Israel-Hamas War 2023

[viper37]

Israel has made sure Gaza can't be governed, and as it is, the WB can't be either.

Gaza is and has been governed. 

By Hamas.  Israel knows full well it's not a government.  

The PA might have done something else than weaponize the strip, but the Israeli government of the last few years did not want that.  They let the Hamas succeed while they could really well have helped the Palestinians overthrew it when they rebelled, or during the civil war.

[viper37]

Königsberg at the very least was core German territory...

Weirdly it seems that every forum member trying to argue against Israel (although they wouldn't phrase it like that) just makes shit up. Weird that they all seem to not know their facts from their delusions.

I'll agree for Königsberg.
The rest were a mix of ethnic Germans from the 19th century and recent arrivals since WWII that were deported by the Russians, some in Siberia before the war, some in Germany after the war.

Given the events of WWII, I can't really see peace without population transfers.  Even if they had nothing to do with what happened, I can't see the survivors looking kindly at the Germans living in Czechoslovakia or Poland. And I maintain my position that as far as I know, no British, French, Canadian or American colonies were built in Munich or Berlin, destroying German neighbourhoods to make room for Allies settlements while the ethnic Germans were moved to temporary refugee camps

If you want a better comparison, what Israel is doing is the same as Canada and the US were doing to Natives in the 19th century.  Signing a treaty, pushing them into a reservation, breaking the treaty, killing them, pushing them further into a reservation, calling them savages when they rebelled after starving, then pushing them further until they had nowhere else to go, crushed between two mass of people.

[viper37]

No one was ever deported from Kaliningrad, an ancient Russian city founded in the Middle Ages far from the then non-existent Russia but inexplicably named after a 20th century Bolsehvik in one the first known examples of time travel.  Ignore all other claims and explanations, especially from the philosopher in the corner, he is real pissant.

The Russians did it, it's ok to do it.  Raz' argument for you too?

[Tamas]

Israel has made sure Gaza can't be governed, and as it is, the WB can't be either.

Gaza is and has been governed. 

By Hamas.  Israel knows full well it's not a government. 

So you have to be non-incompetent and non-evil to be called a government or what? They won an election for crying out loud.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I notice a recurring theme of the anti-Israelis, and not just on Languish but everywhere really, of willful ignorance about specific details of the conflict and etc. This is because the "anti-imperialist" anti-Israel position is largely based on "feels" and not facts. The facts come later, and if they need to be 'invented' to match the feels, then so be it.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Israel has made sure Gaza can't be governed, and as it is, the WB can't be either.

Gaza is and has been governed. 

By Hamas.  Israel knows full well it's not a government. 

So you have to be non-incompetent and non-evil to be called a government or what? They won an election for crying out loud.

by that standard many of the african countries don't have governments...

[OttoVonBismarck]

Hamas is the government of Gaza, it isn't meaningfully debated. They run ministries, they maintain the basic functions of governance. The election bit is overstated--they did win an election, under the rules of the PA, not as an independent country. They immediately went to war with the PA and basically stopped obeying any of the PA's constitutional rules, and have never held elections again.

They are a government, but they are not a democratic one, and don't have democratic legitimacy. But many governments don't have democratic legitimacy.

[grumbler]

If Israel was willing to let Palestinian lives in Israel as citizens of Israel with equal rights, we would not be having this discussion.

Since about 20% of Israel's population consists of these people you do not believe exist, maybe you shouldn't be having this conversation.

So you deny that the right of return is a contentious issue in Israel?

That's the most obvious and absurd strawman so far.  I note that you seem to no longer deny that Israel is "willing to let Palestinian lives in Israel as citizens of Israel with equal rights," which was the statement in contention.  I will accept your concession on this issue and ignore the strawman fallacy.

[grumbler]

You are playing dumb, and acting in bad faith, as usual.

This is the ad hominem concession.  I accept it and consider our discussion closed.

[grumbler]

I'm aware of many ethnic Germans killed and deported from Eastern Europe by the Russians, but I'm not aware of any ethnic Germans deported from Canada and the US toward Europe to create colonies of pure English settlers.
I'm not aware of Germans neighbourhoods in Munich being razed to the ground in the middle of the night to make room for new French or British quarters, no.

Care to enlighten me?

Talk about a non sequitur! 

Your claim was that deportations of Germans occurred "Only Russia and in Russian territories.  Afaik, not in Germany proper."  Simply looking at a map of Germany prewar and Germany postwar would show you that the borders of Germany were redrawn to cut down on its size, and a basic understanding of the history of the period would clue you in the no Germans were allowed to remain in the portions of Germany carved out and given to Poland.  That's ethnic cleansing, taking place in Germany.

[DGuller]

If you ask Russia, all lands in Europe are Russian, so from that POV it's correct to say that Germans were cleansed from the Russian lands.

[grumbler]

I'm not sure what it is about Herzog that makes people so eager to outright lie about what he says and then ignore what he clearly did say.

...a reporter asked Herzog to clarify whether he meant to say that since Gazans did not remove Hamas from power "that makes them, by implication, legitimate targets," Herzog said, "No, I didn't say that."

The Wire

I guess that the anti-Israel types lack the evidence to support their wild claims and so lie about the evidence that exists because they have no choice.

[The Minsky Moment]

Not to mention that to use a quote from one guy in a purely ceremonial position and then use that to argue that the entire "high level Israeli leadership" does not recognize any distinction between civilian and combatant is highly disingenuous.

[The Minsky Moment]

No one was ever deported from Kaliningrad, an ancient Russian city founded in the Middle Ages far from the then non-existent Russia but inexplicably named after a 20th century Bolsehvik in one the first known examples of time travel.  Ignore all other claims and explanations, especially from the philosopher in the corner, he is real pissant.

The Russians did it, it's ok to do it.  Raz' argument for you too?

Point badly missed.
As for the issue you raise, I addressed in directly in reponse to CC's last Ezra Klein podcast post.  See above.

[Razgovory]

About 12 million Germans were forced from their homes during or shortly after WW2.  This includes Germans who were forced from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Romania.  These German communities had existed for hundreds of years.

My point was to compare it to the 700,000 Arabs that fled during the 1948 war, not the current West Bank.