Once again, Israel’s boot is stomping down hard on the Palestinians, and the Israelis are positively giddy about it.
The song is not only genocidal, it's also suicidal — from the story of Samson, who kills himself while getting revenge on the Philistines.
It would be too easy to say this is fringe. These violent sentiments pervade Zionist discourse about Palestinians.
https://t.co/SLeqr0d46B— Simone Zimmerman 🔥 (@simonerzim) May 10, 2021
I’m trying hard to see both sides in this conflict, and this article, for instance, is doing it’s best to present a balanced story. All I see, though, is a chronicle of a grossly asymmetric battle.
A day of upheaval at the holy sites of this contested city quickly widened into a night of warlike violence in communities across the country early Tuesday, with hundreds of rockets from the Gaza Strip causing injuries in Israeli neighborhoods and retaliatory airstrikes killing at least 22 Gazans, according to officials there.
Something is not adding up. Hundreds of rockets are launched, but the end result is only a few injured civilians?
Air-raid sirens sounded every few minutes in towns where many Israelis had already passed the night in bomb shelters. On Tuesday afternoon, more than 200 rockets struck southern Israel within the span of an hour, including in the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon just north of Gaza, according to media reports. At least four members of a family were reported injured when one rocket hit an eight-story apartment building.
These things seem to be remarkably ineffective. Are they little more than glorified fireworks? I had to look them up on Wikipedia to get the basics, and yes, they are nasty little things I wouldn’t want fired in my general direction, but they aren’t useful weapons of war.
The Qassam rocket is the best-known type of rocket deployed by Palestinian militants, mainly against Israeli civilians, but also some military targets during the Second Intifada of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. According to Human Rights Watch, Qassam rockets are too inaccurate and prone to malfunction to be used against specific military targets in or near civilian areas, and are mainly launched for the purpose of “harming civilians.”
They have a range of 3 or 4 kilometers, are grossly inaccurate, and most of them seem to fail, one way or another. In the recent escalation,
Military officials said more than 500 rockets had been launched from Gaza since the start of the flare-up, although a large percentage of them failed to cross into Israel and exploded, landing inside the enclave itself. The army’s expansive antimissile defense network, known as Iron Dome, destroyed more than 90 percent of the rockets that reached Israeli airspace, the army said.
These are tools of impotent rage that mainly seem intended to harass civilians. Israel knows this, too.
In 2006, the Israeli Ministry of Defense viewed the Qassams as “more a psychological than physical threat.”
Meanwhile, the Israeli response is somewhat more deadly and distructive.
In response to the launches, the Israel Defense Forces carried out sustained retaliatory strikes inside the Gaza Strip overnight and into the morning, with warplanes conducting more than 140 attacks. The IDF said it killed 15 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters in strikes that targeted rocket manufacturing and storage sites, training and military complexes, two underground tunnels and the home of a battalion commander.
Images from the Shati refugee camp near Gaza City on Tuesday morning showed scenes of destruction following at least one Israeli airstrike that appeared to target the top floor of a nearby residential building. The building’s concrete rooftop collapsed onto the apartment below, where residents were shown picking through the rubble.
So Palestinians are churning out a lot of these in metal shops across their territory…
…and Israel retaliates with this.
That’s stupid. If that’s how the war is being fought, F-15s vs homemade rockets, Palestinians are doomed and flailing futilely. But Palestinians aren’t stupid, so maybe we shouldn’t assume that’s how the war is fought, and just maybe the stupid ones are the Israelis. This is a political campaign fought on a global stage, and all I see is a heavily armed bully murdering people armed with popguns, and then the bully dances in the street while innocents burn.
Who is going to win that war? I know for sure that the loser is any high-minded principles or history of courage by the people of Israel.
Apparently and thankfully it was just a tree burning and not the mosque itself, but that crowd clearly wanted it to have been the mosque.
Israel has been allowed to get away with this for so long because of the US’s blind support for them no matter what they did.
I recommend Collins and Lapierre’s O Jerusalem which is a history of the founding of Israel. It explains a lot of things, including that the zionists (particularly from Poland) planned from the beginning to take over, violently, and planned to displace the Palestinians. It is shocking how badly the British handled the situation, but not surprising; they were in a part of their imperial life-cycle where they cheerfully fucked things up for other people because they didn’t care. The book left me feeling sympathy for both sides, who have put eachother through hell in the name of ethno-nationalism. In the long run, Israel looks like another european bout of settler colonialism, but it may survive because it’s willing to get very violent very fast.
While you can have sympathy for both sides, at this stage I don’t think there is any action that Palestinians can take that will improve their situation. Israel holds all the cards and the current status quo appears to be broadly acceptable to enough Israeli voters.
In addition to everything else, the occupation is a massive drain on the Israeli economy and it is only viable because the US effectively bankrolls it.
AFAICT, the Palestinians are being ethnically cleansed in slow motion. It’s a ratchet that ultimately ends with all of them dead or gone.
No one can or will stop it.
Even all the other Arabs are starting to give up and move on.
The Palestinian’s tactics and strategy are total failures.
They commit acts of revenge terrorism against Israeli civilians any way they can.
Those rockets fired randomly across the borders.
Suicide bombers.
The cycle is the Palestinians (often in retaliation for the Israelis doing something terrible) do something horrible resulting in civilian deaths. The Israelis stomp down hard on the Palestinians with superior military firepower. Repeat again and again.
It hasn’t gotten them anywhere in 70 years!!!
Might be time for them to reassess those tactics and strategy.
BTW, I don’t have a solution for any of this.
The best minds on our planet have been trying for almost a century with no results.
A random commenter on FTBs isn’t going to do any better.
There was a Tom Clancy plot where the setup was that a large portion of the Palestinian activist set went resolutely nonviolent. Israel didn’t know how to respond because as bad as the hit is to their international legitimacy when they kill civilians after a rocket attack, killing civilians for sitting in the street clapping & singing “We shall overcome” was a bit too much. The fictional Israelis killed a couple of obviously peaceful protesters and Boom! the entire international political landscape changed in a moment.
While there’s a fictional indictment of many people in that novel (but not Israelis generally! The Israeli that shot the protesters was acting against orders and was brainwashed and was totally the mentally ill exception to the normal, peace loving Israeli soldier!) I often think that the real indictment targets the US. The fundamental idea here is that the cause doesn’t change, but that mirroring the tactics of the Black civil rights movement would be seen as raising awareness of legitimate issues of injustice while firing rockets that injure as many (or more) Palestinians each year doesn’t make Americans think, But why would they do that?
If true, and I think it rather is, that says a lot about our willingness to think critically about justice, and none of what it says reflects well on us.
It’s not just native-born Israelis driving this. Here’s an obviously American Jew, stealing land from Palestinians. “If I don’t steal it, someone else is going to steal it.”
https://youtu.be/KNqozQ8uaV8
Flag waving marches through communities that don’t want them with chants about genocide. Can’t imagine why Ulster loyalists feel an affinity to Israel.
I wonder if the rockets are just a way for Palestinians leaders to stay in power by channeling the (rightful) anger of their people into blind, counter-productive hatred, not unlike every other Western hate-selling demagogue, with the important difference that Palestinians are actually being oppressed, attacked by the Israeli government and actually, physically replaced by Israeli settlers.
@raven: The period between the first and second intafadas was largely peaceful and saw a gradual erosion of Palestinian land and rights. Hamas has enforced ceasefires for long periods of time and seen the same thing.
Palestinians were told to hold elections to legitimize their leadership but when Hamas won them they were punished for the results.
While violence has not succeeded it is not the only thing that has been tried.
Why American politicians cannot say the words ‘Israeli apartheid’ (“American political language does not have the capacity to address Palestine because it is disabled by white supremacy”).
Israel has become a modern Nazi-style authoritarian state. It’s tragic that they have been propagandized by right-wing fascists who looked at what the Nazis did to the Jews and took away the wrong lessons about how to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But they are exterminating an entire group of people for imagined sleights, pushing those people to a point where they retaliate, and then they use that retaliation as justification for genocide.
Religion-infused politics is profoundly toxic and inevitably leads to this.
A popular theory that I have a hard time refuting to explain why “hundreds of rockets fired and almost no civilian deaths” is that the Palestinians are not the ones launching the rockets…the Israelite’s are.
The theory is that whenever they really want to attack Palestine, they sneak into Palestine and start launching them into empty fields and abandoned areas (minimizing damage/death). They then say “SEE? We’re under missile attack!” and use their already ready-to-go military to do what they were planning to do in the first place…flatten Palestinian targets.
That’s why the laws of sheer chance don’t seem to apply…after all a hundred rockets fired totally randomly should hit more, right? Well this eliminates “random” from the equation…they just need to be seen exploding, WHAT they explode is now irrelevant.
raven, the Palestinians have 2 powers working for them. The power of ‘sumud’ (holding tight) and what Yasser Arafat called the biological weapon of the Palestinian womb. The Israeli right, especially the nationalistic-religious factions, is countering with its own version (Israel and Palestine, the only places in the West with such fertility rates). Between that and climate change it is just a matter of time that the entire territory becomes unlivable.
Nowadays.
Well they’ve been eating up Palestinian territory for decades. It’s been a long road since Deir Yassin, and complete annexation is nearly a fait accompli. Apparently It’s barely worth white washing anymore, although I think Netanyahu has been riding the global wave of far right crazy– exemplified by he who shall not be named.
from 2014
Israelis gather on hillsides to watch and cheer as military drops bombs on Gaza
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/20/israelis-cheer-gaza-bombing
Seems the only thing that some Jews learned from the Holocaust is how to be fascist, genocidal, imperialistic tyrants themselves.
In reference to nothing in particular, I’m hoping this thread doesn’t drift into a series of anti-Semitic screeds and weird conspiracy theories.
#13: nah, that’s nonsense. These are bad, clumsy, inefficient rockets that have a low success rate, and we don’t need a conspiracy theory to explain what’s going on.
@12
It’s not that pointless at all.
The Palestinians have something the Israelis want very much and think they need.
Lebensraum. Yeah, I’m using the old German term for “living space” that they used to justify taking over Eastern Europe during WW II.
The Palestinians have land that Israeli wants and has been steadily taking from them since the 6 day war in 1967.
If present trends continue eventually the Israelis will have most of what used to be Jordan/Palestine.
Also, the WaPo article mentions that Israel has an early warning system that alerts people to dive for safety 30 seconds before they hit. A 10kg explosive would be devastating if it went off in a crowd, but would be far less effective if people could get to shelter beforehand.
Just looking at this not from any humanitarian view, but only a Machiavellian one, violent responses to, and oppressive control of Palestinians,from Israel aren’t in their best interests.
A violent attack is a short-term response that suppresses a small group of people. It also backfires, stiffening the spines of those who remain, and ratcheting up what they’ll do next time. The oppressive social control gives the Palestinians suffering under it nothing to lose.
It’s been Israel’s violent responses and ever-increasing oppressing of Palestinians that prolongs the conflict.
They need to at least add to these short-term reponses (if not abandon them altogether) with a long-term effort: giving the Palestinians something to lose, and nothing to take action against. Undermining your enemy’s will to fight is a long-term thing, but it will be most effective at stopping them from attacking.
So, Israel needs to ease up on the social oppressing and throw the Palestinians a bone. It doesn’t have to be real, or very much or very important. Just start giving them something to lose. And, if Israel thinks it must continue with violent responses to a Palestinian attack, it has to sweeten the blows with some kind of apology or lessening of restrictions or something.
Well, that’s the better strategy, but Israel has already sunk into, as was said, Nazi-like behavior and sadism. So, perhaps it’s too late to employ better, more effective strategies.
12 & 19. Well, from the Israeli point of view, it’s about security and reclaiming the homeland.
@ 21. The strategy apparently draws inspiration from American “pacification” of indigenous peoples.
The Balfour Declaration of 1917, by which the British government promised a “national home” for Jews in Palestine, was a move in the interests of British imperial power in the region – aimed mainly at our WWI “ally”, France. I recommend James Barr’s A Line in the Sand, which covers the period from the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, which divided the area now including Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq into British and French spheres of control/influence, up to 1948. Britain and France remained imperial rivals right through that period, including WWII both before and after British and allied (mainly Australian) troops defeated the Vichy French in Syria and Lebanon in 1941, and installed de Gaulle’s “Free French” instead. Britain supported various Arab leaders against French rule in Syria and Lebanon from the 1930s on, and in the last period France supported Zionist terrorists (including the future Israeli leaders Begin and Shamir) against the British. No-one – Britain, France, the Zionists, Arab leaders – comes out looking good. Sean McMeekin’s The Ottoman Endgame gives a rather different take on the early period, particularly with regard to Russia’s role, and “Lawrence of Arabia”.
Before we all start tut-tutting the Israelis, let’s be clear-eyed about what is going on. The Israelis have taken their cue from the American solution to the “Indian Problem” (Doesn’t that sound familiar to Jews?) Their slow motion annexation of Palestinian land is not that much different from how America became the continental country that it is. I am not by any means justifying the Israeli land grab, but now that the USA has what it wants can we then say the rules suddenly changed after 1890? Americans are perpetually washing the blood off of their hands and claiming to be innocent of all their racial hierarchy crimes.
In principle there is no such thing as an Israeli civilian. Unless you are a religious scholar Israelis are obliged to serve in the Israeli military. When they do more than likely they will spend time in illegally occupied Palestine protecting Israeli settler-terrorists and aiding them in attacking and in many cases murdering Palestinians.
@KG: Britain’s support for the creation of Israel was at least partially motivated by the hope that British Jews would move there and reduce the Jewish population of the UK.
@RL Foster: Yes we can say that things that were done in the past are no longer acceptable. Fun fact: Jewish law illustrates this principle itself by forbidding using the book of Joshua as a model for how to conduct warfare (not that the events depicted in the book of Joshua actually happened).
Palestinians were told to hold elections to legitimize their leadership
The US helps make sure that the Palestinians do not have effective leadership. “Anything but Hamas” basically, enforced by declaring Hamas to be terrorists (and the Israeli government is committing crimes against humanity, but they’re not terrorists nossir) basically let’s put an ineffective puppet in place so we can pretend to negotiate with them. If there was an effective Palestinian leader, they’d be assassinated.
It’s a mess. F’in europeans solved their antisemitism problem by exporting it. The whole land-claim is absurd; god does not grant perpetual land titles and even the myths amount to “god told us we could steal it thousands of years ago so we’re stealing it again now.”
KG@#23:
The Balfour Declaration of 1917, by which the British government promised a “national home” for Jews in Palestine, was a move in the interests of British imperial power in the region
The Brits promised the land to different powers; they simply did not give a shit about the stability of the region, they just wanted to get everyone to sit down and shut up, which was never going to work. The Middle East were unimportant pawns in the waning moves of the great game.
Sometimes I refer to Israel as “exporting Europe’s antisemitism problem” because it really resembles a “why don’t y’all go back home” program writ large. The most militant early settlers (before the holocaust) were from Poland – they saw what was coming and Polish antisemitism has been shameful since forever. The Polish militants exported weapons and weapons-making machines when the first wave of colonists came – there was never any objective less than full ethnic cleansing and conquest, and every move Israel makes is with that goal in mind. They’re coy enough about it that the international community can shrug and most of them are happy not to have militant, armed zionists in their country. Basically send them over there and let them kill eachother.
Stroppy@#17:
I’m hoping this thread doesn’t drift into a series of anti-Semitic screeds and weird conspiracy theories.
It is possible to criticize the Israeli government for its crimes against humanity, and not be anti-semitic.
The fact that Israel is open to such criticism is a consequence of that government’s policies; it’s not as if anyone needs any other basis on which to oppose them. That was Israel’s choice, not mine.
@22
Yup. I’ve read about the “we must protect the Fatherland”-style rhetoric before. It doesn’t exactly lead to good things for innocent people. Ever.
Marcus Ranum (#27) –
And if the Palestinians did elect a “moderate” willing to talk to the US and Israel, they would do to him just they do to Iranian presidents. The moderate and west-looking Mohammad Khatami was ignored, called a “powerless figurehead”. His successor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was intentionally antagonized, called a “maniac with his finger on a button”. The US and Israel want fanatics leading the Palestinians, it gives them an excuse to continue the genocide.
@22 and @24, correct. The difference I see, though, is that Americans were pretty blunt about openly committing genocide to get land, and they didn’t seem to mind almost admitting as much. “We deserve the land” was their excuse.
Israel has to be a little more sneaky, and, as was said, more slow-motion, and claim that they “must” do this in “self-defense”, because now the approbation of other nations is more important. At some point Israel might find itself an outcast nation, with all the world shunning it, like South Africa.
Of course, other nations are absolutely reluctant and firmly looking away. But, if Israel did as the Americans did, and was just more plain and more fast about their genocide, the rest of the world might actually respond.
@4 Specialfrog: “While you can have sympathy for both sides …..”
It’s also possible to not have sympathy for either side.
National Security can cover anything and everything.
After all, who is against National Security.
This is why Germany can annex Czechoslovakia, and then invade France and Poland.
This is why the old Soviet Union had a buffer of satellite nations in Eastern Europe to keep the west from doing something.
This was why we invaded Iraq.
This was why a 16 kid protesting the Vietnam war has an FBI file. I was a huge threat to…National Security.
Marcus Ranum @29
I’m well aware. See my other comments.
That wasn’t directed at you, btw. It’s a sensitive topic ripe for trolling. That is all.
I remember when The News Hour could have discussion panels with both Juan Cole and Netanyahu. Seems like a lifetime ago. Since then, that sort of attention has dropped off the radar, and Netanyahu has gone full on bat-shit.
Cole, however, is still a go-to guy: Informed Comment.
@34
Indeed.
In terms of wider strategy, Israel became an American asset (outpost) during the Cold War which has only served to make the situation more intractable.
The wall fell, America drifted right, and along came Bush with his grandiose, religious fantasy of transforming the Middle East once and for all with a shockingly awesome war. Mission Not Accomplished.
So the costumes may change, but it’s still a global shit-show.
Sneaky? This is impossible not to see. They must be monumental failures at sneaking. Or, they’re just not actually trying to do that, which seems like the simpler option.
And more slow-motion? How do you figure? The US genocide lasted centuries, not mere decades. If they’re going to take even longer than this country did, then we’ve barely seen the start of the conflict so far.
Also, self-defense? Americans very often claimed to be defending themselves, cooking up many stories (real and fictional) of “savage” people doing all sorts of heinous things, which must be “stopped” and which merit “retaliation.” Maybe it was more about trying to convince themselves, rather than other nations, but it’s still making the same move.
Heh. Forgot about Israel for a second. When I read the title, I thought we were talking about the Uighurs.
~cries~
still bashing out conflicts that have roots at least in their current iteration a hundred years old. I suspect that climate change and the subsequent in livability and population displacement that results will finally be the thing that can not be politically influenced or propagandized. it is coming make no mistake this pandemic is just a practice for real disruption.
the current turmoil is probably not helped much by the current “leader” of Israel’s precarious position a with the law and political fortune either. an old trick war is the best distraction.
uncle frogy
There is a solution. BDS.
Did you know that in the Bible (Numbers 33: 50-56) “God” tells the Israelites to
“drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images and their cast idols, and demolish all their high places. 53 Take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given you the land to posses……
….55 “‘But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land where you will live. 56 And then I will do to you what I plan to do to them.’”
If this is something you believe, what Isreal is doing is not surprising or even objectively wrong. If this is something you believe.
@40- WMDKitty
I’m not entirely sure I’d be on board with BDS itself per se, depending on overall stance on two-state solution, but anyone who supports BDS and contracts with certain government entities runs afoul of the coerced Israel loyalty oath. Funny thing that the radical free speechers we know and love don’t seem too enthusiastic about defending BDS supporters from such punitive retribution.
Is it terrorism? When your choice is between being murdered quickly or slowly, almost anything you do can reasonably be called self-defense no matter how futile it may be. What are they supposed to do when Israel finally cuts off the entire water supply?
Not that I have sympathy with anyone who builds explosive devices that will indiscriminately maim and kill. But the average Palestinian is not that person.
(This conflict is definitely an instance where dear old Jahweh/Allah/Cthulhu might want to step in. Just saying. Him being all powerful and good and shit…)
specialfrog@26, Marcus Ranum@28,
Yes indeed, the prospect of exporting British Jews was seen as a bonus. Marcus Ranum@28, certainly the British made incompatible promises in three directions (Zionists, France, the Hashemite dynasty), but I don’t think it’s true they didn’t care about stability – they wanted as much of the area as possible to be stable as part of the Empire. They thought in particular that the Zionists would be grateful, and support their rule in Palestine in return for protection. We can see in hindsight that the British Empire was on the slide by WWI – but they couldn’t, and indeed it reached its maximum extent in that war’s aftermath.
The Anti-Semitism in this threat is nauseating. Comparison with Nazi German? Downplaying the holocaust?
I hope this is not exemplary of the American left.
Everyone who downplays these terror attacks as “gloryfied fireworks” should be ashamed.
The Palestines are voting for Hamas, a terror Organization that instead of helping its people if rather buying rockets and perpetrate suicide attacks with the sole purpose of killing civilians. The whole goal of the existence of Hamas is to kill all Jews and destroy Israel (go and read the founding documents). They are not the slightest interested in helping the Palestinians. The Palestinians are held hostage by their own fanatical Government. They are launching the rockets from civilian areas, taking their own people as shields.
BTW, Israel warns before an attack and gives time to evacuate:
https://twitter.com/JudahAriGross/status/1392368973719740417
Guess how much warning time Hamas gives?
@45 Forodrim
Where in this thread did anyone downplay the holocaust? I think it’s perfectly reasonable to compare Israel’s continued occupation and settlement of the palestinian territories to nazi germany’s lebensraum.
Ridiculous whataboutery about how bad Hamas are doesn’t excuse Israel’s own crimes and I’m not going to give Israel credit for warning people before destroying their homes.
@forodrim: Equating criticism of Israeli policy with anti-Semitism actually does downplay real historical anti-Semitism.
@46 no it is not. Germany invaded a country with the sole purpose to kill unwanted people and they built a whole industry to do so. Israel is doing nothing that is even remotely comparable to that. There are no death camps, no forced labor in which prisoners worked to death. Claiming that what Israel is doing is “the same” is massively downplaying the Shoah.
@47 I’m not equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Downplaying the holocaust is not a sensible form of criticizing Israel.
Look at the “arguments” in this thread:
– calling a democracy a “Nazi-style state”
– claiming the Israeli want to “exterminate” an entire group of people
– claiming the attacks by Hamas terrorists are a false flag attack
– claiming the Israeli are following the “Lebensraum” policy of Nazi-Germany
– “In principle there is no such thing as an Israeli civilian”, declaring all Israeli people as military targets.
None of this is in any for a legitimate for of criticism, it is filled to the brim with anti-semitic conspiracy theories.
There is plenty to be criticized about Israels policies, but most what is written here is just vile and in no way better or more informed like what you usually read in right wing conspiracy blogs.
Almost always, these threads drift into a anti-Palestiniam screeds with generous amounts of accusations of antisemitism thrown in.
And here he is.
Since when is noting the slow motion ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians antisemitism? Even some Jews are appalled by this.
It’s possible to condemn the Palestinian terrorism as an ineffective and counter productive tactic by desperate people and condemn the Israeli ethnic cleansing and displacement of the Palestinians as well. We just did that. We will do it again as long as both keep happening.
Forodrim is a serial killer. Of strawpeople.
No one downplayed the terror attacks as glorified fireworks.
The home made rockets aren’t much compared to any modern military grade weapons, but they can do some damage.
“nasty little things”
Human rights watch ” and are mainly launched for the purpose of “harming civilians.”
The Israeli Ministry of Defense: “viewed the Qassams as “more a psychological than physical threat.”
So far 53 Palestinians have been killed in the latest round of violence to 6 Israelis.
Tell me again, which side has the superior firepower here?
@49:
yes, you might do that. But stop the bloody comparisons to Nazi-Germany style genocide. That is ridiculous and borders into anti-semitic conspiracy theories.
@50
Talking about strawpeople:
I never said anything about who has the superior firepower.
Hams is targeting civilians.
Israel is targeting Hams Infrastructure and launch sites. And given warnings to houses that are being targeted.
@forodrim: While I agree Nazi comparisons are overstated.
However, Israel is not a functional democracy as a) rights within Israel proper depend on the race and religion of citizens and b) the occupied territories are controlled by Israel and Palestinians living there are neither allowed to self-govern nor participate in Israeli elections. It is a democracy in a similar sense as apartheid South Africa.
And while you can argue about whether or not Israeli policy has a goal of exterminating the Palestinians it is definitely a policy of ethnic cleansing that is at best indifferent to the lives of Palestinians — with occasional bouts of extermination as in Qibya.
And in case you want to frame Qibya as ‘retaliation’ you may or not be aware that collective punishment is a violation of international law.
You may or may not have heard this statement by Moshe Dayan but it as good a summary of Israeli policy as any:
“We have no solution… You [Palestinians] shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave, and we will see where this process leads.”
That is exactly what they are doing.
They even say so themselves and often.
Netanyahu is the leader of Israel and should know what they are doing.
They’ve got the land filled with settlers to prove it.
The Israelis now have control of and have settled 42% of the West Bank.
They aren’t done yet.
They aren’t going to stop either.
How long will it take them to settle all of it?
@51
Perhaps you prefer comparisons to the treatment of natives in the Americas? Apartheid in South Africa? The plantation of Ulster? It’s ethnic cleansing and religious supremacism whatever you compare it to.
@54
Oh Boy, you seem to have no clue about what Nazi-Germany did …
It’s official Israel government policy to settle the West Bank.
There is one problem though.
People called Palestinians already live there.
So what will happen to them?
That remains to be seen but so far it has been a disaster for them.
AFAICT, Gaza city with 1.85 million people is just a giant refugee camp without much in the way of an economy, quality of life, or future.
The Palestinian parts of the West Bank don’t look much better.
More and more Palestinian people crowded into smaller and smaller areas.
What could go wrong here.
@53
Good.
We can criticize Israel all day long, I agree that a lot of their policies are discriminatory.
But also see that Hamas are no Freedom Fighters, they are terrorists. They place their launch sites in civilian areas, knowing and willing to accept that when Israel strikes back there will be civilian casualties. Hamas does not care about Palestinians, they want a war with Israel to destroy them. You can quote Moshe Dayan, but you will find similar or worse quotes from Hamas.
You ignored my main point. Because it is correct.
I used the term ethnic cleansing which is closer to what the Israelis are going.
But the end result is going to be the same as what the Nazis tried to do in Eastern Europe.
The Nazis were after “lebensraum” meaning living space or living room.
They were going to slaughter and displace the Slavs and take the land as their own.
The Israelis are doing the same thing. It’s much slower and their methods are somewhat different.
But the goal and the end result is going to be the same.
They will own, govern, and live in the West Bank and the Palestinians will do what?
We don’t know yet what will happen to the Palestinians but it isn’t looking good for them right now.
@58
I haven’t seen anyone here praise Hamas. Do you think that “oh yeah, well the other side is worse” is a valid argument?
I try to pay as little attention as possible to the Middle East.
It’s an area where horrible things happen to people constantly and there is nothing I can do about it.
And oh yeah, 2 of my friends died in the Iraq I war and I haven’t forgotten them yet.
So for anyone who knows or cares.
What is going to happen to the Palestinians?
.1. AFAICT, Gaza is just a giant refugee camp with 1.85 million people living in major poverty.
Per capita income is a whole $900 a year.
.2. The West Bank has an economy but it isn’t much.
Per capita income is $2,000 a year and unemployment is 28%.
The Palestinians are slowly being encircled and pushed out of their territory.
What will happen to them and where could they go?
Probably no one knows but the future isn’t looking good for them.
@59,
Danke du Klappspaten, ich weiss sehr wohl was der Begriff bedeutet.
The Term “Lebensraum” describes a very specific concept of the NS-Ideology. To equate that with the situation in Israel is simply vile und unjustifiable.
@60
Then maybe you are not really qualified for these kinds of discussions?
@forodrim: In your view, what action should Palestinians be taking to stop being ethnically cleansed?
@62
“The situation in Israel”
Says it all really.
Expansionist countries all have patterns of behavior in common, but the lebensraum analogy is strained at best and is pointedly hurtful.
It think it was Netanyahu I heard during the Iraq war announcing boldly and nonsensically that there was no such thing as a cycle of violence (people vote for this guy?). Put aside all the failing dogma and scripts that always devolve into a narrow focus on tit-for-tat. Barring a controlled intervention, ending a cycle of war, by war, pretty much boils down to some combination of ethnic cleansing, genocidal attacks, and violation of human rights–or perhaps ending with exhaustion all around after years of stupidly wasted blood and treasure. It’s easy to say there’s no cycle when you have the upper hand in terms of military power, and can tell yourself it’s ok to shift responsibility for how it’s used onto those on the receiving end.
Sometimes you just have to go back and reevaluate your basic assumptions no matter how painful. It’s understandable that politicians would rather skip that and turn a blind eye, as it’s pretty much impossible to resolve. Personally, though, I’m tired of having tax dollars flow out of my wallet to support America’s bloated industrial military complex and endless wars around the world.
Anyway, in the end, as somebody upthread said, the consequences of global warming will probably bring the whole bloody spectacle to a sad and sorry end.
@64
first step would be to elect officials that are interested in solving the situation. Hamas is not even trying that, they are not interested in peace but escalation. In the last years they shot over a thousand rockets per year.
No it isn’t.
Now you are just repeating yourself, lying, and tossing out insults.
That is what happens when you’ve run out of thoughts.
More insults.
You’ve been killing strawpeople, making stuff up, and insulting us since you showed up here.
Not impressed with your knowledge which is about zero.
You aren’t a very objective person either.
You clearly have an agenda and it is obvious.
You are pro-Israeli and anti-Palestinian.
If you lived in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, you would sound the same.
Now that we’ve got the antisemitic accusations out of the way and we are down to denial and insults, this has gotten too boring to bother with.
Do yourself a favor and educate yourself about German Nazi Atrocities and Ideology.
@forodrim: And what are those elected officials going to do? The ethnic cleaning started well before Hamas was a force and would continue if Hamas ceased to exist.
But thanks for at least acknowledging that Israel is engaged in ethnic cleansing.
One more for the road.
Israel and the West Bank are a small area with an arid climate. With a high population density and relatively high population growth rates.
It turns out that Israel has been diverting almost all, 80-85%, of the groundwater in the West Bank to Israelis or into Israel itself.
In arid regions, water is life.
I asked above what is going to happen to the Palestinians living there.
They might well just end up water restricted or flat out run out of water.
Since this is an inland area, they can’t even set up desalinization plants like they do in Gaza.
@70
Oh ffs, I did not.
It started 1947 when Israel was formed and the Arabs declared:
„The UN decision has united all Arabs, as they have never been united before, not even against the Crusaders. … [A Jewish State] has no chance to survive now that the ‚holy war‘ has been declared. All the Jews will eventually be massacred.“
Exactly the kind of neighbors you want to have …
Then in 1948 the Arab Nations attacked Israel with the purpose to destroy it. Supported by Ex-Germany military (for example Fausi al-Kawukdschi an officer of the Wehrmacht). Also Supported by the Muslim Brotherhood who were also eager to kill Jews. After the war the brotherhood started religious “education” to further spread their propaganda. Those groups later became the founders of Hamas.
A start would be to stop buying rockets to fire into Israel. Next maybe they could stop encouraging and giving money to suicide attackers and their families.
@forodrim: You gave a suggestion as to what Palestinians could do to stop being ethnically cleansed but now say you don’t acknowledge that it is happening. So what were your suggestions for?
Let’s put this another way: if there were a guarantee of no further violence from Palestinians, would you favor a return to the pre-1967 border with Palestinians fully in charge of their territory and equal rights for Palestinians with Israeli citizenship? If not, what outcome to you consider to be desireable?
A rather controversial tweeter chimes in years ago:
https://mobile.twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/493148682880307200
“The extent of the destruction in Gaza is obscene. Poor people. Poor people who have lost their homes, their relatives, everything.”
Wonder what he would say now if anything.
@73 out of curiosity, you do know that there are Arabs with Israeli citizenship (~20% of the Israeli populace)? And that they can vote? and that the Israeli Ambassador to Finland from 96 to 99 was Muslim? And that the majority of Arab Israeli said they would not want to live in a Free Palestine? Do you think a Palestine Nation would send a Jewish Ambassador to any other nation?
I took your question as a mere question on what the Palestines could do to end the conflict.
Israel has been surrounded by religious fanaticals who announced their intend to massacre Jews from day one. I think the Palestines must make clear that that is no longer their intend and show it. After that we can discuss borders, how ever they might be.
@forodrim: Implicit in my other statements is an understanding that Palestinians with Israeli citizenship exist. And while they can vote they do not have equal rights, as you seemed to acknowledge above. And while it is nice that one ambassador was Muslim pointing it out seems a bit like pointing out Obama to downplay the existence of racial discriminations in the US.
And I don’t see how you could interpret my question as around merely ending the conflict.
But to be clear, your position is that it is okay for Israel to evict Palestinians from their land and lay claim to their water and expand Jewish-only settlements in the occupied territories until the point where Palestinians demonstrate they can be peaceful?
And what about the relatively peaceful period between the first and second intafadas?
@75 Why would Arab Israelis want to live in an independant Palestine after decades of occupation leaving it impoverished? Doesn’t change the fact they are discriminated against. Any jewish person around the world can move to Israel but a Palestinian refugee with a legitimate claim to property in the state can’t.
The Pentagon spends about $5 billion a year in foreign military financing, almost $4 billion of which goes to Israel. That’s where those F-15s came from.
@76
No, it is just to illustrate that there is a important difference between discrimination and ethnic cleaning. This thread shows how people grossly overexaggerating things, equation Nazi-Germany with Israel. I also think talking about “ethnic cleansing” is wrong when there are Arab-Israeli citizens that are happy to live in Israel. Germany did try to cleanse Europe of its Jewish people and I think there were no Jews happily living in Germany at that time.
How is it hard for you to understand that I agree that Israel is doing a lot of wrong things? I merely disagree in the terms of “Ethnic cleansing”, usage of “Lebensraum” style NS terminology or claiming that there is “no such thing as an Israeli civilian”
Which part of that do you not understand? So in short:
Israel is doing a lot of bad things
It has a stupid conservative government
This still does not mean Israel is committing genocide or ethnic cleanings
on the contrary, it is Hamas, a fanatical religious group, that has a history of attempting genocide
Hamas hides behind its own populace to increase Palestinian civilian deaths
Palästinas would be best advice to vote for a government that actually cared for them instead of using them as human shields.
And I’m not asking for a demonstration of “peaceful” I ask to stop the terror attacks against civilians and voting for political parties with genocidal goals. Again Hamas’ goal was and to a large part still is genocide as I showed in previous comments.
If it is either peaceful or genocide for you, that is your problem. If your worldview only works in extremes, I cannot help you.
@77
Most said they would prefer Israel because they want to live in a democratic nation, I guess they don’t want to be ruled by religious nutjobs.
Come on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing
You admit abuses, but I think you are soft pedaling the intent and extent of the matter.
“I guess they don’t want to be ruled by religious nutjobs.”
You can’t be serious.
It started 1947 when Israel was formed and the Arabs declared:
The ethnic cleansing was planned largely by Polish expats in the 1920s. The holocaust was still on the horizon but Poland had an anti-semitism problem going back over a thousand years. The “never again” ideology was grafted on after the holocaust but the european colonialists who planned to take over Palestine and establish Israel were already smuggling in weapons and arms-making machinery before 1930. There was never any plan other than to take over and displace the then-current residents of the area. Paramilitaries in Poland and Ukraine, like Heshomer Hatzair were recruiting, specifically, colonists. Including Menachem Begin, eventual prime minister of Israel.
There was never any concern for the then-inhabitants beyond getting rid of them and occupying Jerusalem, and there was never any peaceful intent.
The holocaust angle has always seemed a bit off, to me, anyway. A bunch of Germans, Austrians, Russians, committed genocide – so how does that justify punishing the Palestinians? It would have made more sense to give the jews Bavaria, but that idea is also absurd. But still, we are expected to somehow accept that the Palestinians are being treated appropriately … for something the Germans and Poles did. Raising the holocaust explains jewish militancy, but does not excuse it.
As has been mentioned up-thread, the Balfour Declaration was the official event that started the ball rolling – quite a while before the holocaust. I’m not minimizing the holocaust, which was an incredibly significant event – far from it! One of the things that came out of that experience was the notion of “crimes against humanity” which include things like displacing people to clear space for one’s tribe, and retaliating against civilians for something someone else did – like when Israel bombs residential areas in Gaza in order to punish the locals for supporting, implicitly, those launching rockets at Israel. Then Israel, the dominant occupying military power, claims Hamas is using human shields – ignoring the established doctrine that a population can resist occupation. (E.g: the much-lauded French resistance in WWII or the less-lauded vietcong)
Part of the problem, the reason why Israel’s actions are often compared to the nazis’ is because the legal principles in concern were codified as a response to nazi atrocities. Of course there have been other instances of “ethnic cleansing” since the nazis, so we shouldn’t say it’s like the holocaust – because it wasn’t. But let’s not trigger a race to the bottom? Is what Israel is doing as bad as Rwanda? No. Kosovo? Maybe. All of these things are matters of degree and it’s a pretty weak defense of Israel to say, in effect, “sure Israel os doing crimes against humanity but the other guys are worse.” The point is: crimes against humanity.
Antisemitism is a plague on humanity and I wish the europeans had confronted it and resolved it, rather than exporting its consequences for the Palestinians to have to suffer with.
@forodrim: Do you agree that Israel is forcing Palestinians off their land — both in Israel and in the occupied territories — and giving that land to Jewish people? And demolishing entire villages in the process (including Bedouin villages within Israel)?
Allowing Jewish Israelis to marry non-Israelis and bring them into the country but not allowing Arab Israelis the same right?
Those things are not genocide but they are ethnic cleansing. If you don’t like the term maybe you should also not like the underlying actions.
@Marcus Ranum: My family left Poland in 1900 because anti-Semitism was an issue even then. They went to the UK, which has its own issues with anti-Semitism but was better.
When there is a fight with lots of children dying and both “sides” are bad in a political sense there is sense in prioritizing the bigger threat higher. It’s like pulling the stronger person off of a weaker person in a fight that needs breaking up.
equation Nazi-Germany with Israel.
Equation: “X is as bad as nazi germany”
Comparison: “X is doing some of the same crimes as the nazis did, now we can argue which of those was worse.”
Has Israel created as many refugees driven off their lands as the Serbs did in Kosovo? Or is what’s being done to the Palestinians as bad as what is happening to the uighurs in China? Sure, that is not on the same plane as the nazis but it’s not a plane anyone wants to be on and none of us should be supporting Israel because it’s the lesser of evils. So what, it’s still evil.
@83
Are you really putting the Russians into the group that comitted the holocaust?
you have no idea what you are talking about.
Here:
https://twitter.com/CarloMasala1/status/1392214776424583169
This is a “knock on the roof” a dud bomb dropped by Israel to warn civilians that the house will be targeted. The house was either used as a launch site or is used for military purposed by Hamas or a similar group (like “Islamic Jihad” the ones that bombed the US Embassy in Beirut). Of course Hamas often prevents civilians from leaving the house, because they want civilian deaths for their own propaganda. I also linked another video further up were you can see a palestinian takling to IDF, negotiation the time they have leave the house.
@84 how often do I have to answer that I indeed think a lot of the things that Israel is doing is wrong?
Do you actually read what I write? Or are you on repeat?
Do you agree that Hamas is a Terrorist organization with the sole purpose to destroy Israel? and potentially committ genocide?
@89
I’m curious what Israel is doing that you think is wrong. Bombing civilians is apparently ok if you give them a courtesy knock first.
Also, again, the people heaping praise on Hamas are in your head.
forodrim @88:
That looks a lot like propaganda itself; the sort which proclaims “our enemies are even more evil than you thought”. You know, the sort of propaganda which the Israeli government has been engaged in for a very long time. Like Netanyahu referring to Palestinian children killed while playing on a beach as the “telegenic” dead.
Terrorism worked for the Irgun. Maybe they inspired Hamas.
@ #24, R. L. Foster:
Let’s not lose sight of the fact that Israel could never do this without US backing, both political and financial. (Indeed, even with US political backing, they would be unable to afford the logistical costs without US funding.) Therefore this is, ultimately, a US warcrime, and therefore US citizens have a perfect right to demand that it be stopped, immediately, by any means necessary.
@ forodrim:
If I posted a list of things the Israelis have done to Palestine in the last year, but removing the names of people, locations, and objects (like guns), and did the same with a list of things the Nazis did to Jews in the pogroms and as they invaded other countries, essentially nobody would be able to tell the difference. Therefore: the Israelis are behaving like Nazis. There is no question, and anybody who denies it — like you — has an ulterior motive, probably a very bad one because they are trying to protect people who are behaving like Nazis. You are, frankly, somebody who is a truly evil person, and I refuse to let you influence me in any way.
@forodrim: You are willing to agree that some things Israel does are wrong but don’t seem to amount that this adds up to ethnic cleansing. You also seem unwilling to say that Israel should stop doing these things without trying to turn it back on what Hamas is doing.
If Israel is doing things that are wrong they should stop. Nothing Hamas is doing justifies it. It is not in any way motivated by Hamas’s actions. Stopping these actions is a requirement of not only basic ethics but international law. It is not justifiable under any version of Jewish law with which I am familiar (which as I noted earlier in the thread forbids using Joshua as a model).
The definition I use for terrorism is violence directed against civilians committed for political purposes. Therefore I consider both Hamas and the IDF terrorist organizations.
I don’t agree with calling Hamas genocidal. They have stated they are willing to accept the existence of Israel as part of a negotiated settlement but won’t do so as a pre-cursor to negotiation.
@92 in Babyn Jar the Nazi killed more then 30 000 People in two days by mass shootings.
Show me something comparable Israel did last year.
Your statement is disgusting, you are equating the industrial mass murder of over 6 million people with what Israel is doing.
@93
Read the comment by Vicar, that is exactly the kind of statement that I’m arguing against.
How would you defend your nation against over 1000 rockets per year aimed at your civilians?
If Israel gives territories back to the Palestinians, do you think the Jewish people there would be save?
@93
Forgot to add:
I have showed you how the IDF is trying to avoid civilians deaths, something Hamas is not even considering and yet you equate both? Are you serious?
@forodrim: A couple years ago there were protests near the so-called “security fence” where Israeli snipers appeared to be shooting mostly medics and journalists. The IDF official Twitter account stated that they knew where every bullet landed (though they later deleted the tweet). There is also an epidemic among Palestinian soccer players of being shot in the knees.
Additionally, levelling buildings in response to rocket attacks is clearly not preventing rocket attacks, so why does the IDF do it? They could avoid civilian casualties by not bombing civilian areas with and achieve seemingly the same security benefit.
Not to mention the IDFs role in essentially imprisoning the entire population of the Gaza strip with inadequate food, water and access to medicine.
And more Palestinian civilians have been killed over the past few days than Israeli civilians have by rocket attacks over the last few decades (estimates are ~28 deaths since 2001).
And the best way to defend Israel against rocket attacks is a real peaceful settlement. Either a two state solution with the pre-1967 borders (with mutually agreed land swaps) or a one state solution with equal rights for all.
The only path to security for Israel is peace.
As for the settlers, there is no path that sees them staying on the entirely of the illegally-annexed territory. Depending on land-swaps some might but not all.
Cross-posted with Political Madness:
Elizabeth Tsurkov:
More:
Video of a mob attacking Arab businesses in Bat Yam.
@96
Somehow every escalation the IDF ends up killing and injuring 10 – 100 times more Palestinians, most of them civilians, than Hamas ends up killing and injuring Israelis. I don’t think there is much to the claim that the IDF is in some way restrained or concerned with Palestinian lives.
For a long time, we could point to Jews as being more ethical than almost every other ethnic group. Being ethical was a big part of their identity as they were oppressed.
But they really aren’t different from everybody else. When they get power, they abuse it—just like everybody else.
Sad.
forodrim@#88:
Are you really putting the Russians into the group that comitted the holocaust?
Are you really displaying such ignorance of history? I’d be embarrassed to do that so openly.
Back when the nazis and Stalin’s Russia were still ‘friends’, they partitioned Poland (1939). The Germans were quite open about their intent to colonize their part of Poland, and moved settlers in to occupy areas that had been depopulated of Jews. The Russians were also there to colonize and for Stalin that meant getting rid of Jews. After all, that was what Stalin’s collectivization of agriculture meant, and “kulaks” (Jews) in Ukraine and Belarus were starved, forced off their land, or both. This was the holocaust before the holocaust, the great famine of 1933. It was not solely aimed at the Jews, but was rather a class war, attempting to eliminate peasants as a class, basically – but Russia and Ukraine already had huge anti-semitism problems and the Jews were subjected to particularly enthusiastic persecution. Remember that, prior to the cold war, Stalin was portrayed as a “good guy” so the 5 million or so people his collectivization program murdered outright, and starved, were sort of swept under the rug. But Poland had it particularly bad – first it was partitioned, colonized, and many people murdered or disappeared in both the nazi and soviet parts, then it was later occupied entirely by the nazis with an express plan of colonization, and finally became a battleground as the red army came down upon Germany for vengeance. Basically, everyone had it in for the Jews – and the poles, themselves, were gleefully murderous, too, until the boot came down on them in turn.
I don’t think it is at all unreasonable to say that the Soviets were participants in the holocaust – they partitioned Poland under a treaty with the nazis, knew exactly what the nazis were up to, and did the same thing – just a bit less organized, as usual.
[wik]
Poland and Ukraine were described as “the bloodlands” in Timothy Snyder’s fascinating and depressing book by that title [wik] One of the depressing things Synder documents in excruciating detail was the way in which the Germans and Soviets planned to colonize their conquests; the Germans were more organized and ruthless about it – Stalin preferred to let incompetence and starvation do the dirty work, often. But what about that is not also genocide? Starvation is the oldest weapon of mass destruction.
In the sense that the nazis built death-camps and railroaded people into them, Israel is not at all like the nazis. In the sense that the nazis and stalinists partitioned and blockaded regions, displaced the civilian populations from their homes and businesses, and brought in ethno-nationalist colonists to take over the newly emptied lands…? The nazis, soviets, and Israel have all done that. It’s the way that genocide is done, as the US demonstrated on the Indigenous Peoples of North America, too. The walls and barbed wire and machine-guns and disproportionate force – they’re all the same, as are the bombing of civilian targets by the military. Is Gaza different from the Warsaw Ghetto? Well, the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were a bit better armed but just as doomed.
I understand your frustration that there are people who equate or compare the actions of Israel to the nazis, but your frustration stems from the unavoidable fact that the Israelis are on the same plane, somewhere (along with the US and every other imperial/colonialist power in history) – and it’s not a well-defended piece of moral high ground that anyone should be comfortable trying to hold. Are the Israelis doing things as bad as the nazis did? No. Are they just as deplorable? Of course.
You’re frustrated, as I am, that people have to discuss how close the Israelis are to the nazis in terms of their morals and method. I think it’s sloppy reasoning, frankly, and it should not even be necessary. Nobody should defend the nazis, and nobody should defend the Israelis, either. It’s scandalous that people even try to deflect the blame for Israeli crimes against humanity with this “…. but Hamas is really nasty!” bullshit. As if Hamas’ being nasty justifies blasting the daylights out of an open air refugee camp like the Gaza Strip? I doubt you’ll find people here saying Hamas should be protected (I certainly am not) – but the Israelis aren’t actually fighting Hamas, they’re shooting kids and journalists and bombing civilian zones specifically so that they can then bulldoze them and clear them for eventual resettlement. I can grant you all day that Hamas are bad guys but that doesn’t make what Israel is doing one iota better, or moral.
What’s crazy, to me, is when someone brings the holocaust into this as though it somehow justifies what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians. Sure, bring it up if the Israelis were bombing Germany and displacing Austrians or trying to take over Bavaria but the Palestinians were basically nonentities in WWII and their involvement was minimal – far less significant than the Vichy French. There was one unit of volunteers in the SS, who were authentic dipshit antisemites, but the sick joke there is the letters between Himmler and Hitler about “when we’re done with the Jews let’s get rid of those guys too.” When you’re dancing in the monster’s ball, you’re not going to find a good partner. The Palestinians had the massive misfortune of living in a place that they’ve lived in since Roman times, and a bunch of people who believe god almighty gave them the deed to some land decided to arm up (gird their loins, etc) and come clear them off it and take the place over. That was an ongoing objective before the holocaust, but I guess it’s a fait accompli, now.
So since we’re asking questions: do you think Israel has any right to exist other than force of arms?
It has been successful in that regard, but, is someone willing to say that the holocaust in Germany and Poland justifies conquering Jerusalem and creating an ethno-state? Usually around here someone says people have a right to defend themselves but – again, that doesn’t translate into that they have a right to displace the existing population of Palestine. “The great sky fairy gave us this land” still doesn’t justify beating the shit out of the current Palestinians and stealing their country. I’d like someone to square that circle for me.
By the way, before anyone starts going on about who’s a “terrorist” and what what, it’d be a good idea to read the life history of former Israeli PM Menachem Begin. The Irgun and Stern Gang decided that they were going to drive the Brits out of Palestine using … terror tactics. And, it worked. Why did they want the Brits out of Palestine? So they could take the place over, of course.
Since the interpretations of these historical facts vary pretty wildly, it’s best to do one’s own research. Again, I’ll plug for O Jerusalem and Bloodlands. By the time I was done with that load, I felt sympathy for both “sides” – who have put eachother and themselves through hell, because of a strongly held religious delusion, and European ethnic hatred. This whole thing is the biggest damn “blowback” ever.
Marcus @101: “kulak” is not a synonym for “Jew”. Kulaks were the most prosperous peasants. Some may have been Jewish, but most would have been ethnic Russian or Ukrainian.
Rob Grigjanis@#103:
“kulak” is not a synonym for “Jew”
I know. Sorry if I was unclear. It was during the process of eradicating the kulaks that a lot of Jews were killed. That’s what I meant about it being a class conflict, primarily. But Stalin was also particularly antisemitic and pretty much didn’t hesitate to kill Jews if it was an option. So, a million here, 150,000 there, I don’t know what’s the bar for being a member of the holocaust perpetrators, but I put Stalin in there.
Also, Poland, Russia, and freakin’ most of Europe seem to have regular pogroms for 1,000+ years. I think it’d be unreasonable for us to expect the Jews to forgive and forget that.
forodrim
The real difference is that, AFAIK, Hamas was actually willing to accept a two-state solution at several points in history. Israel has never been willing to accept such a thing.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/05/what-obama-meant-1967-lines-why-irked-netanyahu/350925/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/01/hamas-new-charter-palestine-israel-1967-borders
The real problem is that the Israeli expansionist policy that has been in place for like 50 years means that a two-state solution is increasingly impractical, and that’s by-design from Israeli leaders. Israel also seems completely unwilling to discuss a one-state solution because that might fundamentally destroy Israel’s character as a “Jewish State”. So, it’s more or less entirely Israel’s fault right now that we don’t have peace and that peace is so incredibly difficult to achieve. Israel doesn’t want peace. They want the Palestinians to go away. Whether they die or go to other countries – they don’t seem to care. As long as they’re not in Israel, which in their mind includes all of Palestine.
Have you seen the conditions in the West Bank and Gaze? Do you know how bad it is? Do you know about the conditions that they live under? It’s as bad as the ghettos in Germany for Jewish people circa 1940. It’s completely deplorable. I’m assuming you don’t know.
And yet Israel is unwilling to grant voting rights and all other civil rights of being Israeli citizens to all persons in Gaze and the West Bank, which would be an equitable solution, e.g. the one-state solution.
Israel is ruled by a bunch of religious nutjobs! Where have you been? Living under a rock?
…
PS:
kingoftown
I’ll praise Hamas, relatively speaking. At least they’re willing to accept real solutions, AFAIK. That puts them above Israel in terms of reasonableness.
No, I’m right here. I’m real.
Fordrim is a troll that evades, insults, and makes stuff up, i.e. lies.
The term lebensraum is a German compound noun meaning life + room. It means living space or habitat.
.1. It was invented around 1880 and first applied to animals.
This was 50 years before the Nazis were even invented.
.2. The basic idea isn’t new.
It is thousands of years old that we know of and probably more like tens of thousands of years old.
The first part of the OT bible is the story of the Jews conquering the Canaanites, killing most of them and taking their land, women and stuff.
It is how the USA was started as well.
Forodrim thinks calling everyone antisemitic Nazis proves something.
Well it does.
It just isn’t what he thinks it proves.
As I guessed, Gaza is just a concentration camp with 1.85 million people.
The tl;dr version.
It’s been under Israeli blockade since 2007.
It’s is very difficult for people and materials to get in or out i.e. cut off from the world.
Food, water, electricity, and medical care are in short supply.
Half the population relies on the UN for food.
95% of the population lacks running water.
Unemployment among young people is 70%.
@101
No, the Holocaust strictly refers to the mass murder of Jews by Nazi-Germany.
The atrocities committed by Russia in the 1930 in the Ukraine are usually refereed to as the Holodomor.
The way all of you are using NS-Terms with a specific ideology behind them is very infuriating.
@106
can you stop explaining German words to me? I can assure you my German is better than yours.
Yes, Lebensraum is a biological term, but I was referring to it specifically the way Nazi-Germany used that term since that is what you referenced in your first comment. Again, the term is much older, but you were specifically referring the to WW2 idea:
In their mind they were justified to take large parts of East Europe (See Generalplan Ost) by genocide against “unworthy life” and settle there themselves. This is not comparable to want Israel is doing. Again, Israel is often wrong, is guilty of discriminations, but they are not committing a genocide.
This is stupid and again downplaying the Holocaust. In KZ Auschwitz alone around 1.5 million people were killed. Comparing Gaza to that is just ignorant. I’m not sure if you are unaware of the scale of Nazi Atrocities or if you willfully ignorant about it.
@105 GerrardOfTitanServer
I would view Hamas as similar to Sinn Fein and the IRA in the 1980s. The political side should be negotiated with alongside agreed dismantlement of the militant side. The problem is absolutely Israel’s unwillingness to negotiate (or even stop annexing land) but that doesn’t make Hamas the good guys.
@110
Another problem might be the unwillingness of Hamas to accept Israels right to exist. It is kind of hard to negotiate with someone who simply wants you destroyed.
“Palestine is ours from the river to the sea and from the south to the north. There will be no concession on an inch of the land. […] We will never recognize the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation, and therefore there is no legitimacy for Israel, no matter how long it will take”
(https://www.reuters.com/article/us-palestinians-hamas-speech-idUSBRE8B708L20121208)
kingoftown in 110
Agreed.
forodrim
Hamas has accepted a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders. That’s a de-facto admission of Israel’s right to exist. That’s much closer to a recognition of Israel’s right to exist compared to anything Israel has ever given to Palestine. Israel’s current leader has gone out of his way to say that the 1967 borders are a complete non-starter. Hell, most of the current negotiation assumes that Palestine will forever be a subservient state to Israel, e.g. can never have an army. This is a very, very one-sided conversation between Israel and Palestine, where Israel wants everything their own way.
@111
Hamas has shown a willingness to negotiate, whether you consider it honest or not.
Northern Ireland is currently jointly run by a party that doesn’t recognise it as a legitimate state. It is possible to negotiate with those you fundamentally disagree with and honestly, I don’t see an alternative route to peace.
forodrim@#111:
Another problem might be the unwillingness of Hamas to accept Israels right to exist.
Aside from main force, what is the basis of that right?
I’m not a social contractarian but in the sense that Israel is an occupying power, it has no legitimacy, as it does not govern with the consent of the governed. Like all governments more or less it appears to base its right to exist on a local monopoly on violence. It is certainly not democratic, since those under occupation are disenfranchised to maintain control by an elite (i.e: apartheid). “We conquered it fair and square” is not a great justification of a right to exist but other than a divinely issued perpetual land-grant, what is there? Why should anyone feel obligated to treat with them?
Imagine if armed burglars came and occupied your house then insisted you negotiate fairly and acknowledge their right to your house, demanding at least the downstairs but threatening to kill a few of your family members if you didn’t treat fairly with them. WTF? Of course that’s how nations are founded. History respects the rights of the winners.
But if main force is the basis of the right of states to be made, then main force is the basis for the right to unmake them. Nobody is talking any more about French Indochina’s right to exist – the Vietcong settled that question. South Africa’s right to exist in its previous form, what about that? Does any apartheid state have a right to exist? And does not every occupied people have a right to resist?
The “Israel’s right to exist” question presupposes there is such a right. I am not granting that for the sake of argument – but if anyone points a gun at me I’ll acknowledge their rights so long as they keep pointing the gun. But they still don’t have a right.
Disclaimer: I generally reject the notion that states have rights (rather than responsibilities) and have argued that elsewhere, so my skepticism regarding any particular state’s right to exist is not particular to Israel.
This is a great point. In general people tend to fetishize boarders and their violent defense so much that they think that when someone says “a state should not exist” it means “kill everyone there”. When it comes to Israel it often just means “Israel as a jewish state, run by and for jewish people” should not exist. It always seems a bit weird to me when I encounter people who rightly criticise the point that the US or Germany, etc. is a christian nation or Iran or Saudi Arabia as a muslim one, but make an exception when it comes to Israel. The argument usually is “Israel needs to exist to prevent another holocaust”.
Kurt1 in 115
Well said. I completely concur. Going further in an explicit way, why is it that no one talks about a one-state solution? Why does everyone just assume that “Israel must exist as a Jewish state” should be taken as given? Why is it that some people are appalled at the notion of a Christian nation or a Muslim nation with persons of other religions treated as second class citizens, but these same people are not appalled at the notion of a Jewish nation with persons of other religions treated as second class citizens? From the perspective of a secular humanist, Israel as a Jewish state is humbug, and much of the current problem is caused by the religious nationalism on both sides.
@113
Yes, but no one in Northern Ireland openly plans a genocide. Hamas and others have in the past openly planned that. So I agree that there is no other way to peace, but I can understand Israels hesitation and tendency not to believe Hamas and all the other groups. Would you want to negotiate with someone who makes statements like this:
Hamas is an anti-Semitic terror group, I don’t think there will be peace until Palestine gets rid of them on their own. The attack and murder rivals, they torture political opponents. They are not helping the Palestine people.
And I’m willing to bet, if Israel and Palestine will ever come close to an agreement. Hamas will do everything to sabotage that out of fear to loose their “terror business”
I can play this game too!
Israel is an anti-Arab, anti-Muslim terror group. I don’t think there will be peace until the Israeli’s get rid of their politicians on their own. They attack and murder their Arab and Muslim neighbors. Their methods of unjust oppression directly invite and cause attacks on the Israeli people.
And I’m willing to bet, if Israel and Palestine will ever come close to an agreement, then the religious Jewish people of Israel will sabotage that out of fear to lose access to ethnic cleansing and thereby lose their dream of an ethno-state.
And, hey, look, that actually already happened at least once. Here’s one example:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/sheerafrenkel/how-one-man-sabotaged-the-israeli-palestinian-peace-talks
@118
Israel is a state not a single group. I did not say Palestine is a terror group. I named a specific group. I also did say all Palestines are terrorists. But you equate all Jewish people of Israel as Terrorists who will sabotage any peace talk and dream of an ethno state.
Great generalizations! Good Job!
@forodrim 117
Do you know who assistend Hamas so that they were able to take over in the conflict with the Fatah? The answer may surprise you. The Israeli government doesn’t want peace, because they are “winning”, taking over more and more land. Hamas serves as the ideal bad guy, much like the US justified their atrocities in the middle east with the fight against terror.
“Israel” ≠ “people of Israel”.
Israel is a country and a government. As Marcus wrote so well above, it is foolish to equate a nation and government with its people.
Most Palestinians are fine people. Most Israeli’s are fine people. Most people around the world are fine people. It’s the governments and the extremists which suck. The government of Israel sucks. The government of Gaza, aka Hamas, sucks. The religious extremists of both sides suck. Both governments suck, but Israel, aka the government of Israel, sucks even more. At least Hamas has agreed to the framework of a reasonable practical solution, a reasonable and practical two-state solution. Israel has done no such thing. Instead, Israel continues to steal land and displace Palestinians.
forodrim
I mean, what you wrote is manifestly silly. Try this replacement. “Nazi Germany was a terror group.” No one reasonable is going to complain by saying “not everyone in Nazi Germany was a terrorist!”. Anyone who says such a thing is completely missing the point, and purposefully so, just like you did here when I said that Israel is a terrorist organization.
@117
Genocide has actually been discussed by politicians here. The father of our likely next first minister:
https://amp.reddit.com/r/northernireland/comments/azxkwz/the_apples_dont_fall_far_from_the_trees/
calling a whole democratic nation a terror group is silly.
But if you really believe that Hamas is a honest partner to have negotiation with, then there is no point in further discussion. Hamas is a group with a deep rooted hatred for all things Jewish. If you see that as a valid partner then good riddance to you.
Well, the discussion has bogged down in boring, predictable fashion.
Marcus Ranum @ 114
You raised a fair point. In pretty much every discussion on Israel and human rights, when the going gets tough, one thought terminating statement in particular gets trotted out and that’s the right of a nation to exist. It’s an effective debate tactic and derails the whole conversation because it’s practically impossible to unpack in the middle of an argument, and almost nobody knows what it means. I don’t, and it’s the wrong question anyway.
People certainly have a right to organize and an obligation to live peacefully and respectfully. That’s pretty much it. Otherwise it sounds something like assigning god-given personhood to corporations. I’m sorry to have to say this, but it’s weird–which is not in any way to suggest that wiping a people out is a legitimate remedy for anything. It’s not.
forodrim, Gerrard is a crank. Just wanted to get that out of the way.
forodrim @124:
Fucking hell, this is just such an oft-repeated bullshit argument. It doesn’t matter! Hamas is as much a threat to the existence of Israel as a flea is to the existence of a cat. Israel can easily afford to look like the good guys and offer to sit down and negotiate. The world would shower them with praise, and they could severely compromise Hamas’ position unless they soften their rhetoric. They won’t do that because Netanyahu and his hardline supporters prefer the status quo. And they know that they have enough backing from the USA, and more than enough apologists like you to maintain it.
Rob
Do you disagree with anything this “crank” is saying in this thread?
Gerrard @127: I’ve said what I have to say at #91 and #126.
Rob.
I meant me. I was facetiously calling myself a crank because you just called me a crank. Did I do anything in this thread to warrant that?
Gerrard @129: I didn’t call you a crank. That was stroppy @125.
Ok. I withdraw my crank comment.
https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-bad-optics-of-fighting-for-your
Bari Weiss is definitely a crank
Peter Beinart in Jewish Currents: “Teshuvah: A Jewish Case for Palestinian Refugee Return.”
I see. Nevermind. My sincere apologies for being unable to read like a proper adult.
You don’t have to look very hard to see that Israel is ethnically cleansing East Jerusalem and the West Bank. It is part of the headline on MSNBC right now.
The fact that it is a ratchet that takes decades and maybe more than a century doesn’t change that one bit.
.1. Nahalat Shimon, a U.S.-based settler organization, is trying to have Palestinians who have lived in the neighborhood since 1956 evicted. Once they are evicted, the property — occupied by Israel along with the rest of east Jerusalem since 1967 — would then be turned over to Jewish settlers under Israeli law.
.2. Meanwhile, the Israeli government has thrown up endless roadblocks against new Palestinian construction in the occupied territories. For decades, applications for Israeli permits to build homes on Palestinian-owned land have been rejected with little reason given, making them “nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain,” according to the United Nations.
They are pushing out Palestinian residents any way they can for any reason they can think up or even no reason.
They don’t allow Palestinians to build houses on land that the Palestinians own.
ABC “Much of Jerusalem is already blocked off from the West Bank by a series of checkpoints and the separation barrier. Israel has previously moved forward on plans to build in E1, another sensitive area east of Jerusalem that critics say, with Givat Hamatos, would block east Jerusalem off entirely from the West Bank.”
The Israeli government is systematically isolating Jerusalem and East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.
You raised a fair point. In pretty much every discussion on Israel and human rights, when the going gets tough, one thought terminating statement in particular gets trotted out and that’s the right of a nation to exist.
Considering that Israel-defenders often trot out Israel’s alleged right to exist, while ignoring Palestine’s presumed right to exist, it’s a “conversation killer” because it’s unanswerable. Israel’s claim to that land is ridiculous; it’s based on the myth that they conquered it (back when it was Caanan) 2000+ years ago and ummmmmmmm right of conquest? Divine grant?
We cannot argue right of conquest because then we’d have to acknowledge that Rome conquered that region and therefore any Jewish claim to the land is vacated by Roman, Ottoman and everyone else who can claim right of conquest. So that’s unacceptable.
We cannot argue main force (i.e: conquest but no claim of rights) because that doesn’t come with a “right to exist” – main force means your neighbors have an equal right to un-exist you, viz: French Indochina.
So yeah it’s a conversation killer in the sense of “shut the fuck up about Israel’s ‘right to exist'” would hopefully end people claiming Israel has a right to exist. It’s a bullshit claim. Everyone who has ever done a land-grab has tried to assert that it’s theirs for ${reasons} and it’s bullshit.
In the end nations’ claims of ‘rights’ come down to who won the most recent battle. That’s fine but if Israel wants to say the land is theirs because they conquered it – which is basically the claim – then they can’t complain if it’s un-conquered. Live by the sword, etc. that is, in fact, how ownership in that region has always been established. Israel may be a temporary phenomenon; they are merely the latest in a long string of conquerors.
I actually wish that observation would kill the conversation, but usually someone has to pop up with some ahistorical theory of ownership that dances carefully around the fact that the Jews basically are claiming god gave them the land thousands of years ago. If I recall, at that time, the Egyptian empire claimed that land, so, tough shit Israelis.
Marcus @137: There is a claim which is arguably stronger than that of conquest. Unsurprisingly, science has largely debunked biblical origin stories. Archaeology suggests that the Israelites were an offshoot of Canaanite culture rather than its conqueror. And DNA suggests that Jews and the local Arabs are descendants of Canaanites. And the Canaanites themselves seem to have been a mix of local Neolithic folk and Bronze Age immigrants from the Caucasus.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/dna-from-biblical-canaanites-lives-modern-arabs-jews
It would be nice if this put an end to the bullshit from both sides about precedence, but good luck with that.