becoming pissed off at the situation so they are starting to support Hamas?

And give over with the from the river to the sea means pro-genocide. We've been over that repeatedly. It really doesn't mean that to the majority of people saying it. Well. The Palestinian-supporters anyway.

Not sure I'd agree with protests becoming more violent. They've dropped off massively, as is typical with any sort of protest movement. Which I suppose does leave behind the hard core who naturally tend to include a bigger scummy component than the mass.

[Tamas]

Worth remembering here how recent the arrival of the bulk of those Jews was.
Go back to the 1940s and we weren't talking remove a people who've been here for centuries genocide-level stuff here. We're talking people who've just came in the last decade or two- of course 'go home' would still be a million times easier said than done what with how unpleasant recent history had been for Jews in Europe. But it wasn't really comparable to saying the same today.

Even disregarding Israel's dominance in recent decades its a pretty natural evolution for "Invaders go home" to transition to "...well you were born there as were your parents. You're not really foreign to the land. But we still have issues over how this came to be".

As before, I can't help but wonder if your lenient attitude isn't specific to this situation involving the Arabs and the Jews.

I can't imagine you posting like that about the UK far-right wishing immigrants or offsprings of immigrants to leave.

Like your first paragraph, I am not actually offended because I know that's not how you mean it, but that logic could very easily be applied to say well it's understandable if one day sufficient people want it, to just kick me the F out of Britain.

[Josquius]

Worth remembering here how recent the arrival of the bulk of those Jews was.
Go back to the 1940s and we weren't talking remove a people who've been here for centuries genocide-level stuff here. We're talking people who've just came in the last decade or two- of course 'go home' would still be a million times easier said than done what with how unpleasant recent history had been for Jews in Europe. But it wasn't really comparable to saying the same today.

Even disregarding Israel's dominance in recent decades its a pretty natural evolution for "Invaders go home" to transition to "...well you were born there as were your parents. You're not really foreign to the land. But we still have issues over how this came to be".

As before, I can't help but wonder if your lenient attitude isn't specific to this situation involving the Arabs and the Jews.

I can't imagine you posting like that about the UK far-right wishing immigrants or offsprings of immigrants to leave.

Like your first paragraph, I am not actually offended because I know that's not how you mean it, but that logic could very easily be applied to say well it's understandable if one day sufficient people want it, to just kick me the F out of Britain.

The establishment of Israel in Palestine was a completely different thing to regular immigration into an established country.

I have no doubt the far right would (well. Do) try to spin things differently and speak about immigration to the UK in the same way (ironically I expect they would twist themselves in knots to defend Israel over this), you're part of an invasion, etc.... But they're clearly talking from their arse.

Though, as stretched as the analogy is, there absolutely is a difference between an immigrant on a regular visa vs. a citizen. The citizen does have far more rights to remain.
Also I would be far more sympathetic to somebody born and raised in the UK but who after a short jail spell is being deported to a place they've never been just because their parents are from there, than to a nationalised British dual-national criminal (there too the level differing if they just came a few years ago vs. when they were a child and everything in between). We have had quite a few examples of this in recent years.

Really this is where a pretty neat line between hard right and far right might be drawn. The hardcore Tory will say "immigrants go home". The fascist will say "brown people go home"- and they don't mean Bradford.
Both disagreeable. But clearly one to a higher degree.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Go back to the 1940s and we weren't talking remove a people who've been here for centuries genocide-level stuff here. We're talking people who've just came in the last decade or two- of course 'go home' would still be a million times easier said than done what with how unpleasant recent history had been for Jews in Europe. But it wasn't really comparable to saying the same today.

Again--they would have had to go home to places that did not want them.

The Jews were a well established minority under the Ottoman Empire, they largely purchased land in Ottoman Palestine entirely legally. Their claim to want a state carved out of Ottoman lands--when a half dozen Arab states were in the process of being carved out is intrinsically legitimate.

Yes, they were spread out, and got concentrated into a single area--that does not in any way "invalidate them", or legitimize the "go home" idea. Where the fuck were the ones fleeing pogroms supposed to go home to?

Also, it should be noted, in the first half of the 20th century several European empires fell apart to varying degrees, the community of nations oversaw a number of population transfers where diffused minorities would be moved about to create successor states which would be less prone to endless nationalist conflict. Whilst there was great tragedy in some of that, in many cases it can only rationally be seen as having served as an important foundation for later and longer lasting peace.

For some reason we are to believe only in the question of Jews in the first half of the 20th century is such a thing "beyond the pale", only in the case of Jews are we supposed to believe some of the other groups that were "shuffled elsewhere" should get to have UN backed permanent refugee status and international funds to educate those refugees in generational antisemitism.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The establishment of Israel in Palestine was a completely different thing to regular immigration into an established country.

The basis of the Jewish population was regular immigration, the foundation of the State is not dissimilar from how many States have been founded--by its leaders proclaiming it as such. I happen to live in such a state, I assure you it is a valid form of establishing one.

[Barrister]

The establishment of Israel in Palestine was a completely different thing to regular immigration into an established country.

So first of all the large majority of israelis were born in Israel and aren't immigrants.  The number seems to be between 70-80% were born in the country (it seems to depend if you measure just jews, or the entire population which includes arab israelis).

But second of all nobody has ever said that Israel was a "regular" country.  I've long said that because modern Palestinians think of themselves as a nation, that therefore they are a nation - no more justification is needed.  But nobody thought of "Palestine" as being a nation in the 19th or first half of the 20th century.  Jewish immigration was all legally done, both before and after the creation of Israel.

[Tamas]

I guess if we say Israel isn't a "proper" country and thus open to debate whether it should exist at all, then the same is true for places like Kosovo, or Slovakia.

[Barrister]

I guess if we say Israel isn't a "proper" country and thus open to debate whether it should exist at all, then the same is true for places like Kosovo, or Slovakia.

I bristle because of course that's the exact argument Putin uses about Ukraine - that it's not a proper or real country...