Israel-Hamas War 2023

[Razgovory]

Oh... so we are going from "I said something" to "I meant something".

You said they were better off living under the occupation.
Knowing what the occupation is like in the West Bank, it's pretty clear what the meaning is for Gaza.

Anyway.  There won't be a Gaza for much longer.

Yeah, you're a liar.  You are so caught up in a frenzy you can't tell truth from fiction.  I've heard Palestinians are being genocided for 20 years now.  It wasn't true during the Intifada and it's not true now.  Maybe you should take a break?

We were talking about the citizens of Gaza, and you compared them with with Arab-Israelis:

That's not a technicality.  It's bullshit.  You know that.  There are some far right people in Israel's government.  But Muslims still work and live in Israel.  They have the right to vote, the right to speech and all the rights of modern democracy.  The Israeli government for all it's faults didn't just shoot political enemies in the legs and throw them off buildings.

I told you to educate yourself about the occupation.  To which you replied:
"Is anything I have written false?  A Muslim living in Israel has rights.  A Jew living in Palestine won't be living very long.  The Arabs of the Gaza strip used to be fairly prosperous.  They had a higher standard of living the Arabs of Jordan.  Then Arafat launched the Second Intifada. "

Which I demonstrated to be false.

You equated the occupation of Gaza to the conditions of the Isralei-Arabs, who are still facing discrimination, but much, much, much less so that a Palestinian living in an occupied zone in Gaza or the West Bank.

You are alluding that Palestinians would be better off living in occupied territories, subject to arbitrary rule of Israel than having their own State.

As for genocide, Israel has made its position clear, you have the official statements and the actions to back it up.

If you don't believe it, read a newspaper and open the tv.

I will open my TV but I don't think I will find much in there.  I said that the Gazans were more prosperous before Yasser Arafat came and started his war of terrorism.  I do reject that idea that Palestinians have no rights under Israeli government.  People who have their own state can be less prosperous than the people who do not have their own state.

When I brought up the millions of Muslims in Israel I was comparing them to the Jews who have to live Palestinian rule.  Which there aren't any because the Palestinians killed them or drove them out.  It was a way to compare the two different countries.

[Tamas]

Seems like the US is concerned about escalation, they are sending a second aircraft carrier to the Eastern Med to deter such plans.

[viper37]

East Berliners and West Berliners were the same people living in two separate administrations with two distinctly different policies toward the USA.  I don't think it would have been fair to bomb West Berlin in retaliation for an attack committed by Russian troops in East Berlin.

??

Then we agree.  Bomb only East Berlin.

By your example, if a Stasi agent had killed civilians in West Berlin, NATO should have flattened East Berlin.

Thankfully, NATO powers never acted that way and always moderated their response.

Even the US moderated its response in Iraq and Afghanistan following suicide bombings.

Israel is determined to eradicate all infrastructures of Gaza and not just the Hamas.  They don't want any kind of Palestinian presence anymore on their borders.  It seems pretty obvious from the discourse and the actions.

Netanyahu has been humiliated and wants to take vengeance.  His policies in the West Bank of protecting murderous settlers failed and the IDF was caught off guard, causing unnecessary deaths among Israeli civilians.

[viper37]

Which there aren't any because the Palestinians killed them or drove them out.

You have a really weird conception of Palestine.

Ok, find me the number of Jewish occupants of Palestine expelled by the authorities there forced to live elsewhere.
Then find me the number of Palestinian Arabs expelled from Israel by the Jewish government.

[Razgovory]

Which there aren't any because the Palestinians killed them or drove them out.

You have a really weird conception of Palestine.

Ok, find me the number of Jewish occupants of Palestine expelled by the authorities there forced to live elsewhere.
Then find me the number of Palestinian Arabs expelled from Israel by the Jewish government.

Yeah, the Palestinian's lost the war.  So more of them lost their homes.  The stated goal of the war was to drive the Jews into the sea. The 1940's were rough on anti-Semites.

My point was that Jews do tolerate Palestinians among them.  The Palestinians do not tolerate Jews among them.  Nor does any Arab country.  They aren't keen on any minority really, but Jews will often be attacked on sight.  Or anyone they think is a Jew.

[viper37]

Which there aren't any because the Palestinians killed them or drove them out.

You have a really weird conception of Palestine.

Ok, find me the number of Jewish occupants of Palestine expelled by the authorities there forced to live elsewhere.
Then find me the number of Palestinian Arabs expelled from Israel by the Jewish government.

Yeah, the Palestinian's lost the war.  So more of them lost their homes.  The stated goal of the war was to drive the Jews into the sea. The 1940's were rough on anti-Semites.

Arabs and Jews were routinely killed in British Palestine, and it didn't change with the creation of Israel.

But I understand what you are saying.  Losers of a war deserve to be expelled from their homes.  It's all good.  Duly noted.

My point was that Jews do tolerate Palestinians among them.  The Palestinians do not tolerate Jews among them.  Nor does any Arab country.  They aren't keen on any minority really, but Jews will often be attacked on sight.  Or anyone they think is a Jew.

Up to a certain point.  Keeping those rights is a constant fight.  And once the West Bank is fully colonized and Gaza is no longer a threat, I doubt they'll keep their rights.  There's a lot of people who want to decapitate them just for being Arabs and it's totally fine to have them in the government.

[Admiral Yi]

By your example, if a Stasi agent had killed civilians in West Berlin, NATO should have flattened East Berlin.

Are we talking about the same thing?  I suggested a three state solution.  Make permanent peace with the PA in the West Bank.  Continue a policy of containment with Gaza and Hamas.

[Razgovory]

Which there aren't any because the Palestinians killed them or drove them out.

You have a really weird conception of Palestine.

Ok, find me the number of Jewish occupants of Palestine expelled by the authorities there forced to live elsewhere.
Then find me the number of Palestinian Arabs expelled from Israel by the Jewish government.

Yeah, the Palestinian's lost the war.  So more of them lost their homes.  The stated goal of the war was to drive the Jews into the sea. The 1940's were rough on anti-Semites.

Arabs and Jews were routinely killed in British Palestine, and it didn't change with the creation of Israel.

But I understand what you are saying.  Losers of a war deserve to be expelled from their homes.  It's all good.  Duly noted.

Is this a language problem?  You keep saying I say something that I didn't say.  I didn't say that they deserved it, it's something that happened because of a war.  If the war had gone another way there would have been a second holocaust.  Millions of Germans were displaced a few years earlier and nobody is to bent out of shape about that.  Hell, 14 million people were displace with the creation of India and Pakistan.  It was a rough time.

Do you think Israel has the right to exist?  Does it have the right to defend itself?

[Jacob]

Are we talking about the same thing?  I suggested a three state solution.  Make permanent peace with the PA in the West Bank.  Continue a policy of containment with Gaza and Hamas.

I don't think Nethanyahu is willing to make a permanent peace with the PA in the West Bank. Hasn't his policy been one of continually expanding Jewish settlements there and looking away from settler violence against Palestinians?

[Admiral Yi]

I don't think Nethanyahu is willing to make a permanent peace with the PA in the West Bank.

Neither do I.

[Zoupa]

From what I read in Haaretz, lots of people are pissed at Nethanyahu for prioritizing IDF deployment to protect settlers in the West Bank instead of protecting the northern and Gaza borders.

[HVC]

Which is somewhat odd, since they elected him because they wanted him to deploy the the IDF to expand the land "appropriation"

[Admiral Yi]

Heard on NPR that the US is trying to repatriate US Palestinians through the Raffa border crossing but Hamas won't let them leave.

[Iormlund]

By your example, if a Stasi agent had killed civilians in West Berlin, NATO should have flattened East Berlin.

A more apt analogy would be an armed incursion that had killed or kidnapped 5 to 10 thousand people.

And you bet your ass that would have resulted in WW3.

[Sheilbh]

They shouldn't have let Hamas take over, there was a Machiavellian element to that decision. Obviously they didn't want to keep occupying Gaza forever.

Although there's also the role of W Bush's administration in really forcing the PA and Israel to do elections which set the scene for the civil war in Gaza.

I don't think there was any appetite for that in Israel or the PA leadership without massive pressure from the US - and I think it was a bad decision.

A core issue is really that after 2001 Israel moved too far to the right to reasonably address Gaza or the West Bank. The Israeli right doesn't want a two state solution, they want to annex the West Bank and "Gaza to go away", walling Gaza off and leaving it to Hamas was like a quarantine mindset and I don't know if they ever had a good plan for it long term beyond just hoping it didn't cause too much trouble. Now it has caused too much trouble.

There ultimately has to be political force within Israel that is willing to pursue a diplomatic solution--which most likely includes lengthy occupations, Israeli concessions on certain key issues, a reverse of some of the settlement activity of the last 15 years in the West Bank, and a host of other things. Israel's body politic is so far on the other side of all that right now that it will take basically a wave of political change to ever get to somewhere like this.

I agree with this and I think it was Smotrich but it might have been another minister in Netanyahu's government who said the quiet part out loud when they said that the PLO was a burden for Israel and Hamas was an asset.

There was an element of divide and rule in the Israeli right's approach. In the West Bank they encouraged and protected settlers, while in Gaza they contained - but they could credibly say there is no Palestinian counterparty to deal with they're so riven with internal splits. Israel would deal directly with the PA but also hold indirect talks with Hamas about Gaza through intermediaries like Egypt - and allow funding to go to them (to an extent).

I think that was the wrong approch.

In terms Yi's question my instinct is build up the PA and the West Bank. Even if there's a split within Palestinian territories, there is one area that is governed by an authority that recognises and works with Israel. I think Israel could have worked really hard to build them up, to increase their legitimacy to unlock international development and to create a visible, attractive, peaceful alternative in order to undermine Hamas' support generally but particularly in Gaza. Instead we've seen the absolute humiliation of the PA or any authority Israel could work with in the West Bank in favour of settlements and things like the price tag attacks.

But as you say both that approach or just not doing the divide and rule strategy clashes with what the right and far-right of Israeli politics wants. It requires acknowledging that there are Palestinians, there is a Palestinian national identity and that's likely going to mean, in some way, a Palestinian state and identity which settlers and especially the extreme religious right aren't willing to concede.