Gaza - conflict, war, land, water rights, bad colonional legacies...

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, melkathi said:

But extremely scary is also what this means about anti-semitism. Netanyahu and his ilk managed to make it extremely hard to explain antisemitism: Jews kill babies? A Zionist conspiracy controls the world? How do you explain to people that is racism when they can point at the thousands of Palestinian children killed or at that Yale professor keeping a list of what companies didn't side with Israel, the watchdog groups demanding people get fired for being pro-Palestine (mind you, the Apple employee did sound like a Nazi)? Anti-Semites can rejoice: they seemingly get all their hate justified, and a lot of good Jewish people around the world will pay the price for a long time.

I definitely think the attempts to tie anti-Zionism and anti-semitism together are definitely going to fuel the latter as Israel's actions become more indefensible. But I have some hope that the efforts of anti-zionist Jews attempting to disentangle Zionism from Judaism is going to bear some fruit in people differentiating the state of Israel from Jews as a whole. Just anecdotally but I have seen a consistent push against anti-semitism by folks showing solidarity with Palestinians, with it being made clear the issue is settler-colonialism and not Judaism in what's wrong with Israel, and anti-semites like blue check dip****s or provocateurs not having much of a space in the actions. That's more than I can say about a lot of defenders of Israel, who do not seem to have a problem with some of the most repugnant ghouls making common cause with them.

I don't want to draw you back in against your will, so feel free to just see this as bouncing off a sound board.

[Gorth]

There is a kind of perverse irony in Israel stealing all the thunder, the attention (and ammunition), giving Russia a big helping hand. Not knowing any better, you would think Putin instigated this new conflict as part of some big, cunning plan... which of course it isn't, we're talking about a guy who screwed up a simple invasion despite an initial advantage on every metric that mattered at the time...

[BruceVC]

8 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Past 10,000 dead Palestinians today.

Interesting fact: 4104 of those are children, killed by humane precision western backed weapons per the Rules Based Order fired by the most moral army in the world. This amounts to almost exactly 40% of the casualty figure, and is ~the proportion of children in the Gaza strip vs the whole population. ie, it's exactly the proportion you'd expect statistically if Israel were firing off weapons blindly, or deliberately targeting the general population. Weird, eh?

31 Israeli children died out of 1400 to the indiscriminate/ deliberate terrorists of Hamas. That's ~2% of the 1400 Israeli deaths, the overall proportion of children in Israel is 28%. So the indiscriminate/ deliberate attacks managed to kill 1/12 the number of children you'd expect as a proportion for indiscriminate/ deliberate attacks. Weird eh? Israel has managed to kill 135x more children than Hamas did in absolute terms; and using the most generous measure (ie normalising for demographics and relative casualties between the two groups) more than 10x as many in relative terms. That's super duper weird, eh?

Can't wait for all the baffled looks from western politicians next time they burble on about someone they don't like committing war crimes and wonder why the rest of the world won't fall into line behind them.

Oh  we   not worried about "  Can't wait for all the baffled looks from western politicians next time they burble on about someone they don't like committing war crimes and wonder why the rest of the world won't fall into line behind them "

We know from the  Ukraine conflict  that  supporters of Russia will deny any obvious war crimes, killing of civilians and targeting of civilian  infrastructure. That ship has sailed a looooooong time ago 

 

[xzar_monty]

49 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Oh  we   not worried about "  Can't wait for all the baffled looks from western politicians next time they burble on about someone they don't like committing war crimes and wonder why the rest of the world won't fall into line behind them "

We know from the  Ukraine conflict  that  supporters of Russia will deny any obvious war crimes, killing of civilians and targeting of civilian  infrastructure. That ship has sailed a looooooong time ago

I wonder if you note that your response has almost nothing to do with the point made in the post you commented upon.

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, xzar_monty said:

I wonder if you note that your response has almost nothing to do with the point made in the post you commented upon.

No I dont know that, Western politicians are  not surprised by the lack of concern from certain countries or people not  falling behind them because we have seen this with the Ukraine conflict and how  certain countries won't condemn Russia

Selective outrage around war  crimes is here  to stay 

 

[xzar_monty]

16 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

No I dont know that, Western politicians are  not surprised by the lack of concern from certain countries or people not  falling behind them

Well but they are, that's the whole point. Or at least they appear to be surprised, and at any rate they are quite concerned. I wonder how you refuse to see this.

It's interesting that you're extremely critical about Russia (which is fine) and at the same time you appear completely blasé about the fact that Israel is currently murdering civilians, particularly children, much more brutally and effectively than Russia ever has in its war with Ukraine. But then, you were also completely blasé about how Saudi Arabia murdered Khashoggi. So there appear to be certain very strict limitations to whose lives and welfare you care about at all, which seems strange. And do correct me if I am wrong, because I obviously haven't read everything you've written.

Edited November 7, 2023 by xzar_monty

[BruceVC]

1 minute ago, xzar_monty said:

Well but they are, that's the whole point. Or at least they appear to be surprised, and at any rate they are quite concerned. I wonder how you refuse to see this.

It's interesting that you're extremely critical about Russia (which is fine) and at the same time you appear completely blasé about the fact that Israel is currently murdering civilians, particularly children, much more brutally and effectively than Russia ever has in its war with Ukraine. But then, you were also completely blasé about how Saudi Arabia murdered Khashoggi. So there appear to be certain very strict limitations to whose lives and welfare you care about at all, which seems strange. And do correct me if I am wrong, because I obviously haven't read everything you've written.

Yes but the "surprise " hasnt changed  the reality of the selective global outrage around war  crimes in any conflict. The same countries that have not condemned Russia still  dont condemn Russia 20 months later.   Im not worried about if Western politicians are baffled  by the lack of condemnation from Russia's allies. Its an expected  response so thats what I mean by "  that ship has sailed a long time  ago " if there is another conflict 

And I dont think its okay that Palestinian civilians are being killed, as I have said from  the beginning the Israeli response is going to be heavy  handed  

But what would be a proportional response to destroy Hamas  that embeds  itself in Gaza civilians and uses  hospitals,  schools  and mosques as military operating bases. What   should  the Israeli strategy be? I think  they should have used limited bombing and then used a massive  ground offensive with infantry to  clear the tunnels  and annihilate   Hamas. More  Israeli would  die but less civilians  would  also die 

But most military decisions from countries  in this type  of conflict won't sacrifice there infantry when they can  use bombs  and rockets  to weaken enemy positions. It doesn't make it fine what Israel is doing but thats  the reality of most  urban warfare like this. Remember how the Russians bombed Aleppo to the ground, same bad strategy 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[xzar_monty]

10 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

But what would be a proportional response to destroy Hamas  that embeds  itself in Gaza civilians and uses  hospitals,  schools  and mosques as military operating bases. What   should  the Israeli strategy be? I think  they should have used limited bombing and then used a massive  ground offensive with infantry to  clear the tunnels  and annihilate   Hamas. More  Israeli would  die but less civilians  would  also die

One major problem here, and one major difference compared to the Ukraine conflict, is that Israel has been pursuing an extremely bad policy for quite a long while already, and its very recent developments (say, past two years or so) have been downright shocking, from the point of view of things like democracy and human rights. I mean, Israel has been looking like an Apartheid country with extremely harsh and punitive attitudes towards certain parties close to it.

So, to answer your question: Israel's strategy should have been much better a long time ago, already.

I'm also somewhat confused by how Israeli intelligence managed to make such a blunder as to allow the attack to happen in the first place. I mean, clearly that is a major failure. As for the specifics of its response to the attack, I don't think there's any question that it's not necessary for Israel to deliberately target civilians and deliberately murder children.

[Gorth]

Part of the problem is people see groups like Hamas as the cause of the conflict, rather than a symptom of a much longer lasting conflict that has been going on for 6+ decades.

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, xzar_monty said:

One major problem here, and one major difference compared to the Ukraine conflict, is that Israel has been pursuing an extremely bad policy for quite a long while already, and its very recent developments (say, past two years or so) have been downright shocking, from the point of view of things like democracy and human rights. I mean, Israel has been looking like an Apartheid country with extremely harsh and punitive attitudes towards certain parties close to it.

So, to answer your question: Israel's strategy should have been much better a long time ago, already.

I'm also somewhat confused by how Israeli intelligence managed to make such a blunder as to allow the attack to happen in the first place. I mean, clearly that is a major failure. As for the specifics of its response to the attack, I don't think there's any question that it's not necessary for Israel to deliberately target civilians and deliberately murder children.

Yes  I agree the reality of this decades long conflict has not been handled well from  both sides and Netanyahu's right wing government has made things worse over the last  10 years. But groups like Hama  must also take blame, for example they dont recognize Israel  has  a right to exist so how do you negotiate  with someone who doesn't even recognize you have a right to exist?

I still think the 2  state solution is the best overall solution to sustainable  peace for both sides.  But that requires compromise and political will from leadership on both sides and thats lacking in different ways. In SA we achieved a peaceful end to Apartheid and reached our first  1994 Democratic  election because of compromise but if the ANC had said in the early 1990's "we dont believe white people have a right to exist " there would  have  been no peaceful end to the  brutal  and immoral Apartheid system and a civil war would have  occurred with those white  people and allies  who didnt emigrate, we would  have emigrated  to the  UK,  staying behind and making a doomed  but destructive last  stand.  Because there logic would be "  you see the Communist ANC wants to destroy us anyway so lets  fight to the  end  "  or something similar   

The ANC  would have eventually won but at what cost?  A war ravaged country with a massive loss of most institutional experience at how to run the economy and country because Apartheid had denied that to most black people  for the previous  45 years

So what I saying is the reason the  Israeli vs Palestinian conflict is still ongoing is because of  a  failure of leadership on both sides 

And then I realize its  a  complicated question which is "what would be a proportional response to destroy Hamas " but its very relevant because that is  main Israeli objective. So we need to think about that and what  should  Israel  be doing after the 7 October attack 

Edited November 7, 2023 by BruceVC
add

[HoonDing]

I don't condone wholesale slaughter, BUT

[xzar_monty]

28 minutes ago, Gorth said:

Part of the problem is people see groups like Hamas as the cause of the conflict, rather than a symptom of a much longer lasting conflict that has been going on for 6+ decades.

The Finnish president Urho Kekkonen said sometime in the 1960s that the cause of the conflict is the human race via the UN, meaning that the project was seriously flawed from the start "but now it's there and we have to learn to live with it". We haven't, as of yet.

[pmp10]

57 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

One major problem here, and one major difference compared to the Ukraine conflict, is that Israel has been pursuing an extremely bad policy for quite a long while already, and its very recent developments (say, past two years or so) have been downright shocking, from the point of view of things like democracy and human rights. I mean, Israel has been looking like an Apartheid country with extremely harsh and punitive attitudes towards certain parties close to it.

I'm not sure if the policies are 'bad' from the Israeli / US perspective.
One man's apartheid is another man's successful colonial project. 

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, xzar_monty said:

The Finnish president Urho Kekkonen said sometime in the 1960s that the cause of the conflict is the human race via the UN, meaning that the project was seriously flawed from the start "but now it's there and we have to learn to live with it". We haven't, as of yet.

Except they came  very  close to peace  during the era of Yitzhak Rabin but when he was assassinated in 1995  everything fell apart 

[Gorth]

28 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Except they came  very  close to peace  during the era of Yitzhak Rabin but when he was assassinated in 1995  everything fell apart 

Probably the closest Israel came to a real peace agreement (the Oslo Accords). Both Rabin and Arafat had come to the conclusion, that continuing the conflict would make nobody other than the respective populist factions on each side happy.

Conflict and fear is the bread and butter of populist leaders, they need an abundance of it in order to gain power. Creating it, if it isn't there and encouraging it at every opportunity. I do not doubt for a moment, that peace rearing it's ugly head led somebody to motivate a man with an UZI to kill Rabin "for the cause".

[BruceVC]

7 minutes ago, Gorth said:

Probably the closest Israel came to a real peace agreement (the Oslo Accords). Both Rabin and Arafat had come to the conclusion, that continuing the conflict would make nobody other than the respective populist factions on each side happy.

Conflict and fear is the bread and butter of populist leaders, they need an abundance of it in order to gain power. Creating it, if it isn't there and encouraging it at every opportunity. I do not doubt for a moment, that peace rearing it's ugly head led somebody to motivate a man with an UZI to kill Rabin "for the cause".

Yes and without repeating myself that was because of compromise and  effective  leadership on both sides that realized  peace is better than interminable war 

And he was assassinated by a Jewish right-wing extremist , very unusual  and tragic for that to happen within Israel. But most   people don't follow the stages  of the conflict and its hard  to believe how close the region came to an end of the conflict even though it  was opposed by people on both sides 

 

 

 

[Malcador]

11 hours ago, Gorth said:

There is a kind of perverse irony in Israel stealing all the thunder, the attention (and ammunition), giving Russia a big helping hand. Not knowing any better, you would think Putin instigated this new conflict as part of some big, cunning plan... which of course it isn't, we're talking about a guy who screwed up a simple invasion despite an initial advantage on every metric that mattered at the time...

Poor Zelensky had wanted to go to Israel to steal some of the spotlight but that got cancelled due to a "leak". 

[Zoraptor]

Considering who the leak was to it was pretty obvious the Israeli government wanted to say no, but did not want to actually say no.

8 hours ago, Gorth said:

Part of the problem is people see groups like Hamas as the cause of the conflict, rather than a symptom of a much longer lasting conflict that has been going on for 6+ decades.

Dunno how much of that is what people actually believe, versus what it's convenient to believe. Quite often you'll get a very detailed, if skewed, historical analysis out of such people if you challenge Hamas being the problem. The pro Israeli stance tends to be a mass of self contradictory positions (so is the pro Palestinian one, of course, though to a lesser extent since they lost) designed to make Israel simultaneously the perpetual victim forced into doing bad things yet also strong and powerful and making independent decisions for her own protection. The typical conversation goes something like:

M: well Israel took Gaza off Egypt after attacking her. That's where the trouble with Gaza specifically started

I: Egypt attacked us in 1967, and they don't want the land back

M: Egypt attacked you? They blew their own airforce up and invaded Sinai from Israel?

I: ...well, they were blockading Eilat! That's a casus belli! And were going to attack at some point! That makes it OK and super smart!

M: hmm, so a blockade is an act of war and retaliation for it fine?

I: Yes!

M: OK, so Hamas is justified in attacking Israel because of their blockade of Gaza?

I: No not like that!

I: ... uh, anti semite!

Hamas starting everything is particularly difficult to defend when Israel supported it in its infancy as a counter to the PLO/ Fatah precisely because it was radical and unsympathetic. Mostly though the idea is to force any criticism of Israel to come with a Hamas Bad attached; without the reciprocal Israel Bad whenever Hamas does something bad. That's a rhetorical/ propaganda framing device to make everything Israel does bad just a response to something Hamas did that was bad and thus All Hamas' Fault.

[Mamoulian War]

18 hours ago, Gorth said:

There is a kind of perverse irony in Israel stealing all the thunder, the attention (and ammunition), giving Russia a big helping hand. Not knowing any better, you would think Putin instigated this new conflict as part of some big, cunning plan... which of course it isn't, we're talking about a guy who screwed up a simple invasion despite an initial advantage on every metric that mattered at the time...

Well… There’s never enough stuff to not **** up, if you are getting to desperate and your only chance for “decisive” victory is Trump in the office

 

[uuuhhii]

2 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Well… There’s never enough stuff to not **** up, if you are getting to desperate and your only chance for “decisive” victory is Trump in the office

 

so some kind of peter III and frederick the great situation

[BruceVC]

9 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Considering who the leak was to it was pretty obvious the Israeli government wanted to say no, but did not want to actually say no.

Dunno how much of that is what people actually believe, versus what it's convenient to believe. Quite often you'll get a very detailed, if skewed, historical analysis out of such people if you challenge Hamas being the problem. The pro Israeli stance tends to be a mass of self contradictory positions (so is the pro Palestinian one, of course, though to a lesser extent since they lost) designed to make Israel simultaneously the perpetual victim forced into doing bad things yet also strong and powerful and making independent decisions for her own protection. The typical conversation goes something like:

 

What in your opinion is  the  pro-Palestinian position on peace or a solution to the conflict?  And who do you consider  to be the political group  that  represents the Palestinians 

But Im  interested  more in what  you think is the solution raised by whatever Palestinian group  represents the Palestinians officially in finding a sustainable solution to this conflict?

[melkathi]

The important news out of Gaza according to Google Discover:

https://m.jpost.com/judaism/article-772218

 

Just to get this discussion on track again.

You all have lost sight of what truly matters.

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, melkathi said:

The important news out of Gaza according to Google Discover:

https://m.jpost.com/judaism/article-772218

 

Just to get this discussion on track again.

You all have lost sight of what truly matters.

Why what in your opinion truly matters?  For me it is about  sustainable peace and thats  a 2 state solution 

[melkathi]

My priorities are:

1) People not getting killed right now

2) People not getting killed in the future.

 

So a fluff piece about making this seem like a liberation where Jews are finally allowed to pray again is offensive to my moral compass.

[BruceVC]

19 minutes ago, melkathi said:

My priorities are:

1) People not getting killed right now

2) People not getting killed in the future.Me

 

So a fluff piece about making this seem like a liberation where Jews are finally allowed to pray again is offensive to my moral compass.

Melkie it upsets  me when you so   serious, Im not use to it and its   depressing 

Can we rather talk about your ebook, teddy bears always make me happy