In reply to aircooled :
If I were head of government for Israel, Palestine would no longer exist as a country when this war was over. At the very least, the Gaza Strip would be Israeli territory and razed to the ground. I would not be gentle about doing so.
Edit to say: To do less is only to be in the exact same position in another 5-10-20 years.
Duke said:4cylndrfury said:In reply to Steve_Jones :
Distinct differences...
One side believes "you can have whatever religious beliefs you want, or even none at all, so long as you don't hurt people".
The othere believes "you can think like me or die".
The latter cannot be reasoned with.
You don't think there are people like that on the hardline Israeli side?
No matter how self-righteous Israel may be, their far right wing is just as hell-bent on squeezing the Palestinians out of existence. 50-70 years of Israeli pressure on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank prove it.
It's a situation where nobody is particularly correct, and the worst of all are the British who FUBARed an already challenging area, and then completely washed their hands of it.
Did I say that I do or don't believe that? Did I justify terror in any way? It feels like that's more projection than anything that can be inferred from my post.
Zealots at either end of the spectrum are kooks. They're unreasonable people and must be met with decisive actions.
You can't argue with crazy.
As to what the Israelis plan, I am not sure, but pretty certain it's not genocide (otherwise they would not be warning civilians). I suspect their primary goal is to sweep out any trace of weapons caches etc and kill all that resists. As to what to do then? No idea. Policing Gaza is a nightmare. Letting them self-govern, has been a nightmare or it's own.
On that note, it looks like Israel is at least making appearances of going into northern Gaza soon. The have been sending out warnings for civilians to evacuate. The have just given a more specific warning for those in northern Gaza to move south. As noted, Egypt will not let them cross the southern boarder. There reason is apparently because of "Isreali air strikes". Which makes zero sense. That is exactly why they would need to cross! As to where they go, I guess just somewhere in southern Gaza?
Israel army drops flyers warning Gazans to flee ‘immediately’ to the south
The Israeli military on Friday dropped flyers on Gaza warning residents to flee “immediately” to the south, AFP correspondents in the Palestinian territory said.
“Evacuate your homes immediately and go south of Wadi Gaza,” read flyers dropped by drones and seen by AFP.
A map featured on the flyers showed an arrow pointing south across a line in the central Gaza Strip.
The message signed by the Israeli military ordered residents to “evacuate public shelters in Gaza City.”
Some 423,000 Gazans have been displaced in recent days, 60 percent of whom are taking shelter with the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
The flyers warned residents to “not return to your homes until further notice” from the Israeli military.
The leaflet drop follows UN officials saying they were informed by the Israeli military that residents must flee northern Gaza within 24 hours, a timeframe an army spokesman would not confirm.
Toyman! said:In reply to Duke :
The Jewish people have been persecuted for thousands of years. The winners of the last World War, the UN, carved out a place for them to live to separate the Palestinian Jews from the Palestinian Arabs to keep the Arabs from slaughtering the Jews when Britain pulled out. A home if you will. Do you expect them to not protect it?
Defending your home is fine.
Redefining expansionism as "defending your home" is not.
This is a deep situation in an area of historic conflict indeed, and denies simple explanations or solutions.
But assuming one side is blameless does not help in developing a nuanced path forward.
In reply to Toyman! :
But, as noted, the devil is in the details.
What do you do with the people?
In reply to 4cylndrfury :
You literally said:
One side believes "you can have whatever religious beliefs you want, or even none at all, so long as you don't hurt people".
The othere believes "you can think like me or die".
I don't think I projected anything onto that statement.
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said: And that's why we all need to get on the same page. We can change the powers that be if we focus and work together. That is really difficult in the current situation. People are very divided on fringe issues and not united on universal problems.
We need a stronger reaction than just thumbs-up.
Margie
In reply to Toyman! :
As usual, Bismarck had it right: "Politics is the art of the possible." Even the most enlightened leaders can only accomplish what is possible within the prevailing circumstances and conditions. Not to suggest that the aforementioned leaders are all advocates of the sort of reforms you suggest, but even if we assume that they are, it would take generations and enormous amounts of money to manifest any sort of meaningful result. Enforcing anti-terror laws? Sure, but how far can you push that when a wide swath of the population supports the terrorists? Are you willing to risk domestic unrest and instability, with the terrorists potentially turning their attention to your government? Ironically, the countries that have the harshest justice systems and greatest ability to do this are the same ones that have the least inclination to educate their populations in the Western sense (by and large, technical education is fine; liberal arts/critical thinking is not).
Many Arab leaders were educated in the West (King Abdullah in the UK and the US, al-Sisi attended staff colleges in the UK and US). They are not ignorant of the possibilities, but they are also acutely aware of the risks (Abdullah I was assassinated by a Palestinian in 1951, Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by a military officer who opposed the Camp David accords).
Interesting and slightly hopeful take from Modern Diplomacy.
I don't claim to be an expert, but these two books have greatly helped me understand the situation:
Even though the latter is fiction (sorta)
The other thing to note, at the risk of floundering the thread with religion, is that a wide swath of Islam is an honorific religion, meaning that they believe Allah must be protected from and avenged for any slander, which they call blasphemy, against him. I don't believe any other religions are this way. Certainly not Judaism or Christianity.
In reply to Duke :
Your moral equivocation is becoming boring.
Israel has made efforts to negotiate. Hamas has made efforts to produce bombs. Eventually, you stop negotiating and fight fire with fire.
4cylndrfury said:You can't argue with crazy.
This. So. Much. This.
This seems rather reasonable considering. It does make you wonder a bit about future prisoner swaps though. Although, I am not sure trust is really a thing that exists with Iran anyway... you know... the place that regularly has mass chants of "death to America". Of note: it's pretty clear that a good percentage of the Iranian population has no interest in the governments positions (see mass riots / protests that have been going on)
--- This obviously could go political, it really doesn't need to -----
US, Qatar agree to prevent Iran from tapping previously frozen $6 billion fund
The U.S. and Qatar have reached an agreement to prevent Iran from accessing $6 billion recently unfrozen as part of a prisoner swap, the deputy treasury secretary told lawmakers on Thursday, sources confirmed to ABC News.
Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo told House Democrats in a closed-door briefing that the money "isn't going anywhere anytime soon," sources said.
The agreement comes as the U.S. is scrutinizing Iran's role in backing Hamas, the terrorist group behind the unprecedented attacks on Israel over the weekend. Though the Biden administration said there's been no evidence that Iran played a direct role in the assault, the White House has said Iran is complicit given its decades of support for Hamas.
The administration has faced calls from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to re-freeze the funds in the wake of the violent conflict.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-halting-release-6-billion-iranian-oil-assets/story?id=103928072
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:aircooled said:In reply to VolvoHeretic :
They way I look at it is: If you tell "tribes" of people they hate each other enough.... eventually they will start thinking it themselves (very relevant to this thread).
Hate / drama sells gets views (used to be "sells newspapers")
1% of the population are always going to be a-holes. Don't let anyone tell you they are representative of whatever "tribe" they happen to be assigned to (not super applicable to this topic, but is reasonable for the US I think).
Yes a small percentage of evil people are always trying to manipulate things to achieve their aims. This is universal. This is a great example (Hamas) but there are many more.
I have spent a lot of time in the Middle East. I have a passport that ran out of pages. There is one universal thing I've found that is true there and everywhere else. Education is the problem. The less educated and capable a person is of thinking for themselves the more likely they will be manipulated by evil people. Look at the Palestinians and Hamas. The US is having similar problems in our major cities. Fixing education is the first step in improving the world. It the first step in returning our country to its best version of itself too.
Because of the work I did I always interacted with the most educated in the Middle East. They are very much like us. They are also in shock by the inhumanity of all this. The uneducated are the ones manipulated into committing evil by even more evil people.
Don't misunderstand me. Education can't fix evil. Education does reduce the pool of people available to be controlled and manipulated by evil. If educated people will set their minor differences aside, together they could do a lot more to reduce evil and improve the world for all. In the end that is all I want. Too many times no matter the subject, people get lost in minutia.
We do help educate Palestinians. But this is how they get their information.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-canadian-taxpayer-money-funding-and-enabling-hamas
This is a Canadian story, but I expect most aid money goes to a school system that is geared toward indoctrination and teaching genocide.There are generations of Palestinians who have been "educated" to see Jews as an infestation with no value that must be eliminated.
aircooled said:Of note: it's pretty clear that a good percentage of the Iranian population has no interest in the governments positions (see mass riots / protests that have been going on)
From the Modern Diplomacy piece I posted above:
What is new is that moderate voices elsewhere in the Middle East have emerged at a time of heightened emotions and rallying around the flag. In some cases, like Iran, Israel, rather than being the punching bag and boogeyman, has become a sword wielded against an unpopular and repressive regime.
Over the weekend as Hamas invaded Israel, Iranian soccer fans denounced the presence of a Palestinian flag at a match in Tehran’s Azadi Stadium between Persepolis and Gol Gohar.
“The Palestinian flag — shove it up your ass!” the fans chanted.
In reply to 4cylndrfury :
And your assumption that a situation that is decades and centuries old is entirely one-sided is becoming frustrating.
Israel has made efforts to negotiate, true. Israel has also made efforts to push Palestinians entirely out of Israel, and to expand into areas already designated for Palestinian occupation.
In 1948 Israel displaced three quarters of a million Palestinians in response to the Negev attack. Most if not all of those people were innocent civilians. It was much like the US interning thousands of Japanese-Americans in response to Pearl Harbor.
The difference is that the US realized it was wrong and released the internees and (eventually) formally apologized. The Israelis have not, almost certainly will not, and have continued their efforts to ghettoize Palestinians.
Is it any surprise that there is terroristic response?
Duke said:Toyman! said:In reply to Duke :
The Jewish people have been persecuted for thousands of years. The winners of the last World War, the UN, carved out a place for them to live to separate the Palestinian Jews from the Palestinian Arabs to keep the Arabs from slaughtering the Jews when Britain pulled out. A home if you will. Do you expect them to not protect it?
Defending your home is fine.
Redefining expansionism as "defending your home" is not.
This is a deep situation in an area of historic conflict indeed, and denies simple explanations or solutions.
But assuming one side is blameless does not help in developing a nuanced path forward.
Expansionist? Which group are you talking about? The people who have encouraged Gaza to self-govern since 2007 or the people who fired thousands of rockets over the border in a surprise attack followed by thousands of terrorists to murder and kidnap citizens?
The historical conflict in that area has always been to kill the other religions. Historically, the Jews have never been in a position of power. They have always been the persecuted minority starting with early Christians. Now, in the position of power, I feel they have been fairly restrained in their reaction to a religion that has almost continuously wanted to kill them since the time of Mohammad when an early group of Jews refused to convert to Islam.
In reply to Duke :
Once again, I made no such assumptions...thats not what I said and you know it. You're putting those words in my mouth.
I had a whole new wall of text here, but it doesn't seem like beneficial discussion is what is happening between us.
We both like cars. Perhaps interaction between the 2 of us should remain in that lane.
02Pilot said:aircooled said:Of note: it's pretty clear that a good percentage of the Iranian population has no interest in the governments positions (see mass riots / protests that have been going on)
From the Modern Diplomacy piece I posted above:
What is new is that moderate voices elsewhere in the Middle East have emerged at a time of heightened emotions and rallying around the flag. In some cases, like Iran, Israel, rather than being the punching bag and boogeyman, has become a sword wielded against an unpopular and repressive regime.
Over the weekend as Hamas invaded Israel, Iranian soccer fans denounced the presence of a Palestinian flag at a match in Tehran’s Azadi Stadium between Persepolis and Gol Gohar.
“The Palestinian flag — shove it up your ass!” the fans chanted.
This is the only hope for the region. As long as it's Jews killing Muslims or Muslims killing Jews, there will only be more killing. Only when fellow Muslims and Jews tell their brothers that enough is enough and enforce it, will there be peace.
Edit to say: I think I've exceeded my self-imposed 5 responses in a discussion like this. So I'll sit back and read for a little while.
OK, this is both accurate... and weird (the end).
This was 9 YEARS AGO!:
Israel has shown incredible restraint. What do you think our response would be if Canada or Mexico was continuously lobbing mortars and rockets at us across the border? Let alone invading and kidnapping our citizens? Would we warn the civilian population to vacate before we invade? Who warns a country before a military action? Israel has spent decades trying to get Gaza to self govern and has tried to negotiate for as long as I can remember, so over 40 years.
What Israel wants to do is cripple Hamas to the point that another, hopefully more reasonable Palestinian authority will step up and govern Gaza. They want no part in occupying Gaza or running it.
Militarily that's not the right way though and will end up with a ton of casualties. If they were being completely cold about it they'd carpet bomb the entire area, then wipe up the rest, then leave.
Maybe this will fully wake up world governments to the danger that cryptocurrency poses, since the age of ransomware and the modern North Korean nuclear program hasn't quite done the job:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/12/us/hamas-funding-crypto-invs/index.html
I am honestly wondering if anyone can answer this question for me:
As noted, today is the day of protests. There are protest going on in support of the Palestinians. I don't find them, at this time, entirely unreasonable (the protest / demonstrations right after the attack where wildly inappropriate in my opinion) because of the great potential for civilian casualties (as noted, likely greatly increased in potential by the actions HAMAS to help create their martyrs). In these protests, there are commonly signs for "Free Palestine".
The question: What does "Free Palatine" mean? Free them to what? To where?
There is really no where else for them to go (unless they displace Israel). Clearly they can not live with the Jews (that has been tried). Egypt clearly does not want them. Jordan clearly does not want them. (note: most of this "do not want" is clearly related to the HAMAS type thinking, not the people in general)
Free them from occupation? Well, in Gaza, they are not occupied, they are entirely self-governed. Yes, in the West Bank, there is a mixture of Israeli governance and Palestinian self-governance, but as can be clearly seen in Gaza, self-governing means letting HAMAS pursue it's primary goal of killing Jews well above taking care and advancing the lives of Palestinians (which I honestly think is a primary issue here, along of course with the hardliner Israelis).
Free them from what? Free them to where? (and we clearly cannot change the past here, so....)
aircooled said:I am honestly wondering if anyone can answer this question for me:
As noted, today is the day of protests. There are protest going on in support of the Palestinians. I don't find them, at this time, entirely unreasonable (the protest / demonstrations right after the attack where wildly inappropriate in my opinion) because of the great potential for civilian casualties (as noted, likely greatly increased in potential by the actions HAMAS to help create their martyrs). In these protests, there are commonly signs for "Free Palestine".
The question: What does "Free Palatine" mean? Free them to what? To where?
There is really no where else for them to go (unless they displace Israel). Clearly they can not live with the Jews (that has been tried). Egypt clearly does not want them. Jordan clearly does not want them. (note: most of this "do not want" is clearly related to the HAMAS type thinking, not the people in general)
Free them from occupation? Well, in Gaza, they are not occupied, they are entirely self-governed. Yes, in the West Bank, there is a mixture of Israeli governance and Palestinian self-governance, but as can be clearly seen in Gaza, self-governing means letting HAMAS pursue it's primary goal of killing Jews well above taking care and advancing the lives of Palestinians (which I honestly think is a primary issue here, along of course with the hardliner Israelis).
Free them from what? Free them to where? (and we clearly cannot change the past here, so....)
I want to answer this, but it is so closely tied to political things here that it would be a massive flounder, like world record. So I will stick with : People are either ignorant or evil on this topic.
In reply to aircooled :
I think part of the driver behind the number and size of the "Free Palestine" protests are the fact that most people (at least in the western hemisphere) are totally oblivious to things that arent happening in their zip code. It just "Did you see current thing on Twittergram? My influencer of choice said support current thing, so I support current thing", without understanding the context or the rationale behind it.
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