They can’t even be arsed to come up with new lies
Israel - Palestine Discussion | Post Respectfully | Discuss more, tweet less
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Can you blame them when there's no concerted pushback against it?
In my view Israel’s focus must be on destroying the tunnel network, all Hamas’ command centres, rocket launchers, ammunition depots, etc. I think Israel neglected this part for far too long, they got caught out with the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit which was a Gaza-Egypt tunnel, then after 2014 they focused on Gaza-Israel cross-border tunnels, which clearly wasn’t enough, and now, after 07/10, there simply is no way back. So from a military perspective it seems to be far more important to destroy the entire Hamas infrastructure rather than destroying Hamas as an organization. I don’t know how that’s even possible other than identifying and taking out high value targets and, of course, as many militants as possible. But that’s a war I cannot see Israel winning.
As for the civilian casualties, for all the obvious reasons the only option available to try minimize them as much as possible. According to the IDF that is exactly that they’re doing. Personally, I think the death of even one innocent civilian is abhorrent. Having said that, I’ve lost family members and friends (civilians), butchered in my hometown in Bosnia, 07/10 style, so I understand the darkness that overcomes a person, seeking revenge and retaliation, no matter how disproportionate. I have a friend who lives in a kibbutz near the Gazan border and he tells me he’s finding it hard to recognize himself, his thoughts and feelings, after losing 50+ friends from a neighbouring kibbutz.
This whole f-ing existence is absurd. I still carry the trauma of burying some of my dismembered relatives 30 years ago. Nothing’s ever been the same since then. I’m not giving a moral judgement as to what the average Israeli believes the appropriate response should be, but I do understand.
And yes, before the Caf children jump on me again, I do understand the average Palestinian might be feeling just the same way.
On the bit about destroying Hamas infrastructure v the organization. I can’t see them doing the former but not the latter since they seem committed to getting rid of them in Gaza once and for all as they won’t want to be back here again in a year or two.
I’m still not clear on the exact numbers, different sources cite different numbers. If the entire organization has ca 50000 people, how many of those are actually military (apparently anything between 15000-35000) and how many are part of the political/ administrative structure. And is it even possible to differentiate between those two. I agree with you on Israel’s intention, but from an operational perspective, especially if hundreds and perhaps thousands can blend into regular civilian population, how does Israel intend to eliminate all of them? However, if you destroy their entire military infrastructure, you’d render them useless. What’s a Hamas fighter without a weapon and without a tunnel
I never realised hamas was this embedded within the international apparatus, they might even have elected officials in positions of decision making
The remaining Gaza kids could be ripe for an interesting epigenetics experiment!
The Dutch population in WW2 which faced drastically lower food availability, and it was found that the effects of that persist in surprising ways decades later - increased risk of heart issues, obesity, cholesterol, diabetes, fertility etc. Most excitingly from a bio perspective, it is a possible case of non-genetic inheritance, which even as a concept has been very controversial. Children of the starved people themselves have weight increase compared to the rest of the population, even though their genes never mutated.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2579375/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23346894/
Here in Gaza we have a genetically homogenous population (relatively) facing very similar conditions (bad/no water, lack of food, bombs), and, if they will live, a very similar recovery from those conditions. There are a multitude of possible effects to study - weight gain, heart health and fertility like the Dutch study, but also PTSD and maybe things like sleep patterns, etc. Possible confounder will be past bombardments, and long-term kidney damage.
The Dutch population in WW2 which faced drastically lower food availability, and it was found that the effects of that persist in surprising ways decades later - increased risk of heart issues, obesity, cholesterol, diabetes, fertility etc. Most excitingly from a bio perspective, it is a possible case of non-genetic inheritance, which even as a concept has been very controversial. Children of the starved people themselves have weight increase compared to the rest of the population, even though their genes never mutated.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2579375/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23346894/
Here in Gaza we have a genetically homogenous population (relatively) facing very similar conditions (bad/no water, lack of food, bombs), and, if they will live, a very similar recovery from those conditions. There are a multitude of possible effects to study - weight gain, heart health and fertility like the Dutch study, but also PTSD and maybe things like sleep patterns, etc. Possible confounder will be past bombardments, and long-term kidney damage.
I believe the numbers are in the 30-40k range, although many of those are not strictly fighters. Like most military or paramilitary units, they also need everything from medics to logisticians to IT specialists to gophers ferrying information between different tunnel hubs. If you also add in the fact that many of their best fighters have already been expended during the 10/7 attack, then the amount of actual battle hardened fighters goes down quite a bit. I don't believe they will use numbers to fight the Israelis in any case, but will instead rely on traditional urban insurgency tactics.
It's heatbreaking and about time to break this cycle.
Excellent reading material as always.
I'm truly surprised and kinda angry at myself that I didn' think of the Phillipeville Massacre in 1955 as a more adequate comparison with the 10/7. In fact, it bears a striking resemblance in terms of motives and execution, even if I doubt that it will lead to the same result.
It's also the second time I see Frantz Fanon mentioned and referred to. This man perfectly uderstood the psychological mechanisms unfolding in the minds of the colonized as well as the colonizers.
That's your first coherent and well thought reply after displaying an astounding amount of ignorance on the topic and expressing it in incendiary, gotcha one liners. Bravo.
You're still absolutely not willing to understand the conflict in its entirety or take a more nuanced view, and I very much doubt that it will change, but that's progress.
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BBC decide to have different headline tag on different pages.....
‘I’m truly surprised and kinda angry at myself’ that I haven’t told you earlier how much I enjoy irritating pretentious types like yourself who believe they hold the monopoly on all interpretation.
They are everywhere.They're the people who do his laundry and cook his food and serve his dinner. They make his bed. They direct his call. They drive his limo.I never realised hamas was this embedded within the international apparatus, they might even have elected officials in positions of decision making
I thought of mentioning the Algerian War a while back. I read A Savage War of Peace, which is what I consider the main historical breakdown of the war (in English at least).
Phillipeville was a major turning point in the war. That was when France decided to take the gloves off. They escalated bomb runs in the mountains where the FLN would hide. They created concentration camps for hundreds of thousands of country dwellers, seeking to cut off aid from the FLN rebels. And torture became a common practice in Algiers, Oran and other coastal cities in an attempt to root out rebel cells. Many French citizens and Harkis were tied down in Algeria (to the neglect of other colonies; Algeria was too important to lose). And it worked, military wise! The FLN were decimated, survivors sent running to Tunisia.
However the efforts to pacify L'Algerie ripped mainland France apart. The left was horrified by the reports of torture and indiscriminate killings across the Mediterranean. The populace started to groan about the mounting casualties of their sons sent into a war the government would not even acknowledge was a war (Algeria was French soil by law, so it was treated like an internal affair officially). Meanwhile the right on the mainland, along with the Pied-Noirs in Algeria, concerned the government was not doing enough to sustain the fight, attempted 2 coups, brought about the end of the 4th Republic, forced De Gaulle out of retirement, and engaged in bombings and violence to sabotage the independence negotiations with the FLN. Oh yeah, also the war was expensive, and drained France's coffers.
The war scarred France's psyche and left it's society fractured for years. And the FLN eventually got Algeria.
Much has been postulated about why Hamas would do such a reprehensible act, knowing the backlash in Gaza and the West Bank would be severe. I think they understood that on October 6, Israel maintained their policy of ethnic cleansing and apartheid at minimal cost to them. October 7 changed all of that. Israel is forced to deploy more security within Gaza, in the West Bank, along the border with Lebanon, inside Jerusalem. In my opinion, Hamas is hoping that the cost in terms of weapons and Israeli soldier casualties forces some sort of long term political resolution. Most likely won't play out as immediate as that but time will tell.
Happened in Algeria, South Africa, Vietnam...
Nurse Emily Callahan from Doctors Without Borders just got evacuated from Gaza and gives an account of what's happening in Gaza at the moment.
Two hours of water every twelve hours.
Two hours of water every twelve hours.
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That must be harrowing. Sending text messages every morning when you wake up and before you go to sleep to your collegues in Gaza, "Are you Alive?"
Yeah, the levels of violence after that went through the the roof and it radicalized both sides.
France wasn't seriously considering the FLN as a real threat, nor losing Algeria until then. The french retaliation, which came from the shock and magnitude of the massacre, is comparable to what Israel is currently doing. Not everyone in the FLN was particularly happy about the massacre, but it and the completely disproportionate reprisals killed any idea of "assimilation" that was still floating in the air at the time, and lead anyone sitting on the fence to firmly choose their camp.
The FLN also lost the Battle of Algiers (1956-57) and throughout the war was never able to inflict a decisive military defeat to France like the Viet Minh, who were a major inspiration, did at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Although the FLN was militarily significantly weakened, they never were decimated and could still carry out hit-and-run operations. Enough to make the occupier never feel safe. More importantly it never disappeared from the political front. The Algerian War morally dragged France through the mud due in no small part to the systematic use of torture, summary executions, indiscriminate bombings, collective punishments and forced displacements. It ripped France apart as you said, and was one of the decisive factors leading to the fall of the french Fourth Republic, which already had its own internal problems. @JPRouve can maybe tell us more about what happened in France back then and either complete or correct my statements.
There are still fundamental differences between Algeria and Palestine, though.
France was a foreign body in Algeria. They had no population, no historical claim there prior to the colonization in 1830. They did it because, well they could at the time. Israel's case is much, much less cut and dry than that.
Algeria was something that France wasn't about to relinquish that easily, especially right after losing Indochina, but ultimately had to. The french population in the mainland was growing tired of the war and the mounting casualties for which they saw no real benefit. Another decisive factor was the international atmosphere back then which was very favorable to self-determination and the independence of former colonies. The superpowers at the time were in agreement with that. The FLN capitalized on all of it, but it still took an exceptional statesman in De Gaulle to accept the inevitable and not only gradually lead France out of the algerian quagmire, for which he almost was assassinated, but also effectively ending the french colonial empire after being a staunch supporter of it.
Can't see the same conditions in Palestine at the moment, but things can change.
People who think that Hamas did it for the lols and because "muh, terrorism", without any long game in mind, can't be taken seriously. They're either uniformed or willfully ignorant. Terrorism is a means to an end, said end being either political or religious, or both. Terrorism can manifest itself in very different forms and is certainly not the privilege of a non-state actor. Hamas knew exactly what they were doing when they carried out the 10/7 massacre as well as they perfectly knew how Israel would react.
What Hamas achieved is for everyone there to choose a side. They're banking on blood and hate. They forced the international community to look at the situation there, and with the massive help of social media brought Palestine on the map like never before. They made every single major actor in the region rethink their current strategy. There are massive manifestations across the world in favor of Palestine. Netanyahu and his government are doomed. They don't care about how many palestinians lives will be lost in the process, or the suffering that will ensue. On the contrary, the more the better. They also don't care about the loss of thousands of their own fighters who were willing to die anyway. Their leadership is out of Gaza and even if Israel manages to kill all of them, which is reaaally doubtful, they'll be replaced, or reappear in a different form.
The insane and completely counter-productive Israeli bombing strategy with no regards for human loss, as well as as denying the most basic aid to civilians and the literal pogroms happening in the West Bank, about which no one is really talking, will replenish Hamas ranks in no time. It might give them an even stronger foothold in the West Bank since the corrupt, disgraced and undermined (by Netanyahu) PA has been unable to achieve anything decent for the Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories and can't even defend its own citizens from being killed and preventing their homes from being burned down. A PA that played the legal game, recognized the state of Israel and was willing to negociate the ttwo state solution.
That's Hamas' mindset and objectives in my opinion and I have no doubt in my mind that they have contingency plans to replace the dead and keep it alive one way or another. That's how these organizations survive and they'll pop up again in 5, 10 or 20 years because the reasons for their very existence are still there.
Israel's strategy right now is achieving everything Hamas has hoped for and then some more. Netanyahu bred and fed a monster for his own delusional purposes, thinking that he's tamed it, and it's now biting him back in the ass. The IDF will also lose an awful lot of soldiers in the ground invasion about whom we will certainly not hear before a couple of years, but it won't play that much of a role in the short-term since the Israeli population is currently massively in favor of the war anyway. Unless the losses are absolutely catastrophic.
One also should never lose sight that it's a tragic episode that inserts itself in the context of a colonial war. Any attempt to reduce it to an unprovoked terrorist attack is foolish, dishonest and ultimately counter-productive.
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Two small things France weren't occupiers in Algeria, Algeria wasn't even a colony, it was an actual french department. And the Fourth Republic was never going to last, first because its structure wasn't popular within parliament but mainly because it was a highly unstable system reminiscent to what you have Belgium today, no stable majority, lots of moving coalitions and governments constantly changing.
I agree whole-heartedly with this entire piece, except the bit about strong support of what Netanyahu is doing. Several outlets reported 49% of Israelis didn't want a ground offensive in Gaza, two weeks ago anyway. I feel like as emotions cool that will trend upwards, but couldn't find anything more recent.
I guess the hard bit here is to understand what to do about Hamas. How do you get rid of them, if not through a ground offensive? As much as everyone on all sides seem to agree that Hamas needs 'removal from the board' I've yet to see a single realistic way of achieving that in a good way. I honestly have no belief in the 'higher road' strategy of just be really nice to Gazans and they'll stop hating Israel.
Videos of Israeli forces using human shields being sent and seen.
Something the IDF always claims is Hamas uses human shields. Usually in the form of "hiding amongst civilians".
Previous reports from independent sources show IDF walking behind bound Palestinians, using them as shields.
Video I have been sent is a woman in a hijab/jilbab, hands tied behind her back, with soldiers walking behind her fully armed. One soldier has his rifle on her shoulder. Basically any return fire and she is dead first.
Something the IDF always claims is Hamas uses human shields. Usually in the form of "hiding amongst civilians".
Previous reports from independent sources show IDF walking behind bound Palestinians, using them as shields.
Video I have been sent is a woman in a hijab/jilbab, hands tied behind her back, with soldiers walking behind her fully armed. One soldier has his rifle on her shoulder. Basically any return fire and she is dead first.
George Galloway tweet claims, about the 10/7 attack:
- Israeli Govt has dropped the allegations that rapes were carried out
- 40 beheaded babies dropped
- two thirds of the Israeli dead were military personnel
- of the third non military killed, most killed by IDF
Same reports coming from people on the inside. I wrote similar a few days back about what a friend of a friend who is inside was saying.
- Israeli Govt has dropped the allegations that rapes were carried out
- 40 beheaded babies dropped
- two thirds of the Israeli dead were military personnel
- of the third non military killed, most killed by IDF
Same reports coming from people on the inside. I wrote similar a few days back about what a friend of a friend who is inside was saying.
What's this "most killed by IDF"? I have yet to see major Western sources report on this claim.
It's really hard to know what is true and what is not when both sides just use propaganda and lies. I am however convinced that the IDF and Hamas are equally bad and both sides couldn't care less about civilian lives.
It's @Roane . Take him with a grain of salt.
There were "reports" that when the alarms went off on 10/7 IDF went in guns blazing and could be responsible for killing the revellers at the festival and more.
These are gaining more traction now in some quarters.
Doesn't suit your narrative?
Yeah you have to sift through a lot of it but eventually some things start to come through.
The 40 beheaded babies for instance didn't happen.
The rapes seems more and more likely didn't happen. Even some of the Jewish papers who are adamant it did are sounding silly in terms of why it can't be proved.
You can't believe that.
I'm doing what most are doing. Posting things from online.
This however I am starting to believe. Doesn't mean I will end up being right. However currently I am aware of people inside Gaza/Palestine. These people are sending out information, videos etc.
I have more reason to believe them than the Israeli narrative tbh.
Others are free to believe what they want
If that’s what you were actually doing then at least the rest of us might be able to get a sense of the value of what you’re saying. But really you’re just posting stuff you’ve heard on WhatsApp.
If it is a sincere question then I’ll reply. Sometime after 1967 when they decided that the occupation of West Bank and Gaza is a very long-time if not permanent occupation, and the people there wouldn’t have elementary human rights let alone citizenship. Thing is, West Bank has been de facto part of Israel for 55 years now, and people there have been massively discriminated for over half a century. They get ruled by Israel but they do not get any say about Israel. They cannot walk in certain streets that only Israeli citizens can (which is another example of segregation), they cannot leave and come back, they cannot even bring friends and family in their houses, they need to go in severs checkpoints each day while going to work and so on. By every definition it is an apartheid state as has been said by organizations like amnesty international, experienced people in apartheid like Nelson Mandela, Israel politicians like ex-prime minster Ehud Barak or various decorated Israeli soldiers.
By deciding to annex West Bank (de facto) they had 3 ways forward: 1) apartheid state, 2) give to them citizenship which very likely would result with the end of Israel, or at least the end of Israel as a Jewish state or 3) ethnic cleansing and genocide. They went for (1) knowing the implications.
And?
There have been reports, some explicit and some implicit, of the IDF attacking Hamas in ways that likely resulted in Israelis dying in the crossfire.
This being the way the majority of civilians died is wildly implausible.
This being the way the majority of civilians died is wildly implausible.