Israel-Hamas War 2023

[OttoVonBismarck]

Under Ottoman rule the Arabs were tribal but mostly desired to establish a nation-state called Arabia and that was the basis of the 1916 "Great Revolt."  The future colonizers of the region, the UK and France, worked to ensure that tribal and ethnic differences would doom any such attempt and allow the colonizers to play different Arab groups against one another; classic "divide and conquer."  The Palestinian identity dates from that period, as does the Saudi identity, Syrian, etc.  "Palestinians" exist as a distinct nationality as much as the Syrians, Iraqis, Omanis, and whatnot.

No one considers Syrian / Jordanian / Iraqi etc ethnicities today, more emphasizing my point. They are viewed as majority Arab countries (with a few outlier minority groups.) Pretty infamously all of these countries still have strong tribal / clan affiliations and weak affiliation with their state identifier.

[grumbler]

Syria and Iraq might not be the best examples of a matured national identity.

True, but no one argues that Syria does not exist, as OvB does for Palestine.

[Barrister]

Something that needs to be said, since we glossed over it a bit to engage in arguing about minutiae of Iran's embassy being bombed (which is largely not actually very important), is the reason we in the West cannot trust "Palestinians", is because Palestinian is not a "natural" ethnic group.

Ethnic groups form over things like shared language, culture etc. The concept of a Palestinian nation exists and was created solely as a "negative nationalism", it is a concept that exists because Arabs don't view it as acceptable for Jews to have land and a country of their own. By its nature, identification as a Palestinian is membership in a group that exists solely as a negation of Israel.

If for whatever reason, a Jewish state had never been carved out of British Mandatory Palestine, if for example the Arabs won their initial war (which a large % of the posters in this thread would have preferred, and would likely gloss over or ignore the ensuing mass murder of Jews that would have occurred), there likely would not be a country called "Palestine" in that region. It would likely just be part of Jordan, and the Arabs living there would have no issue with that--because they were never "Palestinians", they were Arabs.

OK, so I'm pretty damn pro-Israeli, but I hate this argument.

First of all it's the exact same point that's being used, right now, in Ukraine - that Ukrainians aren't a "real" ethnicity - they're just Russians with a funny accent (despite the fact Ukrainian and Russian are quite distinct languages that aren't mutually intelligible except for the fact that many/most Ukrainians know Russian).

But that same argument can be used against many other countries as well.  What makes Austria a real country - they speak German after all.  What about the numerous English speaking countries around the world?  Why is Belgium a country - they just speak French and Dutch?  or on the other side - why is "India" considered a country despite its large number of languages spoken?

The thing is -that for a variety of factors there are several million people who identify as being "Palestinians".  Not Jordanians, or Egyptians, or "Arabians", and certainly not as Israelis.  And that's good enough for me.

What you do about the Palestinians is a complicated question, which is why it hasn't been solved in the last 75+ years.  But you can't deny their existence.

[Barrister]

Under Ottoman rule the Arabs were tribal but mostly desired to establish a nation-state called Arabia and that was the basis of the 1916 "Great Revolt."  The future colonizers of the region, the UK and France, worked to ensure that tribal and ethnic differences would doom any such attempt and allow the colonizers to play different Arab groups against one another; classic "divide and conquer."  The Palestinian identity dates from that period, as does the Saudi identity, Syrian, etc.  "Palestinians" exist as a distinct nationality as much as the Syrians, Iraqis, Omanis, and whatnot.

No one considers Syrian / Jordanian / Iraqi etc ethnicities today, more emphasizing my point. They are viewed as majority Arab countries (with a few outlier minority groups.) Pretty infamously all of these countries still have strong tribal / clan affiliations and weak affiliation with their state identifier.

Ethnicity isn't the same as nationality though.

If you ask your typical Syrian / Jordanian / Iraqi what their "identity" is, they will say Syrian, Jordanian, Iraqi.

Now you can throw in the Kurds or course, who do have asperations of their own nation, and who do identify as "Kurdish", but I don't think that takes away from the larger point.  Iraq is a nation divided between different religious faiths and different tribal identities - but except for the Kurds they all identify as being Iraqi.

[OttoVonBismarck]

There's a massive difference between Ukrainian vs Russian. Ukrainian cultural identity in some forms is pushing 1000 years old as distinct from Russia. Vs Arab has been seen as a unified cultural identity that is not fragmented along the lines of British/French map drawers (whether it is an ethnic identity is more complex, as a number of Arab speaking peoples identify with the concept of a shared Arab culture but don't view themselves as being the same ethnicity--commonly this stance is found among North Africans and Egyptians.)

Arabs largely rejected the idea that their British/French drawn states defined their cultural identity back when it was partitioned, and I would argue the vast majority of the Arab world views itself as "Arab." It is really only the Palestinians who push the idea they are their own separate thing, but they also only push it in the sense that it serves them. In other contexts they identify as Arabs.

The duplicity on this topic is pretty severe--because their position looks a lot worse if you realize it is "Arabs being mad that instead of getting control of 100% of territory they want, they only got 95%."

[Josquius]

Something that needs to be said, since we glossed over it a bit to engage in arguing about minutiae of Iran's embassy being bombed (which is largely not actually very important), is the reason we in the West cannot trust "Palestinians", is because Palestinian is not a "natural" ethnic group.

Ethnic groups form over things like shared language, culture etc. The concept of a Palestinian nation exists and was created solely as a "negative nationalism", it is a concept that exists because Arabs don't view it as acceptable for Jews to have land and a country of their own. By its nature, identification as a Palestinian is membership in a group that exists solely as a negation of Israel.

If for whatever reason, a Jewish state had never been carved out of British Mandatory Palestine, if for example the Arabs won their initial war (which a large % of the posters in this thread would have preferred, and would likely gloss over or ignore the ensuing mass murder of Jews that would have occurred), there likely would not be a country called "Palestine" in that region. It would likely just be part of Jordan, and the Arabs living there would have no issue with that--because they were never "Palestinians", they were Arabs.

OK, so I'm pretty damn pro-Israeli, but I hate this argument.

First of all it's the exact same point that's being used, right now, in Ukraine - that Ukrainians aren't a "real" ethnicity - they're just Russians with a funny accent (despite the fact Ukrainian and Russian are quite distinct languages that aren't mutually intelligible except for the fact that many/most Ukrainians know Russian).

The language one is a rubbish one to go with really as just what is a language and a dialect (army and navy excepted).
Ukrainian and Russian are different languages and not mutually intelligible, the ones with the less prestigious version know "standard" as well as their local variety... But then you could say the same of English and many of its dialects.
A language being a language hasnt too much to do with intellgibility.
Then again if it is a factor then if we're talking about Arabic....

But that same argument can be used against many other countries as well.  What makes Austria a real country - they speak German after all.  What about the numerous English speaking countries around the world?  Why is Belgium a country - they just speak French and Dutch?  or on the other side - why is "India" considered a country despite its large number of languages spoken?

The thing is -that for a variety of factors there are several million people who identify as being "Palestinians".  Not Jordanians, or Egyptians, or "Arabians", and certainly not as Israelis.  And that's good enough for me.

What you do about the Palestinians is a complicated question, which is why it hasn't been solved in the last 75+ years.  But you can't deny their existence.

Also the whole thing that being a unique "people" is somehow all that matters.
It's basically like saying Russia annexing everything east of the Dnipro is totally fine since the Ukrainians have a nation - the land west of the river.

[Barrister]

There's a massive difference between Ukrainian vs Russian. Ukrainian cultural identity in some forms is pushing 1000 years old as distinct from Russia. Vs Arab has been seen as a unified cultural identity that is not fragmented along the lines of British/French map drawers (whether it is an ethnic identity is more complex, as a number of Arab speaking peoples identify with the concept of a shared Arab culture but don't view themselves as being the same ethnicity--commonly this stance is found among North Africans and Egyptians.)

Arabs largely rejected the idea that their British/French drawn states defined their cultural identity back when it was partitioned, and I would argue the vast majority of the Arab world views itself as "Arab." It is really only the Palestinians who push the idea they are their own separate thing, but they also only push it in the sense that it serves them. In other contexts they identify as Arabs.

The duplicity on this topic is pretty severe--because their position looks a lot worse if you realize it is "Arabs being mad that instead of getting control of 100% of territory they want, they only got 95%."

The thing is the split between Ukrainian and Russian identity isn't 1000 years old.  1000 years ago Kiyevan Rus had just adopted Christianity, Moscow didn't even exist.

The idea of Ukrainian nationality really only started to emerge more in the 1600s - it was this large area of largely orthodox believers that was ruled by Poland-Lithuania, and developed it's own distinct identity from there (while Moscow developed it's identity from being ruled by the Mongols).

But that's kind of my point - you don't have to have some 1000 year old history to be a nation.

As for the arabs - yes there was a movement for pan-arabism.  That was in part (although not exclusively) supported by the good ole Ba'ath Party, and led to the short-lived United Arab Republic uniting Egypt and Syria.

But that's all like 50 years ago or more.  Nobody is supporting pan arabism anymore.  The people or arab heritage I know all identify as Lebanese, or Egyptian (or Palestinian) - not "arab".

[Josquius]

Random analysis seen online I broadly agree with. Though it does neglect irans ship seizure.
That seems to have dissapeared from the news.

WHERE DOES ISRAEL GO FROM HERE?

The Israelis are being asked by their allies to accept two things. Firstly Iran means what it says and considers the spat over the attack on its embassy (and it was their embassy despite Israel claiming it wasn't), and their riposte, closed. Eye for an eye, Iran thinks it's made its point.
Secondly the allies are framing the defeat of the attack - which it has to be said was a spectacular technical feat that has shattered the illusion of the impossibility of missile and drone defence as viable for good, as a victory of the first magnitude. Iran's attack was wiped out.
Take it, is the advice and move on. Israel won and Iran's military has seen that any attack would require vastly more than they attempted, to stand even a mediocre chance of success. It's redressed the balance of power. Israel appears invulnerable and Iran most certainly isn't anywhere near it. I suspect there are questions being asked in Tehran about how such a huge attack resulted in nothing of any importance.
Yet this apparent invulnerability is dangerous. The Israelis, especially under their current leadership, which is the more extreme end of the spectrum, may see it as the ultimate opportunity to strike Iran, knowing full well Iran doesn't have an effective means of retaliation.
Iran revealed its hand. No doubt buoyed by the success of the drone and missile war in Ukraine, it overestimated its capabilities against a very different enemy, and it proved wanting. Its strategic capabilities against Israel were nothing like as effective as they'd assumed. In fact they were to be blunt, useless.
One could argue that Israel, if it took the high road here, now has the opportunity to end the Gaza conflict with all of the cards in its favour. Hezbollah in Lebanon aren't stupid and they will see the failure of their paymasters in Tehran to even dent Israel's defences as humiliating.
Israel has an opportunity to win right across the board. They were attacked, they won a spectacular victory. Gaza will never be the same again either. There's an opportunity to end the cycle of violence and bloodshed.
The question is can Israel rise to the occasion?
Netanyahu is motivated by staying in power. It's the only thing keeping him out of court and a potential prison sentence for corruption. Opposition to the endless and brutal conflict internally is rising. Few Israelis sympathise with the Palestinian cause but enough know it's gone too far to carry on as it is.
Israel and its foes know they have western backing, but only so far.
Crucially President Biden made it clear that any attack on Iran wouldn't be aided by the US in any way. Iran has only one target Israel really wants - the nuclear program - and it can't get at that without American support, political and military.
The ball is now firmly in Israel's court. It has crushed Hamas, Hezbollah is in no position to press its cause, and Iran has seen its military assault defeated in humiliating circumstances that have rendered it near impotent against Israel.
This is not the time to seize the military advantage. There isn't one.
I suspect that's part of the problem. Israel is dominant. They can start to dictate from a position of strength if they can just be a little humble and conciliatory.
The trouble is, that's not the way the current government thinks. We could be at the point where a choice is made that makes things worse, just when the chance, if the cards are played well, all of this could work in Israel's favour, Palestine could find a new road to peace, one the Arab world could live with.

[viper37]

Something that needs to be said, since we glossed over it a bit to engage in arguing about minutiae of Iran's embassy being bombed (which is largely not actually very important), is the reason we in the West cannot trust "Palestinians", is because Palestinian is not a "natural" ethnic group.

Ethnic groups form over things like shared language, culture etc. The concept of a Palestinian nation exists and was created solely as a "negative nationalism", it is a concept that exists because Arabs don't view it as acceptable for Jews to have land and a country of their own. By its nature, identification as a Palestinian is membership in a group that exists solely as a negation of Israel.

If for whatever reason, a Jewish state had never been carved out of British Mandatory Palestine, if for example the Arabs won their initial war (which a large % of the posters in this thread would have preferred, and would likely gloss over or ignore the ensuing mass murder of Jews that would have occurred), there likely would not be a country called "Palestine" in that region. It would likely just be part of Jordan, and the Arabs living there would have no issue with that--because they were never "Palestinians", they were Arabs.

Like Canada.

It did not exist before America was created.

It did not even have a strong cultural identity before Quebec nationalism arose, they were happy with their Constitution being in London.

They have the same language as the Americans.  They share their history with America.  They share their ethnicity with America.  They evolved because America evolved, the reason the country was created was to avoid the territories becoming American so a railroad was necessary to reach British-Columbia.

Basically, Canadian nationalism is a negative nationalism, and it's not a natural ethnic group, therefore, someone could totally genocide the entire country and it would not be a crime, right?

Canadians are just a bunch of evil motherfuckers who hate Americans with a passion, and who exists solely to not become American, despite having the same food, the same language, the same regional accents, the same culture with local variations.  They are no more respectful of the environment once they are asked to pay for it.  They have no more respect for the rule of law once they are asked to be confined home, they start to protest.  Their right wing party are nearly as populist as the US right wing party, and there is no practical difference between the NDP/Liberal Party and the Democratic Party.

Therefore, Canada is a false country that should be annexed by the United States and any uncooperative citizen should be deported to Europe and see its house razed to make place for loyal Americans.

[Barrister]

Something that needs to be said, since we glossed over it a bit to engage in arguing about minutiae of Iran's embassy being bombed (which is largely not actually very important), is the reason we in the West cannot trust "Palestinians", is because Palestinian is not a "natural" ethnic group.

Ethnic groups form over things like shared language, culture etc. The concept of a Palestinian nation exists and was created solely as a "negative nationalism", it is a concept that exists because Arabs don't view it as acceptable for Jews to have land and a country of their own. By its nature, identification as a Palestinian is membership in a group that exists solely as a negation of Israel.

If for whatever reason, a Jewish state had never been carved out of British Mandatory Palestine, if for example the Arabs won their initial war (which a large % of the posters in this thread would have preferred, and would likely gloss over or ignore the ensuing mass murder of Jews that would have occurred), there likely would not be a country called "Palestine" in that region. It would likely just be part of Jordan, and the Arabs living there would have no issue with that--because they were never "Palestinians", they were Arabs.

Like Canada.

It did not exist before America was created.

It did not even have a strong cultural identity before Quebec nationalism arose, they were happy with their Constitution being in London.

They have the same language as the Americans.  They share their history with America.  They share their ethnicity with America.  They evolved because America evolved, the reason the country was created was to avoid the territories becoming American so a railroad was necessary to reach British-Columbia.

Basically, Canadian nationalism is a negative nationalism, and it's not a natural ethnic group, therefore, someone could totally genocide the entire country and it would not be a crime, right?

Canadians are just a bunch of evil motherfuckers who hate Americans with a passion, and who exists solely to not become American, despite having the same food, the same language, the same regional accents, the same culture with local variations.  They are no more respectful of the environment once they are asked to pay for it.  They have no more respect for the rule of law once they are asked to be confined home, they start to protest.  Their right wing party are nearly as populist as the US right wing party, and there is no practical difference between the NDP/Liberal Party and the Democratic Party.

Therefore, Canada is a false country that should be annexed by the United States and any uncooperative citizen should be deported to Europe and see its house razed to make place for loyal Americans.

I thought about bringing up Canada but decided to avoid it - but since you have...

The thing is Canada did have a strong national identity - or two of them at least.  We were British and loyalist (or French-Canadian).  I mean that's why so many loyalists moved to Canada after the American revolution.

[Tamas]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/15/sympathy-shifted-to-israel-many-fear-iran-attack-has-distracted-aid-effort

Iran's attack on Israel tested the country's air defences, but repaired – at least temporarily – Tel Aviv's fractured relationship with Washington, and pushed the war and the looming famine in Gaza out of the headlines and down the diplomatic agenda.

In Gaza, where almost all the civilian population is displaced and hungry after more than six months of war, this shift in attention has been felt acutely.

"Countries and peoples were sympathetic to us, but now sympathy has shifted to Israel," said Bashir Alyan, a 52-year-old former employee of the Palestinian Authority, who is now living in a tent in Rafah with his seven children. "Israel became the victim overnight."

 

[Jacob]

Which part do you disagree with?

The implication that Israel wasn't seen as a victim prior to the Iranian attack? Or the implication that the Iranian attack made people see Israel as a victim?

[Tamas]

The former. Not that one can expect much nuance from somebody fighting for survival but maybe not even putting there a victim "again" due to, you know, 7 October, is a bit telling.

[Razgovory]

Something that needs to be said, since we glossed over it a bit to engage in arguing about minutiae of Iran's embassy being bombed (which is largely not actually very important), is the reason we in the West cannot trust "Palestinians", is because Palestinian is not a "natural" ethnic group.

Ethnic groups form over things like shared language, culture etc. The concept of a Palestinian nation exists and was created solely as a "negative nationalism", it is a concept that exists because Arabs don't view it as acceptable for Jews to have land and a country of their own. By its nature, identification as a Palestinian is membership in a group that exists solely as a negation of Israel.

If for whatever reason, a Jewish state had never been carved out of British Mandatory Palestine, if for example the Arabs won their initial war (which a large % of the posters in this thread would have preferred, and would likely gloss over or ignore the ensuing mass murder of Jews that would have occurred), there likely would not be a country called "Palestine" in that region. It would likely just be part of Jordan, and the Arabs living there would have no issue with that--because they were never "Palestinians", they were Arabs.

Like Canada.

It did not exist before America was created.

It did not even have a strong cultural identity before Quebec nationalism arose, they were happy with their Constitution being in London.

They have the same language as the Americans.  They share their history with America.  They share their ethnicity with America.  They evolved because America evolved, the reason the country was created was to avoid the territories becoming American so a railroad was necessary to reach British-Columbia.

Basically, Canadian nationalism is a negative nationalism, and it's not a natural ethnic group, therefore, someone could totally genocide the entire country and it would not be a crime, right?

Canadians are just a bunch of evil motherfuckers who hate Americans with a passion, and who exists solely to not become American, despite having the same food, the same language, the same regional accents, the same culture with local variations.  They are no more respectful of the environment once they are asked to pay for it.  They have no more respect for the rule of law once they are asked to be confined home, they start to protest.  Their right wing party are nearly as populist as the US right wing party, and there is no practical difference between the NDP/Liberal Party and the Democratic Party.

Therefore, Canada is a false country that should be annexed by the United States and any uncooperative citizen should be deported to Europe and see its house razed to make place for loyal Americans.

Don't you just love it when he jumps off the rails like that?

[OttoVonBismarck]

Without falling down the interminable hallways of historical argument--the fact remains identification of oneself as Palestinian is largely an assertion that Israel should not exist.