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

[HoonDing]

Gotta love Musk being an antisemite now. I'm sure he has nothing against Arabs.

[Zoraptor]

4 hours ago, Elerond said:

That 20% was already owned by jews that had bought it with backing of rich Zionist jews around the world.

So owned by jews that they'd have had to deport quarter of a million arabs from it at a ratio of 180:1 and representing ~1/3 of the population of arabs in Palestine. Jews didn't even have a majority population in that 20%.

One of the big issues was that the Ottomans sold land fraudulently to absentee 'landowners' to raise money- sometimes they even did it multiple times as well. The people living there tended to be a bit surprised when jewish landlords turned up to turf them out.

Your figures are for Haifa city, not Haifa district- even today Haifa district's population is ~5x that of the city itself and the rural areas proportion of arabs considerably higher. Though I definitely should have said Arab rather than Muslim, always tend to forget there were a lot of Christians around who got expelled alongside the muslims.

[Malcador]

https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-shift-israel-agrees-to-regularly-let-fuel-into-gaza-drawing-outrage-in-coalition/

They really need to give Gvir a rifle and send him in.

[Elerond]

12 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

So owned by jews that they'd have had to deport quarter of a million arabs from it at a ratio of 180:1 and representing ~1/3 of the population of arabs in Palestine. Jews didn't even have a majority population in that 20%.

One of the big issues was that the Ottomans sold land fraudulently to absentee 'landowners' to raise money- sometimes they even did it multiple times as well. The people living there tended to be a bit surprised when jewish landlords turned up to turf them out.

Your figures are for Haifa city, not Haifa district- even today Haifa district's population is ~5x that of the city itself and the rural areas proportion of arabs considerably higher. Though I definitely should have said Arab rather than Muslim, always tend to forget there were a lot of Christians around who got expelled alongside the muslims.

They didn't deport Arabs from the area that was proposed as Jewish state by British in 1936, as proposal was rejected and Arabs and Jews continued to move in the area.

Haifa city has now population of 282,832 and its metropolitan area has 983,500. so bit less than 4x more.

In 1922 before British established Haifa city as their main port of the area, population of the city was 24,600 and before WW1 started population was about 20,000. In 1936 population of Haifa city had grown to about 100,000 thanks to industry that British build in the city and during Israel independence war in 1947 population was grown to 145,140 (70,910 Arabs (41,000 Muslims and 29,910 Christians) and 74,230 Jews).  Current metropolitan area had less population by estimates, but there is no official number, but most of the residential buildings for that area have been build post 1948. 

Time magazine wrote on their 3 May 1948 publication that reason why Arab population of Haifa city fled/left by their own accord when British withdraw their forces was "The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by orders of Arab leaders, left the Arab quarter of Haifa a ghost city. ... By withdrawing Arab workers their leaders hoped to paralyze Haifa.". Of course it is The Times and they have very British perspective of things, but regardless in end of 1948 only 5000-6000 Arbs were left in the city so bit less than 10% of Arab population in beginning of 1947.

So it wasn't really expelling of Arab population, but of course they did have good reason to fear for their lives, as Jewish terrorist Irgun constantly targeted Arabs with their bombings and other attacks and Jewish Haganah militia committed multiple massacres in their retaliation attacks against Arabs with blessings of Jewish leadership.

Edited November 18, 2023 by Elerond

[Zoraptor]

Yep those deportations were planned rather than real, but the 'fair' (per Bruce) Peel Commission plan did call for that 180x greater deportation (or ~60x, if you take relative population into account). The comparison was to show it was hardly 'fair', in any objective sense, but actually strongly favoured the Jewish side.

Otherwise, you don't have to be rounded up at gunpoint and stuck in a cattle car for it to be forced expulsion, you just have to be coerced and threat of death/ murder is 100% coercion. Israel regards threats of violence against Jews causing them to leave countries as being forced expulsions, for example, they just don't reciprocate the definition when it comes to Palestinians.

On different matters, Newsweek did a fact check on claims that Israel built the bunker/ bsaement under al Shifa and it can back as unequivocally true.

4 hours ago, Malcador said:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-shift-israel-agrees-to-regularly-let-fuel-into-gaza-drawing-outrage-in-coalition/

They really need to give Gvir a rifle and send him in.

Give him a rifle and he'd just shoot up a mosque like his idol Baruch Goldstein. Or not, Ben-Gvir has the most massive chickenhawk energy and won't want what Baruch got immediately after.

(Real talk for anyone not aware, Ben-Gvir is infamous for not being allowed into the IDF due to his radicalism. And yeah, he quite literally had a Baruch Goldstein portrait in pride of place in his house...)

[HoonDing]

Gotta admit Erdie has his moments.

[BruceVC]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/15/poll-us-israel-support-hamas-war#:~:text=Four per cent of respondents,ceasefire and try to negotiate”.

Interesting polling data about how US public sentiment is turning against Israel and its obviously because of the heavy handed Israeli response and  high numbers of civilian deaths. To quote 

" US public support for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza is eroding and most Americans think Israel should call a ceasefire to a conflict that has ballooned into a humanitarian crisis, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Some 32% of respondents in the two-day opinion poll, which closed on Tuesday, said “the US should support Israel” when asked what role the United States should take in the fighting. That was down from 41% who said the US should back Israel in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted on 12-13 October.

The share saying “the US should be a neutral mediator” rose to 39% in the new poll from 27% a month earlier. Four per cent of respondents in the poll said the US should support Palestinians and 15% said the US should not be involved at all, both similar readings to a month ago.

Some 68% of respondents in the Reuters/Ipsos poll said they agreed with a statement that “Israel should call a ceasefire and try to negotiate”.

 

Edited November 20, 2023 by BruceVC

[xzar_monty]

19 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Some 68% of respondents in the Reuters/Ipsos poll said they agreed with a statement that “Israel should call a ceasefire and try to negotiate”.

Slightly tangential, but I was immediately reminded of this:

There is a school of thought according to which the US ceased its campaign in Vietnam because it was hugely unpopular and caused such uproar among the public.

There is another school of thought according to which the above had absolutely nothing to do with it and the US ceased its campaign because it became too expensive to maintain.

[Gorth]

2 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Slightly tangential, but I was immediately reminded of this:

There is a school of thought according to which the US ceased its campaign in Vietnam because it was hugely unpopular and caused such uproar among the public.

There is another school of thought according to which the above had absolutely nothing to do with it and the US ceased its campaign because it became too expensive to maintain.

What a happy coincidence one can be used as cover for the other...

[BruceVC]

2 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Slightly tangential, but I was immediately reminded of this:

There is a school of thought according to which the US ceased its campaign in Vietnam because it was hugely unpopular and caused such uproar among the public.

There is another school of thought according to which the above had absolutely nothing to do with it and the US ceased its campaign because it became too expensive to maintain.

Public sentiment in any Democracy can definitely sway a government's geopolitical   decisions 

And the US is no different in that regard if not more influenced and  it depends on how conflicts are perceived 

Unfortunately the plethora  of fake,biased and selective news influences peoples political views  but there is still legitimate  issues citizens may have about a conflict 

 

 

 

[xzar_monty]

9 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Public sentiment in any Democracy can definitely sway a government's geopolitical   decisions

I don't think there's any doubt about this. However, whether "public sentiment" had anything whatsoever to do with pulling out of Vietnam is a completely different question.

[BruceVC]

https://time.com/6334832/peace-plan-israel-gaza/

I found this realistic peace plan from an Israeli Jew that Time has posted

Everyone who is looking for ideas for sustainable peace should read it for suggestions of how it could work. You will see he includes several key points at the end that include contentious issues like Jerusalem

@Gorth @xzar_monty  and @Zoraptor your feedback would be appreciated 

[Zoraptor]

Meh, that's not a peace plan. That's the geopolitical equivalent of Neil from the Young Ones or 'Give Quiche a Chance' Rimmer from Red Dwarf ie literally nothing apart from a set of principles with no ideas about how to implement them. The principles are all well and good, but the question has always been how, and the devil always in the details*. On the positive side it's pretty even handed comparing Hamas and Netanyahu, though the canker there is a lot larger and more long running than just Bibi. Every Likud PM has viewed Hamas as an 'ally' right back to Shamir helping to establish them in the first place as a radical (religious) counter to the PLO.

*eg Palestine apparently has to be demilitarised, Israel, doesn't... so one is an actual country, the other isn't. Who gets the water? What happens to the Palestinian refugees? Golan Heights? Jerusalem? Settlements? What's the enforcement mechanism(s)? How do you stop another Baruch Goldstein/ Yigal Amir (or Ariel Sharon) from derailing everything? etc etc.

[Zoraptor]

Looks like a (temporary) ceasefire with (partial) hostage release is incoming after the Israeli cabinet approved it.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Zoraptor

[Gorth]

17 hours ago, BruceVC said:

https://time.com/6334832/peace-plan-israel-gaza/

I found this realistic peace plan from an Israeli Jew that Time has posted

Everyone who is looking for ideas for sustainable peace should read it for suggestions of how it could work. You will see he includes several key points at the end that include contentious issues like Jerusalem

@Gorth @xzar_monty  and @Zoraptor your feedback would be appreciated 

It starts out with the biggest obstacle, almost like a disclaimer. One side has a leader that is a crook on the run from the law and has to cling to the seat at all cost (and nothing helps clinging to seat like a war) to avoid prosecution and the other side doesn't have a centralized leadership you can negotiate with

[BruceVC]

11 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Meh, that's not a peace plan. That's the geopolitical equivalent of Neil from the Young Ones or 'Give Quiche a Chance' Rimmer from Red Dwarf ie literally nothing apart from a set of principles with no ideas about how to implement them. The principles are all well and good, but the question has always been how, and the devil always in the details*. On the positive side it's pretty even handed comparing Hamas and Netanyahu, though the canker there is a lot larger and more long running than just Bibi. Every Likud PM has viewed Hamas as an 'ally' right back to Shamir helping to establish them in the first place as a radical (religious) counter to the PLO.

*eg Palestine apparently has to be demilitarised, Israel, doesn't... so one is an actual country, the other isn't. Who gets the water? What happens to the Palestinian refugees? Golan Heights? Jerusalem? Settlements? What's the enforcement mechanism(s)? How do you stop another Baruch Goldstein/ Yigal Amir (or Ariel Sharon) from derailing everything? etc etc.

Well  he mentions Jerusalem  specifically and says the  Palestinian state would be based on 1967 borders which also means  any illegal  Israeli settlement in this region would have to be  removed. It's a viable 2 state solution which is what many people are calling for as the best solution for sustainable peace 

 

But the Jerusalem solution is " Jerusalem is dear to both peoples and to the three Abrahamic religions. Acting on their behalf, Israel and Palestine will jointly administer the Holy Basin as a condominium (shared sovereignty). Outside the Old City, Israel will have its capital and sovereignty in the Jewish neighborhoods, Palestine in the Palestinian neighborhoods "  

Its better  than any peace plan I have heard from any Palestinian or Israeli  group, have leadership from either side provided any serious peace plan in the last 15 years?

 

[Zoraptor]

Based on the 1967 borders is all well and good as a hand wave. So is Jerusalem having shared sovereignty. Easy to write, but the practicalities...

..are that Israel is not going to be able to remove the Settlements en masse. If nothing else where are the ~800k people who live there going to live? Are Settlers going to be fine with Palestinians moving into their old homes? It'd be OK for those who are non political and were basically paid to move there as policy, but the Itamar Ben-Gvir type Settlers  will neither move, nor allow their homes to be taken over by Arabs. They'd quite literally die before doing so- but would far, far prefer to have others die before doing so. It's vanishingly unlikely that Israel will be willing to fight a civil war to remove Settlements, and that is what would be required. The Settlements have also quite deliberately been placed to scupper peace and to divide the West Bank into handy little Bantustans. The alternative is a Kushneresque 'just give the Palestinians the Negev Desert as a swap, it'd be contiguous!' which is and was best summed up by lol and laughing at Jared for being a partisan muppet.

The same is even more true for Jerusalem. Israel has spent nearly 60 years trying to drive Arabs out of its east, and build Settlements specifically to break up contiguousness of/ contain Arab areas as deliberate policy and in the knowledge that it would be too hard to reverse even if they wanted to.

The International Community could, of course, theoretically force Israel to accept it. Which is even more hand wavey considering Joe Biden can't even bring himself to condemn 5500 children being killed in 6 weeks because it's Israel doing it. The US will always veto anything with teeth, Scholtz is a quivering jelly so the EU won't do anything, Karim Khan won't take a leak without asking Rishi Sunak first so the ICC is out so there's zero actual leverage on Israel to do anything other than the status quo knowing that the Rules Based Order will have their back. But that's what any peace plan requires more than anything, actual leverage on Israel. If you don't have a plan that addresses the how everything else is window dressing, pie in the sky, hopium, whatever.

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, Zoraptor said:

Scholtz is a quivering jelly

As much as this may be offensive to some, I think it's interesting how we continue to witness the legacy of WWII in Germany's (certain kind of) staggering infirmity and Israel's unabashed brashness, neither of which are helpful at all. Now, I am not for a moment suggesting that this is all there is to it, but this is there, too, among other things.

There's a similar historical tangent to Ukraine: back when the USSR collapsed, we were astonished at how bloodless everything was. But it wasn't. We were simply too close in time to realize that the collapsing hadn't ended yet, and its aftershocks hadn't even begun.

[BruceVC]

2 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Based on the 1967 borders is all well and good as a hand wave. So is Jerusalem having shared sovereignty. Easy to write, but the practicalities...

..are that Israel is not going to be able to remove the Settlements en masse. If nothing else where are the ~800k people who live there going to live? Are Settlers going to be fine with Palestinians moving into their old homes? It'd be OK for those who are non political and were basically paid to move there as policy, but the Itamar Ben-Gvir type Settlers  will neither move, nor allow their homes to be taken over by Arabs. They'd quite literally die before doing so- but would far, far prefer to have others die before doing so. It's vanishingly unlikely that Israel will be willing to fight a civil war to remove Settlements, and that is what would be required. The Settlements have also quite deliberately been placed to scupper peace and to divide the West Bank into handy little Bantustans. The alternative is a Kushneresque 'just give the Palestinians the Negev Desert as a swap, it'd be contiguous!' which is and was best summed up by lol and laughing at Jared for being a partisan muppet.

The same is even more true for Jerusalem. Israel has spent nearly 60 years trying to drive Arabs out of its east, and build Settlements specifically to break up contiguousness of/ contain Arab areas as deliberate policy and in the knowledge that it would be too hard to reverse even if they wanted to.

The International Community could, of course, theoretically force Israel to accept it. Which is even more hand wavey considering Joe Biden can't even bring himself to condemn 5500 children being killed in 6 weeks because it's Israel doing it. The US will always veto anything with teeth, Scholtz is a quivering jelly so the EU won't do anything, Karim Khan won't take a leak without asking Rishi Sunak first so the ICC is out so there's zero actual leverage on Israel to do anything other than the status quo knowing that the Rules Based Order will have their back. But that's what any peace plan requires more than anything, actual leverage on Israel. If you don't have a plan that addresses the how everything else is window dressing, pie in the sky, hopium, whatever.

Sure but the peace  plan also requires the Palestinian leadership, whoever they end up  being, and the likes of Iran  recognizing Israel  has  a right to exist. Jews arent going anywhere 

So we  far from seeing peace in the region, lots of political will needed from  both sides

[HoonDing]

1967 borders? The biblicals wanna go back to King David's supposed empire

[Zoraptor]

7 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Sure but the peace  plan also requires the Palestinian leadership, whoever they end up  being, and the likes of Iran  recognizing Israel  has  a right to exist.

I could have doubled the length of my post by adding in all the issues Palestinians and pals would have with it, sure. Not really necessary to do so since the problems with the Israeli side are more than enough to show why aspirational 'plans' can't work on their own.

[BruceVC]

11 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

I could have doubled the length of my post by adding in all the issues Palestinians and pals would have with it, sure. Not really necessary to do so since the problems with the Israeli side are more than enough to show why aspirational 'plans' can't work on their own.

What do  you think  is the best solution for sustainable peace between  the Palestinians  and Israel? Lets say you were   the chief negotiator and you  had to come up realistic points that both sides  would need to compromise on

I know its a tough  question but thats  why   I have immense sympathy for the dozens of people who have tried to find or propose  various peace  plans for decades and yet  both sides have dismissed  these proposals for different reasons 

 

[Zoraptor]

No point answering. A fair (/best) resolution will require enforcement on Israel- especially with its current government- and as above there's no realistic way to get that enforcement.

[BruceVC]

My favorite comedian of all  time is Sacha Cohen,  here he is with his gay character Bruno in the ME and  trying to find  a solution to the Palestinian vs Israeli conflict. Watch from the beginning  

 

 

[Gfted1]

On 11/23/2023 at 1:03 AM, BruceVC said:

What do  you think  is the best solution for sustainable peace between  the Palestinians  and Israel? Lets say you were   the chief negotiator and you  had to come up realistic points that both sides  would need to compromise on

The immediate and complete disarmament of Israel would be a good start.