I don't think it's just an opinion to suggest those two things are very different. But I was referring to my post before that anyway.
Last edited:
Israel - Palestine Discussion | Post Respectfully | Discuss more, tweet less
- Thread starter esmufc07
- Start date
I don't think it's just an opinion to suggest those two things are very different. But I was referring to my post before that anyway.
Yes and both sides would claim the other started it, so the bully analogy is very superficial, but Israel clearly have the power now so should be the ones to de-escalate, but only if the Palestinians participate in the process so this week is a step backwards in the process
Your post before that makes the exact same point: "videos of islamist terror won't do them any favors in the West."
I am fine with people criticizing the moral dimension of Hamas' actions. That is ultimately a personal judgment, based on our morals.
Speculating on "how much does the West fear the Arab" is an entirely different matter.
It's not perfect or meaningless. Having shelter, water and food are literally the very basics of life. The overwhelming majority of the money goes outside of Gaza. Withdrawing funding from UNRWA is fine if Germany wants to do that but let's not pretend it's anything other than collective punishment.
More importantly, I was replying to a poster who was talking about how this would reduce western sympathy for Israel, as if anything ever happens or would ever actually happen anyway.
Western sympathy recently led to formal recognition of Israel's annexation of the golan heights recently for instance.
It's akin to thoughts and prayers after yet another American school shooting.
Offering thoughts and prayers while also donating to the NRA as well.
It's being labeled as terrorism by state officials, I believe the US have pledged some form of support for Israel's military response. Financial aid for Palestine has been called into question.
Those things all sound factually unfavourable to me. Sure pereceptions could change if Israel overplay their hand with their reaction, but that's up to them now.
I think the time for pressure was 20/25 years ago, when a 2 state solution was actually possible. Both sides should have faced increasing pressure to accept. Israel isn't China or India, but it's heavily entangled in the Western economy and technology as well as a major trading partner and having a natural gas field about to come online. Embarrassingly (as I'm a SA history nut) I don't actually know a whole lot about Apartheid but from the little I have read, you'd have far more polarised divestment opinions; with some actively investing instead of divesting. This is before you consider IAI and the devastating impact it'd have on western powers to lose procurement.
I think I'm just hardened to it, and at the same time constantly sad. Death is everywhere around us, and humans are unbelievably shit. This is going to be hell for a whole load of people who just want to live their lives and reach their aspirations in peace. Like many conflicts around the world. It's addictive to see and be reminded of, to be saddened by, and to reinforce your beliefs, but hell I'm glad I'm out of the maelstrom. We [those in Europe] simply do not understand how damned lucky we are to win the lottery, and have a life in the 21st century in Europe with relative freedom to think and do as we want. We see tiny fragments of this chaos and we exclaim how terrible it is, how we want to take affirmative action, but in the end we are powerless to do anything. Only the true nuts who've lost all perspective actually travel, to join Hamas or ISIS or Ukraine or Wagner, because they are truly nihilistic. For the rest of us, we can wax lyrical but do nothing but watch. My sympathy effectively does nothing for either Israelis or Palestinians. It's meaningless and almost worthless. I won't donate to either side as I disagree with both, and the only solutions I see are so radical that they'd never gain consensus. It comes down to 2 questions: 1a) should israel be destroyed? 1b) can we destroy it? if yes to both, destroy it and give the jews somewhere else to stay, humbled and defeated. If no to either, then either watch them slowly destroy the Palestinians, or give the Palestinians somewhere else to stay, humble and defeated.
I'll be honest; I considered going to Ukraine. I was in a bad place emotionally, I was angry, low on self esteem, and wanted to help the world. I'd even been in contact with operators. And I'm glad I didn't do it. Ultimately, they deserve my life no less than Israelis, Palestinians, Syrians, Iranians, or any other number of groups. And the effect I'd have would be so minimal it wouldn't matter. People fight from despair, from pain, and from desperation. It's what you see from Hamas. These little sparks of happiness when they parade the dead naked tourist. The escape from the reality their lives are fecked and that small bit of revenge. They place no value on life. Life should not be that fecked for anyone; I wish it wasn't. If I was an Arab country, I'd look to taking in as many Palestinians as possible. (Hell if I was King of England I'd take them in too.) But there is no escape. No country wants them. They are pawns. And like every other pawn in every other of the worlds hellholes, their lives have no value. Not to their leaders or to the western world.
/rant sorry
The bolded is what I meant. The West hasn't put a stop to Israel's expansion/oppression, but it's more than thoughts and prayers. Prayers are hollow, money is real.
I also think it's more nuanced than collective punishment. Hopefully no one will even think about withdrawing essential humanitarian aid, but when you're afraid of funding terrorists it will probably be harder to give money for anything that doesn't involve food and medicine.
A call for peace, not "peace", from people who know a little bit about these kind of things.
I'll be honest, Im not quite sure what you mean there. I was being sarcastic. Western 'sympathy' has led to the world's superpower accepting Israel's annexation of Syria's Golan heights. Israel act with impunity because they know nothing will actually happen. They will bomb Gaza to the ground and there will be no real response. They will continue to annex more of the West Bank and there will be no real response. They will ultimately win out and ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from the land, of any real note anyway. And there will be little actual response. That isn't something specific to just Israel or Palestine of course, it happens elsewhere too.
Money is real, I agree. But it is ultimately hollow if you simultaneously support and provide cover for the underlying problem. I'm not going to pat myself on the back for giving money to provide someone with stitches and antibiotics, while also supporting and providing money to the person who's causing those injuries at the same time. You're not a good guy in this situation.
These same countries don't seem afraid to fund the terrorist country on the other side with trade don't they though? That's the problem, the West only sees the terrorists on one side and not the other.
No one even considered to stop trade with Israel regardless of what they have done and gotten worse at.
Israel's government now officially declared state of war. The second time after 1973.
The only reason you proclaim Israel as a 'terrorist country' and not the US or France is because it's smaller and easier to bully and you want to suck up for their support. Why would they heavily sanction a country that behaves and reacts in essentially the same way they do? Israel isn't a terrorist or rogue state in IA terms.
Just seen a video purportedly of them. Not verified but geolocated correctly. It's real grim. Everybody over there is going to know a victim in the last 24h or have one in their family. I hope your family are well.
The ANC government is pathetic, yes. I mean, ESKOM, loadshedding, what the feck? But I digress...
The actual statement may come from incompetent eejits I agree, but it is not rubbish for the simple reason that it
1. Acknowledges the true source of the cycle of violence
2. Doesn't isolate the events of yesterday and today
3. States that true peace only comes with the end of occupation and apartheid, and not a moment before
4.hints that calls for peace that elevate the oppressor above the oppressed aren't worth the paper they're written on
"Negative peace" as MLK called it. It's carte blanche for the status quo. If that's all you call for, feck you and your statement (not you @Traub, I mean abstractly)
Sorry to hear about the Ukraine story and am glad you didn't go. I hope you're feeling in a better place emotionally now.
For me, I struggle to separate the moralistic side of this (where I am heavily on the Palestinian side) and the real world situation (which is overwhelmingly on the Israeli side). But am probably more able to do so than most who would consider themselves on the "Palestinian side'.
There is no doubt in my mind that I would have fought in the 40s were I a Palestinian living in that land. People who say otherwise are deluding themselves in my opinion. It was naver a land without a people. That is what they did however and they lost. The power imbalance has only increased since then and, with the Arab states increasingly falling in line, it grows ever bigger.
So now this is what they are reduced to. Every facet of their lives controlled by the people they consider to have stolen their land from them and killed their relatives. From a lot of their perspectives, made to suffer because of European crimes.
But that is the reality now. As you say, having previously been optimistic about it, or at least not actively pessimistic, I see no out here. The Israeli Jews are not going anywhere and to be honest, why should they? There is surely no precedent to removing millions of people from a land because of the actions of their grandparents (perhaps the closest thing I can think of were the 'population transfers' that followed both world wars? Removal of Turks/Greeks from each others countries, removal of Germans from non Germanic lands so a leader couldn't weaponise them again in the future etc. I don't know, not the same really and a slightly clunky comparison).
If there was an overwhelming Jewish majority in the land, a one state solution may be conceivable. But that numerical majority does not exist and the Jews will understandably not be willing to live in such a state, where they could conceivably be outnumbered within 1 or 2 generations. I don't blame them and if I were a Jewish Israeli, I would also feel apprehensive about my safety in such a state, in the current circumstance.
So its either ethnic cleaning of the Palestinians or a continuation of the status quo, with ever increasing settlement and ever more brazen violence, with muted response. Think the latter is more likely but the former no longer as unrealistic as I'd have previously thought.
I no longer see any solution.
Some of the posters on here are genuinely awful however and I only see them in this thread whenever Hamas does something to post their Islamophobia/ Anti Arab racism and then they disappear until the next escalation.
The next weeks and months are looking pretty ominous in Gaza, not just because Netanyahu is back in power, but because the entire country including his staunchest domestic political opponents will be fully behind his response. We could see tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of refugees with nowhere to go.
Agree with pretty much all of this. Once upon a time there was a solution, but I see none now. To the bold, probably me too. There is some nuance there, but the way it was a product of colonialism and great power politics was just crap. I think if Israel were to comprehensively lose an actual war, you could see such a population transfer. And I don't see anyone accepting a Palestinian population transfer even if Israel commit atrocity after atrocity. I see no solution either.
I think what you see out of some posters is fear. I have Jewish friends, and they always face increased hate and violence after episodes like this, from Muslims. This pushes them to the right and the extreme fringes. Those and the ones that actually live in Israel, just trying to live their lives in fear of Hamas and terrorism. (Yes I know the Palestinians face the same fear, and obviously express the same antisemitism.) But my Muslim friends don't face this threat in the diaspora from the Jew; they vent their anger with little reply or acknowledgement for their empathy and pain, so they come here and also become more extreme.This is also where it becomes extremely difficult to distinguish between 'Israel' and 'Jew' - because by default any 'Jew' who isn't brazenly denouncing Israel, becomes Israel. I think this place is just emblematic of that really, the anger and frustration and feeling they are powerless and unjustness is happening.
I try not to blame these posters, and have time for most people other than the trolls. You can see the pain and emotion in some of these posters, and it's not invalid. I think the lies and false hope makes it worse though.
Smart but diabolical maneuvering from Bibi. He gets to blame the far right for the culture wars causing the colossal intelligence failures, boot them out of government, and cement power as the head of a coalition that smells like roses.
It’s funny seeing some posters who are pro Ukraine making every excuse under the sun for Israel to continue its occupation of a native people. Mental gymnastics.
Is this official?
Everyone has a right to armed resistance. No one under any circumstance has a right to target non-combatants.
Even just on a moral basis, women, children and the elderly should be left out of it even if you view adult males as potential combatants (still unlawful).
What we are seeing here is not just a people lashing out in armed resistance, but pure barbarism.
Yeah, the quick bait and switch equivocation of "Palestinians = Terrorists"
Did we really need those guys entering the game as well?
Peterson is such a shitstain on Canada's reputation. I wouldn't even piss on him if he ends up on fire.
It's the only term that can compare to what we saw yesterday. Even then, it could end up as an understatement.
So much for Egypt ever potentially opening their border up now, even on humanitarian grounds if the situation in Gaza gets this bad in the next few days.
Ben Norton is a special individual and former editor of Grayzone and now resides in Beijing, where he believes "The Chinese government is not authoritarian" and it's "the most sovereign country on earth." He parrots CCP talking points as well as supporting Assad and Russia. He's an absolute nobody that you shouldn't waste your time listening to. He's a paid disinformation shill and I have no idea why his videos are allowed to be posted here.
In the words of Max Blumenthal (hardly a right wing icon)
The person who opened fire is an Egyptian police officer, not a Palestinian.
Regardless, Egypt almost certainly won't open their border anyway because a) Sisi is one of the most awful human beings on the planet and cares only about himself (not Egypt), b) he sees Islamist groups of any type as mortal enemies and c) there is a fear amongst many Arabs that what @owlo and I were talking about could potentially come to fruition at some point, which is that the Palestinians are pushed out of Gaza into the Sinai and not allowed back and attempts made to try to force them to set up a state there ( one of the proposed slants of the so called 3 state solution).
There is no justification for some of the brutality dished out to Civilians in the last few days by Hamas. Holy feck, the whataboutism is insane in this thread. 100s of civilians massacred at a fecking rave, bomb shelters full of civilians including children gunned down, paraded and celebrated. Some of you need to give your head a wobble.
Yes Israel needs to feck off from the shit it's pulling but nothing justifies this shite. Nothing. Quite sickening in all honesty reading some of the comments in this thread.
Yes Israel needs to feck off from the shit it's pulling but nothing justifies this shite. Nothing. Quite sickening in all honesty reading some of the comments in this thread.
Now that is the first time that I read about that idea. What is the endgame with such concept, especially when Egypt worked hard to recover the peninsula back in 1973?
Israel takes 1 step closer to "river to the sea"
Well said. Whataboutism after the most disgusting barbarism against human life you can imagine is the bottom of the barrel. Thankfully this board has in ignore function, otherwise it would be unbearable to stay in this thread.
Now it makes more sense why you ignore every question asked of you if there is a slight criticism of Israel.
There are various aspects of it. 3 states being Israel, Egypt and Jordan, with Egypt taking over Gaza and Jordan taking over elements of the West Bank. Or the Palestinians being given a state in Gaza, with the West Bank being some kind of binational state and current Israel remaining Israel. Or the Sinai being given to Palestinians, with Gaza going to Israel and the West Bank likely again remaining Israeli, with most Palestinians there being pushed out to Jordan etc etc. I'm sure there are others I haven't heard of.
The underlying idea seems to be that the 2 state solution is dead, that a secular one state solution (my own favoured solution in an ideal world) is a pipe dream (which it is currently) and that both sets of people are now so entrenched in their own claim to the land excluding the other that there is no real solution that doesn't involve some degree of ethnic cleaning of the 'losing side'.
The reality is that as much as some people like to only bring up Islamist militant statements about their claims from the river to the Sea, the reality on the ground (and the air and the sea) is Jewish Israeli hegemony from the river to the Sea and Netanyahu recently went to the UN with a map of Israel taking all land from the river to the sea (and the Golan). An act which from the Palestinian side would be seen as a Genocidal statement but from the Israeli side.....a shrug at most.
As you said though, Egypt wouldn't accept it and rightly or wrongly, I don't think the majority of Palestinians would either.
Tbh not sure how accurate but interesting still
Those Hamas guys are really daft and so transparent. Very chilling if I'm Taiwan now.