Israel-Hamas War 2023

[OttoVonBismarck]

It is a false narrative that the U.S. with the stroke of a pen can make Israel stop fighting a war.

Probably not.  But the US did end apartheid in South Africa more or less with the stroke of a pen.

F.W. de Klerk ended apartheid, not the United States. I think your analysis of those events is severely off base.

[Admiral Yi]

F.W. de Klerk ended apartheid, not the United States. I think your analysis of those events is severely off base.

Before the US threatened trade sanctions apartheid existed.  After it ended.  My analysis is there was a causal connection.  If you think this analysis is flawed please feel free to explain why you think so.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I would counter you haven't actually demonstrated the U.S. "ended apartheid with the stroke of a pen." The onus is on someone making a positive claim to produce at least some veneer of evidence for it, if one is so inclined. I would note that many countries suffer much worse economic sanctions than South Africa ever did and don't change domestic policy over it. And de Klerk himself said his primary motivation for ending apartheid was he felt South Africa was moving towards an outright racial civil war.

[crazy canuck]

It is a false narrative that the U.S. with the stroke of a pen can make Israel stop fighting a war.

Probably not.  But the US did end apartheid in South Africa more or less with the stroke of a pen.

F.W. de Klerk ended apartheid, not the United States. I think your analysis of those events is severely off base.

The White South Africans were forced into it. Any analysis that pretends that they did it because they wanted to his not only off base it's a severe distortion of history.

[Admiral Yi]

I would counter you haven't actually demonstrated the U.S. "ended apartheid with the stroke of a pen." The onus is on someone making a positive claim to produce at least some veneer of evidence for it, if one is so inclined. I would note that many countries suffer much worse economic sanctions than South Africa ever did and don't change domestic policy over it. And de Klerk himself said his primary motivation for ending apartheid was he felt South Africa was moving towards an outright racial civil war.

I accept the onus and produced my evidence.

I would point out that countries face the threat of much milder economic sanctions than South Africa and do change policy.  The example that comes to mind is Belgium.  Belgium passed a law that allowed them to arrest US personnel for alleged war crimes.  The US threatened to remove all military personnel from NATO headquarters and relocate the HQ.  Belgium changed the law.

Domestic protests, violent clashes with police, and guerilla incursions were already baked into the equation.  As I believe were trade and investment embargoes from other countries.  Up to the point the US changed tack these factors had not succeeded in dismantling apartheid.  After the US change in policy apartheid did end.

I don't know if white South Africans were 99% ready to end apartheid before the threat or 0% ready.  I don't know how to answer that question and if I could interview every Boer alive at that I wouldn't know how to figure out if they were telling the truth.  But I do know one external factor changed and then policy changed.

[Josquius]

But then it goes down hill. Israel is just trying to stop it's own extermination?

That's a defensible characterization of the October 7 attack and the Israeli response.

The attack?
Ish? In the same way taking down a rogue shooter is defending the entire country - if they hadn't got him he'd have killed everyone eventually!
But the scale is too off to take it seriously beyond a local level which the phrasing seems to imply.

Now though? Israel is trying to stop it's own extermination by grinding it's neighbour to dust?
Yeah.... The time has long since past where Israel could claim to be merely defending itself.

[Admiral Yi]

The attack?
Ish? In the same way taking down a rogue shooter is defending the entire country - if they hadn't got him he'd have killed everyone eventually!
But the scale is too off to take it seriously beyond a local level which the phrasing seems to imply.

Now though? Israel is trying to stop it's own extermination by grinding it's neighbour to dust?
Yeah.... The time has long since past where Israel could claim to be merely defending itself.

Hamas exterminated as many people as their resources allowed them to.  If your point is Hamas does not have the capacity at present to kill every single Israeli then I agree.  If your point is that Hamas is unwilling to kill every single Israeli then I don't see much evidence for that in their recent actions.

[Tamas]

But then it goes down hill. Israel is just trying to stop it's own extermination?

That's a defensible characterization of the October 7 attack and the Israeli response.

The attack?
Ish? In the same way taking down a rogue shooter is defending the entire country - if they hadn't got him he'd have killed everyone eventually!
But the scale is too off to take it seriously beyond a local level which the phrasing seems to imply.

Now though? Israel is trying to stop it's own extermination by grinding it's neighbour to dust?
Yeah.... The time has long since past where Israel could claim to be merely defending itself.

Over a thousand dead in a matter of hours and hundreds kidnapped. That's not what I'd call "But the scale is too off to take it seriously beyond a local level" in any country let alone one the size and history of Israel. I am not even sure how you can conclude it wasn't a serious attack on the country.

[viper37]

Hamas exterminated as many people as their resources allowed them to.  If your point is Hamas does not have the capacity at present to kill every single Israeli then I agree.  If your point is that Hamas is unwilling to kill every single Israeli then I don't see much evidence for that in their recent actions.

What would happen if, say, the US and the international community where to really turn a blind eye to Israel?  The way we all turned a blind eye to Russia before Ukraine, the way we do toward China?

No consequences.  Do whatever you want, we we sill supply weapons and do commerce with you.  No one will have sanctions.  Everyone in the country will be free to travel wherever they want.

What would have happened under these conditions?

They're already annexing the West Bank as fast as they can go.  Would they have gone to Gaza faster?

[Admiral Yi]

What would happen if, say, the US and the international community where to really turn a blind eye to Israel?  The way we all turned a blind eye to Russia before Ukraine, the way we do toward China?

No consequences.  Do whatever you want, we we sill supply weapons and do commerce with you.  No one will have sanctions.  Everyone in the country will be free to travel wherever they want.

What would have happened under these conditions?

They're already annexing the West Bank as fast as they can go.  Would they have gone to Gaza faster?

Your rhetoric confuses the hell out of me.  I was very much under the impression you thought "turning a blind eye" was already what the US was doing now.

So to attempt to answer your confusing question I think in the absence of sanctions travel restrictions etc. they would do exactly what they are doing now, because that describes the current situation.

[viper37]

Over a thousand dead in a matter of hours and hundreds kidnapped. That's not what I'd call "But the scale is too off to take it seriously beyond a local level" in any country let alone one the size and history of Israel. I am not even sure how you can conclude it wasn't a serious attack on the country.

That only happened because there was a bunch of incompetent morons put in charge by the actual government.  Warning signs had been there for about a year.  All ignored by everyone who was in a position of doing something.  Egypt had warned them, the US had warned them, their own IDF soldiers and intelligence agencies had warned them.

But stealing Arab lands and killing Arabs was just too fun for Bibi and his bunch, and many people are defending the policy choices of blinding themselves to these attacks.  Israeli civilians paid the price because the army that was supposed to protect them was elsewhere. 

In Montreal, there was a huge fire in an AirBnB.  People were quick to point out the deficiencies of the AirBnB: It's and AirBnB.  That in itself was an Evil Act.  Emergency stairs were not up to the code.  There was no fire exit, only windows.  Some rooms did not have windows.  Except for the stairs, none of this was criminal.   But it's an AirBn'B.  So the owner was dragged in the mud (he might have deserved it still, but not for that).  He was called a murdered because there were people dying in his apartment.  The left was, obviously, screaming bloody murder: the lodging crisis and the uncontrolled AirBn'B led to the death of poor students.  Evil Mega Corporation from the US should be banned from Montreal.  Capitalism at its worst.

The police later revealed they were opening a criminal investigation.  They found traces of fire accelerant on the walls of the AirBn'B unit.


This is what Israel is doing: putting fire accelerant on a tense situation.  Sending its firemen squads on the other side of the country.  And then complaining there's a fire killing people and torching everyone and everything in sight.  With some people applauding the gesture because they apparently deserved it.  Like with AirBn'B.  They deserved it, they removed space from the rental market.  They had to be torched.  The people inside?  They made the wrong choice.  They were complicit in the crimes. There's no real way to know for sure.  The dead don't speak.

This war will only stop once there are no more Palestinians in Israel.  Once every Palestinian resisting the occupation have been expelled, Israel will turn its sight on those who are not resisting and who have the Israeli citizenship.  It's already in the plans of the most extremist factions, it will make its way to the mainstream factions.  Just like the rest of the policies did.

[Razgovory]

But then it goes down hill. Israel is just trying to stop it's own extermination?

That's a defensible characterization of the October 7 attack and the Israeli response.

The attack?
Ish? In the same way taking down a rogue shooter is defending the entire country - if they hadn't got him he'd have killed everyone eventually!
But the scale is too off to take it seriously beyond a local level which the phrasing seems to imply.

Now though? Israel is trying to stop it's own extermination by grinding it's neighbour to dust?
Yeah.... The time has long since past where Israel could claim to be merely defending itself.

So how many dead Jews before it starts to become a problem?

[Tamas]

<snip>

Also if they didn't dress slutty they would not have been raped.

[Razgovory]

Viper lost me.  Are the Israelis the people in the AirBnB or...?

[OttoVonBismarck]

I would counter you haven't actually demonstrated the U.S. "ended apartheid with the stroke of a pen." The onus is on someone making a positive claim to produce at least some veneer of evidence for it, if one is so inclined. I would note that many countries suffer much worse economic sanctions than South Africa ever did and don't change domestic policy over it. And de Klerk himself said his primary motivation for ending apartheid was he felt South Africa was moving towards an outright racial civil war.

I accept the onus and produced my evidence.

I would point out that countries face the threat of much milder economic sanctions than South Africa and do change policy.  The example that comes to mind is Belgium.  Belgium passed a law that allowed them to arrest US personnel for alleged war crimes.  The US threatened to remove all military personnel from NATO headquarters and relocate the HQ.  Belgium changed the law.

Domestic protests, violent clashes with police, and guerilla incursions were already baked into the equation.  As I believe were trade and investment embargoes from other countries.  Up to the point the US changed tack these factors had not succeeded in dismantling apartheid.  After the US change in policy apartheid did end.

I don't know if white South Africans were 99% ready to end apartheid before the threat or 0% ready.  I don't know how to answer that question and if I could interview every Boer alive at that I wouldn't know how to figure out if they were telling the truth.  But I do know one external factor changed and then policy changed.

The decision was made by the South African government, not by any American, and they were not "forced." Force would imply actual force, which certainly did not happen.

There was increasing economic pressure, but it was the decision of the NP how they wished to respond to it. I will note that virtually no country in Asia sanctioned South Africa, virtually no country in South America or the Middle East.

They had many avenues to conduct trade and support their economy—and as a major mining country their exports were fungible commodities that could easily get to market.

The biggest blow from U.S. and British combined sanctions was being cut off from Western finance mechanisms—but I will note virtually the entire Communist bloc worked around that for the whole Cold War.

Cuba and the DPRK work around stifling sanctions to this day (while the main country sanctioning Cuba is only the United States, due to Cuba's limited economic production and how tightly all of its industries were tied to the U.S. it has never been able to replace its previous American tied); but ultimately the leaders of those regimes decided the pain of sanctions was acceptable.

F.W. de Klerk certainly factored economic sanctions into his decision making, but describing that as "America ending apartheid with a simple sanctions decision" is ludicrous and false.

The NP had made limited attempts at working out a settlement of apartheid as far back as the 1970s (well before meaningful British or American sanctions), it was widely viewed as an unsustainable system due to basic demographics, the NP just always had deep disagreements about the parameters of winding it down vs the costs of maintaining it.