Israel or Palestine?

[cerulean obsidian]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Interim_Force_in_Lebanon here's the proof that you're lying

[waxen smelt]

"Everything I've said in this topic has been backed by facts" By Arkular
"It exists to stop Israel invading Lebanon, so given Israel is invading Lebanon anyway, you could be right." BY Arkular
“It was a question, designed to make SJohnson re-evaluate how immature they were being. Since they were not able to recognise that themselves, that's why a staff member had to get involved.”
These are two lie 👆
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Interim_Force_in_Lebanon (The evidence it’s a lie for my first point)

[last python]

Instead of backing either side, both should be punished, demilitarized, and then forced into a two country solution

bc this is getting out of hand

[waxen smelt]

I gonna say this once and only once again

We have the proof

[thorny stone]

Now you're spamming.

[waxen smelt]

Not spammign just showing the evidence

[thorny stone]

That's not evidence of what you're saying.

[cerulean obsidian]

• assist the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area
• Assist the Government of Lebanon, at its request, in securing its borders and other entry points to prevent the entry in Lebanon without its consent of arms or related materiel <--- that means Hezbollah
• A naval component of UNIFIL was set up to assist the Lebanese Navy as an interim measure to prevent arms proliferation to Hezbollah while the Lebanese Navy builds -its capacity.
• UNIFIL's mandate is renewed annually by the United Nations Security Council; it was most recently extended on 28 August 2024 with the passing of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2749. It is composed of 10,000 peacekeepers from 46 nations, tasked with helping the Lebanese Army keep the south of the country protected from "unauthorized armed personnel, such as Hezbollah"

directly quoted from the Wikipedia article on UNIFIL

[waxen smelt]

Happy that SJohnson brain is still working

[thorny stone]

I've explained the reasoning why my statement is true. Nobody has discussed that explanation yet, which is why we haven't got anywhere further.

[cerulean obsidian]

besides, the burden of proof is on the person who makes the statement

so please prove that UNIFILs mission was to stop Israel from invading Lebanon

because that's on you

simply saying that it's a fact does not make it true

[thorny stone]

OK. Step 1. Can we agree that the purpose of the UN's Peacekeeping mission is to try and maintain peace?

[cerulean obsidian]

no

[waxen smelt]

Defintly not

[cerulean obsidian]

because it had very clearly defined mission

[thorny stone]

Hahaha. Ok. What is its ultimate purpose then?

[cerulean obsidian]

please spend 30 seconds on your time reading the "Mandate" section here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Interim_Force_in_Lebanon

[waxen smelt]

What if he can't read

[cerulean obsidian]

the ultimate purpose was to disarm Hezbollah and to restore Lebanese government authority over south of Lebanon, and to prevent arms flow to Hezbollah

[waxen smelt]

You can't be that vauge

[thorny stone]

I've read that section. Do you understand what the purpose of that mandate was?

[cerulean obsidian]

yes, to disarm Hezbollah and to restore Lebanese government authority over south of Lebanon

[thorny stone]

This would be an example of a disrespectful comment, that you should avoid making.

[thorny stone]

Ok, and what is the purpose of doing that?

[waxen smelt]

Sorry my mistake it was just a question

[cerulean obsidian]

for Lebanon to be a sovereign country again, not one run by an Iranian proxy militia, and to prevent Hezbollah from attacking Israel from Lebanese territory

[waxen smelt]

Just like wehn you asked SJohnson if he's five

[thorny stone]

What if he can't read
It is very clear this comment was meant disrespectfully. You should stop doing that.

[waxen smelt]

It's very clear you were trying to mean when you aksed if SJohnson is 5

[thorny stone]

As I've explained already, I asked him that question because he was already being very disrespectful and I wanted to see if he could realise that.

[waxen smelt]

I done arguing with you

[thorny stone]

Good. Bye.

[waxen smelt]

If you are not willing to admit your wrong and blame others for things you did

You lose my respect

[thorny stone]

to prevent Hezbollah from attacking Israel from Lebanese territory
So preventing a war was part of it then?

[cerulean obsidian]

no

Israel and Lebanon were at war then, and still are

there never was a peace treaty

only a ceasefire

[thorny stone]

If you only want to snipe from the side and not politely discuss any of the points you disagree with then you're not adding anything useful to the conversation.

[cerulean obsidian]

the goal was to aid Lebanon in gaining control over the entirety of their own country

because the south of Lebanon was run (and still is) by Hezbollah

[waxen smelt]

SJohnson, Good luck fighting with this person, when you said his mind can't be changed you were right

[thorny stone]

Ok, let's change the wording then. The purpose of the UN peacekeeping force includes trying to stop military attacks.

[cerulean obsidian]

Please, for your own sake, just admit that your claim that the reason for UNIFIL to exist is to prevent Israel from invading Lebanon was wrong

there's no way you can spin it to make it true

because it's nowhere near remotely true

Israel and Lebanon were officialy (and still are) at war then

we're not even arguing over who's wrong or who's right in the conflict

this is a very simple matter of whether UNIFIL's purpose was to stop Israel from invading Lebanon

which just was not and is not the case

[thorny stone]

I have explained this already. The peacekeeping force is there ultimately to try and prevent violence between Hezbollah and Israel taking place there. All violence between Hezbollah and Israel results in Israel invading, which then escalates the conflict even more. Although the UNIFIL aims to stop the fighting at an earlier point in the process, one of the things it is ultimately trying to prevent is Israel invading Lebanon again. That is not the only thing, but it is one of the things. Not as opposition to Israel, but as a substitute for Israel invading to try and achieve the same thing by itself.

[cerulean obsidian]

okay, in which case, since UNIFIL obviously failed in the mission against Hezbollah, is Israel now justified in doing the job themselves?

[thorny stone]

No, of course not, for many reasons. One is that they stand even less chance of doing it successfully, because it relies on working with people who have a much more hostile relationship with Israel than with the UN. Another reason is because it's not the best thing to try and achieve in order to end the conflict anyway.

[cerulean obsidian]

so in your mind, it's okay if UNIFIL was to disarm Hezbollah, but it's not okay if Israel now wants to do the same thing that the UN failed at?

[thorny stone]

No, I'm saying it was and is a stupid idea to try and disarm Hezbollah before you give them a reason to stop fighting. You can't persuade people to stop fighting by using force, you have to remove the causes. That's literally the only thing that can work.

[cerulean obsidian]

Hezbollah just wants to destroy Israel. Literally the only way to stop that cause, is to remove Hezbollah.

[thorny stone]

I agree. But you can't do that by attacking them, because every attack harms even more people, which creates more enemy soldiers.

What you need to do instead, is remove the things that are causing people to join organisations like Hezbollah and Hamas.

[cerulean obsidian]

not in the case of Hezbollah

Lebanon is religiously very diverse, and Hezbollah in particular is a Shia Muslim group

basically no self-respecting Sunni would join it, and forget about Lebanon's Druze or Christians joining it

[thorny stone]

If there isn't an existing organisation that they can join in order to fight back, then people who are attacked by Israel will form their own new one. That's how Hezbollah, Hamas, the Sunni Abdullah Azzam Brigades, and all the other militant groups were formed in the first place, after all. People don't just forget about their relatives being tortured and killed. That anger and determination to respond always goes somewhere. Maybe it goes into a militant group. Maybe it goes towards electing a more anti-Israel government in a neighbouring country. Maybe they just attack someone who seems Jewish on the street. Whatever form it takes, there will be a negative effect on Israel from every innocent person they kill.

We've seen it happen multiple times. That's how this works. The more people you kill, the more people who oppose you. Israel started off with 1.3 million Palestinians against them, and now there are 14 million Palestinians against them, plus Hezbollah, Iran, and a significant chunk of the UN.

It's literally impossible to kill your way to peace.

[civic karma]

To be fair, if your goal in these topics is to change someone else's mind on something, you might be better off not participating at all anymore

Just because you don't share the same opinion, doesn't mean Arklar is being disrespectful to you. Ever since you joined the conversation up until the point you stated this, he has not been disrespectful to you.

[civic karma]

"unauthorized armed personnel, such as Hezbollah"
Which would also include IDF as they are also unauthorized armed personell.

UNIFL does not ONLY exist to combat Hezbollah

[civic karma]

Yes

they were

They were installed to prevent unauthorized military personell in the zone they controlled

Meaning both Israeli forces and Hezbollah or other militant groups

To twist it in such a way like you are doing that it is only to combat Hezbollah is plain wrong

And I think you actually KNOW that to be true, however you don't want to admit it, because it does not fit your narrative

Also, you are accusing Arklar of spreading propaganda, but I can claim the same about you to be honest

You are using the word of Israeli government as ''factual information'' whereas the claims to these statements are dubious at best.

Everyone understands that a nation that is in war has no benefit from being truthful and honest about the information its bringing to the outside world

So to blindly trust anything from the Israeli government is quite naive in its own way

For that exact same reason you probably don't trust any information coming from Hezbollah / Hamas etc

because its simply not trustworthy#

[cerulean obsidian]

no, it does not include Israel, because Lebanon and Israel were and still are at war

if it were to include IDF, it would essentialy be a defense pact, which it is not

there is no way you can spin it to include Israel there

but sure, believe what you want to believe without considering the actual implications on the scenario if it was true

[cerulean obsidian]

also consider that Israel has invaded Lebanon several times since the establishment of UNIFIL with absolutely 0 consequences

so yes, it is a fact that UNIFIL’s purpose in no way includes “stopping Israel from invading Lebanon” in any way

[thorny stone]

Except that we've now agreed UNIFIL's purpose included trying to reduce the threat from Hezbollah, which would remove the need for Israel to invade Hezbollah-controlled lands, and prevent escalating military conflict that would include Israel invading Lebanon. So it seems to be very clear to all of us that Israel invading Lebanon was indeed one of the things the UNIFIL was trying to prevent.

...None of which changes the fact that Israel is attacking yet another group of innocent people, this time in the form of the UNIFIL.

The IDF is clearly clearly acting way beyond reason, and is becoming a major world problem.

[cerulean obsidian]

The IDF is the solution to a major world problem

[waxen smelt]

""Ever since you joined the conversation up until the point you stated this, he has not been disrespectful to you." So let me get this straight, he is allowed to be disresptuful to others

And I shoudl do nothing about it

Just cause you disagree with the fact he's stating lies since he is on the same side as you doesn't mean you have to agree with him

I myself Ain't on anybody's side

If you state lies and then are being disrespful I can't post a gif showing how I am feeling. Just cause you are on his side since he agrees with palestien doesn't mean you have to be lie.

https://tenor.com/view/ups-error-facepalm-gif-15403364

As I stated before, I don't think I want to argue one side over the other since their both defintly in the "wrong"

Dealing with people being autistic ain't my job

It's the reason I am doing "snipe shots" instead of arguing, I don't want to fight with a random stranger who lies, doesn't have common sense and has bias toward Israel 🙂

[thorny stone]

Ok, let me explain the situation very clearly for everyone, and hopefully we will all understand things a bit better.

1. What is a lie?

a) Saying something that you believe to be true, and is true = Not lying.
b) Saying something that you believe to be true, and it is not true = Not lying.
c) Saying something that you don't believe to be true = Lying

@waxen smelt I have clearly explained why I think it is correct. You have been unable to explain why you thought that what I said was incorrect, and also stated that you don't really know anything about the subject matter and so don't have any basis to form an opinion on it anyway. Nobody else has been able to articulate a valid reason to think that it is not correct either. So right now, there's no reason for you to say my statement was even incorrect, let alone a lie.

I think it is very clear that I believe my statement to be true. I haven't done anything that indicates I don't believe it to be true, and I have done things that indicate that I do believe it to be true, including explaining the reasoning behind it. Nobody has indicated anything that would give anyone the slightest reason to think that I don't believe the statement to be true.
The only argument you have presented for it being a lie, is that you think it is untrue. However as I've just explained, that is insufficient reason to call something a lie. Even if something is untrue that doesn't mean it is a lie, because lying is based on the belief of the person making the statement, not on the objective truth.

I believe the statement I made is true. It therefore cannot be a lie. Your accusation is therefore both false and baseless.

.
2) What does it mean to treat someone disrespectfully?

a) Insulting someone = Disrespectful (e.g. "What if he can't read" or " just use your brain to figure that out. Oh wait... You don't have one")
b) Abusing someone = Disrespectful (e.g. "go fuck yourself")
c) Making accusations without knowing what you're talking about = Disrespectful (e.g. "I just a random stranger planning to argue with you, Without knowing anything about this conversation")
d) Attacking the person instead of the point they are making (including making fun of someone) = Disrespectful (e.g. "You favor palestine for some reason", "doesn't have common sense", accusations of bias, posting gifs to ridicule another person, reacting to messages with clown emojis etc.)
e) Trying to "win" an argument = Disrespectful (e.g. complaining about being unable to change someone's mind, getting angry that someone is wrong on the internet, comments like "Now we got you" etc.)
e) Calling attention to disrespectful behaviour in an attempt to get it to stop = Not disrespectful.

I think there's quite a clear difference between comments that improve or progress the discussion, and comments that degrade the discussion or even prevent it. All of those examples I just mentioned, A to E, make rational discussions harder to have. They all introduce charged emotions into the environment, which makes it much harder for people think rationally. It makes it much more likely for people to respond badly, which then often causes a vicious circle and the conversation to get increasingly ill-tempered, changing the conversation from one where people can learn into one where people only get annoyed.

.
If you are going to participate in a discussion, you need to avoid doing any of those things. If someone is doing some of those things, you need to take some action to try and stop it happening.
In this forum there isn't a regular staff presence. We're generally left to our own devices, to try and work out problems amongst ourselves. While that's fine when people behave well, when someone starts making emotionally charged statements they tend to have left rationality behind some time ago, and so are not usually inclined to listen to other people pointing out they're doing something wrong. The people trying to point out the wrongdoing are also usually the ones being targeted by it, and so of course they as well are are not going to respond perfectly either as they can't help but be affected by it. So we all have to try extra hard to firstly avoid getting upset by people's comments in the first place, secondly avoid making comments that make the situation worse for everyone else as well, and then thirdly, remember that different points of view are just as valid as your own. Different people se things in different ways, and they are all subjective, including your own. No matter how correct you think yourself to be, you have no better claim to know truth than anyone else. All any of us can hope for is to share our own perspective, explain it, ask questions about other perspectives, and maybe learn a bit more about all of them. You should not expect to be able to change anyone's mind, because you are only a tiny piece of their total experience that goes towards informing their opinion.

.
Lastly, I want to point out that there are a number of people who have indicated that they don't want to participate in this discussion thread because of the behaviour of certain individuals. I'm doing my best here, as just a regular forum user, to try and enable us all to have an interesting conversation about this topic. Ideally I wouldn't have to do any of this, wouldn't have to explain to people how to have a conversation, wouldn't have to point out when people are being rude, wouldn't have to try and stay on topic while being subjected to large amounts of abuse and disrespect. In most discussion forums this would be the job of staff, to enforce the rules, and remove problematic content before it's a problem. But as we don't have that here, we users need to be able to sort it out between us.

What I would suggest, to everyone thinking about posting in this discussion, is to stop treating other users like an opposition. We need to act like a team. We're all on the same side here, because the only side that needs to exist is the side that wants to discuss this subject and share ideas, information, and perspectives. If your goal is to persuade people, we don't need you here. If your goal is to have fun at others' expense, we don't need you here. If your goal is anything other than to share your understanding and learn about other people's understandings then we don't need you here. This is not a chat room, this is a serious discussion forum. There is absolutely no need to make any kind of personal comments about any of the people taking part in this discussion.

.
If you disagree with a point that is being made, explain why and address only the point, not the person. If you think a message is rude, then say so and again explain why. If you have trouble with this, just don't even look at the name of the person posting the message, treat it like an AI comment that has come from nobody in particular. Or do whatever you have to do to stop acting like a dick to other people.

I'm done explaining this now. Whoever is reading this; explaining things is now your responsibility.

[civic karma]

So let me get this straight, he is allowed to be disresptuful to others
I have not seen him being disrespectful to you. You however have been hostile and disrespectful to him from the moment you entered the conversation. The point of this forums is not to call eachother names and/or to ridiculize eachother. If you cannot have a proper conversation without resorting to either of those two things, please just refrain from joining the conversation alltogether.

[civic karma]

Just cause you disagree with the fact he's stating lies since he is on the same side as you doesn't mean you have to agree with him
Ah yes the classic "yeah but you are biased" or ''but you are in the same camp'' stance. I am not calling you out for being disrespectful because I am on the ''same side'' as Arklar (which is not exactly true btw). I am calling you out for being disrespectful, because you're being disrespectful. It is as simple as that.

[civic karma]

If you state lies and then are being disrespful
What lies were stated?
What behaviour was disrespectful towards you?

I can't post a gif showing how I am feeling
We both know that the point of that gif is to convey the idea that you believe the person on the other side of the discussion is some kind of ''moron'' or an ''idiot'', without having to spell it out. There's no way you believe it to not be disrespectful.

If you are truly honest about it only there to ''show how you are feeling'' then I'd suggest to you to think about how somethings are recieved before sending them. Ultimately, the intention you have in your message is irrelevant if the message itself is hostile.

Just cause you are on his side since he agrees with palestien doesn't mean you have to be lie
Again, I am not on ''his side'', imo there are not really sides in this discussion anyway. I don't believe anyone is in favor of killing innocent people on either side of the conflict. The only thing we disagree about is who is responsible for certain things and how the conflict should form in the future.

Moreover, even if I were ''on his side'', that's not even an argument in favor of anything you are saying or thinking. I am not lying, and to accuse me of lying is quite disrespectful on its own. I am stating the facts and explain how I interpret them. I get that you may interpret some facts differently, but that does not mean either of us is lying.

The fact that you claim the other person to be lying because you don't agree says enough. I'm done with you. I am not spending any more energy in this server on people like you, who are clearly not here to have an actual conversation and are only trying to ''win the debate'', which is not a proper mindset to begin with.

[heavy rampart]

Howdy everyone! My name is Brandon, and I have a master’s degree in international affairs (specifically my concentrations are in grand strategy, diplomacy, and the Middle East). I’d love to contribute to the conversation in any way I can! Feel free to ask me any questions or for book recommendations on the subject!

[cerulean obsidian]

Why is UNIFIL still a thing, considering the fact that their mission has been a complete and utter failure on all fronts?

[heavy rampart]

Short/Simple answer: it still exists because the United States (and the UNSC more broadly) still see UNFIL as a part of the solution to establishing peace in the region; therefore, UNIFIL and its mandate continue to be reauthorized by the UN Security Council on an annual basis

Long/Nuanced answer: although the US has continued to vote to reauthorize UNIFILs mandate, the US has expressed serious concerns about UNIFILs ability to actually fulfill its mission according to its mandate. As a result the US has conditioned its reauthorization vote in the past on the grounds that additional provisions be added to UNIFILs mandate. Ultimately however, UNIFIL lacks credible enforcement because it operates under UN charter chapter VI authority and not chapter VII authority. I highly recommend checking out the Congressional Research Service’s 2022 report on UNIFIL for more information on UNIFIL, and the US governments concerns over it/attempts to fix it prior to the recent conflicts in the Middle East

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11915/4

[thorny stone]

The two most recent questions I've posed are 1) How does the conflict get solved? and 2) How does Israel change to become acceptable to the rest of the world? What needs to change, and how does that change happen?

I think those questions can keep us going for a while.

[heavy rampart]

For clarification on the first question, are you asking how the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict gets solved or are you asking how the current hostilities can end? I can take a crack a both questions, but I want to make sure I understand your original first question before I try answering it

[thorny stone]

I'm talking about how to solve the whole Israel-Palestinian conflict. But from my point of view that's the same question as asking how the current hostilities can be ended, since I don't view a temporary pause as an end. They've essentially been fighting the same war for 100 years.

[heavy rampart]

understood, thank you! I’ll do my best to answer that question

[heavy rampart]

There are 4 options for how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will end:

Option 1: a two-state solution (an independent "greenline Israel" with the borders before the 1967 war and an independent Palestinian state that includes the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem)

Option 2: a democratic "greater Israel" one-state solution (democratic "greater Israel" includes all of "greenline Israel" plus all the Palestinian territories in a single state where Palestinians and Jews have equal rights)

Option 3: a Jewish state "greater Israel" one-state solution (again, this would consist of "greenline Israel" and all the Palestinian territories, but a system of apartheid remains in place where Palestinians are treated as second-class citizens)

Option 4: ethnic cleansing (the Palestinians one way or another are removed from "greater Israel")

[cerulean obsidian]

the only real option here is option 3, no?

the two state solution is dead, as nobody in Israel on Palestine wants it;
giving Palestinians equal voting rights would mean the end of Israel;
and as for ethnic cleansing… this would be too much, the world would not stand for it, and there’s nowhere to move them to. No Arab country is going to accept the Palestinian population.

[heavy rampart]

I think I agree with that assessment for the most part:

the current Israeli government will not stand for an independent Palestinian state nor will they accept a one-state solution where Israel is not a Jewish state (options 1 and 2 are by far the least likely to happen).

I am still uncertain about confidently saying that option 4 will not happen. In my opinion, as long as the hostilities are ongoing, the potential for escalation is always looming in the background. (This is just my opinion and not an objective fact so feel free to disagree)

Option 3 is the most likely to happen though

[thorny stone]

So the problem I see with options 2 to 4 is that the Palestinians will keep on fighting Israel in all of those scenarios. So none of those would be an end to the conflict.
Not only with Palestinians either. In all of those three scenarios, Israel remains a pariah state for the rest of the world.

I think the current Israeli government would only be content with option 4. That's why I asked the second question, because I think Israel needs serious reform before there is a chance of stopping the violence.

Most Palestinians want option 1. Most Israelis would probably be happy with option 1 as well, if the terrorism stopped. So resolving the conflict is about removing the obstacles to achieving those things, which now includes the current leaderships on both sides.

[heavy rampart]

I agree that option 1 would be the most preferable option for bringing the conflict to an end, and that option 1 would be best for all parties, such as the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinians (I can explain why I think that would be the case if anyone is interested)

[heavy rampart]

I haven't forgotten about your second question. I think its an important one to ask! I'm currently typing up an answer to it on a separate doc and I'll post the text of it here once I'm finished

[zenith coyote]

Thoughts about how the death of sinwar will change the situation @heavy rampart

[magic glacier]

It won't

[heavy rampart]

I agree with Parlox that this is unlikely to change much of anything. To the extent that it will/can changes things, we have to ask “what does Benjamin Netanyahu see as israel’s primary end goal in this conflict?”. If he sees Israel’s primary end goal as rescuing the hostages, then the conflict is far from over. If he see Israel’s primary end goal as “finishing the job” from a military standpoint, then he has to ask the question “what more does Israel need to achieve militarily now that Sinwar is dead?”. If he sees israel’s primary end goal as ensuring that another October 7th style attack can never be performed from the Gaza strip ever again, then the death of Sinwar is certainly a step in the right direction, but achieving that goal will ultimately require a long term political solution for how the Gaza strip will be governed beyond just military action

[heavy rampart]

With regards to what changes Israel can undertake to improve its international legitimacy, there are two categories to consider:

1. Political Changes: these include a long-term political solution to broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict, changes in Israel’s government (Prime Minister, War Cabinet, etc.), ending the dehumanization of Palestinians in rhetoric (both within the Israeli government and/or among the broader Israeli population), putting an end to Israeli settlements within the West Bank, etc.

2. Military Changes: these include taking steps to avoid higher rates of civilian casualties, ending the bombing of churches, schools, hospitals, etc., ending the deliberate destruction of civilian property (demolishing homes with no one in them, destroying personal belongings, etc), ordering that the IDF stop blocking humanitarian aid from reaching the Gaza Strip, etc.

How these changes will happen will depend on the level of pressure that’s placed on the Israeli government to make those changes. That pressure can either be internal (from within Israel) or external (from outside of Israel). Although much has been published and said on the external pressure Israel is experiencing to make some of these changes, very little has been written on the state of internal pressure the Israeli government is experiencing that might lead them to consider making changes. For a better idea of what that looks like, I’ve linked an article below:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/up-to-60000-israeli-businesses-may-close-in-2024-as-war-takes-toll-on-economy/amp/

[heavy rampart]

^ the reply to question 2

[heavy rampart]

just to give everyone a heads up, i’ll be in Latvia for the next week (a couple of my colleagues from grad school and I will be meeting with Latvia’s president and other people in the Latvian government for a project we’re working on). I probably won’t be able to answer any questions that’ll be asked in the meantime, but I’ll be sure to do so once I return.

Until then, if you’re interested in learning more about the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or just Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East in general, here are 4 books I highly recommend:

“Arabs and Israelis: Conflict and Peacemaking in the Middle East” by Abdel Monem Said Aly, Shai Feidman, and Khalil Shikaki

“A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East” by David Fromkin (this is an incredibly long read but absolutely essential if you want to understand the history of the Middle East)

“The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy” by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (these 2 authors are among the most highly respected and influential scholars in the field of international relations and provide the best unbiased analysis of the influence Israeli interest groups have on American foreign policy vis-a-vis Israel and the Middle East)

“The Arab Awakening: America and the Transformation of the Middle East” by too many authors to list (just google the title and you’ll find it)

[magic glacier]

A deal to return the hostages has been on the table for most of the war. The only person stopping it is Netanyahu himself. It's clear that he doesn't want all of them to return, even if he pretends that he does. Why? An end to the war could lead directly to his ousting.

[cerulean obsidian]

wanna grab a beer if you get a spare moment?

[cerulean obsidian]

I’d say because the time for negotiating with terrorists is over, so it’s a gamble. If the end result is that this can never happen again, the hostsges that die are effectively martyred (i.e. they will die so it can never happen again).

And it’s a gamble for that reason exactly, because it requires a total victory in Gaza, otherwise they’ll have died in vain.

[thorny stone]

What are you envisaging is going to happen if Israel keeps going the way it is going?

Assuming nobody steps in, there's surely only one outcome, right? Israel gradually kills more and more of Hamas, occupying more and more of the Levant with its troops and settlers, killing more and more innocents as well. That means more and more people who aren't already involved in fighting lose family members, which means more and more of them are inspired to fight back violently against Israel. So the outcome is even more people fighting Israel, which gradually increases its territory despite that.

We've seen exactly this for 100 years. That's what Netanyahu wants, and various other Jewish extremists in Israel. A never ending war involving continued terrorist attacks and the persecution of an ethnic group, as a necessary evil to allow Israel to conquer land that it feels it has a divine right or even duty to rule.

If we want the violence to end, then allowing the extremists in Israel to do what they like does not seem like an option, because they have shown their willingness to choose this violence over peace.

[thorny stone]

I think you've done a good job of laying out some aspects of the current situation there. But I was actually looking for more specific ideas on what the way forward would be. It seems clear that some pressure needs to be applied somewhere by someone, but the question is by who, where, and in what form.

[cerulean obsidian]

What are you envisaging is going to happen if Israel keeps going the way it is going?
Annexation of the Palestinian territories

[thorny stone]

And then what happens?

[cerulean obsidian]

Effective apartheid until the Palestinian population gets integrated into Israeli society, which is likely going to take a generation or two

So... basically the status quo, except it would all be official

[thorny stone]

We've had four generations without them integrating so far. Why do you think they would suddenly integrate?

[cerulean obsidian]

Because they would have no self-rule whatsoever

[thorny stone]

So how would that be different than the current situation of non-integration?

[cerulean obsidian]

Their kids would go to schools run by Israel, not Hamas

[cerulean obsidian]

Eh, Israel has a very well integrated Arab population

[thorny stone]

Again, how would that be different to Palestinian life under Israel currently?

[thorny stone]

...in an apartheid situation, yes.

[cerulean obsidian]

Absolutely not

There's no apartheid in Israel whatsoever

[thorny stone]

Whether or not you would call it apartheid, that's what Palestinians view it as.

Which means they aren't going to just accept it.

[cerulean obsidian]

There's apartheid with relation to the Palestinian territories

There's no apartheid whatsoever in Israel proper

Arab citizens of Israel are fully equal to Jewish citizens of Israel

[cerulean obsidian]

Which is why I said it's going to be a slow process taking a generation or two

[thorny stone]

I'm not going to argue this point again. Every impartial observer calls it apartheid. You can call it whatever you like, but none of the Palestinians think they are treated as equals in Israel.

The name isn't as important as the effect. And the effect is that living under Israel is not something that Palestinians accept.

[cerulean obsidian]

That's complete bullcrap

There are arab judges in Israel

[thorny stone]

Would you like to present a reasoned argument? We're not going to get anywhere with abuse.

[cerulean obsidian]

Arab citizens of Israel have a better life in Israel than they would have anywhere in the Arab world

[thorny stone]

In your view, not in theirs, and you don't get to decide that for them.

[cerulean obsidian]

there are some pretty good internationally recognized metrics for that

like HDI and Gini coefficient

[thorny stone]

The only metric that matters is the opinion of the Palestinians themselves.

[cerulean obsidian]

which given the circumstances doesn't actually matter at all

[thorny stone]

You can be kept imprisoned in a palace, but it's still inhumane.

[thorny stone]

Why don't the views of the Palestinians matter?

[cerulean obsidian]

because they are not going to get to choose

[thorny stone]

Do you not think they should have a say in what happens to them?

[cerulean obsidian]

of course they should

[thorny stone]

so Israel is in the wrong by not allowing them that?

[cerulean obsidian]

it's complicated, but generally yes

it's complicated because there is no right solution

[thorny stone]

Ok cool, we have finally found something we can agree on.

[thorny stone]

I can agree there is no perfect solution, but there can still be a right solution if we find the solution that works best for everyone overall.

and would you agree that there can still be any number of "solutions" that are clearly wrong?

[cerulean obsidian]

of course, for the simple matter of fact that there isn't a single solution that's clearly right

[thorny stone]

For example, nuking the whole Levant would be a solution to the current war. But I'm happy to file that away under bad solutions.

[thorny stone]

Are you open to the possibility that there is one solution that is better than the other possible alternatives? I.e., would you agree that there are ways to tell better options from worse ones?

[cerulean obsidian]

yes

[thorny stone]

Ok. And would you agree that the conflict is not finished until people stop using violence against each other?

[cerulean obsidian]

yes, but that's just not going to happen

[thorny stone]

What, ever?

[cerulean obsidian]

probably not

[thorny stone]

why not?

[cerulean obsidian]

because the hatred is generational

[thorny stone]

But it has specific causes, wouldn't you agree?

[cerulean obsidian]

yes, but it's irrelevant, because those historical wrongs cannot be righted

they can only be accepted

[thorny stone]

Well, there are any number of wars that have happened throughout history between countries that are friends now. So I would say conflicts can be resolved given the right circumstances. Would you agree, or do you think this one is different for some reason?

[cerulean obsidian]

this one is fundamentally different

[thorny stone]

why?

[cerulean obsidian]

religion

Islam is mostly incompatible with the western way of life

Israel is mostly western

Almost all Palestinians are muslim

[thorny stone]

So again, there have been religious wars in the past that have ended peacefully. Why is this one different?

[thorny stone]

So all western countries need to be at war with all Islamic ones?

I don't see the reaasoning there.

[cerulean obsidian]

So again, there have been religious wars in the past that have ended peacefully.
which one was the last religious war that ended peacefully?

[cerulean obsidian]

it's not what I said at all

[thorny stone]

I was just trying to ask you to explain that point as I don't see how Islam not being compatible with Western life would lead to inevitable and unstoppable conflict.

[cerulean obsidian]

sure you do, and you can even remove western values from that equation

most of the muslim world is at war with itself

[thorny stone]

I don't have a list of all of them. But as one example, the Protestant-Catholic wars of the 16th century are no longer being fought, certainly not with violence.

[thorny stone]

The same can be said about the Western world too.

[cerulean obsidian]

yes, because Christians generally just decided to stop killing each other

[thorny stone]

Nobody is very united right now.

[thorny stone]

I think it was a bit more complex than that. Religion always is.

[cerulean obsidian]

"not very united" is very different from "actively fighting"

Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria are all currently in some sort of a civil war

and I'm sure I missed a country or two in that list

oh yeah I missed the most obvious one, Lebanon

even if you wipe Israel off the map, there's not going to be peace in the Middle East

[thorny stone]

So ok, let's draw some parallels. Islam is approximately 1400 years old. When Christianity was 1400 years old, they were still going on crusades, having Spanish Inquisitions, burning people suspected of being witches, among other horrible things. If Christianity can eventually become largely benign, after bveing responsible for so much violence originally, would it not be reasonable to assume Islam can also?

And, let us not forget, Europe had it's own 100-years war in that time period too.

[cerulean obsidian]

Yeah, tag me when Islam goes through the age of enlightmenment like Christianity did

[thorny stone]

I don't think we need to keep referring back to an idea of wiping Israel off the map. Nobody in this discussion has proposed that as an idea, and I think it's in danger of being a perpetual strawman if we keep mentioning it.

[cerulean obsidian]

I mentioned it as the reason why I don't think people in that particular region are going to stop using violence against each other and why this conflict is fundamentally different than the 100 year wars fought in Europe

[thorny stone]

The point I'm making is that I can't see a reason for assuming that a people being predominantly Islamic means there cannot be peace. Without a rational argument for that, that argument could be a racist one.

[thorny stone]

What has wiping Israel off the map got to do with that?

[cerulean obsidian]

Muslims are currently killing each other mostly over religion in no less than 10 different countries right now

[thorny stone]

I mean, find me a protracted war where both sides haven't at some point made claims about completely destroying the other side.

[cerulean obsidian]

Israel is completely irrelevant to the reason why I don't see peace happening

[thorny stone]

Ok, but how about we try and solve one war at a time?

[cerulean obsidian]

This is the point you made, to which I replied "yeah but it's not going to happen"

[thorny stone]

Ok, then I'll rephrase to clarify.
Would you agree that this conflict is not finished until these people stop using violence against each other?

[cerulean obsidian]

Again, not going to happen, because the Palestinians have generational hatred against Israel

[thorny stone]

Isn't that just another way of saying it's been a long war?

[cerulean obsidian]

It is, and it's why I think it's time to end it on Israel's terms

[thorny stone]

That's not an argument for that though.

What is different about this war that means it cannot be ended?

Length doesn't seem to be a valid reason.

[cerulean obsidian]

how about "neither side wants peace"?

[thorny stone]

That's the case at some point in every war.

But in any case, I don't believe it is true that neither side wants peace. I think the true version of that statement, is that there are extremists on both sides that do not want peace right now, but they are not the majority.

Even the extremists want peace. The only difference is they want it on their terms.

[cerulean obsidian]

Israel has gone all-in with no way of backtracking. Their accomplishments in the past months:

• Wiping out most of Hamas leadership, which required leveling most of Gaza
• Wiping out most of Hezbollah leadership, which required opening another front by invading Lebanon
• Assasinating Iranian president
• Almost killing Iranian ambassador to Lebanon
• Severely damaging Russian airbase in Syria
  and many more

the option to say "Yo let's all be chill now?" simply does not exist. It would be rightfully seen as weakness by people who only understand force

And groups like Hamas and Hezbollah only understand force

so it's not just one war, it's several separate simulatenous wars

[thorny stone]

I don't see how it helps to make broad sweeping statements like that.

Of course they don't "only understand force". There's nobody in that situation in real life. Everyone can have conversations, everyone can understand new ideas.

[cerulean obsidian]

I'll remind you that the only reason for Hamas and Hezbollah's existence is to "wipe out Israel"

[thorny stone]

That's also not true.

[cerulean obsidian]

So I highly doubt they can understand a new idea where Israel just exists

[thorny stone]

The reason for their existence is to protect Palestinians and Southern Lebanese respectively from Israel.

[thorny stone]

Again, there is always a difference between public statements of war propaganda, and what the reality is.

[cerulean obsidian]

And in your opinion, kidnapping & killing Israeli civilians and launching rockets into civilian communities in Israel is "protecting Palestinians" or "provoking Israel"?

because Palestinians are the last group of people Hamas cares about, considering how liberally they use them as human shields

Nothing they have done has been to protect Palestinians

[thorny stone]

On the contrary, everything has been for that purpose. We're just 100 years into this war, and the situation has become very complex for the Palestinians.

[cerulean obsidian]

It's not even propaganda, please show me one single piece of evidence of a documented action where Hamas or Hezbollah have done anything at all to protect Palestinians from harm

it simply does not exist

[thorny stone]

As I said, that's their purpose behind everything they do.

Just like with Israel, I don't necessarily agree with their reasoning. But I know what their reasoning is.

[cerulean obsidian]

so in order to protect Palestinians from harm they have successfully provoked Israel into total war which effectively puts every Palestinian in harms way

https://tenor.com/view/sacha-baron-cohen-great-success-yay-gif-4185058

[thorny stone]

Would you like me to explain their point of view? I can, if you want to hear it.

[cerulean obsidian]

I don't think I care, might save yourself the trouble

I see them as nothing more than simple terrorists

you could say "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter", but at the end of the day from my point of view they are still simple terrorists

[thorny stone]

I think that's the precise attitude that keeps this war endless.

The difference between terrorist and soldier is more or less semantics.

Both are trying to use violence to achieve their aims.

There is barely even a semantic difference between the actions of the IDF and the actions of Hamas.

Name an atrocity, chances are both sides have done it.

[cerulean obsidian]

IDF hasn't taken civilians hostage and paraded dead civilian bodies in the streets

[thorny stone]

What produces those atrocities though, is the dehumanisation of the other side. Statements like "they are still simple terrorists", or "Islam isn't compatible with the west", or "Hamas and Hezbollah won't stop until Israel is wiped off the map" all act to treat the other group as something lesser, something not deserving of basic human respect. THAT is the true cause of the worst of war.

[thorny stone]

Yes it has, to both of those things. It has thousands of Palestinian hostages right now, and it celebrates the people it has killed just as fiercely. Just today in fact, it dropped pictures of a dead body all over Gaza.

[cerulean obsidian]

Sinwar was no civilian

[cerulean obsidian]

you can go even more basic than that

"good versus evil"

[thorny stone]

If you read and watch the interviews with former IDF members you will hear about how IDF members have celebrated and taken joy in killing innocent Palestinians. They celebrate in different ways maybe, but the sentiment is the same. For people on both sides at the moment this war is at the extreme end of the scale of disrespect for their opponents.

[thorny stone]

I don't see how that is relevant.

[cerulean obsidian]

"good versus evil" is the most basic form of treating the other group as something lesser

[thorny stone]

Ok, got it. Yes, creating moral absolutes is a big contributory factor. And that's where religion comes in as well.

because religion left unchecked creates unchallengeable ideas, which always becomes problematic when those ideas are taken into a different context.

In this case, I think the only unreconcilable part of the whole war is the extremist Jewish view that the whole region is rightfully theirs, regardless of who is living there currently.

[cerulean obsidian]

there's nothing irreconcilable about that, Palestinians believe the same thing for the exact same reason

[thorny stone]

That's causing problems even within the Jewish community in Israel, because the extremists don't even want some Jews there, never mind Arabs.

[cerulean obsidian]

oh yeah, Haredi Jews are an interesting topic in itself, not even the original Zionists liked them and they just hoped that they'd slowly die off

but of course that didn't happen

[thorny stone]

I think the small number of Palestinians who believe that they have a god-given right to the whole region means that is a much smaller problem than it is for Israel, where it is the majority view and the only variance is the strength of the belief.

[cerulean obsidian]

either way, Haredi Jews have more in common with the Palestinians than with average Israeli

[cerulean obsidian]

it's not a small number of Palestinians, it's almost every Palestinian

[thorny stone]

No they don't. They have some things in common with the most extremist of the Palestinians, but we need to be careful not to treat all of a particular group as though they are the same as the very worst members of that group, because that is racism.

[cerulean obsidian]

have you watched this guy? https://www.youtube.com/@CoreyGilShusterAskProject/videos

[cerulean obsidian]

Yes they do. There's also this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority_Martyrs_Fund

The so-called "martyr payments" are "exceedingly popular" among Palestinians and have been described as "part of the ethos of Palestinian society."[6][17] Support for the payments among Palestinians is as high as 91%

[thorny stone]

Yes, he was linked in this topic a few weeks ago.

[cerulean obsidian]

of course you can claim it's all propaganda, but most Palestinians I've seen on his videos have claimed that all of the land is theirs

[thorny stone]

What part of that are you trying to highlight?

[cerulean obsidian]

the universal support among Palestinians part

[thorny stone]

For people fighting for them? Of course they support that. It's their only protection, in their view.

That's like pension payments to families of veterans.

There's nothing controversial about it.

[cerulean obsidian]

there's nothing controversial about "stab an Israeli civilian, we'll take care of your family"?

I genuinely do not understand why you think that very few Palestinians think that all of the land is theirs, or why you think that they want peace with Israel. It's very detached from reality.

[thorny stone]

That's far from being a point where there is an obviously right or wrong answer though. The land was stolen from them, there's no question of that. Who rightfully owns it depends on how legitimate you view the people who made the decisions. They are perfectly entitled to reject the claim of some imperial powers to be able to decide to give their possessions to someone else.

[cerulean obsidian]

The land was not stolen from them.

the British promised the land to both sides

Both sides have a legitimate claim to all of it

[thorny stone]

OK, can I ask that you stick to presenting your views, not mine? Because that's not an accurate statement about what I think on the subject.

[thorny stone]

I think that most if not all Palestinians think the land is rightfully theirs. And I think that their issue with Israel is simply that Israel has come in and stolen their stuff, killed their relatives, and evicted them from their homes. We don't need to look for another reason, those are quite enough.

[cerulean obsidian]

you just said "a small number"

[thorny stone]

The land was taken from them by force, against their will, and without any form of compensation. That is stealing, from any perspective. It can perhaps be argued it was stolen by the UN, or by the British, or by the Zionists, or any other group you care to mention. But the Palestinians did experience a theft, undoubtedly.
The Israeli claim to the land relies on that theft being legitimate. That's the point the Palestinians disagree on, because they don't view that theft as being legitimate.

[cerulean obsidian]

Prior to 1948, all of the land that Jews acquired was bought from Palestinians. There was no force involved.

[thorny stone]

I said there is a proportionately small number who believe that their ownership of the land is based on religion. The majority view is that the land is theirs because they owned it.

[cerulean obsidian]

thanks for clarification, so indeed both sides believe that all of the land is theirs

[thorny stone]

Someone, quite possibly you, has made that point in this topic before, and I agreed with it then as well.

But that doesn't change the fact there has been a lot of force used to dispossess the Palestinians since then.

[cerulean obsidian]

So if both sides believe the land is theirs, and all international efforts to divide the land fairly between them have failed miserably, why is it so wrong to just let them finally fight it out to conclusion?

Israel has powerful allies? Palestine has powerful allies too.

[thorny stone]

Firstly because the two claims are not equally valid. An unprovable decree by a god has no legal or moral weight for anyone besides the people who happen to follow that particular religion.
Secondly, because killing is bad, and indiscriminate killing of innocent people is very bad. That should be stopped in all circumstances.

[cerulean obsidian]

Most Palestinians living in Palestine in 1947 also had virtually no long-standing connection to the land

[thorny stone]

That's not remotely true. Where did you get that idea?

[cerulean obsidian]

From the simple fact that most of them moved there in the 1920s to work for the British

mainly from Egypt and present day Saudi Arabia

[thorny stone]

and where did you get THAT idea?

[cerulean obsidian]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palestine_(region)#British_Mandate_era

look at the population explosion during British rule

maybe "most" was not entirely correct, but "a very significant percentage" indeed

[thorny stone]

Let me include the headers. What I see is a slow increase over time.

[cerulean obsidian]

this is not a slow increase

this is more than double in 22 years

most of whom were immigrants

[thorny stone]

To quote that wikipedia article:
"The overall assessment of several British reports was that the increase in the Arab population was primarily due to natural increase"

Do you have a better source for the idea that it was mostly from immigration?

The 1931 census said that only 2% of the Muslim population had been born outside Palestine, compared to 58% of the Jewish population.

"According to Roberto Bachi, head of the Israeli Institute of Statistics from 1949 onwards, between 1922 and 1945 there was a net Arab migration into Palestine of between 40,000 and 42,000"

[cerulean obsidian]

For some reason I thought that those figures also included Jordan, which was also a part of the British mandate

[cerulean obsidian]

the figure is widely disputed though, even in the article I linked

According to a Jewish Agency survey, 77% of Palestinian population growth in Palestine between 1914 and 1938, during which the Palestinian population doubled, was due to natural increase, while 23% was due to immigration. Arab immigration was primarily from Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan, and Egypt (all countries that bordered Palestine)

However, Gilbar did attribute the rapid growth of Jaffa and Haifa in the final three decades of Ottoman rule in part to migration, writing that "both attracted population from the rural and urban surroundings and immigrants from outside Palestine.

[thorny stone]

Yes, I was just about to quote that myself. Clearly there is a reasonable error margin in these stats. But I think either way, it looks like the vast majority of the Arabs there were not recent immigrants.
That's also not directly relevant to the question about legal ownership, because unless I've missed something there's no suggestion they arrived illegally or stole land when they arrived.

[cerulean obsidian]

Still, the Jews had nowhere else to go

[thorny stone]

I don't see anything which challenges the view that the Arabs were the legal owners of the vast majority of the land before the UN decided to strip them of some of it. Is there any reason you are aware of to challenge that view, or can we take that as a fact for now?

[cerulean obsidian]

They were widely hatred in all of Europe and US wasn't welcoming to them either

[cerulean obsidian]

UN didn't strip anyone of any land, they just attempted to establish the borders of 2 different states

can we agree that both sides have an equally strong claim to all of it?

[thorny stone]

I agree the UN didn't actually strip them of the land, but that was what they decided. The UN Partition Plan did involve the forced movement of people.

[thorny stone]

I don't agree Israel has any valid claim to the whole land, so no, of course we can't agree on that. Not even remotely.

The Palestinians owned it legally and morally, and the Zionists didn't. That's the basic fact of the matter.

[cerulean obsidian]

in which case can you agree that neither do the Palestinians?

because I can't see how they could have any legitimate claim to the land that they sold to the Jews

[thorny stone]

No. As I said, the Palestinians owned it legally and morally.

[thorny stone]

The part they sold to the Jewish immigrants, that ~5%, sure, the Palestinians don't have claim to commercial ownership of that land. But state ownership is a different question.

[cerulean obsidian]

to which I can argue that the Palestinians got a state, and one much larger than the present day Palestine

one called Jordan

[thorny stone]

I own my house, but I'm not the highest government of the land it sits on.

[thorny stone]

By that argument we can send the Zionists to Mars and call it a day.

[cerulean obsidian]

can't forcibly relocate people in this day and age

it was fine 80 years ago, but not anymore

[thorny stone]

There isn't an option to avoid that though.

and we can't allow one side to forcibly evict the other side, and call that the new status quo.

Why now, and not in 1920?

[cerulean obsidian]

There's no way Israel is going to evict any Palestinian

to where? Neither Egypt or Jordan want anything to do with them

[thorny stone]

I can't find a way of reading that that makes it make sense. Israel evicts Palestinians daily.

[thorny stone]

I agree. I don't see a place for them, other than their rightful homes which are currently occupied by Israel.

[cerulean obsidian]

they are Israel's problem permanently

[thorny stone]

I agree, until Israel stops making them a problem

[cerulean obsidian]

can't live with them (they all want to kill you)
can't relocate them to Jordan/Egypt (international law no longer allows for it, and neither Jordan or Egypt wants anything to do with them)
can't push them into the sea (genocide is not okay)
can't negotiate a 2 state solution (nobody wants it)

[thorny stone]

Palestinians don't all want to kill all Israelis. Again, the majority are fine with the majority of Israelis, as long as they don't keep hurting them.

[cerulean obsidian]

it was a massive overgeneralization

but still fundamentally true

[thorny stone]

It's not remotely true

[cerulean obsidian]

eh

[thorny stone]

and even for the people for whom it is true, it can be changed.

You keep making generalisations about Palestinians, and it is a problem because the difference between "a vocal few" and "all" is massive when it comes to trying to create the best solution. The vocal few will complain about anything. But if you find a solution the vast majority will accept, the vocal few can't do anything to stop it becoming a reality.

Palestinians ideally want all of their homes back. But they would be happy with a two-state solution that gives them security from Israel.

All but a small handfull of them.

[cerulean obsidian]

the problem is that the Palestinians have never been in control of their fate

[thorny stone]

That's one big problem, for sure.

[cerulean obsidian]

before 1920? They were Ottoman subjects

1920-1948? British

1948-1967? Egyptian/Jordanian

[thorny stone]

also 1947 onwards Israel.

[cerulean obsidian]

1967-whenever the fuck Oslo 1 accords were signed, can't recall from the top of my head now? Effectively stateless

Oslo I accords-present day? Palestinian Authority subjects

[thorny stone]

The Palestinians are still stateless. They don't have control over a state, the IDF still controls the lands they live on.

[cerulean obsidian]

IDF exercises no control over Area A

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bank_areas_in_the_Oslo_II_Accord

[thorny stone]

The IDF goes in whenever it wants, and the Palestinians Authority that nominally administers the Palestinian regions is essentially a puppet of the Israeli government since it defers to the IDF.

[cerulean obsidian]

You're almost making the case that for Israel to just annex the entire place would be fairer to the Palestinians than the current status quo

[thorny stone]

I'm making the case that Israel already has annexed the West Bank in reality. It did try and annex Gaza as well previously, but it can't quite handle that region yet so it's been on the waiting list for a while until the attacks of last October bumped it up the order of priorities.

Israel's sticking point is population size. It doesn't have enough people to properly annex and occupy everything in one go, so it has to annex it slowly as immigration and population increase gives it the necessary numbers.

[zenith coyote]

They went through a golden age of knowledge while the Christians were going through the dark ages

As well as Judaism and Islam are a lot closer than either are to Christianity

[civic karma]

And it’s a gamble for that reason exactly, because it requires a total victory in Gaza

These are just empty words. There is no such thing as a total vicotry in Gaza. From the perpective of the Israeli government, a total victory might be the total annihilation of all palestinian people, however the rest of the world won't allow that to happen.

I dont see what else you would consider a total victory

[civic karma]

Effective apartheid until the Palestinian population gets integrated into Israeli society

This is quite a contradictory statement. You cannot let people integrate into a society, if the incumbent members of that society don't let integration happen. What you are suggesting is that palestinian people are being opressed until they are willing to give up their cultures, values etc. That is in no way or shape similar to proper integration and it's doomed to fail.

[civic karma]

Suppose you have a single black friend, does that mean you cannot be racist by virtue of having a black friend?

[civic karma]

?

That's where my bullshit meter goes off

You cannot say islam is incompatible with western way of life

Western way of life is mostly based on similar religious values from the bible

Yet, Christianity is tolerated in western countries, whereas Islam is frowned upon.

[civic karma]

And here we get to the root cause of the problem with western society and islam

Muslims are dehumanized in politics, media and news

And all muslims are somehow grouped together as if they are one big organised system

Your "christian" values are not better in any way shape or form

They are hardly different at all

The fact that you can clearly see differences between Christian denominations, but then group all Muslims into one big pile is delusional

Honestly, reading this i get the same radical intolerant vibes as you are accusing muslims of

[heavy rampart]

I think Mearsheimer and Walt have the answer you’re looking for in their book: The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy

[thorny stone]

Yes, I mean, that seems like the obvious conclusion to draw really. Israel is only acting the way it is because of the US' unconditional support for everything it does, so remove that and you immediately rein in a lot of Israel's more crazy ideas. And yes, as those authors describe, the US needs to go further and end not just it's unconditional support, but end all support until Israel is willing to act in a reasonable manner. I think that is particularly relevant this week, as Israel has just declared the UN a terrorist organisation, giving the US the legal imperative now to cease all aid to Israel.

[cerulean obsidian]

just the UNRWA, not the entire UN

[thorny stone]

It's part of the UN, there isn't really a distinction worth mentioning. It's an internationally recognised and supported aid agency, that certain groups within Israel are targeting because it's interfering with their goal of removing Palestinians from the region they want to control.

[cerulean obsidian]

Yes there is

Trump withdrew from the WHO, which is also a UN agency

[thorny stone]

... and that was also wrong. But as far as I remember, he didn't go so far as to call it a terrorist agency.

[nova comet]

Isreal for the win!

But Isreal is prob gonna lose cuz of nukes ):

[arctic light]

i wrote an article on this mabye a year ago? i likely think

a 2 state solution is impossible

[cerulean obsidian]

that’s only because absolutely nobody on the ground wants it

the palestinians have never wanted it, and since October 7 Israel is never going to offer it again

[arctic light]

some outside force needs to basically impose will on both

[thorny stone]

We're basically waiting for the US to stop enabling the Zionist war. It's their support that's prolonging the violence. Without it, Israel would need to find a peace, because it wouldn't be able to sustain an indefinite war alone.

The longer it goes, and the more they escalate, the worse it becomes for everyone .

[cerulean obsidian]

nobody really cares enough to do anything

[cerulean obsidian]

so the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and Gallant

but it still doesn’t matter because neither of them have visited any countries that would enforce it in the past year anyway

“international law” might as well be written on gas station toilet paper.

just like the warrant against Putin goes unenforced

[thorny stone]

It's symbolic more than anything else. It's a clear sign that Israel are global pariahs right now, and they would do well to listen to that.

[nova comet]

Don’t like the US

The country will betray you first chance it gets

And not to mind that they created brain rot and spread it to Europe, all of North America and some of Australia

[cerulean obsidian]

global pariahs

except they aren’t. No action beyond some “strong condemnation” has been taken against Israel

like sure, UK won’t sell some missiles etc, but it has faced 0 sanctions

[nova comet]

Uk and Greece are sigmas

They were outnumbered 1-10 in WW2 and still kicked the Axis

[thorny stone]

The UN security council is 14:1 against Israel's actions right now. However you want to phrase it, everyone knows Israel is in the wrong with it's current actions.

[cerulean obsidian]

the UN doesn't matter

[thorny stone]

Underneath governments, there are a lot of other actions being taken to boycott Israeli products and personnel. I think we would have to go back as far as Germany in WW2 to find a nation with a similar strength of international feeling against it.

[cerulean obsidian]

you do know that it's all for show, right?

[thorny stone]

It very much does, because as soon as the US's support for Israel becomes anything less than 100%, it's the UN that will be trying Israeli leaders for war crimes.

[cerulean obsidian]

Israel and Syria have secretly been allies for no less than 20 years

Syria, of all places.

[thorny stone]

That's a funny definition of ally.

[cerulean obsidian]

why, the secrecy?

[thorny stone]

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-attacks-syrias-palmyra-syrian-state-news-agency-says-2024-11-20/

[cerulean obsidian]

Syria is okay with it

[thorny stone]

No, the bombs.

[cerulean obsidian]

because it also reduces Iran's influence in Syria

[thorny stone]

That's not the definition of an ally either.

[cerulean obsidian]

there's a lot more to middle eastern geopolitics than what the UNSC or the leaders of countries think

absolutely no meaningful action whatsoever has been taken against Israel

just words

[thorny stone]

Syria is still in the middle of a war and has been targeted by Israel and the US for action for a long time. I don't think it's sensible to claim it as an ally of Israel's, when its support is at best lip service from a puppet.

[cerulean obsidian]

no, Syria hasn't been targeted

as in, the Syrian government

[thorny stone]

Nobody can do anything if the US stops it. But that's not the same as there being no opposition.

[cerulean obsidian]

the territory? yes, but territory not under control of the Syrian government is not considered "Syria" for the purpose of this

[thorny stone]

Which Syrian government? There are several.

[cerulean obsidian]

the internationally recognized one

[thorny stone]

Let's just speak plainly. You're talking about the one that Israel and the US supports. Obviously that government is friends with Israel and the US. But it's an ongoing civil war, in part caused by Israel and the US, so we can't claim any side is a legitimate government of the whole country at this time.

[cerulean obsidian]

but I didn't say "legitimate"

I said "internationally recognized"

[thorny stone]

But the point is that there's nothing remarkable about the side you're sponsoring I a war supporting you in return.

[cerulean obsidian]

I think that's the textbook definition of an ally

[thorny stone]

But it's not a definition of Syria.

[cerulean obsidian]

no

[nova comet]

https://tenor.com/view/sonic-the-hedgehog-sonic-prime-sonic-sonic2022-why-is-everyone-ignoring-me-gif-27271991

https://tenor.com/view/sad-sigh-monkey-gif-2049020038486032791

https://tenor.com/view/good-night-goodnight-gif-24012717

https://tenor.com/view/puss-in-boots-cat-cute-kitty-begging-gif-204103653485036782

[thorny stone]

Israeli government now boycotting it's own press. Always a good sign.

[nova comet]

https://tenor.com/view/thats-crazy-reginald-sergile-conceited-yo-mtv-raps-s1e5-gif-25950442

[cerulean vector]

holy smokes

i dont even want to read this thread.... just by the title..

[thorny stone]

If you want to talk about the subject you can just jump right on in without reading everything. There's been a lot of repetition already, a bit more won't hurt anyone. But there's been a lot of good discussion about a topic that is both important and topical.

[nova comet]

Sigma dude

[heavy rampart]

agreed, there are definitely people in here that want to engage in nuanced conversation on the subject

[pulsar shuttle]

both suck fr

[zenith coyote]

Happy Hanukkah to those that celebrate and Israel released their report to the UN about the treatment of hostages. Not the the UN will do anything about it or any major news source
https://x.com/henmazzig/status/1873110881619349874?s=46

https://www.timesofisrael.com/teens-forced-to-perform-sexual-acts-on-each-other-report-to-un-details-hamas-torture/amp/

Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) on X

“Children were forced to commit sexual acts on each other by their captures. Most of the women were sexually assaulted.”

New report prepared by dozens of experts, psychiatrists, doctors and social workers, outlines the harrowing evidence and testimonies of released Israeli

Twitter · Dec 28, 2024, 8:56 PM

Wishing for peace for both sides

[thorny stone]

What would you expect the UN to do about it? Even in the best case scenario where the UN is able to take action, they can't go into Gaza and try and arrest those responsible while Israel is busy bombing it into oblivion. So I think it's only ever going to go into the big pile of stuff to try and investigate if and when there is ever peace.
But also, there's very little anyone can do when it's impossible to verify the truth, and we have no way of knowing if any of those claims are actually true.

[zenith coyote]

Are you really denying the video evidence and all the physically evidence that the victims have suffered

I really thought you couldn’t go any lower

Highly recommend you watch the Nova documentary if you want to deny any of the accounts of the victims.

If Hamas were to lay down their arms there would be no war, if Israel did there would be no Israel

The fact that Red Cross hasn’t gone in and visited the conditions of the hostages is deplorable tbh, but that’s not surprising as during WW2 they visited the concentration camps and said that there was nothing immoral happening there. Once again I am not backing up the Israeli governments actions during this war as Netanyahu needs to step down and let someone less radical finish up this mess but it’s clear to see the world doesn’t care about Israeli victims

As well as the victim count has been lowered to an even closer to 1:1 militant to civilian ratio, if you aren’t including the indoctrinated children as militants. That have been brain washed to hate Israel and believes in sacrificing their life to become a martyr. As before I bring up when the leader of Hamas claimed that more civilian deaths is better for their cause , hence why they have military bases in heavily populated areas knowing Israel will bomb https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/06/11/middleeast/sinwar-hamas-israel-ceasefire-hostage-talks-intl

Both sides have agendas you just refuse to condemn anyone but Israel in this war

[thorny stone]

I've condemned both sides multiple times. You're apparently just racist, because we both know you keep repeating this same lie in what can only be a transparent attempt to discredit criticism of Israel.

The question you need to ask is simple. Do Israelis lie about the actions of Palestinians? The answer to that is yes. They have incentive to lie, they have the means of inventing stories, and they have a history of doing it a lot. There is no reason whatsoever to believe anything said during this war that isn't externally verified by a neutral party.

Nobody that I'm aware of, other than Netanyahu, is claiming a 1:1 civilian to combatant ratio from Israel's attacks on Gaza. Most put it at about 4:1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Israel–Hamas_war#Civilian_to_combatant_ratio

What we also know is that the civilian to combatant ratio doesn't tell the full story, because Israel has also systematically targeted essential services, like hospitals and food supplies. The entire world is aware that Israel is committing war crimes in its attacks on innocent people in Gaza that are far worse than what the Palestinians have ever done to Israel. The evidence is overwhelming, and confirmed by multiple independent sources like the UN. The only people that don't acknowledge it are either those who choose to believe Israeli lies for historical reasons of attachment, or the people who fabricate the lies in the first place.

While everyone acknowledges that both sides have committed atrocities, everyone also acknowledges that the current balance is nowhere near even, and that Israel are the aggressors and the ones acting the worst right now. There's no ambiguity in this, it is one of the most obvious facts in the world today.

Blaming Hamas for the atrocities Israel is committing is nothing short of heartless victim blaming. The people responsible for the crimes are the people choosing to commit the crimes. The Israeli government and the IDF are making informed choices to kill innocent Palestinians unnecessarily. Out of revenge, out of religious fervour, and out of xenophobia and racism. What's more, they are also making the informed and conscious choice to kill other innocent people such as journalists and aid workers simply because they are making it harder for them to kill innocent Palestinians. In all of human history, there have been very few examples of such bloodthirsty and obviously unconscionable actions as those currently being undertaken by Israel. This is absolutely one of the worst chapters in the history of civilisation, and we should all be ashamed for collectively allowing it to happen.

[zenith coyote]

Let me ask you two questions before I respond

1. Do you think Hamas cares about the Palestinian people?
2. Have/would they ever lie for their cause?

[thorny stone]

Yes, of course Hamas cares about the Palestinian people. Their whole reason for existing is to fight on their side.
Yes, of course Hamas would lie for their cause. They just don't need to at the moment.

[cerulean obsidian]

Hamas doesn't give a single flying fuck about the Palestinian people. Their only goal is to destroy Israel.

[thorny stone]

That doesn't contradict what I said. Given that they are at war, trying to destroy Israel is one way of helping Palestinians. They see destroying Israel as possibly the single most important way of caring for Palestinians, such is the effect of Israel on them.

[dry jay]

Israel and Hamas are at war, of course they want to destroy each other, no?

The more I think about this question the more I feel like its not a question worth discussing. War is inherently horrible. Both sides at war will do horrible things.

The amount of civilians killed on BOTH sides is horrible, and I just hope there will be a ceasefire soon and that the war will end soon (wishful thinking, I know)

[zenith coyote]

So then committing war crimes by hiding their terror tunnels under hospitals and schools and other civilian zones is caring about the citizens?

[thorny stone]

It's neither caring about them nor not-caring about them. It doesn't say anything relevant to that question.

[zenith coyote]

It’s very relevant to the question

[thorny stone]

Palestinian civilians are themselves deliberately targeted by the Israelis anyway, regardless of where Hamas are, so Hamas being close to civilians doesn't put the civilians in any more danger. (Regardless of whether or not you believe this to be true, the Hamas leadership does and that's what counts).

Even though the location of Hamas facilities near innocent people is arguably a war crime, it's also a war crime to attack them in a manner likely to cause their deaths. The responsibility for any civilian deaths caused by Hamas being close to civilians still lies with the Israelis, since they are the ones choosing to attack in that way.

[zenith coyote]

https://www.icrc.org/en/document/protection-hospitals-during-armed-conflicts-what-law-says

“In which circumstances can medical establishments and units lose their protection granted by IHL?
Specific protection of medical establishments and units (including hospitals) is the general rule under IHL. Therefore, specific protection to which hospitals are entitled shall not cease unless they are used by a party to the conflict to commit, outside their humanitarian functions, an "act harmful to the enemy". In case of doubt as to whether medical units of establishments are used to commit an "act harmful to the enemy", they should be presumed not to be so used.

The expression "act harmful to the enemy" is not defined under IHL. This body of law merely singles out a few acts expressly recognized as not being harmful to the enemy, such as the carrying or using of individual light weapon in self-defense or defense of wounded and sick; armed guarding of a medical facility; or the presence in a medical facility of sick or wounded combatants no longer taking part in hostilities”

When they are used to interfere directly or indirectly in military operations, and thereby cause harm to the enemy, the rationale for their specific protection is removed. This would be the case for example if a hospital is used as a base from which to launch an attack; as an observation post to transmit information of military value; as a weapons depot; as a center for liaison with fighting troops; or as a shelter for able-bodied combatants.

It’s not an excuse to attack but they lose their protection when you store weapons and terrorist in a hospital

[thorny stone]

The hospital as a whole does, yes, but not the innocent people within it.

It's still a war crime to attack in such a way as to put them in danger unnecessarily.
You're allowed to try and attack enemy that are within a hospital, but not allowed to attack innocent humanitarian personnel that are also there simply because they are in the same building as enemy soldiers. Nor are you allowed to attack the enemy soldiers in a way that causes unnecessary damage to civilians or civilian structures.

[zenith coyote]

https://www.hudson.org/terrorism/hamas-strategy-depends-maximizing-palestinian-civilian-casualties-douglas-feith

“Hamas leaders know that when they attack Israel, they require it to defend itself. They have ensured that, in doing so, Israel must do harm to Palestinian civilians. They have arranged this systematically over years by placing rocket launchers, ammunition stocks, command centers. and personnel in and under schools, commercial offices, apartment buildings, and hospitals. This guarantees that Palestinian civilians will suffer damage and death even though Israel does not target civilians and, like the United States, takes rigorous measures to prevent civilian casualties.”

Are these the actions of a group/government that cares about its citizens?

[thorny stone]

Yes.

[zenith coyote]

Ok

[thorny stone]

That argument is nonsense.

[zenith coyote]

So putting their innocent citizens at risk knowing that when they attack they will get attacked back is caring about their citizens?

I fail to see the logic

[thorny stone]

You cannot place the blame for your own actions on the people you are attacking. Hamas is not to blame for Israel's attacks against Palestinians. Not in any way.

There is nothing any Palestinian could do that would justify Israel killing innocent Palestinian civilians.

Suggesting otherwise is a racist argument in my opinion.

[zenith coyote]

Does that seem like Hamas care about the lives of its civilians? It seems like you are trying to make every excuse not to admit that they don’t

I am not saying Israel should attack these centers, I am saying Hamas should hide their military activities in civilians heavy areas or in hospitals and schools

[thorny stone]

It doesn't seem like anything. That argument that Hamas is endangering Palestinian civilians by attacking Israel is nonsense.

[zenith coyote]

My argument is that they are endangering civilians by hiding behind their civilians

Which you haven’t been able to counter logically

“Israel will attack anyway” is not a valid argument

[thorny stone]

And I'm saying that at the very least, it's debatable that doing so endangers those civilians more than they are already endangered.

[zenith coyote]

It would be a lot easier for the US to shun Israel if Israel didn’t have the excuse of the terror tunnels beneath hospitals and schools when they bomb those areas

[thorny stone]

Exactly. So you can't claim that the responsibility for Israel's attacks lies with Hamas.

[zenith coyote]

The endangerment of the civilians is Hamas’s fault

[thorny stone]

That's simply not a valid excuse though. Accepting it as a valid excuse pre-assumes that Israel has a right to kill Hamas. Which it doesn't. Nobody has a right to kill anyone else.

[thorny stone]

No it isn't, and it can never be.

The responsibility for attacks that deliberately target civilians always lies primarily with the people carrying out those attacks. I.e. the IDF.

[zenith coyote]

But they aren’t targeting the civilians if they are bombing military infrastructure

[thorny stone]

Yes they are. If they know civilians will die as result of their attacks, then they are deliberately killing those civilians. There's no escaping that basic fact. The IDF are carrying out the attacks in the full knowledge that there will be large numbers of civilians casualties.

[zenith coyote]

If any government hides military infrastructure behind civilians that’s a war crime

It doesn’t matter if they know they will be attacked

[thorny stone]

It's not possible to pretend some of the consequences don't exist simply because they are inconvenient.

[thorny stone]

But so is attacking them. One war crime doesn't forgive another.

[zenith coyote]

That’s not what I’m arguing for

It’s very clear to see that you just don’t want to put any blame on Hamas for endangering their civilians while also claiming that they care about their civilians

Endangering their civilians helps their cause

[thorny stone]

You're saying the Israelis have no responsibility for the deaths of those innocent people, and blaming Hamas entirely. Me personally, I place blame on both sides. Not equally on both sides, but still there is blame on both sides. But my argument is slightly different. My argument is that the idea, that placing Hamas facilities near civilian centres doesn't endanger civilians any more than they are already endangered, is a valid one for Palestinians to hold.

It is perfectly valid for Palestinians (or anyone else for that matter) to treat all Palestinians as constantly being in danger from the IDF, regardless of where Hamas are. This is a result of the IDF constantly deliberately targeting innocent civilians that are not near Hamas facilities.

My point is that you can't say that someone is automatically lying if they say that they believe Hamas isn't needlessly endangering civilians. It's not an outlandish position to hold. It is an entirely valid position to hold, and that means it's entirely valid for someone to view Hamas' actions as being consistent with caring about Palestinian civilians.

There's a whole host of other reasons why Hamas clearly does care about Palestinian civilians, but they rely on knowing how much work Hamas does to support civilian life in Gaza, which is nearly impossible to prove in a discussion like this.

[thorny stone]

Even this point alone is enough to invalidate the argument that endangering civilians would mean that Hamas didn't care about them.

Civilians have been made a part of the war by the actions of the Israeli forces. That much is pretty clear to anyone that knows the history of the Nakba. Once they are already a part of the war, then of course they become part of the tactics of the war.

[cerulean obsidian]

but they rely on knowing how much work Hamas does to support civilian life in Gaza, which is nearly impossible to prove in a discussion like this.
yeah, Hamas cares about the civilian life in Gaza so much, that they dug out the water pipes donated by the EU to be used as qassam rockets, decimating Gaza's water supply system

real care about the health and the well-being of the populace

either Hamas doesn't care about the Palestinian people at all, or they do, and the Palestinian people themselves are unequivocally complicit in the crimes of Hamas.

lol Al Jazeera is so biased even the PA banned them https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgmxzyrmn8o

[thorny stone]

Except that didn't actually happen. That's another lie. What they actually did was make rockets out of water pipes that Israel had installed to take water away from Palestinians for abandoned Israeli settlements.

[thorny stone]

The PA are basically a puppet government run by Israel, so of course they banned Al Jazeera. Israel hates any journalism that it doesn't control itself.

[cerulean obsidian]

if only Al Jazeera did any journalism

[civic karma]

Could you go into detail about what specifically about Al Jazeera makes you insinuate that they do not perform proper journalism? Is this your stance on their journalism about this specific conflict, or about Al Jazeera as a journal in general?

If its the former, than yes I agree, that's kind of obvious. If it's the latter, I wonder what makes you believe that

[cerulean obsidian]

because it's a Qatari propaganda outlet. They have been banned in several middle eastern countries, namely Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt

and now the PA too

and it's not journalism that gets them banned, it's outright propaganda

[civic karma]

So you are saying because they are owned by Qatar, nothing they produce is credible?

Because I could find you plenty of historic examples where they were the first to report on matters in the middle-east with quite accurate and unbiased reporting

It's just that for certain topics, like the Israel Palestine conflict, they can't be used as a credible source

but to me that doesn't mean the whole of Al Jazeera should be dismissed as a source

[cerulean obsidian]

well yes, obviously you are correct

[civic karma]

It's like

[cerulean obsidian]

for any topic where Qatar has some interest in, they cannot be trusted

[civic karma]

a chemistry prof doesn't know jack shit about star-formation, so obviously its not a credible source on that topic

[cerulean obsidian]

for everything else they have no reason to be biased

[civic karma]

but that doesn't mean it cannot be a credible source on chemistry

Alr sure

[cerulean obsidian]

actually it's not that different from other media companies in general

[civic karma]

agreed

I just always find it fascinating how some people fully believe in one side of a story but compelely dismiss others, based on some arbitrary goalposts

[cerulean obsidian]

I wanted to say that "on the other hand other media companies don't try to actively destabilize an entire region"

but then I remembered the New York Times situation with reporting on Iraq's WMDs that they totally 100000% had and were ready to use tomorrow

[civic karma]

Where I live, Israeli news is always completely believed without any question, but everything that any news outlet brings that has any ties to islam, or a muslim journalist is instantly questioned

Which to me is sort of funny

but also kind of sad

[cerulean obsidian]

eh, I typically read just BBC, Financial Times and the WSJ

in my opinion FT seems to be the most unbiased one, because they generally just report facts without going into too much speculation

and there's a nice contrast between BBC and WSJ

[civic karma]

Generally I don't read any specific news outlets

I just read whatever and whenever I question something I try to find out if I can find other credible sources reporting the same

Or best case, get the actual first-hand date (e.g. geolocated videos etc.)

For example, when right after the palestinians attacked Israel, there were a lot of videos going around about supposed attacks, most of which could be traced back to years earlier in other conflicts, such as the ongoing conflict in Iraq between isis and various militant groups and the annexation of Crimea

But many ''credible'' news-outlets just rushed to put those vids online because they wanted to be the first one to report

OR they were purposefully spreading misinformation

However, there is no way for me to determine which one is true, probably the truth lies somewhere in the middle

[cerulean obsidian]

nah, they are just dumb

how many times has Sam Hyde been blamed on MSM for all kinds of atrocities

seriously, he can’t keep getting away with it

[urban scarab]

Are you an antiSamhyde?

[zenith coyote]

They care more about views than putting out credible information. That’s a fault I have with almost all news sources rn. It’s abt the clicks

[thorny stone]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/19/palestinian-prisoners-families-say-their-houses-are-raided-by-israeli-forces

The Israel Prison Service said on Friday that it would take measures to prevent any “public displays of joy” by families of Palestinian prisoners released in the deal.

I appreciate that it's good to have balanced discussion on this issue, but when Israel does things like this it gets very difficult to empathise with them at all. When a culture cannot accept the idea that everyone can be happy with a pause to the killing and holding of hostages, cannot accept that someone else's needs can be met at the same time as their own, it indicates a fundamental problem with that culture that needs addressing. The world cannot accept a culture within it that does not accept compromise of any kind.

[zenith coyote]

https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1880997903604543988?s=46

OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) on X

Crowds of Palestinians are attempting to push through Hamas Security Forces, to reach the Red Cross Van that the Three Hostages have been place in.

X · Jan 19, 2025, 3:17 PM

[thorny stone]

Well that's one interpretation, certainly. Difficult to say exactly who is trying to do what, from the footage I've seen.

But I'm sure there are a lot of Palestinians who don't feel that returning the prisoners will achieve much, given Netanyahu is maintaining that the war will continue regardless.

Hopefully someone will get rid of Netanyahu quickly and find a more sane leader to go forwards with.

It does look like someone leaned on him to accept this deal though, which is a good sign that he's not in total control.

[zenith coyote]

So you think the Palestinian people want to keep hostages?

[thorny stone]

I think many will not trust Netanyahu and the IDF to keep to this agreement and would prefer to wait for a more solid agreement with actual guarantees.

[zenith coyote]

So you think the Palestinian people want to keep hostages of innocent civilians to keep the war going?

[thorny stone]

I think Netanyahu will do absolutely anything to keep the war going, at any cost, including the lives of the Israeli prisoners.

[zenith coyote]

That’s not what I asked

I’m asking about the Palestinians that are unhappy about innocent hostages getting released

[thorny stone]

Everyone knows the prisoners could have been returned months ago if Netanyahu wasn't so committed to killing Palestinians.

[zenith coyote]

👍

[thorny stone]

I'm answering your question. The problem is Netanyahu and the people like him in the Israeli government and army who are choosing to place innocent people at risk in order to achieve their goals.

[zenith coyote]

Hamas could have ended the war by releasing the hostages months ago

But you’re ok with them placing innocent people at risk

[thorny stone]

No they couldn't. Israel started this war and are the ones keeping it going.

The Palestinians would be happy to return the prisoners at any time if Israel would agree to a just peace.

As these hostage swaps are demonstrating, Israel keeps far more Palestinian hostages than the Palestinians have Israeli.

[zenith coyote]

What was the point of taking hostages in the first place

[thorny stone]

By which side?

Israel took hostages to try and weaken Palestinian resistance to their conquest. Hamas took hostages to try and fight back against Israel.

[thorny stone]

Again, this is Netanyahu and Israel's other leaders' choice of reality. They are the ones choosing to engage in a perpetual war in order to achieve religious goals. Everyone else is a victim.

Nobody else has the option to avoid placing innocent people at risk.

[cerulean obsidian]

the people Israel are releasing are convicted criminals

the people Hamas are releasing are ordinary civilians

obviously there's the freedom of speech issue

[cerulean obsidian]

but since you consider murderers "hostages", I don't think this debate is worth having, because Israel definitely didn't take any hostages

[thorny stone]

In the main they are not. Israel holds thousands of Palestinians prisoner without charges.

including children.

[cerulean obsidian]

completely irrelevant, in Latvia criminal responsibility comes in at the age of 14, and you can get to experience the full weight of the criminal justice system then

children can be criminals too

[thorny stone]

All criminals deserve fair treatment. Children even more so.

Holding them without charge and without possibility of release does not quality as fair treatment.

[cerulean obsidian]

it's literally only the common law jurisdictions where people cannot be held without charges

i.e. US, UK, Canada, Australia, and some others

in most civil law jurisdictions it's perfectly legal to hold people without charges as a means of preventative detention

[thorny stone]

What's your point? Imprisoning people without evidence is inhumane, wherever it is.

[cerulean obsidian]

I did not say without evidence

Andrew Tate is currently held in Romania without charges

he hasn't been actually indicted yet

is there injustice there too?

[thorny stone]

I don't follow Andrew Tate so I have no idea what's going on with that guy very closely. But I think it's very clear he will be charged, unlike the thousands of Palestinian prisoners being held indefinitely by Israel.

Even the Palestinian prisoners Israel has nominally charged and convicted can't be said to be held justly, given the poor state of the legal system they are subjected to.

The fact remains, that Israel holds thousands of Palestinians as hostages.

[thorny stone]

If arguments defending Israel rely on claiming it's ok to imprison and abuse children indefinitely without charges or even an explanation, then I think that's a very clear statement to most people that there are severe problems with Israel.

[zenith coyote]

No problems with Hamas hostages?

[thorny stone]

You already know I object to their taking of hostages as well, so it seems strange to ask me again.

[cerulean obsidian]

Israel bad, palestine good /s

[civic karma]

Wasn't the whole point of starting the war to get back hostages.

I'm sure as soon as all hostages are back Netanyahu will cease fire permanently right.... right?

[thorny stone]

Yeah, I mean, I don't think even Netanyahu is trying to maintain that charade.

All that changes is the speed of the war. Getting the hostages back will slow down the rate of Israel's attacks, but it won't end the war. It's been going for 100 years before the latest hostages were taken, and will probably continue in some people's minds for another 100 years regardless of and official progress.

[thorny stone]

Worth noting that attacks against innocent civilians by Israel are still ongoing in the West Bank, despite the apparent cease fire in Gaza.

[thorny stone]

As expected, Trump continues to back the ethnic cleansing.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/26/trump-resumes-sending-2000-pound-bombs-to-israel-undoing-biden-pause

[signal bluff]

Reading everything from last time I got here, I conclude @thorny stone is, as Pete say, a troll who doesn’t care about anything but justifying Hamas and trashing Israel. He’s as pro Palestine as Hamas is (e.g not really, you should really read their manifest) and run his own Jihad war against Israel (and his own common sense). Sad but it is as it is.

[zenith coyote]

When did Pete talk in here?

I’m not sure if I would call Arklar a troll, more just a blind supporter of Hamas/ hater of Israel

[thorny stone]

Pete hasn't said anything in here as far as I'm aware, and certainly hasn't called me a troll. I think his judgement is certainly good enough to avoid doing either of those things.

It's very easy to just throw insults at people you disagree with and hope they go away before you need to actually address the points they make. It's also very easy to assume that your own opinion is so obviously true that anyone who disagrees is either lying or stupid. Unfortunately, neither of those things help anyone have a rational conversation about anything. So if you find yourself continually leaning towards one of them, this might not be the area of the server for you. This discussion here certainly won't be suitable for either of those.

I think it's very obvious that some people have been trolling in this thread, and some have even admitted to doing so. Equally, I think it's very obvious that some people here are not trolling, but are trying to attack and shut down criticism of Israel in a dishonest way, which is a different form of bad faith participation.

Given that Israel is an international pariah state right now, with a history of dishonest international actions against other countries, it's probably not that surprising that its supporters believe it is ok to be dishonest in their interactions. This is what happens when people nail themselves to fixed ideological positions where they can't even acknowledge any challenge let alone try and address it and adapt to it.

For anyone new to the discussion and wondering why my messages seem to favour one side over the other, it is because there is a clear international consensus that Israel has been acting both illegally and immorally in its treatment of the Palestinians. This is not a grey area, this is not an ancient conflict between religions. This is simply one nation trying to conquer another, and cleanse the area of an ethnicity. This is an established fact.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/09/1154496

For some on the Israeli side, yes, this is a religious war of conquest. There are fundamentalist Jews who believe they have a divine right given by their god to rule the whole region, and so anything that they do in pursuit of that goal is justified. This is what drives a lot of the worst behaviour of Israeli politicians and military. So yes, they are making it a religious war by presenting it as such. That's very much a drive from the Jewish extremists rather than anyone else. But at the same time there is also a secular drive to establish a homeland for the Jewish people, which by virtue of choosing a location that has another dominant ethnicity already living there, ends up as ethnic cleansing anyway. So that is received as racially or religiously motivated even if it is not the explicit intent of that part of Israel.

It does make it a bit more complicated, the fact that there is more than one group on each side of the conflict. But the overall effect of all the various Israeli motivations is the same. Israel as a nation is trying to ethnically cleanse Palestine of non-Jewish Palestinians. Which is explicitly against international law and a war crime.

[signal bluff]

I did not say Pete called him a troll. I said as Pete says. That’s how he calls those players that join the game not to play it but to just annoy others. Or in this case ignoring any reasoning or common sense in the discussion.
And for you @thorny stone, if you read any insult in what I wrote, it’s up to you, people that don’t think what has been said reflects something won’t take it personally. The only one I saw here that out right ignore, eliminate or debunk with irrelevant information is you. Regarding most of what you bring as “proof” this is the only thing I have to say to you “The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject." ― Marcus Aurelius
Maybe I’ll get back here again in another half a year, until then, enjoy the discussion/argument.
Peace in our time. ✌🏼

[thorny stone]

When the 10,000 includes all of the world's experts, then it's the minority opinion that has no real value.

But it's very clear what you're trying to do here, and it doesn't include taking part in a conversation.

[cerulean obsidian]

all of the world's experts, and yet nobody in a position of power actually cares

[thorny stone]

As already discussed at length, actions are blocked by the US. Nobody besides the US has the power to do anything significant to help the situation, while the US is intent on supporting the criminals.

[kind lantern]

I agree with this take. and can we call ethnically cleansing palestine - including killing tens of thousands of civilians - by what it is? It is a genocide.

[cerulean obsidian]

no, because it’s not a genocide nor it’s ethnic cleansing

[kind lantern]

how so? there exists a strong narrative that israel shall "take back their holy land", meaning palestine. more and more cities and villages are being bombed, cleansed and repopulated. killing people at random is not how getting rid of terrorists works. genocide is a term coined by raphael lemkin. in his work "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress", he defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group [..]" isreal has in part killed the palestinian population.

[zenith coyote]

Trump saying to kick all the Gazans out is calling for ethnic cleansing. The Israeli Hamas war is not genocide nor ethnic cleansing. Calling for the removal of all Jews in the region is ethnic cleaning

[thorny stone]

As far as I can tell, the discrepancy exists because Israel's supporters look only as Israel's end goals and ignore the means by which they are trying to achieve them.

Although Israel as a nation doesn't seem to have genocide on its list of goals, some Jewish extremists do. Since those extremists have positions of power and influence within the IDF and Israeli government, their views strongly influence some of the actions taken. It is very clear, through the evidence that has been collected, that members of the Israeli military regularly kill Arabs purely for being Arabs. As do settlers.

What Israel does have on its list is a Palestine ruled and occupied only by Jews. That is explicitly the goal of a significant proportion of Israeli leaders, very clearly stated. Clearly, the only method of achieving that is removing the existing non-Jewish population. This can be done voluntarily, by giving them incentives to move, or involuntarily, by terrorising them until they leave or simply killing them.

The Israeli policy has been explicit in its desire to terrorise Palestinians to encourage them to leave. It seems very clear that Israel's official policy right now, due to the views of its leadership, is ethnic cleansing. Netanyahu has explicitly called for this and supported Trump's proposal for the US to contribute in doing it. Forcing non-Jewish inhabitants to leave is ethnic cleansing, and there is documented evidence of Israel doing this intentionally, as well as the extensive evidence of it actually happening through all of the terrorism, the stealing of land, and the racist treatment of Palestinian Arabs. I've not seen a serious counter-argument as to why Israel's policies and actions do not constitute ethnic cleansing.

The bottom line is that Palestinian Arabs are being removed from their lands by force, by the IDF and Israeli government's actions. That is ethnic cleansing.

[kind lantern]

to be fair, i am not, if you're implying that

[thorny stone]

I agree, the Israeli Hamas war is not ethnic cleansing. However, what Israel is doing under the pretence of fighting Hamas IS ethnic cleansing. For a significant number of Israelis, fighting Hamas is simply a convenient excuse to kill Arabs.

Hamas, of course, only exists in the first place because of the Zionist attempt at conquest and ethnic cleansing. So even pointing the finger at Hamas is still equivalent to admitting Israel caused the problems. Same with Hezbollah.

[thorny stone]

A predictable development. Israel is now officially reneging on the deal it made, and is returning to starving Gaza to try and force the Palestinians to give up even more.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/02/israel-cuts-off-humanitarian-supplies-to-gaza-as-it-seeks-to-change-ceasefire-deal

It's surely only a matter of days before the attacks start up again.

[zenith coyote]

Hostage situation?

[cerulean obsidian]

Ok, but so what? For those who support Israel, nothing has changed, and for those who support Palestine also nothing has changed

And the world clearly no longer gives a single flying fuck about optics, considering the statements and action coming from the new Trump White House

[thorny stone]

This is Israel acting dishonestly. Maybe it doesn't change anything for people who are already committed to supporting Israel in anything they might do regardless of right and wrong. It won't matter to extremists, in other words. But for people who want to consider the facts of the matter and for whom questions of morality are important, this should be important evidence to look at. Israel made an agreement, and then broke it.

By breaking it (and by cutting off power and food supplies to Gaza, and killing innocent people), their stated aim is to cause harm to innocent Palestinians, to try and force them to get rid of Hamas themselves. However there are three problems with this. Firstly, that is terrorism and a war crime, to intentionally involve civilians in warfare. Secondly, it will have the reverse effect. All Palestinians know that it is Israel who is causing the harm, and they will not blame Hamas for trying to fight back. All Israel's attacks will do, is strengthen the resolve of Palestinians to keep fighting. Thirdly, Israel's government and military commanders also clearly know that what they are doing will not get rid of Hamas, because it's obvious to anyone studying the situation. So the stated aim is not their actual aim. What it actually makes progress towards, is forcing Palestinians out of their homes and off their lands. It doesn't really have any other effect, so it is rational to conclude that is the actual aim.

Understanding these types of actions is really important in understanding the situation as a whole.

[thorny stone]

I don't understand your rationale for saying that the world doesn't care about what is going on. There are protests everywhere, Israeli goods are banned in lots of places, there are UN resolutions against Israel's actions being proposed regularly, governments are issuing statements opposing Israel's actions, and the international courts have issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders. Almost everyone besides the US is doing a ton of things to oppose Israel's actions. Clearly, millions of people around the world care a lot.

But the US has the biggest guns right now, and they are standing in the way of anyone imposing anything on Israel. Given the US's unconditional support for Israel right now, if any other country tried to force Israel to do anything it would result in war with the US. There is nothing that anyone can do to make the US do anything by force (yet), and so there is no way to force Israel to do anything either. People clearly care, they are just being prevented from acting in more forceful ways by the US.

Trump doesn't care about optics. His philosophy is to do whatever you can get away with, the quintessential selfish and self absorbed person that nobody likes. It's unfortunate that there is someone like him in a position of power, enabling the entire country of Israel to act in the same way.

[zenith coyote]

Hostage situation i ask again?

Have both sides been keeping up with the ceasefire?

[thorny stone]

You're going to need to be more specific with your question. Which hostage situation? And what about it?

[thorny stone]

No, Israel certainly has broken it repeatedly.

[zenith coyote]

has hamas?

[thorny stone]

Maybe, but I haven't seen any suggestion that Hamas has attacked Israel since the ceasefire began.

and I would have expected to hear about it if they had.

As far as I'm aware, it is just Israel who has broken the agreement.

[thorny stone]

Israel still being Israel and completely disregarding any ceasefire or peace process in favour of the killing of innocent people.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/18/israel-gaza-strikes-deaths-latest-update

With the insane Trump in charge of the US and fully backing them, I don't see the xenophobic elements of Israel pulling back from their bloodthirsty stance any time soon. So I think we're back on the path to an escalating war in the Middle East.

[cerulean obsidian]

nobody in the Middle East cares about Palestine, thus the risk of this escalating to a regional war is close to 0 unless Iran does something stupid

[thorny stone]

The first part of that is demonstrably false:
Egypt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BBhvMM4uYY
Jordan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uHd-EINznU
Iran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cecsuglRgG8
Turkey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4_CamP6vcA
Yemen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41CMOMmD5kY
Oman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoWajZBL8bE
UAE: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/cop28-rare-chance-uae-protests-palestinians-climate-action-2023-12-03/
and, don't forget, Israel itself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTc3qpPDaWM

People care about the Palestinians everywhere, unless they are being fed only lies by Israeli-influenced media. It's not a difficult thing to understand. Almost everybody recognises that killing hundreds of thousands and persecuting millions of people for 80+ years is a bad thing. Human nature is to care about our fellow humans.

Iran is going to defend itself, like everybody does when they are attacked. There's no reason to pretend that won't happen, or that it's not a reasonable response. So the question becomes, will Israel or the US do something stupid? And the answer to that is yes, they certainly will. The only question is what type of stupid thing, and how stupid. If they are stupid enough to attack Iran directly again, then they should expect more missiles from Iran and an escalating war to follow after they inevitably overreact.

[cerulean obsidian]

the population of Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Oman and UAE have virtually no voice. Their governments don't care.

Yemen is a failed state and thus doesn't count, Iran just doesn't count

[thorny stone]

What do you expect their governments to do, exactly, if they did care?

How could they do anything differently?

[cerulean obsidian]

Terminate diplomatic relations with Israel at the very least

all of those countries except Oman have formal diplomatic relations with Israel

[thorny stone]

And provoke Israel into attacking them and killing their citizens, like all the other times they've tried that?

[cerulean obsidian]

nobody has ever went to war over mere termination of diplomatic relations

[thorny stone]

Arab countries taking actions to sanction Israel has provoked at least two invasions by Israel since 1947.

[cerulean obsidian]

funny way of saying "invade"

[thorny stone]

?

[cerulean obsidian]

"sanction Israel"

what you really meant was "invade Israel"

[thorny stone]

No, that's not what happened at all. Israel invaded first in all cases except the Yom Kippur war.

[cerulean obsidian]

either way, you're beyond saving, I'm not even sure why I keep coming back to this thread

[thorny stone]

If you can't discuss the facts then the problem here is not me.

and I agree, there's no point in you being here if you cannot do that.

[cerulean obsidian]

you're the one who can't show the facts

show me a single actual action beyond just saying "Israel's actions are bad" that the leaders of noteworthy Middle Eastern countries have taken

[thorny stone]

What on earth are you talking about? I've linked more evidence in this thread probably than everyone else put together.

[cerulean obsidian]

because exactly, there aren't any

[thorny stone]

Did you forget the conversation we were just having? Arab leaders can't take any actions against Israel without provoking an Israeli invasion.

[cerulean obsidian]

You're completely delusional if you think that Israel will go to war with their allies over a termination of that alliance

Israel and Egypt? Allies
Israel and UAE? Allies
Israel and Jordan? Allies
Israel and Turkey? Allies, although they're pretending to not be now
Israel and Saudi Arabia? Allies, although covertly
Israel and Syria? Allies under Assad, unclear now

[thorny stone]

Shall we go through all the wars Israel has participated in and look at the causes?

I'm happy to do that.

[cerulean obsidian]

completely irrelevant

Israel and all of their neighbours are allies

Arabs prefer to make money by trading with Israel rather than giving a single flying fuck about the Palestinians

[thorny stone]

Demonstrating that Israel regularly invades other countries over diplomatic relations is very relevant.

[cerulean obsidian]

show me one example where Israel invaded someone over diplomatic relations

just one will suffice, because there are 0

[thorny stone]

I can show you several.

1920s onwards: Haganah, Irgun and the like conduct terrorist activity against the British, killing many purely because of the British immigration policy.

1956: Israel invades Egypt because Egypt didn't allow Israeli ships through the Suez canal after diplomatic relations broke down.

1967: Israel Invades Egypt again for the same reason.

Present day: Israel is currently killing hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza because they claim Hamas is refusing to agree to their diplomatic proposal about how to proceed peacefully.

If you believe what Netanyahu is saying, then the current attacks are purely because of Hamas' diplomatic stance.

Of course, everyone knows he's lying. But still, that's the stated reason.

The appropriate response by the Arabs towards Israel is to fight back. However they can't do that, because Israel is protected by the US. That's been the case for decades. Arab countries have no way to affect Israel's actions.

[cerulean obsidian]

1956: Israel invades Egypt because Egypt didn't allow Israeli ships through the Suez canal after diplomatic relations broke down.
that was an act of war, nothing to do with diplomatic relations

1967: Israel Invades Egypt again for the same reason.
you're being intentionally dense right now, Egypt was preparing to invade Israel

[thorny stone]

OK. Come back when you can have a rational conversation.

[cerulean obsidian]

Egypt and Israel DID NOT HAVE DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS IN 1956. Their diplomatic relations were established in 1980.

[thorny stone]

There's no point me trying to talk with someone who is just being rude.

[cerulean obsidian]

you're talking straight lies

and at this point I'm 100% certain that you're doing so intentionally

you just hate Israel and have 0 rationale behind it

[thorny stone]

That's literally the whole point. Israel invaded because of the diplomatic status, because they couldn't get what they wanted through diplomacy.

[cerulean obsidian]

In 1956 Egypt and Israel were officially in a state of war

they had a truce, but they were in a state of war

it had nothing whatsoever to do with diplomatic relations

[thorny stone]

Whatever you want to call it, and an armistice is the correct word, there wasn't ongoing fighting until Israel started it up again.

[cerulean obsidian]

Israel didn't start it, Egypt did

[thorny stone]

And they started the fighting again because Egypt wouldn't give them what they wanted with regards to trade routes.

[cerulean obsidian]

Straits of Tiran were an international strait, supposed to allow free passage to everyone

[thorny stone]

Says who?

[cerulean obsidian]

and, well, Egypt didn't allow Israeli ships to pass through

Israel was 100% justified in attacking Egypt over that

[cerulean obsidian]

the Word Zionist Council

[thorny stone]

So if Walmart doesn't give you the discount you want, you're justified in killing their employees? That's the same logic.

[thorny stone]

Obviously impartial.

[cerulean obsidian]

No, it’s not

[thorny stone]

You're claiming that Israel is justified in killing people if they don't let them trade in the way they want.

Which is 100% a diplomatic concern.

[cerulean obsidian]

^

[thorny stone]

I think your frame of reference is all wrong, if you think that restricting trade is justification for invasions and mass killing.

[thorny stone]

Again, if you can't discuss points rationally and resort to insults and claims of bias then the problem is not me, it's you.

My rationale for disliking the Israeli government is very clear. They kill and torture people and steal things unnecessarily.

No civilised country in the world would tolerate that kind of action from a citizen.

By every measure of how humans should act towards one another, Israel has committed crime after crime.

[cerulean obsidian]

Israel will win, and that's all I really care about

because as you so eloquently put it yourself, nobody is going to stop them

[thorny stone]

I think that if Israel continues on as it is doing right now, it's only a matter of time before one of their enemies gets a better weapon that can get past their defences even more effectively than Iran's missiles. Nobody wins an eternal war.

It's been more than 100 years already, and nobody is in a better position.

[cerulean obsidian]

Israel has infiltrated Iran so deep that it's just not feasible

[thorny stone]

What do you envisage happening? Say Israel conquers all of Palestine. What happens then? There would be millions of Palestinians even more angry with Israel than they are now. And Israel would still be at war with them. So then Israel would invade more countries to try and kill even more Palestinians?

How does it end?

[cerulean obsidian]

no, the countries the Palestinians would move to would help Israel

no Middle Eastern country wants to let any Palestinians in

[thorny stone]

Why would any of them help Israel, and help them do what?

[cerulean obsidian]

because they are allies

money > palestinians

[thorny stone]

All middle eastern countries have already let in many Palestinians. They just don't want to do so infinitely.

[thorny stone]

So Israel is going to pay Arab countries to deal with Palestinians for them? You think that could happen?

Firstly, that doesn't prevent Palestinians attacking Israel.
Secondly, what happens when Israel doesn't give them enough? Virtually nobody left in Israel will want to pay Arabs anything for any reason, let alone pay them to take care of other Arabs. Then we're straight back to broken agreements and hostility.

Even if that could happen, it would end up with Arab governments acting like the Palestinian Authority without the support of their population, which would lead to revolution and a much more extremist new government that would be even more hostile to Israel.

You can't focus on governments and forget about the people. There are millions of people strongly opposed to Israel, and the only way to deal with them is to deal with the problems that are causing the hostility.

The bottom line is that Israel will never have peace until it is prepared to deal peacefully with others. As long as it continually tries to solve its perceived problems with warfare, it will always have war.

That's been the lesson of every nation and every conflict in history. If you want it to stop, then you have to choose to stop responding with violence.

[waxen smelt]

Neither am I.

[waxen smelt]

Why are they not justified killing people?

[thorny stone]

Because lives are worth more than money.

[waxen smelt]

Says who?

[thorny stone]

Everyone sane.

[waxen smelt]

Does isarel care about that?

Being "sane"

[thorny stone]

The priorities of a lot of Israel's leaders are certainly questionable at best.

[waxen smelt]

So it doesn't really matter then since it isn't like any goverment is coming to stop isarel.

[thorny stone]

The only government that matters is the US, because they're the ones blocking all others from acting. Israel can get away with anything while the US government is as crazy as they are, but will find things difficult if there is ever a reasonable government in the US.

Or if the US implodes

[waxen smelt]

So isarel has basically won the war until the US goverment changes for the better (probably never) or something big like the US getting destroyed.

[thorny stone]

Israel has not won the war, and can never win the war. This is a war that cannot be won, only ended by peaceful means.

[waxen smelt]

Why not?

[thorny stone]

Because Israel are the aggressors, and have unachievable goals.

[waxen smelt]

How does them being the agressors change the ability of them winning the war.

[thorny stone]

Aggressors don't win wars. All that happens is that they defeat someone temporarily, who later comes back to fight against them again and again.

It's been going 100 years so far. What makes you think anything will change?

[waxen smelt]

Isn't their goal just to destroy hamas.

[thorny stone]

No. Their goal is an Israel that occupies all of Palestine, and possibly lands beyond if they can manage it.

Hamas exists only because Israel keeps attacking Palestinians to try and force them to leave.

[waxen smelt]

Aren't they making progress by killing Palestinians.

They are winning militarily at least

[thorny stone]

If they actually wanted to destroy Hamas, peace would do it much faster than war.

[thorny stone]

They are making progress with the goal of conquering land, but they are making more and more enemies by doing so. Even if they take the whole of Palestine, they'll still be surrounded by permanent enemies and be faced with perpetual war.

For every person that they kill, that's a whole family that turns against them even more strongly. They will never be able to kill all their enemies without killing the entire world, which although some of them want that, is not achievable.

[waxen smelt]

Israel's objective is just elimination of Hamas in my opinion. They're certainly taking ground and significantly reducing Hamas's ability to strike Israel. Gaza is as much of a ideology not just a person so Israel is trying to destroy Gaza and make it unlivable in order to displace the Palestinians living there. The moving elsewhere option wouldn't work since no country really wants them so they destroy the country and don't have to deal with the "Gaza" people for a good while.

[thorny stone]

How much do you know about the history of Israel and Zionism?

[waxen smelt]

Nothing.

(Small amount like how zionism is a jewish belief but basically nothing)

[thorny stone]

Ok. Then the short version is that the war has been going on since at least the 1920s, and the latest attacks by Hamas were just a response to previous attacks by Israel. It's been a never ending tit for tat for decades, with Israel and sometimes the Palestinians as well always escalating with their responses. That's how we've gone from peaceful demonstrations in the 1920s to the deaths of hundreds of thousands.

[waxen smelt]

But isarel isn't dying as much and they are winning military. So they are making progress.

[thorny stone]

Most of the organisations involved on the Palestinian side were created after the Israeli attacks, in response to those attacks. That goes for Hamas, the PLO, Hezbollah, and all of the others you might be able to name.

[waxen smelt]

But how is that important.

[thorny stone]

The other way of looking at it, is that in the 1940s there were maybe 2 million Palestinians and international support was with the Zionists, whereas now there are nearly 15 million Palestinians, and the international community almost exclusively sides with them. If the only goal is to capture land then yes, Israel is winning, but I would have thought that most people don't want land if it comes with a guarantee of rockets to the face any time you try and use it. Conquest seems pointless if you can't achieve peace at the end.

[thorny stone]

It means that trying to blame Hamas, or any of the other organisations, for the war is pointless.

The war would be happening whether they existed or not. If you get rid of them, something else the same or worse would take their place.

There is a moral question to the conflict for sure. But even aside from that, Israel simply isn't heading towards peace with it's current actions. Regardless of who you want to control the land in the end, we're heading away from a peaceful solution, not towards it.

But fundamentally, it isn't a war between Israel and Hamas. It's a war between Israel and the Palestinians as a whole. They were fighting each other for 80+ years before Hamas existed, and they'll go on fighting each other long after Hamas is replaced by something else.

All that happens is that occasionally the names change. But whether it is the World Zionist Organisation, The Jewish Agency for Palestine, the Jewish Agency for Israel, or Israel, Haganah and Irgun or the IDF, the PLO, PA, Hamas, Fatah, or whoever. Whether we call it a protest, or a revolt, or terrorism, or a civil war, or an actual war. It's still just Zionists fighting to conquer Palestine, and the occupants of Palestine trying to resist.

[zenith coyote]

Thoughts on the protests against Hamas happening in Gaza?

[thorny stone]

They're pretty small scale, but they make sense. If you're trapped in a never ending war and someone tells you that getting rid of Hamas will end the war then of course you're going to consider it.

It wouldn't end the war, but I don't think we can blame them for being so desperate they'll try anything.

[zenith coyote]

It seems the people of Gaza don’t want to die anymore so Hamas can keep on fighting a losing war while keeping civilians hostage

[thorny stone]

Hamas isn't the reason why any part of this war happened. But if it makes it harder for Israel to justify it's attacks then it would be an interesting development to watch pan out.

[civic karma]

This war existed before hamas as an organisation was even founded, so I agree with Arklar that even if hamas would be disbanded tomorrow, the conflict would not end.

[fickle heron]

after so many deaths and so many ideological differences between the civilians of Palestine and Israel, is it even worth battling so hard for the land at this point?

Like at this point it just sounds irrational to keep fighting over the land because as soon as the soldiers from one side lose, the public would retaliate too, it's like trying to integrate ukraine into russia (hypothetically ofc), you're not just gonna magically transition the land after all that's already happened in war

[cerulean obsidian]

That conflict will never end

It’s been going on for the better part of some 3000 years with no end in sight

[fickle heron]

yeah and after all the damage it's done, it's not even worth having a winner

like honestly bro after all those deaths in war, winning the land wouldn't even be a win since you'd just have a population that hates you because of the people you killed

not worth

[thorny stone]

I think realistically, it's been going on for about 140 years, since Zionism emerged in the 1880s. If there is a break of 1400 years between conflicts, I don't think we can reasonably count it as being the same war.

[thorny stone]

I agree with you about that. But the problem is that when you have people who believe they have a divine mission given to them by a god, to take control of a piece of land, and who believe their god is infallible and unchallengeable, all sensible evaluation is removed. They purposefully don't think about what they are doing, they take a fixed position and pursue it forever. And this sort of thing is the result; misery for millions for centuries.

[fickle heron]

I guess so

but to anyone who is not in those nations,

taking side in that war is the stupidest decision you can make that's for sure

[thorny stone]

Well, I disagree with that. I think there is a clear aggressor in the war, and I think everyone that wants to live in a world with fairness and justice, and basic human rights, has a responsibility to prevent the abuses going on.

It takes everyone to build a fair and just society. As soon as some people decide it's not their responsibility, that's when problems stop being solved and things worsen.

[fickle heron]

I mean you can say that but if this war just keeps getting stimulated and people keep taking stances in it, then there's no progress that's ever gonna be made

like at this point it's driven more by hate from both sides than the actual land, why would you rather put up a sign that says "I stand with Israel/Palestine" than putting up a sign that says "I don't stand with either, end this war"

look at frequency of these signs

[thorny stone]

Yes, I mean, that would work to some extent, eventually. But I also think that if you don't have a rule of law that involves consequences for doing bad things, that only encourages the bullies in this world to keep on doing bad things because you're setting up a situation that rewards them.

So yes, part of the rest of the world acting responsibly has to be stopping supporting the war continuing. But I think it also has to involve taking actions against the people who caused and prolonged it.

[fickle heron]

the fact that solving ukraine-russia takes as long as it took to start it says something about this war tbh

[thorny stone]

Oh, it's certainly going to take a very long time to solve the Israel-Palestine war.

[fickle heron]

I mean I get what you're saying but not only did both sides pretty much do that, the fact that there are people taking stances ruins that

[thorny stone]

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand. What are you saying both sides did?

[fickle heron]

both sides have prolonged it

are you suggesting we go after every single action they did to prolong it?

[thorny stone]

Oh yes, for sure some people on both sides have done that. But I think we need to start differentiating between the instigators of the war, and the people who are just stuck in the middle of it. There aren't just two sides, there are many sets of aggressors, who come from Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, the US, Russia, Iran etc.

[kind dagger]

I don't think you understand war, an invading force must be counterattacked if the defending force wants to keep their land

[thorny stone]

I think other nations can take a stance against those people, without needing to take sides in the conflict.

[fickle heron]

I'm not saying anything against that, what I'm saying is, everyone outside of those two countries has no business aiding either side

that just stimulates it 10x more

[thorny stone]

I think there is a clear distinction that can be drawn between people who are just fighting the war, and people who instigated / inflamed / escalated it. I'm in favour of going after only the latter group.

[fickle heron]

Idk about other nations, maybe people in other nations can have opinions, but having an entire nation aiding or making an outright stance against one of the two parties makes it way harder to slow down the war

[fickle heron]

yeah that sounds about right

the point is, taking stances in this war is literally just adding another extra weight to the scales

that weight being 1/100g

[kind dagger]

oh I see, but isn't prolonging good? if the alternative is letting go of the dam to unleash genocide?

[thorny stone]

Is it ok in your view to take the stance that aggression should stop?

(aggression / escalation / instigation)

Because I think if it's ok to take that stance, it will inevitably lead to opposition to one or more parties to the conflict, because someone will escalate it if you wait long enough.

[fickle heron]

what good has come out of prolonging the war? Both countries still have a buttload of weaponry either way, it's not like either country has been minimized yet or that any significant progress has been made relative to what can be rebuilt

[thorny stone]

Maybe the distinction can be between saying it is ok to oppose certain involved parties, and still refusing to aid the other parties in aggressive actions.

[fickle heron]

yeah ofc it is, that's the only neutral or unbiased stance that you could take anyway

whatever stances you take that isn't in line with that is destructive

[thorny stone]

Maybe other countries should be a negative force, preventing bad actions rather than enabling other actions, even if they see them as 'good'.

Just like throwing a blanket over the whole thing.

If the UN placed 200,000 troops in Palestine, and said "Israel is in location X, Palestine is in location Y. We'll shoot you if you try and invade the other", I think things would calm down fairly quickly.

[fickle heron]

yeah ofc

[fickle heron]

uhhh maybe but that'd lose all sense of allyship either country has with the world

but that's probably the only functional option

tbh bro the whole history over the last decade of the wars is so pathetic it's degrading

[thorny stone]

Isn't that basically what you're suggesting should happen though? Other countries stopping allying themselves so closely with either?

[fickle heron]

if you look at the recent history within the last decade or so of the war, it's like "a ceasefire broke, some israeli teenagers were killed by palestinians, then some palestinian teenagers were killed" or "some evictions happened therefore another war" or "a terrorist group decided to attack Israel"

like how is this related to land or how is this even rational at this point, it's borderline unprecedented

[fickle heron]

yeah that ofc, presidents, however, don't like the idea of that so much because of this fact

that's what I meant

[thorny stone]

Well, the Israelis are trying to force the Palestinians to leave, and they are doing that by trying to make life as difficult for them as possible. That's the basic driving force of the war.

[fickle heron]

yeah that's a tad bit too messed up but like

the 2023 one is just so unprecedented

[thorny stone]

Yes, it would rely on, for example, the US president cancelling the US unconditional alliance with Israel. Which is the main stumbling block preventing it happening, really.

[thorny stone]

Sorry, what is unprecedented? Are you talking about the October 7th 2023 attack by Hamas? They killed 1200 Israelis, but Israel had already killed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in similar terrorist attacks before then. So that wasn't unprecedented at all.

[fickle heron]

I mean that's true but the ceasefire deals within the last decade which could've actually slowed down the war were broken by palestine

[thorny stone]

Sorry, no, that's untrue.

[fickle heron]

wouldn't slowing down the war be more helpful

[fickle heron]

how so

[thorny stone]

It would, but Israel has never done more than pause it's aggressive actions for a handful of days. There is no ceasefire Israel has ever respected.

Palestinians are only responding to Israeli violence.

[fickle heron]

if you look at the last decade's, you can see the 2014 attack ceasefire was broken by palestine, and same from the 2018 one and 2019 one, not to mention the 2022 one

if there's any other ceasefires within the last decade please lmk

ofc I'm not saying Israel has been half-rational in this

I'm saying the ceasefires which could have slowed down the war within the last decade have all been broken by palestine

[thorny stone]

None of those ceasefires were broken by the Palestinians. Again, any time there is a ceasefire claimed, Israel still feels it is entitled to continue to kill Palestinians in their home, kidnap and torture innocent civilians, and continue to steal their lands. The war is caused by Israel invading and killing Palestinian lands. A ceasefire has to include a cessation of them doing that, otherwise it's pointless. The fact is that Israel doesn't feel obliged to respect any ceasefire with people it views as occupying lands that are rightfully Israeli.

We don't even have to look at history. We can see it right now, with Israel continuing to attack Gaza, Lebanon, and Palestinians in the West Bank as we speak despite claiming to have a ceasefire with all three of them.

[fickle heron]

?? they were broken first by palestinians

you can check what happened in all of these as I listed

[thorny stone]

The important point is that ceasefires don't exist in this war. Israel doesn't change anything about what it is doing even when it claims to have one, and Palestinians know this and so continue to fight back as well.

[thorny stone]

I already know what happened.

I am reasonably well versed in the history of this conflict.

[fickle heron]

so by order of events, they were first broken by palestine on all occasions

so how were they not

[thorny stone]

No, they were broken first by Israel in all cases.

[fickle heron]

in 2014 Hamas fired rockets after the ceasefire, then Israel responded with the millitary operations, is that not true

[thorny stone]

because Israel continued to kill Palestinians, continued to occupy land they had stolen from Palestinians, and continued to steal even more land. There was barely a pause in these actions on any of the occasions you refer to.

[fickle heron]

you're not wrong about that

but ceasefires are different than the land debate and other deaths which are valid, but not classified as breaking the ceasefires

in theory the ceasefires would've slowed down the war

[thorny stone]

According to wikipedia, Israel had earlier killed 10 Palestinians, injured 130, and kidnapped 600, before Hamas responded with rockets.

[fickle heron]

yeah I know that, which is also a big reason why instigating was never the answer

[thorny stone]

They are not different. It's the same war.

[fickle heron]

it's the same war but in terminology and in the agreement they only classify the rockets as the breaking of ceasefires

but I get what you're saying

[thorny stone]

Palestinians are fighting because Israel is stealing their homes and killing their friends and relatives. If Israel doesn't stop doing that, Palestinians aren't going to stop fighting back.

[fickle heron]

yeah I know that
but at this point, this doesn't have anything to do with re-claiming land

[thorny stone]

Israel only classified the rockets as breaking the ceasefire. Any sane nation classifies Israel murdering innocent Palestinians as breaking the ceasefire.

There's no reason to use the Israeli definition of what a ceasefire involves.

[fickle heron]

if you say so bro

[thorny stone]

Of course it does. It's still the driving factor behind the war for Israel.

It's the whole reason Israel continues to attack Palestinians.

[fickle heron]

I'm just saying if you look at the history by any like history textbook that doesn't have a bias (I'd hope) they take Israel's definition for whatever reason if this is the case

[fickle heron]

seems sketchy but I guess, this just doesn't look like it leads to that goal you're talking about

for Israel

[thorny stone]

Maybe in the US that is true, but then the US has a strong bias in favour of Israel. The rest of the world agrees Israel are the aggressors right now.

[fickle heron]

yeah that is true

but what I'm saying is how does Israel killing and infernalizing palestinian civilians obtain land

[thorny stone]

I agree. But unfortunately, the Israeli forces do not agree. Here is a link to their original military plan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Dalet

[fickle heron]

maybe some evictions could count as territory claiming

[thorny stone]

All of them do.

The plan's tactics involved laying siege to Palestinian Arab villages, bombing neighbourhoods of cities, forced expulsion of their inhabitants, and setting fields and houses on fire and detonating TNT in the rubble to prevent any return.

[fickle heron]

facepalm emoji, even

[fickle heron]

I know what you're referencing

[thorny stone]

Literally every part of the IDF's actions is designed to remove Palestinians from their lands so Israel can conquer them.

[thorny stone]

Good.

[fickle heron]

isn't that from the 40s though has that ever been solved through the war ever since then

has the war solved that problem or is it still happening to this day

[thorny stone]

It's still happening. It's still the same basic strategy.

[fickle heron]

so then if it hasn't stopped, does palestine know what they're doing

[thorny stone]

Yes

[fickle heron]

uhhhhh

if you say so

just saying, 77 years should've been enough time if so

[thorny stone]

For what?

[fickle heron]

if palestine knew what they were doing, why wouldn't that problem from 77 years ago have been stopped by palestine through all their efforts and responses in wars and whatnot

[zenith coyote]

please show me a single terrorist attack by israel where they went into a palestinian music festival, killed and raped the people there. Went into houses, had notes which houses were ex-idf soldiers with guns and which houses have dogs so they know who to kill first, and then took back hostages to israel and paraded around dead bodies as the israelis celebrated and defemated the dead bodies?

[zenith coyote]

Yes that is what happens during a war. when there is a partition plan and one side denys it saying they dont want any se while the other side accepts you think theyll just be ok with the side that rejected the treaty gathering forces to attack?

"Haj Amin al-Husseini said in March 1948 to an interviewer from the Jaffa daily Al Sarih that the Arabs did not intend merely to prevent partition but "would continue fighting until the Zionists were annihilated."[135] Jamal al-Husayni warned the Jews that "The blood will flow like rivers in the Middle East".[141]"

"Azzam told Alec Kirkbride "We will sweep them [the Jews] into the sea." Syrian president Shukri al-Quwatli told his people: "We shall eradicate Zionism."[135]

King Farouk of Egypt told the American ambassador to Egypt that in the long run the Arabs would soundly defeat the Jews and drive them out of Palestine.[136]"

"Few Palestinian Arabs joined the Arab Liberation Army because they suspected that the other Arab States did not plan on an independent Palestinian state. According to Ian Bickerton, for that reason many of them favored partition and indicated a willingness to live alongside a Jewish state.[153] He also mentions that the Nashashibi family backed King Abdullah and union with Transjordan.[154]

The Arab Higher Committee demanded that in a Palestinian Arab state, the majority of the Jews should not be citizens (those who had not lived in Palestine before the British Mandate).[141]

According to Musa Alami, the mufti would agree to partition if he were promised that he would rule the future Arab state.[155]

The Arab Higher Committee responded to the partition resolution and declared a three-day general strike in Palestine to begin the following day.[156]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine

The Arabs rejected the partition because they wanted all the jews out and wanted to eradicate them through war, many countries/officials in the Arab States did not want Palestine to become its own sovereign nation but instead wanted the land for themselves

[thorny stone]

With all due respect, the Palestinians haven't ever been able to do anything about it.

They knew what was happening from the start, from the 1880s, because Zionism was quite public. That was what started the violent conflicts off in the 1920s, the fact that the Arabs could see the Zionists moving into the region and preparing to expand their control. It's never been a secret.

But they were outmatched from the start. The Zionists had more money and better equipment back in the 1940s, as well as a bigger army, and as the Palestinians have gradually gained more allies in the years since, Israel did the same only better in making sure the US would support it no matter what. There's never been a moment where the Palestinians have had the power to stop Israel invading their lands and killing them. What we have seen, in the time since, is them doing it the best they can, because they have no alternative.

Up to around 1947, the plan from the rest of the world was to find a way for both Israel and Palestine to co-exist, with the lands divided between them. However when it was finally demonstrated that this couldn't work, in 1947, the world was feeling incredibly sorry for Jews post-holocaust and was overly generous towards them with the UN Partition Plan. That then set the scene for the conflict, because instead of being firm with the Jews, they ended up being harsh on the Arabs, which created a new problem. Because we had two sets of people, one who had just suffered a lot and hadn't healed yet, and one who was now suffering a lot, and we put them both in the same area and just left them to fight it out. So the secondary blame lies with the UN in 1947, for making it appear legitimate to steal land from the Arabs in Palestine, and for not stepping in when it was clear there would be no peaceful settlement there and then.

[thorny stone]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba
Israel went into a whole region of the world and killed and raped the population, killed tens of thousands of innocent people, used biological weapons, and took hostages. What they did is at least an order of magnitude worse than what Hamas has done.

[fickle heron]

so they haven't been able to do anything about it,
but they're fighting wars nowadays, so when did they start to have a chance to do anything about it

[cerulean obsidian]

Nakba was the consequence of losing the war they themselves started

[thorny stone]

We can't keep having the same conversation, you and I. You've made those same comments before, and they still don't indicate anything I've said is inaccurate.

[thorny stone]

The same goes for you. The Zionists started the war.

[cerulean obsidian]

no, they did not

[thorny stone]

People fight even though they know they can't currently win. That's just human nature.

[cerulean obsidian]

no, it's deathwish, not human nature

[fickle heron]

uhhhhhhhhh

Idk man I thought you said palestine knew what they were doing

that sounds a bit irrational

[cerulean obsidian]

he's a rabid antisemite, nothing has to make sense for him as long as the end result is "jews bad"

[thorny stone]

Of course. War is not rational.

[cerulean obsidian]

constant moving of the goalposts etc

[cerulean obsidian]

so why do the palestinians keep fighting, seeing that it only brings death and destruction?

[thorny stone]

SJohnson is a racist liar, who makes baseless accusations when challenged.

[cerulean obsidian]

I'm not racist, and I haven't told a single lie here

[fickle heron]

look bro I'm just saying, if palestine knew what they were doing, they wouldn't be launching all these expensive-ass retaliatory attacks for 77 years without accomplishing anything, they'd have another strategy

like dead srs this isn't a biased take

[cerulean obsidian]

^

nobody stopped Palestine from prospering, except their own hatred

[fickle heron]

I'm not tryna say that bro I'm just saying that the war and their tactics are nonsensical

because of the results they yielded

[cerulean obsidian]

Gaza Strip is all beachfront property, it could have been like Dubai if instead of building rockets to attack Israel they were building luxury hotels

[cerulean obsidian]

"The Zionists started the war" yeah, right...

Israel, the Jewish State in Palestine, was born on May 14, as the British finally left the country. Five Arab armies (Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, and Iraq) immediately invaded Israel. Their intentions were declared by Abd al-Rahman Azzam Pasha, secretary-general of the Arab League: “It will be a war of annihilation. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades.”

[thorny stone]

Sorry, I was distracted by an imporant phonecall at the wrong moment.

My point by calling you a racist liar is that anyone can make any kind of accusation on an online forum, but if it isn't backed by any kind of evidence then it's meaningless. You repeatedly throw around accusations of antisemitism, without even once presenting any kind of evidence to support that. If anyone cares to look, they will not find even a single comment from me that is disrespectful towards Jews.

People who are familiar with the tactics Israel uses to try and defend itself have a name for that. It's called weaponising antisemitism, using false accusations to try and discredit people who are inconvenient for you. It's generally used by extremists and dishonest politicians.

[cerulean obsidian]

eh, I don't see how a rational person can support the palestinians, when they have been very open about wanting to destroy the entirety of Israel and take it for themselves since the very beginning

like, the palestinians don't even want a state, they just want to destroy one

[thorny stone]

What do you suggest? What would be a better tactic for people who are being attacked constantly? I mean, there isn't really an alternative to fighting back, other than sitting back and waiting to die, which is also not very constructive.

[cerulean obsidian]

because something something they conquered the jews in the past and they can do it again

well, clearly they can't anymore

[cerulean obsidian]

they put themselves in that position lmao

[fickle heron]

not by job bro, and that's not what I'm tryna get at. What I'm trying to say is that they don't know what they're doing because if they did, they would've gotten rid of the 1948 problem of eviction and whatnot

[thorny stone]

When you're faced with a bunch of racist xenophobes who are intent on wiping you off the Earth, as a significant number of Zionists are quite open about wanting to do to the Palestinians (and everyone else on Earth), wanting to get rid of that group is a natural and rational response. If it's kill or be killed, most people quite rightly choose to kill.

[thorny stone]

I agree with you that they don't know how to solve the problem. But I disagree with you about there actually being a solution. I don't think there is anything the Palestinians could have done differently that would have had a different effect. Israel was always going to try and force them from their homes whatever they did.

[cerulean obsidian]

I forgot it's you I'm talking to...

yeah...

[thorny stone]

Feel free to go away.

You're not helping this conversation one bit.

[cerulean obsidian]

Israel made the grave mistake of allowing Egypt and Jordan occupy parts of Palestine post-1947, they should have taken it all right there and then, and explelled the populations from those areas. If they had done that, there would be no problems today.

[fickle heron]

maybe there was a more strategic approach for them, or maybe they could have a way different and more ballsy attitude to trying to find peace with other countries

[thorny stone]

They didn't "allow" anything. They fought, and kept the bits they could conquer by force.

[fickle heron]

I wasn't elected by any majority nor am I a military specialist so I'm not gonna act like I'd have a specific plan for palestine or Israel

the point I'm trying to make is I don't think they know what they're doing, and therefore countries shouldn't be supporting them or Israel

[thorny stone]

This is the problem, because not even the experts have found a solution yet either. Everyone seems to be avoiding the one obvious solution, which is to enforce international law.

[cerulean obsidian]

international law is dead

[thorny stone]

The main obstacle to international law is the US thinking it should be above it. So while the US persists in preventing it operating, the rest of the world has to try and deal with the problems that causes.

[thorny stone]

Yeah, it's really difficult to find other options, even with hindsight. Where we are now, has most of the Western world supporting the Palestinians and opposing the Israelis. But even that is almost meaningless because none of them can challenge the US.

Maybe with hindsight the Palestinians should have concentrated more on gaining the support of the US. But that was always going to be difficult with the level of anti-Arab and anti-Islamic discrimination present in the US.

[zenith coyote]

Like i said, the arab states that backed them when they first denied the partition did NOT care about the palestinian people or cause. They just hated jews and wanted them out of the region

Arklar you are one of the biggest hippocrite on here, any argument you use that Palestinians are allowed to kill can be used the other way. Your bias against Israel is very clear and your love for Hamas is as well

[thorny stone]

They demonstrably didn't have a problem with Jews for more than a thousand years prior to Zionism. It was only when they started being flooded with Jews who were expressing a desire to kill or expel the current residents that problems arose.

[zenith coyote]

Zionism is not a new ideology

[thorny stone]

OK. Show me one time where I've said Palestinians are allowed to kill.

You seem to do nothing but lie in this discussion.

[zenith coyote]

"If it's kill or be killed, most people quite rightly choose to kill."

you are just unaccepting of facts and a clear inability to change your world view

[thorny stone]

You've ignored literally all of the facts presented in this discussion. Repeatedly.

Any time I provide you with the evidence all over again, you go away for a few days and come back repeating the same nonsense all over again. You continually avoid discussions that involve hard facts.

[zenith coyote]

It just isnt worth my time talking to a brick wall so i prefer to just watch quietely from the side and butt in when i see fit

[thorny stone]

That's not me saying that anyone is allowed to kill.

That's me saying that if you create a situation where killing is unavoidable, it's understandable for people to choose someone else other than themselves. To even get to that question means completely bypassing the question of whether it is ok to kill.

[thorny stone]

So in other words, trolling.

[zenith coyote]

Like i said, that can be applied to the Jews in the region as well. If you are getting bombed by the countries around you it seems to be a kill or be killed moment

[thorny stone]

For the innocent ones, yes, it's understandable. But that doesn't change the point about it being wrong for other people to create the whole situation that made killing inevitable.

[kind dagger]

I think you might be getting your news from the wrong people

because all the (two) Palestinians I know are nice people and want a country to live in where they and their children aren't blown up

you probably just hear the loud ones

you're being too racist with your assumptions of all Palestinians