Reply With QuoteI only have one point to make.
Hamas did their choice (to do harm) and Palestinians now have to live with the consequences of letting that group act to embrace blind hate.
Shaun just dropped a massive hour and a half long video on the topic of Palestine, which tackles a wide variety of topics, from the history of Israel's colonial project to Israel's antisemitism against Jewish people to the fallacious idea of being able to teach moral lessons to people by making them suffer.
I only have one point to make.
Hamas did their choice (to do harm) and Palestinians now have to live with the consequences of letting that group act to embrace blind hate.
That goes back to the point that Netenyahu himself had a big hand in boosting Hamas, bringing them to power and propping them up.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-ye...-in-our-faces/
Keep in mind what pouring work permits into areas controlled by Hamas effectively did. It meant that Hamas were the gatekeepers who decided who could get the good jobs that let you feed your family.For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces
The premier’s policy of treating the terror group as a partner, at the expense of Abbas and Palestinian statehood, has resulted in wounds that will take Israel years to heal from
...
Toward the end of Netanyahu’s fifth government in 2021, approximately 2,000-3,000 work permits were issued to Gazans. This number climbed to 5,000 and, during the Bennett-Lapid government, rose sharply to 10,000.
Since Netanyahu returned to power in January 2023, the number of work permits has soared to nearly 20,000.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...f-57ff1be90000
Full version of the last article: https://archive.ph/iFZnE
And note, these are from the Times of Israel and Haaretz, not exactly anti-Israeli.For 14 years, Netanyahu's policy was to keep Hamas in power; the pogrom of October 7, 2023, helps the Israeli prime minister preserve his own rule
...
For the last 14 years, while implementing a divide-and-conquer policy vis-a-vis the West Bank and Gaza, “Abu Yair” (“Yair’s father,” in Arabic, as Netanyahu called himself while campaigning in the Arab community before one recent election) has resisted any attempt, military or diplomatic, that might bring an end to the Hamas regime.
In practice, since the Cast Lead operation in late 2008 and early 2009, during the Olmert era, Hamas’ rule has not faced any genuine military threat. On the contrary: The group has been supported by the Israeli prime minister, and funded with his assistance.
It's a toxic symbiotic relationship basically. Netenyahu got elected in the first place largely on the back of anti-Hamas sentiment, so basically supporting them over the Palestinian Authority allows him to keep getting elected and to break up the chances of any "two state" diplomatic solution.
However on the other hand, Hamas draw their legitimacy from Israel cracking down so if there isn't enough trouble with Israel, they needed to manufacture it.
It boils down to exactly why Netenyahu's party started pouring massive amounts of money into Hamas-controlled regions in 2021, and why Hamas responded the way they did.
Netenyahu was trying to keep both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in power such that neither of them could work together. And the one he was required to prop up was always Hamas, with the amount of aid massively escalating in the 2 years before the current outbreak.
Keep in mind that Hamas has a very good chance of being completely destroyed by such a war. If the Gaza situation had been stable in the first place, and Hamas's power wasn't under threat, then it wouldn't have made sense for Netenyahu to pour all that money in, or for Hamas to even start the conflict.
Last edited by Cipheron; 26th Feb 2024 at 21:35.
(1) Collective punishment is always illegal.Originally Posted by DuatDweller
(2) The election was in 2006, 18 years ago. There's no viable popular mandate here.
(3) And even aside from that, your argument doesn't apply anyway when even an elected government starts committing rampant war crimes and human rights violations. They lose their legitimacy.
The fact that Palestine isn't a state hides the fact that elements like Hamas are an enemy of Palestine as a state. On the other hand, the fact that Israel is a state with effective control over Palestine is also hiding the fact that elements like Likud are also acting like an enemy of the state.
Even if the fighting stopped today, the devastation is so immense, there is virtually nothing for Palestinian refugees to return to. No homes, hospitals, schools, infrastructure. Rebuilding will take generations and vast resources, which the refugees don't have.
But who does have those resources? The genocidal theocrats of the Likud party. How fucking convenient. "Excuse me but are you using this smouldering wasteland? No? So you don't mind if we move in?" Yes, I used the "g" word, and well deserved it is. Hamas were their useful idiots. The only miscalculation by Netanyahu was the scale of the initial terror attack. But he got his 'eye for a bucket of eyes'. A hundred of them for every one of us. Where did we hear that during the first half of the 20th Century?
Is "death to fascists" an oxymoron?
But what happens next though? Like what is the end result after the bloodshed stops (?)
Maybe classical political theory is wrong, out of reality (my personal position) or just not usable in the Middle-East because they have another notion of "state" (a more tribal notion so the "state" is just "we now use force and you must deal with that", from either sides).
Rinse and repeat until the Palestinians either succeed in their fantasy of Jewish eradication, or abandon it.
Profoundly depressing article here about how the ideal of a two-state solution is as far away as it's ever been.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/i...state-solution
To be sure, the two-state solution was a noble dream. But it turns out it always was just that—a dream. What enabled those who clung to it long enough to continue sleepwalking through the wrecks of exploding buses, the bodies of slain civilians, the constant wild calls for violence against us, the massive efforts to build terror infrastructures under our noses and on our borders, was our own tendency to imagine Palestinians in our own image. For all the fashionable talk of diversity, we too find it hard to imagine a people that is not like ourselves. Knowing our own striving for self-determination, we assumed that the Palestinians, too, want above all to be masters of their own fate in their own sovereign state.
But that is not what they want. The huge amount of international aid Palestinians have received since 1948 was never used for nation-building. It wasn’t used for building houses and roads or for planting orange groves. It was harnessed to one overarching cause: the destruction of the Jewish state. This is what the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) does: subsidize and shield Palestinian terror infrastructure. This is what the PA does with its pay-for-slay salaries—underwritten by the U.S.—to the families of terrorists. And this is what Hamas was able to do as a result of the billions invested in Gaza: It bought weapons, trained terrorists, and built a sprawling network of terror tunnels—and not one bomb shelter for civilians.
What's a small state supposed to do when they're attacked on a regular basis, give up? Every time Israel was attacked, it gained more territory. And who's fault was that?
I know there are innocent victims, but when a few people act to bring more misery upon themselves, and they naively think Israel wont react somehow?
The whole point is very easily missed, don't start shit and there wont be any (shit).
It doesn't matter who rose to power and who helped them.
The wars Israel was involved by other parties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...volving_Israel
And also is not my fault the area in question was never able to be stable without a dictatorship (Syria, Iraq, Egypt) or foreign administration or the intervention of wars by foreign powers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_for_Palestine
Last edited by DuatDweller; 28th Feb 2024 at 06:42. Reason: Egypt my obssession
Works just as well when you reverse the players. Which is the point you stubbornly refuse to acknowledge. Also, this Likud vs Hamas, not Jews vs Palestinians, another fact you seem incapable of even considering. This is a Two Asshole problem with a two state solution neither of the assholes wants and a one state solution neither of them can ever get.
Speaking of which, you have yet to answer the challenge of describing how the Likud One State solution would work. If you want a jumping off point, just look at the ruins of Gaza and the millions of refugees who can't even flee without being shot in the back.
A list of arguments being used to justify genocide that at this point seem somehow eerily familiar:
Hmm, I don't think it's necessary to come up with a theory that the Palestinians have a "different concept of what a state is", because there are other Arabs right next door with perfectly normally functioning statesMaybe classical political theory is wrong, out of reality (my personal position
For example, Gaza was just part of Egypt until the 1967 war, so whether you're being called a Palestinian Arab or Egyptian Arab comes down to which side of the new border you live on, and you don't need any weird theories to explain how the government in Egypt works.
The Israelis have a specific strategy of not allowing the Palestinians the room to develop any sort of coherent state-like apparatus. Basically, they don't want the Palestinians to have anything to hold onto, such as a stable government who can guarantee their safety and security.
Palestine would 100% form into a coherent "state", but Israel is specifically working against that.
Ah, the enduring fantasy that Israel wants them all dead, which doesn't even hold up to cursory scrutiny. If Israel actually wanted them gone, they'd be gone. They wouldn't be thriving in record numbers, getting fat on Western money.
The same Likud that withdrew from Gaza and demolished all the Israeli settlements there?
Look, you can make whatever claims you want, but your source is going to need to be better than trust me bro.
The enduring fantasy that 30,000 of them have been killed since October?
As the above video amply demonstrated, you don't have to look hard to find genocidal rhetoric from Israel's leaders and the actions are backing it up. And as Shaun's video shows, it has historical roots from the very start of the colonial project. This is the reason behind the settlements and destruction of Palestinian villages. This is the reason behind the massive targeting of the civilian infrastructure in Gaza. You don't bomb a bakery because a terrorist might shop there, you bomb it to make civilians suffer.
Also, the idea that Palestinians are fat and thriving off of the abundance of Western aid cannot be described as anything else but a poor attempt at black humour in the same category as the idea that everything is fine in Gaza, because they have 5 star hotels (when their houses are not currently being bombed into rubble, that is).
Last edited by Starker; 29th Feb 2024 at 17:34.
Are you suggesting that we should condemn Israel for reacting to attacks in their soil, and so by the same standards we should condemn Russia for reacting to Russian ethnic population attacks by Ukraine inside Ukraine itself?
Because from this side seems that both are making criminal attacks on people.
Or not?
Ukraine is also in rubble.
So when is Israel doing it is bad, when is Russia doing it is ok?
Personally I would like both to stop, but is out of my control.
Why do you think the mass killing of civilians can be justified in either case?
People are not condemning Israel for reacting, they are condemning Israel for inflicting massive casualities on civilians.
Well like I said, even if I shouted, got enraged, protest, they ain't gonna stop.
Netanyahu's allies include an array of ultranationalist and religious parties with a list of grievances against the court.
His allies have called for increased West Bank settlement construction, annexation of the occupied territory, perpetuating military draft exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men, and limiting the rights of LGBTQ+ people and Palestinians.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israels...overhaul-plan/
Just some additional context for the idea that people receiving aid must be fat and thriving:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...gaza-officials
More than a hundred Palestinians were killed in the early hours of Thursday morning, Gaza health officials said, when desperate crowds gathered round aid trucks and Israeli troops opened fire, in an incident that the US president, Joe Biden, warned was likely to complicate ceasefire talks.
There were starkly different accounts of how the victims died in the chaos that took place near Gaza City in the north of the strip. Israel’s military denied shooting into large crowds of hungry people and said most were killed in a crush or run over by trucks trying to escape. Soldiers only fired at a small group that moved away from the trucks and threatened a checkpoint, a spokesperson said.
Witnesses and survivors described bullets hitting crowds around the aid trucks, and Mohammed Salha, acting director of the al-Awda hospital, which treated 161 casualties, said most appeared to have been shot.
Gaza health officials said at least 112 people were killed and 280 injured after Israeli forces opened fire on an aid distribution point. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said it was an “ugly massacre conducted by the Israeli occupation army on people who waited for aid trucks at the Nabulsi roundabout”.
[...]
The death toll from Israeli attacks on Gaza has now passed 30,000. With more than 70,000 others injured, and thousands more uncounted victims buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings, nearly one in 20 of the prewar population of Gaza are now casualties of attacks.
The US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, said earlier on Thursday that more than 25,000 women and children had been killed by Israel since 7 October 2023, adding that Israel could and should do more to protect civilians.
The survivors are stalked by hunger, with “pockets of starvation” reported particularly in the north, and widespread malnutrition that has already killed some children. There are also severe shortages of medical supplies, clean water and shelter.
[...]
It was not clear who had supplied the trucks of food. The UN agency for Palestine, Unrwa, has not sent an aid convoy to northern Gaza since 5 February, when its trucks were attacked by the Israeli navy even though the delivery had been approved for transit. Lerner said he did not know who sent the aid.
[...]
"Oh it was a stampede! And some shots but nothing really serious."
It's a war. People die in war. Thought you should know.
Palestine has one of the highest obesity rates in the Middle East. Palestinian women are fatter than American women!
Of course, this doesn't fit with the Open Air Concentration Camp™ canard, because we've seen photos of people in real concentration camps, and the obesity rate there was 0%. And there were no swimming pools.
A war in which one side's casualties are 20 times the other.
Obesity is indicative of malnutrition, not a high standard of living. The most obese Americans are generally the poorest, too.Palestine has one of the highest obesity rates in the Middle East. Palestinian women are fatter than American women!
Of course, this doesn't fit with the Open Air Concentration Camp™ canard, because we've seen photos of people in real concentration camps, and the obesity rate there was 0%. And there were no swimming pools.
This is not relevant. In a war, one side is under no obligation to make sure their casualty numbers match the enemy side's casualties.A war in which one side's casualties are 20 times the other.
It is relevant, if the casualties consist largely of civilians, the majority of whom are women and children. If nothing else, it means you are waging war on women and children.
Last edited by Starker; 4th Mar 2024 at 16:19.
Exactly, but SD has a child's understanding of poverty. He thinks when there is a luxury hotel somewhere, then the area/country cannot be poor and that obese people must be wealthy.
Meanwhile, the food insecurity issues in Gaza are well-documented:
https://fscluster.org/state-of-pales...rity-palestine
1.5 million people have been food insecure over the 2019-2021 triennium. More recent data from the MSNA survey conducted in 2022 points to a percentage of 33.6 per cent of the population (or about 1.8 million people) being moderately or severely food insecure (of which 2.2 per cent would be in the SDG ‘severe’ category). The national average hides significant differences, with a prevalence of 24 per cent in the West Bank and 75 per cent in the Gaza Strip.https://www.ochaopt.org/content/food...-food-insecure
Poverty is one of the main determinants of food insecurity. The 2017 Household Expenditure and Consumption Survey found that the poverty rate in Gaza had increased from 38.8 to 53 per cent since the previous survey in 2011. Nearly two-thirds of the poor, or about 656,000 people, are considered to be living in “deep poverty”.
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