Israel-Hamas War 2023

[OttoVonBismarck]

The UN which routinely, for many decades has condemned Israel for everything it does, and ignored basically every bad thing every Muslim or autocratic hell hole in the world does every day?

The same UN whose bodies are often captured by autocracies because maybe 30% of its membership have democratic governments?

Yeah I have never given two shits what the UN says about Israel and I never will, and this is a perfect example why.

I get it, you would rather to have Palestinians in Gaza suffer terribly. I am not one of those people and so we have a fundamental disagreement, which seems to be at the core of our disagreement over whether killing civilians in Gaza is ok.

The laws of war do not criminalize killing civilians--full stop. What I favor is Israel being able to reasonably self defend itself, and if it chooses to remove Hamas from power I support that.

[Admiral Yi]

I'm wondering out loud what Israel should have done differently as regards its policies towards Gaza.

What is the humane and benevolent way to respond to a statelet which was elected by the people there and which conducts intermittent attacks against your population?

[OttoVonBismarck]

I'm wondering out loud what Israel should have done differently as regards its policies towards Gaza.

What is the humane and benevolent way to respond to a statelet which was elected by the people there and which conducts intermittent attacks against your population?

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.

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.

Demographically I also think it hurts that a lot of the Jewish immigrant population that has moved to Israel in the last 30 years are Jewish nationalist / conservative Orthodox, they have contributed to making Israel more extreme in its views on the overall conflict. Additionally the ultra-Orthodox Jews pump out a lot of kids per couple versus secular and liberal Jews, so unlike a lot of countries with entrenched conservatives where there is hope from future, more liberal generations--Israel seems likely to only become more extreme over time. I suspect even eventually to the degree it threatens its relationship with the United States; but we have a Democrat in the White House right now and it is obvious we are nowhere near that breaking point, Biden has given Israel unmitigated support and the Republicans would only have done so louder if they were in his shoes.

[mongers]

What's John Kirby doing doing interviews about the conflict?


Not seen that before from a US WH spokesman.

[Jacob]

I'm wondering out loud what Israel should have done differently as regards its policies towards Gaza.

What is the humane and benevolent way to respond to a statelet which was elected by the people there and which conducts intermittent attacks against your population?

Not assassinated Yitzhak Rabin and not reward the assassin's ideology at the ballot box.

[Admiral Yi]

Not assassinated Yitzhak Rabin and not reward the assassin's ideology at the ballot box.

And then what?  Profit!!!???  What should a warm fuzzy Labour government in Israel have done in Gaza?

And of course Israel did not assassinate Rabin.

[Jacob]

And then what?  Profit!!!???  What should a warm fuzzy Labour government in Israel have done in Gaza?

And of course Israel did not assassinate Rabin.

Sorry, my bad. I should not have posted that. I'm not ready to play this game right now.

EDIT: I'm just upset that the last real attempt at deescalation and coexistence was ended by assassination, and that the assassin's political goals were realized. Who's to say how things would've gone if Yitzhak Rabin hadn't been murdered.

[Valmy]

Not assassinated Yitzhak Rabin and not reward the assassin's ideology at the ballot box.

And then what?  Profit!!!???  What should a warm fuzzy Labour government in Israel have done in Gaza?

And of course Israel did not assassinate Rabin.

Don't know. But the Gaza situation as it currently exists did not come about until a decade after Rabin was killed.

[Grey Fox]

Not assassinated Yitzhak Rabin and not reward the assassin's ideology at the ballot box.

And then what?  Profit!!!???  What should a warm fuzzy Labour government in Israel have done in Gaza?

And of course Israel did not assassinate Rabin.

An Israeli did.

Yes, profit. In the form a of Israeli government that keeps on being led by someone who believed in the Oslo accords.

[Admiral Yi]

Yes, profit. In the form a of Israeli government that keeps on being led by someone who believed in the Oslo accords.

What would this profit look like?

[Admiral Yi]

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.

It seems to me that would broken the terms of the Oslo Accord with respect to Palestinian semi-autonomy.

[OttoVonBismarck]

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.

It seems to me that would broken the terms of the Oslo Accord with respect to Palestinian semi-autonomy.

I actually don't believe it would have--Fatah, and the PLO/PNA viewed Hamas as illegitimate and fought a civil war with them--the internationally community largely recognizes PLO/PNA as the legitimate representative of Palestine (or even the Palestinian state for some.) International law wise it would have been assisting Fatah in suppressing rebellion.

[Razgovory]

Yasser Arafat would not have signed the treaty Rabin alive or not.

[Admiral Yi]

I actually don't believe it would have--Fatah, and the PLO/PNA viewed Hamas as illegitimate and fought a civil war with them--the internationally community largely recognizes PLO/PNA as the legitimate representative of Palestine (or even the Palestinian state for some.) International law wise it would have been assisting Fatah in suppressing rebellion.

Point taken.

[viper37]

The UN which routinely, for many decades has condemned Israel for everything it does, and ignored basically every bad thing every Muslim or autocratic hell hole in the world does every day?

The same UN whose bodies are often captured by autocracies because maybe 30% of its membership have democratic governments?

Yeah I have never given two shits what the UN says about Israel and I never will, and this is a perfect example why.

I get it, you would rather to have Palestinians in Gaza suffer terribly. I am not one of those people and so we have a fundamental disagreement, which seems to be at the core of our disagreement over whether killing civilians in Gaza is ok.

The laws of war do not criminalize killing civilians--full stop. What I favor is Israel being able to reasonably self defend itself, and if it chooses to remove Hamas from power I support that.

You can look at all the UN resolution on Palestine here.

While true that none specifically condemn the enemies of Israel, they often ask belligerent to abide by a cease-fire agreement.

I don't think the UN can specifically condemn a terrorist organization.  I know they already have various resolutions on terrorism though.

I also know most Arab countries voted against the last resolution to condemn Hamas in 2018.