[RD] The Israel/Palestine Quarantine Thread

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Arakhor

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Moderator Action: From now on, any and all discussion about the Israel-Palestine situation will be conducted in this thread and this thread alone. Furthermore, in an attention to encourage discussion that doesn't immediately boil down to the lowest common denominator, this thread has been tagged as RD.
 
I was wondering last week why nobody mentioned the recent escalation, which pretty much represented the normal state of affairs:

Israel launches armed assault on Palestinian territory; rocket fire ensues; Israelis claim they have to 'defend themselves' and go completely OTT.

Some reminders:

1) Occupying powers have no right to self defence, they are always the aggressor by definition, simply by the fact of their presence.

2) Occupying powers are obliged under UN treaty to assist occupied peoples in seeking self-determination (Israel does every last thing within its power to prevent this.)

3) Blowing up civilian targets whenever there is allegedly a 'terrorist' present is a war crime unless the specific military gain outweighs the risk to civilian life and infrastructure (the IDF fails this standard at every turn).

4) Hamas are in point of fact a government within Gaza, and IDF targetted actions against their officials are both terrorism and illegal acts of aggression against a neighbour.

Feel free to assume that I don't think the sun shines out of Hamas' collective backsides as well btw.
 
So what is the path to peace. I firmly believe that Israel would lose whatever little of their remaining high ground if Hamas would just renounce it's mission, and stopped firing missiles. Everyone agree that they don't really do much. I would think the Media is a much better weapon at this point.
 
So what is the path to peace. I firmly believe that Israel would lose whatever little of their remaining high ground if Hamas would just renounce it's mission, and stopped firing missiles. Everyone agree that they don't really do much. I would think the Media is a much better weapon at this point.

Please point to any time that the media generated sufficient international restraints being put on Israel to stop their expansion into additional territories.
 
So what is the path to peace.
Watch a Norman Finkelstein video.

- Israel must agree to non-stupid mutual land swaps (Palestine must be a contiguous territory in the West Bank and with some sort of easy access to Gaza, Israel cannot simply claim every piece of freshwater, some settlements will have to go etc.)
- Palestinians must recognise that any recognition of the 'right to return' cannot include actual return, since this would result in the destruction of the state of Israel overnight.

I think there's a few more, but those are the basics.
 
I think if you take away their victim card, they're likely to lose some support in the US. They'd certainly lose mine and I'm sure I'm pretty common in that regard. They lose support here and they have to respond.


xpost, @brennan I would stand behind those after Hamas denounced there mission.
 
It is my opinion that every analysis I have ever seen of the wars in Gaza (2009, 2012, and 2014) is basically fraudulent, regardless of which side it supported. This is because all of them frame the conflicts in terms of visible damage, i.e. the actual death toll/destruction on both sides, and not the potential damage. I have never seen an analysis of what Hamas could do if their missile launches were not immediately followed by Israeli airstrikes, as it is a constraining factor for both accuracy and quantity (the Iron Dome can be saturated by the launching of dozens of rockets at the same location - furthermore, it is literally a hundred times more expensive for the Iron Dome to counter those missiles then for Hamas to build and launch them).

If Hamas were allowed to freely target Israel, they would arguably be able to kill hundreds or even thousands of civilians; if Israel built enough shelters to prevent this, Hamas would still be able to shut down the entire south of the country indefinitely. Even without the threat of a possible simultaneous war with Hezbollah, Israel is under tremendous pressure to finish a conflict quickly.

It is also my opinion that those who do not understand this should not be taken seriously on any political matter, since a useful understanding of politics requires more than first-order reasoning. If you're reading this right now and didn't think of it before, some introspection may be in order.

1) Occupying powers have no right to self defence, they are always the aggressor by definition, simply by the fact of their presence.

This is not the case (it would not even apply here, since the attacks are being made onto Israeli soil). I'm not even going into how questionable Gaza's status as occupied is.

3) Blowing up civilian targets whenever there is allegedly a 'terrorist' present is a war crime unless the specific military gain outweighs the risk to civilian life and infrastructure (the IDF fails this standard at every turn).

The military gain is general, not specific (i.e. it removes any opportunity for Hamas to take advantage of the fact that countering their attacks requires more resources on Israel's part, and shows them that they cannot organize larger-scale attacks). If that is illegal, then frankly so are most tactics in warfare.

4) Hamas are in point of fact a government within Gaza, and IDF targetted actions against their officials are both terrorism and illegal acts of aggression against a neighbour.

Are you also willing to apply this standard to ISIS, which at one point governed over forty thousand square miles?
 
I think if you take away their victim card, they're likely to lose some support in the US. They'd certainly lose mine and I'm sure I'm pretty common in that regard. They lose support here and they have to respond.

Do you think there is really any way to "take away their victim card?" Stop firing rockets and they will still be saying "we live in fear." The choice of whether to accept their playing of the card remains.
 
I have never seen an analysis of what Hamas could do if their missile launches were not immediately followed by Israeli airstrikes
Fatuous, they fire literally thousands of the things and do little more than scare pets.

@Mouthwash, now that is Whataboutism. And who elected ISIS?
 
As long as Hama's mission is their destruction, I have no problem believing the "we live in fear" POV.
Which is why I keep harping on it.
Growing up in the 60, my first impressions were they were the victims, so that does color my opinion a touch.
 
As long as Hama's mission is their destruction, I have no problem believing the "we live in fear" POV.
Which is why I keep harping on it.
Growing up in the 60, my first impressions were they were the victims, so that does color my opinion a touch.

Is there a government, anywhere, that doesn't at least quietly acknowledge that life would be easier if that pesky neighboring country just ceased to exist?
 
Yeah, but most are diplomatic enough to not put it on paper and yell it from the rooftops whenever they get the chance.
It has to be the starting point. You have to at least pretend you want peace before you can actually discuss it.
 
Hasn't Hamas long since denounced that 1987 manifest or whatever it was called, the one that had that bit about working for the destruction of Israel? Not saying they're peaceful or rational but they did propose a 10 year ceasefire with Israel fire but on deaf ears.
 
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Yeah, but most are diplomatic enough to not put it on paper and yell it from the rooftops whenever they get the chance.
It has to be the starting point. You have to at least pretend you want peace before you can actually discuss it.

Nominally. However, when there is already disputed land there isn't much gained by pretending anyone will just "let it go." I don't even know the current status of Alsace and Lorraine, but every time I see a prospective "no more NATO forcing peace on Germany and France" I assume there will be another war over them in fairly short order. With basically every square inch of Israel representing displacement of Palestinians within fairly recent memory there is a far bigger obstacle to overcome than some angry rhetoric by the dispossessed.
 
Fatuous, they fire literally thousands of the things and do little more than scare pets.

@Mouthwash, now that is Whataboutism. And who elected ISIS?

It's clear now that regardless of the tag, no Israel-Palestine discussion on CFC will be even minimally productive. I'm going to go ahead and unsubscribe. Enjoy the thread.
 
It's clear now that regardless of the tag, no Israel-Palestine discussion on CFC will be even minimally productive. I'm going to go ahead and unsubscribe. Enjoy the thread.

Bye. Don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.

I'm guessing here, but I think Mouthwash defines "productive" as "agreement reached that Israel has a moral right to commit any atrocity that crosses the collective mind of its government," and I for one am very happy that such a "productive" discussion never happens here.
 
Moderator Action: To paraphrase Hotel California, you can check out any time you like, but if you want to mention the thread topic in any fashion, you can never leave.
 
It's clear now that regardless of the tag, no Israel-Palestine discussion on CFC will be even minimally productive. I'm going to go ahead and unsubscribe. Enjoy the thread.

Wait I wanted your take on this insane take!? Dang it.

Israel should remove all Palestinians from whatever land they want to go ahead and take. Then they should pay out 4% of GDP to Jordan and whoever else has to deal with the mass migration problem for 99 years. Afterwards Israel will forever be a pariah but they are that already. This slow motion genocide? is terrible to witness and has long since numbed my mind.
 
Wait I wanted your take on this insane take!? Dang it.

Israel should remove all Palestinians from whatever land they want to go ahead and take. Then they should pay out 4% of GDP to Jordan and whoever else has to deal with the mass migration problem for 99 years. Afterwards Israel will forever be a pariah but they are that already. This slow motion genocide? is terrible to witness and has long since numbed my mind.

4% of GDP is gross undervaluing.
 
4% of GDP is gross undervaluing.

Yea maybe 10? I mean the problem is quibbling over money when the inevitable death toll is so terrible anyways.

Idk. My hopelessness for the situation is betrayed by my proposal. It just seems we have a conquering taking place in super slow motion. If they are going to do it just finish it already.

Although this also leads me to play this out and it still doesn't change much for the rest of the world. Israel will still play the cornered lion, US evangelicals will still let the play havoc with our foreign policy, and Arabs will still want the erasure of the "Zionist Entity".
 
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