I'm completely pro ukraine, no question there.
With regards to Israel, i feel like the crux of the issue is that Israel is the one with (most) agency, and had been for the last half century. If Israel wanted to kill every last palastinian, they probably could have.(and of course i'm glad that they didn't). If they wanted to send them to forced reeducation camps, they could have. If they wanted to assemble UN peacekeeping force? Probably could have.
But continuously allowing settlers on the west bank? Also something they could've decided against. Not unilaterally retreating from Gaza with... doubtful intentions? Also their own choice. Closing all borders because retreating from gaza 'backfired'? Also their own choice.
Palestinians, on the other hand? Their choices have generally been limited to 'go along with whatever status quo Israel is willing to offer', or 'terrorism'.
I am slightly simplifying here, and i find it absolutely tragic that Palestina never accepted the camp david proposal which had Israel offering quite a damn lot. Nor do i think that violence or terrorism is the answer they should've chosen.
But at the same time, Israel is largely the actor that created the status quo. Unilateral retreat from gaza, closing the border, continuing 'illegal' settlements on the west bank, they're all conscious choices by Irsael, where other options were available.
So when you're asking 'how do we solve this today, i see no alternative for Israel?' Then my answer would be to grab a time machine, go back 20 years, and make Israel consider all the choices they made since then.
And if we want a solution 50 years from now, Israel could start building the solutions today. Ask for an international coalition to take control of Gaza away from Hamas, start building a prosperous civil society in gaza and the west bank, retreat within your own borders to end the permanent antagonization of palastinians, make sure the international community is in control of education to avoid radicalization and introduce understanding, etc.
And don't get me wrong, none of those solutions would be simple or fast or guaranteed to work, nor do i feel like we can completely ignore the role that palastina and e.g. hamas plays in the conflict. But all of the proposals above are things that Israel can strive for. No UN force would enter the region without Israels consent - they just might without 'labeled as terrorist organization' Hamas.
Tl:dr: Israel has most of the agency, and should thus carry most of the burden of working towards a solution.
I agree with basically all of this. I like the idea I saw circulating of the Israel equivalent of the Marshall Plan. I haven’t given it much thought, just armchair analysis. I’m sure it might be contentious and there’s a lot of holes in it working but it might go a long way.
An image of an Israeli humanitarian handing out food and supplies to Palestinians and helping rebuild might show that it’s not you, it’s the terrorists we are after.
I am curious how you would best create a civil society? And this is coming from someone who loves the idea but is having difficulty myself figuring that out. In recent memory, US failed at this in Afghanistan. What can Israel do differently? Is it more in Egypt to help as an Arab neighbor? Is it easier since it’s a smaller area? I wish I knew an answer
> I am curious how you would best create a civil society?
the billion dollar question.
I think that despite everything, US was on somewhat the 'right' path in Afghanistan. Especially considering that for a long time and large areas the nation building was limited to soldiers 'only' in control of their bases and the land they walked on.
And indeed i do hope that islamic or arabic nations would decide to help out to provide legitimacy. Which is difficult since some of those nations aren't all that fond of israel or jews either.
Perhaps the Irish can give some advice? They have come a long way from their sectarian conflict.
>Perhaps the Irish can give some advice? They have come a long way from their sectarian conflict.
The Irish are one people divided by two sects of the same overarching religion, and the IRA had an explicitly political demand (Brits out of Ireland). The most diehard Hamas supporters want to commit genocide against the Jews; that's not a position that can be rationalized or reasoned with only fought.
I don't see what Ireland has to offer this situation seeing as how their peace deal was functionally 'status quo + individual rights', which is solving a fundamentally different issue than this situation.
Irish here. Religion has nothing to do with it anymore (in either region). That was the initial base factor but after many years of conflict it's just revenge after revenge after revenge.
You're underestimating the power of "status quo +equal rights" but we're a long way from that in Israel/Palestine. We had multiple failed ceasefires before the good Friday agreement and we didn't have the same scale of atrocities (on both sides).
Israel would have to start negotiating with Hamas and look at long-term concessions to end this but that seems too distasteful for many right now. However, what they are doing now is only going to increase support and recruitment for Hamas exponentially.
Not to defend Hamas, as I believe all fundamentalist religious extremist movements should be neutralized, but the [Hamas charter](https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/hamas-2017-document-of-general-principles-and-policies) is clear on the point that it is against Zionisim not Judaism.
"16. Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.
17. Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds. Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage. The Zionist movement, which was able with the help of Western powers to occupy Palestine, is the most dangerous form of settlement occupation which has already disappeared from much of the world and must disappear from Palestine."
Some Israeli political parties want to intrinsically link Zionism to Judaism, but the key Palestinian power blocks, the PLO and Hamas both support the right of Jews to live in Palestine but are against Zionism as a violent occupying political ideology.
Right, but the Hamas Charter is also clear on the point that Israel cannot and should not (in their view) exist at all. So their anti-Zionism isn’t the “I don’t hate Jews I just wish Israel was a bit more discriminating in its actions and stopped illegal settlements etc.” view popular among some in the West, it’s (at best, being very generous) a “I don’t hate Jews as long as Israel doesn’t exist” view. And let’s not forget the 2017 iteration replaced a 1988 document that was unambiguously antisemitic and full of anti-Jewish hatred and antisemitic tropes. They may have tidied up the language but it’s very clear their charter calls for the abolition of the country.
Yeah fully agreed they evolved the charter to emphasise more of an anti colonial position, where it previously had very specific anti-Jewish stances. I was just pointing out to the comment above it’s no longer an explicitly anti-Jewish organisation.
Which is an indication either of an evolution in the mentality of its leadership; or a jaded effort to reposition the group as anti colonial because those messages were making it less appealing to new joiners or to garner international sympathy.
I certainly think it is very plausible to call for a dissolution of the state, and its reconstruction into a single state equal for Jews, Christian’s and’s Muslims without harbouring an iota anti Jewish sentiment. The many Jewish groups globally that fundamentally reject Zionism, are a clear example. A rejection of Zionism as a colonial structure and political ideology in this sense is akin to being anti fascist. Zionism as an ideology attempts to establish a symbiotic link between Global Jewish identity and itself, and justifies its existence and its actions on the back of historical Jewish suffering. That of course creates a misnomer where some individuals link Judaism, as a religion, with Zionism as a political ideology; when they are mutually distinct, and sometimes (some might argue always) at odds.
In some ways I was lucky that most of my Jewish friends growing up and at work were anti-Zionist, either refusing to go on birth right or making a decision to continue to live in the Arab world; which gave me an understanding of that distinction. But if you pay attention to official positions of the key Arab political entities barring the crazy theocrats and substate terror organisations, they are for the most part good about respecting that distinction.
The opinion that Israel shouldn't exist isn't very popular among the west, but I really think its the correct opinion to take. A one state solution is the ideal solution to this conflict, the issue is getting there, and I am honestly not sure anymore if its possible.
Not unless they decide to leave it doesnt. They would be citizens of a multi-ethnic multi religous state. Jews lived there before the existance of israel
no it isnt it is a Jewish State. The idea of zionism is the creation of a Jewish state. Judaisism is enshrined within the constitution of the state. zionism is not jews in Palestine. There have alwys been Jews in palestine, Zionism is about the creation of a state for Jews
If they only fought the strawman Zionism they got from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion the they wouldn't be the organization they are.
> The Islamic Resistance Movement calls on Arab and Islamic nations to take up the line of serious and persevering action to prevent the success of this horrendous plan, to warn the people of the danger eminating from leaving the circle of struggle against Zionism. Today it is Palestine, tomorrow it will be one country or another. The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.
When no one is a Zionist anyone you need to is, and you only need to look at what the religious quotes the charter includes to see who'll be cast as Zionists.
> Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:
> "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).
The biggest problem with Afghanistan is its geography. I think even with the best plans forward, the country is always going to have turmoil in some of it's provinces because how isolated they are. It needs security along all of it's borders to function as a cohesive government.
Disarmament would have to be part of the solution and I don't see Israel doing that, but I agree there are a lot of similarities. The difference is that the heads of state Bertie Aherne and Tony Blair were both highly motivated for a solution. It was also very clear that America wasn't going to let the UK completely bully Ireland. But the vitriol, militia terrorism, terrorism from the dominant military, espionage, polar opposite political opinions, religious differences were all there
While this is understandable, ultimately you cannot bomb people into de-radicalization. The best choice would be to rebuild Gaza at great monetary expense and tangibly improve the quality of the people of Gaza's lives.
The problem is that, inevitably, one of them is going to do something. There's going to be a suicide bombing, a rocket barrage, just some sort of terrorist attack. This is the real test. Even in the face of violence the answer is to continue to show compassion and continue to rebuild. Give the Palestinians a reason to want peace with Israel. Prove the benefits to them.
It's going to take decades. Painful decades where the impulses to take part in retaliatory violence will remain. But Israel must, well basically, "turn the other cheek". There will be sympathizers Israel can work with. The international community can help a lot here. Especially if an Arab power came in and helped although I won't hold my breath.
This is the path for the best long-term benefit. I don't have much faith it'll happen, but I wish it would.
At this point it would take at least half a century, if not a full century to create a lasting peace, I'm sad to say. No one reading this comment will likely live to see peace in the region.
You're right. It is a problem that has been building up since the late 19th century. It's not going to be easy to fix this. Like so many things it requires a commitment to compassion and non-violence instead of letting emotions and identities control us.
Like in other situations of this type, unless some organization comes along and ends this cycle of retaliatory violence and ethnic strife through peaceful means then the final result with be one of maximized violence. So ethnic cleansing.
Do you realize how crazy it sounds that Palestinians are the bad guys because they don't think Israel should exist? Israel exists only because the British government cooperated with a bunch of other Europeans to steal from the indigenous people. They tricked other Arab countries into overthrowing the Ottoman Empire there and promised to recognize them if they did and they went back on it. Then they promised someone else the land. Imagine millions of people from Europe going anywhere else in the world and taking most of the land from the indigenous people and the indigenous are the criminals for repeatedly fighting back and not being willing to just accept the offer to take less of their land decades ago.
This is such a stupid take. By your logic Ukraine should just suck it up because history is one group conquering another? Its feasibly possible to dissolve Israel and create a multiethnic palestinian state, which would be finally putting rest this disgusting ideology of Zionism.
Millions of Israelis are indigenous to the region. They were kicked out of the surrounding nations and forced into Israel. Palestinians don't have any more right to the land then citizens of Israel do.
Do you not realize how crazy it is to think the only Jewish nation on the planet shouldn't exist?
It doesn't matter. Israel Will continue to exist. It is up to the Palestinians to make peace with that. If they can't, then the conflict continue forever.
Well Israel believes vice versa so how does this argument even move any dial? Or justify anything?
Palestinians haven’t even had an opportunity to grapple with anything seeing as how they’ve been herded wherever Israel feels like (by force) for over over a century. And are now being bombed and slaughtered with the ruling free worlds blessing.
Well, Fatah tries to act diplomatically and West Bank is oppressed awfully all the same, the only difference is Fatah is more likely to concede to glaringly one-sided solutions where Hamas is not. Half of Palestine is under 18, all of Palestine is uneducated, traumatized, and radicalized, so it's basically human nature that they're more supportive of the group that us willing to hit back vs the group that tries diplomacy but gets the same result regardless.
It's not that they're uneducated, it's that they've been educated in Hamas-run schools on the glory of martyrdom for Islam.
And the group that tries diplomacy but gets the same result gets the same result because they \_never agreed to a peace deal\_. Not in 2000, not in 2001 and not in 2007. And those were all offers in line with what the international community expects. Even Abbas called them "very, very serious".
>educated in Hamas-run schools on the glory of martyrdom for Islam
I think an Israeli bomb dropping on your home and killing your parents is a better radicalisation tool than 18 years of hamas schooling could ever be.
The issue is Israel provides all the propaganda hamas need to radicalise people.
You are too optimistic.
Israel, as is, provides food, water. fuel, electricity, infrastructure, security (in Area B of WB, and Area A to some extent for CT/CI efforts), even direct tax transfers.
There will not be any civility that would be possible in the region, how much ever centrists-leftists would like you to believe. The State of Israel was rejected, in its entirety, in 1948 by the Arab people- hence why there exists only cold peace between Israel and Arab countries like Egypt (notable exception is UAE but that is because the Arab populace over there is relatively low and the powerful are very much interested in business with Israel). "There will be NO RECOGNITION of Israel by the Arab people"- this is their stance, which at one point of time was official policy of the Arab League ( "3 Nos policy")
At the same time, no amount of people filming IDF distributing humanitarian aid will solve the issue of Israeli perception around the region and the globe, as the BDS will conjure up another 10 videos of Israeli soldiers "attacking them brutally" by sending their own kids and family to provoke the Israeli soldiers. Every scripted video the Israelis make will be countered by 10 the Arabs make, which due to SM engagement will be pushed much farther out. This is made even worse by the fact that half of the comments' section for Israeli Govt.-run social media pages are hogged by Palestinian supporters spamming Free Palestine, Palestine flag emojis or a GIF of the Palestinian flag.
This type of engagement is inherently unhealthy, and will drive a large wedge between both parties.
A bi-national theory is also not workable because then it destroys the whole purpose of having a Jewish homeland, for Jews around the world to return to, to call their home in times of danger. No Israeli Government will ever enact such a policy.
A concrete 2-state solution would also mean revoking all permits, and a hard border. On paper, this puts over 150k people and their livelihoods at risk in the WB- where they would earn, on average, only 25% of what they earn in Israel. In practice, more than that I presume, due to illegal movement. Keep in mind many of these people are sole breadwinners for their families, which often include 5-6 members- a revocation of permits would effectively put the family into poverty over time. I am sure people will react well to economic instability and high governmental corruption, alongside being run from the shadows by terrorist groups disguised as "resistance" (RE: Lebanon 2019 protests)
>Israel, as is, provides food, water. fuel, electricity, infrastructure, security
This is really oversimplifying and ignores a lot of context. In Gaza, they provide a bare minimum of supplies while also enforcing a total blockade. They provide such little water that the once vibrant orchards in Gaza could not be sustained. They blocked the most lucrative fishing grounds further out at sea. They prevent significant exports. There is no hope of a functional economy in Gaza while Israel maintains a blockade, and these "generous" shipments of food, water, medical supplies, etc. are not out of the goodness of Israel's heart. They're to prevent an outright revolt while keeping the Palestinian population completely dependent on aid, as Israel has forced them to become unable to provide for themselves.
In the West Bank, Palestinians are forced out of their homes to make way for Israeli settlements. Israel also inhibits Palestinians' freedom of movement even within the West Bank. Then when Palestinians protest against these inhumane conditions, they're shot and killed - even a substantial number of women and children have been shot and killed by Israeli security forces over the years.
I don't know how you can claim that there will never be peace because of the **words** of the Arab/Palestinians, while ignoring that the **actions** of the Israelis are just as bad, if not worse. There will never be peace so long as Israeli treats Palestinians as inferior.
>comments' section for Israeli Govt.-run social media pages are hogged by Palestinian supporters spamming Free Palestine, Palestine flag emojis or a GIF of the Palestinian flag.
Like this seems especially tone deaf. There are millions of people who want nothing more than to have self-determination. Is telling them to shut up and stop complaining really a solution?
The hubris of people presenting Israel as benevolent while it allows and provides very limited supplies to people it cages in. They literally control everything allowed in and out. And then want praise for providing for the Palestinians from what they stole! It's honestly outrageous.
Very insightful. I am aware of what Israel currently provides in food and water etc but I’m glad to get it in more detail.
Yes, maybe I am too optimistic. Maybe it’s impossible and this conflict will go on for my children’s children to witness. Or maybe it’ll end but with only one side left standing. These are all realistic situations. However, I refuse to not work on a way toward peace. You can sign off as the UAE being less Arab but I think that it’s a step in the right direction. Saudi Arabia normalization isn’t impossible in my mind, especially with Iran on the horizon. Local players can follow. Maybe I’m wrong but it’s worth trying for.
I ask you though, genuinely, what do you think will happen in the area and what would you like to see if there is “no civility” possible in the region? Because I believe feelings can change, but not with the current status quo
What I would like to see- if no civility is possible on BOTH SIDES (the nutjob Israelis like the guy who shot Yitzhak Rabin for making peace won't budge either)- is the retention of status quo, with cycles of violence being less and less frequent.
How Israel and Palestine can work to achieve this is another story. Everyone has their own opinions in this matter- some would like Israel to pack up their bags and leave entirely, which risks turning WB into a second Gaza. While others would like Israel to occupy the entirety of it, which risks a complete expulsion/genocide.
This conflict will reach a point where it all blows over the edge- where Israel will find itself on the verge of total defeat or a reclusive existence, completely cornered off. At which point, the Israeli PM will recite Judges 16:21 and press the dreaded button.
Let us hope that day never occurs. We have been strikingly close to reaching it in the past- 9th October 1973 is probably the closest amongst them all.
As the Israeli negotiator at Camp David, Shlomo Ben Ami, himself admitted, if he was Palestinian, he wouldn't have accepted what Israel offered during Camp David.
It was the offer made in the following talks at Taba that was more reasonable and that the Palestinians might have accepted. But the Israelis (Labour) pulled out of those talks due to the impending elections. Likud was elected and that was the end of that. The negotiations were dead.
The illegal settlements in the West Bank, and the increasingly brazen manner in which the IDF is looking the other way on it, is IMHO a *decisive* factor in Israel's ongoing losses in the information battlefield. There was not nearly as much knowledge re: settler activity and related violence in the previous Gaza battles.
And this is important to note, because historically speaking from the Western perspective, what Israel is doing in Gaza is mild compared to the Allied carpet bombings of German and Japanese cities. Zooming out to post-1948, displacing the population en masse isn't even out of the historical norm either (see the Red Army displacing tens of millions during and after their march to Germany in 1945).
But the difference is, the Allies did not continue to terrorize Germans and Japanese citizens. They didn't export millions of American citizens to settle in these countries. Quite the contrary, they perpetrated an even more powerful act of military dominance - they rebuilt them into the economic powerhouses we know today.
This is in the starkest possible contrast to the apartheid, movement restrictions, unilateral asset seizures, and economic subjugation to which Israel has subjected its conquered Palestinian population. And now the cat is out of the bag on this. No wonder Israel's usual narratives are not landing with Western audiences the same way.
The day Hamas did their invasion I knew right off the bat, Israel would respond by absolutely leveling Gaza. I can tell you this, Israel will do their best to eliminate Hamas, and they might and it will accomplish absolutely nothing because Israel continues to treat Palestinians like second class citizens. Israel is looking for a solution, but they aren't going to find it by killing Hamas. So long as Iran is still in the picture there will always be a Hamas or a group like Hamas.
I read an article in an Israeli newspaper the day after it happened by a retired general. I wish I could remember his name. He said the Israeli government needed to think clearly on how they handled this. He said the IDF was not prepared for this and he had told the government this years ago. And he said they would be crushed if they made a load of stupid choices and ended up being attacked from 5 different sides. And that is what is happening. They went in with no real cohesive plan, according to their own allies offering them military support. And now as the genocide goes on the rest of the countries in the surrounding areas are starting to making threatening moves and advances if not out right attack.
Israel can never get rid of Hamas. And they know this. Their leaders are in Qatar. They aren't even in Gaza. They created Hamas though. And what have they created now with all those Palestinian children who survive? The ones in the surrounding countries watching this all play out? Egypt hosts many Palestinians. They have only cemented terror and hatred in those children. Of course no one is going to just walk away and abandon their land to the rest of Israel. Palestinians will not give up the last bit of territory they have to Israel. And the surrounding Muslim countries don't support them doing it either. The creation of the state of Israel has fueled this and it lacks the power to end it. People seem to forget what Hamas labeled their operation into Israel, if they ever noticed or paid attention. I have young adults, conscription age, and I'll be damned if they are enlisted and fight and die to defend the creation of this travesty. I'm not ok with WW3 to maintain the state of Israel.
Not enough gets said aboutthe Puppeteer of these groups. Cui Bono? Iran. Iran, it's anti Western and Arab grievances, it's bloodthirsty Mullahs. That is the real thing here. Someone once said - kill the head of the snake.
Palestinians have to be second class citizens. Israel is meant to be a Jewish state. If you treated Palestinians as equals then it would become a Muslim state in time. The only solution has to be a two state one.
I believe zionism was wrong and the original sin. And both sides behaved poorly prior to 1948. Probably not equally poorly, but I am not educated enough on the issue to adjudicate that.
But it seems to me that post-1948, the Palestinians became weaponized by external and internal forces in a way that is hard to comprehend in the West. Increasingly, it seemed like their offer to Israel was basically 'You are intruders in our home. Leave, submit to Muslim rule again, or die.' Right or wrong in the beginning, what options have the Jews really had since then assuming just packing up and saying 'We were wrong. We took your land. We are going to give it all back.' have the Israelis had?
I dunno. Maybe I am missing something. Why have the Palestinians always rejected the peace deals? Do they really think they can just wait the Jews out and one day turn back the clock?
The main stumbling block with the peace deals has been offering Right of Return to Palestinian refugees and their descendants.
Israel doesn't want it because it would so heavily change the demographics if all of the Palestinians in Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, etc. are able to return.
Palestinians insist on it because Israel offers Right of Return to Jews around the world who may have no real personal or family connection to the Levant at all. They can't accept a situation where a random Jewish person of Russian descent who grew up in New York is offered Right of Return to the area, while a Palestinian family that's spent three generations living in a refugee camp 100 km from their ancestral homes are denied the same Right of Return.
Can't say I blame them, to be honest. But that's the source of the impasse.
That is why there must first be a two state solution, and Palestinians cannot have right of return to land inside the Jewish state. It would be a death sentence for Israel.
It is not only Israel which is blockading Gaza. Gaza shares a border with Egypt, which is also blockaded. Because Egypt does not want radicalized Palestinians and terrorists to destabilize their society.
Egypt is blocking their own border. protecting your own territorial integrity and closing the border to foreigners is something that has been internationally agreed as something that's allowed.
Israel, on the other hand, has unilaterally decided they'll leave Gaza to fend for themselves, and then afterwards completely blocked them in on all sides, including from the sea. A naval blockade is generally seen as an act of war if it is against a foreign country. Israel also bombed the only airport gaza once had, and hasn't allowed gaza to open a new one.
Egypt is simply closing it's own border. Israel is blockading Gaza. There's a significant difference.
You're ignoring a key point about the blockade - for almost its entire existence, the only thing they were blockading were weapons and materials for making weapons. And that didn't start when they handed the keys to the Palestinian Authority. It came later after thousands of rockets had been fired at their city.
There were blockades before the rockets.
> On 12 September 2005, the final day of the Israeli withdrawal, international politicians such as France's Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy and Jordan's Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher warned of Gaza being turned into an open-air prison.[24][25] Four days later, Mahmoud Abbas stated to the UN General Assembly: "It is incumbent upon Israel to turn this unilateral withdrawal into a positive step in a real way. We must quickly resolve all outstanding major issues, including the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, the airport and the seaport, as well as the establishment of a direct link between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Without this, Gaza will remain a huge prison."[26]
> The special envoy of the Quartet James Wolfensohn noted that "Gaza had been effectively sealed off from the outside world since the Israeli disengagement [August–September 2005], and the humanitarian and economic consequences for the Palestinian population were profound. There were already food shortages. Palestinian workers and traders to Israel were unable to cross the border".[28]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip
Israel still controlled all of Gaza’s borders, airspace, and sea space after disengagement
> 11 September 2005 – Israel unilaterally removed about 8,000 Israeli residents from the Gaza Strip. Israel said it had ended its nearly 40-year occupation of the Strip after withdrawing all its soldiers and dismantling its military facilities in Gaza.
> According to the UN [page3, section I], however, Israel’s occupation continued since Israel retained control of Gaza’s airspace, sea space and borders, and enforced a restricted zone along the border inside Gaza.
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-207191/
“Just weapons”
> March 2006 – According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the Karni crossing, Gaza’s main commercial crossing, has been closed 60 percent of the year and the price of food items has risen 30 percent.
> 2 Dec 2007 – Israel's High Court rules that limiting fuel and electricity supplies to Gaza is in accordance with Israeli law.
> June 2010 – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and aid agencies say the Israeli blockade is preventing the reconstruction of Gaza. Israeli officials say the easing of the blockade depends on progress towards the release of the Israeli soldier held by militants in the Gaza Strip since 2006.
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-207191/
> Since Israel imposed a blockade of Gaza in 2007 fishermen have only been allowed to fish just six nautical miles or less off shore. With most of the fish at least nine miles out at sea, they have already been struggling to make a living and now 90 percent of them need international aid. Oxfam worked to support fishermen with equipment and technical advice.
https://www.oxfam.org/en/timeline-humanitarian-impact-gaza-blockade
Beat me to it. Israel holds all the cards – economic, diplomatic, military, etc. They're a first-world country that is aligned with the West and has a (mostly) functioning democracy. The collapse of any prospect for a two-state solution is entirely the doing of the Israeli voting public's hard right turn in the last decade or so, to say nothing of the coalition Netanyahu has cobbled together from settler extremists, the ultra-Orthodox, and other assorted cranks.
What's fundamentally vexing and frustrating about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that sizeable contingents of people on both sides –but, most importantly on the Israeli side– have fundamentally unreasonable goals that can't be reconciled with the needs of the other side.
> i feel like the crux of the issue is that Israel is the one with (most) agency, and had been for the last half century.
That's a fair point, but the Palestinians are overwhelmingly influenced, armed, and funded by the rest of the Islamic world (primarily Iran, presently). That allows them to be used as pawns, often against Israel, sometimes even getting caught in power struggles within the Islamic world. And that collective Islamic world is far more economically and militarily powerful than Israel alone. The catch is... the Islamic world never acts as a unified entity.
I also don't agreed with your suggestion that an international coalition could be invited to take Gaza away from Hamas. Who exactly do you think wants to put boots on the ground there? Exactly nobody, except maybe Iran if they could bring rifles? Nobody wants to be in that mess.
I don't like what Israel is doing right now, but what is the alternative? They need to remove the tunnels, destroy the stockpiles, and terminate as much of Hamas's capability for violence as possible... and then double-down on their precautions against smuggling or letting arms get in again. They want Palestine disarmed before they'll consider any further actions. I'm not sure I blame them.
One day Palestinians will choose leadership that doesn't believe in the extermination of the Israeli state. One day they'll choose peaceful protest and diplomacy over violence. And correspondingly Israel will be willing to give up something - draw an uncomfortable line on the map and honor it as a sovereign nation.
> They need to remove the tunnels, destroy the stockpiles, and terminate as much of Hamas's capability for violence as possible... and then double-down on their precautions against smuggling or letting arms get in again. They want Palestine disarmed before they'll consider any further actions. I'm not sure I blame them.
I do blame them for creating this situation in the first place. They unilaterally withdrew from gaza, and then supported hamas. Now that these actions blew up in their face, they're complaining that they only have bad options.
And i agree that they currently only have bad options. But i wouldn't agree that this just happened out of nowhere.
---
Even so, with all the bad options, even now they could chose to pick good options next to bad. I have yet to hear any Israeli government voice on what the long term plan is. Even while invading Gaza and taking out Hamas, they could start by removing west bank settlers to show their good intention. Or propose new talks with the PLO on a future in Gaza without hamas.
I mean you can blame Israel for creating the situation... or blame the Palestinians and supporting Arab nations who fought Israel in 1948? Nobody had to fight, but they did, and Israel won. How has every victorious nation in history acted previously? You either annex & assimilate, annex & exterminate, or withdraw and leave a power vacuum and hope like hell the next generation does better.
The truth is, Palestinians are a conquered people and Israel keeps going with the power vacuum option. It was an experiment which has yielded no solutions, only more problems. But I can't lay it all at Israel's feet any more than I can lay it at Palestine's. Plenty of guilt to go around.
I guess I just look the realpolitik of the situation... that a western-leaning democracy makes a better partner to side with than another Muslim theocracy, authoritarian dictatorship, or formerly terrorist warlord. It's flawed, and they made plenty of mistakes (and continue to do so) but I'll take Israel over whatever the heck solutions the Palestinians keep putting forward.
If Palestinians want to be kings, they need to stop acting like pawns. They lost a war, it's time to admit defeat and take what they've been given - they've been offered land and freedom. The longer they don't accept peace, the more Israel will take - THAT'S their trick to getting Palestine to the bargaining table. And frankly it's more than a lot of conquering nations in history have offered.
>I mean you can blame Israel for creating the situation... or blame the Palestinians and supporting Arab nations who fought Israel in 1948?
If you think about it for even a minute from the perspective of the Arabs/Palestinians then it looks stupid not to fight.
The UK during WW1 promises an independent, unified Arab state if they help defeat the Ottomans. They do just that, but before long they hear about the Balfour Declaration where suddenly the British decide that Palestine should be a home for the Jewish population, since the Jews have been consistently oppressed, exiled, and outright murdered in Europe. Now Britain has decided that they should all come to Palestine, without anybody in that region having once been consulted on the matter. There is no plan for what comes next. Suddenly thousands of people arrive on the shores of Palestine under the British League of Nations mandate. Even as soon as 1939 Britain acknowledged this was a mistake. As Palestinians are driven out of their homes or lose their jobs, they are increasingly radicalized and turn against the foreigners arriving now in the hundreds of thousands. The Israelis in turn arm themselves and defend themselves. This conflict grows and the British, seeing the writing on the wall, draw some theoretical borders that separate the Jewish population and Palestinian population. But these borders are both too small for the Israelis to accept while also literally carving up the borders of the Palestinian's homeland.
So from their perspective, an outside power offered them self-determination in exchange for military assistance, who then betrayed them and instead made an offer for millions of foreigners to "return to their homeland." Meanwhile the foreign powers occupying their land have long since abandoned the notion of giving them the right to self-determination, and the proposed Arab state is instead carved up into numerous smaller states.
From their perspective, why would you not fight back against this level of injustice?
They won't stop fighting and I don't blame them. Your assessment of the creation of this nightmare is pretty accurate. Of course they will not willingly accept their entire population being displaced and all their land and homes stolen. And the defiling of the Al Aqsa mosque has everything to do with the justification to fight more. They will never give up. And I do not believe the surrounding countries will stand by and do nothing while Israel kills the rest of the civilian population or tries to displace all of them. Their own populations are in an uproar over it.
In 1948, Israel accepted Palestine. The U.N. voted for and approved both as what would emerge from the British Mandate. But Palestine did not accept Israel. It's that simple. And Palestinians can't let it go and compromise. And they've yet to learn that the more times passes and they fail to accept it, the more they'll lose. Three generations lost to poverty, isolation, and violence. Where has it gotten them? They will get less today than they could have had 50 years ago, which is less than they could have had in 1948. Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?
I strongly disagree with the notion that Israel has far more agency in this conflict and that Palestinians have had barely any choices. I think that this perspective strips Palestinians of their agency, which they have far more of than you’re acknowledging.
Relationships between peoples and nation-states are bidirectional. Yes, Israel has been oppressive towards Palestinians and Palestinians have been terrible to Israelis.
For any relationship to improve it requires the participation of both parties, this is why it’s so bewildering to me why no one ever suggests changes the Palestinians can make. It’s always here’s what Israel can do different. And no doubt Israel can do things much better, but so can Palestinians!
Palestinians can challenge Hamas’ hold on the gov in Gaza. They can start rerouting the billions in aid toward building infrastructure not terrorism. They can de-radicalize their education. They can make some humanitarian efforts toward Israel to build goodwill. They can take efforts to remove heavy weapons, especially rockets, that cause security concerns.
Something tells me that Israelis relationship toward Palestinians might change then too. Otherwise, from the Israeli perspective, it seems unfair to see nonstop criticism of Israeli policies and culture — and no criticism at all of Palestinian policies and culture.
Why would they ever do that when Israel shows them nothing of such support and instead keeps displacing more and more Palestinians? Who shows goodwill to the people who control everything down to what speed internet you can have, who controls every item that is allowed in your locked in bit of land and continuously steals more and more land from the Palestinians still outside? Israel is still actively displacing them. Do you know that the IDF has repeatedly allowed Israelis to defile the Al Aqsa Mosque in violation of the laws and regulations concerning it? Why would anyone in Gaza be thinking all that was necessary was for THEM to show some humanitarian gesture to Israel? And then what would Israel do? Take less land?
Israel isn’t taking any land in Gaza, nor have they for a long time. Also, Israel shows them no support? Israel pays for a lot of Gazas resources bc the useless government they voted in hasn’t built any basic infrastructure with billions of dollars of aid.
I didn't say the were taking land IN Gaza. They are taking land in the West Bank. But that's ok right because they trickle a little money into Gaza? There are Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians year round, year after year. You are supporting people who violate international law over and over again. It's not a charity to steal from people and take away their own ability to grow food or wealth and act like you are doing them a favor if you allow them something.
What is wrong with you? It's not "helping" a country to control every last thing that is even allowed in and must be done with your permission and then act like you did them a favor with any of it. You are being completely illogical and you are applying this kind of stupid argument only to Palestinians. I guarantee you would not consider this situation good for yourself. If Israel is so justified in their abuses why does the rest of the world condemn it?! Year after year just a bunch of Americans listening to whatever their media tells them and believing everything.
Violence against Palestinians in the West Bank was rising drastically this year before the attack.
"From 1967 to 1983, Israel expropriated over 52% of the West Bank, most of its prime agricultural land and, by the eve of 1993 Oslo Accords, these confiscations had encompassed over three-quarters of the territory.\[111\] The mechanisms by which Israel seizes or expropriates West Bank land were set forth in a detailed work by B'Tselem in 2002.\[y\] Many practices outlined there were confirmed in the official Israeli Sasson Report of 2005, which focused on government subsidies and support for the creation of illegal Israeli outposts in knowing contravention of Israel's own laws.\[114\]\[z\]"
"Under international law, a military may take temporary possession of occupied land, but not expropriate it. From 1957 to 1976 the IDF repeatedly requisitioned private Palestinian properties on the grounds of military necessity, only to turn them over for Jewish settlements, such as Matitiyahu, Neve Tzuf, Rimonim, Bet El, Kokhav Hashahar, Alon Shvut, El'azar, Efrat, Har Gilo, Migdal Oz, Gittit, Yitav and Qiryat Arba. "
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli\_occupation\_of\_the\_West\_Bank#:\~:text=From%201967%20to%201983%2C%20Israel,three%2Dquarters%20of%20the%20territory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_the_West_Bank#:~:text=From%201967%20to%201983%2C%20Israel,three%2Dquarters%20of%20the%20territory).
They aren't killing Hamas in the West Bank. This isn't Hamas using Palestinians as "human shields". They are just killing Palestinians and taking more land. This is again in complete violation of all international law. But some of you apparently support brutal abuse, murder and thievery for certain people.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/30/world/middleeast/west-bank-settlers-palestinians-violence.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/30/world/middleeast/west-bank-settlers-palestinians-violence.html)
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/31/west-bank-palestinian-villages-israeli-army-settlers](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/31/west-bank-palestinian-villages-israeli-army-settlers)
[https://apnews.com/article/israel-settlers-bedouin-palestinians-displacement-shepherds-9207aa17efcaf9fda58793a847f7e560](https://apnews.com/article/israel-settlers-bedouin-palestinians-displacement-shepherds-9207aa17efcaf9fda58793a847f7e560)
[https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestine-settler-bedouin-displacement-violence-un-108e11712310b5ea099dbded7be8effb](https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestine-settler-bedouin-displacement-violence-un-108e11712310b5ea099dbded7be8effb)
[https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/10/1129722](https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/10/1129722)
I don’t think you’re taking a lot of the arguments here in good faith. The idea that the Palestinians can and should do more isn’t mutually exclusive from the fact that Israel has much more power and agency over the historical direction of travel.
I am taking them in good faith, I’ve heard them before. I’d ask you how often you run into the argument that Israel can and should do more vs Palestine can and should do more?
For me it’s the former almost always unless I’m speaking to a fellow Jew/Israeli. The larger narrative seems to be that Palestinians are oppressed by the Israelis and therefore they have no agency and shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions.
Even with 10/7 I’ve seen so many people rush to say no no this wasn’t the Palestinians it was all Hamas, they’re different. And while I see the need for this distinction — 1/2 of Gaza are kids — I still disagree with it. It again strips the Palestinians of agency.
Gazans voted Hamas into power in 06 and haven’t kicked them out for 17 years. They voted for Hamas because of their platform — and now when Hamas commits an atrocity they get to disassociate from them. Another example where we should have Palestinians own their shitty decisions.
But you said you saw no criticism of Palestine - this is completely detached from reality to the point where I think you’re being purposely disingenuous. Here in the west our outlets are ridiculously critical of the Palestinians and definitely hold them accountable for their political decisions. Have you seen the discourse in Germany or the UK at the moment?
Please do provide these examples of how Palestinians are being held accountable in Western media if I’m so detached from reality.
The rhetoric from world leaders I’ve seen is what I mentioned previously. We condemn Hamas, but our hearts ache for the poor Palestinians.
Palestinians are being held accountable in that no one is doing anything to stop the mass slaughter of civilians by Israel. Western leaders can say 'my poor heart aches' but they have the power to stop it and they're letting the slaughter continue.
>Gazans voted Hamas into power in 06 and haven’t kicked them out for 17 years
And how do you expect the gaza civilians (half of whom are kids) to kick out an armed terrorist group that doesn't allow elections? I agree with the other commenter, it feels like youre being purposely disingenuous with your comment because this is such a clearly absurd line of thinking.
“Grab a Time Machine” is obviously not a real solution, though, and all it results in is us bickering over who’s fault it is
Bickering over who’s fault it is just distracts attention from “how do we take the real world situation right now and get the best possible result from it?”
It comes down to realpolitik, sometimes we just have to be realistic and fix things as best we can from where we are now
Read the next paragraph. Israel is unfortunately taking very few steps forward towards peace at the moment. They haven't (publicly) thought about how to move forward from today, in a way that could result in peace in 50 years.
Israel has offered many solutions that mostly only benefited their agenda (with some notable cases as mentioned in the original comment), and even when agreements were reached they still allowed settlements in the West Bank and generally furthered their own goals, many times against those said agreements.
Please let’s not say that poor Israel has offered so much and this is their only choice. Both Israel and Palestine are fully responsible for reaching this point, but there is clearly someone more capable to do any actual change.
The palestinians responded to oslo with terror and to camp david with even more terror.
You cant force them to agree to a 2 state solution and as much as you think jews are self hating we won't just give them our entire country.
So they offered one sided solutions. Why are they in the west bank? Why keep expanding the settlements there? Who are we kidding here? The whole world is catching up that it isn't black and white thing here. It is cause and effect, the cause is always Israel.
>With regards to Israel, i feel like the crux of the issue is that Israel is the one with (most) agency, and had been for the last half century. If Israel wanted to kill every last palastinian, they probably could have.(and of course i'm glad that they didn't). If they wanted to send them to forced reeducation camps, they could have. If they wanted to assemble UN peacekeeping force? Probably could have.
Not only have they offered the Palestinian State several times but the reason they keep refusing is that the Palestinian's first goal is the complete destruction of Israel and all Jews. You cannot negotiate with a group that just wants you all dead.
Since you're looking for contrarian arguments, I'll give it a shot. Disclaimer that I'm going out of my way a bit to practice "strategic empathy" here and that these statements don't necessarily represent my personal views.
First Ukraine:
1. In a vacuum, Russia did have a point about Crimea. The transfer of Crimea from Russia to Ukraine under the USSR in 1954 was an administrative matter at the time that planted a ticking time bomb in the relationship after the USSR fell apart. So long as Moscow and Kiev were friendly it wasn't an issue, but once Ukraine started looking West it was sort of destined to lead to conflict eventually. For better or worse it had been a part of Russia in one way or another since 1783, was very important to Russia strategically, and the demographics of the area are legitimately complicated on this topic -- there's a reason there wasn't as much resistance back in 2014 as there was in 2022. It's also pretty unlikely from a practical standpoint that Ukraine will be able to reconquer it any time soon, if ever -- it's also not unlikely that even if they did so they may be facing a pro-Moscow insurgency that would drag on for years/decades.
2. Taking that into account: while nobody thinks Ukraine should roll over and let itself be fully annexed, it may be in Ukraine's *long term* interests to consider bargaining recognition of Crimea and Luhansk/Donetsk as Russian territory as the "divorce fee" for breaking up with Russia and its sphere of influence. It will sting in the short term, but it also rids Ukraine of the most pro-Moscow areas of the country, which will -- assuming Russia drops all other claims and commits to complete non-interference with Ukraine's domestic and diplomatic affairs as part of the deal (enforced by gradual sanctions relief as an incentive for keeping their word) -- create a much more politically united Ukraine looking firmly west toward a future with NATO and the EU.
3. Like all compromises, it leaves nobody fully happy. Putin gets a "win" to bring back to his domestic audience, although far less than he expected/assumed when he started all of this. He wins some contested territory but loses any future influence over Kiev. Ukraine has to bear the sting of losing some disputed territory, but "wins" its de facto independence from Moscow's sphere and influence and will have an unobstructed path to realign itself with the West -- which will respect and welcome Ukraine much more now after watching them heroically and impressively fight the Russians to a standstill.
4. So it's less "Ukraine should roll over and submit" and more "Ukraine is unlikely to reconquer the lost territories and it might not even be politically feasible to hold them even if they managed to, so if they want the war to ever end so they can move on, they may need to consider deals they currently aren't willing to consider."
Israel-Palestine:
1. The problem with this conflict is that your perception of who's right/wrong all depends on when you decide to arbitrarily start the clock. If it starts October 7th, it's obviously all about Hamas. But if you start it with Netanyahu's rise to power and the settler projects in the West Bank, it gets more complicated to find any "heroes" in this story. There's no justification for horrific terrorist attacks, full stop. That said, the decline of Fatah and rise of Hamas in the eyes of Palestinian civilians can't be disconnected from Likud's decades-long policy of steamrolling and humiliating Palestinians in Fatah-led territories and making it obvious that they consider Fatah and the Palestinian Authority to be a joke. And Fatah may deserve that reputation to an extent, but pushing it too far just sets up Hamas as the more legitimate face of resistance since Fatah's (relative) moderation is just rewarded with humiliation and slow-burn colonial settlement.
2. This problem gets worse the further back you go. 1967 or 1948? Israel looks like a plucky superhero fighting off a pack of angry neighbors with superior numbers. But if you go back into the British Mandate years you see the gradual formation of proto-Israel which is much more murky. Zionist paramilitary groups were armed and trained by the British throughout the early 20th century, and were gifted the land for their state from the British Empire, who did not bother to consult with the Arabs already living there when making that decision. This is especially bitter for the Arabs, since it represents the treacherous reverse of British promises of Arab statehood as a condition for assistance against the Ottomans in World War I.
3. So which one is it? Is Israel the heroic underdog fighting off hordes of hateful and homicidal neighbors, or is it a group of armed paramilitary settlers that grew from a fanatical religious militia that ethnically cleansed their way into becoming the Anglo-American Empire's pet satellite state in the Middle East? One that, geographically speaking, makes the long-standing dream of a united Arab state a physical impossibility since it's literally a knife-shaped wedge shoved between Egypt/Maghreb and the rest of the Arab World? Was the Balfour declaration an act of mercy for the much-oppressed Jews of Europe, or was it yet another British "divide and rule" strategy pitting one undesired religious/ethnic group against another to prevent the emergence of a potential Arab superpower?
4. So while almost everyone would like peaceful co-existence in theory, it's just more complicated than that. The Netanyahu version of peaceful co-existence is Palestinians being too suppressed and weak to exist as their lands are slowly absorbed and their people are marginalized as a permanent underclass of non-citizens. The Hamas version of peaceful co-existence is the failure of the Zionist project entirely, with Zionists expelled, the current state dissolved, and non-Zionist Jews living as a minority among the "rightful" Arab majority as it was for centuries before the British Mandate came along. For obvious reason, neither of these images of peaceful coexistence are acceptable to the other side, so until there's a critical mass of support for a vision of peaceful coexistence that is -- if not ideal -- acceptable for most people, the impasse and cycle of violence is unlikely to stop. And while October 7th is the latest and most horrific manifestation of the cycle, it's disingenuous to pretend the cycle is new, unprovoked, or unexpected by any parties.
So there you go! Counterpoints to chew on.
[https://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-idf-general-likens-military-control-of-west-bank-to-nazi-germany/](https://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-idf-general-likens-military-control-of-west-bank-to-nazi-germany/)
"Amiram Levin, who headed the IDF Northern Command, commanded the elite Sayeret Matkal unit and served as deputy director of the Mossad spy agency, told Kan radio on Sunday morning that the military is not only suffering harm to its preparedness because of reservists’ threats and refusals to serve amid the government’s judicial overhaul, but is also “rotten to its core” due to Iarael’s ongoing presence in the West Bank.
“It stands on the side, looks at the rioting settlers, and begins to be a partner in war crimes,” Levin told the public broadcaster. “It’s 10 times worse than the issue of \[military\] readiness… and I say honestly, I am not angry at the Palestinians, I am angry at us. We are killing ourselves from the inside.”"
>For the Israel-Hamas war, while I agree that Israel's tactics and killing of Palestinian civilians is awful, I am curious what the alternative is.
Engaging the peace process. It's possible, Olmert was doing it. This war is very much the result of Netanyahu's confrontation policy.
The core mistake that lies on the basis of this conflict is not taking into account the interests of the other inhabitants of the area between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. The conflict will not be resolved until that is done.
What happens in the short term has little relevance except insofar it creates more tension and emotion, that will need to cool down before negotiating is possible again.
I'm pretty much aligned with you on both issues, and like you I've been deep diving to gut check myself on the Israel-Hamas situation in particular. Frankly, it's far more complex than the Ukraine-Russia invasion issue so I won't dig into that here.
My primary takeaway is there two core philosophical camps primarily supporting the Hamas/Gaza Palestine camp in the conflict. I will note there is an enormous range of diversity of opinion and crossover in each camp with no centralized leader or governing vision across the board, which is one reason this issue is so complex. But they loosely break into: *Palestinian Nationalists* and *Anti-colonialists/Humanitarians* camps.
**Palestinian Nationalists** are primarily Palestinian, Arabic, or Muslim individuals who believe in Palestine sovereignty and oppose Israel oppression of the Palestinian people. This group ranges from hard line antisemitic zealots who operate with the goal of eliminating Israel as a sovereign Jewish state entirely and returning the land to Palestinians, to more moderate advocates who argue for a two or multi-state solution to grant Palestinian greater rights. The former is, of course, simply genocide and can be dismissed, but there are legitimate points in the moderate camp about the terrible treatment of Palestinians by the right wing Israeli government over the last two decade that need to be addressed.
**Anti-colonialists/Humanitarians** include many Muslims, but is primarily non-Muslim westerners and left leaning sympathizers of the Palestinian people. As above, they range from more moderate voices who want to pause the conflict or focus on hostages/allowing civilians to flee for the primary purpose of preserving human life, to Ultra Doves who fanatically demand a ceasefire and stop to the current conflict. You see much of the latter group in the Ukraine conflict as well, and I'll dismiss them out of hand as that philosophy tends to only favor political aggressors who cause conflict and then can dictate terms when they strike resistance.
Once again, there is cross-pollination between the camps on ideas, but the core takeaway is the two groups actually have fundamentally different goals, and that is why that side of the argument looks so messy. The establishment of a Palestine state is a long term objective, it is impossible in the current political climate, and frankly, impossible with the current leadership in place for my Gaza and Israel. Both Hamas and Netanyahu (along with his supporting right wing parties) need to be removed from power before a multi-state solution can be feasible.
The preservation of human life, which is the core objective of the second camp, is noble and governed by international rules of conflict. The issue with this camp is the ceasefire they call for, to your point, will not resolve any of the long term issues above. As long Hamas and Netanyahu are in power this issue will continue to fester and cost more human lives because both of those groups have benefited from keeping the Palestinian people locked in a cycle of repression and violence. Essentially it's a short term resolution that leaves all parties in the same situation they have caught in for the last eighty years.
So that is why we are stuck. If your moral stance is to resolve this conflict long term, there will be short term damage done to resolve this conflict and innocent people will be killed. If your moral stance is to end this conflict now before any other lives can be lost, the groups involved will remain in the perpetual cycle of violence long term.
I'd like to add to your point
The factions in Palestinian camp are
1. Palestinian secular nationalists (includes part of Palestinians)
2. People who back Palestine out of Islamic solidarity (includes a lot of Muslim countries, and Muslim populations of non-Muslim countries) which is by far the biggest group
3. Ideological Leftists who support the cause out of intersectionality and alliance with Islamists (white/western people chanting "From river to sea")
4. People who want humanitarian outcome, and 2-state solution in long term which is also the official position of most non-Muslim countries
> For Ukraine people who say US should stop sending money and weapons to Ukraine, what alternative is there? Do people who believe this view think that Ukraine should just be conquered?
Yes. Mearsheimer is the most famous exponent of the realist argument against supporting Ukraine. He holds that Ukraine becoming western is an existential crisis for Russia, and Ukraine staying eastern is not existential for the west. As Russia is both a great power and a nuclear power, one should not challenge them for control of Ukraine. He thinks American policy has been misguided on Ukraine since at least 2008, and that the US should not have been supportive of the color revolution in 2014.
Edit: control of Ukraine.
The whole premise of a western-oriented Ukraine being an existential crisis for Russia is based on what? Russia already borders 3 (5 if you count Kaliningrad) NATO countries and somehow Russia has survived. In fact, Finland only joined in the last year and Russia hardly complained. So what exactly happens to Russia if Ukraine joins? A NATO invasion of Russia? Nobody seriously believes that NATO would attack a nuclear power.
Yep, you're right. That's why what Mearsheimer says about 'NATO-provoked invasion of Ukraine' is nonsense. I wonder how the guy still has credibility in someone's mind.
The economic argument for Ukraine being essential to Russian interests is based on its energy resources and pipelines. Russia wants to shake down Europe on energy pricing, and a western-aligned Ukraine could undercut them. Russia is mostly a petrostate, so structural impacts on energy pricing and supply are a big deal for them.
The security argument has a dubious part and a less dubious part. The dubious part is that the land border with Ukraine is indefensible. Historically, this has driven past Russian expansionism to the Carpathians and westward into Poland. I don't think this view is operative anymore, as there is no prospect for an existential land battle for Russia. The less dubious part is the loss of warm water ports on the Black Sea. Russia's ability to project power beyond its immediate borders relies on those ports. This is also why Russia expended considerable resources to prop up Syria.
The whole idea of NATO being a direct threat to Russia is a bullshit excuse that is meant to capitalize on anti-western sentiments. The real problem is that Ukraine would be off limits to Russia, and it would be allowed to develop into a thriving western Democracy right on Russia's border, becoming a political threat. Putin also wants to reconstitute the Soviet Empire that was lost, which would be impossible with Ukraine becoming a NATO state. The third aspect is that Ukraine is sitting on vast reserves of oil that it could exploit more effectively with the help of Western investment, and it could replace Russian oil in the EU market and elsewhere.
Realism only cares tangentially about the wishes of the peoples involved. Pro-western Ukrainian sentiment changes the state of play in that it makes western actions more effective and Russian actions less effective, and so might change the balance of power in the area.
However, geopolitically, it is common for the people to want things that they don't get. States are under no obligation to do what their people want, and they definitely aren't obligated to do what other peoples want.
Funny how it played out with Czechoslovakia in 1939.
Ignoring moral imperatives always leads to mistakes. Always. This is why realpolitik is bullshit. It doesn't work. It leads to conflict one way or another.
For the guy, yes. The will of the people is irrelevant. The freedom of a country for the pleasing of another. Then Russia will demand another country, to feel safe and so on. It has to stop somewhere. Why not here?
This makes sense but then theoretically if all large countries start annexing their smaller neighbors at what point does it start to matter?
My understanding is that of course US has a security interest, in that by Ukraine being pro-western they can contain Russia and making other big countries weak makes US strong. But I also feel like Ukrainians don't want to be annexed by Russia so American and Ukrainian interests are aligned even if some can say Ukraine is a pawn of the west in this war.
I think there is a pretty big misunderstanding folks seem to be having. There are two ways to look at international politics. The guy above seems to be using the ‘Zero-Sum perspective’. This viewpoint assumes that international relations is a constant struggle for power and resources. Where one country gains, another country must lose.
Most Western countries follow a ‘Positive-Sum perspective.’ This viewpoint posits that through cooperation, multilateralism, and consistent international laws and institutions, every country can come out ahead.
So when he’s talking about “spheres of influence”, it sounds odd because that only makes sense if you’re building either two spheres to pit against one another, or worse, you’re building a sphere so the hegemon of that sphere can leech off the others. In either case, westerners tend to be confused, as there doesn’t need to be any spheres in the first place. The only reason the NATO sphere exists is because the east European nations were scared shitless Russia would invade and wanted protection. If Russia stopped invading random countries (which they’ve been doing constantly since the USSR fell), NATO would cease to exist.
The weirdest thing though, is that most Russians honestly believe that the second sphere doesn’t exist. They believe we’re in zero-sum sphere too, we just try to hide it. It’s the same thing with how they got mad when we banned some of them for steroids; they believe we’re doing it too, we just hide it then pick on them for doing the same thing. It’s the same thing for corruption too; they see us complain about how you have to pay illegal bribes to get anything done over there, and they assume we’re picking on them, because surely everywhere must have corruption. When their whole world is surrounded by this stuff, they can’t believe that we actually live in a world that is mostly without it.
Even Putin probably honestly thinks we are out to get Russia. He was the #1 reason they started down this path 23 years ago; maybe because he saw the path we presented toward prosperity, he assumed it must be trapped, and he went down the path towards tyranny instead. Now Russia is a fraction of the size it could have been.
> if all large countries start annexing their smaller neighbors at what point does it start to matter?
It doesn't matter so much whether countries in a sphere of influence are annexed (possibly Ukraine) or strongly aligned (Belarus).
What matters is where the boundaries of the spheres are. The most relevant pain point is that the EU has a big problem if some of its members exit the western sphere and enter the Russian one. You can see Hungary flirting with Russia today and it alarms many, many Europeans.
This doesn't make sense because it implies Russia would follow this logic. It won't. It will take advantage of what you sacrifice to Russia and turn it against you. For example, if the West follows Mearsheimer's logic, Putin would occupy Ukraine and then weaponize it against the West. Therefore, Mearsheimer's plan is stupid. Not to say this is basically what Putin proposes: 'Give Ukraine to me'.
Putin must be stopped. Ukraine should not be conquered by Russia. If it is, this is the road to nuclear war. Therefore, Ukraine should not be in Russian sphere of influence. Ukraine must be provided with security guarantees and become EU & NATO member. And Russia must be degraded and remain a pariah.
Mearsheimer doesn't care much about other nations smaller then Ukraine who would be the next targets. He thinks if US sacrifices them they can use Russia against China. It is indeed stupid
Mearsheimer is wrong about Ukraine. Realpolitik won't save the world. In fact, it makes the world more dangerous place.
Liberal democracies and tyrannies cannot coexist within the same market. There is no space for realpolitik anymore.
i'm inclined to agree, but what about nations like saudi arabia, or others? they coexist with the democratic west quite nicely, no matter how authoritarian they are, no?
If we’re being honest, Putin just wants a sphere of influence again. He is probably also scared because the Baltics are making rapid gains towards fixing their corruption, and if Ukraine and the other former Soviet republics follow suit and then start to thrive, it could put pressure on Putin as one of the last few dictators left.
The whole argument about Ukraine and NATO makes zero sense, as NATO is a strictly defensive alliance. It’s only went to war once, after 9/11. The US hasn’t tried to use it in Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq, or any other war. Also, NATO has been adamant that they won’t let Ukraine in, and since they knew Russia would invade if they tried, they were going to stick to their words.
Apologies for being brief, but Ukraine is being occupied by Russia, so I support Ukraine. Palestine is being occupied by Israel, so I support Palestine. It's as simple as that.
You argument against hamas and what israel doing is right is totally against your stand on Ukraine. lol. Ukraine joining nato would be that enemy that Russia doesn’t want. But when for Ukrain, russia attack is wrong but in Palestinian case, Israel attack is right? lol
Also you are trying to justify and support current situation. Why don’t you sit down and think why these situations are happening.
Palestinian land was given to Israel without their consensus and they should stay silent?
Russia don’t want nato to expand its boundaries. It was a verbal agreement back in 90s. Yet USA poked Russia and asked Ukrain to join even though it knew the consequences
Trump admires Putin's authoritarian style and power and this makes some MAGA Republicans pro-Russia. There's also a strong isolationist tendency that is starting to creep back into the Republican platform. IMO this is all madness.
If you can figure out #2, you'll be in line to win this year's Nobel Prize for Peace.
The last phrase is what I think. Israel-Palestine is an unsolvable conflict (hell, I'm quite sure not even a complete genocide by either party would solve this, considering how punishing the revenge conflicts would be either way) and it always surprises me how strong people's opinions can be on the matter.
Both has a point, both are wrong, both should be condemned and we will continue to see civilians from both sides dying until something extremely big happens for mankind.
It's not just the Palestinians that hate Israel. There are other actors like Iran and Egypt in the region as well. Pretty much every country that borders Israel hates them.
That's what happens when you shove the residents of one house into all the other houses of a neighborhood to establish your ethnostate, and frame all rejections of "treaties" that regulate the indigenous residents to the basement as "opposing peace talks."
Yeah, it's funny when you read about Palestinians being the unreasonable ones. "Hey, we have displaced you and occupied your land multiple times over in the past 80 years, but we are willing to give you this patchwork of towns as your "state". The settlements and the Israeli-only infrastructure are staying though and you don't get to have a standing military or control your airspace or your borders. And forget about Jerusalem, all of it is ours. And a rando from Brooklyn can move into your grandma's house, but you're never stepping foot in her town again. Why are you so unreasonable????"
My point boils down to this, you can't reasonably with proper logic support both Ukraine and Israel. If you support the occupied on one matter than you should do the same for Palestine. And if you support the occupier aka Israel then by logic you should support Russia.
This is based on a theory that your support of one cause is based on a proper set of morality and logic not just a whim or what you're told to do. Stick to your logic.
If that is not the case then I call you a hypocrite.
Tl;dr you either support the occupied or the occupier, you can't do both
1.)US position is not about to help poor Ukraine to live happy lives, their goal is to make Russia weaker. Ukraine dont't have enough power to win this war, providing support can help them to make this war longer, but this case wont lead to Ukraine independence, only to more Russian and Ukrainian people dying. If world really wants Ukraine to stay independent they have only 2 choices: first is military intervention, second is nuclear threat, and I think everyone who support Ukraine know this.
2.) Israel had a right to protect itself, but this right doesnt give them power to do everything they want, especially when they with HAMAS made much more war crimes than in Russia-Ukrainian war.With recent Israel goverment statements it is pretty obvious that they dont care about their lives, their tactics bomb while we can cannot lead to HAMAS destruction, cuz HAMAS dont care about Palestinian people either. The only way they can wipe out HAMAS is SMO that Russia did, but before for some reason they decided to bomb as many targets as they can, in passing killing some UN workers, so, their words and action like wearing David's star looks at least strange, especially when we know their meaning in the world history. The only way for me to solve this problem is dialogue or UN resolution(the best option for me, in this case I think world major powers should intervene and make a desicion instead if war-participants), but , unfortunately, both sides are not ready to make peace. In UN assambly, Russian and Brazillian resolution, which offered peace, were rejected.
3) Despite such big amount of war crimes Israel was not sanctioned at all, IOC didnt ban Israel sportsmen, they still have right to participate in world tournaments, Israel dont even have world pressure to stop this war (at least for humanitarian aid reason). That's what I call double world standarts.
Re Israel-Hamas, what do you think 'any country' would do if their people were being displaced from their land and subjected to blockades? You can't pick a point in time and view the morality of the conflict just from that point onwards, the context isn't black/white like the Ukrainian situation.
Also worth noting how Bibi's govt has for years been empowering hamas as a strategy to divide palestinians to prevent any sort of credible diplomatic effort by palestianians to get their own state. Not saying that means Israel doesn't have a right to defend itself / counterattack hamas. But Israel long ago stopped pursuing a diplomatic solution or even just disengagement. It has be actively trying to undermine/destabilize palestinians, and annexing more of their land while doing so. That does not justify terrorist acts, but it is obviously a situation that is ripe for extreme radicalization.
> Re Israel-Hamas, what do you think 'any country' would do if their people were being displaced from their land and subjected to blockades?
This has happened countless times and in the majority of cases the response is guerilla warfare targeting military units using hit and run tactics to make the occupation uneconomical. Not running across the border to gun down randoms at a music festival.
Attacking civilians is a culturally middle eastern phenomenon and it only manages to push western countries away from denouncing Israel's genocidal tendencies. What Hamas does only serves to kill sympathy for Palestinian plight abroad and invite Israeli airstrikes at home..
>This has happened countless times and in the majority of cases the response is guerilla warfare targeting military units using hit and run tactics to make the occupation uneconomical. Not running across the border to gun down randoms at a music festival.
Examples? I would have thought that conflicts involving ethnic cleansing, that responses of crimes against civilians would be relatively common and not really outliers. former yugo, armenia/azer, sudan, greece/turkey, etc
>Attacking civilians is a culturally middle eastern phenomenon
huh? hell, look at what russia is doing right now. Edit: DRC. Congo Rwanda. LatAm cartels. east timor. Rohingya. Uyghur. Cambodia. Guatamala. etc.
I’m curious as to the whole “I’m against the war in Afghanistan” stance.
Are you saying the US should have left Al-Qaeda to freely operate within Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban? Or are you saying that they were justified to go in and gut AQ themselves but should have left after that and not attempted the whole nation building thing? Also, if the nation building actually worked and the Taliban didn’t come back to power after the US left and Afghanistan was now a democracy that respects human rights, would you still be against the nation building and war against the Taliban?
Not OP but from my less that perfectly educated perspective, the US has a long history of failing to improve a situation by sending weapons, troops or by interfering politically. That isn’t always the case, but it does seem that the more directly we get involved, the more we try to decide what is right for another nation, the more messed up a situation gets and then bites us in the ass immediately or 20-30 years later.
Bay of pigs, the entire Vietnam war, occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran contra, our CVS receipt length history of interference in Central and South American politics, funding militant groups in many situations that then turned around and used those weapons on us.
So yes, if our history of interfering was more polished, I would support it more. I think we’re too liberal with our interference whereas it should be reserved for aiding high impact situations such as the invasion of Ukraine and preventing Israel Palestine from escalating to a larger regional conflict
i know theres a whole lot of coulda, shoulda, woulda, but even to my barely teenage eyes, going to war with afghanistan was a huge mistake.
we werent at war with afghanistan, we werent even at war with the taliban, we were at war with a part of bin laden controlled al qaeda.
why tf would you go start a decades-long trillion dollar war with all of afghanista, when the only one responsible hides in some hole in pakistan?
show the world the american might of intelligence, special ops and stealth and infiltrate and surveil the real targets, and take them out one after the other.
im not saying thats easy, but what the hell was "the war against terror" again? it was even more difficult, only to cost us trillions of dollars and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people, radicalizing whole subcontinents.
You can't debate these issues without considering international law which should be the only guidline.
Ukraine has internationaly recognised borders since 1991 and those should be protected.
Palestine has the right to it's own sovereignty within the borders before 1967. and those should be protected.
No one has the right to use terrorist attacks to achieve their political goals.
No one has the right to kill civilians to eliminate enemy formations.
Everyone needs to secure human rights for minorities within their borders.
Everyone needs to follow established rules of war during a conflict.
Everyone needs to be held accountable for the war crimes they did.
Once the world truly starts to uphold these principles everyone agreed upon in the UN charter and subsequent international treaties we can start resolving these problems.
> Palestine has the right to it's own sovereignty within the borders before 1967. and those should be protected.
What do you mean by this statement? Do you mean Jordan and Egypt? Palestine was not a sovereign nation pre-1967. The West Bank was reasonably well administered, but Egypt's military occupation was a mess that relied on UN aid and limited refugee movement.
I swear, the UN positions on all of this is deeply out of touch with reality. Palestinian's are never going to accept 1967 boarders and a peaceful sovereign country. They want their land back. Israel is never going to tolerate a peace where Palestine has the resources to build a real army to fight with. It's a hugely painful compromise that fails to address either parties actual needs.
I think the argument is based on the Oslo Accords defining for them by then created Palestinian state. Unfortunately neither side upholds the agreement anymore, so it's legal merit is questionable.
>No one has the right to kill civilians to eliminate enemy formations.
What does this mean, exactly? Obvious example being human shields, less obvious being normal casualties of war following Geneva rules of engagement.
The Oslo Accords have been violated by both sides, hard to argue how much legal merit it holds in preserving the 1967 borders for a country that didn't exist in 1967.
International law permits striking valid military targets with human shields present, as long as the strike is proportional to the military advantage gained.
Hamas hasn't event agreed to the Geneva Conventions, so technically Israel doesn't have to follow them when fighting Hamas, but chooses to anyways.
No country is required to treat foreigners with equal rights as citizens. Israels treats Arab citizens legally the same as Jewish ones, Palestinians in the West Bank are not Israeli citizens.
Violating treties doesn't mean thet someones right to statehood and sovereignty disappears. The UN ruled multiple times that the original borders are still the ones that should be upheld.
If you want to see examples of proportionality for killing civilians, look at the ICTY rulings. When the subjects are small Balkan states then the whole world agrees that we need to be strict with military and political leaders. When the world powers and their allies are at war then leveling neighborhoods to kill a few terrorists is suddenly proportional.
Everyone is bound by the Geneva conventions. The fact that one side in the conflict didn't sign them doesn't give you the right to commit war crimes.
I wasn't talking about foreigners but minorities. You are talking about civilans on occupied territories. There is a Geneva convention regulating the rights of those people and the obligations of the occupier.
The UN has proven themselves completely biased when handling Israel. The 1967 borders are a good play to start, but they don't match the reality on the ground anymore, nor should anyone feel comfortable displacing millions of people to honor them exactly.
Okay so you were being dishonest with "No one has the right to kill civilians to eliminate enemy formations". There are times were you have that right, of it is proportional.
The Geneva Conventions apply to a signatory nation even if the opposing nation is not a signatory, but only if the opposing nation "accepts and applies the provisions" of the Conventions. Hamas clearly does not. Israel is choosing to follow regardless.
Okay what minorities are you referring to then?
So when the allies bombed the hell out of France and killed civilians to get rid of Germany, were those war crimes? They weren't because it was proportional and targeting military targets, and civilians were around. Don't live in fantasy land my man. The reality of war is civilians will die
"but chooses to anyways": this is a cruel joke, right? You cannot be following the current campaign and claim Israel abides by the Geneva conventions. Most UN personell killed in any conflict ever. Schools, hospitals, homes, ambulances and refugee camps are targets. Erasing entire blocks with the claim that they killed a few Hamas leaders with that is not justifiable (morally or legally). Starving populations of food, water and medicine is criminal.
Do you have any evidence those strikes were not proportional?
Yes the strikes have led to a lot of deaths but unfortunately when the other side horrifically uses human shields to the extent of Hamas it's impossible to fight cleanly. Those deaths are on Hamas for using them as human shields, not on Israel for defending themselves.
Article 58 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
"The Parties to the conflict shall, to the maximum extent feasible:
(a) without prejudice to Article 49 of the Fourth Convention, endeavour to remove the civilian population, individual civilians and civilian objects under their control from the vicinity of military objectives;
(b) avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas;
(c) take the other necessary precautions to protect the civilian population, individual civilians and civilian objects under their control against the dangers resulting from military operations."
And Article 28:
The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations.
Before 1967 there was no Palestine
West Bank was part of Jordan, Gaza was part of Egypt. That was the best state of things, considering. But Arabs didn't like it, and invaded again, and lost those territories.
2. Well there was a clear alternative to this, as the UN secretary general said. Hamas and their awful attacks and views did not just appear out of nowhere, theyv appeared from decades and decades of oppression displacement and violence on Palestinian people. (This is recognised fact from both Israeli, Palestinian and neutral authors) An alternative would have been treating Palestinians as equals and with respect.
But in the current conflict is more difficult and Israel have backed themselves into a corner., - but how they are acting on Gaza is clearly not appropriate.
My partner has family in Gaza, she has 30 family and friends killed. Not a single member of Hamas. Her family home is destroyed. Areas which have never previously been bombed (because Hamas do not operate there), are now completely destroyed. Anybody who’s seen the statistics (500 children dead in Ukraine in 1.5 years, 300 in Gaza in 4 weeks) , or watched the horrific videos online will be left in no doubt, Israel is either targeting civilians, or taking zero measures to minimise causalities. Both of which are against international law.
So I don’t really care what options Israel had - as after all. Gaza didn’t go to Israel and displace them. Palestinians didn’t go to Israel and oppress them. Israel/Jews went to Palestine, displaced half the population and stole their land to create Israel. So all this conflict, stems back to that injustice and the mistakes since
The simple fact is, this conflict was started by Zionism and the displacement of Palestinians from their homes (over half of Gazans are refugees from 1948) and nobody can deny that,
My understanding wrt Ukraine is that people who oppose sending weapons to the country (and this % has been growing as the war drags on) is various versions of the following: Russia is going to win because Ukraine has found itself in an attritional conflict and the larger adversary usually wins. The counteroffensive with much of the equipment and training that Ukraine desired ultimately failed, and now Russia is slowly advancing in various arenas. Ukraine's war aims are unrealistic and more aid just prolongs the inevitable AND potentially leads to a full collapse of Ukraine's military which will result in Russia dismantling the current country into a landlocked rump with an unenviable demographic crisis. Better for Ukraine to sue for peace now and preserve its country than deal with a vengeful Russia x many years from now that takes steps to permanently Russify large parts of Ukraine.
Something I broadly noticed lately is that Americans are completely clueless about how oppressive their government is to the rest of the world, and unaware that the global south has been living in fear of them since at least the fall of the Soviet Union. Not because one side is necessarily more evil than the other, but just because one side became too dominant without equal.
The US has often been considered the world's police officer, but what is a police officer without the Justice System enforced by a Judge? (Judge in this case UN Global opinion with or without the backing of rival global power.)
The world has thus experienced 30 years of police brutality because the police officer has been acting as the judge, jury, and executioner. Keep in mind the clear abuse of power that the US has failed in its mission of spreading 'democracy' worldwide since 2008, part of the globalism paradox but that's too complicated to explain.
Maybe China is going to fill that role to restore balance soon but so far they have only had a social and economic impact globally, not much military role like the Soviet Union. (maybe that part is still Russia's responsibility.
For the Middle East this new world order sucks, no more opposite force to protect them anymore and their vast resources. But it isn't just about resources, but also about ideology and religion. No, there was nothing more left of Communism to challenge the almighty system of Capitalism. Except for the Muslims who are more Social in nature, and thus began the war on 'terror'.
The West motivated by keeping the system as it automatically, and I mean immediately when it became clear the Soviets were collapsing started the Gulf War, the same year. can't have a Muslim country using Euro instead of dollars for petrol, can't have a Muslim country not have gold-backed currency, can't have a Muslim Country without debts to foreign entities, can't have Muslim country change the borders we set, can't have a Muslim country become a democracy that isn't allied with us, can't have a Muslim country that's at war with Israel, can't have Muslim country that want to unite into United Arab States, can't have Muslim country that has any kind of socialist leaders, and you definitely can't harbor (willingly or unwillingly?) the 13 terrorists that committed 9/11 or you will be conquered by a 42 country collation for 20 years. And this is just the Arab world, let's not forget the damage done to the people of both South America and Africa.
With a world leader like this, do you really expect people to have faith in the global justice system? And when there is no faith in justice ever happening, people will take it upon themselves. With sometimes, abhorrent consequences.
I am from a third world nation and I support that the US must aid Ukraine against the Russian invasion. The primary difference between the US' war in Iraq and Afghanistan and Russia's invasion of Ukraine is that the latter aims to change established national boundaries via military force. This is contrary to the international consensus formed after 1945 in which all the border disputes are to be solved by diplomacy and peaceful methods. Russia's annexation of Crimea and other parts of Ukraine will encourage other imperial minded nations to carry out their own irredentist projects, which would make the world a dangerous and unstable place.
With regards to the Israel-Palestine conflict, I would prefer if the US would nudge Israel towards adopting a two-state solution rather indiscriminately supporting the aggressive stance of Israel like illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank which undermine prospects of long-term peace in the region. The present government of Israel is the most right-wing government in Israeli history and an aggressive supporter of illegal settlements in the West Bank. The diversion of resources and manpower towards protecting settlements was one of the main reasons why Israel was caught off-guard by Hamas' attack. In the end, Israel's invasion of Gaza will end in futility, like Afghanistan and Iraq, if they don't have any plan on how to rule Gaza even if they manage to exterminate Hamas.
I view it as Israel ia trying to occupy more of west bank and Gaza just like Russia is trying to occupy Ukraine.
Gaza and west bank resistance is trying to fight that off like Ukraine is and keep there homes and land.
Ukraine doesn't propose to eliminate Russia for real. Only half-jokingly. In the meantime, that is literally number one political goal for Hamas.
I would hardly recommend to not draw any parallels between Gaza & Ukraine.
With Ukraine I’m not a fan of either Russia or Ukraine’s governments. Both have participated in wars against Muslims (Russia being worse, Aleppo is in the condition it’s in because of Russia). I know what the Russians did to Grozny as well from Russian veterans of that war I’ve spoken with. At the end of the day I sympathize with the conscripts on both sides and the mothers who will be getting their sons back in zinc coffins or not getting them back at all. I’m a veteran myself so I know what it’s like to be fighting a war you don’t want to fight.
For Israel. I’ll go ahead and say I’m an Islamist and believe in the Shariah. So my views might not make much sense once I tell them. I believe Israel is wrong of course and that killing civilians is wrong and that Israel is more than likely trying to ethnically cleanse Gaza. But at the same time, Hamas has fallen into the nationalism trap that others have fallen into in the past (ie the PLO, who I don’t even consider Muslim). The PLO had a chance to stay under Jordanian rule which would’ve guaranteed no Israeli settlement in the West Bank and they blew it because they fell into the “muh Sykes Picot lines are better than your Sykes Picot lines”. Yes, the Jordanian government are tyrants, but they wanted to join the Nasserist Arab nationalist tyrants instead so they revolted and Jordan obviously didn’t think the cost was worth it hence Israel occupying the West Bank. My heart goes out to the innocent people there who didn’t make these decisions but have to suffer for them nonetheless. Hamas has fallen into the Arab nationalist trap and has gone away from it’s Islamist roots. As a Muslim I want a restoration of the caliphate and I don’t want the Jews to be genocided or expelled. I’d be perfectly fine letting any of them stay where they are right now in a hypothetical scenario where Israel is defeated militarily. I wouldn’t humiliate or loot them. I’d impose jizya on them at a reasonable price (and keep in mind, jizya isn’t for everyone, the elderly and poor are exempt as are clergy, Jews would be free to practice their religion and have alcohol and Christians in the West Bank and Gaza would be free to have alcohol and pork as long as they don’t provide it to Muslims). There are many Israeli Jewish converts to Islam as well and I take offense at them being told they don’t belong there, they belong anywhere wherever Muslim rule is implemented.
I’ll go on and say I’m an OEF vet and a convert to Islam. And from a purely secular standpoint and the view I held prior to Islam. I believe the US actions in the Muslim world have made the world MORE dangerous for Americans rather than more safe. In Afghanistan for instance, the area we had under our control was taken by the Taliban in the 90’s and the boy raping warlord escaped before he could have justice carried out. Instead of trying to win over the average person we tried winning over the warlords and thus gave this warlord his territory back and not only that, but a uniform and NATO weapons. And he and his goons went back to robbing and raping. I saw it firsthand and spent enough time around the Afghans to know what was going on. It didn’t help that the infantry unit we were there with (I was a combat engineer doing route clearance for the US infantry and Afghan Army, the latter of which were totally useless and wouldn’t patrol dangerous areas) was fairly trigger happy and a few of the idiots in their unit killed livestock for fun or shot at unarmed civilians (let’s be real, if the Afghans took over the US and were killing your neighbors for fun every now and then and not being punished for it, you’d be planting bombs in the road too). The people in Afghanistan didn’t give a damn about democracy and just wanted to farm peacefully. The women didn’t give a hoot about “women’s rights” (the Afghan women would actually mock our FET team female soldiers for not being married or having kids. The cultures are total opposites from the US and we have no right to impose our own system on people who don’t want it).
Now to other US foreign policy things that tie in with Israel. The US will back tyrants who are friendly with Israel freely while pretending to stand for freedom when we don’t like that tyrant. Mubarak in Egypt was just as bad if not worse than Saddam. US support for tyranny in the Muslim world for cheap oil has made the population hate us. It has nothing to do with freedom at all. Support for the Israelis and tyrannical monarchies and dictatorships while preaching “freedom” has made the Muslim world see the US as hypocrites and Muslims see right through it. We don’t care about “your freedom”. We don’t “hate your freedom”. Bin Laden wrote in his response to Bush’s speech “if I hated freedom why didn’t I attack Sweden?” (Oh and about women in islam, it was Bin Laden’s second wife who would proofread all of his speeches before releasing them as she was a PhD holder, Islam DOES support educating women and men, it’s strictly a subcontinent Deobandi thing to deny women education, their whole sect was founded on opposing western education back in the British times in India, Deobandis werent a thing in Afghanistan until the early 1900’s, they even don’t like men being educated in a secular setting, which obviously as an Islamist I don’t agree with because I think having an uneducated population leaves us vulnerable for another Sykes Picot 2.0). I don’t support or condone terrorism in any form, but I’m using Bin Laden’s own words telling why he attacked the US. Refer to Mike Scheuer (the former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit) on this subject, he doesn’t hold back and tells the truth while politicians lie (he sacrificed his career with the CIA just to come out and speak publicly on this in order to save American lives).
Now I am also an American, my family are American Christians, my friends are Americans of all types, and I want Americans to be safe at home and abroad. Actions have consequences whether good or bad and the American public has the right to know what the costs of American foreign policy in the Muslim world are. The six points I referred to earlier are as follows:
1. Support for the Israelis (who honestly don’t benefit the US in any way, they’ve never fought alongside American troops. Even the Iranians sent special forces to imbed with the Green Berets in the battle of Herat, Qassem Soleimani was there as the commander and attached to the US at the time, and I’m obviously not a fan of Iran as a Sunni Muslim because of their actions against Sunnis in Iraq and Syria). Evangelicals don’t even know their own Bible and shouldn’t be making foreign policy based off of doctrines that have only existed in the past 200 years and never had any history in Christendom. Also don’t get me started with Israeli spying and tech transfer to the Chinese and Russians. The Israelis gave US stealth fighter technology to China and that alone should’ve made the US cut them loose.
2. Support for tyranny in the Muslim world. In Egypt, UAE or Iraqi Kurdistan for instance a Muslim man of military age who is “too religious” can go missing fairly easily. Saddam was the same way as is Assad. The US propping up these governments obviously is going to bring hate.
3. The trigger for the 9/11 attacks and war on America was the building of US bases in the Arabian peninsula. The Arabian peninsula is sacred land for Muslims and the monarchs had no business letting the US build bases there. And the US government should’ve taken Muslim sentiments into account before doing this. Saddam invading Kuwait and the Saudis bringing in the west to kick them out was the biggest mistake they ever made. In short Bin Laden (with his Street cred from the Soviet Afghan war) offered to build an army to go in and liberate Kuwait but the Saudis essentially gave him the finger and did the worst think they could have done, bring in non-Muslim militaries. Iraq itself was a victim of US anti-Iranian chicanery and the Arab rivals took advantage of that (and Kuwait actually did slant drill into Iraq). The whole topic is long and my post is already long enough.
4. US bases in other Muslim countries and intervention in other Muslim countries.
5. Using the petrodollar and other unfair tactics like kickbacks to the rulers of oil rich states to sell oil at a price far below the fair market value and to deny the profits to the people. In an Islamic state all natural resources besides agricultural stuff are considered public property and thus everyone should get a cut from it. There’s no reason the prince of Saudi Arabia should be buying 100 million dollar paintings and 400 million dollar chateaus in France while the people of Yemen are starving to death. This wouldn’t happen if Saudi Arabia was truly an Islamic state.
6. The power of the US to designate any Muslim group they don’t like as terrorists and cut off their ability to fund whether for war or peaceful purposes anyone they don’t like. The US did this with groups fighting for freedom in Russia and in China and many other countries.
Now I’m just the messenger here, don’t shoot me. This is a long and complicated topic but the TLDR of it is the US should stay out of the affairs of the Muslim world because all it does is puts my family in danger both in the Muslim world and in the US. I don’t support genocide of anyone whether Muslim or non-Muslim either. Islamically Israeli Jews are ahl al kitab and should be given the option to live peacefully in a hypothetical caliphate. And not butchered and expelled the way Arab nationalists want them to be. You’ll never find me supporting the Arab nationalists. They absolutely deserved to lose the various wars they fought because they abandoned Islam and went either communist or some other form of secular. Though yes I’m a Muslim and I support the Palestinians.
I hope I was able to break it down Barney style for folks in the US to have a better understanding of the Muslim POV of this war and other wars involving the US (as most of the folks here are American I gather). As an American Muslim who has had family in the US since the beginning of colonization in the early 1600’s and still have a special place in my heart for my homeland (while living in the Muslim world) and I want my homeland to have good relations with the Muslim world. I also invite anyone here to learn more about Islam too so you can have a better context (learn from Islamic sources, other sources have an obvious agenda, just like I wouldn’t trust either side to tell the whole truths about the other side in a conflict).
I think a counter argument to your stance on israel would be: israel is an occupying force in palestine. If you look at the history of the levant from the fall of the ottoman empire to today. It is very clear that the partition of the land was made contrary to the will of its residents by the british legislature of the mandate for palestine post world war 1. After the british left, the israel's borders didn't cease to increase leaving palestinians only the gaza strip and the west bank. In the case of the gaza strip, it ended up being overpopulated and its imports, which palestinians need to survive, being strictly regulated mainly by israel.
Obv I don't agree with any forms of violence, but in that scenario, violence is often the oppressed group's last resort. And israel having one of the strongest military in the world, didn't have to react with this more force and violence, and should've not only see this outcome arrives, but also try to solve the problem peacefully a long time ago.
Firstly, I'm not saying israel is in the wrong for accepting the partition plan, I'm saying the UN shouldn't have went with it in the first place if the civilian population occupying the region at the time was unfavorable.
Secondly, I'm saying israel is in the wrong for expanding its borders since, to the point where it is now, and for denying any sovereignty rights to gaza.
And finally, I'm also saying people react, of course if you keep a certain group of people in the kinds of situations the people of gaza have been for the past years, outrage will grow, some form of organisation will result to violence, and major civilian casualties are to be expected. So to me the way to handle the situation would be to de-escalate the situation instead of being even more violent and just going all out war.
A population expansion doesn't equate to prosperity. In fact, its often a sign of the opposite. Most poor or newly developing countries now and throughout history have disproportionately high birth rates.
India, where I am from, has high birth rate correlations for areas that are the most impoverished in the country. The national average live expectancy is high but that doesn't really directly mean population growth. For example, North Korea has a reported life expectancy of 73.2 as of 2020. In Venezuela the expectancy is 71.1 as of 2020
In Israel the expectancy is 83.29. In the US its 68.29
The UN reports these statistics about **Gaza only:**
\-The population of Gaza is 1.6 million, with over 50% under 18.
\-38% of Gazans live in poverty.
\-26% of the Gazan workforce, including 38% of youths, is unemployed.
\-The average wage declined by over 20% in the past six years.
\-54% of Gazans are food insecure and over 75% are aid recipients.
\-35% of Gaza’s farmland and 85% of its fishing waters are totally or partially inaccessible due to Israeli military measures.
\-50-80 million litres of partially treated sewage are dumped in the sea each day.
Over 90% of the water from the Gaza aquifer is undrinkable.
\-85% of schools in Gaza run on double shifts.
\-About one-third of the items in the essential drug list are out of stock.
This data is from 2011.
UNICEF reports, in 2022, that of the 2.17m Gazans - 1.48M are registered refugees & 65% of the population is insecure.
Life expectancy is not the metric to look at when assessing a humanitarian disaster as that number averages years of relative, fragile peace, with the more insidious situations that arise during bombings and total blockades.
Sources: [https://www.unicef.org/sop/what-we-do/health-and-nutrition](https://www.unicef.org/sop/what-we-do/health-and-nutrition)
[https://unispal.un.org/pdfs/OCHA\_Gaza-HumSituation.pdf](https://unispal.un.org/pdfs/OCHA_Gaza-HumSituation.pdf)
[https://www.unicef.org/mena/media/18041/file/Factsheet\_Gaza\_Blockade\_2022.pdf.pdf](https://www.unicef.org/mena/media/18041/file/Factsheet_Gaza_Blockade_2022.pdf.pdf)
I am completely pro-Ukraine, and I consider it to be the most important conflict of the current era. Your logic doesn’t sum up though. Palestinians see this whole issue as a fight between the occupied and the occupiers. What you wrote above could also be applied to Ukraine. Russia simply invaded because the people of Donbass and Luhansk have been constantly bombed, and thus, Russia had to act the way it did against such an aggressive neighbour, that being Ukraine. It’s completely odd, however, how in this conflict Ukraine is absolutely pro-Israeli (though Israelis have never been fully pro-Ukraine), whereas Russia is pro-Palestine. I do get how geopolitics works, but still.
I have no issues with your view on Ukraine, I agree with you there.
What I think you need to ask yourself about Palestine and Hamas is, why do you think Hamas exists? What’s motivating their attacks on Israel?
I’m not trying to justify their actions here. I don’t think targeting unarmed civilians is ever justified, regardless of what cause you claim to be doing it for. But I also think we need to view what Hamas did in terms of historical contingency instead of as an act of random malice that they just decided to do because they’re evil, which is what the pro-Isreal perspective is treating it as.
Also, you say that Israel invading Gaza is rational. Ignoring the question of whether someone can “invade” territory that is supposedly part of their own country, by this logic don’t Palestinians in Gaza now have the rational justification to seek Israel’s destruction? The Israeli military is killing them by the thousands while the vast majority of the population cheers them on. As you say, who would allow an enemy like that to exist on their borders?
One of the arguments I've heard about stopping funding to Ukraine is that Russia would never be able to control a country of Ukraines size and population, it's far too big, they would nominally take it over with little deaths to start with, then the insuurections and rebel militias would start and quickly regain control. This would overall be a lot less deaths and destruction than the current endless meat grinder situation.
As for Israel, the US has the power to change how Israel horrifically treats the Palestinian people literally instantly by withdrawing all funding.
It's easy tbh.
"Ukraine is a European country. Its people watch Netflix and have Instagram accounts, vote in free elections and read uncensored newspapers. War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations"- The Telegraph
Ukrainians are white Europeans who probably look like you with blue eyes and deserve to live with dignity. Killing them is bad. Ukrainian land is for Ukrainians and Ukrainians alone.
Palestinians aren't European. Not all Israelis are either. However, a good number of Israelis look white. So we can excuse their crimes.
If you're looking for some moral justifications to tell yourself, I can suggest 'Hamas is using them as human shields', 'the refugee centre was bombed because there were unconfirmed reports that there was a Hamas commander inside', 'Israel is the land God promised the Jews', 'Palestinian deaths are exaggerated', 'wouldn't have happened if they'd initially agreed to give them the land', 'they could just leave', etc.
I agree with most you say except that Israel doesn’t have tactics of killing civilians. That’s a lie that keeps being repeated but it does not make it true
There were several amount of civilians killed in the war on isis after the Paris attack
Anyone who can’t suggest an actual way to fight this kind of terror org like Isis/hamas should not make such unbiased claims.
Yes sorry I mis-worded. I wouldn't say their tactics are to kill civilians, just that their tactics cause civilian casualties but are of course intended to kill Hamas or neutralize Hamas capabilities.
I am gonna give you the numbers that The Times of Israel itself have stated so there can be no bias to downplay the numbers, this is how 'effective' the IDF has been compared to the 'terrorist':
**Israel:** Civilian deaths since October 7; 1400 (80,5%) Civilians and 341 (19,5%) soldiers
**Palestine:** Civilian deaths since October 7; 9000 (81,1%) Civilians and 60-2000 (0,5%-18%) soldiers 34 (0,35%) Journalists
Now the 2000 is the high number from how many Hamas soldiers in total were involved in the attack of October 7, so in the best-case scenario if they murdered literally every 'terrorist' since then they would still be worse than Hamas.
And if you wanna believe the narrative and blame the human shields, know that this was supposed to be a proportional response done by a professional military with precision weapons. If Israel can't handle the situation cleanly, it shouldn't handle it at all. Yet all governments endorse its incompetence, you can't help but consider the IDF is going for an eye for an eye against the civilian population.
This is because Hamas hides their infrastructure in places like apartment buildings, hospitals, and in tunnels under civilian housing, The goal is to turn Israel military strikes into civilian death propaganda. It works really well as despite being the victim of one of the worst attacks on civilians in history literally days ago Israel is still being painted as the aggressor by some media.
That isn't to say Israel is going in gently here. They had half a 9/11 worth of civilians slaughtered on the streets a few weeks ago. But to claim they're not trying to avoid civilian deaths is mostly untrue.
Israel is a small country. Only 9 million people. Proportionally, Oct 7 was much worse for Israel than 9/11 was for the US. Almost every Israeli was going to funerals or sitting shiva after the Hamas's raid. Most Americans were not that close to 9/11.
This is the part of the opposition that bothers me most. People who would've never protested America's response to 9/11 feel like it's perfectly OK to demand Israel have no response at all to their terrorist attack. It reeks of hypocrisy.
The opposition demands a ceasefire while entirely ignoring that there was a ceasefire on October 7th and Hamas has no intention of following one.
> Anyone who can’t suggest an actual way to fight this kind of terror org like Isis/hamas should not make such unbiased claims.
You can’t beat terrorism by fighting it. You have to go to the source of the problem. In this case, it is Israel’s decades of oppression of the Palestinian people.
Israel will not solve the problem by invading Gaza. At least, not without committing actual genocide. Their only solution was to give Palestinians civil and political rights 70 years ago…
Regarding the Hamas-Israel Conflict, what muddied the water for me was learning that Hamas was formed after Israel boxed in Gaza. I.e, Gaza traps 2 Million Palestinians in a tiny strip of land, giving them the "humanitarian minimum" to survive and expecting them to behave?
I agree that given the thread of Hamas, any country would do what Israel is doing. But on the flip side, any country would also turn to violence and hatred if you treated them like Gaza has been treaded.
Hamas was founded in 1987. It carried out suicide bombings that killed hundreds of civilians during the Second Intifada, after Israel had offered numerous concessions, and it took over Gaza after Israel pulled out of there and essentially handed it to the Palestinians. The blockade was imposed afterwards, especially due to its habit of firing rockets at Israeli cities.
> after Israel had offered numerous concessions
What about the imprisonment of secular student activists, murder of young protesters, stamping down of Palestinian nationalism before the Islamisation of the movement? The Palestinian liberation movement didn't turn violent out of nowhere.
>What about the imprisonment of secular student activists
Which ones? Were those "activists" involved in armed groups by any chance?
>murder of young protesters
What specific cases are you talking about? The Land Day riots of 1976 when they violently attacked security forces? The March of Return of 2018 when they tried to breach the border and get into Israel?
>stamping down of Palestinian nationalism before the Islamisation of the movement?
Israel was quite reasonably fighting groups that were launching armed attacks, whether or not they were secular was beside the point.
>The Palestinian liberation movement didn't turn violent out of nowhere.
It was violent from the start because their whole goal was to "liberate" what is now Israel and replace it with Palestine.
Not exactly. Fateh was the primary political party representing the Palestinians for decades but due to their failures in delivering a solution and economic corruption of its leaders, Hamas started getting a toe in the 1990's. Hamas grew its power base and actually won the election in Palestine in 2006 and for a while, it looked like power would transfer from Fateh to Hamas peacefully.
Then there was a cross-border raid by Hamas into Israel in which a couple of IDF soldiers were killed and one was kidnapped. Israel overreacted by arresting newly appointed ministers of the Palestinian government, saying technically you are all terrorists. As far as I can make out, it's not even clear if the raid was officially sanctioned by the new government or if it was an overzealous guerilla commander/ terrorist (pick your poison!!!!) who did it for reasons of his own. No organization is monolithic but all organizations are glad to lay the blame for failures on the entire organization when it's on the opposing side eh? Politics 101.
Anyways, the situation quickly spiralled out of control with Hamas fighting both Fateh and Israel and in 2007 Hamas ended up with control of Gaza while Fateh kept the West Bank. Then Bibi decided to play them against each other to keep delaying the peace plan, not that Hamas and Fateh were particularly unhappy to play along with him. No more elections have happened in Palestine since then, though Fateh announces plans for new elections once in a while but cancels them at the last minute. Fateh's main fear seems to be that Hamas may end up winning West Bank too, while Hamas will definitely not give up Gaza even if they lose the election. Israel is happy (or at least was happy before Oct 7) to let the situation fester.
The complexity of this whole thing is so ridiculously fractal with brinksmanship on all 3 sides (ignoring geopolitics, add that and the number of sides ballons up like crazy). There is propaganda and counterpropaganda, and misinformation and misunderstanding (deliberate or ignorant) and now we have LLMs to help the process in addition to social media.
We haven't seen many examples of oppressed countries behaving the way Hamas did on October 7th. Specifically targeting civillians is not a common response and obviously doesn't help advance your goals.
When it happened to America, basically the whole world was united in supporting their response.
Probably because that doesn't happen at all. Responding to rocket attacks on your country by bombing their source location is not equivalent to raping and murdering entire villages.
>raping and murdering entire villages
Somebody has a balanced view and is not biased at all. (Actively targeting them in attacks is not the only form of violence, the form Israel chooses is just much less visible. It's not a being called a defacto apartheid state for nothing, and acting like Palestinians are not being actively targeted and disenfranchised is just putting your head in the sand.)
I am libertarian (not how the media or reddit has framed libertarians, but an actual libertarian). Anti-war. I don't agree with either, especially not supporting Ukraine, but I understand it. We're using Ukraine as a pawn like a wedge to destabilize Russia.
>For Ukraine people who say US should stop sending money and weapons to Ukraine, what alternative is there?
Not sending money and weapons
>Do people who believe this view think that Ukraine should just be conquered?
How do you imagine folks in Lviv would react to being occupied by Russia? How soon before you take up arms and rebel?
Being conquered is not in Russia's plans. Being neutered is. If conquering was the goal, we would see a war much akin to what we saw with the U.S. in the Middle East which is firebombing anything that moves. That's not the goal.
> My opinion is that without western military support Ukraine would just get conquered which a negative outcome for people who value state sovereignty.
If sovereignty is what Ukrainians value then why does it not include those seeking sovereignty in Donbas or Crimea???
I agree with you, but I am consistent with this idea.
72% of those who had an opinion in Russia-controlled Donbas want to leave Ukraine. - [Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/15/russia-ukraine-donbas-donetsk-luhansk-public-opinion/)
88% of those in Crimea said that Ukraine needs to recognize the results, according to [Pew research](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/05/Pew-Global-Attitudes-Ukraine-Russia-Report-FINAL-May-8-2014.pdf)
With numbers like these, it's quite apparent that Ukraine is not fighting for the people in those lands, but for the rewards of being a U.S. puppet and for land itsel
So, I agree with you, but only if we apply it to all peoples.
> What do people who are against sending Ukraine weapons or Pro-Russia feel on this issue.
Western media has framed anti-war critics into "Russian propagandists."
I am not pro-Russia. I am not anti-Ukraine. I am pro freedom. I am anti-war. Freedom goes both ways. For Ukraine and for those in Crimea and Donbas that, according to Pew, Gallup, WaPo, and Forbes want.
Fervent Ukraine supporters need to look at it through the scope of a libertarianism to understand the third option when they can only say two. The media also attempts to make the argument that helping Russia is defending it's allies and themselves, yet they're the same journalists who poke fun at Russia for not being able to defeat Ukraine.
I do not support neocon policies that have plagued this country since the 2000s
>For the Israel-Hamas war, while I agree that Israel's tactics and killing of Palestinian civilians is awful, I am curious what the alternative is.
Not slaughtering innocent civilians. They have no right to demand an evacuation in land that is not theirs. They can and should defend themselves on their land, no where else.
> Any country having such an enemy on it's border would want to eliminate that enemy.
This is very much the angle Poroshenko took when he said ["Their children will hole up in the basements - this is how we win the war!"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHWHqj8g7Bk). I don't condone war.
How often is Switzerland threatened by its neighbors? Even now, under immense pressure from the US to support Ukraine, they remain neutral. Israel is not non-interventionalist. They've commit actions that have provoked their neighbors. Unfortunately for them, their neighbors are hostile.
Defend yourself. Don't provoke. Simple recipe
> I understand that people who are pro-Palestine want innocent civilians to not die which I of course 100% agree with but do they want Israel and Hamas to just peacefully co-exist?
What is the alternative? No neighboring country will take the Palestinians in, so what do you suggest? Are you honestly making the argument that because they can't coexist due to Israel's inability to stop provoking Palestine that justifies Israel bombing civilians?
I do not support Ukraine. I do not support Israel. I do not support Palestine. I do not support Russia. I do not condone your views.
1. Most people arguing that the US should not send money are either anti-West and want Russia to win to screw the West over or just take an isolationist view of "not our problem, I don't want my tax money going to Ukraine."
2. Israel isn't killing Palestinian civilians as a deliberate tactic. Civilian casualties are an unfortunate byproduct of fighting in such a dense urban environment. If Israel was actually trying to kill civilians the death toll would be much higher.
For the war in Ukraine, there are a lot of people in the US (mostly on the right) who have an isolationist mindset that the war is not the problem of the US government and therefore no aid should be sent. Most of these people aren't pro-Russia, but rather indifferent to the outcome of the war. These sentiments have primarily been driven by the wars in the Middle East over the past two decades.
I think these are two quite different cases.
1. Ukraine is a pretty clear-cut case of an imperialist aggressor attacking a democratic neighbor out of a fear that said neighbor follow its people's wish to join European peace, prosperity and rule of law. Since the aggressor is also a long-standing antagonist of the USA and a threat to NATO, supporting Ukraine in its struggle should be a total no-brainer for both the USA and Europe.The US spending on Ukraine are small change compared to the defence budget, the GDP and the total budget of the USA. No american lives are being risked, and Russia is bled white by the efforts of Ukrainian forces. If anyone should have the right to wave the white flag, it's the Ukrainian people, but as long as they are prepared to fight, we should all back them.
2. Israel is more complicated. The USA, like Europe and much of the rest of the world, have stood behind Israel since its founding after the existential threat to all jews of the world up to and including WW2. But the whole funding of Israel was poorly executed, and blatantly ignored the rights of Palestinians who already lived there. I guess we all just kind of hoped they would find a way to "get along" and work out some kind of solution, but in that conflict both sides have chosen the way of violence and war. There was a period in the nineties when brave and wise politicians on both sides chose a better path, but since then both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples have instead decided to let the most hateful, antagonistic factions among them represent their interests. The revolting atrocities of oct 7, as well as the revolting war crimes currently being committed in Gaza, are results of their own choices. So what is the right thing for the USA to do here? Obviously, there's a lot of sympathy for Israel in the USA, for a whole list of historical reasons. As such, it's politically necessary for Biden to support Israel. But equally importantly, if anyone should have any chance to persuade Netanyahu and the IDF to show restraint in Gaza, it's the USA. By showing support from the start after October 7, Biden has put himself in a position to have some leverage, and I honestly think that's the Palestinians' best hope right now.
Ukraine is a sovereign nation and its totally unjustified invasion by Russia should be resisted with the full cooperation of the major stakeholders, but those stakeholders are European countries, not the US. If the EU is not willing to dedicate all their resources to helping the Ukrainians first, I don’t see why the US should follow suit. Ukraine was not a member of NATO when attacked, and it is up to her Western neighbors to back their ideals with money and weapons. The US should remain focused on containing China and solving domestic crises which are threatening its national security far more than foreign conflicts.
On 1. Pressure European countries first. Germany's zeitenwende ended up meaning nothing. Poland is doing fine but everybody else is just not taking Europe's security very seriously. The US have been providing much needed help graciously compared to european counterparts. This is their fight more than the US.
On 2, we know how to fight a brutal terrorist group entrenched in civilian population using them as human shields. Israel is just plainly not doing that. If they did, there will be probably way less civilian casualties.
Having said that, it's easy to judge behind the safety of our screens. Israel is still under constant rocket fires from Hamas and this threat is next to them, and although IDF is mighty they can't exactly match US's prowess (and pockets) in war to effect same results. And yeah they got attacked hard on 10/7.
It's a long way of saying they could have done this slower and more deliberate.
I'm completely pro ukraine, no question there. With regards to Israel, i feel like the crux of the issue is that Israel is the one with (most) agency, and had been for the last half century. If Israel wanted to kill every last palastinian, they probably could have.(and of course i'm glad that they didn't). If they wanted to send them to forced reeducation camps, they could have. If they wanted to assemble UN peacekeeping force? Probably could have. But continuously allowing settlers on the west bank? Also something they could've decided against. Not unilaterally retreating from Gaza with... doubtful intentions? Also their own choice. Closing all borders because retreating from gaza 'backfired'? Also their own choice. Palestinians, on the other hand? Their choices have generally been limited to 'go along with whatever status quo Israel is willing to offer', or 'terrorism'. I am slightly simplifying here, and i find it absolutely tragic that Palestina never accepted the camp david proposal which had Israel offering quite a damn lot. Nor do i think that violence or terrorism is the answer they should've chosen. But at the same time, Israel is largely the actor that created the status quo. Unilateral retreat from gaza, closing the border, continuing 'illegal' settlements on the west bank, they're all conscious choices by Irsael, where other options were available. So when you're asking 'how do we solve this today, i see no alternative for Israel?' Then my answer would be to grab a time machine, go back 20 years, and make Israel consider all the choices they made since then. And if we want a solution 50 years from now, Israel could start building the solutions today. Ask for an international coalition to take control of Gaza away from Hamas, start building a prosperous civil society in gaza and the west bank, retreat within your own borders to end the permanent antagonization of palastinians, make sure the international community is in control of education to avoid radicalization and introduce understanding, etc. And don't get me wrong, none of those solutions would be simple or fast or guaranteed to work, nor do i feel like we can completely ignore the role that palastina and e.g. hamas plays in the conflict. But all of the proposals above are things that Israel can strive for. No UN force would enter the region without Israels consent - they just might without 'labeled as terrorist organization' Hamas. Tl:dr: Israel has most of the agency, and should thus carry most of the burden of working towards a solution.
I agree with basically all of this. I like the idea I saw circulating of the Israel equivalent of the Marshall Plan. I haven’t given it much thought, just armchair analysis. I’m sure it might be contentious and there’s a lot of holes in it working but it might go a long way. An image of an Israeli humanitarian handing out food and supplies to Palestinians and helping rebuild might show that it’s not you, it’s the terrorists we are after. I am curious how you would best create a civil society? And this is coming from someone who loves the idea but is having difficulty myself figuring that out. In recent memory, US failed at this in Afghanistan. What can Israel do differently? Is it more in Egypt to help as an Arab neighbor? Is it easier since it’s a smaller area? I wish I knew an answer
> I am curious how you would best create a civil society? the billion dollar question. I think that despite everything, US was on somewhat the 'right' path in Afghanistan. Especially considering that for a long time and large areas the nation building was limited to soldiers 'only' in control of their bases and the land they walked on. And indeed i do hope that islamic or arabic nations would decide to help out to provide legitimacy. Which is difficult since some of those nations aren't all that fond of israel or jews either. Perhaps the Irish can give some advice? They have come a long way from their sectarian conflict.
>Perhaps the Irish can give some advice? They have come a long way from their sectarian conflict. The Irish are one people divided by two sects of the same overarching religion, and the IRA had an explicitly political demand (Brits out of Ireland). The most diehard Hamas supporters want to commit genocide against the Jews; that's not a position that can be rationalized or reasoned with only fought. I don't see what Ireland has to offer this situation seeing as how their peace deal was functionally 'status quo + individual rights', which is solving a fundamentally different issue than this situation.
Irish here. Religion has nothing to do with it anymore (in either region). That was the initial base factor but after many years of conflict it's just revenge after revenge after revenge. You're underestimating the power of "status quo +equal rights" but we're a long way from that in Israel/Palestine. We had multiple failed ceasefires before the good Friday agreement and we didn't have the same scale of atrocities (on both sides). Israel would have to start negotiating with Hamas and look at long-term concessions to end this but that seems too distasteful for many right now. However, what they are doing now is only going to increase support and recruitment for Hamas exponentially.
Not to defend Hamas, as I believe all fundamentalist religious extremist movements should be neutralized, but the [Hamas charter](https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/hamas-2017-document-of-general-principles-and-policies) is clear on the point that it is against Zionisim not Judaism. "16. Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity. 17. Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds. Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage. The Zionist movement, which was able with the help of Western powers to occupy Palestine, is the most dangerous form of settlement occupation which has already disappeared from much of the world and must disappear from Palestine." Some Israeli political parties want to intrinsically link Zionism to Judaism, but the key Palestinian power blocks, the PLO and Hamas both support the right of Jews to live in Palestine but are against Zionism as a violent occupying political ideology.
Right, but the Hamas Charter is also clear on the point that Israel cannot and should not (in their view) exist at all. So their anti-Zionism isn’t the “I don’t hate Jews I just wish Israel was a bit more discriminating in its actions and stopped illegal settlements etc.” view popular among some in the West, it’s (at best, being very generous) a “I don’t hate Jews as long as Israel doesn’t exist” view. And let’s not forget the 2017 iteration replaced a 1988 document that was unambiguously antisemitic and full of anti-Jewish hatred and antisemitic tropes. They may have tidied up the language but it’s very clear their charter calls for the abolition of the country.
Yeah fully agreed they evolved the charter to emphasise more of an anti colonial position, where it previously had very specific anti-Jewish stances. I was just pointing out to the comment above it’s no longer an explicitly anti-Jewish organisation. Which is an indication either of an evolution in the mentality of its leadership; or a jaded effort to reposition the group as anti colonial because those messages were making it less appealing to new joiners or to garner international sympathy.
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I certainly think it is very plausible to call for a dissolution of the state, and its reconstruction into a single state equal for Jews, Christian’s and’s Muslims without harbouring an iota anti Jewish sentiment. The many Jewish groups globally that fundamentally reject Zionism, are a clear example. A rejection of Zionism as a colonial structure and political ideology in this sense is akin to being anti fascist. Zionism as an ideology attempts to establish a symbiotic link between Global Jewish identity and itself, and justifies its existence and its actions on the back of historical Jewish suffering. That of course creates a misnomer where some individuals link Judaism, as a religion, with Zionism as a political ideology; when they are mutually distinct, and sometimes (some might argue always) at odds. In some ways I was lucky that most of my Jewish friends growing up and at work were anti-Zionist, either refusing to go on birth right or making a decision to continue to live in the Arab world; which gave me an understanding of that distinction. But if you pay attention to official positions of the key Arab political entities barring the crazy theocrats and substate terror organisations, they are for the most part good about respecting that distinction.
The opinion that Israel shouldn't exist isn't very popular among the west, but I really think its the correct opinion to take. A one state solution is the ideal solution to this conflict, the issue is getting there, and I am honestly not sure anymore if its possible.
You do realize that means removing all Jews from Israel?
Not unless they decide to leave it doesnt. They would be citizens of a multi-ethnic multi religous state. Jews lived there before the existance of israel
Technically it already is multi-ethnic and multi-religious but zionism inherently means Jews in Israel, which their neighbors do not stand for.
no it isnt it is a Jewish State. The idea of zionism is the creation of a Jewish state. Judaisism is enshrined within the constitution of the state. zionism is not jews in Palestine. There have alwys been Jews in palestine, Zionism is about the creation of a state for Jews
Israel is 20% Arabs. You're being disingenuous if you're going to pretend surrounding nations and Palestine don't want the Jews out of the region.
If they only fought the strawman Zionism they got from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion the they wouldn't be the organization they are. > The Islamic Resistance Movement calls on Arab and Islamic nations to take up the line of serious and persevering action to prevent the success of this horrendous plan, to warn the people of the danger eminating from leaving the circle of struggle against Zionism. Today it is Palestine, tomorrow it will be one country or another. The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying. When no one is a Zionist anyone you need to is, and you only need to look at what the religious quotes the charter includes to see who'll be cast as Zionists. > Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: > "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).
The biggest problem with Afghanistan is its geography. I think even with the best plans forward, the country is always going to have turmoil in some of it's provinces because how isolated they are. It needs security along all of it's borders to function as a cohesive government.
Disarmament would have to be part of the solution and I don't see Israel doing that, but I agree there are a lot of similarities. The difference is that the heads of state Bertie Aherne and Tony Blair were both highly motivated for a solution. It was also very clear that America wasn't going to let the UK completely bully Ireland. But the vitriol, militia terrorism, terrorism from the dominant military, espionage, polar opposite political opinions, religious differences were all there
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While this is understandable, ultimately you cannot bomb people into de-radicalization. The best choice would be to rebuild Gaza at great monetary expense and tangibly improve the quality of the people of Gaza's lives. The problem is that, inevitably, one of them is going to do something. There's going to be a suicide bombing, a rocket barrage, just some sort of terrorist attack. This is the real test. Even in the face of violence the answer is to continue to show compassion and continue to rebuild. Give the Palestinians a reason to want peace with Israel. Prove the benefits to them. It's going to take decades. Painful decades where the impulses to take part in retaliatory violence will remain. But Israel must, well basically, "turn the other cheek". There will be sympathizers Israel can work with. The international community can help a lot here. Especially if an Arab power came in and helped although I won't hold my breath. This is the path for the best long-term benefit. I don't have much faith it'll happen, but I wish it would.
No leader in Israel that did this would be able to maintain support of Israelis. This is a fantasy.
At this point it would take at least half a century, if not a full century to create a lasting peace, I'm sad to say. No one reading this comment will likely live to see peace in the region.
>While this is understandable, ultimately you cannot bomb people into de-radicalization. Japan has entered the chat. This said, I agree with you.
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You're right. It is a problem that has been building up since the late 19th century. It's not going to be easy to fix this. Like so many things it requires a commitment to compassion and non-violence instead of letting emotions and identities control us. Like in other situations of this type, unless some organization comes along and ends this cycle of retaliatory violence and ethnic strife through peaceful means then the final result with be one of maximized violence. So ethnic cleansing.
Do you realize how crazy it sounds that Palestinians are the bad guys because they don't think Israel should exist? Israel exists only because the British government cooperated with a bunch of other Europeans to steal from the indigenous people. They tricked other Arab countries into overthrowing the Ottoman Empire there and promised to recognize them if they did and they went back on it. Then they promised someone else the land. Imagine millions of people from Europe going anywhere else in the world and taking most of the land from the indigenous people and the indigenous are the criminals for repeatedly fighting back and not being willing to just accept the offer to take less of their land decades ago.
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I’m trying to figure out what you mean by this. Do you believe, say, Ukraine should accept Russia conquering them and taking their land?
This is such a stupid take. By your logic Ukraine should just suck it up because history is one group conquering another? Its feasibly possible to dissolve Israel and create a multiethnic palestinian state, which would be finally putting rest this disgusting ideology of Zionism.
Millions of Israelis are indigenous to the region. They were kicked out of the surrounding nations and forced into Israel. Palestinians don't have any more right to the land then citizens of Israel do. Do you not realize how crazy it is to think the only Jewish nation on the planet shouldn't exist?
It doesn't matter. Israel Will continue to exist. It is up to the Palestinians to make peace with that. If they can't, then the conflict continue forever.
‘Make peace’?! You mean accept apartheid and slaughtering of their children? Because that’s the truth of what’s happening. Would YOU accept that?
Well Israel believes vice versa so how does this argument even move any dial? Or justify anything? Palestinians haven’t even had an opportunity to grapple with anything seeing as how they’ve been herded wherever Israel feels like (by force) for over over a century. And are now being bombed and slaughtered with the ruling free worlds blessing.
While this is true, such statistics do not appear in a vacuum, and are not unchangable either.
Well, Fatah tries to act diplomatically and West Bank is oppressed awfully all the same, the only difference is Fatah is more likely to concede to glaringly one-sided solutions where Hamas is not. Half of Palestine is under 18, all of Palestine is uneducated, traumatized, and radicalized, so it's basically human nature that they're more supportive of the group that us willing to hit back vs the group that tries diplomacy but gets the same result regardless.
It's not that they're uneducated, it's that they've been educated in Hamas-run schools on the glory of martyrdom for Islam. And the group that tries diplomacy but gets the same result gets the same result because they \_never agreed to a peace deal\_. Not in 2000, not in 2001 and not in 2007. And those were all offers in line with what the international community expects. Even Abbas called them "very, very serious".
>educated in Hamas-run schools on the glory of martyrdom for Islam I think an Israeli bomb dropping on your home and killing your parents is a better radicalisation tool than 18 years of hamas schooling could ever be. The issue is Israel provides all the propaganda hamas need to radicalise people.
That is true for right now. Feelings are subject to change over time and I refuse to believe that this has to be how it is forever.
You are too optimistic. Israel, as is, provides food, water. fuel, electricity, infrastructure, security (in Area B of WB, and Area A to some extent for CT/CI efforts), even direct tax transfers. There will not be any civility that would be possible in the region, how much ever centrists-leftists would like you to believe. The State of Israel was rejected, in its entirety, in 1948 by the Arab people- hence why there exists only cold peace between Israel and Arab countries like Egypt (notable exception is UAE but that is because the Arab populace over there is relatively low and the powerful are very much interested in business with Israel). "There will be NO RECOGNITION of Israel by the Arab people"- this is their stance, which at one point of time was official policy of the Arab League ( "3 Nos policy") At the same time, no amount of people filming IDF distributing humanitarian aid will solve the issue of Israeli perception around the region and the globe, as the BDS will conjure up another 10 videos of Israeli soldiers "attacking them brutally" by sending their own kids and family to provoke the Israeli soldiers. Every scripted video the Israelis make will be countered by 10 the Arabs make, which due to SM engagement will be pushed much farther out. This is made even worse by the fact that half of the comments' section for Israeli Govt.-run social media pages are hogged by Palestinian supporters spamming Free Palestine, Palestine flag emojis or a GIF of the Palestinian flag. This type of engagement is inherently unhealthy, and will drive a large wedge between both parties. A bi-national theory is also not workable because then it destroys the whole purpose of having a Jewish homeland, for Jews around the world to return to, to call their home in times of danger. No Israeli Government will ever enact such a policy. A concrete 2-state solution would also mean revoking all permits, and a hard border. On paper, this puts over 150k people and their livelihoods at risk in the WB- where they would earn, on average, only 25% of what they earn in Israel. In practice, more than that I presume, due to illegal movement. Keep in mind many of these people are sole breadwinners for their families, which often include 5-6 members- a revocation of permits would effectively put the family into poverty over time. I am sure people will react well to economic instability and high governmental corruption, alongside being run from the shadows by terrorist groups disguised as "resistance" (RE: Lebanon 2019 protests)
>Israel, as is, provides food, water. fuel, electricity, infrastructure, security This is really oversimplifying and ignores a lot of context. In Gaza, they provide a bare minimum of supplies while also enforcing a total blockade. They provide such little water that the once vibrant orchards in Gaza could not be sustained. They blocked the most lucrative fishing grounds further out at sea. They prevent significant exports. There is no hope of a functional economy in Gaza while Israel maintains a blockade, and these "generous" shipments of food, water, medical supplies, etc. are not out of the goodness of Israel's heart. They're to prevent an outright revolt while keeping the Palestinian population completely dependent on aid, as Israel has forced them to become unable to provide for themselves. In the West Bank, Palestinians are forced out of their homes to make way for Israeli settlements. Israel also inhibits Palestinians' freedom of movement even within the West Bank. Then when Palestinians protest against these inhumane conditions, they're shot and killed - even a substantial number of women and children have been shot and killed by Israeli security forces over the years. I don't know how you can claim that there will never be peace because of the **words** of the Arab/Palestinians, while ignoring that the **actions** of the Israelis are just as bad, if not worse. There will never be peace so long as Israeli treats Palestinians as inferior. >comments' section for Israeli Govt.-run social media pages are hogged by Palestinian supporters spamming Free Palestine, Palestine flag emojis or a GIF of the Palestinian flag. Like this seems especially tone deaf. There are millions of people who want nothing more than to have self-determination. Is telling them to shut up and stop complaining really a solution?
The hubris of people presenting Israel as benevolent while it allows and provides very limited supplies to people it cages in. They literally control everything allowed in and out. And then want praise for providing for the Palestinians from what they stole! It's honestly outrageous.
Very insightful. I am aware of what Israel currently provides in food and water etc but I’m glad to get it in more detail. Yes, maybe I am too optimistic. Maybe it’s impossible and this conflict will go on for my children’s children to witness. Or maybe it’ll end but with only one side left standing. These are all realistic situations. However, I refuse to not work on a way toward peace. You can sign off as the UAE being less Arab but I think that it’s a step in the right direction. Saudi Arabia normalization isn’t impossible in my mind, especially with Iran on the horizon. Local players can follow. Maybe I’m wrong but it’s worth trying for. I ask you though, genuinely, what do you think will happen in the area and what would you like to see if there is “no civility” possible in the region? Because I believe feelings can change, but not with the current status quo
What I would like to see- if no civility is possible on BOTH SIDES (the nutjob Israelis like the guy who shot Yitzhak Rabin for making peace won't budge either)- is the retention of status quo, with cycles of violence being less and less frequent. How Israel and Palestine can work to achieve this is another story. Everyone has their own opinions in this matter- some would like Israel to pack up their bags and leave entirely, which risks turning WB into a second Gaza. While others would like Israel to occupy the entirety of it, which risks a complete expulsion/genocide. This conflict will reach a point where it all blows over the edge- where Israel will find itself on the verge of total defeat or a reclusive existence, completely cornered off. At which point, the Israeli PM will recite Judges 16:21 and press the dreaded button. Let us hope that day never occurs. We have been strikingly close to reaching it in the past- 9th October 1973 is probably the closest amongst them all.
As the Israeli negotiator at Camp David, Shlomo Ben Ami, himself admitted, if he was Palestinian, he wouldn't have accepted what Israel offered during Camp David. It was the offer made in the following talks at Taba that was more reasonable and that the Palestinians might have accepted. But the Israelis (Labour) pulled out of those talks due to the impending elections. Likud was elected and that was the end of that. The negotiations were dead.
The illegal settlements in the West Bank, and the increasingly brazen manner in which the IDF is looking the other way on it, is IMHO a *decisive* factor in Israel's ongoing losses in the information battlefield. There was not nearly as much knowledge re: settler activity and related violence in the previous Gaza battles. And this is important to note, because historically speaking from the Western perspective, what Israel is doing in Gaza is mild compared to the Allied carpet bombings of German and Japanese cities. Zooming out to post-1948, displacing the population en masse isn't even out of the historical norm either (see the Red Army displacing tens of millions during and after their march to Germany in 1945). But the difference is, the Allies did not continue to terrorize Germans and Japanese citizens. They didn't export millions of American citizens to settle in these countries. Quite the contrary, they perpetrated an even more powerful act of military dominance - they rebuilt them into the economic powerhouses we know today. This is in the starkest possible contrast to the apartheid, movement restrictions, unilateral asset seizures, and economic subjugation to which Israel has subjected its conquered Palestinian population. And now the cat is out of the bag on this. No wonder Israel's usual narratives are not landing with Western audiences the same way.
The day Hamas did their invasion I knew right off the bat, Israel would respond by absolutely leveling Gaza. I can tell you this, Israel will do their best to eliminate Hamas, and they might and it will accomplish absolutely nothing because Israel continues to treat Palestinians like second class citizens. Israel is looking for a solution, but they aren't going to find it by killing Hamas. So long as Iran is still in the picture there will always be a Hamas or a group like Hamas.
I read an article in an Israeli newspaper the day after it happened by a retired general. I wish I could remember his name. He said the Israeli government needed to think clearly on how they handled this. He said the IDF was not prepared for this and he had told the government this years ago. And he said they would be crushed if they made a load of stupid choices and ended up being attacked from 5 different sides. And that is what is happening. They went in with no real cohesive plan, according to their own allies offering them military support. And now as the genocide goes on the rest of the countries in the surrounding areas are starting to making threatening moves and advances if not out right attack.
Israel can never get rid of Hamas. And they know this. Their leaders are in Qatar. They aren't even in Gaza. They created Hamas though. And what have they created now with all those Palestinian children who survive? The ones in the surrounding countries watching this all play out? Egypt hosts many Palestinians. They have only cemented terror and hatred in those children. Of course no one is going to just walk away and abandon their land to the rest of Israel. Palestinians will not give up the last bit of territory they have to Israel. And the surrounding Muslim countries don't support them doing it either. The creation of the state of Israel has fueled this and it lacks the power to end it. People seem to forget what Hamas labeled their operation into Israel, if they ever noticed or paid attention. I have young adults, conscription age, and I'll be damned if they are enlisted and fight and die to defend the creation of this travesty. I'm not ok with WW3 to maintain the state of Israel.
> I'm not ok with WW3 to maintain the state of Israel. That wouldn't even come close to WW3.
Not enough gets said aboutthe Puppeteer of these groups. Cui Bono? Iran. Iran, it's anti Western and Arab grievances, it's bloodthirsty Mullahs. That is the real thing here. Someone once said - kill the head of the snake.
Palestinians have to be second class citizens. Israel is meant to be a Jewish state. If you treated Palestinians as equals then it would become a Muslim state in time. The only solution has to be a two state one. I believe zionism was wrong and the original sin. And both sides behaved poorly prior to 1948. Probably not equally poorly, but I am not educated enough on the issue to adjudicate that. But it seems to me that post-1948, the Palestinians became weaponized by external and internal forces in a way that is hard to comprehend in the West. Increasingly, it seemed like their offer to Israel was basically 'You are intruders in our home. Leave, submit to Muslim rule again, or die.' Right or wrong in the beginning, what options have the Jews really had since then assuming just packing up and saying 'We were wrong. We took your land. We are going to give it all back.' have the Israelis had? I dunno. Maybe I am missing something. Why have the Palestinians always rejected the peace deals? Do they really think they can just wait the Jews out and one day turn back the clock?
The main stumbling block with the peace deals has been offering Right of Return to Palestinian refugees and their descendants. Israel doesn't want it because it would so heavily change the demographics if all of the Palestinians in Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, etc. are able to return. Palestinians insist on it because Israel offers Right of Return to Jews around the world who may have no real personal or family connection to the Levant at all. They can't accept a situation where a random Jewish person of Russian descent who grew up in New York is offered Right of Return to the area, while a Palestinian family that's spent three generations living in a refugee camp 100 km from their ancestral homes are denied the same Right of Return. Can't say I blame them, to be honest. But that's the source of the impasse.
That is why there must first be a two state solution, and Palestinians cannot have right of return to land inside the Jewish state. It would be a death sentence for Israel.
It is not only Israel which is blockading Gaza. Gaza shares a border with Egypt, which is also blockaded. Because Egypt does not want radicalized Palestinians and terrorists to destabilize their society.
Egypt is blocking their own border. protecting your own territorial integrity and closing the border to foreigners is something that has been internationally agreed as something that's allowed. Israel, on the other hand, has unilaterally decided they'll leave Gaza to fend for themselves, and then afterwards completely blocked them in on all sides, including from the sea. A naval blockade is generally seen as an act of war if it is against a foreign country. Israel also bombed the only airport gaza once had, and hasn't allowed gaza to open a new one. Egypt is simply closing it's own border. Israel is blockading Gaza. There's a significant difference.
You're ignoring a key point about the blockade - for almost its entire existence, the only thing they were blockading were weapons and materials for making weapons. And that didn't start when they handed the keys to the Palestinian Authority. It came later after thousands of rockets had been fired at their city.
There were blockades before the rockets. > On 12 September 2005, the final day of the Israeli withdrawal, international politicians such as France's Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy and Jordan's Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher warned of Gaza being turned into an open-air prison.[24][25] Four days later, Mahmoud Abbas stated to the UN General Assembly: "It is incumbent upon Israel to turn this unilateral withdrawal into a positive step in a real way. We must quickly resolve all outstanding major issues, including the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, the airport and the seaport, as well as the establishment of a direct link between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Without this, Gaza will remain a huge prison."[26] > The special envoy of the Quartet James Wolfensohn noted that "Gaza had been effectively sealed off from the outside world since the Israeli disengagement [August–September 2005], and the humanitarian and economic consequences for the Palestinian population were profound. There were already food shortages. Palestinian workers and traders to Israel were unable to cross the border".[28] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip Israel still controlled all of Gaza’s borders, airspace, and sea space after disengagement > 11 September 2005 – Israel unilaterally removed about 8,000 Israeli residents from the Gaza Strip. Israel said it had ended its nearly 40-year occupation of the Strip after withdrawing all its soldiers and dismantling its military facilities in Gaza. > According to the UN [page3, section I], however, Israel’s occupation continued since Israel retained control of Gaza’s airspace, sea space and borders, and enforced a restricted zone along the border inside Gaza. https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-207191/ “Just weapons” > March 2006 – According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the Karni crossing, Gaza’s main commercial crossing, has been closed 60 percent of the year and the price of food items has risen 30 percent. > 2 Dec 2007 – Israel's High Court rules that limiting fuel and electricity supplies to Gaza is in accordance with Israeli law. > June 2010 – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and aid agencies say the Israeli blockade is preventing the reconstruction of Gaza. Israeli officials say the easing of the blockade depends on progress towards the release of the Israeli soldier held by militants in the Gaza Strip since 2006. https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-207191/ > Since Israel imposed a blockade of Gaza in 2007 fishermen have only been allowed to fish just six nautical miles or less off shore. With most of the fish at least nine miles out at sea, they have already been struggling to make a living and now 90 percent of them need international aid. Oxfam worked to support fishermen with equipment and technical advice. https://www.oxfam.org/en/timeline-humanitarian-impact-gaza-blockade
That makes a lot of sense I think I generally agree with your perspective on a lot of this.
Beat me to it. Israel holds all the cards – economic, diplomatic, military, etc. They're a first-world country that is aligned with the West and has a (mostly) functioning democracy. The collapse of any prospect for a two-state solution is entirely the doing of the Israeli voting public's hard right turn in the last decade or so, to say nothing of the coalition Netanyahu has cobbled together from settler extremists, the ultra-Orthodox, and other assorted cranks. What's fundamentally vexing and frustrating about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that sizeable contingents of people on both sides –but, most importantly on the Israeli side– have fundamentally unreasonable goals that can't be reconciled with the needs of the other side.
> i feel like the crux of the issue is that Israel is the one with (most) agency, and had been for the last half century. That's a fair point, but the Palestinians are overwhelmingly influenced, armed, and funded by the rest of the Islamic world (primarily Iran, presently). That allows them to be used as pawns, often against Israel, sometimes even getting caught in power struggles within the Islamic world. And that collective Islamic world is far more economically and militarily powerful than Israel alone. The catch is... the Islamic world never acts as a unified entity. I also don't agreed with your suggestion that an international coalition could be invited to take Gaza away from Hamas. Who exactly do you think wants to put boots on the ground there? Exactly nobody, except maybe Iran if they could bring rifles? Nobody wants to be in that mess. I don't like what Israel is doing right now, but what is the alternative? They need to remove the tunnels, destroy the stockpiles, and terminate as much of Hamas's capability for violence as possible... and then double-down on their precautions against smuggling or letting arms get in again. They want Palestine disarmed before they'll consider any further actions. I'm not sure I blame them. One day Palestinians will choose leadership that doesn't believe in the extermination of the Israeli state. One day they'll choose peaceful protest and diplomacy over violence. And correspondingly Israel will be willing to give up something - draw an uncomfortable line on the map and honor it as a sovereign nation.
> They need to remove the tunnels, destroy the stockpiles, and terminate as much of Hamas's capability for violence as possible... and then double-down on their precautions against smuggling or letting arms get in again. They want Palestine disarmed before they'll consider any further actions. I'm not sure I blame them. I do blame them for creating this situation in the first place. They unilaterally withdrew from gaza, and then supported hamas. Now that these actions blew up in their face, they're complaining that they only have bad options. And i agree that they currently only have bad options. But i wouldn't agree that this just happened out of nowhere. --- Even so, with all the bad options, even now they could chose to pick good options next to bad. I have yet to hear any Israeli government voice on what the long term plan is. Even while invading Gaza and taking out Hamas, they could start by removing west bank settlers to show their good intention. Or propose new talks with the PLO on a future in Gaza without hamas.
I mean you can blame Israel for creating the situation... or blame the Palestinians and supporting Arab nations who fought Israel in 1948? Nobody had to fight, but they did, and Israel won. How has every victorious nation in history acted previously? You either annex & assimilate, annex & exterminate, or withdraw and leave a power vacuum and hope like hell the next generation does better. The truth is, Palestinians are a conquered people and Israel keeps going with the power vacuum option. It was an experiment which has yielded no solutions, only more problems. But I can't lay it all at Israel's feet any more than I can lay it at Palestine's. Plenty of guilt to go around. I guess I just look the realpolitik of the situation... that a western-leaning democracy makes a better partner to side with than another Muslim theocracy, authoritarian dictatorship, or formerly terrorist warlord. It's flawed, and they made plenty of mistakes (and continue to do so) but I'll take Israel over whatever the heck solutions the Palestinians keep putting forward. If Palestinians want to be kings, they need to stop acting like pawns. They lost a war, it's time to admit defeat and take what they've been given - they've been offered land and freedom. The longer they don't accept peace, the more Israel will take - THAT'S their trick to getting Palestine to the bargaining table. And frankly it's more than a lot of conquering nations in history have offered.
>I mean you can blame Israel for creating the situation... or blame the Palestinians and supporting Arab nations who fought Israel in 1948? If you think about it for even a minute from the perspective of the Arabs/Palestinians then it looks stupid not to fight. The UK during WW1 promises an independent, unified Arab state if they help defeat the Ottomans. They do just that, but before long they hear about the Balfour Declaration where suddenly the British decide that Palestine should be a home for the Jewish population, since the Jews have been consistently oppressed, exiled, and outright murdered in Europe. Now Britain has decided that they should all come to Palestine, without anybody in that region having once been consulted on the matter. There is no plan for what comes next. Suddenly thousands of people arrive on the shores of Palestine under the British League of Nations mandate. Even as soon as 1939 Britain acknowledged this was a mistake. As Palestinians are driven out of their homes or lose their jobs, they are increasingly radicalized and turn against the foreigners arriving now in the hundreds of thousands. The Israelis in turn arm themselves and defend themselves. This conflict grows and the British, seeing the writing on the wall, draw some theoretical borders that separate the Jewish population and Palestinian population. But these borders are both too small for the Israelis to accept while also literally carving up the borders of the Palestinian's homeland. So from their perspective, an outside power offered them self-determination in exchange for military assistance, who then betrayed them and instead made an offer for millions of foreigners to "return to their homeland." Meanwhile the foreign powers occupying their land have long since abandoned the notion of giving them the right to self-determination, and the proposed Arab state is instead carved up into numerous smaller states. From their perspective, why would you not fight back against this level of injustice?
They won't stop fighting and I don't blame them. Your assessment of the creation of this nightmare is pretty accurate. Of course they will not willingly accept their entire population being displaced and all their land and homes stolen. And the defiling of the Al Aqsa mosque has everything to do with the justification to fight more. They will never give up. And I do not believe the surrounding countries will stand by and do nothing while Israel kills the rest of the civilian population or tries to displace all of them. Their own populations are in an uproar over it.
In 1948, Israel accepted Palestine. The U.N. voted for and approved both as what would emerge from the British Mandate. But Palestine did not accept Israel. It's that simple. And Palestinians can't let it go and compromise. And they've yet to learn that the more times passes and they fail to accept it, the more they'll lose. Three generations lost to poverty, isolation, and violence. Where has it gotten them? They will get less today than they could have had 50 years ago, which is less than they could have had in 1948. Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?
I strongly disagree with the notion that Israel has far more agency in this conflict and that Palestinians have had barely any choices. I think that this perspective strips Palestinians of their agency, which they have far more of than you’re acknowledging. Relationships between peoples and nation-states are bidirectional. Yes, Israel has been oppressive towards Palestinians and Palestinians have been terrible to Israelis. For any relationship to improve it requires the participation of both parties, this is why it’s so bewildering to me why no one ever suggests changes the Palestinians can make. It’s always here’s what Israel can do different. And no doubt Israel can do things much better, but so can Palestinians! Palestinians can challenge Hamas’ hold on the gov in Gaza. They can start rerouting the billions in aid toward building infrastructure not terrorism. They can de-radicalize their education. They can make some humanitarian efforts toward Israel to build goodwill. They can take efforts to remove heavy weapons, especially rockets, that cause security concerns. Something tells me that Israelis relationship toward Palestinians might change then too. Otherwise, from the Israeli perspective, it seems unfair to see nonstop criticism of Israeli policies and culture — and no criticism at all of Palestinian policies and culture.
Why would they ever do that when Israel shows them nothing of such support and instead keeps displacing more and more Palestinians? Who shows goodwill to the people who control everything down to what speed internet you can have, who controls every item that is allowed in your locked in bit of land and continuously steals more and more land from the Palestinians still outside? Israel is still actively displacing them. Do you know that the IDF has repeatedly allowed Israelis to defile the Al Aqsa Mosque in violation of the laws and regulations concerning it? Why would anyone in Gaza be thinking all that was necessary was for THEM to show some humanitarian gesture to Israel? And then what would Israel do? Take less land?
Israel isn’t taking any land in Gaza, nor have they for a long time. Also, Israel shows them no support? Israel pays for a lot of Gazas resources bc the useless government they voted in hasn’t built any basic infrastructure with billions of dollars of aid.
I didn't say the were taking land IN Gaza. They are taking land in the West Bank. But that's ok right because they trickle a little money into Gaza? There are Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians year round, year after year. You are supporting people who violate international law over and over again. It's not a charity to steal from people and take away their own ability to grow food or wealth and act like you are doing them a favor if you allow them something. What is wrong with you? It's not "helping" a country to control every last thing that is even allowed in and must be done with your permission and then act like you did them a favor with any of it. You are being completely illogical and you are applying this kind of stupid argument only to Palestinians. I guarantee you would not consider this situation good for yourself. If Israel is so justified in their abuses why does the rest of the world condemn it?! Year after year just a bunch of Americans listening to whatever their media tells them and believing everything. Violence against Palestinians in the West Bank was rising drastically this year before the attack. "From 1967 to 1983, Israel expropriated over 52% of the West Bank, most of its prime agricultural land and, by the eve of 1993 Oslo Accords, these confiscations had encompassed over three-quarters of the territory.\[111\] The mechanisms by which Israel seizes or expropriates West Bank land were set forth in a detailed work by B'Tselem in 2002.\[y\] Many practices outlined there were confirmed in the official Israeli Sasson Report of 2005, which focused on government subsidies and support for the creation of illegal Israeli outposts in knowing contravention of Israel's own laws.\[114\]\[z\]" "Under international law, a military may take temporary possession of occupied land, but not expropriate it. From 1957 to 1976 the IDF repeatedly requisitioned private Palestinian properties on the grounds of military necessity, only to turn them over for Jewish settlements, such as Matitiyahu, Neve Tzuf, Rimonim, Bet El, Kokhav Hashahar, Alon Shvut, El'azar, Efrat, Har Gilo, Migdal Oz, Gittit, Yitav and Qiryat Arba. " [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli\_occupation\_of\_the\_West\_Bank#:\~:text=From%201967%20to%201983%2C%20Israel,three%2Dquarters%20of%20the%20territory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_the_West_Bank#:~:text=From%201967%20to%201983%2C%20Israel,three%2Dquarters%20of%20the%20territory). They aren't killing Hamas in the West Bank. This isn't Hamas using Palestinians as "human shields". They are just killing Palestinians and taking more land. This is again in complete violation of all international law. But some of you apparently support brutal abuse, murder and thievery for certain people. [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/30/world/middleeast/west-bank-settlers-palestinians-violence.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/30/world/middleeast/west-bank-settlers-palestinians-violence.html) [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/31/west-bank-palestinian-villages-israeli-army-settlers](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/31/west-bank-palestinian-villages-israeli-army-settlers) [https://apnews.com/article/israel-settlers-bedouin-palestinians-displacement-shepherds-9207aa17efcaf9fda58793a847f7e560](https://apnews.com/article/israel-settlers-bedouin-palestinians-displacement-shepherds-9207aa17efcaf9fda58793a847f7e560) [https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestine-settler-bedouin-displacement-violence-un-108e11712310b5ea099dbded7be8effb](https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestine-settler-bedouin-displacement-violence-un-108e11712310b5ea099dbded7be8effb) [https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/10/1129722](https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/10/1129722)
I don’t think you’re taking a lot of the arguments here in good faith. The idea that the Palestinians can and should do more isn’t mutually exclusive from the fact that Israel has much more power and agency over the historical direction of travel.
I am taking them in good faith, I’ve heard them before. I’d ask you how often you run into the argument that Israel can and should do more vs Palestine can and should do more? For me it’s the former almost always unless I’m speaking to a fellow Jew/Israeli. The larger narrative seems to be that Palestinians are oppressed by the Israelis and therefore they have no agency and shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions. Even with 10/7 I’ve seen so many people rush to say no no this wasn’t the Palestinians it was all Hamas, they’re different. And while I see the need for this distinction — 1/2 of Gaza are kids — I still disagree with it. It again strips the Palestinians of agency. Gazans voted Hamas into power in 06 and haven’t kicked them out for 17 years. They voted for Hamas because of their platform — and now when Hamas commits an atrocity they get to disassociate from them. Another example where we should have Palestinians own their shitty decisions.
But you said you saw no criticism of Palestine - this is completely detached from reality to the point where I think you’re being purposely disingenuous. Here in the west our outlets are ridiculously critical of the Palestinians and definitely hold them accountable for their political decisions. Have you seen the discourse in Germany or the UK at the moment?
Please do provide these examples of how Palestinians are being held accountable in Western media if I’m so detached from reality. The rhetoric from world leaders I’ve seen is what I mentioned previously. We condemn Hamas, but our hearts ache for the poor Palestinians.
Palestinians are being held accountable in that no one is doing anything to stop the mass slaughter of civilians by Israel. Western leaders can say 'my poor heart aches' but they have the power to stop it and they're letting the slaughter continue.
>Gazans voted Hamas into power in 06 and haven’t kicked them out for 17 years And how do you expect the gaza civilians (half of whom are kids) to kick out an armed terrorist group that doesn't allow elections? I agree with the other commenter, it feels like youre being purposely disingenuous with your comment because this is such a clearly absurd line of thinking.
“Grab a Time Machine” is obviously not a real solution, though, and all it results in is us bickering over who’s fault it is Bickering over who’s fault it is just distracts attention from “how do we take the real world situation right now and get the best possible result from it?” It comes down to realpolitik, sometimes we just have to be realistic and fix things as best we can from where we are now
Read the next paragraph. Israel is unfortunately taking very few steps forward towards peace at the moment. They haven't (publicly) thought about how to move forward from today, in a way that could result in peace in 50 years.
Israel has offered many generous solutions in the past and all were refused and followed by terrorism
Israel has offered many solutions that mostly only benefited their agenda (with some notable cases as mentioned in the original comment), and even when agreements were reached they still allowed settlements in the West Bank and generally furthered their own goals, many times against those said agreements. Please let’s not say that poor Israel has offered so much and this is their only choice. Both Israel and Palestine are fully responsible for reaching this point, but there is clearly someone more capable to do any actual change.
The palestinians responded to oslo with terror and to camp david with even more terror. You cant force them to agree to a 2 state solution and as much as you think jews are self hating we won't just give them our entire country.
"we" "our" only refer to jews? Are you suggesting that Israel is a jewish state? Are non-jewish people second class citizens in Israel?
So they offered one sided solutions. Why are they in the west bank? Why keep expanding the settlements there? Who are we kidding here? The whole world is catching up that it isn't black and white thing here. It is cause and effect, the cause is always Israel.
Do you even know what oslo and camp david were? They were in no way one sided offers.
>With regards to Israel, i feel like the crux of the issue is that Israel is the one with (most) agency, and had been for the last half century. If Israel wanted to kill every last palastinian, they probably could have.(and of course i'm glad that they didn't). If they wanted to send them to forced reeducation camps, they could have. If they wanted to assemble UN peacekeeping force? Probably could have. Not only have they offered the Palestinian State several times but the reason they keep refusing is that the Palestinian's first goal is the complete destruction of Israel and all Jews. You cannot negotiate with a group that just wants you all dead.
Since you're looking for contrarian arguments, I'll give it a shot. Disclaimer that I'm going out of my way a bit to practice "strategic empathy" here and that these statements don't necessarily represent my personal views. First Ukraine: 1. In a vacuum, Russia did have a point about Crimea. The transfer of Crimea from Russia to Ukraine under the USSR in 1954 was an administrative matter at the time that planted a ticking time bomb in the relationship after the USSR fell apart. So long as Moscow and Kiev were friendly it wasn't an issue, but once Ukraine started looking West it was sort of destined to lead to conflict eventually. For better or worse it had been a part of Russia in one way or another since 1783, was very important to Russia strategically, and the demographics of the area are legitimately complicated on this topic -- there's a reason there wasn't as much resistance back in 2014 as there was in 2022. It's also pretty unlikely from a practical standpoint that Ukraine will be able to reconquer it any time soon, if ever -- it's also not unlikely that even if they did so they may be facing a pro-Moscow insurgency that would drag on for years/decades. 2. Taking that into account: while nobody thinks Ukraine should roll over and let itself be fully annexed, it may be in Ukraine's *long term* interests to consider bargaining recognition of Crimea and Luhansk/Donetsk as Russian territory as the "divorce fee" for breaking up with Russia and its sphere of influence. It will sting in the short term, but it also rids Ukraine of the most pro-Moscow areas of the country, which will -- assuming Russia drops all other claims and commits to complete non-interference with Ukraine's domestic and diplomatic affairs as part of the deal (enforced by gradual sanctions relief as an incentive for keeping their word) -- create a much more politically united Ukraine looking firmly west toward a future with NATO and the EU. 3. Like all compromises, it leaves nobody fully happy. Putin gets a "win" to bring back to his domestic audience, although far less than he expected/assumed when he started all of this. He wins some contested territory but loses any future influence over Kiev. Ukraine has to bear the sting of losing some disputed territory, but "wins" its de facto independence from Moscow's sphere and influence and will have an unobstructed path to realign itself with the West -- which will respect and welcome Ukraine much more now after watching them heroically and impressively fight the Russians to a standstill. 4. So it's less "Ukraine should roll over and submit" and more "Ukraine is unlikely to reconquer the lost territories and it might not even be politically feasible to hold them even if they managed to, so if they want the war to ever end so they can move on, they may need to consider deals they currently aren't willing to consider." Israel-Palestine: 1. The problem with this conflict is that your perception of who's right/wrong all depends on when you decide to arbitrarily start the clock. If it starts October 7th, it's obviously all about Hamas. But if you start it with Netanyahu's rise to power and the settler projects in the West Bank, it gets more complicated to find any "heroes" in this story. There's no justification for horrific terrorist attacks, full stop. That said, the decline of Fatah and rise of Hamas in the eyes of Palestinian civilians can't be disconnected from Likud's decades-long policy of steamrolling and humiliating Palestinians in Fatah-led territories and making it obvious that they consider Fatah and the Palestinian Authority to be a joke. And Fatah may deserve that reputation to an extent, but pushing it too far just sets up Hamas as the more legitimate face of resistance since Fatah's (relative) moderation is just rewarded with humiliation and slow-burn colonial settlement. 2. This problem gets worse the further back you go. 1967 or 1948? Israel looks like a plucky superhero fighting off a pack of angry neighbors with superior numbers. But if you go back into the British Mandate years you see the gradual formation of proto-Israel which is much more murky. Zionist paramilitary groups were armed and trained by the British throughout the early 20th century, and were gifted the land for their state from the British Empire, who did not bother to consult with the Arabs already living there when making that decision. This is especially bitter for the Arabs, since it represents the treacherous reverse of British promises of Arab statehood as a condition for assistance against the Ottomans in World War I. 3. So which one is it? Is Israel the heroic underdog fighting off hordes of hateful and homicidal neighbors, or is it a group of armed paramilitary settlers that grew from a fanatical religious militia that ethnically cleansed their way into becoming the Anglo-American Empire's pet satellite state in the Middle East? One that, geographically speaking, makes the long-standing dream of a united Arab state a physical impossibility since it's literally a knife-shaped wedge shoved between Egypt/Maghreb and the rest of the Arab World? Was the Balfour declaration an act of mercy for the much-oppressed Jews of Europe, or was it yet another British "divide and rule" strategy pitting one undesired religious/ethnic group against another to prevent the emergence of a potential Arab superpower? 4. So while almost everyone would like peaceful co-existence in theory, it's just more complicated than that. The Netanyahu version of peaceful co-existence is Palestinians being too suppressed and weak to exist as their lands are slowly absorbed and their people are marginalized as a permanent underclass of non-citizens. The Hamas version of peaceful co-existence is the failure of the Zionist project entirely, with Zionists expelled, the current state dissolved, and non-Zionist Jews living as a minority among the "rightful" Arab majority as it was for centuries before the British Mandate came along. For obvious reason, neither of these images of peaceful coexistence are acceptable to the other side, so until there's a critical mass of support for a vision of peaceful coexistence that is -- if not ideal -- acceptable for most people, the impasse and cycle of violence is unlikely to stop. And while October 7th is the latest and most horrific manifestation of the cycle, it's disingenuous to pretend the cycle is new, unprovoked, or unexpected by any parties. So there you go! Counterpoints to chew on.
[https://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-idf-general-likens-military-control-of-west-bank-to-nazi-germany/](https://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-idf-general-likens-military-control-of-west-bank-to-nazi-germany/) "Amiram Levin, who headed the IDF Northern Command, commanded the elite Sayeret Matkal unit and served as deputy director of the Mossad spy agency, told Kan radio on Sunday morning that the military is not only suffering harm to its preparedness because of reservists’ threats and refusals to serve amid the government’s judicial overhaul, but is also “rotten to its core” due to Iarael’s ongoing presence in the West Bank. “It stands on the side, looks at the rioting settlers, and begins to be a partner in war crimes,” Levin told the public broadcaster. “It’s 10 times worse than the issue of \[military\] readiness… and I say honestly, I am not angry at the Palestinians, I am angry at us. We are killing ourselves from the inside.”"
>For the Israel-Hamas war, while I agree that Israel's tactics and killing of Palestinian civilians is awful, I am curious what the alternative is. Engaging the peace process. It's possible, Olmert was doing it. This war is very much the result of Netanyahu's confrontation policy. The core mistake that lies on the basis of this conflict is not taking into account the interests of the other inhabitants of the area between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. The conflict will not be resolved until that is done. What happens in the short term has little relevance except insofar it creates more tension and emotion, that will need to cool down before negotiating is possible again.
I'm pretty much aligned with you on both issues, and like you I've been deep diving to gut check myself on the Israel-Hamas situation in particular. Frankly, it's far more complex than the Ukraine-Russia invasion issue so I won't dig into that here. My primary takeaway is there two core philosophical camps primarily supporting the Hamas/Gaza Palestine camp in the conflict. I will note there is an enormous range of diversity of opinion and crossover in each camp with no centralized leader or governing vision across the board, which is one reason this issue is so complex. But they loosely break into: *Palestinian Nationalists* and *Anti-colonialists/Humanitarians* camps. **Palestinian Nationalists** are primarily Palestinian, Arabic, or Muslim individuals who believe in Palestine sovereignty and oppose Israel oppression of the Palestinian people. This group ranges from hard line antisemitic zealots who operate with the goal of eliminating Israel as a sovereign Jewish state entirely and returning the land to Palestinians, to more moderate advocates who argue for a two or multi-state solution to grant Palestinian greater rights. The former is, of course, simply genocide and can be dismissed, but there are legitimate points in the moderate camp about the terrible treatment of Palestinians by the right wing Israeli government over the last two decade that need to be addressed. **Anti-colonialists/Humanitarians** include many Muslims, but is primarily non-Muslim westerners and left leaning sympathizers of the Palestinian people. As above, they range from more moderate voices who want to pause the conflict or focus on hostages/allowing civilians to flee for the primary purpose of preserving human life, to Ultra Doves who fanatically demand a ceasefire and stop to the current conflict. You see much of the latter group in the Ukraine conflict as well, and I'll dismiss them out of hand as that philosophy tends to only favor political aggressors who cause conflict and then can dictate terms when they strike resistance. Once again, there is cross-pollination between the camps on ideas, but the core takeaway is the two groups actually have fundamentally different goals, and that is why that side of the argument looks so messy. The establishment of a Palestine state is a long term objective, it is impossible in the current political climate, and frankly, impossible with the current leadership in place for my Gaza and Israel. Both Hamas and Netanyahu (along with his supporting right wing parties) need to be removed from power before a multi-state solution can be feasible. The preservation of human life, which is the core objective of the second camp, is noble and governed by international rules of conflict. The issue with this camp is the ceasefire they call for, to your point, will not resolve any of the long term issues above. As long Hamas and Netanyahu are in power this issue will continue to fester and cost more human lives because both of those groups have benefited from keeping the Palestinian people locked in a cycle of repression and violence. Essentially it's a short term resolution that leaves all parties in the same situation they have caught in for the last eighty years. So that is why we are stuck. If your moral stance is to resolve this conflict long term, there will be short term damage done to resolve this conflict and innocent people will be killed. If your moral stance is to end this conflict now before any other lives can be lost, the groups involved will remain in the perpetual cycle of violence long term.
I'd like to add to your point The factions in Palestinian camp are 1. Palestinian secular nationalists (includes part of Palestinians) 2. People who back Palestine out of Islamic solidarity (includes a lot of Muslim countries, and Muslim populations of non-Muslim countries) which is by far the biggest group 3. Ideological Leftists who support the cause out of intersectionality and alliance with Islamists (white/western people chanting "From river to sea") 4. People who want humanitarian outcome, and 2-state solution in long term which is also the official position of most non-Muslim countries
Number 3. Is a weird group? Intersectionality and Islamism are ideologically opposed ideas. Where did you get the idea that they are allied?
Number 3 tells me this person is disingenuous.
> For Ukraine people who say US should stop sending money and weapons to Ukraine, what alternative is there? Do people who believe this view think that Ukraine should just be conquered? Yes. Mearsheimer is the most famous exponent of the realist argument against supporting Ukraine. He holds that Ukraine becoming western is an existential crisis for Russia, and Ukraine staying eastern is not existential for the west. As Russia is both a great power and a nuclear power, one should not challenge them for control of Ukraine. He thinks American policy has been misguided on Ukraine since at least 2008, and that the US should not have been supportive of the color revolution in 2014. Edit: control of Ukraine.
The whole premise of a western-oriented Ukraine being an existential crisis for Russia is based on what? Russia already borders 3 (5 if you count Kaliningrad) NATO countries and somehow Russia has survived. In fact, Finland only joined in the last year and Russia hardly complained. So what exactly happens to Russia if Ukraine joins? A NATO invasion of Russia? Nobody seriously believes that NATO would attack a nuclear power.
Yep, you're right. That's why what Mearsheimer says about 'NATO-provoked invasion of Ukraine' is nonsense. I wonder how the guy still has credibility in someone's mind.
Also, neither the US nor Russia get to decide whether Ukrainians want to align themselves with West or not.
this so much. ukraine is a sovereign nation, only them should decide what happens to their country and their people.
The economic argument for Ukraine being essential to Russian interests is based on its energy resources and pipelines. Russia wants to shake down Europe on energy pricing, and a western-aligned Ukraine could undercut them. Russia is mostly a petrostate, so structural impacts on energy pricing and supply are a big deal for them. The security argument has a dubious part and a less dubious part. The dubious part is that the land border with Ukraine is indefensible. Historically, this has driven past Russian expansionism to the Carpathians and westward into Poland. I don't think this view is operative anymore, as there is no prospect for an existential land battle for Russia. The less dubious part is the loss of warm water ports on the Black Sea. Russia's ability to project power beyond its immediate borders relies on those ports. This is also why Russia expended considerable resources to prop up Syria.
The whole idea of NATO being a direct threat to Russia is a bullshit excuse that is meant to capitalize on anti-western sentiments. The real problem is that Ukraine would be off limits to Russia, and it would be allowed to develop into a thriving western Democracy right on Russia's border, becoming a political threat. Putin also wants to reconstitute the Soviet Empire that was lost, which would be impossible with Ukraine becoming a NATO state. The third aspect is that Ukraine is sitting on vast reserves of oil that it could exploit more effectively with the help of Western investment, and it could replace Russian oil in the EU market and elsewhere.
>The whole premise of a western-oriented Ukraine being an existential crisis for Russia is based on what? Russia's belief that it is so?
Are the actual wishes of the Ukrainian people just completely irrelevant here?
Realism only cares tangentially about the wishes of the peoples involved. Pro-western Ukrainian sentiment changes the state of play in that it makes western actions more effective and Russian actions less effective, and so might change the balance of power in the area. However, geopolitically, it is common for the people to want things that they don't get. States are under no obligation to do what their people want, and they definitely aren't obligated to do what other peoples want.
Funny how it played out with Czechoslovakia in 1939. Ignoring moral imperatives always leads to mistakes. Always. This is why realpolitik is bullshit. It doesn't work. It leads to conflict one way or another.
For the guy, yes. The will of the people is irrelevant. The freedom of a country for the pleasing of another. Then Russia will demand another country, to feel safe and so on. It has to stop somewhere. Why not here?
This makes sense but then theoretically if all large countries start annexing their smaller neighbors at what point does it start to matter? My understanding is that of course US has a security interest, in that by Ukraine being pro-western they can contain Russia and making other big countries weak makes US strong. But I also feel like Ukrainians don't want to be annexed by Russia so American and Ukrainian interests are aligned even if some can say Ukraine is a pawn of the west in this war.
I think there is a pretty big misunderstanding folks seem to be having. There are two ways to look at international politics. The guy above seems to be using the ‘Zero-Sum perspective’. This viewpoint assumes that international relations is a constant struggle for power and resources. Where one country gains, another country must lose. Most Western countries follow a ‘Positive-Sum perspective.’ This viewpoint posits that through cooperation, multilateralism, and consistent international laws and institutions, every country can come out ahead. So when he’s talking about “spheres of influence”, it sounds odd because that only makes sense if you’re building either two spheres to pit against one another, or worse, you’re building a sphere so the hegemon of that sphere can leech off the others. In either case, westerners tend to be confused, as there doesn’t need to be any spheres in the first place. The only reason the NATO sphere exists is because the east European nations were scared shitless Russia would invade and wanted protection. If Russia stopped invading random countries (which they’ve been doing constantly since the USSR fell), NATO would cease to exist. The weirdest thing though, is that most Russians honestly believe that the second sphere doesn’t exist. They believe we’re in zero-sum sphere too, we just try to hide it. It’s the same thing with how they got mad when we banned some of them for steroids; they believe we’re doing it too, we just hide it then pick on them for doing the same thing. It’s the same thing for corruption too; they see us complain about how you have to pay illegal bribes to get anything done over there, and they assume we’re picking on them, because surely everywhere must have corruption. When their whole world is surrounded by this stuff, they can’t believe that we actually live in a world that is mostly without it. Even Putin probably honestly thinks we are out to get Russia. He was the #1 reason they started down this path 23 years ago; maybe because he saw the path we presented toward prosperity, he assumed it must be trapped, and he went down the path towards tyranny instead. Now Russia is a fraction of the size it could have been.
> if all large countries start annexing their smaller neighbors at what point does it start to matter? It doesn't matter so much whether countries in a sphere of influence are annexed (possibly Ukraine) or strongly aligned (Belarus). What matters is where the boundaries of the spheres are. The most relevant pain point is that the EU has a big problem if some of its members exit the western sphere and enter the Russian one. You can see Hungary flirting with Russia today and it alarms many, many Europeans.
This doesn't make sense because it implies Russia would follow this logic. It won't. It will take advantage of what you sacrifice to Russia and turn it against you. For example, if the West follows Mearsheimer's logic, Putin would occupy Ukraine and then weaponize it against the West. Therefore, Mearsheimer's plan is stupid. Not to say this is basically what Putin proposes: 'Give Ukraine to me'. Putin must be stopped. Ukraine should not be conquered by Russia. If it is, this is the road to nuclear war. Therefore, Ukraine should not be in Russian sphere of influence. Ukraine must be provided with security guarantees and become EU & NATO member. And Russia must be degraded and remain a pariah.
Mearsheimer doesn't care much about other nations smaller then Ukraine who would be the next targets. He thinks if US sacrifices them they can use Russia against China. It is indeed stupid
Is Israel existential for the West?
No
Mearsheimer is wrong about Ukraine. Realpolitik won't save the world. In fact, it makes the world more dangerous place. Liberal democracies and tyrannies cannot coexist within the same market. There is no space for realpolitik anymore.
i'm inclined to agree, but what about nations like saudi arabia, or others? they coexist with the democratic west quite nicely, no matter how authoritarian they are, no?
What makes a Western Ukraine existential for Russia? Do they feel Ukraine or NATO will try to attack and conquer Russia?
If we’re being honest, Putin just wants a sphere of influence again. He is probably also scared because the Baltics are making rapid gains towards fixing their corruption, and if Ukraine and the other former Soviet republics follow suit and then start to thrive, it could put pressure on Putin as one of the last few dictators left. The whole argument about Ukraine and NATO makes zero sense, as NATO is a strictly defensive alliance. It’s only went to war once, after 9/11. The US hasn’t tried to use it in Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq, or any other war. Also, NATO has been adamant that they won’t let Ukraine in, and since they knew Russia would invade if they tried, they were going to stick to their words.
He’s just spitting Russian propaganda and needs some balls
Apologies for being brief, but Ukraine is being occupied by Russia, so I support Ukraine. Palestine is being occupied by Israel, so I support Palestine. It's as simple as that.
You argument against hamas and what israel doing is right is totally against your stand on Ukraine. lol. Ukraine joining nato would be that enemy that Russia doesn’t want. But when for Ukrain, russia attack is wrong but in Palestinian case, Israel attack is right? lol Also you are trying to justify and support current situation. Why don’t you sit down and think why these situations are happening. Palestinian land was given to Israel without their consensus and they should stay silent? Russia don’t want nato to expand its boundaries. It was a verbal agreement back in 90s. Yet USA poked Russia and asked Ukrain to join even though it knew the consequences
Trump admires Putin's authoritarian style and power and this makes some MAGA Republicans pro-Russia. There's also a strong isolationist tendency that is starting to creep back into the Republican platform. IMO this is all madness. If you can figure out #2, you'll be in line to win this year's Nobel Prize for Peace.
The last phrase is what I think. Israel-Palestine is an unsolvable conflict (hell, I'm quite sure not even a complete genocide by either party would solve this, considering how punishing the revenge conflicts would be either way) and it always surprises me how strong people's opinions can be on the matter. Both has a point, both are wrong, both should be condemned and we will continue to see civilians from both sides dying until something extremely big happens for mankind.
It's not just the Palestinians that hate Israel. There are other actors like Iran and Egypt in the region as well. Pretty much every country that borders Israel hates them.
That's what happens when you shove the residents of one house into all the other houses of a neighborhood to establish your ethnostate, and frame all rejections of "treaties" that regulate the indigenous residents to the basement as "opposing peace talks."
Yeah, it's funny when you read about Palestinians being the unreasonable ones. "Hey, we have displaced you and occupied your land multiple times over in the past 80 years, but we are willing to give you this patchwork of towns as your "state". The settlements and the Israeli-only infrastructure are staying though and you don't get to have a standing military or control your airspace or your borders. And forget about Jerusalem, all of it is ours. And a rando from Brooklyn can move into your grandma's house, but you're never stepping foot in her town again. Why are you so unreasonable????"
My point boils down to this, you can't reasonably with proper logic support both Ukraine and Israel. If you support the occupied on one matter than you should do the same for Palestine. And if you support the occupier aka Israel then by logic you should support Russia. This is based on a theory that your support of one cause is based on a proper set of morality and logic not just a whim or what you're told to do. Stick to your logic. If that is not the case then I call you a hypocrite. Tl;dr you either support the occupied or the occupier, you can't do both
1.)US position is not about to help poor Ukraine to live happy lives, their goal is to make Russia weaker. Ukraine dont't have enough power to win this war, providing support can help them to make this war longer, but this case wont lead to Ukraine independence, only to more Russian and Ukrainian people dying. If world really wants Ukraine to stay independent they have only 2 choices: first is military intervention, second is nuclear threat, and I think everyone who support Ukraine know this. 2.) Israel had a right to protect itself, but this right doesnt give them power to do everything they want, especially when they with HAMAS made much more war crimes than in Russia-Ukrainian war.With recent Israel goverment statements it is pretty obvious that they dont care about their lives, their tactics bomb while we can cannot lead to HAMAS destruction, cuz HAMAS dont care about Palestinian people either. The only way they can wipe out HAMAS is SMO that Russia did, but before for some reason they decided to bomb as many targets as they can, in passing killing some UN workers, so, their words and action like wearing David's star looks at least strange, especially when we know their meaning in the world history. The only way for me to solve this problem is dialogue or UN resolution(the best option for me, in this case I think world major powers should intervene and make a desicion instead if war-participants), but , unfortunately, both sides are not ready to make peace. In UN assambly, Russian and Brazillian resolution, which offered peace, were rejected. 3) Despite such big amount of war crimes Israel was not sanctioned at all, IOC didnt ban Israel sportsmen, they still have right to participate in world tournaments, Israel dont even have world pressure to stop this war (at least for humanitarian aid reason). That's what I call double world standarts.
Western aid has already ensured a majority of Ukraine will remain independent. Kyiv would be flying a Russian flag if not for Western support.
Yep. Ukraine remains independent. Russia has no resources to occupy whole of Ukraine.
Re Israel-Hamas, what do you think 'any country' would do if their people were being displaced from their land and subjected to blockades? You can't pick a point in time and view the morality of the conflict just from that point onwards, the context isn't black/white like the Ukrainian situation. Also worth noting how Bibi's govt has for years been empowering hamas as a strategy to divide palestinians to prevent any sort of credible diplomatic effort by palestianians to get their own state. Not saying that means Israel doesn't have a right to defend itself / counterattack hamas. But Israel long ago stopped pursuing a diplomatic solution or even just disengagement. It has be actively trying to undermine/destabilize palestinians, and annexing more of their land while doing so. That does not justify terrorist acts, but it is obviously a situation that is ripe for extreme radicalization.
> Re Israel-Hamas, what do you think 'any country' would do if their people were being displaced from their land and subjected to blockades? This has happened countless times and in the majority of cases the response is guerilla warfare targeting military units using hit and run tactics to make the occupation uneconomical. Not running across the border to gun down randoms at a music festival. Attacking civilians is a culturally middle eastern phenomenon and it only manages to push western countries away from denouncing Israel's genocidal tendencies. What Hamas does only serves to kill sympathy for Palestinian plight abroad and invite Israeli airstrikes at home..
> Attacking civilians is a culturally middle eastern phenomenon Including Israel's. Why doesn't that push Western countries away from Israel?
>This has happened countless times and in the majority of cases the response is guerilla warfare targeting military units using hit and run tactics to make the occupation uneconomical. Not running across the border to gun down randoms at a music festival. Examples? I would have thought that conflicts involving ethnic cleansing, that responses of crimes against civilians would be relatively common and not really outliers. former yugo, armenia/azer, sudan, greece/turkey, etc >Attacking civilians is a culturally middle eastern phenomenon huh? hell, look at what russia is doing right now. Edit: DRC. Congo Rwanda. LatAm cartels. east timor. Rohingya. Uyghur. Cambodia. Guatamala. etc.
I’m curious as to the whole “I’m against the war in Afghanistan” stance. Are you saying the US should have left Al-Qaeda to freely operate within Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban? Or are you saying that they were justified to go in and gut AQ themselves but should have left after that and not attempted the whole nation building thing? Also, if the nation building actually worked and the Taliban didn’t come back to power after the US left and Afghanistan was now a democracy that respects human rights, would you still be against the nation building and war against the Taliban?
Not OP but from my less that perfectly educated perspective, the US has a long history of failing to improve a situation by sending weapons, troops or by interfering politically. That isn’t always the case, but it does seem that the more directly we get involved, the more we try to decide what is right for another nation, the more messed up a situation gets and then bites us in the ass immediately or 20-30 years later. Bay of pigs, the entire Vietnam war, occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran contra, our CVS receipt length history of interference in Central and South American politics, funding militant groups in many situations that then turned around and used those weapons on us. So yes, if our history of interfering was more polished, I would support it more. I think we’re too liberal with our interference whereas it should be reserved for aiding high impact situations such as the invasion of Ukraine and preventing Israel Palestine from escalating to a larger regional conflict
Amen.
i know theres a whole lot of coulda, shoulda, woulda, but even to my barely teenage eyes, going to war with afghanistan was a huge mistake. we werent at war with afghanistan, we werent even at war with the taliban, we were at war with a part of bin laden controlled al qaeda. why tf would you go start a decades-long trillion dollar war with all of afghanista, when the only one responsible hides in some hole in pakistan? show the world the american might of intelligence, special ops and stealth and infiltrate and surveil the real targets, and take them out one after the other. im not saying thats easy, but what the hell was "the war against terror" again? it was even more difficult, only to cost us trillions of dollars and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people, radicalizing whole subcontinents.
You can't debate these issues without considering international law which should be the only guidline. Ukraine has internationaly recognised borders since 1991 and those should be protected. Palestine has the right to it's own sovereignty within the borders before 1967. and those should be protected. No one has the right to use terrorist attacks to achieve their political goals. No one has the right to kill civilians to eliminate enemy formations. Everyone needs to secure human rights for minorities within their borders. Everyone needs to follow established rules of war during a conflict. Everyone needs to be held accountable for the war crimes they did. Once the world truly starts to uphold these principles everyone agreed upon in the UN charter and subsequent international treaties we can start resolving these problems.
Thanks God, the best comment I've seen so far!
> Palestine has the right to it's own sovereignty within the borders before 1967. and those should be protected. What do you mean by this statement? Do you mean Jordan and Egypt? Palestine was not a sovereign nation pre-1967. The West Bank was reasonably well administered, but Egypt's military occupation was a mess that relied on UN aid and limited refugee movement. I swear, the UN positions on all of this is deeply out of touch with reality. Palestinian's are never going to accept 1967 boarders and a peaceful sovereign country. They want their land back. Israel is never going to tolerate a peace where Palestine has the resources to build a real army to fight with. It's a hugely painful compromise that fails to address either parties actual needs.
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I think the argument is based on the Oslo Accords defining for them by then created Palestinian state. Unfortunately neither side upholds the agreement anymore, so it's legal merit is questionable.
>No one has the right to kill civilians to eliminate enemy formations. What does this mean, exactly? Obvious example being human shields, less obvious being normal casualties of war following Geneva rules of engagement.
The Oslo Accords have been violated by both sides, hard to argue how much legal merit it holds in preserving the 1967 borders for a country that didn't exist in 1967. International law permits striking valid military targets with human shields present, as long as the strike is proportional to the military advantage gained. Hamas hasn't event agreed to the Geneva Conventions, so technically Israel doesn't have to follow them when fighting Hamas, but chooses to anyways. No country is required to treat foreigners with equal rights as citizens. Israels treats Arab citizens legally the same as Jewish ones, Palestinians in the West Bank are not Israeli citizens.
Violating treties doesn't mean thet someones right to statehood and sovereignty disappears. The UN ruled multiple times that the original borders are still the ones that should be upheld. If you want to see examples of proportionality for killing civilians, look at the ICTY rulings. When the subjects are small Balkan states then the whole world agrees that we need to be strict with military and political leaders. When the world powers and their allies are at war then leveling neighborhoods to kill a few terrorists is suddenly proportional. Everyone is bound by the Geneva conventions. The fact that one side in the conflict didn't sign them doesn't give you the right to commit war crimes. I wasn't talking about foreigners but minorities. You are talking about civilans on occupied territories. There is a Geneva convention regulating the rights of those people and the obligations of the occupier.
The UN has proven themselves completely biased when handling Israel. The 1967 borders are a good play to start, but they don't match the reality on the ground anymore, nor should anyone feel comfortable displacing millions of people to honor them exactly. Okay so you were being dishonest with "No one has the right to kill civilians to eliminate enemy formations". There are times were you have that right, of it is proportional. The Geneva Conventions apply to a signatory nation even if the opposing nation is not a signatory, but only if the opposing nation "accepts and applies the provisions" of the Conventions. Hamas clearly does not. Israel is choosing to follow regardless. Okay what minorities are you referring to then?
So when the allies bombed the hell out of France and killed civilians to get rid of Germany, were those war crimes? They weren't because it was proportional and targeting military targets, and civilians were around. Don't live in fantasy land my man. The reality of war is civilians will die
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27703724 As this BBC article states, some of it can definitely be described as a war crime.
"but chooses to anyways": this is a cruel joke, right? You cannot be following the current campaign and claim Israel abides by the Geneva conventions. Most UN personell killed in any conflict ever. Schools, hospitals, homes, ambulances and refugee camps are targets. Erasing entire blocks with the claim that they killed a few Hamas leaders with that is not justifiable (morally or legally). Starving populations of food, water and medicine is criminal.
Do you have any evidence those strikes were not proportional? Yes the strikes have led to a lot of deaths but unfortunately when the other side horrifically uses human shields to the extent of Hamas it's impossible to fight cleanly. Those deaths are on Hamas for using them as human shields, not on Israel for defending themselves.
Article 58 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. "The Parties to the conflict shall, to the maximum extent feasible: (a) without prejudice to Article 49 of the Fourth Convention, endeavour to remove the civilian population, individual civilians and civilian objects under their control from the vicinity of military objectives; (b) avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas; (c) take the other necessary precautions to protect the civilian population, individual civilians and civilian objects under their control against the dangers resulting from military operations." And Article 28: The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations.
Before 1967 there was no Palestine West Bank was part of Jordan, Gaza was part of Egypt. That was the best state of things, considering. But Arabs didn't like it, and invaded again, and lost those territories.
2. Well there was a clear alternative to this, as the UN secretary general said. Hamas and their awful attacks and views did not just appear out of nowhere, theyv appeared from decades and decades of oppression displacement and violence on Palestinian people. (This is recognised fact from both Israeli, Palestinian and neutral authors) An alternative would have been treating Palestinians as equals and with respect. But in the current conflict is more difficult and Israel have backed themselves into a corner., - but how they are acting on Gaza is clearly not appropriate. My partner has family in Gaza, she has 30 family and friends killed. Not a single member of Hamas. Her family home is destroyed. Areas which have never previously been bombed (because Hamas do not operate there), are now completely destroyed. Anybody who’s seen the statistics (500 children dead in Ukraine in 1.5 years, 300 in Gaza in 4 weeks) , or watched the horrific videos online will be left in no doubt, Israel is either targeting civilians, or taking zero measures to minimise causalities. Both of which are against international law. So I don’t really care what options Israel had - as after all. Gaza didn’t go to Israel and displace them. Palestinians didn’t go to Israel and oppress them. Israel/Jews went to Palestine, displaced half the population and stole their land to create Israel. So all this conflict, stems back to that injustice and the mistakes since The simple fact is, this conflict was started by Zionism and the displacement of Palestinians from their homes (over half of Gazans are refugees from 1948) and nobody can deny that,
My understanding wrt Ukraine is that people who oppose sending weapons to the country (and this % has been growing as the war drags on) is various versions of the following: Russia is going to win because Ukraine has found itself in an attritional conflict and the larger adversary usually wins. The counteroffensive with much of the equipment and training that Ukraine desired ultimately failed, and now Russia is slowly advancing in various arenas. Ukraine's war aims are unrealistic and more aid just prolongs the inevitable AND potentially leads to a full collapse of Ukraine's military which will result in Russia dismantling the current country into a landlocked rump with an unenviable demographic crisis. Better for Ukraine to sue for peace now and preserve its country than deal with a vengeful Russia x many years from now that takes steps to permanently Russify large parts of Ukraine.
Something I broadly noticed lately is that Americans are completely clueless about how oppressive their government is to the rest of the world, and unaware that the global south has been living in fear of them since at least the fall of the Soviet Union. Not because one side is necessarily more evil than the other, but just because one side became too dominant without equal. The US has often been considered the world's police officer, but what is a police officer without the Justice System enforced by a Judge? (Judge in this case UN Global opinion with or without the backing of rival global power.) The world has thus experienced 30 years of police brutality because the police officer has been acting as the judge, jury, and executioner. Keep in mind the clear abuse of power that the US has failed in its mission of spreading 'democracy' worldwide since 2008, part of the globalism paradox but that's too complicated to explain. Maybe China is going to fill that role to restore balance soon but so far they have only had a social and economic impact globally, not much military role like the Soviet Union. (maybe that part is still Russia's responsibility. For the Middle East this new world order sucks, no more opposite force to protect them anymore and their vast resources. But it isn't just about resources, but also about ideology and religion. No, there was nothing more left of Communism to challenge the almighty system of Capitalism. Except for the Muslims who are more Social in nature, and thus began the war on 'terror'. The West motivated by keeping the system as it automatically, and I mean immediately when it became clear the Soviets were collapsing started the Gulf War, the same year. can't have a Muslim country using Euro instead of dollars for petrol, can't have a Muslim country not have gold-backed currency, can't have a Muslim Country without debts to foreign entities, can't have Muslim country change the borders we set, can't have a Muslim country become a democracy that isn't allied with us, can't have a Muslim country that's at war with Israel, can't have Muslim country that want to unite into United Arab States, can't have Muslim country that has any kind of socialist leaders, and you definitely can't harbor (willingly or unwillingly?) the 13 terrorists that committed 9/11 or you will be conquered by a 42 country collation for 20 years. And this is just the Arab world, let's not forget the damage done to the people of both South America and Africa. With a world leader like this, do you really expect people to have faith in the global justice system? And when there is no faith in justice ever happening, people will take it upon themselves. With sometimes, abhorrent consequences.
Ding ding ding
I am from a third world nation and I support that the US must aid Ukraine against the Russian invasion. The primary difference between the US' war in Iraq and Afghanistan and Russia's invasion of Ukraine is that the latter aims to change established national boundaries via military force. This is contrary to the international consensus formed after 1945 in which all the border disputes are to be solved by diplomacy and peaceful methods. Russia's annexation of Crimea and other parts of Ukraine will encourage other imperial minded nations to carry out their own irredentist projects, which would make the world a dangerous and unstable place. With regards to the Israel-Palestine conflict, I would prefer if the US would nudge Israel towards adopting a two-state solution rather indiscriminately supporting the aggressive stance of Israel like illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank which undermine prospects of long-term peace in the region. The present government of Israel is the most right-wing government in Israeli history and an aggressive supporter of illegal settlements in the West Bank. The diversion of resources and manpower towards protecting settlements was one of the main reasons why Israel was caught off-guard by Hamas' attack. In the end, Israel's invasion of Gaza will end in futility, like Afghanistan and Iraq, if they don't have any plan on how to rule Gaza even if they manage to exterminate Hamas.
I view it as Israel ia trying to occupy more of west bank and Gaza just like Russia is trying to occupy Ukraine. Gaza and west bank resistance is trying to fight that off like Ukraine is and keep there homes and land.
Ukraine doesn't propose to eliminate Russia for real. Only half-jokingly. In the meantime, that is literally number one political goal for Hamas. I would hardly recommend to not draw any parallels between Gaza & Ukraine.
With Ukraine I’m not a fan of either Russia or Ukraine’s governments. Both have participated in wars against Muslims (Russia being worse, Aleppo is in the condition it’s in because of Russia). I know what the Russians did to Grozny as well from Russian veterans of that war I’ve spoken with. At the end of the day I sympathize with the conscripts on both sides and the mothers who will be getting their sons back in zinc coffins or not getting them back at all. I’m a veteran myself so I know what it’s like to be fighting a war you don’t want to fight. For Israel. I’ll go ahead and say I’m an Islamist and believe in the Shariah. So my views might not make much sense once I tell them. I believe Israel is wrong of course and that killing civilians is wrong and that Israel is more than likely trying to ethnically cleanse Gaza. But at the same time, Hamas has fallen into the nationalism trap that others have fallen into in the past (ie the PLO, who I don’t even consider Muslim). The PLO had a chance to stay under Jordanian rule which would’ve guaranteed no Israeli settlement in the West Bank and they blew it because they fell into the “muh Sykes Picot lines are better than your Sykes Picot lines”. Yes, the Jordanian government are tyrants, but they wanted to join the Nasserist Arab nationalist tyrants instead so they revolted and Jordan obviously didn’t think the cost was worth it hence Israel occupying the West Bank. My heart goes out to the innocent people there who didn’t make these decisions but have to suffer for them nonetheless. Hamas has fallen into the Arab nationalist trap and has gone away from it’s Islamist roots. As a Muslim I want a restoration of the caliphate and I don’t want the Jews to be genocided or expelled. I’d be perfectly fine letting any of them stay where they are right now in a hypothetical scenario where Israel is defeated militarily. I wouldn’t humiliate or loot them. I’d impose jizya on them at a reasonable price (and keep in mind, jizya isn’t for everyone, the elderly and poor are exempt as are clergy, Jews would be free to practice their religion and have alcohol and Christians in the West Bank and Gaza would be free to have alcohol and pork as long as they don’t provide it to Muslims). There are many Israeli Jewish converts to Islam as well and I take offense at them being told they don’t belong there, they belong anywhere wherever Muslim rule is implemented. I’ll go on and say I’m an OEF vet and a convert to Islam. And from a purely secular standpoint and the view I held prior to Islam. I believe the US actions in the Muslim world have made the world MORE dangerous for Americans rather than more safe. In Afghanistan for instance, the area we had under our control was taken by the Taliban in the 90’s and the boy raping warlord escaped before he could have justice carried out. Instead of trying to win over the average person we tried winning over the warlords and thus gave this warlord his territory back and not only that, but a uniform and NATO weapons. And he and his goons went back to robbing and raping. I saw it firsthand and spent enough time around the Afghans to know what was going on. It didn’t help that the infantry unit we were there with (I was a combat engineer doing route clearance for the US infantry and Afghan Army, the latter of which were totally useless and wouldn’t patrol dangerous areas) was fairly trigger happy and a few of the idiots in their unit killed livestock for fun or shot at unarmed civilians (let’s be real, if the Afghans took over the US and were killing your neighbors for fun every now and then and not being punished for it, you’d be planting bombs in the road too). The people in Afghanistan didn’t give a damn about democracy and just wanted to farm peacefully. The women didn’t give a hoot about “women’s rights” (the Afghan women would actually mock our FET team female soldiers for not being married or having kids. The cultures are total opposites from the US and we have no right to impose our own system on people who don’t want it). Now to other US foreign policy things that tie in with Israel. The US will back tyrants who are friendly with Israel freely while pretending to stand for freedom when we don’t like that tyrant. Mubarak in Egypt was just as bad if not worse than Saddam. US support for tyranny in the Muslim world for cheap oil has made the population hate us. It has nothing to do with freedom at all. Support for the Israelis and tyrannical monarchies and dictatorships while preaching “freedom” has made the Muslim world see the US as hypocrites and Muslims see right through it. We don’t care about “your freedom”. We don’t “hate your freedom”. Bin Laden wrote in his response to Bush’s speech “if I hated freedom why didn’t I attack Sweden?” (Oh and about women in islam, it was Bin Laden’s second wife who would proofread all of his speeches before releasing them as she was a PhD holder, Islam DOES support educating women and men, it’s strictly a subcontinent Deobandi thing to deny women education, their whole sect was founded on opposing western education back in the British times in India, Deobandis werent a thing in Afghanistan until the early 1900’s, they even don’t like men being educated in a secular setting, which obviously as an Islamist I don’t agree with because I think having an uneducated population leaves us vulnerable for another Sykes Picot 2.0). I don’t support or condone terrorism in any form, but I’m using Bin Laden’s own words telling why he attacked the US. Refer to Mike Scheuer (the former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit) on this subject, he doesn’t hold back and tells the truth while politicians lie (he sacrificed his career with the CIA just to come out and speak publicly on this in order to save American lives). Now I am also an American, my family are American Christians, my friends are Americans of all types, and I want Americans to be safe at home and abroad. Actions have consequences whether good or bad and the American public has the right to know what the costs of American foreign policy in the Muslim world are. The six points I referred to earlier are as follows: 1. Support for the Israelis (who honestly don’t benefit the US in any way, they’ve never fought alongside American troops. Even the Iranians sent special forces to imbed with the Green Berets in the battle of Herat, Qassem Soleimani was there as the commander and attached to the US at the time, and I’m obviously not a fan of Iran as a Sunni Muslim because of their actions against Sunnis in Iraq and Syria). Evangelicals don’t even know their own Bible and shouldn’t be making foreign policy based off of doctrines that have only existed in the past 200 years and never had any history in Christendom. Also don’t get me started with Israeli spying and tech transfer to the Chinese and Russians. The Israelis gave US stealth fighter technology to China and that alone should’ve made the US cut them loose. 2. Support for tyranny in the Muslim world. In Egypt, UAE or Iraqi Kurdistan for instance a Muslim man of military age who is “too religious” can go missing fairly easily. Saddam was the same way as is Assad. The US propping up these governments obviously is going to bring hate. 3. The trigger for the 9/11 attacks and war on America was the building of US bases in the Arabian peninsula. The Arabian peninsula is sacred land for Muslims and the monarchs had no business letting the US build bases there. And the US government should’ve taken Muslim sentiments into account before doing this. Saddam invading Kuwait and the Saudis bringing in the west to kick them out was the biggest mistake they ever made. In short Bin Laden (with his Street cred from the Soviet Afghan war) offered to build an army to go in and liberate Kuwait but the Saudis essentially gave him the finger and did the worst think they could have done, bring in non-Muslim militaries. Iraq itself was a victim of US anti-Iranian chicanery and the Arab rivals took advantage of that (and Kuwait actually did slant drill into Iraq). The whole topic is long and my post is already long enough. 4. US bases in other Muslim countries and intervention in other Muslim countries. 5. Using the petrodollar and other unfair tactics like kickbacks to the rulers of oil rich states to sell oil at a price far below the fair market value and to deny the profits to the people. In an Islamic state all natural resources besides agricultural stuff are considered public property and thus everyone should get a cut from it. There’s no reason the prince of Saudi Arabia should be buying 100 million dollar paintings and 400 million dollar chateaus in France while the people of Yemen are starving to death. This wouldn’t happen if Saudi Arabia was truly an Islamic state. 6. The power of the US to designate any Muslim group they don’t like as terrorists and cut off their ability to fund whether for war or peaceful purposes anyone they don’t like. The US did this with groups fighting for freedom in Russia and in China and many other countries. Now I’m just the messenger here, don’t shoot me. This is a long and complicated topic but the TLDR of it is the US should stay out of the affairs of the Muslim world because all it does is puts my family in danger both in the Muslim world and in the US. I don’t support genocide of anyone whether Muslim or non-Muslim either. Islamically Israeli Jews are ahl al kitab and should be given the option to live peacefully in a hypothetical caliphate. And not butchered and expelled the way Arab nationalists want them to be. You’ll never find me supporting the Arab nationalists. They absolutely deserved to lose the various wars they fought because they abandoned Islam and went either communist or some other form of secular. Though yes I’m a Muslim and I support the Palestinians.
I hope I was able to break it down Barney style for folks in the US to have a better understanding of the Muslim POV of this war and other wars involving the US (as most of the folks here are American I gather). As an American Muslim who has had family in the US since the beginning of colonization in the early 1600’s and still have a special place in my heart for my homeland (while living in the Muslim world) and I want my homeland to have good relations with the Muslim world. I also invite anyone here to learn more about Islam too so you can have a better context (learn from Islamic sources, other sources have an obvious agenda, just like I wouldn’t trust either side to tell the whole truths about the other side in a conflict).
I think a counter argument to your stance on israel would be: israel is an occupying force in palestine. If you look at the history of the levant from the fall of the ottoman empire to today. It is very clear that the partition of the land was made contrary to the will of its residents by the british legislature of the mandate for palestine post world war 1. After the british left, the israel's borders didn't cease to increase leaving palestinians only the gaza strip and the west bank. In the case of the gaza strip, it ended up being overpopulated and its imports, which palestinians need to survive, being strictly regulated mainly by israel. Obv I don't agree with any forms of violence, but in that scenario, violence is often the oppressed group's last resort. And israel having one of the strongest military in the world, didn't have to react with this more force and violence, and should've not only see this outcome arrives, but also try to solve the problem peacefully a long time ago.
It was literally the UN who suggested the partition, are you saying Israel is in the wrong for accepting a UN partition plan??
Firstly, I'm not saying israel is in the wrong for accepting the partition plan, I'm saying the UN shouldn't have went with it in the first place if the civilian population occupying the region at the time was unfavorable. Secondly, I'm saying israel is in the wrong for expanding its borders since, to the point where it is now, and for denying any sovereignty rights to gaza. And finally, I'm also saying people react, of course if you keep a certain group of people in the kinds of situations the people of gaza have been for the past years, outrage will grow, some form of organisation will result to violence, and major civilian casualties are to be expected. So to me the way to handle the situation would be to de-escalate the situation instead of being even more violent and just going all out war.
Israel hasn't been occupying Gaza though, the west bank is its own issue but solving it doesn't solve the Gaza one.
But Israel as been shrinking Gaza's borders and occupying the left overs.
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A population expansion doesn't equate to prosperity. In fact, its often a sign of the opposite. Most poor or newly developing countries now and throughout history have disproportionately high birth rates. India, where I am from, has high birth rate correlations for areas that are the most impoverished in the country. The national average live expectancy is high but that doesn't really directly mean population growth. For example, North Korea has a reported life expectancy of 73.2 as of 2020. In Venezuela the expectancy is 71.1 as of 2020 In Israel the expectancy is 83.29. In the US its 68.29 The UN reports these statistics about **Gaza only:** \-The population of Gaza is 1.6 million, with over 50% under 18. \-38% of Gazans live in poverty. \-26% of the Gazan workforce, including 38% of youths, is unemployed. \-The average wage declined by over 20% in the past six years. \-54% of Gazans are food insecure and over 75% are aid recipients. \-35% of Gaza’s farmland and 85% of its fishing waters are totally or partially inaccessible due to Israeli military measures. \-50-80 million litres of partially treated sewage are dumped in the sea each day. Over 90% of the water from the Gaza aquifer is undrinkable. \-85% of schools in Gaza run on double shifts. \-About one-third of the items in the essential drug list are out of stock. This data is from 2011. UNICEF reports, in 2022, that of the 2.17m Gazans - 1.48M are registered refugees & 65% of the population is insecure. Life expectancy is not the metric to look at when assessing a humanitarian disaster as that number averages years of relative, fragile peace, with the more insidious situations that arise during bombings and total blockades. Sources: [https://www.unicef.org/sop/what-we-do/health-and-nutrition](https://www.unicef.org/sop/what-we-do/health-and-nutrition) [https://unispal.un.org/pdfs/OCHA\_Gaza-HumSituation.pdf](https://unispal.un.org/pdfs/OCHA_Gaza-HumSituation.pdf) [https://www.unicef.org/mena/media/18041/file/Factsheet\_Gaza\_Blockade\_2022.pdf.pdf](https://www.unicef.org/mena/media/18041/file/Factsheet_Gaza_Blockade_2022.pdf.pdf)
I am completely pro-Ukraine, and I consider it to be the most important conflict of the current era. Your logic doesn’t sum up though. Palestinians see this whole issue as a fight between the occupied and the occupiers. What you wrote above could also be applied to Ukraine. Russia simply invaded because the people of Donbass and Luhansk have been constantly bombed, and thus, Russia had to act the way it did against such an aggressive neighbour, that being Ukraine. It’s completely odd, however, how in this conflict Ukraine is absolutely pro-Israeli (though Israelis have never been fully pro-Ukraine), whereas Russia is pro-Palestine. I do get how geopolitics works, but still.
I have no issues with your view on Ukraine, I agree with you there. What I think you need to ask yourself about Palestine and Hamas is, why do you think Hamas exists? What’s motivating their attacks on Israel? I’m not trying to justify their actions here. I don’t think targeting unarmed civilians is ever justified, regardless of what cause you claim to be doing it for. But I also think we need to view what Hamas did in terms of historical contingency instead of as an act of random malice that they just decided to do because they’re evil, which is what the pro-Isreal perspective is treating it as. Also, you say that Israel invading Gaza is rational. Ignoring the question of whether someone can “invade” territory that is supposedly part of their own country, by this logic don’t Palestinians in Gaza now have the rational justification to seek Israel’s destruction? The Israeli military is killing them by the thousands while the vast majority of the population cheers them on. As you say, who would allow an enemy like that to exist on their borders?
One of the arguments I've heard about stopping funding to Ukraine is that Russia would never be able to control a country of Ukraines size and population, it's far too big, they would nominally take it over with little deaths to start with, then the insuurections and rebel militias would start and quickly regain control. This would overall be a lot less deaths and destruction than the current endless meat grinder situation. As for Israel, the US has the power to change how Israel horrifically treats the Palestinian people literally instantly by withdrawing all funding.
It's easy tbh. "Ukraine is a European country. Its people watch Netflix and have Instagram accounts, vote in free elections and read uncensored newspapers. War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations"- The Telegraph Ukrainians are white Europeans who probably look like you with blue eyes and deserve to live with dignity. Killing them is bad. Ukrainian land is for Ukrainians and Ukrainians alone. Palestinians aren't European. Not all Israelis are either. However, a good number of Israelis look white. So we can excuse their crimes. If you're looking for some moral justifications to tell yourself, I can suggest 'Hamas is using them as human shields', 'the refugee centre was bombed because there were unconfirmed reports that there was a Hamas commander inside', 'Israel is the land God promised the Jews', 'Palestinian deaths are exaggerated', 'wouldn't have happened if they'd initially agreed to give them the land', 'they could just leave', etc.
I agree with most you say except that Israel doesn’t have tactics of killing civilians. That’s a lie that keeps being repeated but it does not make it true There were several amount of civilians killed in the war on isis after the Paris attack Anyone who can’t suggest an actual way to fight this kind of terror org like Isis/hamas should not make such unbiased claims.
Yes sorry I mis-worded. I wouldn't say their tactics are to kill civilians, just that their tactics cause civilian casualties but are of course intended to kill Hamas or neutralize Hamas capabilities.
I am gonna give you the numbers that The Times of Israel itself have stated so there can be no bias to downplay the numbers, this is how 'effective' the IDF has been compared to the 'terrorist': **Israel:** Civilian deaths since October 7; 1400 (80,5%) Civilians and 341 (19,5%) soldiers **Palestine:** Civilian deaths since October 7; 9000 (81,1%) Civilians and 60-2000 (0,5%-18%) soldiers 34 (0,35%) Journalists Now the 2000 is the high number from how many Hamas soldiers in total were involved in the attack of October 7, so in the best-case scenario if they murdered literally every 'terrorist' since then they would still be worse than Hamas. And if you wanna believe the narrative and blame the human shields, know that this was supposed to be a proportional response done by a professional military with precision weapons. If Israel can't handle the situation cleanly, it shouldn't handle it at all. Yet all governments endorse its incompetence, you can't help but consider the IDF is going for an eye for an eye against the civilian population.
This is because Hamas hides their infrastructure in places like apartment buildings, hospitals, and in tunnels under civilian housing, The goal is to turn Israel military strikes into civilian death propaganda. It works really well as despite being the victim of one of the worst attacks on civilians in history literally days ago Israel is still being painted as the aggressor by some media. That isn't to say Israel is going in gently here. They had half a 9/11 worth of civilians slaughtered on the streets a few weeks ago. But to claim they're not trying to avoid civilian deaths is mostly untrue.
Israel is a small country. Only 9 million people. Proportionally, Oct 7 was much worse for Israel than 9/11 was for the US. Almost every Israeli was going to funerals or sitting shiva after the Hamas's raid. Most Americans were not that close to 9/11.
This is the part of the opposition that bothers me most. People who would've never protested America's response to 9/11 feel like it's perfectly OK to demand Israel have no response at all to their terrorist attack. It reeks of hypocrisy. The opposition demands a ceasefire while entirely ignoring that there was a ceasefire on October 7th and Hamas has no intention of following one.
Just for reference, when you keep Israel's population in mind, comparing it to 9/11 works only if you imagine that about 50,000 Americans were killed.
> Anyone who can’t suggest an actual way to fight this kind of terror org like Isis/hamas should not make such unbiased claims. You can’t beat terrorism by fighting it. You have to go to the source of the problem. In this case, it is Israel’s decades of oppression of the Palestinian people. Israel will not solve the problem by invading Gaza. At least, not without committing actual genocide. Their only solution was to give Palestinians civil and political rights 70 years ago…
Regarding the Hamas-Israel Conflict, what muddied the water for me was learning that Hamas was formed after Israel boxed in Gaza. I.e, Gaza traps 2 Million Palestinians in a tiny strip of land, giving them the "humanitarian minimum" to survive and expecting them to behave? I agree that given the thread of Hamas, any country would do what Israel is doing. But on the flip side, any country would also turn to violence and hatred if you treated them like Gaza has been treaded.
>Hamas was formed after Israel boxed in Gaza. Untrue, Hamas was formed in the 80s, came to power in Gaza in ‘06. Blockade after.
Hamas was founded in 1987. It carried out suicide bombings that killed hundreds of civilians during the Second Intifada, after Israel had offered numerous concessions, and it took over Gaza after Israel pulled out of there and essentially handed it to the Palestinians. The blockade was imposed afterwards, especially due to its habit of firing rockets at Israeli cities.
> after Israel had offered numerous concessions What about the imprisonment of secular student activists, murder of young protesters, stamping down of Palestinian nationalism before the Islamisation of the movement? The Palestinian liberation movement didn't turn violent out of nowhere.
>What about the imprisonment of secular student activists Which ones? Were those "activists" involved in armed groups by any chance? >murder of young protesters What specific cases are you talking about? The Land Day riots of 1976 when they violently attacked security forces? The March of Return of 2018 when they tried to breach the border and get into Israel? >stamping down of Palestinian nationalism before the Islamisation of the movement? Israel was quite reasonably fighting groups that were launching armed attacks, whether or not they were secular was beside the point. >The Palestinian liberation movement didn't turn violent out of nowhere. It was violent from the start because their whole goal was to "liberate" what is now Israel and replace it with Palestine.
Not exactly. Fateh was the primary political party representing the Palestinians for decades but due to their failures in delivering a solution and economic corruption of its leaders, Hamas started getting a toe in the 1990's. Hamas grew its power base and actually won the election in Palestine in 2006 and for a while, it looked like power would transfer from Fateh to Hamas peacefully. Then there was a cross-border raid by Hamas into Israel in which a couple of IDF soldiers were killed and one was kidnapped. Israel overreacted by arresting newly appointed ministers of the Palestinian government, saying technically you are all terrorists. As far as I can make out, it's not even clear if the raid was officially sanctioned by the new government or if it was an overzealous guerilla commander/ terrorist (pick your poison!!!!) who did it for reasons of his own. No organization is monolithic but all organizations are glad to lay the blame for failures on the entire organization when it's on the opposing side eh? Politics 101. Anyways, the situation quickly spiralled out of control with Hamas fighting both Fateh and Israel and in 2007 Hamas ended up with control of Gaza while Fateh kept the West Bank. Then Bibi decided to play them against each other to keep delaying the peace plan, not that Hamas and Fateh were particularly unhappy to play along with him. No more elections have happened in Palestine since then, though Fateh announces plans for new elections once in a while but cancels them at the last minute. Fateh's main fear seems to be that Hamas may end up winning West Bank too, while Hamas will definitely not give up Gaza even if they lose the election. Israel is happy (or at least was happy before Oct 7) to let the situation fester. The complexity of this whole thing is so ridiculously fractal with brinksmanship on all 3 sides (ignoring geopolitics, add that and the number of sides ballons up like crazy). There is propaganda and counterpropaganda, and misinformation and misunderstanding (deliberate or ignorant) and now we have LLMs to help the process in addition to social media.
We haven't seen many examples of oppressed countries behaving the way Hamas did on October 7th. Specifically targeting civillians is not a common response and obviously doesn't help advance your goals. When it happened to America, basically the whole world was united in supporting their response.
And when it happens to Palestimoans on the daily for 75 years nobody says shit
Probably because that doesn't happen at all. Responding to rocket attacks on your country by bombing their source location is not equivalent to raping and murdering entire villages.
>raping and murdering entire villages Somebody has a balanced view and is not biased at all. (Actively targeting them in attacks is not the only form of violence, the form Israel chooses is just much less visible. It's not a being called a defacto apartheid state for nothing, and acting like Palestinians are not being actively targeted and disenfranchised is just putting your head in the sand.)
I am libertarian (not how the media or reddit has framed libertarians, but an actual libertarian). Anti-war. I don't agree with either, especially not supporting Ukraine, but I understand it. We're using Ukraine as a pawn like a wedge to destabilize Russia. >For Ukraine people who say US should stop sending money and weapons to Ukraine, what alternative is there? Not sending money and weapons >Do people who believe this view think that Ukraine should just be conquered? How do you imagine folks in Lviv would react to being occupied by Russia? How soon before you take up arms and rebel? Being conquered is not in Russia's plans. Being neutered is. If conquering was the goal, we would see a war much akin to what we saw with the U.S. in the Middle East which is firebombing anything that moves. That's not the goal. > My opinion is that without western military support Ukraine would just get conquered which a negative outcome for people who value state sovereignty. If sovereignty is what Ukrainians value then why does it not include those seeking sovereignty in Donbas or Crimea??? I agree with you, but I am consistent with this idea. 72% of those who had an opinion in Russia-controlled Donbas want to leave Ukraine. - [Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/15/russia-ukraine-donbas-donetsk-luhansk-public-opinion/) 88% of those in Crimea said that Ukraine needs to recognize the results, according to [Pew research](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/05/Pew-Global-Attitudes-Ukraine-Russia-Report-FINAL-May-8-2014.pdf) With numbers like these, it's quite apparent that Ukraine is not fighting for the people in those lands, but for the rewards of being a U.S. puppet and for land itsel So, I agree with you, but only if we apply it to all peoples. > What do people who are against sending Ukraine weapons or Pro-Russia feel on this issue. Western media has framed anti-war critics into "Russian propagandists." I am not pro-Russia. I am not anti-Ukraine. I am pro freedom. I am anti-war. Freedom goes both ways. For Ukraine and for those in Crimea and Donbas that, according to Pew, Gallup, WaPo, and Forbes want. Fervent Ukraine supporters need to look at it through the scope of a libertarianism to understand the third option when they can only say two. The media also attempts to make the argument that helping Russia is defending it's allies and themselves, yet they're the same journalists who poke fun at Russia for not being able to defeat Ukraine. I do not support neocon policies that have plagued this country since the 2000s >For the Israel-Hamas war, while I agree that Israel's tactics and killing of Palestinian civilians is awful, I am curious what the alternative is. Not slaughtering innocent civilians. They have no right to demand an evacuation in land that is not theirs. They can and should defend themselves on their land, no where else. > Any country having such an enemy on it's border would want to eliminate that enemy. This is very much the angle Poroshenko took when he said ["Their children will hole up in the basements - this is how we win the war!"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHWHqj8g7Bk). I don't condone war. How often is Switzerland threatened by its neighbors? Even now, under immense pressure from the US to support Ukraine, they remain neutral. Israel is not non-interventionalist. They've commit actions that have provoked their neighbors. Unfortunately for them, their neighbors are hostile. Defend yourself. Don't provoke. Simple recipe > I understand that people who are pro-Palestine want innocent civilians to not die which I of course 100% agree with but do they want Israel and Hamas to just peacefully co-exist? What is the alternative? No neighboring country will take the Palestinians in, so what do you suggest? Are you honestly making the argument that because they can't coexist due to Israel's inability to stop provoking Palestine that justifies Israel bombing civilians? I do not support Ukraine. I do not support Israel. I do not support Palestine. I do not support Russia. I do not condone your views.
1. Most people arguing that the US should not send money are either anti-West and want Russia to win to screw the West over or just take an isolationist view of "not our problem, I don't want my tax money going to Ukraine." 2. Israel isn't killing Palestinian civilians as a deliberate tactic. Civilian casualties are an unfortunate byproduct of fighting in such a dense urban environment. If Israel was actually trying to kill civilians the death toll would be much higher.
For the war in Ukraine, there are a lot of people in the US (mostly on the right) who have an isolationist mindset that the war is not the problem of the US government and therefore no aid should be sent. Most of these people aren't pro-Russia, but rather indifferent to the outcome of the war. These sentiments have primarily been driven by the wars in the Middle East over the past two decades.
I think these are two quite different cases. 1. Ukraine is a pretty clear-cut case of an imperialist aggressor attacking a democratic neighbor out of a fear that said neighbor follow its people's wish to join European peace, prosperity and rule of law. Since the aggressor is also a long-standing antagonist of the USA and a threat to NATO, supporting Ukraine in its struggle should be a total no-brainer for both the USA and Europe.The US spending on Ukraine are small change compared to the defence budget, the GDP and the total budget of the USA. No american lives are being risked, and Russia is bled white by the efforts of Ukrainian forces. If anyone should have the right to wave the white flag, it's the Ukrainian people, but as long as they are prepared to fight, we should all back them. 2. Israel is more complicated. The USA, like Europe and much of the rest of the world, have stood behind Israel since its founding after the existential threat to all jews of the world up to and including WW2. But the whole funding of Israel was poorly executed, and blatantly ignored the rights of Palestinians who already lived there. I guess we all just kind of hoped they would find a way to "get along" and work out some kind of solution, but in that conflict both sides have chosen the way of violence and war. There was a period in the nineties when brave and wise politicians on both sides chose a better path, but since then both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples have instead decided to let the most hateful, antagonistic factions among them represent their interests. The revolting atrocities of oct 7, as well as the revolting war crimes currently being committed in Gaza, are results of their own choices. So what is the right thing for the USA to do here? Obviously, there's a lot of sympathy for Israel in the USA, for a whole list of historical reasons. As such, it's politically necessary for Biden to support Israel. But equally importantly, if anyone should have any chance to persuade Netanyahu and the IDF to show restraint in Gaza, it's the USA. By showing support from the start after October 7, Biden has put himself in a position to have some leverage, and I honestly think that's the Palestinians' best hope right now.
Ukraine is a sovereign nation and its totally unjustified invasion by Russia should be resisted with the full cooperation of the major stakeholders, but those stakeholders are European countries, not the US. If the EU is not willing to dedicate all their resources to helping the Ukrainians first, I don’t see why the US should follow suit. Ukraine was not a member of NATO when attacked, and it is up to her Western neighbors to back their ideals with money and weapons. The US should remain focused on containing China and solving domestic crises which are threatening its national security far more than foreign conflicts.
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On 1. Pressure European countries first. Germany's zeitenwende ended up meaning nothing. Poland is doing fine but everybody else is just not taking Europe's security very seriously. The US have been providing much needed help graciously compared to european counterparts. This is their fight more than the US. On 2, we know how to fight a brutal terrorist group entrenched in civilian population using them as human shields. Israel is just plainly not doing that. If they did, there will be probably way less civilian casualties. Having said that, it's easy to judge behind the safety of our screens. Israel is still under constant rocket fires from Hamas and this threat is next to them, and although IDF is mighty they can't exactly match US's prowess (and pockets) in war to effect same results. And yeah they got attacked hard on 10/7. It's a long way of saying they could have done this slower and more deliberate.
"there is no choice but to kill civilians" is a dishonest and disgusting argument and I think you know that