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Israel Hamas War, West Bank, Etc. | Hostilities resume

  • Thread starter Thread starter nycfan
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Israel is willing to negotiate. Hamas isn't. The best thing for Palestinians will be for Hamas to be destroyed, once and for all. Otherwise we'll just be back here again in five years.

Israel was the one that turned down the deal in May that would have released all the hostages because Netanyahu wants to occupy Gaza as part of the deal. They also proceeded to assassinate the main ceasefire negotiator. To me, that doesn't show me that they're "willing to negotiate"
 
Israel is willing to negotiate. Hamas isn't. The best thing for Palestinians will be for Hamas to be destroyed, once and for all. Otherwise we'll just be back here again in five years.

1. You can't really conclude anything about willingness to negotiate from this. I am no fan of Hamas, that's for sure, but I'm quite skeptical of Israel's actual intent here. Since the details have to be worked out, and Israel has a long history of moving goal posts at the last minute when the details are presented (as do Palestinian negotiators), all you can conclude here is that Israel is willing to talk the talk.

If I go to the car dealer and the guy offers me a $1K trade-in for my 2011 Porsche Cayenne, I'm not likely to stick around to negotiate further. What should I say? No, I'm looking for more like $15K? Then he says, "I'm willing to negotiate. How about $2k?" I would leave on the spot. He's not really willing to negotiate.

2. Whether we are here in five years anyway depends more on Israel than on Hamas. Hamas is a symptom. The problem is the apartheid state in which Israelis have long been permitted (in the West Bank, where there has not really been Hamas) to steal and kill Arabs with no real consequences. Sometimes the Israeli military shows up to protect the settlers after they have committed crimes; sometimes the military is on-site when the crimes occur. IIRC, I read about one instance when the settlers were burning olive trees on Palestinians' land and the military was forcibly keeping the landowners and the community away. There was no authority whatsoever for burning the trees. It was just terrorism.

The people of Gaza have substantially more cause to revolt than did Americans in the 1770s. They are treated objectively worse, by a fair margin. So if we celebrate the American revolution, we can't exactly condemn the people of Gaza for their own desire to kick out the occupiers. There are many ways to do that, and one approach is non-violent resistance. I'm pretty sure the window for that is closed, and for that I blame the PLO -- but letting Israel off the hook for that is like letting Bull Connor off the hook if the peaceful protesters in Birmingham pulled out shotguns and opened fire.

Until the Israeli government stops adopting the positions of religious extremists as their official policy, we will never have peace in the region and that has nothing to do with Hamas.
 
1. You can't really conclude anything about willingness to negotiate from this. I am no fan of Hamas, that's for sure, but I'm quite skeptical of Israel's actual intent here. Since the details have to be worked out, and Israel has a long history of moving goal posts at the last minute when the details are presented (as do Palestinian negotiators), all you can conclude here is that Israel is willing to talk the talk.

If I go to the car dealer and the guy offers me a $1K trade-in for my 2011 Porsche Cayenne, I'm not likely to stick around to negotiate further. What should I say? No, I'm looking for more like $15K? Then he says, "I'm willing to negotiate. How about $2k?" I would leave on the spot. He's not really willing to negotiate.

2. Whether we are here in five years anyway depends more on Israel than on Hamas. Hamas is a symptom. The problem is the apartheid state in which Israelis have long been permitted (in the West Bank, where there has not really been Hamas) to steal and kill Arabs with no real consequences. Sometimes the Israeli military shows up to protect the settlers after they have committed crimes; sometimes the military is on-site when the crimes occur. IIRC, I read about one instance when the settlers were burning olive trees on Palestinians' land and the military was forcibly keeping the landowners and the community away. There was no authority whatsoever for burning the trees. It was just terrorism.

The people of Gaza have substantially more cause to revolt than did Americans in the 1770s. They are treated objectively worse, by a fair margin. So if we celebrate the American revolution, we can't exactly condemn the people of Gaza for their own desire to kick out the occupiers. There are many ways to do that, and one approach is non-violent resistance. I'm pretty sure the window for that is closed, and for that I blame the PLO -- but letting Israel off the hook for that is like letting Bull Connor off the hook if the peaceful protesters in Birmingham pulled out shotguns and opened fire.

Until the Israeli government stops adopting the positions of religious extremists as their official policy, we will never have peace in the region and that has nothing to do with Hamas.
So the problem lies with one side?

"Hamas is a symptom. The problem is the apartheid state"

This is why it will go on and on.
 
So the problem lies with one side?

"Hamas is a symptom. The problem is the apartheid state"

This is why it will go on and on.
Are you suggesting going back to the status quo and allowing Israel to continue its apartheid system is the solution?
 
Israel was the one that turned down the deal in May that would have released all the hostages because Netanyahu wants to occupy Gaza as part of the deal. They also proceeded to assassinate the main ceasefire negotiator. To me, that doesn't show me that they're "willing to negotiate"

Israel turned down that would have left Hamas in charge of Gaza. Hamas, the group behind 10/7, the group whose charter states that its goal is to ensure that Israel is destroyed, the group that has stated numerous times that it wants to repeat 10/7 until every Jew is killed. I don't blame them for turning down the deal in May. But, there has been a deal on the table for months that Israel and the US have accepted....Hamas has been the holdout, and thousands of Palestinians have died as a result.
 
1. You can't really conclude anything about willingness to negotiate from this. I am no fan of Hamas, that's for sure, but I'm quite skeptical of Israel's actual intent here. Since the details have to be worked out, and Israel has a long history of moving goal posts at the last minute when the details are presented (as do Palestinian negotiators), all you can conclude here is that Israel is willing to talk the talk.

If I go to the car dealer and the guy offers me a $1K trade-in for my 2011 Porsche Cayenne, I'm not likely to stick around to negotiate further. What should I say? No, I'm looking for more like $15K? Then he says, "I'm willing to negotiate. How about $2k?" I would leave on the spot. He's not really willing to negotiate.

2. Whether we are here in five years anyway depends more on Israel than on Hamas. Hamas is a symptom. The problem is the apartheid state in which Israelis have long been permitted (in the West Bank, where there has not really been Hamas) to steal and kill Arabs with no real consequences. Sometimes the Israeli military shows up to protect the settlers after they have committed crimes; sometimes the military is on-site when the crimes occur. IIRC, I read about one instance when the settlers were burning olive trees on Palestinians' land and the military was forcibly keeping the landowners and the community away. There was no authority whatsoever for burning the trees. It was just terrorism.

The people of Gaza have substantially more cause to revolt than did Americans in the 1770s. They are treated objectively worse, by a fair margin. So if we celebrate the American revolution, we can't exactly condemn the people of Gaza for their own desire to kick out the occupiers. There are many ways to do that, and one approach is non-violent resistance. I'm pretty sure the window for that is closed, and for that I blame the PLO -- but letting Israel off the hook for that is like letting Bull Connor off the hook if the peaceful protesters in Birmingham pulled out shotguns and opened fire.

Until the Israeli government stops adopting the positions of religious extremists as their official policy, we will never have peace in the region and that has nothing to do with Hamas.
Seems like a lot of victim blaming to me. "Palestinians have had it rough, so their only recourse is to rape and murder hundreds of Israeli civilians at a time." Hamas is a cancer, and when a cancer is killing you (you in this case being the idea of a Palestinian state), you have to get rid of the cancer. The Jews have been violently attacked by their neighbors as long as Israel has existed. They have a right to defend themselves, and they have a right to exist. Hamas does not recognize either of those rights. Trying to play off an Islamist terrorist group as "irrelevant" when Hamas is the literal reason there has been a war in Gaza for nearly a year is shortsighted and misguided.

The war will end when Hamas is destroyed. Israel is the victim here, as are the Palestinians who are governed by Hamas.
 
Are you suggesting going back to the status quo and allowing Israel to continue its apartheid system is the solution?
Not sure how you can read that, but to be clear for you, no.

I am suggesting there is blame to go around, all sides. Israeli, Palestinian, European, American, Russian, Iranian, etc. While a reductionist approach may work with psychology, it rarely works with history.
 
So the problem lies with one side?

"Hamas is a symptom. The problem is the apartheid state"

This is why it will go on and on.
Sigh. The problem is the apartheid state. How we got to this apartheid state is a long and sordid story with many bad actors on both sides.
 
Seems like a lot of victim blaming to me. "Palestinians have had it rough, so their only recourse is to rape and murder hundreds of Israeli civilians at a time." Hamas is a cancer, and when a cancer is killing you (you in this case being the idea of a Palestinian state), you have to get rid of the cancer. The Jews have been violently attacked by their neighbors as long as Israel has existed. They have a right to defend themselves, and they have a right to exist. Hamas does not recognize either of those rights. Trying to play off an Islamist terrorist group as "irrelevant" when Hamas is the literal reason there has been a war in Gaza for nearly a year is shortsighted and misguided.

The war will end when Hamas is destroyed. Israel is the victim here, as are the Palestinians who are governed by Hamas.
1. The majority of Palestinians, I am quite sure, do not support the raping and murdering. But, like all peoples, they do want someone to stand up for them. The PLO/Fatah staked everything on getting the peace deal and it didn't happen for complicated reasons. So the militant Palestinian faction took control in Gaza.

2. The people of Gaza have no right to self-determination. They are ruled by a hostile foreign power who does not recognize their right to exist (sound familiar?) So, again like most peoples, they want to free themselves from that occupation. Israel didn't give them peace in the 90s, so like the IRA, the Basque nationalists, and many other independence movements (including our own founding fathers, who would undoubtedly be considered terrorists in today's world), they again turned to a terrorist group. It has been a poor choice.

In the end, though, peace will only come when Palestinians are given the right of self-determination and aren't being starved. Even before O6, the living conditions in Gaza were deplorable because of an Israeli blockade that had no justification in law.

3. I thought we were talking about the future -- you know, "five years down the line." If Hamas doesn't exist, there will be a new Hamas. Israel keeps hoping that the Palestinians will roll over and let Israel steal all their land, keep them confined in Gaza with little infrastructure or opportunity, and periodic crises of food and medicine. That isn't going to happen.

This is why the "imagine if Hamas had used the $10B in international aid they were given on something other than tunnels" is a lie. You can't build businesses without reliable energy and water. As long as Israel can blockade Gaza at will, there will be no economic development there.

4. The victims are overwhelmingly the Palestinian people, and to a much lesser extent Israel. The conflict has had plenty of blame to go around everywhere, but there isn't any reasonable disagreement as to who has suffered the most.
 
Sigh. The problem is the apartheid state. How we got to this apartheid state is a long and sordid story with many bad actors on both sides.

An apartheid state in which Arabs have equal rights and full citizenship? An apartheid state that won't just open its doors to people that openly state they want to murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea"? Every nation has a right to protect its own borders. Israel has been under attack since the moment it existed. And let's not forget why Israel was formed in the first place.
 
1. The majority of Palestinians, I am quite sure, do not support the raping and murdering. But, like all peoples, they do want someone to stand up for them. The PLO/Fatah staked everything on getting the peace deal and it didn't happen for complicated reasons. So the militant Palestinian faction took control in Gaza.
I'm not so sure about that. The only opinion polls we've seen from Gaza have shown that the overwhelming majority of people there supported 10/7. Now, if they actually supported it or if they were just afraid to say otherwise for fear of repercussions from Hamas is a different discussion.

2. The people of Gaza have no right to self-determination. They are ruled by a hostile foreign power who does not recognize their right to exist (sound familiar?) So, again like most peoples, they want to free themselves from that occupation. Israel didn't give them peace in the 90s, so like the IRA, the Basque nationalists, and many other independence movements (including our own founding fathers, who would undoubtedly be considered terrorists in today's world), they again turned to a terrorist group. It has been a poor choice.

The people of Gaza had a right to self-determination and chose to be governed by Hamas, a known international terrorist group. Their chosen government misused billions in international aid, using it to build tunnels and purchase weapons that it used to launch terrorist attacks. The fact that the government of Gaza chose to squander its opportunity to create an actual desirable place for its people to live in and instead focused only on "killing the Jews" is not Israel's fault. Israel withdrew from Gaza, and the result was thousands of missiles launched at Israeli cities and then 10/7.
3. I thought we were talking about the future -- you know, "five years down the line." If Hamas doesn't exist, there will be a new Hamas. Israel keeps hoping that the Palestinians will roll over and let Israel steal all their land, keep them confined in Gaza with little infrastructure or opportunity, and periodic crises of food and medicine. That isn't going to happen.
Are you saying that Palestinians are only capable of voting for terrorist regimes to govern them? The West Bank would beg to differ. I think if Palestinians were given a choice in 6 months between electing the group that brought about the destruction of Gaza or electing a group that would work with the international community to rebuild Gaza and sustain peace, they would choose the latter.

This is why the "imagine if Hamas had used the $10B in international aid they were given on something other than tunnels" is a lie. You can't build businesses without reliable energy and water. As long as Israel can blockade Gaza at will, there will be no economic development there.
If that is your argument, then where did the tunnels come from? Ants?
 
An apartheid state in which Arabs have equal rights and full citizenship? An apartheid state that won't just open its doors to people that openly state they want to murder every single Jew "from the river to the sea"? Every nation has a right to protect its own borders. Israel has been under attack since the moment it existed. And let's not forget why Israel was formed in the first place.
Treated the same?? That is 100% false. I’ve been over this a million times to repeat it, but just do some research about it and you’ll see the difference.

As for your last sentence, so because of the actions of genocidal Europeans, Palestinians needed to sacrifice their home? Let’s not forget that they were given a land that already was populated. The reason Israel “has been under attack since it was formed” was because how it was formed. If someone moved into your house and killed your family and kicked you out, you wouldn’t just live in the basement peacefully. But then if you fight back, then they’re the victim while you’re the aggressor. How does that make sense?
 
Treated the same?? That is 100% false. I’ve been over this a million times to repeat it, but just do some research about it and you’ll see the difference.

As for your last sentence, so because of the actions of genocidal Europeans, Palestinians needed to sacrifice their home? Let’s not forget that they were given a land that already was populated. The reason Israel “has been under attack since it was formed” was because how it was formed. If someone moved into your house and killed your family and kicked you out, you wouldn’t just live in the basement peacefully. But then if you fight back, then they’re the victim while you’re the aggressor. How does that make sense?
Can you name a single nation that doesn't have some sort of warfare or conquest in its history? Are you going to give up your home to a Native American? Not to mention the Jews had been in that area longer than the Muslims had.
 
Can you name a single nation that doesn't have some sort of warfare or conquest in its history? Are you going to give up your home to a Native American? Not to mention the Jews had been in that area longer than the Muslims had.
The difference is that Native Americans are full citizens and have equal rights. They aren’t forced to live like prisoners or be humiliated on a daily basis.

The reason Jews were there first was because Islam didn’t exist yet. Many of them that remained became Muslim while many of the Jews in Israel now are of European decent. Also, if the area is so important to them, why did the Zionists consider other areas like in Argentina, east Africa, Cyprus, etc.. before deciding on Palestine?
 
The difference is that Native Americans are full citizens and have equal rights. They aren’t forced to live like prisoners or be humiliated on a daily basis.

The reason Jews were there first was because Islam didn’t exist yet. Many of them that remained became Muslim while many of the Jews in Israel now are of European decent. Also, if the area is so important to them, why did the Zionists consider other areas like in Argentina, east Africa, Cyprus, etc.. before deciding on Palestine?

And maybe they wouldn't be living like prisoners if their government used the billions of dollars in aid it has received on improving their lives instead of tunnels and weapons to wage war with?

With regard to your second question, it isn't like they had a buffet of options to choose from. Going back to your traditional holy land in the midst of the largest targeted extermination in human history isn't something that I am going to judge them for.
 
I'm not so sure about that. The only opinion polls we've seen from Gaza have shown that the overwhelming majority of people there supported 10/7. Now, if they actually supported it or if they were just afraid to say otherwise for fear of repercussions from Hamas is a different discussion.



The people of Gaza had a right to self-determination and chose to be governed by Hamas, a known international terrorist group. Their chosen government misused billions in international aid, using it to build tunnels and purchase weapons that it used to launch terrorist attacks. The fact that the government of Gaza chose to squander its opportunity to create an actual desirable place for its people to live in and instead focused only on "killing the Jews" is not Israel's fault. Israel withdrew from Gaza, and the result was thousands of missiles launched at Israeli cities and then 10/7.

Are you saying that Palestinians are only capable of voting for terrorist regimes to govern them? The West Bank would beg to differ. I think if Palestinians were given a choice in 6 months between electing the group that brought about the destruction of Gaza or electing a group that would work with the international community to rebuild Gaza and sustain peace, they would choose the latter.


If that is your argument, then where did the tunnels come from? Ants?
1. The "right of self-determination" was never a full right. It was, from the outset, going to be a limited government -- sort of like how DC has self-determination, unless Congress wants to overrule. And Hamas had a social services wing, which is what the Palestinians elected.

The way to know that Israel was never going to give Gaza autonomy is simple: Israel refused Gaza have the government they wanted. They tried to bully Gaza into not supporting Hamas, and then when Hamas was elected, the blockade followed. That decimated the social services wing, since they had nothing to offer the people given that Israel was withholding food, water and medicine.

Hamas was trying to be a full-service party but Israel's actions locked it into "terrorist group."

2. What I am saying is that Israel appears to have absolutely no intention to give Gaza any self-determination. That's why we are in permanent Hamas mode. If Israel were to allow elections, we'd probably see something considerably different. Get back to me when and if that happens.

3. Where did the tunnels come from? Are you serious? Ttunnels can be built under bad circumstances. What a government cannot do is attract capital to build businesses when it can't even provide food, water and power. What entrepreneur would want to set up shop in Gaza? Why would anyone build a factory there, given that Israel could shut off the water or the power at any time.

I'm well aware that Hamas was always interested in skimming development money to fund its tunnel building, etc. But, again, the blockade left it with little choice but to do that.
 
The reason Jews were there first was because Islam didn’t exist yet. Many of them that remained became Muslim while many of the Jews in Israel now are of European decent. Also, if the area is so important to them, why did the Zionists consider other areas like in Argentina, east Africa, Cyprus, etc.. before deciding on Palestine?
To expand on your point, who cares whether Jews were there first? That was thousands of years ago. Nobody alive today has any known connection to ancient Judea. Nobody can say that they are descendants of anyone who lived in that area. Land doesn't belong to "religions."
 
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