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

AfonsoAlves said:
Does it actually distract from the event though?

I'm not sure how a 10 message discussion on the intrinsics of an R9X really distracts people from the fact that tens of thousands of people got bombed to death for the past 10 months? Nobody here will forget about what's going on because of this conversation.
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I wasn't meaning exclusively here. I was meaning more in the actual press. I watched a 20 minute discussion on Sky news where they were discussing weapons used and switched to CNN Europe and caught 5 minutes of the same. In both the presenters and guests seemed more preoccupied with the weapons than the lives lost. It's just an observation but I felt that the discussion seemed to dilute the tragedy of the actual event.
 
Another small insight into the current mindset of the Israeli society and its most moral war criminals at work in Gaza.

Hats off the ultimate freedom feckers who just granted an additional $20 billions to this lunatic, genocidal, rogue state. From the bottom of my heart, feck you Joe Biden, feck your wretched administration and feck anyone who still works for them and/or support Israel knowing what's happening. May it come back to bite your sorry ass some day, you spineless, hypocritical, racist pieces of shit.

 
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berbatrick said:
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It will take decades just to clear the rubble and unexploded ordnance.

Gaza is now completely unhabitable and reduced to a "city of tents", just like the Israeli fascists wanted at the very beginning of their so-called war on Hamas.
 
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berbatrick said:
It's not just centrism or neoliberalism, it's also the cultural spaces which are supposedly dominated by the left or left-liberals

And yes, one example, one place, but there are literally hundreds more like this, and not just from Germany.
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For sure, though Germany is its own weird complicated case for obvious reasons. At least the left are discussing it. It is thoroughly radicalising to see the centrist arena almost entirely united in wilfully ignoring it. It’s unavoidably just cowardice and racism at this point - ‘It’s inconvenient that they’re dying so publically, but alas it’s gauche to insist we do anything.’
 
berbatrick said:
It's not just centrism or neoliberalism, it's also the cultural spaces which are supposedly dominated by the left or left-liberals or whatever.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra cancels pianist’s performance after dedication to journalists killed in Gaza​

Jayson Gillham was scheduled to perform at Melbourne Town Hall on Thursday but he was dropped for going ‘beyond the remit of his contract’


And yes, one example, one place, but there are literally hundreds more like this, and not just from Germany.
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This resulted in a bit of a mess, apparently:

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra board promises independent review after musicians revolt over Gaza comments controversy​

Announcement comes after musicians passed vote of no confidence in senior management over cancellation of Jayson Gillham’s performance
 
That_Bloke said:
Another small insight into the current mindset of the Israeli society and its most moral war criminals at work in Gaza.

Hats off the ultimate freedom feckers who just granted an additional $20 billions to this lunatic, genocidal rogue state. From the bottom of my heart, feck you Joe Biden, feck your wretched administration and feck anyone who still works for them and/or support Israel knowing what's happening. May it come back to bite your sorry ass some day, you spineless, hypocritical, racist pieces of shit.

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40% of Israeli society want resettlement in Gaza

Wow
 
africanspur said:
An awful decision if true, in every single aspect.

Morally, diplomatically, religiously and strategically.
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I can't question their tactics while sitting comfortably, with my taxes paying for the bullets and bombs used to erase Palestine.
 
RedTiger said:
Sun tzu said to never corner your enemy otherwise they fight to the death, suicide attacks in this respect is just fighting to the death.
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It's not fighting to the death. It's utter stupidity. It serves literally no useful purpose.

Does it increase the chances Israel are going to stop or reduce their attacks?
Does it increase the chances that western governments will finally grow any kind of backbone and stop supporting the attacks?
Does it increase the sympathy of western populations?
Does it even increase the liklihood of local Arab government support?
Does it fulfil a militarily positive goal?
Is suicide haram in Islam?
 
RedTiger said:
Sun tzu said to never corner your enemy otherwise they fight to the death, suicide attacks in this respect is just fighting to the death.
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I swear, if I had a penny everytime someone on the internet invoked an irrelevant Sun Tzu quote on almost anything that happens in a conflict, I could retire tomorrow.
africanspur said:
It's not fighting to the death. It's utter stupidity. It serves literally no useful purpose.

Does it increase the chances Israel are going to stop or reduce their attacks?
Does it increase the chances that western governments will finally grow any kind of backbone and stop supporting the attacks?
Does it increase the sympathy of western populations?
Does it even increase the liklihood of local Arab government support?
Does it fulfil a militarily positive goal?
Is suicide haram in Islam?
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This.

Also a lot of studies show the person doing the suicide bombing, especially in the middle-east were low-rank fodder co-erced into it.
 
AfonsoAlves said:
I swear, if I had a penny everytime someone on the internet invoked an irrelevant Sun Tzu quote on almost anything that happens in a conflict, I could retire tomorrow.


This.

Also a lot of studies show the person doing the suicide bombing, especially in the middle-east were low-rank fodder co-erced into it.
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Could you cite them? I'm not saying you're wrong, necessarily, just that I sort of remember reading the opposite: This article, for instance, contains the following passage citing several studies that seem to contradict your assertion:

Poor economic development: Political leaders have long claimed that poverty breeds terrorism. The evidence to support this claim, however, is weak. Princeton economist Alan Krueger and his colleague Jitka Maleckova found no correlation between poor economic conditions and terrorism. Indeed their research indicated that Palestinian suicide attackers came from wealthier families and had higher levels of education than those of average Palestinians.17 These results are supported by others. Harvard professor Albert Abadie, for example, found that while the freest and richest countries have experienced the least terrorism, this is also true of the poorest and most oppressed.18 James Piazza’s findings are consistent with these results.19 On the other hand, Efraim Benmelech and colleagues at Harvard have produced more nuanced findings showing that while economic conditions are not associated with the quantity of terror, they may impact its quality. In particular, they note that poor economic conditions may lead more able, better educated individuals into terror attacks, allowing organizations to send the best qualified to the highest impact terrorist missions.20
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africanspur said:
It's not fighting to the death. It's utter stupidity. It serves literally no useful purpose.

Does it increase the chances Israel are going to stop or reduce their attacks?
Does it increase the chances that western governments will finally grow any kind of backbone and stop supporting the attacks?
Does it increase the sympathy of western populations?
Does it even increase the liklihood of local Arab government support?
Does it fulfil a militarily positive goal?
Is suicide haram in Islam?
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A cornered enemy couldn't give two shits about logic.
 
africanspur said:
It's not fighting to the death. It's utter stupidity. It serves literally no useful purpose.

Does it increase the chances Israel are going to stop or reduce their attacks?
Does it increase the chances that western governments will finally grow any kind of backbone and stop supporting the attacks?
Does it increase the sympathy of western populations?
Does it even increase the liklihood of local Arab government support?
Does it fulfil a militarily positive goal?
Is suicide haram in Islam?
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Have you missed the past 9 months?

We (Western nations) are helping fecking Israel in this, we can’t claim any high moral ground on this.
 
Tibs said:
Have you missed the past 9 months?

We (Western nations) are helping fecking Israel in this, we can’t claim any high moral ground on this.
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I'm not from a western country and I didn't say anything about moral high ground.

If anyone can give me some ways this policy helps either/or of:

-Hamas' war aims
-Palestinians in Gaza as a whole

I'm all ears.
 
africanspur said:
I'm not from a western country and I didn't say anything about moral high ground.

If anyone can give me some ways this policy helps either/or of:

-Hamas' war aims
-Palestinians in Gaza as a whole

I'm all ears.
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if you want a strategic reason, it could be to show that the walls which have kept the palestinians out of israel proper aren't enough, probably because a small number of palestinian citizens of israel might be willing to kill themselves over this.

i doubt this is a big strategic decision though. not going to make any comparisons here, but they are being eliminated by their enemy country, any damage against that country would seem correct.

can you suggest an alternative?
 
Ekkie Thump said:
Could you cite them? I'm not saying you're wrong, necessarily, just that I sort of remember reading the opposite: This article, for instance, contains the following passage citing several studies that seem to contradict your assertion:
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I'm going to preface this with telling you I know absolutely nothing about the intrinsics of how people choose/decide to be suicide bombers in the situation in Gaza or the West Bank. My experiences are drawn from Iraq/Afghanistan and broad Salafism as a whole.

https://www.inss.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Female-Suicide-Bombers-63-80.pdf

The Chechens used to "convince" widows of fallen fighters to blow themselves up in essence with religious bullshit reasons and social guilt as well as revenge. Salafi commands were very top down, and each sub-leader gave final orders.

Boko Haram use kids as well as women

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1359178917303725

Taliban used kids (though you could argue they were not Salafi)

During the Sectarian violence in Iraq, children were heavily used by Sunni/Salafi extremists.

During the rise of ISIS, child suicide bombers were extremely prevalent. Mosul had 260 cases of Child suicide bombers alone.

Basically, there is no way of looking at using emotionally distraught women and children as suicide bombers without it being coercion.

This isn't even talking about the number of adult men who were "recruited" and "radicalized" through forcing environments on them.

There was something I read, which i'm unable to source right now, that stated that almost 3/4 of all suicide attacks were remotely detonated. Basically, the suicide bomber wasn't the one in control of the actual bombs.
 
berbatrick said:
if you want a strategic reason, it could be to show that the walls which have kept the palestinians out of israel proper aren't enough, probably because a small number of palestinian citizens of israel might be willing to kill themselves over this.

i doubt this is a big strategic decision though. not going to make any comparisons here, but they are being eliminated by their enemy country, any damage against that country would seem correct.

can you suggest an alternative?
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If they really want to go down the retaliation destruction route - non-suicidal bombs are far more effective than suicide attacks.

Many suicide attacks fail because the fear of death triggers at the very last, resulting in poor decision making and erratic behaviour making them very obvious to security forces. It's why many suicide bombers don't have control of the detonation, and it's controlled remotely.
 
berbatrick said:
if you want a strategic reason, it could be to show that the walls which have kept the palestinians out of israel proper aren't enough, probably because a small number of palestinian citizens of israel might be willing to kill themselves over this.

i doubt this is a big strategic decision though. not going to make any comparisons here, but they are being eliminated by their enemy country, any damage against that country would seem correct.

can you suggest an alternative?
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Im not sure it suggests that to be honest and, if it does, it only increases the chances that an increasingly unhinged and vengeful Israel does something to its 20% Arab population. Which is not a good outcome for anyone.

It depends on what you mean for alternative and for whom.

I will always be against suicide bombing, regardless of the situation. I also have an inherent dislike of Politics mixed with Religion and I feel that groups like Hamas and PIJ fundamentally do more harm to the Palestinian cause (which is what I actually care about, as opposed to the machinations of one party or one strand of political thought) than good.

If you mean whats the alternative for Hamas' survival as a political organisation. Sure, maybe thats their 'only' option, though even then, I would argue otherwise.

If you mean the alternatives to try to achieve the main aims I personally care about in this conflict (the end to this violence, the unhindered passage of aid for the Palestinian population, international journalists who can hopefully out Israel beyond deniability, and the formation of a Palestinian state), then pretty much every single approach is less destructive to these aims for me.
 
AfonsoAlves said:
I'm going to preface this with telling you I know absolutely nothing about the intrinsics of how people choose/decide to be suicide bombers in the situation in Gaza or the West Bank. My experiences are drawn from Iraq/Afghanistan and broad Salafism as a whole.

https://www.inss.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Female-Suicide-Bombers-63-80.pdf

The Chechens used to "convince" widows of fallen fighters to blow themselves up in essence with religious bullshit reasons and social guilt as well as revenge. Salafi commands were very top down, and each sub-leader gave final orders.

Boko Haram use kids as well as women

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1359178917303725

Taliban used kids (though you could argue they were not Salafi)

During the Sectarian violence in Iraq, children were heavily used by Sunni/Salafi extremists.

During the rise of ISIS, child suicide bombers were extremely prevalent. Mosul had 260 cases of Child suicide bombers alone.

Basically, there is no way of looking at using emotionally distraught women and children as suicide bombers without it being coercion.

This isn't even talking about the number of adult men who were "recruited" and "radicalized" through forcing environments on them.

There was something I read, which i'm unable to source right now, that stated that almost 3/4 of all suicide attacks were remotely detonated. Basically, the suicide bomber wasn't the one in control of the actual bombs.
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I'll unhappily read the above links. The bolded is just...awful.
 
africanspur said:
Im not sure it suggests that to be honest and, if it does, it only increases the chances that an increasingly unhinged and vengeful Israel does something to its 20% Arab population. Which is not a good outcome for anyone.

It depends on what you mean for alternative and for whom.

I will always be against suicide bombing, regardless of the situation. I also have an inherent dislike of Politics mixed with Religion and I feel that groups like Hamas and PIJ fundamentally do more harm to the Palestinian cause (which is what I actually care about, as opposed to the machinations of one party or one strand of political thought) than good.

If you mean whats the alternative for Hamas' survival as a political organisation. Sure, maybe thats their 'only' option, though even then, I would argue otherwise.

If you mean the alternatives to try to achieve the main aims I personally care about in this conflict (the end to this violence, the unhindered passage of aid for the Palestinian population, international journalists who can hopefully out Israel beyond deniability, and the formation of a Palestinian state), then pretty much every single approach is less destructive to these aims for me.
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I don't agree with the last line, at all!
If Israel wants to eliminate the chance of continued Palestinian existence in Gaza, and if the rest of the world supports this mission, I don't know what any organization - Hamas or otherwise - is supposed to do that is positive for its chances.

I have changed my mind on a lot of things - calling this a genocide, and the morality of Hamas - since the polio story broke a few months ago, with a case confirmed now. This is a fight for existence. If Israel completely stops now, Gaza may well not be fully habitable until we are both dead.

AfonsoAlves said:
If they really want to go down the retaliation destruction route - non-suicidal bombs are far more effective than suicide attacks.

Many suicide attacks fail because the fear of death triggers at the very last, resulting in poor decision making and erratic behaviour making them very obvious to security forces. It's why many suicide bombers don't have control of the detonation, and it's controlled remotely.
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Surely they must be close to running out? I didn't see the video, but I saw a caption suggesting that the fighting within Gaza, they were using scavenged pieces from unexploded Israeli bombs, rather than anything of their own.
 
Ekkie Thump said:
I'll unhappily read the above links. The bolded is just...awful.
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Actually, I was wrong. I just checked the source (which is unfortunately paywalled)

It's 260 kids arrested for attempted suicide bombings for ISIS (the ones who didn't work)

Adding in the ones that did, the number is much higher.
 
berbatrick said:
I don't agree with the last line, at all!
If Israel wants to eliminate the chance of continued Palestinian existence in Gaza, and if the rest of the world supports this mission, I don't know what any organization - Hamas or otherwise - is supposed to do that is positive for its chances.

I have changed my mind on a lot of things - calling this a genocide, and the morality of Hamas - since the polio story broke a few months ago, with a case confirmed now. This is a fight for existence. If Israel completely stops now, Gaza may well not be fully habitable until we are both dead.



Surely they must be close to running out? I didn't see the video, but I saw a caption suggesting that the fighting within Gaza, they were using scavenged pieces from unexploded Israeli bombs, rather than anything of their own.
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If Sinwar is still alive, there must be lots of intact tunnels and undiscovered strongpoints that have explosive devices and such stored there.

That's a guesstimate though, there's every chance Sinwar is just hiding in some random persons home or a random tent.
 
AfonsoAlves said:
I swear, if I had a penny everytime someone on the internet invoked an irrelevant Sun Tzu quote on almost anything that happens in a conflict, I could retire tomorrow.


This.

Also a lot of studies show the person doing the suicide bombing, especially in the middle-east were low-rank fodder co-erced into it.
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I don't dispute anything that you've stated but I'd say that many low ranked fodder won't need to be coerced into suicide, that's for sure.
 
RedTiger said:
I don't dispute anything that you've stated but I'd say that many low ranked fodder won't need to be coerced into suicide, that's for sure.
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In Gaza/Palestine, not sure.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the Sunni factions specifically targeted vulnerable, poor people in bad circumstances to recruit for militiamen or for suicide attacks.
 
AfonsoAlves said:
In Gaza/Palestine, not sure.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the Sunni factions specifically targeted vulnerable, poor people in bad circumstances to recruit for militiamen or for suicide attacks.
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Bro, I'm talking specifically about Gaza. I'm neither condoning nor pushing for suicide attacks, I'm just saying that I understand why they might be going this route.

My Sun Tzu quote that irked you is still valid on a human level, the Gazans are cornered into a couple of small areas with either the expectation of being moved again or bombed right there. They've got dwindling supplies of water, food, medicine and frankly hope. No nation on earth other than Yemen is doing anything to stop their plight, Hamas will never surrender just like the Israelis will never surrender. With polio thrown into the mix it's just inevitable death for the Gazans.

Every single person alive in Gaza right now knows of someone personally who has died in the last 9 months, there's no dearth of recruits for suicide missions.

I really hope that international pressure on Israel grows and that America stops it's military and diplomatic cover for Israel because this conflict is devoid of any military logic and the longer it continues the more likely that many many countries will stop respecting current international law.
 
RedTiger said:
Bro, I'm talking specifically about Gaza. I'm neither condoning nor pushing for suicide attacks, I'm just saying that I understand why they might be going this route.

My Sun Tzu quote that irked you is still valid on a human level, the Gazans are cornered into a couple of small areas with either the expectation of being moved again or bombed right there. They've got dwindling supplies of water, food, medicine and frankly hope. No nation on earth other than Yemen is doing anything to stop their plight, Hamas will never surrender just like the Israelis will never surrender. With polio thrown into the mix it's just inevitable death for the Gazans.

Every single person alive in Gaza right now knows of someone personally who has died in the last 9 months, there's no dearth of recruits for suicide missions.

I really hope that international pressure on Israel grows and that America stops it's military and diplomatic cover for Israel because this conflict is devoid of any military logic and the longer it continues the more likely that many many countries will stop respecting current international law.
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The problem is, is that quote is completely not referring to what we're discussing here

I've read the Art of War in both English and Mandarin (been studying that language for 6 years now) and there's a lot of context that's missed out here.

a) That passage is referring to specifically, pitched battle in 5th Century BC Zhou China. Casualty rates for pitched battle that were recorded puts it in the 10-20% average, though sources from those times are usually quite unreliable.

b) The point that the book is making, is around force preservation. The vast majority of casualties in ancient pitched battle is "after the fact", when one side has decided to give up and retreat/flee. That's when the majorities of casualties occur.

c) "Never put your enemy in a corner" refers to never put your enemy in a situation where it is forced to fight. Half the book is about how to win wars without actually undertaking much bloodshed.

d) The explanation that follows is that in a tactical pitched battle, the defeated force, even when suffering light casualties, takes a very long time to replenish it's morale and organization, giving the victor short-medium term strategic flexibility in what it wants to do. By simply scattering the opposing army and forcing a retreat, you now have complete intiative.

e) By forcing unavoidable pitched battle, you are forcing a bloody confrontation in which you might not even guarantee victory but what you are guaranteed is heavy casualties.

This can be shown with the Roman performance in the 2nd Punic War, by consistently forcing pitched battle with Hannibal, only to get ravaged time and time again. However, this Art of War quote "catch all" isn't all entirely accurate either. There are some times when encircling and annihalating an enemy is absolutely worth it (Cannae, using the same Punic war example). You have to read this from the lens of a 5th Century BC Chinese Warring states perspective. Land territories were gigantic, and it wasn't like Romans fighting a campaign in Gaul scope. Qin Shi Huang basically fought on strategic battlefields which covered the entirety of Western and Central Europe in size. Everything is about maintaining manpower (especially since armies were levies who had to go back to the fields after the war) and maintaining huge supply routes and chains (which again, Art of War spends half the book describing).

In 5th century BC Zhou China, this was all very relevant.

In 21st Century AD Gaza/Israel, most of this is wholly irrelevant.
 
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