These people are apparently unaware that its Biden that makes the policy and Austin implements it, so there's little to nothing he can do for them.
Israel - Palestine Discussion | Post Respectfully | Discuss more, tweet less
- Thread starter esmufc07
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These people are apparently unaware that its Biden that makes the policy and Austin implements it, so there's little to nothing he can do for them.
This isn't really a fact. It's just a belief you have. Not really 'accurate' to call a belief "a representation of what is happening."
No sane country would blockade and occupy another one for decades, constantly keeping their foot on the occupied's throat, killing its children with impunity, whilst stealing their land. This is not a war between two sovereign countries, therein lies the fundamental difference which seems to consistently elude you. There's an occupying country and an occupied population. Therefore, Israel has no (legal) right to invoke self-defense and in fact is also (legally) bound to pay for the cost of the (illegal) occupation and (illegal) blockade from its own pocket as well as in the (legal) obligation of ensuring the well-being of the occupied population, if we want to go by international laws. Neither the US or the EU, or anyone really, should enable, finance or support what's essentially a major violation of international laws. That's how much of a farce the whole thing is and why there'll never be any reasonable justification or moral high ground in favor of Israel, no matter how much gaslighting, bad faith and propaganda are poured into.
Hamas is Israel's Frankenstein's monster and one should condemn without any reserve the atrocities committed on Israeli civilians. However, if one thinks that razing Gaza to the ground wil solve the Hamas problem, they're utterly deluded. If one thinks that Israel can destroy Hamas by bombing half of the housing units, all relevant civilian infrastructure and taking out almost all the hospitals, they're utterly deluded. If one thinks that Israel can ensure security for its own population by blowing 8,000 children and 6,300 women (and counting) to smithereens, or sniping them in churches, they're utterly deluded. If one thinks that Israel can break a population by starving them and denying them access to medical treatment while bombing the living shit out of them, they're utterly deluded. If one thinks that Israel can use the distraction caused by Gaza to launch pogroms, steal yet more land and snipe Palestinian children in the West Bank without any kind of blowback, 10/7 style, down the road, they're utterly deluded.
And finally, if you think that Israel was well within its rights to react the way it does, and the IDF is conducting itself in any kind of measured manner, or that the levels of destruction unleashed on Gaza and the amount of collateral damage are unavoidable/justifiable, you're utterly deluded.
By the same logic, I would say that it's infortunate that a lot of Israeli civilians had to pay the price for the actions of the Netanyahu government.
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I mean, most countries think Israel’s response has been disproportionate. It seems even the United States, the West’s biggest warmonger is getting uncomfortable with the indiscriminate killing carried out by the IDF.
Also, whilst what Hamas did on the 7th was awful. Also stupid given the power imbalance. I am interested how you can say “no viable reason” given that you believe Israel has a viable reason for what it is doing now? Have Israel not been killing Palestinian civilians for years? Just look at the hundreds killed and maimed during the Great March of Return a few years ago. You seem to think it’s natural and normal for Israel to respond to violence with indiscriminate killing, but not Palestinians?
A lot of your posts on this subject are cruel, insensitive, and very biased. You should do better, at least as a mod/admin.
Out of interest, if it was Jews being indiscriminately slaughtered in this way and they were the weaker party, do you think you'd have the same outlook?
These comparisons with other conflicts are also quite interesting. Were the Gaza numbers to be extrapolated to Sudan population levels, we'd have seen 420,000 deaths (including 168,000 children) and over 40,000,000 people displaced.
In 2 months......
Being a mod shouldn't prevent someone from being entitled to their own opinion, no matter how much you disagree with them. That said, he's firmly and uncompromisingly in the pro-Israel camp. For a long while, I had a hard time telling if he was just bringing some balance to the thread and a dispassionate point of view, but his last posts cleared that up.
Tbh, I said "as a mod" because you can't ignore his posts. I think it's kind of trollish anyway to keep inserting the date 10.7 every few posts. It is something Western zionist politicians keep parroting as some sort of deflection and justification tactic for the atrocities committed every second. It's also not a start date for the conflict or a new chapter because the old one never closed.
This is such utter crap. "Ah sure that's how it goes, what can you do?". Do you have the same opinion of Oct 7th?
To be fair to him he's been consistent before 10.7. His opinion has always been Gaza have to suck it up as they're the weaker party, any actions would therefore be detrimental.
When you look at everything from a purely military aspect as an armchair general it does come across sociopathic though.
Ukraine should suck it up too then by this logic. Curiously, in this case he doesn't seem to think that way.
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Not that I agree with his logic (I don’t), but his logic includes 10.7 as the starting point of aggression by a weaker side. Ukraine was attacked.
Hamas so far is refusing a temporary ceasefire and is insistent on the release of Marwan Barghouti, Ahmed Saadat, and Abdullah Barghouti, in any hostage deal.
A few different reports from Israeli media on the period of the ceasefire but it seems it would be longer than a week if they ever agree on something.
A few different reports from Israeli media on the period of the ceasefire but it seems it would be longer than a week if they ever agree on something.
That's a faulty one and he perfectly knows it. Palestine has been under attack since 1948 and occupied since 1967.
To quote the great *********** bill maher, you just need to learn how to cope.
Yup, just suck it up buttercup. Also you're forgetting the old 'It's been happening for centuries throughout history' chestnut. So obviously that just makes it all ok then.
Marwan Barghouti would be Palestine's best hope. He's a moderate, was always willing to work on a two-state solution and enjoys an immensely popularity among the Palestinians. I'd rather not see him freed due to a direct Hamas intervention which would leave him with a lot of strings attached, but that's a clear sign of how Hamas are projecting themselves in the future, not as governing entity but as a major player in any future Palestinian coalition. Because he'd be the man to go to if there were serious negotiations about the two state solution, his liberation will never happen under the Netanyahu government, imo.
There's zero chance of Abdullah Barghouti, one of the chief bomb makers of Hamas, seeing the light of the day ever again.
Ahmed Saadat's (PFLP) who has been on Hamas' "to get ouf of jail" list for a very long time. In 2002 his movement organized the assassination of the Israeli Minister of Tourism (who advocated the forced expulsion of the Palestinians and the targeted elimination of the Palestinian leaders) in retaliation to the assassination of the leader of the PFLP by the Israelis. His liberation would gain massive points to Hamas and further weaken the PA since they were the ones who imprisoned him in 2002 in exchange for the end of siege imposed on Ramallah where Arafat was trapped, and then sold him out to the Israelis in 2006. He's charismatic, popular but a partisan of a one state solution. Honestly don't know bout his chances.
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Absolutely. Also try dying without disturbing the rest of the world, if it's not too much to ask from you.
I think this is being ignored. It was always hypocritical but I don’t think the West would be able to even muster any sympathy in the future.
Forget trying to impose more sanctions on Putin for example.
Absolutely, can't even have lunch watching the news without seeing women and children crying. People are dying in sudan too, you know, you're not special.
Jesus fecking christ, what a goddamn clown...
Ahh yes, the famously occupied Bahaman territories, a people without a state, perpetually under siege and being starved by the Florida Defense Forces.
The GOP really does breed a special form of smoothbrained feckwits.
Palestine has been under attack for 75 years.
Every single place on Earth is inferior in every way to Americans who think like that. Just look at the recent post where a Portuguese poster (My apologies for forgetting the username) was telling a story of being given gifts like toothpaste when staying with an American family and then on their trip to Portugal assuming that it didn't have even the basics for sale anywhere so brought their own goods and was then surprised when they went to the supermarket to see it had everything they do in the US. Except guns of course.
You would think stories like that wouldn't be as common now with easier travel and especially world news and the internet, but it seems little has changed in a lot of people's knowledge, understanding or perception of anywhere outside the USA.
As I've said, it's not my logic. Still, since his logic states that this particular chapter started with 10.7 though, with the HAMAS' aggression, equating Palestine with Ukraine would be wrong.
There are multiple flaws that you can (and probably should) point out in this logic but "Ukraine should suck it up too" doesn't follow from it.
I absolutely can see what you're getting at and you'd be right if we were to take things through an incredibly narrow-minded perception of the events. However, there is a (rightfully) perceived sense of injustice and double standards from the western governments. The latter are still running the show with methods that reek of imperialism, a colonial mentality and a certified contempt, to stay polite, for the Arabs, the Palestinians being the ones at the absolute bottom. They're eager to take the moral high ground and import democracy and freedom at gunpoint, but give an ultra-right, fascist and racist Israeli government carte blanche to collectively punish and mass murder a population that's been occupied and stolen from for decades, in retaliation for the terrorist actions of an islamo-nationalist resistance movement that's been spoon fed by the Israeli government to prevent any two state solution.
Just imagine for one second the outcry (and the ensuing bombing) in the West if any high ranking official of other country other than Israel spouted a tenth of what the Israeli government members do. It's absolutely hilarious, and tragic, to see the epic collective dissonance pouring out the western officials and mainstream media. And you think that that no country in the world is taking notes?
Hamas has been elected (by a narrow margin) in 2005 in the first free and democratic elections in Palestine which were held at the demand of the US. The first thing the western powers did was to refuse to acknowledge the results of the elections, because it wasn't what they expected. Right after that came the blockade of Gaza and a few months later a (failed) coup was orchestrated with the support of Israel and the US to overthrow Hamas. Now before anyone pins me as Hamas supporter, I loathe them, or any islamist movement for that matter. But you can't play the democracy card and throw your toys out of the pram when the results don't go your way.
Israel under Netanyahu has backed Hamas into a corner, and if there ever was a country confronted to an existential threat up until October 6th (and still is), that's Palestine. The West Bank was slowly but steadily atomized through continuous settlements and a corrupt PA, and the open-air prison of Gaza had no future. The Abraham Accords were about to effectively seal the death warrant of a Palestinian state with the blessings of the US and the arab countries in the region. Hamas understood that their time was up and Palestine was dead, so they struck in a manner that would bring the latter back to the foreground of international affairs and ruin, or at least postpone the Abraham Accords, using the only way colonial powers would understand. Bloodshed. The more the better.
In the current context, there is no way the countries not blessed to belong to the current aristocracy won't compare the attitude of the latter towards Russia or China and the latitude and support given to Israel which has been 200% in the wrong for decades. Right or wrong, the comparison between Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Palestine will be drawn, because both are happening at the same time and the West is giving a textbook example of its duplicity. There's no chance it wouldn't be thrown to their face everytime they come on their high horse. The credibility of the West has zero chance of surviving this onslaught and the long-term consequences will be dire. Many countries will side with Russia and China, because they know they'd have no chance otherwise and saw what fate awaits them if they don't "fall in line".
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And Al Shifa was perhaps a dozen attacked hospitals ago? US intelligence at the time loudly backed Israeli intelligence claims, another decision that could prove to become a major act of self harm for the future credibility of US intel claims everywhere in the world. At the moment it really feels like the US intelligence we've seen is indistinct from propaganda.
He's pretty much the caricature of the American war hawk and has the inenviable record of being wrong about so many important events so wouldn't mind too much what he says.
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Somehow missed this from 6 days ago, not sure if it was in this thread. Regarding Oct 7:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-ne...ity-data-reveals-true-picture-of-oct-7-deaths
https://www.france24.com/en/live-ne...ity-data-reveals-true-picture-of-oct-7-deaths
Israel is saying they killed 8000 Hamas fighters since the start of the war.
Basically, anyone they killed who isn't a child or a woman has been Hamas.
Basically, anyone they killed who isn't a child or a woman has been Hamas.
Hard to disagree there.
Having seen my share of conflicts unfolding over my lifetime, it's also my impression. The Syrian Civil War cost 610,000 violent deaths in the last 12 years and yet all I hear about it nowadays is silence while Al-Assad is walking free in international meetings among Arab leaders. Meanwhile, the Sudanese Civil War got over the double in the number of people displaced compared to the Gaza conflict and yet I see nothing coming out of the ever so useless United Nations in response (as usual). For whatever reason, it's not "sexy" to talk about a conflict when an US ally is not involved.
For the sake of playing the devil's advocate here, we have seen nothing noteworthy as punishment against Putin for flattening Grozny in the 2000s or Al-Assad for flattening Aleppo in the 2010s. As much as I hate Netanyahu's approach to this war and his obvious lack of concern for the hostages, I see why he would try his luck with the same Grozny/Aleppo approach on Gaza because others before him are still walking out free. If Arab leaders allowed Al-Assad back in their circle in less than a decade after the worst of the Syrian Civil War, you can bet that they will do the same to any Israeli PM by resuming talks for the Abraham Accords in a near future. One can call me cynical, but my view is forged in almost 3 decades of watching geopolitics and world affairs in display. It's not pretty at all, but it is what it is.
For those out there who don't like what the US is doing here, are you aware that there are far more geopolitical ramifications than meets the eye? Joe Biden will do whatever he can to try re-railing Israel on a better course, but what he can do can be limited for as long as Netanyahu is still there. If Biden openly throws Israel under the bus, then what? Netanyahu would have no problem turning to Putin for serious political support, just like we have seen Erdogan often talking to Putin while giving a rather cold shoulder to Joe Biden. Meanwhile, how do you think other US allies in Asia would feel if they see that scenario while they are in the middle of territorial disputes with China? If you want a recent example of a superpower abandoning a longstanding ally looks like, don't look any further than Armenia being left hanging out to dry by Russia earlier this year. I'm sure that will fill Russia's allies with confidence (sarcasm).
One last thing. Seeing recent events involving pro-Hamas protesters worldwide (they will claim to be pro-Palestine, but they are clearly matching the decription of being pro-Hamas, overt bigots and even total anarchists), I'm at a point now where I'm among the many people now fed up with those protests in the same vein that I had enough with the Freedumb Convoy in Ottawa almost 2 years ago. If protesters can't behave any better with a single iota of respect to existing laws in the land, I promise you that more and more ordinary people will tell the Palestine cause to go feck itself. In my country, a number of liberal and independent media people are already pounding on the protesters for how they poorly behaved in Ottawa and in Toronto over the last weekend.
This has been the case for some time though. Just as was the case with WMDs in Iraq, and even the Iran Contra affair decades before that.
No one should take their intel without a pinch of salt, they have every reason to be scrutinised and met with a healthy dose of skepticism as much as we do for states and factions we conventionally consider malevolent. Especially when we consider their frankly destructive foreign policy since 1945.
It's no surprise it's allies are going to take them at face value though, that's just how international diplomacy works. There isn't a level of objectivity to it whatsoever.
Thanks. I was able to do exactly that.
I watched it yesterday. It was actually very good. Some very good speakers - Dan Ephron wrote imo one of the best book on the issue (Killing of the King) and Peter Baker did a good piece on GWB and Cheney in WH. It was an useful historical reminder that events could turn out differently. If only Afarat said yes to Barak offer as his whole delegation asked him to.