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

When the Bosnia war was happening I knew some people who worked for charities who went over there. They secretly filmed some what was going on and distributed copies upon return. I have arched the film and honestly wishes I hadn't. It was only about 10 minutes long and I couldn't go past 2/3 minutes at the time. Literally had nightmares for weeks and anxiety.

Anyway the reason I put that is because I currently know people in Gaza and some who are friends of a friend. Plus some who are very active in the charity field.

Some of them that I have spoken to are unanimous in saying that there has been a lot "made up" about the 7/10 attack. Let me just say that the attack did happen of that there is no dispute. However the 40 decapitated babies wasn't the only made up bit. Also it wasn't just Hamas involved. Feeling is Hamas are doing an ISIS, as in claiming every attack anywhere in the world and the narrative being "allowed" as it suited the Brits/Americans and etc.

The claim also is that some Israelis killed at the music festival etc was by "friendly fire" and panic by IDF.

*** Not claiming true. Just passing on information f I'm people inside.

***** That said more likely to believe this than IDF and Hamas propaganda
 
JPRouve said:
First the post that you quoted was an hypothetical based on a question asked by the interviewer. Secondly Israel has already and for years justified strikes that would obviously kill hundreds if not thousands of civilians with the argument that a Hamas target was in the vicinities, the latest example beinga refugee camp this week. Then you have the fact that gazans have been delcared by israeli leaders complicit of Hamas and not innocent.

So logically what do you think would happen if Hamas ostensibly sheltered civilians, just base it on past actions and current narratives from IDF and israeli leaders? You think that they wouldn't strike Hamas shelters full of civilians?
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No more or less than they would if Hamas sheltered in an apartment block. The proportionality tests are the same. Hypothetically they might, it would depend on the value of the targets as to proportionality. It would be a bad idea as I said though, because Israel will be targeting the infrastructure itself and probably wouldn't expect them there.

As to the bold, we're back to the LOAC. That's how it works. Whatever the politicians say (probably?) pays no part in the decision making process. The lawyers and other experts in the process don't suddenly think, 'oh ben gvir or herzog said this, lets do things differently now.' At least in the UK they never did. If the target package is badly or hastily put together (probably happening here) then you will get errors, but it's not malicious intent to allow the excess killing of civilians. I'd wager that many of the target packages are currently coming from US ISR anyway; Israel are evidently completely clueless currently.

JPRouve said:
They keep sharing the same ideas but people will claim that the particular individual sharing it at a certain point in time doesn't have power.
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People are allowed to have their own opinions, however toxic. My first thoughts on reading that was that he'd conveniently not want to send any to European/North American countries. And there's been a wide range of reactions. So 'they' assuming you mean Israelis aren't monolithic.
 
Raoul said:
Has been predictably pounced on by the IDF.

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Weird. That was days ago. Seems they only keep track of popular social media, and not actually what the other side is saying. Or that their social media trolls are so disengaged they get nothing unless they check social media.
 
That_Bloke said:
Keep doing mental gymnastics until your spine and brain can't take it anymore.

It was a shite deal with zero guarantees for Arafat, the PA and the Palestinians at the time. I should remind you that Arafat and the PA recognized Israel as a state without any counter-part in the Oslo Accord. 78% of the original Palestine was already in the hands of Israel and the PA agreed to it. His credibility was on the line and there was no way he or the PA would accept such terms.

That's why he believed in a series of meetings beforehand to iron out a decent outcome for both parties before anything final could be signed, and tried to stall the negociations without signing anything. But Barak at the time needed it to be done before the Israeli elections, for his own political interests. That's why it was rushed and ultimately brought nothing. You're right about the rise of the Israeli right-wingers though. 58% of the Israeli population thought Barak compromised too much, which in itself is absolutely hilarious. The election of Ariel Sharon as prime minister, a notorious war criminal, can only reinforce that.

Camp David in 2000 was an ambush and nothing else. The game was and is still rigged. It only seems great in retrospect because the bully, backed by even bigger bullies, was able to do whatever the feck it wanted to without anyone else opening their fecking mouth. And now do a Pontius Pilate.

The whole situation there is simply tragic, I despair for both Israelis and Palestinians. I hoped that at some point the lessons of the past would be learned. I still do. I'm passionately interested in history, how civilizations come and go. How some would agree that others simply don't have the right to exist either as a people or as a country. In this thread, I'm slowly starting to understand how and why it begins, then finally happens. People just stop to care, take the path of the least resistance, leaving the field clear for the extremists to carry it out and then find any kind of justification to put their own mind at ease. Then decades, or centuries later, whine about it and swear it will never happen again.

If the West thinks that they're coming out of this unscathed, they're in for a rude awakening. It's not 1945 nor 1991 anymore and I don't believe that many of the western leaders really took the full measure of it. The world has changed and if they want to keep the last bit of credibility they still have in the Global South, they might seek another way than "Ah well, that's unfortunate but..." when it comes to countries or people they don't particularly like or align with their interests.

History has a nasty habit of coming back to bite you in the ass. We might even live to see it.
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And that's how we end up with this horrific and tragic situation. Neither side is willing to budge enough to work out a deal for peace as both side's hardliners and nutjobs are too empowered.

Realistically speaking, the Camp David agreement was the best deal the Palestinians were ever likely to get from that point on. As you mention, even a majority polled thought Barak gave up too much so there is zero chance the demands that would have satisfied Arafat and company would have been possible. At least the Camp David agreement would have tempered the most abhorrent of Israeli policies and provided a platform of peace to build on which most likely would have been better than where we are now.

It's possible in some alternate reality where Rabin was not assassinated, that there could have been a better agreement for Palestinians but realistically in this world, Camp David seems like the last fork in the history of the region that offered a chance to avoid where we are now. As soon as Hamas took control of Gaza there was never going to be a good outcome.
This should also include when Sharon-Netanyahu took control of Israel as well a good outcome was never going to happen

I don't see how anyone can see where we are now and confidently say, in hindsight, that Arafat was right to reject everything. I think most neutral historians will look at Arafat's decision as a big mistake.
 
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Raoul said:
The primary narrative I've seen of late from the IDF is an attempt to separate the interests of Gazans and Hamas. I'm sure there were a few pro-Israeli accounts suggesting what you have as well.
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I've been seeing the opposite. Perhaps for internal discourse, to desensitize to the killing.
 
owlo said:
People are allowed to have their own opinions, however toxic. My first thoughts on reading that was that he'd conveniently not want to send any to European/North American countries. And there's been a wide range of reactions. So 'they' assuming you mean Israelis aren't monolithic.
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And my opinion is that these takes aren't independent. When high ranking members of the governance keep sharing similar thoughts I find it suspect. But that's only me.
 
oneniltothearsenal said:
It's possible in some alternate reality where Rabin was not assassinated, that there could have been a better agreement for Palestinians but realistically in this world, Camp David seems like the last fork in the history of the region that offered a chance to avoid where we are now. As soon as Hamas took control of Gaza there was never going to be a good outcome.
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This was a bit of a bolt from the blue according to people I've spoken to. Hamas had been behaving well lately, getting people work permits to work in Israel and taking a far more peaceful path, as well as not providing harbour or support to PIJ. Israel had been softening too, providing work permits and stopping attacks. From an Israeli point of view, this attack was a huge shock in that context. It's almost like the Palestinian leadership has been having a power struggle, and the militants won. Something we may hear about later.
 
JPRouve said:
They keep sharing the same ideas but people will claim that the particular individual sharing it at a certain point in time doesn't have power.
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Its clearly a widely held view within the Israeli government and the Israeli population. Just casually talking about cleansing an area. I can't imagine what a Palestinian must feel like to hear that rhetoric especially when the reality is that that land was theirs.

As someone from Caribbean descent and who studied Caribbean history, Israel and it's actions just reek of colonialism. Its why a lot of caribbean people resonate with the Palestinian peoples cause.
 


Just seeing this so apologies if late repost. Frok a US Congressman.

It's just too normalised and comfortable for the mighty West to be this anti-Palestine and racist.
 
Stookie said:
I lived there for 20 months, travelled, worked, backpacked. And yeah… pretty much what you said. This was the early 90s so much different to now. But they were just generally horrible. Anyone who wasn’t Jewish was treated accordingly. So when I was working I got quite close to a lot of Arabs who were also working there and, oddly, quite a few Russians. But the Israelis, they didn’t want to know at all. You worked for them and that was that. They always tried to stiff you on pay as well. So we had to agree to get half up front and half when a job was completed. One guy pulled a gun on us after we’d finished paving his front yard. Told us to feck off. Well you’re not going to argue are you? The Russian lads I worked got drunk about a month later, went back and put all his windows through. Good times.
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:lol:
 
GameOn said:
You think your standard western leftist would support the society that Hamas & Co. want to happen (endgoal: caliphate), if you just wrote everything on a paper and handed it to the leftist without saying who proposed those ideas?
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Are those posters with us in the room?
 
Just saw that Rachel Riley tweet about Jews refusing to play football with Arabs isn't racist.

Are there still some on here that will defend her?
 
flameinthesun said:
As someone from Caribbean descent and who studied Caribbean history, Israel and it's actions just reek of colonialism. Its why a lot of caribbean people resonate with the Palestinian peoples cause.
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It is modern day settler colonialism.
 
2cents said:
Protesters mass outside Israeli PM Netanyahu's house as anger grows

“…On Saturday, a poll for Israel's Channel 13 Television found 76% of Israelis thought Netanyahu, now serving a record sixth term as prime minister, should resign and 64% saying the country should hold an election immediately after the war…”

https://www.reuters.com/world/middl...i-pm-netanyahus-house-anger-grows-2023-11-04/
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He will agree to hold an election after the war. That'll be in a few years anyhow.
 
2cents said:
Protesters mass outside Israeli PM Netanyahu's house as anger grows

“…On Saturday, a poll for Israel's Channel 13 Television found 76% of Israelis thought Netanyahu, now serving a record sixth term as prime minister, should resign and 64% saying the country should hold an election immediately after the war…”

https://www.reuters.com/world/middl...i-pm-netanyahus-house-anger-grows-2023-11-04/
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Not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but I do wonder if this is his last dance, being brutally aggressive because he knows he’s gone anyway.

Sweet Square said:
Oh I didn’t see that. Cheers.
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Hey at least he changed it from people calling for a ceasefire from the UK on nazi germany… small wonders.

The 2nd post is probably quite accurate though about the anger internally in Israel. It’s why people who think the US could just tell them to stop are wrong. You can clearly see his bias though. (Although is that a bad thing)
 
owlo said:
Not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but I do wonder if this is his last dance, being brutally aggressive because he knows he’s gone anyway.



Hey at least he changed it from people calling for a ceasefire from the UK on nazi germany… small wonders.

The 2nd post is probably quite accurate though about the anger internally in Israel. It’s why people who think the US could just tell them to stop are wrong. You can clearly see his bias though. (Although is that a bad thing)
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Good call, since half the political establishment were in favour of that in 1940.
 
owlo said:
Not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but I do wonder if this is his last dance, being brutally aggressive because he knows he’s gone anyway.
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If anything, he's being aggressive because it's the only way he'll be able to claim victory that might satisfy his voters.
 
Frosty said:
Good call, since half the political establishment were in favour of that in 1940.
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Of a negot peace/surrender to stop the blitz, or of a humanitarian ceasefire to stop killing German civilians?

Amir said:
If anything, he's being aggressive because it's the only way he'll be able to claim victory that might satisfy his voters.
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I think even Bibi might know he’s done this time, though the stockholm syndrome is understandable. He’s like a turd that just won’t flush.
 
owlo said:
@Sweet Square Extension of the meme/theory going around I mentioned earlier. He’s retired US military.
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For some reason my mental image of all those people spending all day looking at rockets and tanks is that they're teenage boys, even though it probably doesn't make much sense.
 
NotThatSoph said:
For some reason my mental image of all those people spending all day looking at rockets and tanks is that they're teenage boys, even though it probably doesn't make much sense.
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Many of them are in 30+ year old bodies! Imagine coming back from war, emotionally battered, not ready for a relationship, wounded in many cases, not ready to socialise or in some cases work. You sit on the internet and game along with your old colleagues, talking about the good/bad old days and pontificating about the world. Some become OSINT analysts because it’s the only skill they have. They often have a bunch of technical expertise and little to no emotional maturity or nuance. (And yes I may or may not include myself in this description to some extent)
 
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