[RD] Hamas/Israeli War News One: Hostages and Invasion

[Gorbles]

I think the term used is “dog-whistle.” Right or wrong, the implication of eliminating the state of Israel comes along with baggage about the wholesale slaughter of the Jews there. Combined with Hamas being a Muslim fundamentalist group, I‘m very inclined to be suspicious of any promises they make regarding the rights of non-Muslims, or even Muslims who do not share the same views as Hamas.

I'm not concerned with discussing Hamas' stated goals, they seem perfectly straightforward. I'm talking about guilt by association. A dogwhistle is meant to be covert, not overt. We're talking about something that legitimately has a bunch of meanings, some in parallel, some overlapping. Hamas aren't shy about their preferences, yeah?

Which is why I'm asking you: why does any iteration of this phrase, made by anyone, get lumped in with the same semantic boat? It feels very selective to me, is the problem. It's not something I see applied across the board - in fact, the positions are generally reversed when discussing actual dogwhistles in modern politics, as a rule (here in CFC). So what gives, exactly?

 

[Crezth]

Several orders of magnitude more Palestinian civilians than the number of Israeli civilians (you seem to have missed this word for the Israeli side) killed by Hamas in this conflict alone would comprise half the population of Gaza. The difference for the current conflict is around a single order of magnitude.

In base ten only, in base two it is indeed several orders of magnitude.

 

[amadeus]

Hamas aren't shy about their preferences, yeah?

I think they have publicly moderated their stance enough to allow for them a smidge of plausible deniability; I personally don’t think they can be trusted, which is not in itself an endorsement of Israeli policy because they’ve gone themselves back and forth on meddling in Palestinian internal affairs.

Which is why I'm asking you: why does any iteration of this phrase, made by anyone, get lumped in with the same semantic boat?

I think more than it being suspect, it is just bad strategy if we are to assume the goal is an independent Arab state co-existing with Israel.

If I’m Israel, I can capture that propaganda and say that we have to keep this siege mentality because we are facing an existential threat. I think this alleviates domestic pressure on Israel to make concessions with regards to West Bank settlements, etc. because they’re putting it all up as an all-or-nothing proposition.

 

[Gorbles]

I think more than it being suspect, it is just bad strategy if we are to assume the goal is an independent Arab state co-existing with Israel.

If I’m Israel, I can capture that propaganda and say that we have to keep this siege mentality because we are facing an existential threat. I think this alleviates domestic pressure on Israel to make concessions with regards to West Bank settlements, etc. because they’re putting it all up as an all-or-nothing proposition.

Israel can and will capture anything for propaganda. It doesn't matter what is said. Policing hypothetical speech people might be making that overlaps with bad speech people might be saying will have zero impact on that outcome.

Like, don't get me wrong, if I thought it'd help? That'd be good. I just don't think it does. I dislike optics arguments, but it is what it is.

 

[NinjaCow64]

Several orders of magnitude more Palestinian civilians than the number of Israeli civilians (you seem to have missed this word for the Israeli side) killed by Hamas in this conflict alone would comprise half the population of Gaza. The difference for the current conflict is around a single order of magnitude.

Stop being pedantic, you know what I meant

 

[amadeus]

Israel can and will capture anything for propaganda. It doesn't matter what is said.

I have to assume something must matter because Hamas took its most egregious anti-Jewish statements out of its charter. Unless they had a genuine change of heart, I don’t know how else to plausibly explain this change. Maybe they did it for its international audience? Even if they did, it still means what they say matters.

 

[Estebonrober]

Diplomatically, my country supports Israel, but through the UN/EU programs, it sends humanitarian aid to Palestine, which usually ends up in hands of Hamas. So I'm actually in favour of cutting both.

I actually sort of agree with the idea of wanting nothing to do with this situation in the way of monetary support, but the bolded part above does require one to understand a key point. See, since Hamas controls Gaza and is running a semi-functional state within an open-air prison you are correct that any aid to Gaza ends up in Hamas' hands. The problem with your take here is the implication that all of that aid then ends up being used to attack Israel, which is not only wrong, its ignorant of reality on the ground. If you do not care enough to look into it to understand, how say aid for Gaza ends in the health ministry of Gaza that is ran by Hamas and then that reality is turned into an excuse to not give aid to Gaza then your bias is showing. One could say the same thing for Likud and any coalition member of Likud, but the attack Hamas made is now 1/10 of the reprisal Likud has made and well Likud is a massively op terrorist organization compared to Hamas.

That’s pretty much all slogans though. They don’t care how you feel about it. It’s for pulling them together. And there were Jews in mandatory Palestine before and outside of any context of Zionism. Zionism involved specific production methods and a specific process of settlement creation to build up the kibbutzim. It also simultaneously involved militia gangs who would be sicced on Palestinian Christians and Muslims as part of an ongoing struggle to acquire land to build those kibbutzim. It was a nakedly violent and exploitative struggle built on aggressive enclosure. This all happened 10-20 years before 1948, too. So the war of independence absolutely did not happen in a vacuum but was the culmination of these militia gangs and settlement builders having the political weight and backing to essentially build their own army and state. They then secured the existence of that state through the same naked force and the decisive concentrated and fully realized policy of expulsion. You talk to Israeli historians or you even read the testimony of Israeli political leaders and you swiftly realize that this was all going according to plan precisely. The Nakba had to happen so that they could secure living space and breathing room for their core population and the size they planned to grow it to.

So the fights, the conflicts, they were not pogroms against Jews such as happened all across Europe in that time. It was battles of increasing intensity with Zionist militias and private armies who were conquering Palestine brick by brick. Basically any country that gets invaded like that is going to come up with a slogan to cast the invaders out right? And now in the current reality its clear you can’t get rid of everyone. But the problem is the state that’s outside of anyones control but a small band of insane radical interests who do have both power and wherewithal to make a second Nakba happen.

All in all this is where I’d say hand wringing about the Palestine slogan is just cowardice and refusing to allow oneself to have the mental fortitude to understand why political slogans exist and how they relate to political reality. Political reality is that Palestinian people and dignity are incompatible with the state as it exists right now. Especially with this government. There’s absolutely no way to contravene that. Now whether the Palestinians are all to be placed with a blood curse because of their old wartime slogan, or whether we are going to decide to break the cycle and use the awesome power of international law, frankly it’s in the western noble powers and glorious defenders of democracy’s corner, and not so much the Palestinians right now.

Yea, this generally. What I see here is mainly a bunch of Europeans or their descendants upset that someone is resisting one of our main colonial projects from the last century... It's pretty blatant when thinking about role reversals and opinions on similar situations...

Approval from US is the primary reason for Israel to act with impunity. Without the US, Israel wouldn't have been so bold. And needless to say the Jewish lobbyist groups have very very strong influence over Western government officials, particularly in the US

They do need to stop firing rockets at the very least

It was insane that they might still pass funding cutting the budget for our IRS to fund Israel's ethnic cleansing of Gaza... AIPAC tried to force democrats to vote for that garbage but apparently some of them (and notably some people in the State Department) called them out on how bad of a look that was going to be for AIPAC...

Rep. Mike Johnson’s Largest Donor Was AIPAC. He’s Trying to Cut Free Tax Filing to Send Weapons to Israel.

Rep. Mike Johnson’s largest donor was AIPAC. His first order of business as speaker is to seek budget cuts in exchange for a $14 billion aid package for Israel.

theintercept.com

Yea AIPAC can go fly kites in someone else's yard tyvm.

 

[Zelig]

It was insane that they might still pass funding cutting the budget for our IRS to fund

Cutting the IRS budget to fund anything is nonsensical anyway. At the current margins, every dollar cut from IRS funding costs the government ~$6 in losses from owed taxes that don’t get collected.

 

[pob]

The arguments regarding aid being sent to Gaza ending up in Hamas's hands wasn't even about it being directly stolen or misdirected. It was that the UN's cash assistance program would be taxed at the point it was spent. There's little evidence to suggest that the Gaza aid programs were misused or misdirected, and Israel has oversight to make sure that this is the case.

 

[FriendlyFire]

they were attempting to overthrow an oppressive monarchy that had ruled the West Bank and killed Palestinians for years

SUCH OPPRESSION

After Jordan annexed the West Bank in 1950, it conferred its citizenship on the West Bank Palestinians.[13] The combined population of the West Bank and Jordan consisted of two-thirds Palestinians (one-third in the West Bank and one-third in the East Bank) and one-third Jordanians.[14][13] Jordan provided Palestinians with seats amounting to half the parliament,[14] and Palestinians enjoyed equal opportunities in all sectors of the state.[14] This demographic change influenced Jordanian politics.[15]

Aftermath: In the wake of the conflict new civilian government of Tal began a wide-scale purge of the government's bureaucracy and military
effectively meant that large numbers of Palestinian officers, bureaucrats and even some Jordanians were expelled from their jobs.

Why am I not surprised
Isnt it always that way, amazing how the "Oppression" came first and never ever it was a result of certain actions of the Palestinians

Fatah under the PLO stepped up their guerrilla attacks against Israel from Jordanian soil,
Further Israeli attacks targeted Palestinian militants residing among the Jordanian civilian population, giving rise to friction between Jordanians and guerrillas

Jordanian army attacked a fedayeen group named "Al-Nasr" (meaning victory) after the group had attacked Jordanian police
There were frequent kidnappings and acts of violence against civilians

 

[NinjaCow64]

SUCH OPPRESSION

SUCH DEMOCRACY

The politics of Jordan takes place in a framework of a parliamentary monarchy, whereby the Prime Minister of Jordan is head of government, and of a multi-party system. Jordan is a constitutional monarchy based on the constitution promulgated on January 8, 1952. The king exercises his power through the government he appoints which is responsible before the Parliament. In contrast to most parliamentary monarchies, the monarchy of Jordan is not ceremonial, with the King having significant influence over the affairs of the country.

The Constitution of Jordan vests executive authority in the king and in his cabinet. The king signs and executes or vetoes all laws. The king may also suspend or dissolve parliament, and shorten or lengthen the term of session. A veto by the king may be overridden by a two-thirds vote of both houses of parliament at his discretion, most recently in November 2009.[1] The king appoints and may dismiss all judges by decree, approves amendments to the constitution after passing by both parliaments, declares war and acts as the supreme leader of the armed forces.

Why am I not surprised
Isnt it always that way, amazing how the "Oppression" came first and never ever it was a result of certain actions of the Palestinians

Because it all started when the Zionists started stealing land from Palestinians!

 

[Snowygerry]

Yes, both sides claim the same plot of land for religious reasons, that sets this conflict apart from most others that can ultimately end by drawing new lines on a map.

All things considered we all live on land that was taken from someone else, sometime and call it our "own".

Only solution is imho to separate religion from politics and statecraft, seems the people there are not ready for that though...

 

[Gorbles]

I have to assume something must matter because Hamas took its most egregious anti-Jewish statements out of its charter. Unless they had a genuine change of heart, I don’t know how else to plausibly explain this change. Maybe they did it for its international audience? Even if they did, it still means what they say matters.

. . . and?

You keep trying to talk about Hamas, when we were originally talking about the general use of a phrase (that sees international use to boot).

 

[Snowygerry]

"From the rivers to the sea..." ? The Germans outlawed it I believe, they put it on par with "ein Reich, ein Volk, etc." apparently.

It's more than just a phrase, more a political battlecry..

 

[Gorbles]

"From the rivers to the sea..." ? The Germans outlawed it I believe, they put it on par with "ein Reich, ein Volk, etc." apparently.

It's more than just a phrase, more a political battlecry..

Plenty of political battlecries out there. I'm sure right-wing Israelis unconcerned with civilian casualties have one or two themselves.

Are you saying that this guilt by association is therefore justified? That a phrase popularised by inhabitants of a region that Israel has continued to illegally (and violently) occupy for decades is actually equivalent to Nazi slogans?

Or is this again more conflation of resistance to Israel with hatred of Jews? Again, discounting uses by people who obviously are being antisemitic. Because of how varied its usage is. Unlike "ein Reich" which literally has a single use.

 

[Snowygerry]

I'm saying the phrase is illegal in Germany, also in Austria apparently.

‘From the river to the sea’: What does the Palestinian slogan really mean?

Critics have called its use anti-Semitic amid Israel’s war on Gaza. But the slogan has more complex roots.

www.aljazeera.com

Austrian police took a similar stance, banning a pro-Palestine protest on the basis of the chant and claiming that the slogan, originally formulated by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), had been adopted by the armed group Hamas. German authorities declared the slogan forbidden and indictable and called on schools in the capital, Berlin, to ban the use of keffiyehs, the Palestinian scarf.

 

[Yeekim]

Because of how varied its usage is.

Varied how?

 

[Snowygerry]

It is used by people claiming their "holy rights" on the contested land on both sides.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, which describes itself as conservative and nationalist, has been a staunch promoter of the concept of “Eretz Israel”, or the Bible-given right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel.


According to the Jewish Virtual Library, the party’s original party manifesto in 1977 stated that “between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty”. It also argued that the establishment of a Palestinian state “jeopardises the security of the Jewish population” and “endangers the existence of the state of Israel”.

Clearly the Bible is in need of some clarification.

 

[Gorbles]

I'm saying the phrase is illegal in Germany, also in Austria apparently.

‘From the river to the sea’: What does the Palestinian slogan really mean?

Critics have called its use anti-Semitic amid Israel’s war on Gaza. But the slogan has more complex roots.

www.aljazeera.com

Again . . . and?

Do you support the banning of something like the keffiyeh yourself? Does that not seem to cross the line into targeting Palestinian culture instead of attempting to find the line on hate speech?

Varied how?

Reasoning been posted in this thread already. I'm on my mobile so at the moment I'm going to ask to you read back a bit.

EDIT - actually, the article Snowgerry just linked is a good enough primer.

 

[Snowygerry]

And nothing, we were asked to limit ourselves to news, and refrain from opinionating,

so I should probably delete my last comment there...