Israel-Hamas War 2023

[PJL]

The whole Gaza 'deal' could be more smoke & mirrors to disguise Trump's true intentions. The BBC are reporting that he has posted on Truth Social that he wants a "verified nuclear peace agreement" with Iran. So this could just be a bone to placate the hardliners while he goes for the real deal. Of course that could be anything at this point.

I mean we had one of those. He cancelled it for no reason.

But hey hopefully he is out there playing 4D chess.

I expect what will happen is that we'll probably see a deal with Israel & Saudi Arabia re Gaza & normalisation of relations which was not too far off what was being proposed during Biden's presidency, and something similar with Iran during Obama's. But he'll make it so that it's the best deal ever of course. All of this BS right now is the opening gambit like wanting Canada to be the 51st state etc

[Neil]

I thought it was more seen as being really unfortunate, but probably necessary (with a side of collective punishment on ethnic Germans).

It was definitely an atrocity and crime against humanity. Just, you know, like most of the horrible things that happened to the Germans and Japanese seen as understandable in a Fuck Around and Find Out kind of way. But not good. I don't think anybody cheers on the atrocities of the Red Army, at most you are like "well ok...I get it on some level."

But last I checked no Palestinians murdered millions of Americans in a war of annihilation.

Forcing people to move the ethnostate that they wanted to live in, rather than having them continue to advocate for the ethnostate to conquer the territory that they live in isn't an atrocity or a crime against humanity. 

[Valmy]

Forcing people to move the ethnostate that they wanted to live in, rather than having them continue to advocate for the ethnostate to conquer the territory that they live in isn't an atrocity or a crime against humanity. 

It is. Forcing people to move against their will is a crime against humanity. Besides it isn't like there was some kind of process to distinguish who was sympathetic to the Nazis and who wasn't.

But, as I said, under the circumstances we all kind of get it.

[Jacob]

Personally I think that the Arabs-for-Trump and the Wokes-Against-Genocide-Harris and their kin are groups who were effectively influenced by micro-targeted social media.

That doesn't abnegate individual responsibility for the consequences of their choices, but if the question is "how could they be so stupid" I think the answer is "considerable planning and resources went into manipulating them".

Anecdotally, I've seen it personally. I have a buddy who I'd situate roughly like an apolitical dguller - generally centrist and inclined towards logic, not pro-Trump or GOP inclined at all, but very frustrated with all the woke stuff. He also happens to be passionately empathetic towards the Palestinian cause because he married someone with relatives who grew up in Gaza (otherwise he wouldn't give a fuck; he's generally apolitical of the "they all suck" variety when it comes to political complexities). And discussing politics with him, he went full hog on the Clinton-Epstein line of rhetoric (which indicates to me he was consuming particularly flavoured social media/ youtube) and he was even more all in on "fuck Biden for supporting Nethanyahu, he deserves to lose to Trump! Fuck Harris!"

The cognitive dissonance is real and it's not organic IMO.

[crazy canuck]

Personally I think that the Arabs-for-Trump and the Wokes-Against-Genocide-Harris and their kin are groups who were effectively influenced by micro-targeted social media.

That doesn't abnegate individual responsibility for the consequences, but if the question is "how could they be so stupid" I think the answer is "considerable planning and resources went into manipulating them".

Anecdotally, I've seen it personally. I have a buddy who I'd situate roughly like an apolitical dguller - generally centrist and inclined towards logic, not pro-Trump or GOP inclined at all, but very frustrated with all the woke stuff. He also happens to be passionately empathetic towards the Palestinian cause because he married someone with relatives who grew up in Gaza (otherwise he wouldn't give a fuck; he's generally apolitical of the "they all suck" variety when it comes to political complexities). And discussing politics with him, he went full hog on the Clinton-Epstein line of rhetoric (which indicates to me he was consuming particularly flavoured social media/ youtube) and he was even more all in on "fuck Biden for supporting Nethanyahu, he deserves to lose to Trump! Fuck Harris!"

The cognitive dissonance is real and it's not organic IMO.

I don't see any evidence for that. There is plenty of evidence for Muslim groups being well organized and purposeful in the way they approached everything collectively.  From the political positions being taken to the rhetoric being used during university campus protests across the US and Canada.  There was a centralized game plan, and they were all following it.  If you have any doubts just read the injunction cases from the Canadian Universities. You will see the "student" protestors had the exact same list of demands, and the same tactics regarding how their encampments functioned. As a side note, that is what made it easy for Universities to obtain injunctions after the UofT got theirs first.  The facts in each case were essentially the same. This can't be blamed on some malicious social media control. This was a purposeful strategy.  A profoundly self destructive one, as many tried to explain to them at the time. 

 

[Jacob]

Why did they choose that purposely self-destructive strategy?

[crazy canuck]

Why did they choose that purposely self-destructive strategy?

That is a good question. And one that many raised with them at the time. They provided an answer themselves.  And it had nothing to do with being manipulated.  It had to do with them firmly believing that it was better to take a stand against the position the Biden administration had taken regarding the conflict in Gaza.

As an aside, you are strolling into difficult terrain by suggesting that you know better than them why they did what they did, and to suggest they had no agency but instead were easily manipulated.

[Barrister]

I thought it was more seen as being really unfortunate, but probably necessary (with a side of collective punishment on ethnic Germans).

It was definitely an atrocity and crime against humanity. Just, you know, like most of the horrible things that happened to the Germans and Japanese seen as understandable in a Fuck Around and Find Out kind of way. But not good. I don't think anybody cheers on the atrocities of the Red Army, at most you are like "well ok...I get it on some level."

So I was googling the German forced relocations after WWII just to make sure.

It was overwhelmingly conducted by the Soviets, to be sure.  Sounds like there was a negligible amount of forced relocations of ethnic Germans from the Netherlands.

But it was something that had been discussed amongst the allies beforehand, and as such was ot something the western allies criticised the Soviets for after the war.

But last I checked no Palestinians murdered millions of Americans in a war of annihilation.

Never said they did.

[Valmy]

But it was something that had been discussed amongst the allies beforehand, and as such was ot something the western allies criticised the Soviets for after the war.

Ok. Lots of things were discussed with the Soviets during the war. The forced removal of all the ethnic Germans from the eastern European countries was a terrible thing.  But we agreed on several terrible things.

Never said they did.

The point being that I get why Czechoslovakia, Poland, etc  would be moved to commit this terrible crime after the atrocities Germany had committed on them, often using the Volksdeutsch as an excuse. They wanted a final solution to the German problem and reacted cruelly thanks to the violence and trauma they had just undergone at the hands of the German government. It was terrible, but I get it.

We would have no such excuse for committing a similar evil in Gaza.

[viper37]

Forcing people to move the ethnostate that they wanted to live in, rather than having them continue to advocate for the ethnostate to conquer the territory that they live in isn't an atrocity or a crime against humanity. 

So, when the Nazis thought of moving all of Germany's Jews to Madagascar, it wasn't an atrocity or a crime against humanity?

When they relocated Poles and other Slavic populations from their territories to Germany, it wasn't an atrocity?

The Trail of tears wasn't an atrocity and would not get categorized as a crime against humanity if it was done today?

What is happening in Ukraine, when Russia takes Ukrainian children and brings them in Russia is neither an atrocity nor a crime against humanity, since it's a conquered territory and this population is resisting against a conquest, whats more, a lawful annexation in the eyes of Russia?  

Ukraine is by any definition an ethnostate.  Ukrainians dominate their territory, even more so after Russia picked the Donbass and Crimea from them.  Is it wrong of them to resist forced relocation of the survivors?  It would certainly bring peace.  Russia has done it in the past in Crimea and elsewhere after all.

[Barrister]

Ukraine is by any definition an ethnostate.  Ukrainians dominate their territory, even more so after Russia picked the Donbass and Crimea from them.  Is it wrong of them to resist forced relocation of the survivors?  It would certainly bring peace.  Russia has done it in the past in Crimea and elsewhere after all.

One of the most interesting things about modern Ukraine is that it is not just an ethnostate.

President Zelenskyy is a Russian-speaking Jew.  The majority of the population did speak Russian, at least before the war (the war has driven adoption of the Ukrainian language, even amongst those whose mother tongue is Russian).  Just as an example, Ukraine had been welcoming of the Taters to return to Crimea when it was under Ukrainian control.

Ukraine can point to a separate Ukrainian historical identity - Prince Volodymyr, Union of Brest, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the Ukrainian National Republic.  But primarily what is driving Ukrainian independence since the Orange Revolution through the Revolution of Dignity is a desire to see Ukraine as a modern "European" state driven by rule of law, not narrow ethnic greivances.

[viper37]

It was overwhelmingly conducted by the Soviets, to be sure.  Sounds like there was a negligible amount of forced relocations of ethnic Germans from the Netherlands.

But it was something that had been discussed amongst the allies beforehand, and as such was ot something the western allies criticised the Soviets for after the war.

Not that it was right, especially since some of them were Jews, but no German citizens who arrived prior to the 1920s was deported, unlike what happened in the Eastern Bloc.  And the country was unable to sustain its total population due to famine engendered by the ward.

And frankly, being deported from the USSR or Polans, as terrible as it is, I'm not so sure if it wasn't a blessing...

Germans were also not permitted to hold Polish currency, the only legal currency since July, other than earnings from work assigned to them.^[159] The remaining population faced theft and looting, and also in some instances rape and murder by the criminal elements, crimes that were rarely prevented nor prosecuted by the Polish Militia Forces and newly installed communist judiciary.^[160]

The Yugoslavs set up internment camps at Sterntal and Teharje. The government nationalized their property on a "decision on the transition of enemy property into state ownership, on state administration over the property of absent people, and on sequestration of property forcibly appropriated by occupation authorities" of 21 November 1944 by the Presidency of the Anti-Fascist Council for the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia.^[201][202]

After March 1945, ethnic Germans were placed in so-called "village camps".^[203] Separate camps existed for those able to work and for those who were not. In the latter camps, containing mainly children and the elderly, the mortality rate was about 50%. Most of the children under 14 were then placed in state-run homes, where conditions were better, though the German language was banned. These children were later given to Yugoslav families, and not all German parents seeking to reclaim their children in the 1950s were successful.^[201]

As to what the Allies did discuss, while they agreed to a resettlement (British and Americans), the Soviets were to prodive food and assistance:

The Soviets, who encouraged and partly carried out the expulsions, offered little cooperation with humanitarian efforts, thereby requiring the Americans and British to absorb the expellees in their zones of occupation. In contradiction with the Potsdam Agreements, the Soviets neglected their obligation to provide supplies for the expellees. In Potsdam, it was agreed^[267] that 15% of all equipment dismantled in the Western zones—especially from the metallurgical, chemical and machine manufacturing industries—would be transferred to the Soviets in return for food, coal, potash (a basic material for fertiliser), timber, clay products, petroleum products, etc. The Western deliveries started in 1946, but this turned out to be a one-way street. The Soviet deliveries—desperately needed to provide the expellees with food, warmth, and basic necessities and to increase agricultural production in the remaining cultivation area—did not materialize. Consequently, the US stopped all deliveries on 3 May 1946,^[268] while the expellees from the areas under Soviet rule were deported to the West until the end of 1947.

On the one hand, you got a government who will intern German citizens in work camps or turn a blind eye to their murder and Allies powerless to stop it from happening.

On the other hand, forced relocation to Germany.  Not an easy choice.  Do you condone assured genocide of the civilian population of do you help move them?

Should the Americans and the British had pushed toward Moscow in 1946?

[Barrister]

Should the Americans and the British had pushed toward Moscow in 1946?

In hindsight they probably should have, but there was zero political will amongst the allies to do so.

[viper37]

Ukraine is by any definition an ethnostate.  Ukrainians dominate their territory, even more so after Russia picked the Donbass and Crimea from them.  Is it wrong of them to resist forced relocation of the survivors?  It would certainly bring peace.  Russia has done it in the past in Crimea and elsewhere after all.

One of the most interesting things about modern Ukraine is that it is not just an ethnostate.

President Zelenskyy is a Russian-speaking Jew.  The majority of the population did speak Russian, at least before the war (the war has driven adoption of the Ukrainian language, even amongst those whose mother tongue is Russian).  Just as an example, Ukraine had been welcoming of the Taters to return to Crimea when it was under Ukrainian control.

Ukraine can point to a separate Ukrainian historical identity - Prince Volodymyr, Union of Brest, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the Ukrainian National Republic.  But primarily what is driving Ukrainian independence since the Orange Revolution through the Revolution of Dignity is a desire to see Ukraine as a modern "European" state driven by rule of law, not narrow ethnic greivances.

Palestinians shared their DNA with Isreali Jews.  A lot of them speak English and either Arameic or Hebrew.

If I use your definition, then Neil's definition of what is an ethno state for Palestine becomes invalid.  Should we consider Israel to be an ethno state?  Citizenship is really, really, really hard to acquire if you are not Jewish.  But really easy if your are Jewish.  Assuming I could demonstrate to a Rabbi my sincere intent to convert (they are much more picky about conversions than your average priest!), once I am through the whole ordeal and get my Golden membership card , I can emigrate to Israel and apply for citizenship very easily.  None of my ancestors were Jewish though. By I'd become a Jewish-Israeli citizen.  I could apply for a house in a newly conquered area of the West Bank and I'd be assigned one in order of priority.


So.  Let's cut the bullshit about these ethno states.  It doesn't really apply to Palestine and they don't really have a choice about who "comes" to live in their state.


Also, I am well aware that Ukraine is an independent country of Russia.  Neil seems to have a weird notion of a country's independence and the right of people to live where they so chose, without the fear of being of being deported at another country's whim.

If it goes for one, it goes for the other, logically.

I'd sooner deport half of Russia to Mars or Venus than a single unwilling Ukrainian to Russia.

[Barrister]

So.  Let's cut the bullshit about these ethno states.  It doesn't really apply to Palestine and they don't really have a choice about who "comes" to live in their state.

What the fuck dude.