Israel - Palestine Discussion | Post Respectfully | Discuss more, tweet less

Iker Quesadillas said:
I think you missed the point of the post in question.

The post was:
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You take the easy road: pick a side in an incredibly sad travesty of a situation and double-down on it. Ignore complexity, reduce it to a good guy and a bad guy, support your team.

There are terrible actors on both sides. The majority of civilians on both sides are not bad actors. They are the ones suffering.

The foundation of Jewish settlers in that region has been a fact for almost 100 years. The expansion following the six-day war for over 50 years. An entire generation.

Gaza itself is a stain on the international community. A failing of empathy and more importantly action. A prison camp for over a million people. Who have been abandoned by their 'brothers' and left to suffer the whims of their neighbours. Many analysts believe last week's actions were done out of desperation because Saudi is actually engaged in peaceful negotiations with Israel, and that would leave Hamas vastly weaker.

It is far too easy to just say: well the west shouldn't have put Jews (back) in Israel, because you can't change that today. All we can do today is attempt to limit the suffering, eliminate those that abhor a peaceful resolution and support those that do. And obviously Netenyahu is one of the former, not the latter.
 
JPRouve said:
The post you responded to was about the substitution of Israel government with Jews. Surely you agree on the fact these two things are interchangeable and that doing so is absolutely dubious? And it absolutely applies to Scarlett's post even if you disagree with the theory?
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I am certainly happy to admit that the orginal post was just stupid and ignorant, rather than malicious. But a suggestion that the Israeli government is mendacious enough to plan the murder of thousands of its own citizens to give it a reason to wipe out Gaza, is at minimum antisemitic adjacent. It is certainly offensive to the victims. And it sure as hell is not "posting respectfully".
 
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The United said:
I wonder if anyone knows this guy and how credible he is. He just showed up randomly on my YouTube feed.

Listening to him sort of reminds me of some of the points made in this thread. However, he seemed to put a lot of stuff on Iran and how they think of Palestinians. I am not sure how true those are. Also interesting about various factions of Hamas and how they elect politicians in Israel, etc. If what he said is correct, of course.

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Really interesting listening to him for the most part but he makes a least one obviously contradictory point. If there's no food or water why would it take months to clear the area of hamas - they need food and water too.
 
Sly said:
My reaction was to this phrase "The chain of events that led up to this was planned and I wouldn't be surprised if it was orchestrated by the Israeli government just so that they can justify what's happening now." It's pretty clear what she is implying. Jewish space laser conspiracy crackpot.

Again, Israeli government deserves all the recrimination, criticism and the effort to be removed. I, as a leftie, truly dispise it and consider them war criminals. What we don't need this type of Joe roganesque, Elon muskian bs conspiracy takes.
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I mean, hasn't there been reports the Israeli government has taken steps to not weaken Hamas but allowed it to fester as it is advantageous to have an enemy to blame for all the ills and maintain a status quo. All countries do it, but that's not a conspiracy theory, more geopolitics no?
 
ScholesyTheWise said:
I'm quoting your post out of context so pardon me for that... don't really know what you guys were arguing about.

But I'll say that one has to enter this thread,
knowing that expressing sentiments that are conceived as 'pro-Israel' will at best be hugely challenged, if not, at the extreme, hounded.
[indeed some of those sentiments/opinions are ridiculous and will rightly get challenged. others less so].

People seem to write "I'm against the atrocities at both sides but........", and I don't relly believe most of them,
as much as you can or can't believe someone you only know online.

Maybe believe is not the right word;
I guess I mean that their posts don't really feel like they care or emphasize with the hurt of the Israelis,
be it soldiers or civilians.

at times, this thread isn't really a discussion, but is just people recycling tweets/their own thoughts,
enraged but what Israel does to civilians (rightly so).

In the Israeli football forum that I no longer post on because most United fans there are insufferable,
It's the same but obviously, in the other direction. I haven't seen a single soul- from what I read there-
that even mentions Gaza civilians as people who deserve any sort of consideration.

There might as well be a UK-based football forum that- while trying to be impartial- doesn't really allow for impartiality.
This is at least my very personal feeling as an Israeli poster.
You guys are very very accepting of me because I happen to hold views that are mostly in line with "how the forum feels",
but I had the need to point to a more general issue that I see here.

The entire fecking western media is doing exactly the same but for the Israeli side,
and they don't even seem to play the little game of "we care for both sides but........:.

So like I said, I'm all for places/newspapers/online communities doing that in favor of the Palestinians' side, so as to balance things out.
It just makes having a discussion about things a bit more difficult.
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I think you've played a blinder in the last week. You're there. You've lost a family member. You're experiencing the fear and apprehension from the Israeli side. But there's no hate in you. You must be surrounded by so much noise and propaganda from the Israeli side and, yet, you're desperate to understand what the people of Gaza are going through. Your humanity shines through everything you post.

I'm unashamedly on the side of the ordinary people of Gaza. They are, and have been, oppressed and dehumanised. You are correct: the weight of the sympathy for the dead in this latest destructive phase is heavily on the Palestinians' side in this thread. I think it's because we know what the past 75 years or so has been like for Palestinians, so we have more than a clue about what happens next and it breaks our hearts. In a sense, it seems like Israel's 'suffering' (I don't know what other word to use, but obviously I know that the families of the dead Israelis will continue to mourn their loss forever) is over, but the people of Gaza's suffering has only just begun. There's nothing measured or proportionate in what Israel is threatening to do and it's innocent people who will suffer the most. It's not a fair fight.

But you, @ScholesyTheWise, are a beacon of light in very dark times and I'm glad you're safe, I'm glad you're here, and I'm full of admiration for your humanity and wisdom.
 
nickm said:
The Jews were behind it, of course. Disgusting statement.
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Israel and Jews are not equivalent. It's not about Jews but a government that was losing support and would have been helped with accomplishing their goal of displacing and killing Palestinans without international pressure through this attack
 
nickm said:
I am certainly happy to admit that the orginal post was just stupid and ignorant, rather than malicious. But a suggestion that the Israeli government is mendacious enough to plan the murder of thousands of its own citizens to give it a reason to wipe out Gaza, is at minimum antisemitic adjacent. It is certainly offensive to the victims. And it sure as hell is not "posting respectfully".
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How?

It's very common for conspiracies to allege governments plan false flag attacks for their own benefit. Why is it suddenly antisemitic to allege the same about the Israeli government?

You can say it's offensive or wrong but I don't see why it's antisemitic.
 
Murder on Zidane's Floor said:
I mean, hasn't there been reports the Israeli government has taken steps to not weaken Hamas but allowed it to fester as it is advantageous to have an enemy to blame for all the ills and maintain a status quo. All countries do it, but that's not a conspiracy theory, more geopolitics no?
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There isn't any doubt that Netanyahu's government has propped up Hamas in order to stop the two state solution and keep Fatah and Hamas at each other's throats, but the post in question posed the idea that the Israeli government orchestrated the Hamas attack last weekend in order to seize The Gaza Strip and that is a bit ridiculous.
 
For me it’s pretty clear that this wasn’t orchestrated or “allowed to happen” by the Israeli government. Nor did they “want” this to happen. But you can be damn sure now that it has, amongst trying to restore “security”, they’ll also absolutely take advantage of this to further their ethnic cleansing and elimination of Palestine agendas. All whilst the west will lap it up. Gross.
 


Was it any different for last Saturday? If no, does put some doubt on those claims. Of course, you can't ever trust the IDF to be truthful when it comes to Palestinians.
 
nickm said:
I am certainly happy to admit that the orginal post was just stupid and ignorant, rather than malicious. But a suggestion that the Israeli government is mendacious enough to plan the murder of thousands of its own citizens to give it a reason to wipe out Gaza, is at minimum antisemitic adjacent. It is certainly offensive to the victims. And it sure as hell is not "posting respectfully".
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Many people in Egypt suspect and believe that previous attacks on churches by Islamists were either orchestrated directly by the Egyptian government to justify their repressive policies (or at the very least were known about and left to happen so that they could take advantage).

Some people (including on here) believe that Erdogan orchestrated the coup against him (or again tolerated intelligence of it) to take advantage of the ensuing situation.

Some people (including on here) believed at one point that the UK government were making up the delta strain (as being more infectious) as a front to hide their incompetence at controlling the virus.

Not to mention all the more classic conspiracy theories.


Now, I don't believe any of the above (including the Israel one) but what would be the appropriate term for believing those other ones?
 
Murder on Zidane's Floor said:
I mean, hasn't there been reports the Israeli government has taken steps to not weaken Hamas but allowed it to fester as it is advantageous to have an enemy to blame for all the ills and maintain a status quo. All countries do it, but that's not a conspiracy theory, more geopolitics no?
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Israel’s hamas policy under the evil buffoon (bibi) has generally been “mowing the lawn” or “mowing the grass”

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2018/05/10/mowing-the-grass-and-the-force-casualty-tradeoff/

This campaign is something different, and obviously a culmination of the complete failure of that mowing the lawn strategy, which views the conflict as perpetual war without resolution. Articles linked below.

As Efraim Inbar and Eitan Shamir first approvingly put it in a 2014 article for the Jerusalem Post, Israeli strategists see the wars as “mowing the grass” in a lengthy struggle of attrition in which a political solution is unlikely.
 
2cents said:
That was the idea in the 1947 partition plan. And very much my preferred option in the unlikely event a two-state solution ever appears on the agenda again. In today's climate it seems an impossibility to me, with too much of the mythology and nationalist sentiment underlying the rival narratives invested in the city to compromise.
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Thank you again. I've lost any hope of a two-state solution not only because there's neither the political will nor international pressure to get there but also because of the amount of settlements would make it geographically impossible. I should've given the map and the different plans a better look.


moses said:
Césaire has been on my ever growing to read list for years now.

I found the Irish struggle tricky to engage with as a teen because it was too emotive, not just to me bit to everyone you might talk to, but reading Fanon really helped me engage indirectly but objectively.
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Give it a try. His poems are powerful.

I really like your posts and appreciate how concise they are, and the empathy is there without overshadowing the rationality of your arguments.


You two are much needed posters in this thread.
 
The Boy said:
There isn't any doubt that Netanyahu's government has propped up Hamas in order to stop the two state solution and keep Fatah and Hamas at each other's throats, but the post in question posed the idea that the Israeli government orchestrated the Hamas attack last weekend in order to seize The Gaza Strip and that is a bit ridiculous.
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Didn't read it that way personally, but it's obvious they didn't, but moreso that they ignored intelligence etc. I suppose could be viewed like 9/11, intelligence was ignore but they didn't blow up the towers etc.
 
africanspur said:
Many people in Egypt suspect and believe that previous attacks on churches by Islamists were either orchestrated directly by the Egyptian government to justify their repressive policies (or at the very least were known about and left to happen so that they could take advantage).

Some people (including on here) believe that Erdogan orchestrated the coup against him (or again tolerated intelligence of it) to take advantage of the ensuing situation.

Some people (including on here) believed at one point that the UK government were making up the delta strain (as being more infectious) as a front to hide their incompetence at controlling the virus.

Not to mention all the more classic conspiracy theories.


Now, I don't believe any of the above (including the Israel one) but what would be the appropriate term for believing those other ones?
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Those have different ranges of feasibility. Erdogan coup one is somewhat feasible in the sense he knew about it, and let it happen prepared. The UK government making up the delta strain is ridiculous, they knew this is a democracy and there would be enquiries after the fact.Israel one is ridiculous. Something like the US military hiding unexplained artefacts they think could be alien is plausible!

Red in STL said:
Historically that is certainly true and has been for a very long time, I'm not so sure it's as true in today's world though, but the idea that it is, I think is used cynically be certain sections of society, I'm no expert so I could well be wrong but that's how it appears to me
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It’s a very real feeling, even today. Jews feel it everywhere, that they could easily become the targets of anbuse annd blame. Israel’s nuclear doctrine is built around it, not around regional politics. (They would prefer nihilism to another Shoah) History tells us how unwelcome Jews are.

It might be leaned into cynically by the right to exploit those feelings, but they are very real and widespread.
 
Drizzle said:
We literally had the leader of Hamas calling for a global jihad the other day (from his plush office in Qatar).

You won't find Hamas media personalities and intellectuals chatting on talk shows and news broadcasts because they're literally an islamist death cult. However, there have been loads of Palestinians and those sympathetic to their cause on news channels and across socials.

Hamas probably do care, or think they care, about Palestinians, they are Palestinians, but if their actions are so disastrous to the Palestinian cause it's easy to conclude that they're more interested in whatever warped worldview they've wrapped themselves in.
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I think this is probably true - they think they care, but don't have the freedom to see that actually they're just completely brainwashed by extremist ideology that isn't helping them or ordinary Palestinians.
 
Also regarding the conspiracies surrounding Netanyahu's government is that as usual the intelligence community claimed that they knew that Hamas was going to do something this weekend and Israel ignored. That type of things give life to conspiracies, now the issue is that they do it nearly every time to the point where it has to be nonsense, they always know or warned someone after the fact. And the press is happy to air these claims.
 
owlo said:
Those have different ranges of feasibility. Erdogan coup one is somewhat feasible in the sense he knew about it, and let it happen prepared. The UK government making up the delta strain is ridiculous, they knew this is a democracy and there would be enquiries after the fact.Israel one is ridiculous. Something like the US military hiding unexplained artefacts they think could be alien is plausible!
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I personally think they're all ridiculous and people essentially choose to believe the ones they want to based on their own political outlook.

But my point is that merely saying that conspiracy is immediately anti-semitic is a massive stretch. People have the exact same conspiracy crap about other countries too.
 
africanspur said:
I personally think they're all ridiculous and people essentially choose to believe the ones they want to based on their own political outlook.

But my point is that merely saying that conspiracy is immediately anti-semitic is a massive stretch. People have the exact same conspiracy crap about other countries too.
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Agree largely, though there’s definitely whiffs in the soros conspiracy’s

apart from the aliens. That’s nothing to do with politics, we just all want to find ourselves a time lord!
 
SilentWitness said:
Just got a YouTube ad to stand with Israel. It's rank that they're allowed to fuel their propaganda like that.
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Sky1981 said:
What makes you think Youtube is neutral. Never was and never will.

They delete stuffs that doesnt align with the general consensus
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Yea and they’re also very much pro-Israel in this conflict. A year or so ago, Google and Amazon employees wrote open letters to their employers imploring them to break contracts they have with the Israeli govt/IDF. Here’s from one of the women that led that:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/30/technology/google-employee-israel.html

A Google employee who became the most visible opponent of a company contract with the Israeli military said on Tuesday that she would resign after claiming Google had tried to retaliate against her for her activism.

The employee, Ariel Koren, a marketing manager for Google’s educational products arm who has worked for the company for seven years, wrote a memo to colleagues announcing her plan to leave Google at the end of the week.

She spent more than a year organizing against Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion agreement for Google and Amazon to supply Israel and its military with artificial intelligence tools and other computing services. Ms. Koren, 28, helped circulate petitions and lobby executives, and she talked to news organizations, all in an effort to get Google to reconsider the deal.

Then, in November, she said, came a surprising ultimatum from Google: Agree to move to São Paulo, Brazil, within 17 business days or lose your job.
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owlo said:
Agree largely, though there’s definitely whiffs in the soros conspiracy’s

apart from the aliens. That’s nothing to do with politics, we just all want to find ourselves a time lord!
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The Soros conspiracy is definitely anti-semitic, no doubt about it. Well beyond a whiff!

Its not anti-semitic to imply the Israeli government either committed a false flag or ignored intelligence about Hamas, any more than its anti-Turkish/ islamophobic to say the same about Erdogan, anti-Arab to say that about Egypt's presidents or anti....white? (I don't know!) to say that about the UK government.

(In my opinion, its not true though).
 
These sorts of discussions have always been and they will continue to be so, did roosvelt know about the imminent Japanese attack etc etc.
 
africanspur said:
The Soros conspiracy is definitely anti-semitic, no doubt about it. Well beyond a whiff!

Its not anti-semitic to imply the Israeli government either committed a false flag or ignored intelligence about Hamas, any more than its anti-Turkish/ islamophobic to say the same about Erdogan, anti-Arab to say that about Egypt's presidents or anti....white? (I don't know!) to say that about the UK government.

(In my opinion, its not true though).
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I agree. Just stupid :D
 
I might be completely off radar on this but it does generally feel that there's a general shift to much greater enmity towards Israeli side of the conflict in the western world both from the left and right the former for how big of a share the Muslim Arab immigrants hold in their coalition and the latter for the move away from internationalisim and toward isolationism (and obviously the more extreme antisemitic factions of both which probably isn't that major but still).

Could explain why Israel is working so much harder around the clock with their propaganda.
 
Red the Bear said:
I might be completely off radar on this but it does generally feel that there's a general shift to much greater enmity towards Israeli side of the conflict in the western world both from the left and right the former for how big of a share the Muslim Arab immigrants hold in their coalition and the latter for the move away from internationalisim and toward isolationism (and obviously the more extreme antisemitic factions of both which probably isn't that major but still).

Could explain why Israel is working so much harder around the clock with their propaganda.
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There's no general shift in that direction. Polls in the US/EU are showing strengthened support for Israel.

And I don't see your last sentence as substantiated. They don't seem to care about 'their propaganda' much right now.
 
owlo said:
This was debunked days ago.
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Do you mean the video or the idea that they're paying google to advertise it?

The video itself is on the Israeli Foreign Affairs' verified youtube channel:

.
 
owlo said:
There's no general shift in that direction. Polls in the US/EU are showing strengthened support for Israel.
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Then I probably got the wrong impression due my biased online engagements.
owlo said:
And I don't see your last sentence as substantiated. They don't seem to care about 'their propaganda' much right now.
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They definitely care, internet and television has been flooded with pro Israeli propaganda, at least more than I remember being the case in the likes of 2014 and such.
 
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