Israel & Palestine

[dimejinky99]

‘Killing from a rocket launched from a $65 million dollar jet is somehow morally more acceptable than ‘they’re digging up the water pipes to make rocket launchers!’
Well what had them digging up the water pipes?’

[Anders]

[Rob]

‘Killing from a rocket launched from a $65 million dollar jet is somehow morally more acceptable than ‘they’re digging up the water pipes to make rocket launchers!’
Well what had them digging up the water pipes?’

I think your question about what had them digging up pipes to make rockets launchers is the right question, but at this time not the focus. Israel, Arab states, and The West allowed Palestinians to live in horrendous conditions for generations, holding them down the entire time. Obviously the matter itself is complicated, but it’s very easy to see the foundational reason for it.

Still, what happened on October 7 changed things. I heard one of my favorite journalists of all-time Ezra Klein - certainly no war monger - say that “vengeance is a worthy goal.” It’s hard not to agree. The fact that the world created this mess doesn’t change the fact that it now has to be dealt with, full stop. This isn’t the time for American style war on terror that takes 20 years of selective bombing and is just whack a mole (and a steady revenue stream to defense). They have to clear the rot. And then hopefully the world learns the lesson and begins a real investment into the Palestinian people. Maybe treating them like real people and giving them rights will start to change their mindset.

[dimejinky99]

I dont get why there is a big deal? The US has always armed Israel and they’ve always acted poorly so why the need to get hush hush about it? Is this Bidens administration freaking out about the perception and upcoming election?

"...the White House has requested for it to be able to conduct arms deals with Israel in complete secrecy, without oversight from Congress or the public — in a time when the U.S. is supporting a military that experts say has been committing war crimes in Gaza and beyond"

https://truthout.org/articles/biden-wan ... e-secrecy/

[Bi_3]

(snip)
I know you’re as war horny as the other one but there’s actual laws against this.
(snip)

Personal insults are tiresome and I am not "war horny". I learned a long time ago that reality is not subjective, but that we are subjugated by it. The result of this revelation is that if you start your perception of the world from the lens of empathy or kindness or justice or anything like that, nothing will ever get better, only patched over because any resolution that starts from emotional appeasement will never be perceived as fair or equitable by everyone it impacts particularly not over the long run. The founding of the modern state of Israel is perfect example of this.

Let's take a dispassionate look at the facts on the ground:

- Hamas is the ruling party in Gaza
- Hamas has forced the Palestinians in Gaza to suffer for nearly two decades under their rule
- Hamas cannot be voted out of Gaza
- Hamas cannot be overthrown from within Gaza
- Hamas has been crystal clear that their primary goal is to destroy Israel
- Hamas has been crystal clear that any ceasefire is temporary and they will use it rearm and prepare for the next attack on Israel
- Hamas spent years planning and on 07.Oct conducted the worst mass r4pe and slaughter of Jews since World War 2
- Hamas did this knowing that Israel would be forced to send troops into the Gaza strip resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocents
- Hamas has been crystal clear in both their words and actions that they do not consider it their obligation to protect civilians in Gaza and they do not care how many are killed as they are martyrs to god
- Hamas knows no country in the Arab world will take any significant number of Gazans as refugees, so the Gazans are trapped, and they use this as a PR advantage
- Hamas is a proxy of and supported by Iran

- Israel has one of the most advanced and powerful armies in the world
- Israel is surround by 2 billion people who at best don't like them much
- Israel's neighbors have launched multiple wars against them
- Israel has nuclear weapons
- Israel has blockaded Gaza since leaving in the mid-2000s with land, sea, and economic barriers that have impoverished Gaza in an attempt to reduce the ability Gazans to conduct cross-border terror attacks like the one on 07.Oct
- Israel still suffers frequently deadly attacks despite this
- Israel knows Hamas will not surrender
- Israel knows Hamas will continue to attack them at every opportunity
- Israel has (had?) achieved normalized relations with multiple Arab countries in the last decade
- Israel was in the final stages of normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia, possibly the greatest diplomatic achievement of the century so far
- Israel normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia is an existential threat to Iran both politically and economically
- Israel know that Iran will not attack them directly, but through proxies like Hamas
- Israel knows that as long as Hamas exists the risks of getting dragged into a regional war grow
- Israel knows that any action taken against Hamas will result in the deaths of thousands of innocents on both sides

So given all this, what can be done to stop things from getting worse... to give innocents in both Gaza and Israel a chance at lasting peace... other than first rooting out Hamas?

[Anders]

[Bi_3]

Is that a horse?

[dimejinky99]

This isn’t about ‘rooting out Hamas’ and it’s time to stop pretending it is.

Israeli armed forces will shortly have killed more civilians in Gaza in little over a month than Putin has managed in Ukraine since February 2022

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67306902

[dimejinky99]

The prohibition on attacking ambulances under the first Geneva Convention is pretty Fuckin clear, even ambulances that are being used by belligerents on the battlefield.

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-t ... =undefined

[Anders]

Not to diminish what is happening in Gaza at all, but Ukraine has about 10.000 UN confirmed civilian deaths, but even the UN admits that the number is likely much higher. There are also an estimated 500.000 deaths overall in that conflict since February of last year, 6 million out of country refugees, and another 8 million displaced inside the country.

[Anders]

[96583UP]

Not to diminish what is happening in Gaza at all, but Ukraine has about 10.000 UN confirmed civilian deaths, but even the UN admits that the number is likely much higher. There are also an estimated 500.000 deaths overall in that conflict since February of last year, 6 million out of country refugees, and another 8 million displaced inside the country.

we are an awful species, homo sapiens

[Bi_3]

A history lesson on why people are stuck in Gaza despite the dozens Arab nations close by:

[McParadigm]

Or you can read

AP News:

As desperate Palestinians in sealed-off Gaza try to find refuge under Israel’s relentless bombardment in retaliation for Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack, some ask why neighboring Egypt and Jordan don’t take them in.

The two countries, which flank Israel on opposite sides and share borders with Gaza and the occupied West Bank, respectively, have replied with a staunch refusal. Jordan already has a large Palestinian population.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi made his toughest remarks yet on Wednesday, saying the current war was not just aimed at fighting Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, “but also an attempt to push the civilian inhabitants to ... migrate to Egypt.” He warned this could wreck peace in the region.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II gave a similar message a day earlier, saying, “No refugees in Jordan, no refugees in Egypt.”

Their refusal is rooted in fear that Israel wants to force a permanent expulsion of Palestinians into their countries and nullify Palestinian demands for statehood. El-Sissi also said a mass exodus would risk bringing militants into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, from where they might launch attacks on Israel, endangering the two countries’ 40-year-old peace treaty.

Here is a look at what is motivating Egypt’s and Jordan’s stances.

A HISTORY OF DISPLACEMENT

Displacement has been a major theme of Palestinian history. In the 1948 war around Israel’s creation, an estimated 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from what is now Israel. Palestinians refer to the event as the Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe.”

In the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 300,000 more Palestinians fled, mostly into Jordan.

The refugees and their descendants now number nearly 6 million, most living in camps and communities in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. The diaspora has spread further, with many refugees building lives in Gulf Arab countries or the West.

After fighting stopped in the 1948 war, Israel refused to allow refugees to return to their homes. Since then, Israel has rejected Palestinian demands for a return of refugees as part of a peace deal, arguing that it would threaten the country’s Jewish majority.

Egypt fears history will repeat itself and a large Palestinian refugee population from Gaza will end up staying for good.

NO GUARANTEE OF RETURN

That’s in part because there’s no clear scenario for how this war will end.

Israel says it intends to destroy Hamas for its bloody rampage in its southern towns. But it has given no indication of what might happen afterward and who would govern Gaza. That has raised concerns that it will reoccupy the territory for a period, fueling further conflict.

The Israeli military said Palestinians who followed its order to flee northern Gaza to the strip’s southern half would be allowed back to their homes after the war ends.

Egypt is not reassured.

El-Sissi said fighting could last for years if Israel argues it hasn’t sufficiently crushed militants. He proposed that Israel house Palestinians in its Negev Desert, which neighbors the Gaza Strip, until it ends its military operations.

“Israel’s lack of clarity regarding its intentions in Gaza and the evacuation of the population is in itself problematic,” said Riccardo Fabiani, Crisis Group International’s North Africa Project Director. “This confusion fuels fears in the neighborhood.”

Egypt has pushed for Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, and Israel said Wednesday that it would, though it didn’t say when. According to United Nations, Egypt, which is dealing with a spiraling economic crisis, already hosts some 9 million refugees and migrants, including roughly 300,000 Sudanese who arrived this year after fleeing their country’s war.

But Arab countries and many Palestinians also suspect Israel might use this opportunity to force permanent demographic changes to wreck Palestinian demands for statehood in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which was also captured by Israel in 1967.

El-Sissi repeated warnings Wednesday that an exodus from Gaza was intended to “eliminate the Palestinian cause … the most important cause of our region.” He argued that if a demilitarized Palestinian state had been created long ago in negotiations, there would not be war now.

“All historical precedent points to the fact that when Palestinians are forced to leave Palestinian territory, they are not allowed to return back,” said H.A. Hellyer, a senior associate fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Egypt doesn’t want to be complicit in ethnic cleansing in Gaza.”

Arab countries’ fears have only been stoked by the rise under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of hard-right parties that talk in positive terms about removing Palestinians. Since the Hamas attack, the rhetoric has become less restrained, with some right-wing politicians and media commentators calling for the military to raze Gaza and drive out its inhabitants. One lawmaker said Israel should carry out a “new Nakba” on Gaza.

WORRIES OVER HAMAS

At the same time, Egypt says a mass exodus from Gaza would bring Hamas or other Palestinian militants onto its soil. That might be destabilizing in Sinai, where Egypt’s military fought for years against Islamic militants and at one point accused Hamas of backing them.

Egypt has backed Israel’s blockade of Gaza since Hamas took over in the territory in 2007, tightly controlling the entry of materials and the passage of civilians back and forth. It also destroyed the network of tunnels under the border that Hamas and other Palestinians used to smuggle goods into Gaza.

With the Sinai insurgency largely put down, “Cairo does not want to have a new security problem on its hands in this problematic region,” Fabiani said.

El-Sissi warned of an even more destabilizing scenario: the wrecking of Egypt and Israel’s 1979 peace deal. He said that with the presence of Palestinian militants, Sinai “would become a base for attacks on Israel. Israel would have the right to defend itself ... and would strike Egyptian territory.”

“The peace which we have achieved would vanish from our hands,” he said, “all for the sake of the idea of eliminating the Palestinian cause.”

[Bi_3]

Look what happened in Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Egypt, etc. The historical precedent there is very clear and so leaders like Sisi can win both sides of the issue because by keeping them out they not only avoid having to deal with more violent domestic uprisings, they can avoid the issue entirely by blaming Israel for not doing some crazy shot no other nation on earth would be asked to do. Do you think Ukraine will be expected to take thousands of Russian collaborators back in? Of course not. Only Israel is treated that way.

[Anders]

Do you then consider Gaza a part of Israel?

[Bi_3]

Do you then consider Gaza a part of Israel?

No. Israel left Gaza to the Palestinians in 2005.

[Anders]

Agreed. But then Israel is not asked to take in thousands of collaborators.

[Bi_3]

Agreed. But then Israel is not asked to take in thousands of collaborators.

It’s a word game. The Palestinian “right of return” is about repatriation into Israel at large, not just Palestinian territories, an idea which Israel wisely rejects. So leaders like Sisi use that situation as an excuse to not accept additional refugees themselves by conflating that situation with Gaza.

[Anders]

In this particular confiict in Gaza, it’s really a sidetrack. Obviously any refugee from Gaza in this conflict, has the right to return to Gaza once the conflict settles. And even a historic right of return, which is a different political question, should not come into this at all.