I would argue there are almost always "trouble makers" on the margins that point out things most people don't want to hear when it comes to Islamic terror. Sometimes they're not super helpful, like in the aftermath of Charlie Hebdo, but other times they're really on to something, like when Ron Paul observed the existence of "blow back" f…
I would argue there are almost always "trouble makers" on the margins that point out things most people don't want to hear when it comes to Islamic terror. Sometimes they're not super helpful, like in the aftermath of Charlie Hebdo, but other times they're really on to something, like when Ron Paul observed the existence of "blow back" from reckless US foreign policy in the aftermath of 9/11, or when Norman Finkelstein and other dissident voices gave their thoughts on the recent attacks in Israel. Offering an explanation as to why these things happen is too often conflated with blaming the innocent (not to say that's what you're doing) and it sure as hell isn't the same as offering justification.
Acknowledging the criminal lack of regard for human life on the part of the Israeli leaders, or the US, or any country for that matter is critical at this moment in history. Although with that being said, I fear it's reasonable to conclude the predators at the top will continue doing what they're doing, and will not stop to give a single fuck about the destruction their actions have wrought. The unhinged, tin-foil-hat rant has now concluded.
"If we honor John Brown’s armed resistance to slavery; if we honor the Jews who revolted in the Warsaw Ghetto—then moral consistency commands that we honor the heroic resistance in Gaza. I, for one, will never begrudge—on the contrary, it warms every fiber of my soul—the scenes of Gaza’s smiling children as their arrogant Jewish supremacist oppressors have, finally, been humbled. "
Yeah, that Norm Finkelstein. Really on to something. Just casually comparing a terrorist attack to Jewish rebellion in Warsaw.
The Warsaw Ghetto fighters fought soldiers. They did not fire upon dancing teenagers. There is no better example of direct self-defense against immediate threat than the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. They were heroes. Period.
And if the occasional Warsaw Ghetto Fighter committed some horrific and unnecessary act of violence against a civilian, I’d happily condemn that specific act.
There is NO GENUINE COMPARISON to be made with civilian directed terrorism like what was carried out by Hamas last week.
Even if we were to accept the premise of Hamas's defenders and say that Israel is *literally* Nazi Germany, that still wouldn't justify the deeds of 10/7. Suppose a group of Jews had broken out of Dachau in 1942 and slaughtered a village full of defenseless Germans who weren't even part of the Nazi regime: for all the Nazis' cruelty, no decent human being could endorse such a wanton act of retaliation. Literally nothing can excuse what Hamas did to those civilians, and that's why Israel's punishment is going to be swift, severe, and decisive.
This is true, but we also would readily accept that the Nazi regime bore some substantial degree of responsibility for that massacre, just as it in our reality bore and continues to bear a substantial responsibility for the expulsion of the German communities of Eastern Europe. Those expulsions were appalling and unjust-- if not for Allied hypocrisy, they would have easily been recognized as acts of genocide-- but that's kind of what happens when you behave monstrously toward people.
Sounds like you got really caught up in the premise of Israel as actually being comparable in any way to Nazi Germany, a preposterous notion that I was pretending to be true simply because the kind of nonsense that ignorant or mendacious people tell themselves.
It was an analogy as far as the point he was making. It failed beyond that. No analogy is perfect, most are only good enough to make the point. The whiff of bad faith, as always, is coming from you.
I was just calling you on your diversionary tactics, but okay: if we "unpack" what you're saying, it is that, if people behave badly enough, *any* kind of retaliation is justified. Got it. I don't agree with that, but you're certainly not alone, as the many pro-Hamas rallies throughout the West amply illustrate.
Yes, you can totally tell that I think that something is justified, by my use of the word "unjust" to refer to it. Very curious piece of linguistic interpretation, I would call that (paraphrasing Douglas Adams here). I would also call it a lie.
Yes, we also celebrate the bold and utterly vicious Comanches for their violent resistance against white settlers. They murdered babies and scalped and gang raped women. Violent oppression and conquest necessitates a violent response, not because it is morally right, as that is a secondary factor, but because it is only natural to human beings.
Maybe in 150 years or so, kids will have gone from playing cowboys and Indians to IDF and Hamas. The span of time has a way of sanitizing the horrors of the present.
Comanches, the most fearsome horse warriors in all of human history, were so friggin cool and I'll die on that hill.
Read Empire of the Summer Moon and get back to me. We as a nation totally celebrate the Comanches, their last chief was held in high regard in American media at the time and was buried with honors.
I kind of doubt the "most fearsome horse warriors in all history" were the ones that Americans happened to most recently fight. "All history" is a big place, even for something as recent as horse warriors (only a couple thousand years old).
This is the type of thing that actually does reek of Amero-centrism.
I mean it's sorta an armchair historian, action-movie-brain take, and it's certainly debatable, but in terms of what they were able to accomplish given the balance of power at the time (a few thousand mounted irregulars vs. the US) it's wildly impressive. Sure, the Mongols woulda probably fucked up the Comanches in an open engagement, but the horsemanship ability from individual to individual was staggering.
So only historical groups that have achieved gains through peaceful means deserve admiration?
The Comanches are forever embedded into the mythos of the American frontier because of their tenacity. You can't allow yourself, even a little bit, to admire a group of people, comprised only of a few thousand individuals, who were able to slow, and indeed push back, westward expansion into the American frontier for decades? That is an incredible achievement and is comparable to nothing else in all of human history.
That's not a strawman! I asked a clarifying question yo, I would like for you to expand upon your point because I had thought, perhaps naively, that you would elucidate and expand my worldview in some small way.
"Hey let's blockade this incredibly dense urban environment for decades, deprive the inhabitants of enough food to sustain good health (i.e. the "starvation diet" https://tinyurl.com/3t2732up), blow them up constantly, and have our snipers kneecap them when they try to peacefully protest (https://tinyurl.com/248xn5mr)."
"Oh and I have another idea! Let's deprive our citizens of the natural right to armed self-defense, and then have the military force that we've been touting as elite and unfuckwitable for decades completely abandon them when they are needed most, so they are indiscriminately slaughtered in their homes by a bunch of crazed militants."
The people at the top are fucking ghouls and to think otherwise is simply wrong. Bears almost no relation to reality my butt yo.
Just as a matter of using my eyes, since I am not an expert on the region, I can see that people aren't starving in Gaza. The situation there is being exaggerated to justify the terrorists' actions and their world view. I wouldn't want to live there, but I've seen worse. The terrorists all looked well-fed, well-dressed and drove late model trucks. My husband and I both have advanced degrees and both work, in the US, and we can't afford nice trucks like that. Hell, I can't afford a paraglider. So, I'm not buying it.
Yeah, frankly I’m having a hard time squaring what I’ve read and heard about the distribution of resources through the blockade on Gaza with the rather… husky gentleman I saw in the invasion footy. What’s your take on that? Do you think the reports of calculated caloric allowances are fabricated or over blown? Is it possible the higher ups and the members of the political/militant class hoard resources and whatnot?
She's not a journalist, but she does collect and translate social media from Gaza, and some of it is pretty shocking. Yes, there is tremendous inequality there. Hamas steals a lot of money from humanitarian efforts (as does the PA)
"and have our snipers kneecap them when they try to peacefully protest"
Yes. Shooting at peaceful protesters is abhorrent. But, you know. From the article:
"during most protests dozens have approached the fence attempting to damage it, burning tires, throwing stones and Molotov cocktails towards Israeli forces and flying incendiary kites and balloons into Israeli territory; the latter resulted in extensive damage to agricultural land and nature reserves inside Israel and risked the lives of Israeli civilians. Some incidents of shooting and throwing of explosive devices have also been reported."
And:
"There are no indications that the Hamas authorities have taken any measure to ensure accountability for the failure to provide adequate protection and the possible instrumentalization of children during the GMR."
Even when the Palestinians do the right thing and have a chance to unambiguously paint Israel as wrong Hamas finds a way to punch themselves in the head.
They're a bunch of fucking monsters that rather have their people martyred so they can wave a bloody shirt in the face of Israel and the rest of the world. I saw a vid yesterday of a Palestinian father trying to goad his little boy into shot by IDF soldiers, he just toddled up to them and one of the soldiers took his hand briefly as if to shake it. I got no love for Hamas.
But yes, you make several fair points. I'm not sure how much the raising of Gaza's border with Egypt matters though. I mean, yes, they are partly culpable for the wretched conditions in Gaza as well.
The fact that Hamas consistently bungles shit and is terrible could very well be part of the reason why they were aided and abetted by the US and Israeli gov'ts...
"The dog I kick every day and refuse to feed just bit me!"
Who said that?
"This goes all the way back to the 1970s, when the Israeli gov't started funding radical Islamist groups who eventually coalesced into what is now Hamas."
So me having made those points about the inception and rise to power of Hamas means that nothing else I've said or believe about them can be construed as critical?
I'm sorry, but I'm a little pissed off now by how utterly ridiculous your read of me is, how fucking dare you? Where do you get off, making such uncharitable assessments of people? I genuinely try my best to not do so, considering the clumsy nature of text-based interactions and given that I'm a bit of a Sally Sensitive, but I'm getting dangerously close to concluding that you are an insufferable prick.
The dog thing was said mostly jest, as I know Palestinians are indeed human and therefore subject to moral judgements.
Given the allowance provided to Israel because of past violence against Jews, as a persecuted Jew (denied tenure at DePaul for his criticisms of Israel) and a descendant of Holocaust survivors, he ought to be given carte blanche and celebrated.
Regarding the Gaza border with Egypt, that's more impregnable than the one with Israel, so that matters hugely. Like Jordan, Egypt does NOT want the Palestinians. Way back when, in a much earlier chapter of this 75-year conflict, the Arab nations refused to take in the Palestinians b/c they saw them as a wedge against Israel. They were happy for the Palestinians to remain as refugees while they stoked their hatred. Over the course of time, though, the Egyptians and other Arab nations tired of their war against Israel; but by then, the anti-Israel forces having morphed into a new creature under Iranian tutelage, they wanted nothing to do with the monster they'd helped create.
Egypt should not accept any Palestinian refugees. They are the responsibility of Israel, under international law.
The Israelis have been very clear over the last 50 years that if a Palestinian leaves their home/land that it belongs to Israel.
No country will accept Palestinians because they will be forced to absorb them into their population and be a de facto participant in ethnic cleansing, as Israel has done nothing but create more refugees for its neighbors (Jordan, Lebanon).
Wow, those Jews are terrible at ethnic cleansing. Since the Palestinians came under the genocidal Zionist state, their numbers have increased dramatically. Look it up. And btw, "the responsibility of Israel"? How can that be? Israel isn't supposed to exist, right?
`And btw, "the responsibility of Israel"? How can that be? Israel isn't supposed to exist, right?'
As internationally recognized occupiers they are responsible and have used that status to justify their actions in the past.
I'm not sure that I follow the latter point. The state exists now so it's responsible now. Hopefully in the future it will not be an ethno-religous state.
Sorta reminds me of how the Bashar al-Assad’s dad popularized suicide bombing to use against the Israelis in Lebanon and it totally bit him in the ass. Seeding radicalism causes more damage than one would have originally thought. MANY SUCH CASES.
Palestinians chose to be a threat. Not all of them, maybe not even most, but enough so that they were a genuine security threat that necessitated restrictions. And refused peace offers, some not unreasonable. Israel did not enact these measures just to be cruel.
I'm not sure if this significantly addresses the points I've made.
But yes, some Palestinians have established themselves as legitimate threats to the Israeli populace. Those same Palestinians that were aided by the Israeli and US government for decades.
"Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy." - Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in March 2019
"Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation." - Israeli Historian Avner Cohen
There's also a 2009 piece from the WSJ entitled "How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas." It's paywalled, but if you have a subscription, it's prolly worth a read.
This goes all the way back to the 1970s, when the Israeli gov't started funding radical Islamist groups who eventually coalesced into what is now Hamas. So I suppose this warrants a question. Would Palestinians have chosen to be a threat had they not been goaded into this position over the course of almost 50 years?
Probably never. I suppose it just comes down to the right of conquest. And the thing about conquest is that you have to fully commit to disintegrating the society of the conquered.
Not tin-foiles at all. Plenty of American and Israeli Jewish scholars, reporters, a d the like have documented the crimes against the Palestinians, and the US supports it. In fact, King Bibi and his allies, and the U.S., wanted Hamas to take the reigns from the PLO, in other words, they wanted a religious fundamentalist group that would be easily provoked to attack every time Israel expanded beyond the Oslo Accords - nothing better to detract your crimes than to point to the enemy retaliating and day, "Look, they're attacking us!"
Hamas and the PLO have made it quite clear from the beginning of those groups' existence their goal is to wipe out Israel and build an Arab Muslim state of Palestine on Israel's corpse. The "crimes against the Palestinians" are the necessary evil intended to prevent the kinds of murderous crimes we all witnessed last weekend.
The same PLO that signed up to and has, broadly stuck the Oslo Accords that Israel abandoned in favour of increasing annexation? why do people say this absolutely fabricated nonsense?
Governments are usually understood to be the people who control the movement into an out of a territory, its trade, its energy, its food supply and its ability to make peace or make war. In that context, who governs Gaza and the West Bank? is it the PA & Hammas or is it Telaviv?
My understanding of the situation is that the death-cult Gaza government that routinely puts its own people in extreme danger was backed by foreign interest to sow instability and civil strife in the area. Couple that with a blockade that’s lasted over a decade and a half, and I would suppose that’d make it hard to take care of yourself.
The old feminist line is that "men are dogs" but I always found that strange. "Men are loyal, caring, tireless, joyful creatures with an occasional tendency to hump inanimate objects" doesn't strike me as being that bad of an insult.
I would argue there are almost always "trouble makers" on the margins that point out things most people don't want to hear when it comes to Islamic terror. Sometimes they're not super helpful, like in the aftermath of Charlie Hebdo, but other times they're really on to something, like when Ron Paul observed the existence of "blow back" from reckless US foreign policy in the aftermath of 9/11, or when Norman Finkelstein and other dissident voices gave their thoughts on the recent attacks in Israel. Offering an explanation as to why these things happen is too often conflated with blaming the innocent (not to say that's what you're doing) and it sure as hell isn't the same as offering justification.
Acknowledging the criminal lack of regard for human life on the part of the Israeli leaders, or the US, or any country for that matter is critical at this moment in history. Although with that being said, I fear it's reasonable to conclude the predators at the top will continue doing what they're doing, and will not stop to give a single fuck about the destruction their actions have wrought. The unhinged, tin-foil-hat rant has now concluded.
"If we honor John Brown’s armed resistance to slavery; if we honor the Jews who revolted in the Warsaw Ghetto—then moral consistency commands that we honor the heroic resistance in Gaza. I, for one, will never begrudge—on the contrary, it warms every fiber of my soul—the scenes of Gaza’s smiling children as their arrogant Jewish supremacist oppressors have, finally, been humbled. "
Yeah, that Norm Finkelstein. Really on to something. Just casually comparing a terrorist attack to Jewish rebellion in Warsaw.
The Warsaw Ghetto fighters fought soldiers. They did not fire upon dancing teenagers. There is no better example of direct self-defense against immediate threat than the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. They were heroes. Period.
And if the occasional Warsaw Ghetto Fighter committed some horrific and unnecessary act of violence against a civilian, I’d happily condemn that specific act.
There is NO GENUINE COMPARISON to be made with civilian directed terrorism like what was carried out by Hamas last week.
Even if we were to accept the premise of Hamas's defenders and say that Israel is *literally* Nazi Germany, that still wouldn't justify the deeds of 10/7. Suppose a group of Jews had broken out of Dachau in 1942 and slaughtered a village full of defenseless Germans who weren't even part of the Nazi regime: for all the Nazis' cruelty, no decent human being could endorse such a wanton act of retaliation. Literally nothing can excuse what Hamas did to those civilians, and that's why Israel's punishment is going to be swift, severe, and decisive.
This is true, but we also would readily accept that the Nazi regime bore some substantial degree of responsibility for that massacre, just as it in our reality bore and continues to bear a substantial responsibility for the expulsion of the German communities of Eastern Europe. Those expulsions were appalling and unjust-- if not for Allied hypocrisy, they would have easily been recognized as acts of genocide-- but that's kind of what happens when you behave monstrously toward people.
Sounds like you got really caught up in the premise of Israel as actually being comparable in any way to Nazi Germany, a preposterous notion that I was pretending to be true simply because the kind of nonsense that ignorant or mendacious people tell themselves.
Hmm. You made an analogy, and I unpacked it and showed that it failed. Now you're pretending to be mad at your own analogy?
I'm getting the distinct whiff of bad faith here.
It was an analogy as far as the point he was making. It failed beyond that. No analogy is perfect, most are only good enough to make the point. The whiff of bad faith, as always, is coming from you.
I was just calling you on your diversionary tactics, but okay: if we "unpack" what you're saying, it is that, if people behave badly enough, *any* kind of retaliation is justified. Got it. I don't agree with that, but you're certainly not alone, as the many pro-Hamas rallies throughout the West amply illustrate.
Yes, you can totally tell that I think that something is justified, by my use of the word "unjust" to refer to it. Very curious piece of linguistic interpretation, I would call that (paraphrasing Douglas Adams here). I would also call it a lie.
Yes, we also celebrate the bold and utterly vicious Comanches for their violent resistance against white settlers. They murdered babies and scalped and gang raped women. Violent oppression and conquest necessitates a violent response, not because it is morally right, as that is a secondary factor, but because it is only natural to human beings.
Maybe in 150 years or so, kids will have gone from playing cowboys and Indians to IDF and Hamas. The span of time has a way of sanitizing the horrors of the present.
>Yes, we also celebrate the bold and utterly vicious Comanches for their violent resistance against white settlers.
I think most sane people really don't.
Comanches, the most fearsome horse warriors in all of human history, were so friggin cool and I'll die on that hill.
Read Empire of the Summer Moon and get back to me. We as a nation totally celebrate the Comanches, their last chief was held in high regard in American media at the time and was buried with honors.
I kind of doubt the "most fearsome horse warriors in all history" were the ones that Americans happened to most recently fight. "All history" is a big place, even for something as recent as horse warriors (only a couple thousand years old).
This is the type of thing that actually does reek of Amero-centrism.
I mean it's sorta an armchair historian, action-movie-brain take, and it's certainly debatable, but in terms of what they were able to accomplish given the balance of power at the time (a few thousand mounted irregulars vs. the US) it's wildly impressive. Sure, the Mongols woulda probably fucked up the Comanches in an open engagement, but the horsemanship ability from individual to individual was staggering.
I really don't, because it's not like the Comanches got their land through peaceful negotiation. They were just the current violent settlers.
So only historical groups that have achieved gains through peaceful means deserve admiration?
The Comanches are forever embedded into the mythos of the American frontier because of their tenacity. You can't allow yourself, even a little bit, to admire a group of people, comprised only of a few thousand individuals, who were able to slow, and indeed push back, westward expansion into the American frontier for decades? That is an incredible achievement and is comparable to nothing else in all of human history.
"So only historical groups that have achieved gains through peaceful means deserve admiration?"
Nope.
Find someone else to argue with.
I see it less as a matter of argumentation and more about an exchange of ideas, but I get how this has sorta gone down the rabbit hole a little bit.
"So only historical groups that have achieved gains through peaceful means deserve admiration? "
That's not an exchange of ideas. That's you creating a strawman. You can admit it if you actually want an exchange of ideas.
That's not a strawman! I asked a clarifying question yo, I would like for you to expand upon your point because I had thought, perhaps naively, that you would elucidate and expand my worldview in some small way.
Good fucking lord dude.
It is a strawman.
Sure that's technically true but there's a reason it takes 150 years.
No kidding.
>Acknowledging the criminal lack of regard for human life on the part of the Israeli leaders
Yeah except this comment bears almost no relation to reality.
"Hey let's blockade this incredibly dense urban environment for decades, deprive the inhabitants of enough food to sustain good health (i.e. the "starvation diet" https://tinyurl.com/3t2732up), blow them up constantly, and have our snipers kneecap them when they try to peacefully protest (https://tinyurl.com/248xn5mr)."
"Oh and I have another idea! Let's deprive our citizens of the natural right to armed self-defense, and then have the military force that we've been touting as elite and unfuckwitable for decades completely abandon them when they are needed most, so they are indiscriminately slaughtered in their homes by a bunch of crazed militants."
The people at the top are fucking ghouls and to think otherwise is simply wrong. Bears almost no relation to reality my butt yo.
Just as a matter of using my eyes, since I am not an expert on the region, I can see that people aren't starving in Gaza. The situation there is being exaggerated to justify the terrorists' actions and their world view. I wouldn't want to live there, but I've seen worse. The terrorists all looked well-fed, well-dressed and drove late model trucks. My husband and I both have advanced degrees and both work, in the US, and we can't afford nice trucks like that. Hell, I can't afford a paraglider. So, I'm not buying it.
Yeah, frankly I’m having a hard time squaring what I’ve read and heard about the distribution of resources through the blockade on Gaza with the rather… husky gentleman I saw in the invasion footy. What’s your take on that? Do you think the reports of calculated caloric allowances are fabricated or over blown? Is it possible the higher ups and the members of the political/militant class hoard resources and whatnot?
Go check out https://twitter.com/imshin
She's not a journalist, but she does collect and translate social media from Gaza, and some of it is pretty shocking. Yes, there is tremendous inequality there. Hamas steals a lot of money from humanitarian efforts (as does the PA)
Thanks, I’ll be sure to look into that.
Hope you’re well.
"Hey let's blockade this incredibly dense urban environment for decades,"
They have a border with another country, funnily enough.
"deprive the inhabitants of enough food to sustain good health"
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9331863
"blow them up constantly"
Is it random or is there a reason for it?
"and have our snipers kneecap them when they try to peacefully protest"
Yes. Shooting at peaceful protesters is abhorrent. But, you know. From the article:
"during most protests dozens have approached the fence attempting to damage it, burning tires, throwing stones and Molotov cocktails towards Israeli forces and flying incendiary kites and balloons into Israeli territory; the latter resulted in extensive damage to agricultural land and nature reserves inside Israel and risked the lives of Israeli civilians. Some incidents of shooting and throwing of explosive devices have also been reported."
And:
"There are no indications that the Hamas authorities have taken any measure to ensure accountability for the failure to provide adequate protection and the possible instrumentalization of children during the GMR."
Even when the Palestinians do the right thing and have a chance to unambiguously paint Israel as wrong Hamas finds a way to punch themselves in the head.
They're a bunch of fucking monsters that rather have their people martyred so they can wave a bloody shirt in the face of Israel and the rest of the world. I saw a vid yesterday of a Palestinian father trying to goad his little boy into shot by IDF soldiers, he just toddled up to them and one of the soldiers took his hand briefly as if to shake it. I got no love for Hamas.
But yes, you make several fair points. I'm not sure how much the raising of Gaza's border with Egypt matters though. I mean, yes, they are partly culpable for the wretched conditions in Gaza as well.
The fact that Hamas consistently bungles shit and is terrible could very well be part of the reason why they were aided and abetted by the US and Israeli gov'ts...
" I got no love for Hamas."
You do have a lot of hate for Israel.
And exactly zero criticism of Hamas.
Dude, what? I literally just called Hamas a bunch of fucking monsters! How is that not criticism??
Can I ask that you rescind that claim?
"The dog I kick every day and refuse to feed just bit me!"
Who said that?
"This goes all the way back to the 1970s, when the Israeli gov't started funding radical Islamist groups who eventually coalesced into what is now Hamas."
Who is responsible for Hamas in that comment?
So me having made those points about the inception and rise to power of Hamas means that nothing else I've said or believe about them can be construed as critical?
I'm sorry, but I'm a little pissed off now by how utterly ridiculous your read of me is, how fucking dare you? Where do you get off, making such uncharitable assessments of people? I genuinely try my best to not do so, considering the clumsy nature of text-based interactions and given that I'm a bit of a Sally Sensitive, but I'm getting dangerously close to concluding that you are an insufferable prick.
The dog thing was said mostly jest, as I know Palestinians are indeed human and therefore subject to moral judgements.
"I'm sorry, but I'm a little pissed off now by how utterly ridiculous your read of me is, how fucking dare you? "
Do you think Norm Finkelstein is an insightful thinker or a ghoul?
Given the allowance provided to Israel because of past violence against Jews, as a persecuted Jew (denied tenure at DePaul for his criticisms of Israel) and a descendant of Holocaust survivors, he ought to be given carte blanche and celebrated.
Regarding the Gaza border with Egypt, that's more impregnable than the one with Israel, so that matters hugely. Like Jordan, Egypt does NOT want the Palestinians. Way back when, in a much earlier chapter of this 75-year conflict, the Arab nations refused to take in the Palestinians b/c they saw them as a wedge against Israel. They were happy for the Palestinians to remain as refugees while they stoked their hatred. Over the course of time, though, the Egyptians and other Arab nations tired of their war against Israel; but by then, the anti-Israel forces having morphed into a new creature under Iranian tutelage, they wanted nothing to do with the monster they'd helped create.
Egypt should not accept any Palestinian refugees. They are the responsibility of Israel, under international law.
The Israelis have been very clear over the last 50 years that if a Palestinian leaves their home/land that it belongs to Israel.
No country will accept Palestinians because they will be forced to absorb them into their population and be a de facto participant in ethnic cleansing, as Israel has done nothing but create more refugees for its neighbors (Jordan, Lebanon).
Wow, those Jews are terrible at ethnic cleansing. Since the Palestinians came under the genocidal Zionist state, their numbers have increased dramatically. Look it up. And btw, "the responsibility of Israel"? How can that be? Israel isn't supposed to exist, right?
`And btw, "the responsibility of Israel"? How can that be? Israel isn't supposed to exist, right?'
As internationally recognized occupiers they are responsible and have used that status to justify their actions in the past.
I'm not sure that I follow the latter point. The state exists now so it's responsible now. Hopefully in the future it will not be an ethno-religous state.
Sorta reminds me of how the Bashar al-Assad’s dad popularized suicide bombing to use against the Israelis in Lebanon and it totally bit him in the ass. Seeding radicalism causes more damage than one would have originally thought. MANY SUCH CASES.
Palestinians chose to be a threat. Not all of them, maybe not even most, but enough so that they were a genuine security threat that necessitated restrictions. And refused peace offers, some not unreasonable. Israel did not enact these measures just to be cruel.
I'm not sure if this significantly addresses the points I've made.
But yes, some Palestinians have established themselves as legitimate threats to the Israeli populace. Those same Palestinians that were aided by the Israeli and US government for decades.
"Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy." - Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in March 2019
"Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation." - Israeli Historian Avner Cohen
There's also a 2009 piece from the WSJ entitled "How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas." It's paywalled, but if you have a subscription, it's prolly worth a read.
This goes all the way back to the 1970s, when the Israeli gov't started funding radical Islamist groups who eventually coalesced into what is now Hamas. So I suppose this warrants a question. Would Palestinians have chosen to be a threat had they not been goaded into this position over the course of almost 50 years?
They were, since the beginning, so obviously. When were they open to a peaceful 2 state solution?
13 September 1993
Probably never. I suppose it just comes down to the right of conquest. And the thing about conquest is that you have to fully commit to disintegrating the society of the conquered.
Dan, with respect, its Israel, not the PLO that has abandoned Oslo and peaceful negotiation...
Also collective punishment by race is, surely, an abhorrence?
Not tin-foiles at all. Plenty of American and Israeli Jewish scholars, reporters, a d the like have documented the crimes against the Palestinians, and the US supports it. In fact, King Bibi and his allies, and the U.S., wanted Hamas to take the reigns from the PLO, in other words, they wanted a religious fundamentalist group that would be easily provoked to attack every time Israel expanded beyond the Oslo Accords - nothing better to detract your crimes than to point to the enemy retaliating and day, "Look, they're attacking us!"
Hamas and the PLO have made it quite clear from the beginning of those groups' existence their goal is to wipe out Israel and build an Arab Muslim state of Palestine on Israel's corpse. The "crimes against the Palestinians" are the necessary evil intended to prevent the kinds of murderous crimes we all witnessed last weekend.
The same PLO that signed up to and has, broadly stuck the Oslo Accords that Israel abandoned in favour of increasing annexation? why do people say this absolutely fabricated nonsense?
The dog I kick every day and refuse to feed just bit me!
They aren't our dogs. It's not up to us to feed them. We are not in charge of them. We don't own them.
This isn’t really supposed to be taken as a 1 to 1 comparison, sorry for the confusion.
It doesn't work as a comparison at all, unless you're trying to say that these people are incapable of taking care of themselves.
Governments are usually understood to be the people who control the movement into an out of a territory, its trade, its energy, its food supply and its ability to make peace or make war. In that context, who governs Gaza and the West Bank? is it the PA & Hammas or is it Telaviv?
My understanding of the situation is that the death-cult Gaza government that routinely puts its own people in extreme danger was backed by foreign interest to sow instability and civil strife in the area. Couple that with a blockade that’s lasted over a decade and a half, and I would suppose that’d make it hard to take care of yourself.
Palestinians are dogs, eh? Interesting take.
The old feminist line is that "men are dogs" but I always found that strange. "Men are loyal, caring, tireless, joyful creatures with an occasional tendency to hump inanimate objects" doesn't strike me as being that bad of an insult.
whoops lol
it's an innocently made metaphor I swear, I swear!