#Israel or Palestine?

1 messages · Page 9 of 1

fickle heron
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I don't think it's racism I think it's just general consensus

kind dagger
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a racist would say the same thing as that in response though haha

fickle heron
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that logic makes no sense

kind dagger
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Palestinians are very nationalist, they feel a strong tie to their land that Westerners don't really have, for a Palestinian to leave the land of their ancestors is like losing a part of themselves, that's a key point in this debate I think btw if you didn't know

kind dagger
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Example: My Grandma thinks aboriginal people are all stupid, I tell her she's wrong, she would say it's just general consensus / what she's seen

fickle heron
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60% or more agree that terrorist attacks are a correct solution against Israelis

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only like 30 or 20% agree for an attempt of negotiation or two-state solution

kind dagger
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that's not true lmao

fickle heron
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how so

kind dagger
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i gtg

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but give me sources for that please

fickle heron
mighty path
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Killing people is bad, mm'kay.

fickle heron
thorny stone
kind dagger
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if you think that I won't agree with your source, why do you? you blindly accept Israeli sources? I assume you don't, so I'll tell you my argument and you can tell me yours

fickle heron
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also I could be wrong but I'd assume you don't accept daily wire polling (the only alternate source in a pool of 200 jewish ones) as valid

cerulean obsidian
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a properly modern invention that

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Mar. 23, 2012 update: MEMRI posted today an address by Fathi Hammad, the Hamas “minister of the interior and of national security” giving a speech on Al-Hekma TV in which, in the course of criticizing the Egyptian government over a fuel shortage in Gaza Strip, he insists on the foreign origins of that region’s population:

[...]

Brothers, half of the Palestinians are Egyptians and the other half are Saudis. Who are the Palestinians? We have many families called Al-Masri, whose roots are Egyptian. Egyptian! They may be from Alexandria, from Cairo, from Damietta, from the North, from Aswan, from Upper Egypt. We are Egyptians. We are Arabs. We are Muslims.

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even Hamas doesn't believe in "Palestinian nationalism"

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in fact they don't even consider themselves palestinians

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palestinian nationalism is an invention for purely political reasons that doesn't exist in practice

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they don't want a palestinian state, they just want to remove Israel

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palestinians lie non-stop to the western media, the truth they tell only to arabic media, in arabic, which rarely gets translated to english for western mass consumption

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alas, this statement from a high ranking Hamas official got translated, so unless something has drastically changed between 2012 and now, no, palestinian nationalism is simply not a thing that exists

kind dagger
cerulean obsidian
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and calling them Egyptians and Saudis also disconnects them from the land

cerulean obsidian
hasty ingot
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I've tried to stay tf out of this silly thread but that's like saying what connection do anything of us have to our land? They live there, they have their lives there. What more do they need?

cerulean obsidian
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but a good philosophical point, I feel no attachment to the land I inhabit at all

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but that's because I'm a silly westerner

kind dagger
cerulean obsidian
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not my words, the words of a Hamas interior minister

hasty ingot
kind dagger
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forget what I said about nationalism, that isn't the right word, they don't feel connected to their country necessarily but to their family and their land

cerulean obsidian
kind dagger
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I'm not talking about nationalism

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I'm talking about their family and their property
and certainly not Hamas

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I'm from NZ but I'm European in ethnicity, idc about Europe more than any other country

hasty ingot
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Heh, why edit that? I remember it word for word lol.

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But that's up to SJohnson to care about. Between you and him.

cerulean obsidian
civic karma
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The problem with this is suggesting there's even 2 sides

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In reality there's more

civic karma
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But it makes no sense. As soon as you grow up in a place, you are entitled to have som sort of connection to that place.

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Which, for many palestinians, are parts of the land we call Israel today, as well as some disputed territory in the West-Bank

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So saying Palestinians have no reason to claim the land or feel entitled too it is disingenuine

thorny stone
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And saying that they don't want a Palestinian state and just want to destroy Israel is just a straight up lie.

civic karma
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I am sure that there are technically some people that call themselves palestinian that don't care about a palestinian state and only about the destruction of israel

cerulean obsidian
thorny stone
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Great. I'll take your house now then.

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It's not yours, so now it's mine.

civic karma
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I was about to say, if I forcefully move you out of your house, then you'll have no claim on the land afterwards

thorny stone
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Please pay me $9,000,000 for rent this week.

civic karma
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But I am sure I made this argument before anyway

thorny stone
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if you don't, I'll fire rockets at you until you do.

cerulean obsidian
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Except the indigenous populations, but nobody is truly indigenous to anywhere, and the world has never really cared about any indigenous populations, so yes, nobody really has any intrinsic claim to any land anywhere

civic karma
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what does ''indigenous pupulation'' even mean to you?

cerulean obsidian
cerulean obsidian
civic karma
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then why bring it up in an argument?

thorny stone
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"Indigenous" has got absolutely nothing to do with this question. The Palestinians own the land, they bought it, it's theirs. Israel stole the land, therefore it's not theirs.

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It's the most straightforward thing to understand.

civic karma
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I think SJohnsons argument, if I dumb it down, essentially comes down to: ''Israel has bigger weapons so israel has a righteous claim to the land''

thorny stone
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Yes, their argument is that theft is fine.

civic karma
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At least, that's how I interpret it

thorny stone
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It's been made pretty explicit I think.

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no longer their land, and hasn't been for generations

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The only way to consider more than 5% of the land as Israeli is to view theft as a legitimate means of transfer of ownership.

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That's roughly the amount they actually owned in 1947, and all they have a legitimate claim to until there is some agreement with the Palestinians who own the rest. That's how ownership works.

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All of the arguments people try and present to support the Israeli side are based on anything but the basic legal facts. It's always "But Jews ruled the lands 3000 years ago," or "The Palestinians weren't using it properly," or even better, "There's no such thing as a Palestinian so the people who call themselves Palestinian don't count." Nobody taking that position seems to engage with the basic fact of ownership.

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If you walk into somebody's house, shoot half the residents and force the others to leave, and then take their possessions they have left behind for your own, that's called theft. It's called theft in any civilised region of the world.

zenith coyote
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"Up till now the Arab cultivator has benefited on the whole both from the work of the British Administration and the presence of Jews in the country, but the greatest care must now be exercised to see that in the event of further sales of land by Arabs to Jews the rights of any Arab tenants or cultivators are preserved. Thus, alienation of land should only be allowed where it is possible to replace extensive by intensive cultivation. In the hill districts there can be no expectation of finding accommodation for any large increase in the rural population. At present, and for many years to come, the Mandatory Power should not attempt to facilitate the close settlement of the Jews in the hill districts generally.

The shortage of land is due less to purchase by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population. The Arab claims that the Jews have obtained too large a proportion of good land cannot be maintained. Much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamps and uncultivated when it was bought."

In the 1930s, most of the land was bought from landowners. Of the land that the Jews bought, 52.6% were bought from non-Palestinian landowners, 24.6% from Palestinian landowners, 13.4% from government, churches, and foreign companies, and only 9.4% from fellaheen (farmers).[20]

cerulean obsidian
thorny stone
# zenith coyote "Up till now the Arab cultivator has benefited on the whole both from the work o...

We might as well also quote the preceding paragraph:

The Palestine Order in Council and, if necessary, the Mandate should be amended to permit of legislation empowering the High Commissioner to prohibit the transfer of land in any stated area to Jews, so that the obligation to safeguard the right and position of the Arabs may be carried out. Until survey and settlement are complete, the Commission would welcome the prohibition of the sale of isolated and comparatively small plots of land to Jews.
So the report you're quoting is one that was in favour of banning Jews from buying land.

Probably also worth noting that we're quoting a report produced in 1936, concerning small Jewish purchases of land that happened a decade before the massacres and mass theft of land that produced the situation we have today. It's referring to a completely different situation, and it's misleading to post it here without providing any context.

thorny stone
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In other news, UN aid workers have discovered the mass grave where the Israeli army tried to bury the evidence of them shooting at clearly marked ambulances and then executing the aid workers inside.

Yet more proof that the IDF goes out of its way to deliberately murder innocent people.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/31/israel-killed-15-palestinian-paramedics-and-rescue-workers-one-by-one-says-un

the Guardian
Israel killed 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers one by o...

Workers on a mission to help colleagues were buried in mass grave in southern Gaza, says humanitarian office

zenith coyote
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So nothing about how Hamas killed and tortured the leading protestor to send a message to Gazans?

fickle heron
thorny stone
civic karma
cerulean obsidian
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look no further than Ukraine

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except Ukraine is on the right side of history, unlike Palestine

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but not that it matters for any practical purposes

thorny stone
mighty path
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That isn't saying what you said is wrong, but the phrase, "right side of history" is bold.

cerulean obsidian
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obviously what’s right and what’s wrong is always in the eye of the beholder

thorny stone
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History is generally not kind to perpetrators of war crimes though.

zenith coyote
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Since when?

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Might has made right for almost all of human civilization there’s no cosmic karma

thorny stone
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Since always. There's no person or group in history who committed a bunch of war crimes, that we forgive because they had bigger guns than their enemies. However successful they are in their own time period, history remembers them as vicious, brutal and/or evil. We might forgive some who eventually repented and reformed their ways, but big guns do not produce forgiveness.

Any historical record of the government of Israel will forever note that they committed many atrocities all throughout their existence up to this point, and their actions in this time period they will be categorised alongside other similarly brutal regimes like the apartheid regimes in South Africa, Islamic State, The German Nazi party, The Khmer Rouge, Idi Amin etc. I think that we can all hope that they improve and drag themselves out of the hole they have dug for themselves in the eyes of the world.

zenith coyote
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Do you understand that throughout civilization there has been constant wars and battles where each side did what we now consider war crimes? It was common when attacking an enemy village or town to ruin their crop supplies and surround them forcing to surrender. We would consider that starvation a war crime now. Do you remember every single different nation, village and time in civilization where what we now consider a war crime happened? Humanity evolves along with civilization bringing us new moral codes and new definitions of what is wrong like the war crimes. This isn’t me saying that these are bad or the ones happening now should be ignored. But to completely ignore history and live in such a delusional world where every war and battle was fought with water guns and water balloons instead of the real gruesome battles is denying the history and evolution of humanity

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The bigger and more powerful army always rewrote history to make themselves look good and the ones that they conquered as barbarians

thorny stone
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The first part of what you've written is correct. As humanity has progressed, our ideas about what behaviour is acceptable have refined, and there are many things we reject now that were formerly considered acceptable. It's likely that will continue into the future as well.

However when judging societies we tend to compare them against others that were around at the time, so that we are judging them by the standards of the era in which they existed.

Israel is conspicuous for not meeting the standards of the era they are in, i.e. the present day. There is a consensus that they are guilty of crimes as defined by the present international community. If you put them 200-300 years ago then maybe they wouldn't stand out quite so much, but their behaviour includes things that haven't been acceptable to the international community for a very long time. Certainly since the Geneva conventions first began in 1864, if not before. Therefore, if they are judged by the standards of their time (and they are), they will be judged to be barbaric.

I agree that winners of wars try and re-write history in their favour. However that only applies in the areas that they control, and since the conquest of land has been largely outlawed for a long time now, it's almost never the case any more that anyone can control how their actions are viewed by others.

zenith coyote
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How are things outlawed now on a global scale? How are countries held to a standard?

thorny stone
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There is the Geneva Convention, there is the UN and its International Court of Justice, and there is also the International Criminal Court. I would say those are probably the main three standards in use at the moment.

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The UN, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent (who are generally considered the authority on the Geneva Convention) all agree that Israel is acting unlawfully.

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The reality is that Israel is a criminal, terrorist state by every definition, that has been allowed to get away with it solely because of US support. How much of US support comes as a result of racism, and how much as a result of trying to prevent Russia having strong allies in the region, it's hard to say. But I think it's obvious that there is no actual moral reason to be enabling one country to engage in ethnic cleansing and the violent conquering of land.

thorny stone
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These kinds of problems do not just go away, and the bullies that carry them out don't just stop. The millions of Palestinians who are without homes aren't just going to forget. At some point, this will need to be addressed. We've already missed the opportunity to address it at the best time, when it was first arising, so now it's just a question of addressing it as soon as possible, before it escalates even further into something even more severe. Because if we don't do anything about it, it will. The Palestinians will get even more desperate, the other countries in the region will get even more scared of Israel, and sooner or later one or more of them will get access to improved weapons or resort to even more extreme attacks. This is what has happened up to this point, and there's no reason to think it will stop.

The only way it ends is to firstly stop the aggressive actions, and then secondly to make reparations so that the victims do not continue to feel aggrieved. There just isn't another way.

mighty path
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And the only people with the power to do anything about it don't care.

zenith coyote
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/hamas-quietly-drops-thousands-deaths-122557133.html

“The demographics are the most important thing in all this. We’ve heard the claims that about 70 per cent of the deaths are women and children, and these lists, especially the most recent, show that’s complete nonsense,” he said. About 72 per cent of fatalities aged 13-55 are men, which is the rough age range of Hamas combatants, Mr Fox said. “We know that Hamas uses child soldiers, and these statistics show clearly that Israel is targeting fighting-aged men.”

Yahoo News
Hamas ‘quietly drops’ thousands of deaths from casualty figures

New research shows that Hamas has quietly dropped thousands of deaths from its Gaza war casualty figures.

thorny stone
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TheFP is run by well known Israeli propagandists, and the source for the Yahoo article is an Israeli media advocacy group whose sole mission is to present Israel favourably in the media.

You might as well quote Netanyahu for all the honest reporting either of those two sources is likely to do.

No serious news organisation is touching either of those two claims. That generally means there is no evidence to support them.

zenith coyote
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That is your reaction whenever I send something. “It’s propaganda”

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And you wonder why I don’t always want to have a conversation with you. It’s like talking to a wall

zenith coyote
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You blindly believe Hamas numbers (which they have already been shunned for increasing numbers for propaganda) and when I provide evidence against you. You just dismiss it because you don’t agree with it

thorny stone
thorny stone
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Also, please stop making personal attacks. It doesn't add anything useful.

zenith coyote
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It’s very easy to just dismantle any argument or sources I have by simply claiming propaganda

still perch
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Might be worth establishing a mutual source of information that you both trust, in order to have a productive conversation. Otherwise, you're in the perpetual "Nuh uhh" argument.

thorny stone
thorny stone
mighty path
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I hope Isreal never discovers the edit button on Wikipedia

still perch
zenith coyote
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So any reports from Israel are automatically propaganda while anything from Hamas is automatically true without needing to confirm

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Because Hamas has no reason to lie about anything

still perch
# zenith coyote Anything he doesnt like is propaganda.

I think that's his perspective on what you (or whomever is taking the opposing side) is taking. If you can't agree on what you consider as a basic "fact", then the discussion isn't really going anywhere. That being said, this is suggesting that there is a source of information that doesn't have overly skewed biases in one direction or another. Unfortunately, wars tend to do that.

thorny stone
# still perch That's funny, because I was thinking "can't anyone edit Wikipedia?". But I assum...

It's probably the most thoroughly fact-checked online source of information there is, behind a small handful of ethical news sources. Especially on a popular or controversial subject. There are strict rules about what can be included; everything needs to be referenced from a reliable source. In the short term, yes, anyone can edit it, but in the long term, if it's rubbish someone else will remove it pretty quickly.

still perch
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In that case.. here's a Wikipedia article on the reliability of wikipedia 😛

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia#:~:text=Because Wikipedia cannot be considered,a pointer to external sources.

Reliability of Wikipedia

The reliability of Wikipedia and its volunteer-driven and community-regulated editing model, particularly its English-language edition, has been questioned and tested. Wikipedia is written and edited by volunteer editors (known as Wikipedians) who generate online content with the editorial oversight of other volunteer editors via community-gener...

thorny stone
# still perch In that case.. here's a Wikipedia article on the reliability of wikipedia 😛 ht...

If you read the rest of the article, it goes on to disprove that claim that was made by some academics years ago.

While it is not quite as rigorous as academia research, it is still a lot better than most media because it carries the expectation of providing the sources for any claims. As long as you know not to trust any claims made on it that do not have sources, it's about as reliable as the best publishers.

still perch
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Aye it mostly agrees with you. Although I think it endorses the academic criticism that it's a tertiary source, and so it is as limited as other encyclopedias in that regard.

I just enjoyed the oddity of a Wikipedia article on its own reliability, so I felt compelled to share 😎

hasty ingot
still perch
sand rain
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Reading this I can understand the propaganda did their brainwash more than well !
The fact the you can't see the expansion of Israel in the name of an enemy that wants to destroy it, tells a lot about how the mind control happens, and is able to blind people to the reality of the facts.
Israel is in expansion, its government doesn't even try to hide it, yet is able to convince this is happening for a good cause.
Jewish people ( a part for Zionists ) are against this disgrace, and ashamed for what is happening, the ones who are not, have been largely mind controlled by media.
This hasn't started 2 years ago, has been planned deeply, and advancing since 1948.
Be careful, because you are doing the interests of those powers that want to use those lands for their dirty business, and you are being accomplice in genocide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuBB_7QDRpo&t=416s

YouTube
Narrative House
Rabbi Tells Hidden History Of Zionism and Islam that Will Leave You...

The genocide in Gaza has revealed the ugly face of humanity as the fires of racism and religious hatred are being stoked everywhere. A modern political ideology is being equated to the centuries old faith of Judaism. It is being claimed that religion only divides and must be discarded to move forward. Against this backdrop, can an exiled Palesti...

▶ Play video
sand rain
thorny stone
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The racists in Israel seem to be having a difficult time right now. Not only has the IDF been shown to have lied even in its revised statement about the massacre of hospital workers that it initially tried to cover up completely, as pointed out by Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper.

But Netanyahu also seems to be continuing to have difficulty in working out how to deal with the sworn testimony showing him to be corrupt. For anyone not following the story, Netanyahu first tried to get the head of the agency investigating him to call off the investigation, as well as spy on his political opponents for him. When the head of the agency refused, Netanyahu then tried to sack him, before the courts blocked it. The agency head then made a sworn statement, and Netanyahu was supposed to have replied yesterday but was unable to do so. So, he's been granted an extension until Sunday, presumably to produce whatever lies he feels like telling this week.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/24/new-details-on-killing-of-paramedics-in-gaza-appear-to-contradict-idf-account

the Guardian
New details on killing of paramedics in Gaza appear to contradict I...

Haaretz report comes as supreme court gives Israeli PM more time to respond to affidavit from fired Shin Bet chief

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Less promising news from the UK. The Board of Deputies (a largely Netanyahu-controlled group that claims to represent Jews in the UK) is taking disciplinary action against the large number of its Jewish members who recently came out against the actions of Israel. Apparently they feel that allowing even fellow Jews to express their opinions is not important if they happen to disagree with them.

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Which mirrors the actions taken by Netanyahu in Israel, to persecute political opponents and bad media that don't unconditionally support him.

rose mantle
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It's crazy where I come from u get labeled antisemite if u say anything against the state of Israel. Even if you are a jew. Most jews say Israel is not the jewish state and that true religous jewish people are a minority there. It's the state of zionists. Zionism is NOT the same as judaism. Speaking out against the actions of a state or regime and it's politicians has nothing to do with the predominant religion in this country. People would still call out Israels actions if they believed in the flying spaghetti monster

thorny stone
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So Israel's security cabinet has reportedly just approved a plan to capture all of Gaza, and remove hundreds of thousands more Palestinians from their homes.

Ethnic cleansing and regional conquest getting more and more overt right now.

remote rover
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difficult topic. neither side is innocent. my opinion is that israel is more in the right. then again i dont know about the conflict as deeply as other might

thorny stone
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Interesting development this week. We've actually had the UK government threatening Israel over it's actions in Gaza, in a joint statement with Canada and France. Given the UK Prime Minister's history of blind support for Israel, this represents quite a change in policy. Obviously Israel only really has one ally in the US, but other influential countries are becoming increasingly vocal about their opposition, which can only be a good thing. Let's hope it translates into action when Israel inevitably ignores the warnings.

thorny stone
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Just to again highlight the lack of perspective amongst the IDF, today they thought it would be a good idea to fire warning shots at a group of international ambassadors and diplomats who were visiting Jenin in the West Bank.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/21/israeli-troops-fire-warning-shots-25-diplomats-visiting-occupied-west-bank

Even if they deviate from an approved route, firing warning shots is not an acceptable way to inform them of that. You can literally just call them up and tell them.

Another demonstration that "Shoot first" is the standard IDF response to anything.

the Guardian
Israeli troops fire ‘warning shots’ at 25 diplomats visiting oc...

Shots force delegation representing 31 countries, including Italy, Canada, Egypt and UK, to run for cover

keen moth
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Do people not consider that this is a war where one side isn’t being allowed to finish the war? I think that people would almost unanimously say Israel has a right to exist and not be subject to genocide. When Israel was threatened with death, they responded with death in kind… but they were told to hold back, don’t get rid of those who want to get rid of you… now they have an endless stalemate where they never know when the next attack comes, and the world hates them for not just winning or losing.
the point is : if Israel won the war they’d be the heros, and if they lost they’d be the marauders. Instead they chose neither and became the villain. Its really weird

mighty path
cerulean obsidian
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Israel is fighting a war that they have every right to fight, but also one that they can’t ever afford to win.

thorny stone
# keen moth Do people not consider that this is a war where one side isn’t being allowed to ...

Well, firstly let's be clear. Nobody is preventing Israel doing anything. The US prevents any kind of opposition to Israel. The only thing stopping Israel from wiping out all of the Palestinians in Gaza immediately is that a) they couldn't do it because they don't have the military strength to do it quickly, and b) they want to be able to convincingly pretend that they are being reasonable.

Does Israel have a right to exist? No. Of course it doesn't. No country has a right to exist.
Countries are organisations or people acting a similar way. Everyone's allowed to act however they want unless their actions affect others. Since countries affect others, even by existing, they are always a privilege, not a right. They are allowed only when they can get along well with others.

Israel does not get along well with others. Not at all. It is currently one of the most xenophobic countries in history (if not the most), actively hating and opposing or interfering with most other countries in the world, and aggressively persecuting a small collection of them, all while hiding behind the protection of the US. Both its government and a significant proportion of its citizens believe that terrorism is justified against anyone that opposes it in any way. It is a terrorist, xenophobic, pariah state. That's why people oppose it.

Normally what would have happened is that the UN would have sent in troops decades ago and stopped Israel's aggression. But unfortunately the US has been preventing this action, and all other actions to restrict Israel. So the situation keeps getting worse. Nobody can end the war by any amount of killing, that only makes it worse, so we're storing up more and more severe problems, and sooner or later the blockage will break under the pressure. Either the US will be forced to withdraw it's support, or supporting Israel will become impossible, or someone else will get stronger, and we will end up with another major war. That will be bad for everyone.

keen moth
# thorny stone Well, firstly let's be clear. Nobody is preventing Israel doing anything. The US...

i think you misunderstand heavily the military strength of Israel. Philosophically its a debate who the good and bad are here (to some i guess) but its not debate on military. Israel actually could wipe out in brutal fashion every neighbor in swift and terrible strides, with little opposition. They simply aren’t allowed to because of the UN and US. thats the mistake that the news media is having people believe. israel has one of the most advanced, and powerful militaries in the modern world.

thorny stone
# keen moth i think you misunderstand heavily the military strength of Israel. Philosophical...

When was the last time Israel paid any attention whatsoever to the UN? Have they ever? They've been ignoring UN resolutions and instructions since Israel was created. The only attention Israel pays to the UN is the minimum required to keep the US on its side.

Israel has an advanced military, for sure, because of all the support from the US. But it doesn't have a numerous military, and most of their army is part-time, not highly trained or disciplined. They've also tried to invade and conquer all their neighbours several times throughout their history, and the conclusion every time was that they didn't have the ability to conquer them. They could win battles, but they simply do not have the numbers to subjugate more than a small area at a time. That is why they are acting the way they are right now, expanding their control slowly. Because this way, they only need to purge a small area at a time, and then move on to the next.

I guess Israel could simply nuke everyone. But then they'd be living in the middle of the fallout, not to mention the likelihood of UN actions against them.

Without US protection, Israel would lose a war with its neighbours. It would win many battles, maybe every battle, but it could never stop their enemies regrouping and coming back and it would lose the war of attrition.

It might lose the war of attrition anyway, even with US support. It's been fighting the war for 100 years already, and all it has achieved is the annexation of a few small bits of land and making a whole lot more enemies, both external and internal. I don't think anyone but a religious extremist who considered the land grab a divine mission would equate Israel's current position as a success.

keen moth
# thorny stone When was the last time Israel paid any attention whatsoever to the UN? Have they...

i already brought up its not a success, but its like you said, they need the US on its side. The US is a nation of moral values, debated by some to the extent, but not that they dont have them at all cuz thats a foolish proposition. anyways point being, if israel were to conquer, the Us would have a moral problem with allowing it. The US doesnt conquer, and they dont like conquerors. They dont like tyranny. so instead Israel is forced into infinite warfare, where like i said in my OP, people now scrutinize them for not just winning or not just losing. Its sad and you fit into the archetype i suppose, of the judgment types that have disdain for Israel

thorny stone
keen moth
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I agree with you oppose their methods, I don’t think you opposes their goals, or at that point i’m talking to somebody i shouldn’t be.
but ill focus on methods and hope you were just mispoken.
I agree that people disagree with the methods, I’m saying the reason why you do is because they didn’t just win, or lose. It’s the length of time and the lack of an apparent victor that makes it infinite. No one accuses the Allied powers of being in the wrong against nazi germany… because it ended. And because there was clear good and evil. My argument is there is clear good and evil here, but Israel wasn’t allowed to win. its a perspective that might help you define your own views and understanding under that framework. its okay to disagree. But thats why i said you fit loosely, its a generalization.

thorny stone
# keen moth I agree with you oppose their methods, I don’t think you opposes their goals, or...

No, I'm very certain that I do oppose Israel's goals of ethnically cleansing the region and conquering all the land that they claim is was given to them by their god. Zionism is a racist and abhorrent belief system. That has absolutely nothing to do with how successful they are at implementing it. It is wrong on any scale.

I don't believe in good and evil, but I do believe in right and wrong. I believe it is wrong of the Zionists to try and conquer land by force that is rightfully owned by other people, and wrong to disregard the human rights of the people they have been harming for 100 years. Israel is clearly the party most in the wrong, has been all along, and emphatically so.

keen moth
thorny stone
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In the sense that I oppose all injustice, I guess I am an ideologue. But most people are. I'm just looking at the facts and forming an opinion.

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There's no hate involved at all.

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It's just factual statements. Zionists are trying to steal land and ethnically cleanse the region. That's effectively the definition.

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What I see from Israel and its supporters is a rude and arrogant disregard for other people. I see people incapable of having rational conversations and comprehending disagreement with their views. I'm sorry to say you seem to fit into that category with your last message.

thorny stone
# keen moth i see so you are an ideologue. I dont think i can have this discussion with you....

I just need to add one more thing.

im talking to a cause now, not a person with ideas
This is called dehumanisation. It is a psychological trick that is only ever used by people to avoid confronting the reality of how badly they are treating their fellow humans.

I am sure that most likely this is simply how you've been taught to deal with people who disagree with you, and that you're not doing it deliberately. But it is exactly this kind of dehumanisation of people who disagree with you that is causing a lot of the problems in Palestine. It is what causes soldiers to fire on children, social movements to believe it is ok to ethnically cleanse a region, people to violently oppose the giving of aid to innocent people, and politicians to declare things like "Every child in Gaza is the enemy."

What you should be doing is talking to people who disagree with you, connecting with people, not shutting yourself off from forming normal human relationships. You're dehumanising yourselves, becoming something less than human.

mighty path
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hopefully things continue to de escalate, seems like Trump is pissed at Israeli leadership and is trying to send aid to Gaza

thorny stone
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I would argue that the situation is doing anything but de-escalating right now, and hasn't been since Trump was elected. Israel is continuing to escalate their Gaza offensive, and their other land grabs, and Trump is still supporting them. The US-backed aid project isn't worthy of the name so far, and even the person supposedly leading it resigned in protest, saying it violates humanitarian principles. The only positive I see at the moment is that the rest of the world seems to be uniting more strongly in opposition, although it's difficult to see what they can do while Trump continues the unconditional support for Israel.

mighty path
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Is this "unconditional support" in the room with us right now? Everywhere im looking, especially recently shows Trump not happy with them at all. He likes peace.

thorny stone
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He can be "not happy" with them as much as he likes. But unless he actually stops them doing something, anything, then he's still supporting their actions. The US is still providing military support to Israel, still protecting it from attacks, and still protecting it diplomatically.

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Maybe he is supporting them with less enthusiasm, but Trump is still a strong supporter of Israel.

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You can even look at the US ceasefire plan proposed today. It's just a repetition of the Israeli demands.

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Option 1: We continue to destroy your entire country and people indiscriminately.
Option 2: You return the hostages and we continue to destroy your entire country and people indiscriminately.

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I hear what you're saying about Trump "not being happy with them". But, where's the action? Are we basing this idea solely on the quote “Israel, we’ve been talking to them, and we want to see if we can stop that whole situation as quickly as possible”? Because there's a massive difference between saying you're not happy with the situation and actually taking action against Israel to make it stop.

mighty path
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So attempting to end the conflict through peace is a bad thing?

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Why doesn't Europe step in and stop them then?

thorny stone
# mighty path Why doesn't Europe step in and stop them then?

Europe can't step in because the US blocks them whenever they try through the UN. The list of UN resolutions and actions regarding the situation that have been blocked by the US is extensive.

Attempting to create a peace would be great. But the problem is precisely that Israel, and by extension the US by supporting Israel, aren't trying to do that. The leaders of Israel (and a sizable portion of their citizens) want to keep the war going until they occupy the whole region and have eliminated the Palestinians entirely. That is the extremist position that has now become mainstream in Israel. There was always a conflict between the religious fundamentalist Zionists who wanted a crusade to retake the "Holy Land", and the more moderate Jews who simply wanted a state of their own, who oppose the violence being carried out in the name of Judaism. Unfortunately for the world, the religious fundamentalists tend to win that battle and thus Zionism turns into a racist movement of xenophobic ethnic cleansers who are quite upfront about their desires.

“The enemy is not Hamas, nor is it the military wing of Hamas. Every child in Gaza is the enemy. We need to occupy Gaza and settle it, and not a single Gazan child will be left there. There is no other victory.” - Moshe Feiglin, Israeli politician

"[Innocent victims?] To be exact, there are innocents in Gaza – 58 of them [the Israeli hostages]" - May Golan, Israeli Social Equality minister

"At the end of this campaign, all of the territories of the Gaza Strip will be under Israel’s security control." - Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli PM

"...a clear message to (French President Emmanuel) Macron and his associates: they will recognise a Palestinian state on paper - but we will build the Jewish Israeli state here on the ground," Israel Katz, Israeli Defence Minister

mighty path
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Yeah... I pray we (the USA) can eventually dig ourselves out of this hole. Wasting billions/trillions of dollars blowing people up in the middle east ever since I was a toddler is awful. and no, not just the money, although I have to say that is the only part that directly effects me because of how highly im taxed and how little I receive for it.

He gets all the hate but Donald Trump is the only president in my lifetime, and the lifetime of 31.2% of other Americans that has been actively trying to get us out and make peace. The only president to not start a new war.

I feel like Trump is side tracking this convo, when I originally was just trying to point out some potentially good news, if you don't believe it whatever. But it's nice to know atleast someone who atleast appears to have power in Washington is starting to talk about it and say the people of Gaza are suffering.

I don't want to see anyone dead, but the only way the US is going to pull out of that desert tomorrow is if the entire government is thrown out because the corruption runs so deep.

thorny stone
# mighty path Yeah... I pray we (the USA) can eventually dig ourselves out of this hole. Wasti...

The only president to not start a new war.
The issue I have with this idea, is that I think Trump directly caused the current situation the first time he was President. He was extremely pro-Israel back then as well, and it was his support that led to Netanyahu massively expanding the campaign of expelling Palestinians and stealing their land more or less as soon as Trump was elected. That was the escalation that ultimately provoked the most recent attack by Hamas, because it pushed them closer to desperation.

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All recent US Presidents seem to offer unconditional protection to Israel. But I would say only Clinton and Obama made any real attempt to push the situation towards peace, and even they didn't do what was actually needed (i.e. say no to Israel).

junior delta
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE-SNNS4TeU

I think this speaks a lot as to both sides.

One side acting as a professional military and trying to preserve as much human life as possible, the other attempting to blend into civillian populations, lure soldiers into ambushes using explosive rigged buildings.

Any rational person would say Israel would be wise to just bomb buildings when every building you go into is rigged to explode taking out squads at a time. Anyone condeming the amount of destruction to buildings Israel is doign is basically calling for them to become suicidal. Why not make that call for both sides instead of just one. HAMAS should fight in some level of unifrom, even just those green headbands to identify militants if they truly care about civillians and gaza being an independent, separate nation.

YouTube
Preston Stewart
Hamas Tactics On Display

Luring in the IDF then setting of explosive charges

Today we're looking at a few Hamas videos that have come out recently, highlighting their tactics in Gaza. This luring in and detonating buildings is one of the reasons the IDF points to as to why they have to destroy so many structures in Gaza. There's also that may show the first case of H...

▶ Play video
thorny stone
# junior delta https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE-SNNS4TeU I think this speaks a lot as to bot...

It's simply not credible to argue that the IDF is trying to preserve as much human life as possible, when pretty much the entire world (including a sizeable number of Israelis) is accusing it of war crimes. There are many documented instances of IDF soldiers indiscriminately killing innocent people, and many accounts from IDF soldiers themselves who say it is so widespread as to be institutional. IDF killing innocent people on purpose has been normalised.

More to the point, it's a publicly stated tactic. It's not a secret that the IDF deliberately targets civilians. They have admitted it. I've even posted quotes from the politicians in charge proving it's deliberate.

Why not make that call for both sides instead of just one.
Because there is only one side refusing to end the war, and that's Israel. They are the aggressors. Hamas literally can't stop fighting until Israel stops attacking them. If Israel stops invading Palestinian homes and attacking their inhabitants, then the IDF will stop walking into IEDs. It's that simple.

Israel doesn't have any right to kill anyone, and so any argument predicated on the assumption that Israel needs to kill someone one way or another is simply false. Israel doesn't need to bomb Palestinian buildings nor enter them. It can just leave them alone.

Both sides have abandoned the traditional rules of war a long time ago. The Israelis have used biological warfare, human shields, torture, rape, kidnapping, blackmail and the targeting of innocents, among other less than savoury tactics, and Hamas have also resorted to the targeting of innocents. Israel has definitely acted the worse of the two over the 100 year history of the war, and consistently so, but neither side are acting in a way that any rational person would approve of.

junior delta
# thorny stone It's simply not credible to argue that the IDF is trying to preserve as much hum...

I should've been more clear, I meant in comparison to HAMAS. Both sides have killed innocent people, one side just actively takes more steps to limit it, even if they still do it. Both sides have hatred for each other to some extent, so obviously the people are going to have their own feelings. This is why you have to look at the overall requirements from both sides. One is uniformed, putting only their militants in harms way. The other is un-uniformed, willingly increasing the chance of civillian casualties in order to preserve their own life and discredit the other side.

Does Israel have a responsibility to not invade gaza? I mean they both have claims to it. We've already discussed that topic before so I don't think it's really worth delving into that again. Also Israel isn't refusing to end the war, HAMAS just doesn't support the terms Israel would require. I mean the superior side isn't going to just say you know what, all this time the main objectives we had are pointless, the lives lost are wasted, lets just give in to waht the side that we can beat wants. That is the mindset of the losing faction. The argument works both ways. Neither side agrees to the terms the other wants, its just that one side has more leverage.

Nobody has the right to kill anyone, but humans throughout the years have all justified killing people for causes they find just, such as self-defense, justice (going after WW2 Germany), etc.

Well I think the one thing that we can agree on is that both sides have acted in a way that no rational person would approve of. We just disagree on our biases of which one should be the one to come out with the better end of the peace deals. It's classic tribalism.

thorny stone
# junior delta I should've been more clear, I meant in comparison to HAMAS. Both sides have kil...

one side just actively takes more steps to limit it
That part is true. Hamas kills a substantially lower percentage of innocents compared to Israel. Even in their attack of October 2023 where they were deliberately targeting civilians, only 68% of the deaths that resulted were civilians. Whereas the deaths from Israel's attacks are around 80% civilians even when they claim to be trying not to kill civilians. That's as clear a lie by the Israelis as it's possible to get.

There's no comparison. Israel is a lot worse than Hamas.

Also Israel isn't refusing to end the war, HAMAS just doesn't support the terms Israel would require
False. Israel's terms include allowing Israel to continue the war even after Hamas stops. Hamas is asking for a permanent end to the war, Israel is refusing. That's where we're at with the war right now.

lets just give in to waht the side that we can beat wants
This is the issue I'm talking about. Israel cannot win this war. They don't have the ability to beat the Palestinians. They will capture more and more land, and by doing so create more and more enemies for themselves. They will end up controlling all the lands they claim their god gave them, and they will have 20 million mortal enemies surrounding them who will definitely level Israel sooner or later, it's just a matter of time. It's a nonsense of a plan, that only makes sense to religious fundamentalists who can't think past "my god told me to do this."

junior delta
# thorny stone > one side just actively takes more steps to limit it That part is true. Hamas k...

And why does the IDF end up killing 80% civillains in their attacks? Could it have anything to do with HAMAS refusing to distance themselves from the people they are supposedly fighting on behalf of? Sure I'd agree with the sentiment that Israel shouldn't give into HAMAS' game of forcing innocents to die just to prolong their terrorism, but what do you expect the IDF to do when they are hiding in those crowds. Would you rather a full scale martial law imposed by the IDF restricting all the limited freedoms of gaza, essentially treating gaza as military prison camp? Sure it'd decrease loss of palestinian life, at the substantially increased cost of Isreali life, which I'm sure you'd be fine with, but why would Israel consider that in any way? Not to mention the fact that HAMAS are dressed fully as civillians which im sure impacts those percentages, the impact of it though I guess is unkown truthfully by any of us not over there.

Do you have a source for Israel's term including allowing Israel to continue the war? Or by that do you mean Israel gaining the land and occupying it? From my brief research it appears both sides want complete control of gaza. Israel wants HAMAS to cease all operations and no longer hold government over gaza, which makes sense since Israel allowed Palestine to self-govern and it turned into Palestine being taken over by HAMAS. HAMAS does claim they'd permanently stop military action if they were to keep control over all of gaza, but I mean we've heard that one before. "Trust me bro" is their source on that one. So basically, yes, both sides are willing to stop the war, granted the other one is removed from gaza. Neither of them want that, so neither side agrees. It's funny how you make it one sided like if Palestine has some right and duty to exist independent and that Israel has no right. They are both nations, the strongest and most well connected has the privilege.

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Sure, Israel couldn't win the war quickly, doesn't mean eventually they wouldn't win. If other countries were to directly join in at a large-scale, that'd effectively bring in more support from countries like the US and private factions.

You know you could have your way to get definitive evidence of whether Christianity is false pretty quickly if Israel did win. OT and NT prophecy mention once the temple gets rebuilt again and a peace treaty is formed that the events of revelation will begin within a few years.

thorny stone
# junior delta And why does the IDF end up killing 80% civillains in their attacks? Could it ha...

And why does the IDF end up killing 80% civillains in their attacks?
I've already answered that question. It is quite obviously because they deliberately target them.

what do you expect the IDF to do when they are hiding in those crowds.
I expect the IDF to shoot everyone in the crowds and in addition fire a few rockets at random into Palestinian residential areas, because the IDF is a terrorist organisation that is actively seeking to kill innocent people. I have no expectations that the IDF will ever act reasonably in any situation.
If we replaced the IDF with a regular army that obeys the accepted rules of warfare, then I would expect that army to simply not shoot at the enemies when they are mixed into a crowd of innocent people. Basically the entire world except Israel accepts that people should not commit war crimes and should obey the Geneva Conventions with regards to not involving innocents in armed conflict.

Sure it'd decrease loss of palestinian life, at the substantially increased cost of Isreali life, which I'm sure you'd be fine with,
The entire world would be fine with that, because that's how warfare is supposed to be carried out. As a soldier you're simply not allowed to place innocent lives at risk in order to protect your own. That is immoral, by basically everyone's standards except Israel's. Soldiers chose to risk their lives, innocent civilians did not.
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Do you have a source for Israel's term including allowing Israel to continue the war?
Yes
"The updated proposal includes a demand for an end to the war, which had previously been a red line for Israel"

It's funny how you make it one sided like if Palestine has some right and duty to exist independent and that Israel has no right.
It's not funny, that's just the moral situation. The Palestinians were living there already. Then a bunch of Zionists turned up and invaded, killing or expelling hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and stealing some of the land to make a country called Israel on, gradually stealing more and more over time. Theft isn't a legitimate means of transferring ownership or rights, therefore Israel does not own the land nor have any rights to it. I know that you take the stance that "might makes right", but I don't think many other people do. I think this is an extremely easy point to understand for most people.

If other countries were to directly join in at a large-scale, that'd effectively bring in more support from countries like the US and private factions.
I don't think even the US would help Israel conquer other countries, and certainly no other country would. There would be no moral defence for it.

the Guardian
Hamas suggests changes in response to Gaza ceasefire proposal

Israel and US envoy reject group’s proposal to free 10 living hostages and 18 bodies in exchange for release of Palestinian prisoners

dry jay
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The Palestinians were living there already

Historically a lot of people lived there...

Canaanites, Philistines, Babylonians, Arabs and Isrealites among many others. So I never quite get that argument. Just a matter of how far back in time you go.

thorny stone
dry jay
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Like, after the second temple was destroyed and the Jewish people were expelled they renamed the land from Judea to Palestine.

dry jay
thorny stone
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The point is that there is nothing that needs resolving from before the Palestinians were living there. Sure, various people were kicked out at various times, but the problems caused by those events have been solved already. Nobody is still being disadvantaged as a result of events from 1400 years ago. What we should be concerning ourselves with is how to solve the problems that do still exist, which right now in that area is the theft of land and persecution of an ethnic group.

dry jay
# thorny stone And some were still living there legitimately after that as well.

Well, I'm not sure how welcome they felt. My guess is not so much.

But yes, I do agree that the way Israel/IDF is fighting this war needs to stop. I support their right to exist and their fight against the terrorist group Hamas but they're clearly overstepping boundaries and innocent civilians are the target of it. Above all I just want peace, which I believe is not accomplished by picking sides - some compromise needs to be made in order to end this horrific war, but the longer it goes on the more I feel like that's wishful thinking

thorny stone
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some compromise needs to be made in order to end this horrific war
For sure. But would you not also agree that there also needs to be justice, or else the war will continue as grievances will remain?

dry jay
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Yeah, for sure

thorny stone
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So then we do need to try and identify the issues and find ways to resolve them. Which means identifying what is going wrong.

junior delta
# thorny stone > And why does the IDF end up killing 80% civillains in their attacks? I've alre...

Ok lets take a step back here an ignore Israel and Palestine for a second. Both of them are involving civillians in the conflict. Hamas by attacking from within civillians and Israel for striking Hamas hiding within the civillians. Neither is good, but if one militant group is allowed to kill as many people as they want by hiding in a crowd, they'd literally be able to do whatever they want, and that is what you are arguing for.

Do you think it'd be a net positive or net negative if HAMAS removed all their militants from hiding in civilian population centers? If HAMAS removed their militants from hiding in civilian population centers, I guess there is the argument to be made that Israel would attack the civilians under the lie that there were militants which is a fair argument, but it'd undeniable that it'd make Israel look worse and put pressure on countries to not support or back Israel.

not allowed to place innocent lives at risk in order to protect your own.
Again, this is both sides, I agree. But if one side refused to not involve civillians, at some point when you tell the civillians to clear and they don't, it is more of a priority to target the group and jsut keep letting them kill civillians and militants. You may not agree with that emotionally, but logically it makes the most sense.

end to the war ... previously been a red line for Israel
Ah yes, I did some research on that. Apparently, the PM argument for not wanting an end to the war was more along the lines of not wanting HAMAS to be a functional military unit or have control over Gaza. Not that any part of Gaza couldn't be under a Palestinian Authority. It makes sense from Israels perspective to not want the military group, that they gave permission to self-govern themselves but instead attacked Israel, back in power Especially considering the various ceasefires that have been broken.

bunch of Zionists turned up
I remember having this conversation with you before, I don't remember the result

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I remember something about from my perspective you were saying that it doesn't matter if Israel was there before Palestine historically because they are there now, or something along those lines. Basically I remember your point being that war for territory should never be allowed, except if its to give land back to Palestine.

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Ah I remember, you saw it was theft (I remember because your recent comment which I just read to Bart) although I don't remember getting to the part about it was 1400 years ago so it doesn't matter. After 1400 years of theft it becomes fine?

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I don't think even the US would help Israel conquer other countries,
I don't think so either, I said they'd help Israel defend themselves from a "large-scale" attack from "other countries".

thorny stone
# junior delta Ok lets take a step back here an ignore Israel and Palestine for a second. Both ...

Both of them are involving civillians in the conflict.
No. Israel is involving civilians in the conflict.
Since Israel targets civilians regardless of whether there are any soldiers nearby, it makes no difference whether Hamas soldiers spend time near civilians or not. The result is identical. Hamas could not reduce the danger posed to Palestinian civilians no matter what they did.
Also, since Israel and its supporters will claim Hamas soldiers are putting civilians in danger by operating near them regardless of whether Hamas actually are doing that or not, the result is the same either way in that respect as well. There is no PR difference to be had.
Also also, there is no area of Gaza that doesn't have civilians in it. It's a very highly densely populated area. So asking Hamas to separate themselves from civilians is a bad-faith demand anyway, made in the full knowledge that it's not possible to accomplish.

Do you think it'd be a net positive or net negative...
Net negative. Anything that helps Israel in this war is a net negative.

at some point when you tell the civillians to clear and they don't
You're not allowed to just demand people leave their homes, and they have nowhere to go anyway. This is another bad-faith demand made by Israel.

but logically it makes the most sense.
Israel's tactics only make sense if their goal is ethnic cleansing for supposedly religious reasons. Which we know it is. It doesn't make any rational sense.

It makes sense from Israels perspective to not want the military group back in power
Well of course. They are enemies. But Israel has no right to dictate what Palestinians are allowed to do in their own country, and nobody would ever agree to such terms, so this is yet another bad-faith proposal by Israel, designed in this case to ensure there is no peace deal.
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After 1400 years of theft it becomes fine?
Nobody involved in any theft from 1400 years ago is still around, and none of the effects are either. Nobody is being disadvantaged or put upon by events of 1400 years ago. There is consequently no way to rectify that historical theft, as it's already been rectified. All effects have dissipated.
Even if for some reason you still wanted to do something to present-day people, the Palestinians' ancestors were also living in the region when the Zionists' ancestors were. They're all descended from the same people! So it's still insane to say one group deserves the land more than another even if you look at their ancestors and try to decide based on that.

Stealing isn't allowed. Returning stolen items to their rightful owners is not stealing, because the criminals who stole it never owned it. These are not complicated principles to understand.

The land was rightfully owned by the Palestinians, which everyone is in agreement on except for people who claim their god supersedes human laws. Israel stole it. Therefore it is still rightfully owned by the Palestinians.

junior delta
# thorny stone > Both of them are involving civillians in the conflict. No. Israel is involving...

"Net negative" tells me everything I need to know. War crimes are fine to commit if they help your side, bad if its the other side. And no, there are areas of gaza without citizens in it, theres countless videos of warzones where no civillians are in sight.

"Your not allowed to just..." says who? Who decided that? Governments can legally do it to their own citizens it makes sense that in war you can do it to the other countries citizens to keep them from active conflict zones.

It's war, Israel has every right to make the demands they want. If HAMAS doesn't support those terms then there is no peace. Your arguments are literally just double standards. "Its bade because Israel does it, it's fine when HAMAS does it."

None of the effects of the land being stolen are still around? You really believe that? Maybe the effects are just too obvious that you glance over them looking deeper, but the very fact that the land belongs to someone else is an effect... Changes who lives there, who builds there, how the resources are used, etc. There are plenty of effects around that will last forever.

"These are not complicated principles to understand". Then I would hope you could come to understand.You just admitted, returning stolen items to their rightful owners is fine, so lets return it to Israel, the oldest group that lived there that is seekng their homeland. The land is not rightfully owned by Palestinians. If your only going to use double standards there is no use of you commenting here.

thorny stone
# junior delta "Net negative" tells me everything I need to know. War crimes are fine to commit...

War crimes are fine to commit if they help your side, bad if its the other side
Please try and read what I write. It will help a lot if you don't just conjure points out of nowhere and attribute them to me, like you've done here.
What I actually said was that it would be a net negative to aid the aggressors in the war. Forcing the soldiers of the victim country to gather in easily targetable areas would just mean Israel would face weaker resistance to their immoral actions, which is clearly bad. If Israel is in the wrong with their actions, then helping them is also wrong.

Hamas aren't committing war crimes simply by existing in their homes and refusing to stand directly in front of rockets. That's an insane take.

Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas on Earth. Just because you can frame a camera angle that doesn't include civilians, doesn't mean that isn't true. Unless you're talking about one of the few fields near the border, civilians are living everywhere. Or rather were, before they were killed or otherwise cleansed from the area by the IDF.

says who?
Says the 196 countries who signed up to the Geneva Conventions, and the UN and ICC.

it makes sense that in war you can do it to the other countries citizens
No, actually, it doesn't make any sense at all for anyone to be allowed to issue orders to citizens of other countries. To allow that would be to negate all protections on civilians. What can you do if they refuse? Nothing. They're protected from harm by international law.
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the very fact that the land belongs to someone else is an effect
Unless you're suggesting Zionists live for more than 1400 years, then there is no way for it to belong to the same people. The present day Zionists are not the same people as the people who were forced to leave 1400 years ago. That's just a simple fact. Nobody involved in a theft 1400 years ago is still around. There's just nobody in the present day who can claim to be affected. Nobody who needs compensation, and nobody who needs punishment. Neither the present day Zionists nor Palestinians have got anything to do with events of even 1400 years ago, never mind 4000 or however long ago the Zionists claim is the only time period that matters.

I mean, it's a completely nonsensical argument to claim that just because people who were roughly part of the same vague group of people as your ancestors once ruled an area, that means you're allowed to steal it now. There are like a hundred different groups who have ruled that region at some point or another, and those are just the ones we know about. There's nothing special about the ancestors of the Zionists; they weren't the first nor the last, nor are the Zionists their only descendants. The Palestinians are also in reality descended from the same people. Are they all allowed to steal it? Or only the Zionists because we're racist towards everyone else?

The land IS rightfully owned by the Palestinians. There's no suggestion they didn't own it legitimately, and it was clearly stolen from them in events that everyone knows about. We know who did it, and who suffered as a direct result. This IS a problem we can do something about, unlike events of 1400 or 4000 years ago.

junior delta
# thorny stone > War crimes are fine to commit if they help your side, bad if its the other sid...

Here instead I'll ask questions instead of making statements as to your beliefs.

The point still stands. You're claiming that militants hiding among civilians, and let me make this clear, I don't just mean being around civilians such as the same city block, but being in the same buildings, hiding out and launching attacks from hospitals, schools, etc. with civilians in them is a net positive because it makes it harder for Israel to destroy the enemy.

This is a little confusing to me though, if HAMAS stayed away from civilians how would that make it easier for Israel to kill them? I mean you said yourself that Israel is fine killing civilians without HAMAS around so they arguably wouldn't have a difference in resistance. That argument would only work if Israel wasn't just gunning for every Palestinian. Israel can be wrong in their actions in your mind of invading Gaza, but that has no weight on the morality of HAMAS using civilians as shields. Is your argument that human shields are fine if it slows down your enemy? Maybe it's only fine to slow down your enemy using innocent lives when you feel you are in the right?

Hamas isn't committing war crime by sitting in their homes, their committing war crimes by using protected structures as military bases mixed with innocent civilians. Its an insane take to say its better to put civilians in the firing line as opposed to only the people who are volunteering their life in the firing line.

I'm talking about entire city streets and buildings empty except for soldiers marching through clearing house to house where HAMAS sets us explosive traps to kill whoever walks in.

The Geneva conventions allow you to tell civilians to move out of an active combat zone, the only thing it prohibits is forcibly removing civilians. They make a clear distinction that it is allowed in cases where the security of civilians or "imperative military reasons" requires said actions.

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(Forgot to press shift when clicking enter, still typing)

thorny stone
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You asked me if I thought that Hamas moving all of its soldiers out of urban areas would be a net positive or negative. Since the only place in Gaza that is not an urban area is the small fields on the border, you're asking me if Hamas sending all its soldiers to stand in the open directly in front of the Israeli guns would be positive or negative. That would obviously be suicide and Israel would wipe out Hamas very quickly. That in turn would obviously cause Israel to seize control of Gaza sooner and more easily. Since Israel stealing land is a bad thing, it can't help but be a net negative.
All of Israel's actions against Palestinians that are aimed at stealing land or killing or expelling Palestinians are a net negative, because it's morally wrong. Anything that helps them do that is therefore also a net negative.

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It's neither positive nor negative, the fact that Hamas currently has its soldiers in urban areas. It's just what is. There are no other options available to them, other than suicide.

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For that, I blame Israel, for creating the situation where they have no other options.

thorny stone
# junior delta Here instead I'll ask questions instead of making statements as to your beliefs....

I think I've pretty much answered most of the points you added already.

their committing war crimes by using protected structures as military bases mixed with innocent civilians
I disagree, because again, the situation has been created by Israel. They have manufactured a scenario where the only place their enemy can organise is in harder to attack places.

I'm talking about entire city streets and buildings empty
Just because they look empty doesn't mean they are. Since the IDF shoot Palestinians on sight, it's unsurprising the streets would look empty when the IDF is nearby. We're still talking about people's homes, in one of the most densely populated areas in the world.

the only thing it prohibits is forcibly removing civilians.
Yes, you can say whatever you want. But you're not allowed to actually do anything to enforce it.

"imperative military reasons"
Invading another country and ethnic cleansing wouldn't count as imperatives, so that does not apply here. Which should be fairly obvious given that arrest warrants have been issued for Israeli personnel for precisely these war crimes. Clearly the people who decide this stuff think the evidence so far suggests Israel are commiting war crimes.

junior delta
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"Doesn't make any sense...to issue orders to citizens of other countries". This specific "order" I was referring to is warning civilians of where their operations would be conducted allowing them to evacuate. How does that negate the protections on civilians?

"...Zionists live for more than 1400 years..." I was referring to the entire nation group, the nation of Israel. So yes, there was an effect, and the effect is that Israel was not on that land, every action they would've taken in that land was not taken, and the actions that wouldn't have happened from other people did happen. It's not about compensation or punishment. It's about you saying that Palestine is the only rightful owner of that land. Obviously, people change and intermingle, but that doesn't negate the fact that Israel has a historical claim to that land that according to your own definition, they once rightfully owned. As you said, it's not stealing to take something back that was stolen. I also never claimed anything about Israel being special, nor first or last, that has little to do with what I said. I said that they are the oldest nation that owned that land which is still seeking to own that land, seeking to restore the land that was stolen from them. If Palestine wants to claim it to, there is a conflict of interests there, that is where war and border negotiations come in. If the nation doesn't want to give into the other nation, that's their own fault.

War is a legitimate way to gain land. Even if it is theft, that is how countries gain land other than trades or gifts. Whoever can hold onto the land is the rightful owner. If other nations don't like that, then they are free to fight. The only thing keeping people back is other people. The only thing I'm arguing is that Palestinians don't just have some sort of right to control that land, they have as much right to it as Israel, whoever is the strongest and most well-connected, gets to control the negotiations. That's just life.

junior delta
# thorny stone I'm not saying that at all. This isn't a binary issue where there are only two o...

For that specific scenario those are the only two options. We aren't playing God here saying the best case scenarios. Obviously, the best option to support is no conflict, Israel and Palestine at peace, both satisfied. My question was related to the best placement of Hamas soldiers. You either support them being in separate areas from civilians, or within civilian centers. That was my question, there isn't another option for their placement.

Also no, I didn't say urban, I said population centers. Areas where there are large populations of civilians, such as civilian occupied residential areas, schools, hospitals, etc.

Another question comes to mind, is it better for Israel to beat Hamas quicker and spare civilian lives? I find it insane to think that people would support hiding among civilians in order to prolong a conflict. You may say that is not what you support, but that is literally what you claimed. War is suicide for the soldiers entering, if they don't want to risk their life fighting, they don't have to, I believe you said that before. There shouldn't be any issue there if they are chosing to fight

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Btw when you say "morally wrong" whose morals are we going by?

junior delta
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"Clearly the people who decide this stuff think the evidence so far suffests Israel are commiting war crimes." Yes because people are infallible and have no emotional ties to anything to sway their opinions. Judges in the US never overturn other previous rulings and interpretations of law based on the same evidence

thorny stone
# junior delta "Doesn't make any sense...to issue orders to citizens of other countries". This ...

...allowing them to evacuate. How does that negate the protections on civilians?
For the simple reason that they don't want to be forced out of their homes. Forcing people out of their homes is harmful. Particularly when you're going to demolish it in their absence. It's not an evacuation, it's forced displacement. You're saying it like it's a good thing for the civilians, when in fact it's harmful.

I was referring to the entire nation group, the nation of Israel.
...which didn't exist before 1948 and therefore never owned any land in the region before then.

but that doesn't negate the fact that Israel has a historical claim to that land
Based on what? I've already described how none of the arguments made surrounding that claim make any kind of sense. The reality is that the claim is based on a supposed diktat by a god. Which is obviously unprovable and unsupportable.

I said that they are the oldest nation that owned that land which is still seeking to own that land
Israel was created in 1948. It is, by a distance, the youngest nation claiming the land. Not that the age of a nation is relevant.

If the nation doesn't want to give into the other nation, that's their own fault.
War is a legitimate way to gain land.
So again your argument comes down to "might is right". Which is simply an unsupportable position in the eyes of most of the world. There's nothing more to say on that.

You either support them
I don't support them in either situation. All options are bad. But one is worse than the other.
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is it better for Israel to beat Hamas quicker and spare civilian lives?
I reject the premise that Israel beating Hamas quicker would save civilian lives. Israel kills civilians regardless of what Hamas does, and without Hamas or an equivalent they would increase the rate of forced displacement which would create an even larger refugee crisis and result in even more deaths that way.

if they don't want to risk their life fighting, they don't have to
That is the case for wars that are fought by the rules. Since Israel doesn't follow the rules, Palestinians don't have that option. They risk their lives simply by existing. Palestinians are not choosing to fight. They are being forced to, by Israel. That is the basic fact of the conflict. Israel is the aggressor.

Yes cause Israel launched an attack from Gaza into Israel directly targeting civilians.
Oh come on. You've been part of this conversation long enough to know that the attack by Hamas in October '23 wasn't the start of the war, but merely the latest set of attacks. We're both fully aware the conflict started in the late 1880s with the creation of Zionism, and turned violent in the 1920s.

Yes because people are infallible and have no emotional ties to anything to sway their opinions.
Do you have a particular reason to believe the UN, ICC, Red Cross, and all the various individual nations and organisations who have expressed the belief that Israel is committing war crimes, are acting irrationally or with bias? Presumably you would be able to share the evidence if you did?

junior delta
# thorny stone > ...allowing them to evacuate. How does that negate the protections on civilian...

"forced out their homes". That's war. Israel is not saying you MUST leave. They are saying they will be conducting military operations in said area, so if you would like to ensure safety in this particular scenario, it's probably best to leave. This happens in almost every single type of direct war. Look at Ukraine and Russia, civilians aren't just sitting around in mass waiting for both sides to get to their house, they're going to leave. I'd rather have a warning, I'd imagine you would too. I don't see in any circumstance how warning the civilian population of upcoming combat zones is in any way morally wrong.

...which didn't exist before 1948
So the Kingdom of Israel and Kingdom of Judah never existed? That is some made up fairy tale that most modern-day historians believe, including secular ones? (This goes with your other one about Israel being created in 1948 as well.)

Based on what
Based on your own claims extrapolated to historical context. Nonsensical arguments don't show sensical arguments to be nonsensical, so no you never did such a thing. I never once said their claim to the land is justified by their religion. I said it is justified by them being the oldest nation to occupy that land which still seeks that land and has the power and backing to be able to do such.

might is right
I never said anything about morality or right and wrong. My position is that nobody in particular has any stronger claim, it's just reality that whoever is mightier controls the land they want. Whether that group be a nation backed by other nations, or a single nation. Also, just because a position is not supported by the majority doesn't make it wrong.

I don't support them in either situation
Ok, so you view innocent civilians being forced into the crossfire by the people fighting on their behalf as a lesser evil than militants trying their best to keep those civilians out of harms way? But you view both of them as a bad option, it's just one or the other has to be?

junior delta
# thorny stone > is it better for Israel to beat Hamas quicker and spare civilian lives? I reje...

So you think without Hamas, Israel killing civilians would keep up at the same rate? Is there any substantiation for this, or is it just emotions? If Israel was to keep killing civilians without any attacks from Hamas in a declared state of peace from both sides, or the elimination completely of hamas (which is unlikely), you don't think that would cause other nations to go after Israel? Maybe you think the US is all the support Israel needs to do such, but the US would be forced by its own population to cease relations with Israel if they did such. Maybe this is an end justified the means argument, but that would be literally the quickest way to get effective pushback against Israel.

That is the case for the wars that are bought by the rules
So, your argument here is if they do wrong first it justifies my wrong? Usually, the moral high ground comes from not resort to taking immoral actions just because your adversary does.

conflict started in the late 12880s with the creation of Zionism, and turned violent in the 1920s.
Sure the series of conflicts, this particular subset though was in a state of peace agreement, then broke by October '23. My claim wasn't Hamas sparked the entire reason for conflict, but they were the aggressors for this current part of the conflict. Don't get me wrong, I don't think being the aggressor is wrong. (In this example I'm not making a comparison but rather highlighting that my point of being the agressor can be right) Would it be wrong to start a war with country X if they were rounding up civilians of their country on mass to exploit them and kill them? In my opinion being the aggressor in that situation wouldn't be wrong.

Do you have a particular reason to believe...are acting irrationally or with bias?"
Yes I do, my reason is that humans naturally have bias. When it comes to laws and regulations our bias can shift the meanings, this is why interpretations of laws change within countries. Evidence: shifts in precedent

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I'm not claiming that they are wrong in Israel committing war crimes, but I am saying that interpretations change based on who is in power to decide. Just because someone interprets evidence one way doesn't mean when someone else comes along it will still hold weight.

I mean just look at the United States with the whole 2nd amendment debate issues going around on the meaning and implications of the 2nd amendment. People have the same exact words, but interpret it to mean two different things, if not more options.

thorny stone
# junior delta "forced out their homes". That's war. Israel is not saying you MUST leave. They ...

I don't see in any circumstance how warning the civilian population of upcoming combat zones is in any way morally wrong.
I already explained this.

  1. When Israel says "Evacuate this area" what they mean is "We're going to destroy your homes in this area."
  2. That gives the innocent civilians a choice of trying to defend their homes against armed soldiers and likely being killed, or becoming homeless refugees.
  3. Both of those options are bad, so imposing that choice on civilians is bad. It's the classic illusion of choice.

So the Kingdom of Israel and Kingdom of Judah never existed?
They may or may not have. We don't know. But it's not relevant either way, because neither have existed for more than 2000 years. To state the obvious, neither are the modern day Israeli state.

I said it is justified by them being the oldest nation to occupy that land
a) They aren't, as I've already pointed out.
b) What is the argument based on? Show me the worldwide law that states that being the oldest nation of the two that claim a piece of land somehow gives you a right to it. Or some reason why anyone might think that a nation being older would give them a claim on land over anyone else.

I never said anything about morality or right and wrong... ...it's just reality that whoever is mightier controls the land they want.
a) It doesn't work like that. Israel doesn't fully control the land they claim, because of all the other people who disagree with that claim actively interfering.
b) I don't think it's helpful to disregard morality in this case, when the question of right and wrong is central to what's going on. I think trying to do so, only results in overly simplistic ideas for moving things forwards that will be doomed to fail because they won't solve that central issue of injustice that is driving so much of the war.

thorny stone
thorny stone
# junior delta So you think without Hamas, Israel killing civilians would keep up at the same r...

So you think without Hamas, Israel killing civilians would keep up at the same rate?
On reflection, I don't think this is a useful question either. Hamas is an organisation created to fulfil the need to resist Israeli attacks on Palestinians. The only scenario where such an organisation doesn't exist, is one where Israel isn't attacking Palestinians. So the question has no answer.

Instead, my response should have been phrased as "Israel kills civilians regardless of what Hamas does, and if they defeated Hamas they would increase the rate of forced displacement which would create an even larger refugee crisis and result in even more deaths that way.

So, your argument here is if they do wrong first it justifies my wrong?
I'm saying that what is wrong, is creating the bad situation, as Israel ahs done. Simply existing in it, as the Palestinians are, does not make them wrong. There is no equivalency between the actions of the two.

this particular subset though was in a state of peace agreement
It very obviously wasn't. Israel was still attacking Palestinians, still destroying their homes, and still stealing their land.

they were the aggressors for this current part of the conflict.
That's nonsense. You can't just pretend the causes of their actions don't exist. The October '23 attack by Hamas was a response to Israeli actions. It's just that simple. The chain of cause and effect in this war forms a continuous line back to the 1880s when Zionism was created, and the causes of that go back further as well.

my reason is that humans naturally have bias.
So that's a "no" then.

...but interpret it to mean two different things, if not more options.
That's because the process isn't a logical one, but an intuitive one. My point was about logic, not about other forms of decision-making.

elder jewel
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How is there 8k messages

mighty path
hasty ingot
junior delta
# thorny stone > I don't see in any circumstance how warning the civilian population of upcomin...

I've already explained this.
You may have explained it but I'm telling you why it makes no sense what you are saying.
Even if ywhat you are saying I grant as being true, that is still a choice, it is not an illusion. As for your point 2, if they are innocent civilians then they aren't defending their homes, if they are defending their homes against soldiers that makes them armed combatants. If you mean just deciding to live in their home knowing a conflict zone would be there, then they made their decision, they are willing to take the risk.

They may or may not have
They did exist though, that is a historical fact. And it is relevant, you are saying they aren't the rightful owners of that land yet it was literally their land before modern Palestinians took over. Neither of them are the modern day Israeli state, obviously, but they are still Israel.

They aren't, as I've already pointed out.... Show me the worldwide law that states the oldest nation of the two that claim....

  1. Now you're just quoting out of context. You neglected the key part of the sentence "which still seeks that land and has the power and backing to be able to do such"
  2. The argument shows it is originally their land as far as the two competing groups. Its not based on any law. Your claim isn't either, legally the territory was given to both Israel and Palestine from Britain, Israel accepted and Palestine declined, but that was the terms. There is no room for arguing there, even if you say it was unfair terms, it's what the owner of the land decided to give. Legally that is all that matters.

Israel doesn't fully control the land they claim
I never claimed they did. I said whoever is mightier controls the land they want, which is true. Israel is taking more and more land, because they are the more developed and funded force.
I don't think it's helpful to disregard morality
Ok, whose morality then? What if my subjective morals say Israel is 100% justified in every action they've taken?

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I don't think either of those things are happening
Well good thing reality happens regardless of what we think. Have you not seen the most recent tunnel exposed under the European hospital. Or any other hospital and schools, although the European one is the only I've seen that is undebateably Hamas choosing to use civilians as a shield.

So the question has no answer
a. So your saying every single Palestinian would end up joining Hamas? There is no way Palestinians could remain without Hamas as a group being active?
b. That answers the root of my question. And that is a valid concern, but are you implying there that they'd increase killing Palestinians by means of displacement as opposed to direct violent action (such as shooting, not that displacement couldn't be violent, but meaning not the natural effects that'd come with being displaced. Sorry if I worded that horribly)

Simply existing in it, as the Palestinians are, does not make them wrong.
Does trying to grab more land than the previous owners alloted you count as wrong? Also yes, there is equivalency, how is there not? You made an equivalency claim which I responded to, "Since Israel doesn't follow the rules, Palestinians don't have that option", realistically saying "Since Israel doesn't follow the rules, Palestinians don't have to either".

You can't just pretend the causes of their actions don't exist.
Sure lets go back to the root cause then. Palestine was upset with the amount of land being offered to them, so when Birtain left and Israel took over they were mad. That in my opinion makes it even less of a good cause of Palestine.

So thats a "no" then
No it is not a no. You said reason, that is a reason. Just because you don't like the reason doesn't mean it isn't a reason. You were asking about legal interpretation, and I showed why legal interpretation means whatever the persond eciding wants it to mean. The whole point I was making is that interpretations aren't good enough reason

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to say oh Israel must be guilty just because some other people interpreted it that way. I'm not saying they're innoent either though, it'd be case by case to decide

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(In refernce to my "Birtain left and Israel took over and they were mad" comment, legally speaking no country had a legal claim over it, so Israel and Palestine were both legally able to claim the land. Israel just has done a better job so far of taking hold of that land. Legally speaking, if we're getting into who has the right to be there, legally speaking.

elder jewel
hasty ingot
thorny stone
# elder jewel So a one sided brain. Holy still though 8k messages. Ik y'all did good on the es...

It's partly because it's an important topic and people want to discuss it in depth. Partly because there are a number of people here who are missing a lot of the facts regarding the situation, which requires a lot of explanation to deal with. And also partly because the discussion has attracted a number of trolls who will argue with any criticism of Israel regardless of whether it is valid or not.

zenith coyote
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And partly because Arklar refuses to blame any other parties besides Israel

thorny stone
# junior delta > I've already explained this. You may have explained it but I'm telling you why...

If you mean just deciding to live in their home knowing a conflict zone would be there, then they made their decision, they are willing to take the risk.
Victims are self-evidently not responsible for the consequences of them being attacked by others. That's why self-defence is a legal defence. They're not actively causing the situation with their actions. I think our difference here is that you view the Palestinians as fundamentally being a people that are trying to claim land that isn't theirs. Therefore you don't see any of them as victims. So I think we can probably put this point on hold for the time being, as it will resolve if and when later points resolve.

it was literally their land before modern Palestinians took over
That's simply not true.
but they are still Israel.
They were an Israel. In the same way that Pete is a Pete. But he's not every Pete, all Pete's aren't the same person. The Kingdom of Israel that existed thousands of years ago is not the same entity that calls itself Israel today. There is no meaningful connection. So they are irrelevant.
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The Levant has had many different cultures occupying parts over the years. Ignoring 95% of the history of cultures and political entities of the region makes the situation seem very different that how it actually is. At the very least we have: Levallois, Mousterian, Emiran, Ahmarian, Levantine Aurignacian, Kebaran, Mushabian, Natufian, Harifian, Khiamian, Sultanian, Yarkumian, Lodian, Wadi Rabah, Ghassulian, Canaan, Phoenician, Kingdom of Israel, Edom, Aram Damascus, Philistine, Judah, Qedarite, Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, Achaemenian, Samaritan, Macedonian, Hasmonean, Parthian, Herodian, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Seljuk, Crusader, Ayyubid, Mamluk, Ottoman, British, Palestinian and now modern Israeli cultures, all of whom have lived in and controlled parts of the area.

But the people have remained largely the same throughout. DNA testing has proved that. All the people of the area are descended from the same peoples, whether they are currently labelled as Israeli or Palestinian or whatever. Before the Jews left, they weren't the only people living there. The other peoples living in the region remained after the Jews left, and their descendants continued to live under whatever culture or state was ruling the region politically, right up to the present day. Zionists claiming that the land is rightfully theirs is like Australians claiming that the UK is rightfully theirs because their ancestors lived there. Yes, their ancestors lived there, but so did plenty of other people's ancestors, including the people already living there. So it's a claim of pure nonsense.

You neglected the key part of the sentence "which still seeks that land and has the power and backing to be able to do such"
If the age of the country isn't the relevant part, why mention it? Which part IS the relevant part?
If you remove the age part, then you seem to be just repeating the line about might = right.
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legally the territory was given to both Israel and Palestine from Britain, Israel accepted and Palestine declined
Incorrect.

"Legally" none of the land was given to anyone. Neither the British Peel Commission's plan, nor the UN's Partition Plan were ever implemented. They were both proposed, but they were both rejected by everyone. The Zionists pretended to approve of the plan, since it was massively favourable to them, but they did so only as a temporary stepping stone that would help them take control of the whole area. They were very explicit about not treating it as a permanent resolution. So it's pretty silly to say they accepted the partition.

"Legally" what actually happened was that the British relinquished political control over the region, and both the Palestinians and Zionists claimed it. Since the Zionists were better funded and better armed, they were able to gain control of a lot more than just the existing Jewish areas, and a lot more even than the proposed Jewish areas in either the British or UN proposals. They then murdered, poisoned, or otherwise expelled by force more than 750,000 Palestinians in order to ethnically cleanse those areas for Jews. That then created the situation we have now, with millions of refugees who have been expelled by force from their homes by Zionists who believe that they alone should live in the region, and millions more trapped in areas that the Zionists are still ethnically cleansing.

Ok, whose morality then?
A combined morality. That is what this discussion is about, coming to a shared understanding of the morality of the situation.
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Have you not seen the most recent tunnel
No part of any tunnel there includes any Palestinian putting any civilians into the line of fire. As I have said before, this isn't a conventional war being fought according to the rules. Israel has chosen to make it into something else, something much more vicious and nasty and immoral. Israel has created a situation where people fighting for the lives of their families are forced to fight in the places where their families live. They can't give up, they can't leave, and there is nowhere else for them to fight. This is entirely created by Israel. All of the civilian deaths are their responsibility alone.

So your saying every single Palestinian would end up joining Hamas?
They can't give up, and they can't leave, so their only choice is to fight. This is the whole reason Hamas exists and continues to exist. Survival is an essential need, and so they will continue to fight back as long as they exist. Given there are now at least 12 million more Palestinians than there were in 1948, it doesn't seem realistic to think they will ever disappear, no matter how hard Israel tries to kill them.

are you implying there that they'd increase killing Palestinians by means of displacement as opposed to direct violent action
Yes. If the deaths aren't caused by bullets, they will be caused by starvation or disease. That is exactly what will happen as a result of Israel's current actions. There are currently 2 million Palestinians starving to death in Gaza. The indirect death toll from wars is always far greater than the number killed by direct attacks. Any method Israel uses to cleanse the region of Palestinians will cause the deaths of huge numbers of Palestinians one way or another. There is nowhere for them to go, and no way for them to go anywhere anyway.
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Does trying to grab more land than the previous owners alloted you count as wrong?
You need to define "owners".
Stealing is wrong, whether it is done by the British, the UN, or the Israelis. In this case, neither the British nor the UN stole anything, because they abandoned their partition plans without implementing them, after they realised it was a bad idea. Out of the three it is only the Israelis who have stolen land, by forcibly taking control of a lot of land that was not theirs, starting in 1948.

Also yes, there is equivalency, how is there not? ... "Since Israel doesn't follow the rules, Palestinians don't have to either"
Because Israel has a choice, and the Palestinians do not. It's that simple. It's not possible for the Palestinians to follow the normal rules of warfare, due to Israel's actions.

Palestine was upset with the amount of land being offered to them, so when Birtain left and Israel took over they were mad. That in my opinion makes it even less of a good cause of Palestine.
Palestinians were upset with the amount of land that the proposals would steal from them. It was already their land; it wasn't anyone else's to give away to anyone else. Neither Britain nor the UN had a right to steal land from Palestinians, and in the end neither did, recognising that it wouldn't work. Israel just went ahead and took it by force anyway, without any legal backing or justification, and completely ignoring the rights of the Palestinians. It was just an aggressive military conquest of land.

You said reason, that is a reason.
I asked if there was a particular reason, meaning something specific to them.
,

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Israel and Palestine were both legally able to claim the land.
This is untrue. The UN charter specifically prohibits conquest as a means of acquiring territory. Both the Zionists and Palestinians were able to claim the land they currently occupied for a state of their own, but neither were legally able to claim the land occupied by the other. The only group that had a problem with this were the Zionists, who insisted on taking more by force. The Palestinians had been happy to sell land legitimately to Jews.

hasty ingot
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It has nothing to do with my life, it is none of my business.

thorny stone
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For the record, AeoriX is currently demonstrating how to troll, by repeating statements they know to be false in order to disrupt the conversation.

hasty ingot
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Also the context was regarding "essays" and I haven't written any essays on the topic.

hasty ingot
# zenith coyote And partly because Arklar refuses to blame any other parties besides Israel

That's not what I said. What I said, and more broadly what motivated what I said in the context of what I was replying to, was that Arklar comments a lot and it is mostly somewhat repetitive messages strongly expressing his beliefs and his disapproval for the actions and aims of the Israeli government. Don't try to make this about me saying he's wrong about any particular thing because I didn't say that.

zenith coyote
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Which you did

zenith coyote
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They were two separate comments but I can see how you were confused

zenith coyote
thorny stone
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AeoriX knows without any shadow of a doubt that I apportion blame to both sides for the things that they do which are wrong. We've discussed this many times. That Israel is responsible for the overall situation doesn't change the fact that Hamas targeting civilians is wrong, and I have said so repeatedly.

So they are still just trolling, as is the norm for them in this discussion.

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/jun/13/israel-iran-strikes-defence-minister-tehran-middle-east-live
Israel still busy escalating, by attacking Iran. I don't know what they think they are going to accomplish, other than guaranteeing Iran will strike them back. The more you attack someone, the stronger their resolve gets. Attacking them might delay their ability to attack you back, but it will also increase both the likelihood and the strength of that attack when it does come.

You can't just exist in a perpetual state of war on all fronts. Sooner or later it has consequences.

the Guardian
Blasts heard in Tehran as Israel defence minister announces strike ...

Explosions heard in capital Tehran as Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, says counter attack is expected

zenith coyote
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Nothing about hamas shooting people getting aid?

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Oh I forgot every new article saying anything bad about Hamas is pro Israel right?

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Like I’ve said. Only one side

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You have not acknowledged the protests going on in Gaza against Hamas. Nor have you acknowledged the Palestinian authority president calling for Hamas to release the hostages

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cyvmmr154v2o.amp

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/04/23/middleeast/mahmoud-abbas-calls-hamas-sons-of-dogs-demands-hostage-release-intl

the president knows that what Hamas is doing is for publicity and not for the people. He wants them to give up so Israel does not have the justification of fighting them

BBC News
Anti-Hamas protests in southern Gaza enter third day - BBC News

Protesters were seen in videos calling for an end to the war and the removal of the armed group from Gaza

CNN
Palestinian Authority president calls Hamas ‘sons of dogs,’ dem...

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has called Hamas “sons of dogs,” demanding the release of the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza and the disarmament of the militant group.

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Hamas must step down in order for there to be peace and for Israel to be held accountable

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There is a difference between saying what both sides are doing is bad and you trying to blame everything bad hamas has done on Israel, absolving them of blame. Such as Hamas using civilians are shields to hide their terrorist activity. Saying that’s the only option for Hamas is to hide behind civilians so maybe Israel won’t attack them

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Hamas does not care about the Palestinian people nor the Palestinian cause. Only about making Israel look as bad as possible. And it goes both ways. Israel wants Hamas in order to have a cause worth fighting for and the main people injured in this war are the civilians

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But please yes I am trolling for calling you out

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https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/palestine-hamas-must-end-shameful-crackdown-against-protesters-gaza

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/04/01/middleeast/uday-rabie-palestinian-tortured-hamas-intl-latam

Palestine: Hamas must end 'shameful' crackdown against protesters i...

Amnesty have documented a disturbing pattern of of threats, intimidation and harassment, including interrogations and beatings by Hamas against peaceful protesters

CNN
Palestinian man tortured to death by Hamas militants after criticiz...

A 22-year-old Palestinian man was tortured and killed by Hamas militants after he criticized the group publicly and participated in rare anti-Hamas protests in Gaza, his family said.

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It is ok that you have a side and a bias, but to only perpetuate talks about the bad stuff one side is doing is a clear sign of your prejudice

hasty ingot
zenith coyote
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just wanted to make sure you knew i wasn't trying to involve you in anything. I only meant that you added to the numbers of the chat by having said something lol

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but i do see how you thought my two messages were connected, didnt make it clear

little pier
little pier
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I haven't read the whole conversation (its novel length at this point lol) but I think people should have a lot of caution when hearing about this topic. Its a topic where 90% of the information spread is learned on social media and its a topic that's been specifically astroturfed on social media by foreign powers

little pier
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Maybe its because the people covering the topic currently happen to be on the far left, and so we get some dormroom marxism mixed in, but whatever the cause a lot of it is just genuine misinformation. For example, the version of the history of US-Israeli relations presented isn't just slightly wrong, it requires you to completely ignore every relevant historical event. The first interaction the two countries even had, from before they were allies, was the US talking Israel out of Suez (as a power play against England and France). From there up until literally like 6 months ago, every interaction between the two countries involved an Israeli act of aggression and the Americans pressuring them out of it. This peaked with Israel leaving the Sinai Peninsula and forming an alliance with Egypt that's lasted to this day, and that's still considered one of the best successes of American diplomacy in the region. The Americans had strong diplomatic aims for peace in the region from 1950 to 1997. During the cold war this was because they were worried a war in the region would drag them into a hot war with Russia, and from 1979 on it was because they were worried about disruptions to the oil supply

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So the fact that the US hasn't talked Israel out of the war in Gaza yet is probably less because they're happy with the war (Biden was explicitly not, and gave aid to Gaza) and more that the changing dynamics in the region mean that the US has less leverage on Israel to convince them to do what we want. This was kinda shown when the Biden administration felt like it had to go for mid level concessions, "Dont march on Rafah", indicating that pushing Israel to shut the whole war down was not something they thought would be on the table

junior delta
# thorny stone > If you mean just deciding to live in their home knowing a conflict zone would ...

They were an Israel In the same way that Pete is a Pete.
Well that's not exactly an accurate comparison to the situation. Pete isn't claiming to be the same as Pete or the rebirth of prevous Petes. Israel however claiming to be the stored nation of Israel from Old Testament times. So while they may not be the same entity, they are the same nation group, the meaningful connection is the group of people and their identity as Jews, the hallmark of the Kingdom of Israel. People groups aren't defined by DNA, but rather "who" they "belong" to, for a lack of better words. For example, if America was to disappear, and descendents from modern day Americans later rebuilt America, it wouldn't be the same exact country, but it would still be the same nation. Also, no, it's not just because their ancestors lived there, but because their nation lived and was there, that's where they lived and ruled. Australia is a bit of a weird one, I think the better analogy would be say the UK wanting Canada back or something like that, since the UK Physically ruled over Canada at one point, I do believe they have a legite claim over Canada. (Btw just saying, I don't believe having a claim over a region justifies military action to take it, my whole point this time was that Israel has just as much of a right to the land if not more than Palestine (refering to the states)).

Which part IS the relevant part?
All of it. My whole sentence works together, I wasn't arguing for a specific part of my sentence, if I was I would've only typed that part of the sentence. The age AND desire to control the land was what I was pointing at. If the Caananites at some point wanted to control the land (idk if Caananites are still around, but you get my point of an older nation group) then I'd believe they had more of a claim/right to the land. As far as I'm aware, no large group of Caananites is seeking to control the land, therefore we find the oldest doing such which is Israel.
.

junior delta
# thorny stone > legally the territory was given to both Israel and Palestine from Britain, Isr...

"Legally" none of the land was given to anyone.
Correct, I believe my later comment updated as while I was writing I was doing more refresher research on the exact transfer of land, in this case just relinquishing land, therefore anyone there had the same right to control the land.

It seems like what your claiming is, is that Israel and Palestine both had an equal claim, Israel just was better equipped to control the land (so their land now for wherever they could take) and then starting pushing out and killing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

It sounds to me like Israel is the rightful owner then? Does morality of the nation group determine ownership, if so I think most countries would be in the same boat as Israel, or is it just you can do horrible things, up until it affects a certain number of people?

A combined morality...coming to a shared understanding of the morality...
Ok but if morality is what dictates the situation, it's always going to be subjective? Especially if people aren't open to changing their morality, which most aren't because if we believe something to be moral, we see it as moral. I wouldn't support things I thought were immoral. It may be sort of helpful, but in my opinion its more helpful to use factual, quantitative information, not subjective reasoning, otherwise we get different conclusions that are both subjectively correct, each to the other person.

No part of any tunnel there includes any Palestinian putting any civilians into the line of fire.
So a military tunnel going directly under an operational hospital for civilians isn't putting civilians in the line of fire? It's literally using civilians as a roof to prevent bombing the direct location, which is exactly what we saw, Israel instead bombed the exits to the tunnerls which suffocated the remaining hamas fighters. Hamas isn't forced to fight from underneath civilian structures, they can go into abandoned areas of warzones. Believe it or not, there are areas.
.

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They can't give up, and they can't leave, so their only choice is to fight.
They can't leave because no arab nation wants them, they can give up however, they just won't have the option anymore to self-govern most likely (which they had before). If Hamas was the only rational answer for their survival, I doubt they'd be experiencing all the protest and calls against Hamas from Palestinians. Sure if they want to fight they can, but leave the civilians out the way and don't complain when Israel keeps raising the bar for what they're willing to accept in terms of peace. That's true for any war or conflict.

There is nowhere for them to go
Maybe if self-preservation was their goal, they'd realize they can't win and accept the peace deal with Israel and actually uphold it. Be forthcoming with western nations and the UN to gain their support of showing that they are being peaceful, then if Israel was to attack again, it'd be much harder for anyone to justify being on their side.

Out of the three it is only the Israelis who have stoeln land...land that was not theirs
You can't steal land that belong to no one. You said yourself earlier that Britain ceased their control, so it belonged to no one. If it belongs to no one, whoever moves in and can take it becomes the new owner. The only way your argument there would be justified is if your saying all of the land is stolen by both Palestine and Israel since no one owned it through official means after Britain.

Palestinian do not
They always have a choice... One groups neglect of following international rules doesn't justify another groups neglect to follow those rules. If someone murders my mom, that doesn't justify me to go and murder their mom. Unless your arguing that being on the brink of losing war justifies no longer following the rules of war? I mean sure, if your going to lose anyways might as well show your true colors to kill as much of the enemy as you can.
.

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It was already their land
Except it wasn't, it was formally Biritish land. They then left leaving it formally nobody's land. The only way to justify owning the land from anyone would be to have military control over the land, which Palestine wasn't able to do, Israel has been able to for a large portion of it.

particular reason, meaning something specific to them.
Well until I go look at the evidence myself no, I haven't looked into war crimes much other than what I've seen reported directly, because frankly it doesn't matter to me, it doesn't affect me. Sure war crimes are bad, but it doesn't affect me so I have no stake in it. That doesn't mean I support war crimes, but I also don't think war crimes mean the group doesn't rightfully own the land based on the previous context we've established of neither country being given the land from Britain. I do see a lot of Hamas war crimes, and the few Israel ones I've seen weren't actual war crimes, such as bombinb hopsitals and schools being used in military manners, which revokes their protection.

This is unture. The UN charter specifically prohibits conquest as a means of acquiring territory.
Conquest of other nations may be prohibited, but what about unclaimed land? Or land that is not recognized as being anyones territory? Also no, both groups had problems with it, which you admitted yourself... What land did they each occupy, you mean the private property? What about public property from the British control, does that just get to remain unclaimed forever?

junior delta
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I just did some reaserch into this to try and understand the international law and it makes sense some, but it also make no sense. Like sure the individual land should remain property of the individual owners, but if Palestine didn't form a state and Israel did, Israel should be able to claim what they want as a state, leaving the property boundries in place, until they decide to restructure stuff, which we see happen in other countries too like the US where the governemnt can take your land at any time if they want as long as they give you what they deem to be an appropriate compensation. The only thing legal control matters for is for legal sake, it has almost no real weight especially when powerful countries back your postion against other nations.

elder jewel
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I wish I could say it's not that deep but this is where we led up to

thorny stone
# zenith coyote Nothing about hamas shooting people getting aid?

I would be happy to talk about it, if it had actually happened.

The article you linked is talking about Hamas attacking GHF workers, who are paid Israeli agents. The GHF isn't a humanitarian organisation, it's an Israeli and US-led political organisation designed to facilitate the ethnic cleansing of the region.

And the report hasn't been verified anyway, so it's pointless to try and discuss it.

thorny stone
# zenith coyote You have not acknowledged the protests going on in Gaza against Hamas. Nor have...

You have not acknowledged the protests going on in Gaza against Hamas.
Yes I have. You know I have. You read my messages doing so here:
#1238854947756310620 message

Nor have you acknowledged the Palestinian authority president calling for Hamas to release the hostages
I've talked about him previously also.
#1238854947756310620 message
He's an Israeli mouthpiece. It's entirely uninteresting what he has to say about anything.

thorny stone
thorny stone
# zenith coyote It is ok that you have a side and a bias, but to only perpetuate talks about the...

It is ok that you have a side and a bias, but to only perpetuate talks about the bad stuff one side is doing is a clear sign of your prejudice
I don't have a side, nor do I have any prejudice on this issue.

The reason we don't spend hours talking about the bad stuff Hamas does is because we all agree on it, and so there's nothing to discuss. Yes, they target civilians, and that's bad. Yes, they stifle protest, and that's also bad.

Anyone disagree, or want to talk about those things? I'm happy to have a discussion about them.

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My usual focus however is on how to end the conflict. And those actions by Hamas are symptoms of the conflict, not causes. If we could end the Israeli persecution of Palestinians, those actions by Hamas would go away, and I think that is the only way they will ever go away. So the conversation I want to have is about how to stop the Israeli persecution of Palestinians.

thorny stone
little pier
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one because it started a return of fundie islam and two because it got the US so worried about who controlled the oil in the middle east

thorny stone
# little pier The idea that Israelis have a right to ancestral lands is bullshit, I agree, but...

My position is that what matters is the present situation, not any historical state of affairs.

Currently, Palestinians are suffering because of the actions of Israel. There are millions of refugees, millions of people trapped in what are effectively open air prisons, and millions of people living in apartheid conditions. All of them are demonstrably being disadvantaged in their lives by Israel's actions. It's a very clear example cause and effect, and most importantly it's something we can do something about. If we got Israel to stop, and make amends, that would stop the unfairness.

I'm not attached to the idea of Palestinians getting all their land back. Apart from anything else, I don't think that would actually solve the problem, because a lot of the land has been destroyed now and a lot of it has other innocent people living on it now.
I think the criteria for a resolution to this conflict, are safe and secure places for both sides to live, and justice for the criminals and the innocents alike.

The Palestinians needs somewhere safe to live. Israel doesn't need all of the land it claims. To me, the best solution now is to partition the land in a better way than previous proposals, so that even if neither side gets all the land they want, at least they both have somewhere they can live. Israel is going to have to give up a lot of the land it claims, but not all. Either Israel, or the US, or the UN, is also going to have to pay for the rebuilding of a Palestinian state. Both Israel and the Palestinians are also going to have to do something that looks like a sincere apology, in some shape or form. The apology from Israel will need to be significantly more substantial than the Palestinian one, simply by virtue of them having done the most wrong.

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How we get there, is the tricky part of course.

little pier
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I agree a two state solution is the best case. I don't know if you're ever going to get Israel to give up a huge chunk of land, I'd be satisfied just with a stronger establishment of the west bank / gaza along with rights for both

thorny stone
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I don't think a Palestinian state that is split by Israel is viable. It would give Israel too much power over them, and that's simply not going to prevent Israel attacking them again in the future. Plus, the West Bank and Gaza aren't big enough for all the Palestinians. So they need more space.

little pier
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I mean israel would gladly give a larger Gaza strip for the rest of the west bank

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but i dont think I like that one either

thorny stone
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I'm not an expert on the geography of the area. But just in terms of creating continuous states, I would give everything south of Jerusalem to the Palestinians, as well as the West Bank.

little pier
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that would be quite a bit. It has to be viable, or it won't go through

thorny stone
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I don't think the current leadership of Israel would ever agree to that, but then i don't think the current leadership of Israel would ever agree to peace of any kind, so I don't feel like I have to wait for their agreement for a proposal.

little pier
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I dont think any israeli leadership would agree to something that extreme lol

thorny stone
thorny stone
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They will need to compromise, and give up a lot of what they want.

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That's the only path to peace.

little pier
little pier
thorny stone
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One of the most worryiung things has been the growing extremist in Israel, where more reasonable voices have been deliberately excluded and in many cases forced to leave the country.

thorny stone
little pier
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there's a few cases around the world where you have this "unavoidable death spiral" of two ethnicities hell bent on killing each other. The problem is right now the death spiral benefits israelis, so they naturally will have a leg up in the conversation

thorny stone
little pier
thorny stone
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But now they have a lot more enemies, and their enemies have much stronger conviction.

little pier
little pier
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like they're bullying Iran as we speak. Thats insane

thorny stone
little pier
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hezbollah and the houthis are basically off the map, jordan and egypt are puppets and lebanon is struggling to remain a country

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the biggest question for israel right now is turkey, and they dont seem to care about how brutal their friends are

little pier
thorny stone
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The problem Israel has, is that they won't ever get peace without compromising with their enemies. If they keep trying to "win", they'll just end up making more and more enemies until finally their enemies defeat them.

little pier
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that's not a problem for Israel, its a problem for their enemies

thorny stone
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So then we need to look at what sort of compromise would be needed in order to get that peace. And I think it will have to involve massive compensation in some shape or form, as the hurt runs too deep to be ended with simple words.

thorny stone
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No country has ever managed to survive lengthy wars.

little pier
thorny stone
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Sorry I don't understand what you mean.

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Oh you mean Israel will continue to exist?

little pier
thorny stone
little pier
# thorny stone Oh you mean Israel will continue to exist?

So yes partially that, if you talk to an Israeli they do see this as an existential crisis (IE one that determines the existence of Israel), but its also just basic math to want to be stronger than your enemies. And they're stronger than all of them right now

little pier
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Im sure Rome and other empires had some relatively constant conflicts too

thorny stone
# little pier So yes partially that, if you talk to an Israeli they do see this as an existent...

So yes partially that, if you talk to an Israeli they do see this as an existential crisis (IE one that determines the existence of Israel),
I think they are right to some extent. If they lose the war they will cease to exist, because of how much they have angered everyone around them. But they are looking at it in a very binary way, either win or lose. They have forgotten the existence of a middle ground, i.e. peace.

but its also just basic math to want to be stronger than your enemies. And they're stronger than all of them right now
Unfortunately, that's the child's view of conflict they are taking. In reality, even if you are the strongest in the playground, the others will eventually become strong enough to take you down, or else gang up on you. Power imbalances cause conflict. The mature viewpoint is that everyone needs to exist in a balance with each other, involving sharing and compromise.

Also, Israel is not currently stronger then their enemies on their own. They are relying heavily on support from the US. If and when US support is removed (which I think is inevitable on a long enough time scale) they will find themselves fighting an enemy that is much larger than they are, and they will start to lose. If they don't find a way to make peace, they will suffer total loss, and I think that is something worth avoiding.

little pier
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long enough time scale?

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yeah we have completely different reads on the middle east

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their current enemies are like close to dead, with Iran being the only big one

thorny stone
# little pier long enough time scale?

The war has already been going 100 years. Do you think the US will support Israel for 100 into the future? I'm not sure the US itself lasts 100 years into the future.

thorny stone
little pier
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The opposite. The US interests in the middle east evaporated when we hit shale, and we've been pulling back ever since. That on top of the rise of isolationism in the US means we could very well be out of the middle east entirely by the end of the year

little pier
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they're main worry isn't current enemies its future enemies

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if Turkey rises to power, for example

little pier
thorny stone
little pier
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idk who else in the region you'd be concerned with

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maybe syria becomes a problem at some point? But thats also a future enemy

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also I think people overplay how much Israel is propped up by the US

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most of their success came before the US was helping more directly, which didn't really start until Kennedy and didn't get super tight until after 1979 (that pesky IR again!)

thorny stone
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Israel is a country of 10 million people, and 2 million of them don't want to be in Israel. There are 14 million Palestinians, and Iran has 90 million people. Israel just can't win that war on their own. And that's before we talk about Lebanon, Syria, Jordan etc.

thorny stone
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For every success Israel has had, they've made more enemies by doing so.

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I think that make their situation even more precarious.

little pier
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the nice thing about Iran as an enemy is its also an enemy of the US

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the americans are definitely happier if the bullets they send are being spent in Iran isntead of Gaza

little pier
thorny stone
little pier
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how do you not?

thorny stone
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Iran isn't dead. They will continue to build weapons, and continue to attack Israel for sure now.

little pier
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??????? you were talking about the support before Iran

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thats what's dead

thorny stone
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Ok I'm confused. What exactly are you saying is dead?

little pier
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Im assuming you meant the support from Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon

thorny stone
little pier
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how?

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you mean like european countries?

thorny stone
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I mean European countries. I mean Iran. I mean Russia. I mean China. I mean the Palestinians themselves.

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In 1948 the world was content to let Israel and the Palestinians fight it out amongst themselves. Now, the rest of the world wants to intervene, and it's only the US that stops them.

little pier
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So Iran and a bunch of people outside of the region with no direct involvement?

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There's zero shot Russia and China are crying over the Gaza lol cmon

thorny stone
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Is the US directly involved?

thorny stone
# little pier There's zero shot Russia and China are crying over the Gaza lol cmon

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/jun/14/israel-and-iran-exchange-missile-strikes-with-explosions-heard-in-tel-aviv-jerusalem-and-tehran-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-684d672c8f08c7927fc45902#block-684d672c8f08c7927fc45902

the Guardian
‘Tehran will burn,’ Israel warns after missile strikes as Iran ...

Three people reported dead in Israel after Iranian strikes as Tehran says 78 people, mostly civilians, killed in Israeli attack

little pier
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in Iran, yeah

thorny stone
little pier
little pier
thorny stone
# little pier doesn't mean much

Do you not think that having more or less the entire world distrust you will be a problem for Israel? Especially if US support ever weakens?

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There are a lot of things that rely on good diplomatic relations.

little pier
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They gave some symbolic condemnations

thorny stone
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Countries will stop trading with Israel. That's a big deal.

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They will start supporting your enemies. That's an even bigger deal.

little pier
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Has literally anyone threatened sanctions or supported Iran yet?

thorny stone
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It's becoming a worldwide problem. Not least because it's another potential flashpoint between the major superpowers, with the US and Russia/China on opposite sides.

little pier
little pier
thorny stone
little pier
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Like Russia and China could turn it into a proxy war sure but I dont see much indication that they want to do that yet and I think they would generally be on the losing side of it

little pier
thorny stone
thorny stone
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I don't think Iran will have forgotten Israel's attacks in 5 years.

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Attacking a country or a people commits you to fighting them forever, until you can make an equitable peace with them.

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I just don't think aggressive war is a good long-term strategy. It always loses in the end. Every aggressor gets defeated, every empire gets destroyed eventually.

little pier
little pier
thorny stone
little pier
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It depends how hard they commit to the war. If they knock back the weapons facilities 20 years then its worth it

little pier
thorny stone
little pier
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Like they might start losing soon because of the recent election but its been very US favored up until then

little pier
thorny stone
# little pier In what world

In the economic world. The US is currently trashing it's relationships, which will only strengthen other relationships.

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Iran and Israel were friends before 1979.

little pier
thorny stone
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Yes, and that was a problem for the US and Israel, who started working against them, which alienated them further.

little pier
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Hasn’t even come into effect yet

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But still doesn’t put russia or china on good footing

little pier
thorny stone
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Russia and China have been building relationships with the rest of the world for the last couple of decades. If the US stops giving benefits out in the form of favourable trade deals, no one will side with the US any more. On anything.

little pier
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The idea that Iran will suddenly be cool with Israel if the US leaves and Gaza stops makes no sense

little pier
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Only Germany was dumb enough to trade with them and even that’s stopped now

thorny stone
thorny stone
little pier
thorny stone
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What do you see as the cause of the friction between Iran and Israel then?

little pier
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I think Iran sees Israel as a proxy for US influence in the region and Iran generally wants more control in the region

thorny stone
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Oh, so you think Iran are driving the friction then?

little pier
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Oh for that side for sure

thorny stone
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What are they doing that drives it?

little pier
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Dictatorships very rarely go “good-neighbor” lol

little pier
thorny stone
little pier
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There does seem to be a bit of an axis between democracies and autocracies forming

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Who someone amusingly pointed out are all ex members of the mongol empire

thorny stone
little pier
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Oh I didnt see India in there. I dont know about Iran/Indian relations

little pier
thorny stone
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Well ok, let's try and follow the trail back in time. Pre-1979, Iran was ruled by a fairly brutal pro-western dictatorship installed and supported by the UK and US. They were overthrown in 1979 in a revolution, so I think it's natural to assume that the people in Iran were fairly strongly against Western influence by that point.

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Do we need to look further, or can we attribute the conflict origins to Iran rebelling against mistreatment at the hands of the UK and US, who were effectively allied with Israel at the time?

little pier
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I mean even that paints the friction as mainly Iranian

thorny stone
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Not really. Not if it's caused by mistreatment at the hands of the US and UK.

little pier
thorny stone
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Yes, and when Iran rebelled, the US started treating it badly as a whole. Consistently, since then in fact.

little pier
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That premise sounds very shaky to me but I dont have time to check it right now

thorny stone
silk ermine
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Israel or Palestine?

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Nuke them both

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Problem solved

mighty path
thorny stone
# junior delta > They were an Israel In the same way that Pete is a Pete. Well that's not exact...

Israel however claiming to be the stored nation of Israel from Old Testament times.
Claiming something doesn't mean it's true.

As far as I'm aware, no large group of Caananites is seeking to control the land
The Palestinians are descendants from the Canaanites. And from earlier peoples. They just don't call themselves that. So you're denying what you perceive as their rights simply because they have changed their name?

There are two points of disagreement on this I think:
a) Modern day Israel is unconnected to ancient Israel.
b) You don't get a valid claim to some land simply because you once ruled it.
I'm going to ignore a) for now because identity is the "Ship of Theseus" philosophical problem. While I think there is an obvious answer to that, I don't particularly want to get into that debate in this discussion.

For b) I just don't see how it can make any kind of sense to award valid claims that way. If everyone gets a valid claim over land just because their nation once ruled it, then every piece of land in the world would have multiple valid claims over it, which would be an unresolvable situation. Also, what happens if one nation split into several smaller nations? Do they all have a valid claim over each other's land? It just seems like an entirely unworkable principle.
.

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It seems like what your claiming is, is that Israel and Palestine both had an equal claim
What part of anything I have said, ever, makes you think I would ever say Israel and Palestine had an equal claim?

There is no historical claim that has validity. I reject "history" as a reason to give someone a valid claim on a piece of land.

When there is a piece of land that does not have political leadership, i.e. is stateless, then it is down to the people living there to determine their own state democratically. That is the basic principle of self-determination that underpins modern international law regarding land rights, and I am fully in support of that principle which I can summarise as just don't conquer land.

In 1948 Israel had a valid claim over the parts where Zionists were living. Literally, just the houses and lands that Zionists owned (roughly 5% of the total land area). The Palestinians also had a valid claim over where they were living in the same way. In my opinion (and that seems to be in accordance with international law and modern Western morality) there was no other valid claim to the land.

In 2025, some of the Israelis living on the land that Israel stole DO have a claim to that land. Some of them have been living there peacefully without getting involved in the persecution of Palestinians, and so are innocent in this conflict. The Palestinians' claim to that land is much stronger, because of the fact that the laws of ownership prohibit stealing, but the rights of those innocent Israelis do also need to be taken into account. So a degree of sharing the land is required in my opinion. The people of Israel do now deserve more than the 5% of the land they rightfully owned in 1948. But nowhere near what they currently control. I'd give them about a third of it, based on 8 million Jewish Israelis compared to 15 million Palestinians.

When the specific morality in question is stealing, then yes, it does affect ownership.
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Ok but if morality is what dictates the situation, it's always going to be subjective?
Yes. But generally the vast majority of people agree on morality. So it's technically subjective, but for practical purposes we can create an objective moral rule.

in my opinion its more helpful to use factual, quantitative information, not subjective reasoning
I agree. But the reason this discussion has to include morality is because there isn't an agreed international law. Well there is for the rest of the world, but Israel has opted out of it. So there is no quantitative structure to cover this question. All choices about right or wrong therefore have to be moral ones.

So a military tunnel going directly under an operational hospital for civilians isn't putting civilians in the line of fire?
No, it's not. In a different situation it could be. But not when there is no other option. There is no location in Gaza where any Hamas military personnel could gather that wouldn't be close to civilians. There is simply no way for Hamas to take civilians out of the line of fire.

they can go into abandoned areas of warzones.
How? The only areas that don't have Palestinian civilians living in them either don't have structures any more because the IDF already levelled them, or they are under the control of the IDF. Asking Hamas to separate themselves from the civilians, either way, is asking for them to donate themselves to the Israelis. That's not a realistic ask when people are cornered and fighting for their lives every day for decades.

they can give up however, they just won't have the option anymore to self-govern
Self-government is a non-negotiable human right. No one would ever willingly give up that right, nor should anyone ask them to.
.

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If Hamas was the only rational answer for their survival, I doubt they'd be experiencing all the protest and calls against Hamas from Palestinians
It was like 100 people that protested, and with Israel paying Palestinian agents to act on their behalf we don't even know if any of it was real. If you speak to Palestinians (and I have), Hamas has their support, because they recognise it is the only way of resisting Israel currently. They definitely aren't unpopular at all. The people might not all agree on every action Hamas takes, but Hamas is the only organisation fighting for them, and that means a hell of a lot to them.

Maybe if self-preservation was their goal, they'd realize they can't win and accept the peace deal with Israel and actually uphold it
There is no peace deal that Israel has ever proposed that was anywhere close to fair on the Palestinians. You just can't ask people to accept injustice. They simply won't. Ever.
The UN is already on the Palestinians' side. We've been over this any number of times. It's only the US that is blocking action.

You can't steal land that belong to no one. You said yourself earlier that Britain ceased their control, so it belonged to no one.
Do you not recognise the existence of private ownership?

The Palestinians owned their houses and lands. Self-determination means you can't set up a state on someone else's land. Just because there wasn't yet a Palestinian state doesn't mean their ownership of those things is invalid. Military control is entirely irrelevant. Their lands belonged to them and nobody but them could legitimately create a state on them.
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One groups neglect of following international rules doesn't justify another groups neglect to follow those rules
I agree. But when one group is making it impossible for another group to follow some of those rules, then that does justify it.

Unless your arguing that being on the brink of losing war justifies no longer following the rules of war?
We're not talking about simply losing a war. We're talking about losing their lives and their families, and the destruction of their entire people. A lot more actions are allowable as self-defence than are allowed in a mutually-consented-to conflict. This conflict is self-defence for the Palestinians, and always has been.

I do see a lot of Hamas war crimes, and the few Israel ones I've seen weren't actual war crimes, such as bombinb hopsitals and schools being used in military manners, which revokes their protection.
With respect, you need to educate yourself on the matter then, because not being aware of important events is a major failing when discussing this conflict. I honestly don't know if I can have a conversation with someone who denies Israeli war crimes. That would be like having a conversation with a Holocaust denier or a mass murderer. It's just not an opinion a rational person can hold.
Try this page, and don't come back until you have read it all. Unless you're prepared to offer irrefutable evidence that none of the events listed there actually happened, there is no room for discussion of the issue. Israel has committed many, many war crimes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_war_crimes

Conquest of other nations may be prohibited, but what about unclaimed land?
Also not allowed.
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Also no, both groups had problems with it
All groups had a problem with the Partition proposals. What I was saying is that only the Zionists had a problem with being acquiring land legally, through purchase.

until they decide to restructure stuff, which we see happen in other countries too like the US where the governemnt can take your land at any time if they want as long as they give you what they deem to be an appropriate compensation.
That only applies to legitimate, domestic governments, democratically chosen by the people who live there. A government cannot be imposed on you, that is just conquest, and doesn't create any rights over that land for said government.

silk ermine
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While I’m not necessarily in total support of Israel’s actions - how do you then address October 7th? If you haven’t already

I mean you say that’s hamas is basically the self defense force of Palestine but how is it self defense for hamas agents to drop into Israel in parashoots and kill 1000+ ppl, rape a lot of ppl, take a ton of hostages, break just about every rule of war, etc.

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@thorny stone

junior delta
# thorny stone > Israel however claiming to be the stored nation of Israel from Old Testament t...

Claiming something doesn't mean it's true
Yeah, but the fact that we can see they are descendents of ancient Isrealis does.

The Palestinians are descendants from the Canaanites
Most studies I find basing these type of claims off of genetics show the same thing to be true with Israelis. So at most they have equal historical claim over the land. I haven't looked much into those studies though beyond that.

two points of disagreement
a) Never heard of the "Ship of Theseus" philosophical probelm before, so sure I'm fine not discussing that one further.

b) Well I'm not saying it gives them a moral right to the land, just simply that your saying Palestine are the only people (which if I'm misrepresenting this I'm sorry, but from what I've read it seems to be what you're saying) who have any sort of "right" or claim to the land. I don't necessarily think it'd be an unresolvable situation, just resolved in ways similar to Israel and Palestine right now.

Well you don't accept history longer than the lifespan of whoever events effects until it's hard to tell the effects upon individual people being directly traced back to the original event. Would that be a fair assesment?

Down to the people living their to determine their own state democratically
I can sort of agree to this, but what about when the people don't want a state such as Palestine for much of the aftermath of Britain leaving Palestine officially? Israel was quick to declare independence and set up government, Palestine was slow. You may disagree with this and that's fine, I think it's where we will likely disagree, but I feel at that point if they aren't willing to make a State, Israel has a valid claim as nation to claim at least the land that they agreed to be given from the UN as their own.

for practical purposes we can create an objective moral rule
So impose our own subjective opinion onto other beliefs and cultures in an international world?

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All choices about right or wrong therefore have to be moral ones.
Yes, but once again then, the outcome is subjective, leaving it to mob rule and so far the mob rule is deciding that they don't want to mess with the US supporting Israel so Israel gets to keep their war going. What good is the mob rule if they aren't going to do anything about it? Here it comes once again to the argument I guess of "might is right".

That's not a realistic ask when people are cornered and fighting for their lives every day for decades.
I guess I just value the lives of the people who don't want to fight too highly then and believe if you want to fight you should be willing to put your life at risk to keep them safe, not hiding amongst them increasing the chances they get injured or killed in the process.

junior delta
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Self-government is a non-negotiable human right
So do you think anytime people under the same government disagree they should have a civil war since they want to be self-goverened? If I don't like what my government is doing, should I be able to claim my own house as my own land and the government be perfectly fine with that having no more right or say over me? The UN recognize my family as our own independent nation?

It was like 100 people that protested
Well considering many of them got killed for it, I can see why many people would be hesitant to do the same. However, my main point was that Hamas is not the only answer Palestinians come up with, even if it is the most popular.

There is no peace deal that Israel has ever proposed that was anywhere close to fair on the Palestinians.
Yeah, but there were ones proposed by the UN. As Israel is winning more and more ground, they have no reason to decide now to go back to the previous proposals they've made that have been rejected. As they conquer more and more, they have more leverage to ask for more and more. At some point Hamas has to give in, or face the consequences.

Do you not recognise the existence of private ownership?
I do, but private property is still subject to the national government. Thats why many countries have to pay taxes on things such as the land that they own. In many countries the government can just take your property by force to pay off your debts, or for reasons they deem that they need your land and pay you their definition of a fair value for what they took.

When one group is making it impossible for another group to follow some of those rules, then that does justify it.
I guess we just disagree there then.

This conflict is self-defence for the Palestinians, and always has been.
Except for the many broken ceasefire, treaty attempts, even if its not their ideal situation its a chance to be their own country. Israel also views it as a war for self-defence, are they excused?

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because not being aware of important eventsis a major failing when discussing this conflict.
I'd disagree. I simply don't care what war crime each other are comitting on each other. It doesn't affect me one bit, nor change my opinion on how life works. I'm not denying Israeli war crimes, I just simply don't care. Once the war is over or even now, try them like they have been, then go get them if you can if that's what you want. Doesn't change my opinion on if they have the ability to control the land they're on and make peace deals. You may view them as hand in hand, but I don't.

only applies to legitimate, domestic government, democratically chosen by the people who live there.
So nations such as North Korea aren't legitimate nations? What about my example with my house being independent because I want to self-govern and I feel as if the other people near me aren't my people, only my family is so I want my people to be self-goverened?

thorny stone
# silk ermine While I’m not necessarily in total support of Israel’s actions - how do you then...

I have addressed it already, but I don't blame you for not reading through the entire thread.

Self-defence often involves actions that would look like offensive actions when considered in isolation. If I punch an attacker to try and get them to stop punching me, then if someone comes into the room after their punches and before mine, it might look like I was the one attacking them.

The October 2023 attack by Hamas was simply a response to previous attacks by Israel against Palestinians. It wasn't an escalation, it wasn't a pre-emptive strike, it wasn't a declaration of war. Israel has already done far worse to Palestinians many times over (killing, rape, biological warfare, hostages, human shields, torture, deliberately killing innocents etc.) and the war has been going since 1920.

This is not me saying that attacking civilians or other things that we would normally consider war crimes are justified. They are not, in my view. But they are understandable. They are quite obviously what was always going to result from Israel's actions. If one side is routinely committing war crimes, as Israel have been since the 1920s, then eventually the other side is going to join in with that too. If you escalate, the other side responds. Israel is the side that turned this into a war without rules, not Hamas. Hamas didn't even exist until 1987, by which point Israel was already deep into war crimes in this conflict.

thorny stone
# junior delta > Claiming something doesn't mean it's true Yeah, but the fact that we can see t...

Yeah, but the fact that we can see they are descendents of ancient Isrealis does.
That also doesn't in my view. But again, this is a philosophical point and somewhat semantic so I don't feel the need to discuss it right now.

Most studies I find basing these type of claims off of genetics show the same thing to be true with Israelis. So at most they have equal historical claim over the land
Yes, very true. Even if one did accept the validity of ancestral claims, then Israel still doesn't have a greater right to the land than the Palestinians. So we can ignore ancestry entirely as a reason for Israel to have the land, since it isn't a reason to choose Israel over anyone else, and instead look at more relevant facts such as who legitimately owned the land. Which was the Palestinians. So they have the better claim overall.

Well I'm not saying it gives them a moral right to the land, just simply that your saying Palestine are the only people who have any sort of "right" or claim to the land.
As I've said, I reject entirely the argument that a person can claim land simply because it once belonged to their ancestors. I think it's entirely unworkable as a principle. So yes, Palestinians are the only ones to have a valid claim to the land they legitimately own. Ownership is the only basis for a claim that applies to this situation.

Well you don't accept history longer than the lifespan of whoever events effects until it's hard to tell the effects upon individual people being directly traced back to the original event. Would that be a fair assesment?
That sounds roughly right.

what about when the people don't want a state
Then it's still not allowed for someone to come in and impose one on them. You're just not allowed to conquer people or land.
But the Palestinians did want a state. They were just slower about organising a public declaration of it than Israel, who had had a plan in place for decades by that point.
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I feel at that point if they aren't willing to make a State, Israel has a valid claim as nation to claim at least the land that they agreed to be given from the UN as their own.
If the UN Partition Plan had been implemented, then the Zionists would have had a valid claim to the land allocated to them by the UN. In my opinion it wouldn't have been stronger than the Palestinian claim, since I reject theft of all kinds, but international law does have an element of validity. But since it was never implemented, and also since it wasn't implemented precisely because of the actions of the Zionists, that basis for a claim doesn't exist. Israel didn't even try and abide by it, and they can't base a claim on an agreement that was never made and that they themselves rejected.

So impose our own subjective opinion onto other beliefs and cultures in an international world?
This conversation isn't going to determine the fate of Palestine. We're just talking about stuff on a discord server. We're not imposing anything on anyone, we're just talking about how we think would be best to resolve the conflict.

Yes, but once again then, the outcome is subjective, leaving it to mob rule
I don't understand why you seem to be suggesting that just because morality can be subjective at times, that means we need to abandon morality entirely in this situation. Everything in the world is subjective, but we can still decide on rules subjectively and try and impose them objectively. That's just how rules work. We consider the situation and decide on what we think is best using all of the tools available to us. That balance, of considering everything as opposed to just our own perspective, is exactly what creates better solutions and improves them beyond an individual's subjectivity.
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I guess I just value the lives of the people who don't want to fight too highly then and believe if you want to fight you should be willing to put your life at risk to keep them safe
The point is that if Hamas were to follow your suggestion of separating themselves physically from civilian areas, then they wouldn't be keeping the civilians safe. It would be the opposite, they would be leaving the civilians unprotected and vulnerable. Civilians would be less safe without Hamas. Israel are trying to kill or expel the civilians, and Hamas are trying to stop them. Israel complaining that Hamas are in the same places as the civilians they are trying to attack is simply a disingenuous argument, an attempted distraction from the reality of what Israel is doing.

So do you think anytime people under the same government disagree they should have a civil war since they want to be self-goverened?
No, because the government still represents people who disagree with it. The people being involved in collective decisions in choosing the government gives the government a legitimate position to make decisions on their behalf.

Yes, there is a significant difference between being included and involved in choosing the government, and having it simply imposed on you. It might not feel like a big difference at times, but it is still significant. There are at least some avenues for you to influence the choices of government, compared with none.

However, my main point was that Hamas is not the only answer Palestinians come up with
On that I agree. But Hamas has widespread support. Most Palestinians feel it is their only choice right now. Because of Israel's actions.

As they conquer more and more, they have more leverage to ask for more and more.
I agree. But I reject the idea that using that leverage is legitimate or allowable morally.
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I guess we just disagree there then.
If you're driving a car down a one-way street that has "No stopping" signs on it, and someone has made a barricade across it preventing you continuing, are you still responsible for the fact you will have to either stop or go the wrong way? If that's really what you are saying then yes, we will have to agree to disagree. I just don't see how anyone could claim that circumstances don't matter when applying laws.

Except for the many broken ceasefire, treaty attempts, even if its not their ideal situation its a chance to be their own country
No, including everything. Israel has never kept to a ceasefire agreement in its life, and there's no point obeying a cease fire that has already been broken by the other side. There's also no point to partial ceasefires, where one side is allowed to continue to attack while the other is expected to just sit by and allow it. Israel has never ceased it's bad treatment of Palestinians, so the idea of a ceasefire that only affects Hamas is crazy, completely unworkable.
All treaty proposals by Israel involve them asking for more than they currently have. Asking people who have already lost almost everything to give up even more is ridiculous. They are never going to agree to that, and Israel knows it. It just doesn't make any sense to criticise Palestinians for not agreeing to injustice.

I simply don't care what war crime each other are comitting on each other.
OK. But then you don't get to criticise Hamas or their actions, if you're not prepared to consider all the evidence.

So nations such as North Korea aren't legitimate nations?
Arguably, yes. I think the situation is slightly different, because as I said before there will still be some form of input allowed even in North Korea. But yes, any form of imposing rules on people without their full involvement would be bad to me.

thorny stone
mighty path
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damn, someone should do something about that, terrible.

thorny stone
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Personally I think it is terrible. Not just that one human can do that to another, but also that a whole bunch of other people including national leaders can sit there without doing anything about it. It shouldn't be a hard choice. If there's someone doing something seriously wrong, and you have the power to stop them, you should.

mighty path
# thorny stone So I'm curious. Does it actually not bother you? Do you not think it's something...

No, I was being mostly serious and semi facetious. My main talking point since I first commented in this channel is that anyone/world power with the ability to do anything, deliberately chooses not to. So why should I waste my limited emotional battery worrying about people on the other side of planet blowing each other up. I just wish my country wasn't funding it with money they stole from me.

thorny stone
# mighty path No, I was being mostly serious and semi facetious. My main talking point since I...

Well, it's just the one world power really, the US, that refuses to do anything about it.

I get that because it's a long way away it's something that is possible to ignore. But if you're a US citizen you have way more power to influence your government's actions than I do. Maybe not enough as an individual, but I honestly can't see that anything other than a group of US citizens will be able to stop the US enabling this.

silk ermine
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If Israel really wanted to wipe out or remove the Palestinians - why wouldn’t they just drop a nuke on them- or to avoid the radiation - why wouldn’t they simply send in soldiers with shoot on sight orders for everyone

The argument Israel wants to kill Palestiniancivilians or to otherwise wipe them out is nonsense

Israel has the means to level Gaza - and truly level it(not what the current status of Gaza is) but they haven’t

Sure they’ve done significant damage but they’re also fighting an enemy that breaks every rule of war.

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Ofc this isn’t to mitigate all of the horrible stuff Israel has done- but just trying to illustrate how hamas isn’t by any means a hero or decent group. Also if israel truly wanted to own Palestine - why had they removed their troops up until this past year (when they pulled out a while ago)

little pier
# thorny stone These two pages might be a good place to refer to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...

This doesn't back up your statement, right? From that article it appears the US intended to maintain relations with Iran up until the hostage crisis. Anyway I don't think its entirely relevant, we can go over why the relations initially soured but it doesn't change the fact that Iran is currently an active power in the region trying to expand its influence, and it makes sense for opposing forces to, well, oppose them. The picture of Iran being some poor fat kid we're just picking on for no reason is a very one-sided view of the relationship

little pier
hasty ingot
little pier
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Imo Arklar's right that there's a fair chance that the Palestinian people either don't exist or get close to not existing by the end of the decade, and thats a fair thing to be unhappy about

silk ermine
# hasty ingot Mm, neutron bombs. Then what radiation?

My point was - if Israel really simply wanted to do a purge of Gaza - they could if they really wanted to. Whether by nuking them, carpet bombing it out of existence, military invasion with shoot on sight orders, etc

mighty path
little pier
hasty ingot
little pier
hasty ingot
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Of course if you are in possession of high tech it's not that hard to mass kill people regardless.

mighty path
# little pier so?

I guess I should have specified in my original post the difference between the ability to feel empathy, and always everyday putting the conflict in Israel on the front of my mind. I thought it was implied but I'll do better to clarify more in the future.

silk ermine
silk ermine
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And do so for extended period of time

mighty path
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|| that was satire||

silk ermine
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Okay perhaps a laugh emoji wasn’t appropriate but I found that funny

little pier
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But you also don't have to be beating the country wide population to be succeeding. Even wiping out or moving out the population in a few towns you want does still count as ethnic cleansing

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Its not life if someone JUST wiped out Ohio we'd be okay with it because of good birthrates in the rest of the country

silk ermine
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They’re already extremely cramped into a small region of their own will if I’m not mistaken so I don’t think the argument of moving them somewhere else really applies here

And wdym ohio? Ohio isn’t a real place 😉

little pier
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Moving them definitely applies, they've been relocating entire sections of the country since the war began

silk ermine
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And given the sheer # of ppl in Palestine and the close proximity - there would be no feasible way to slow purge unless they were to kill a lot of them really fast- way faster than rn

hasty ingot
# silk ermine lol I didn’t know that

Yes, it's just I don't really see a difference between different weapons of mass killing. Or more to the point more destruction and environmental contamination is worse. The moral motivations or implications are irrelevant (killing people only to kill the people and make occupation easier and more economical).

silk ermine
silk ermine
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They’re just mad at Hamas (mostly)

hasty ingot
silk ermine
hasty ingot
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But I guess the logic is that their being worse in such a way also makes them less likely to be used. I see it as the weapons most likely to be used are the ones we are least likely to notice.

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But they are no better as a consequence.

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But again offtopic 😆

mighty path
thorny stone
# silk ermine If Israel really wanted to wipe out or remove the Palestinians - why wouldn’t th...

Why wouldn't they drop a nuke? Well for several reasons. The main ones being that they want the land for themselves, so the radiation would be a problem.

But also, Israel knows that if it did anything too extreme then it would run the serious risk of other countries taking action against it. It couldn't survive without the US's full support. So it follows a very carefully judged line of cleansing the land of Palestinians as fast as it can, without going so fast that it becomes completely implausible to its allies that it is acting reasonably. It needs to be able to plausibly claim it is in the right to the casual observer, or to make other people doubt just enough that they don't act against them.

The reason they sometimes take a break from parts of the cleansing is again down to a fine balance. Israel couldn't fight everyone at once, so they needed to relax some parts of the conflict while they concentrated on others.

What the attack by Hamas allowed Israel to do ( which is why it is very likely Netanyahu was complicit in it) was to attack Gaza and Hezbollah so severely that they wouldn't be able retaliate for a long time. That in turn allowed the IDF to attack Iran without fear of being attacked from other directions. Netanyahu got exactly what he wanted; an opportunity to make huge progress with capturing land and damaging the people who could potentially stop Israel taking more in the future.

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Killing Palestinians isn't the main goal, the main goal is capturing the land that the Jewish extremists think is theirs anyway because their god gave it to them. But the problem is that they don't mind killing in order to get it, and it's quite an effective way of acquiring the land. So they use it a lot.

thorny stone
# little pier This doesn't back up your statement, right? From that article it appears the US ...

Iran overthrew a US backed dictator, attempted to arrest him and the US prevented it. Regardless of how the US thought of the situation, they were clearly acting against Iranian interests continually.

Is Iran trying to expand their influence or are they simply trying to limit US influence? The US in the main country controlling others in the region, and have been for decades. If you're comparing attempts to influence others, Iran is far behind both the US and Israel, both of whom regularly invade other nations to further their interests. There's no comparison.

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Both the US and Israel need to undo decades of forcing their views on others before they can possibly attempt to occupy any moral high ground when it comes to exerting influence on others

little pier
little pier
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Its also a bit of an ironic conversation considering the Persians have been “exerting influence on others” at every point they were able to for the last 7000 years lol

thorny stone
thorny stone
# little pier So you’re not willing to accept that Iran is morally wrong at any point outside ...

Woah now. Where did that come from? These things aren't binary, I don't need to agree with everything Iran does simply because I think the US and Israel do worse things.
When it comes to this war, yes, that's all on the US and Israel. They started it and continued to escalate it. Does that mean that it's fine for Iran to fire missiles that kill innocents, and conduct other human rights abuses? If course not.

little pier
thorny stone
little pier
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To be clear, Iran broke ties because the US would not hand over the Shah. That’s not Iran bowing to the US, that’s Iran getting mad that the US isn’t bowing to Iran

little pier
thorny stone
little pier
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The idea that Iran only started going after the US after they got bullied is ridiculous, and its also ridiculous to glaze over Iran’s invasion of Iraq as another case of US bullying. If you’re going to jump through hoops to condemn acts of aggression, it should be for all parties

little pier
thorny stone
# little pier The idea that Iran only started going after the US after they got bullied is rid...

The idea that Iran only started going after the US after they got bullied is ridiculous
It's objectively true that the revolution that brought an anti-US leader into power in Iran came after the citizens of Iran had been oppressed by a dictator who had been installed and supported by the US.

and its also ridiculous to glaze over Iran’s invasion of Iraq
Don't you mean Iraq's invasion of Iran? It was Iraq that started that war, by invading Iran. With the support of the US.

thorny stone
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The US oppressed Iran, Iran rebelled, so the US oppressed Iran some more.

thorny stone
little pier
little pier
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There was no “bullying” between the revolution and the hostage crisis

thorny stone
little pier
thorny stone
little pier
thorny stone
thorny stone
little pier
thorny stone
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What goalpost?

little pier
little pier
thorny stone
little pier
thorny stone
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Without that, maybe Iran doesn't have the leadership it does now. They are purely a reaction to the US's meddling.

little pier
little pier
thorny stone
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They chose the Ayatollah themselves.

little pier
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Every mistake they make is a CIA plot and every victory they have is a win for justice

thorny stone
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Don't be ridiculous. It's well documented how the US involved itself in Iranian affairs.

little pier
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How does that at all address what I said?

thorny stone
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You're disregarding known US actions.

little pier
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No, you’re disregarding literally every other factor involved

thorny stone
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We know for sure that the US installed the dictatorship, and made sure it remained for 26 years. What other factors are more relevant?

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The Iranian people had a legitimate grievance against the US by 1979.

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The US shouldn't have tried to control who ruled Iran in the period 1953-1979, and they shouldn't have blocked the Iranian people's ability to hold the Shah responsible for his actions. By doing so, the US aligned itself with the Shah and his actions. Inexorably.

little pier
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Exactly, you think there’s no other factors involved

thorny stone
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I don't think there are no other factors involved. But other factors are irrelevant when determining whether Iranians had a legitimate reason to hate the US, which they did.

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None of the US's actions were fair on the Iranians.

little pier
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If the US was the only thing making Iran oppressive, then why did they stay oppressive when the US left?

thorny stone
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Nobody is saying the US was the only thing making Iran oppressive. They don't have to be the sole cause to be partly responsible.

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But what also tends to happen (and we can see it everywhere) is that when a people are oppressed, their mentality changes, and becomes unbalanced in the opposite direction after the initial oppression is removed.

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Any time you hold up change, you make things worse when the change finally happens.

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So the fact that the current Iranian government is as extreme as it is, IS partly down to how the Iranians were treated by the US.

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It's just cause and effect.

little pier
little pier
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Cant we just accept that there are multiple actors here with agency?

thorny stone
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How about we accept that actions have consequences first?

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"Agency" is a red herring. People aren't entirely free to choose how they act, how they act is heavily determined by their situation, what they experience.

little pier
little pier
thorny stone
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If you oppress someone, they will rebel against you. That's always going to happen, regardless of any "agency".

little pier
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How many years do you think have to go by before the Iranian government is responsible for the Iranian government?

thorny stone
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Before they are solely responsible? No amount of years, that will never be the case.

little pier
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Lmao

thorny stone
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There's no such thing as sole responsibility.

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Regardless of anything else, in 1979 the Iranians were fully justified in viewing the US as a major antagonist, as a result of the US' prior actions. Yes, taking hostages is bad in general, but it was understandable when you look at the situaiton from their perspective. Either way, the situation was resolved with the release of the last hostages in 1982. But the US continued to target Iran after that, showing that the hostages were not the only reason for US actions against Iran.

mighty path
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This entire conversation at its roots seems to be the question "At what point is it OK to defend yourself with violence?" And I don't think there is a clear answer on geopolitics.

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I would argue anyone who says they have an answer, doesn't.

thorny stone
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Yeah, there can't be a universal answer to that, because it's always situation dependent.

little pier
thorny stone
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Stuff doesn't happen for no reason.

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Iran hates the US because the US screwed it over. Palestinians hate Israel because Israel keeps on stealing their homes and murdering their relatives. Israel hates Palestinians because they resist when Israel tries to take the land that Israel thinks is rightfully Israeli.

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Israel acts crazy for partly religious reasons, and also partly because they are also an oppressed people, who are still locked in a trauma response.

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You've just got to understand why stuff happens, if you want to stop the worst of it from happening again and again in the future.

little pier
little pier
thorny stone
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Yeah, for sure taking the hostages wouldn't seem justified to us, because we live in a different culture (well I do, and I assume you do). But it did seem justified to them, because they were very upset with how they had perceived the US to have acted towards them.

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This is why hurting people is bad, because they tend to want to respond with a greater level of hurt back. Escalation happens.

little pier
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If we’re going off responsibility

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Which tbf I dont think matters to anybody actually involved

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I really doubt the dudes in the peacetalks right now are losing sleep over how justified the pecking was 50 years ago

thorny stone
little pier
thorny stone
little pier
thorny stone
thorny stone
little pier
little pier
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They absolutely should not be making any concessions related to anything that happened 50 years ago

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On either side, by the way

thorny stone
# little pier Is there any evidence of that? Thats a very glamorized way of putting it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis#The_Carter_administration_and_the_Shah

In addition to ending what they believed was American sabotage of the revolution, the hostage takers hoped to depose the provisional revolutionary government of Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan, which they believed was plotting to normalize relations with the U.S. and extinguish Islamic revolutionary order in Iran. The occupation of the embassy on November 4, 1979, was also intended as leverage to demand the return of the Shah to stand trial in Iran in exchange for the hostages.

thorny stone
little pier
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And tbf there’s a lot of silly ways to make you think you deserve more in a negotiation

thorny stone
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But if they are still causing hurt, are they not current wounds instead of "old wounds"?

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Let me just put it a different way. Iran isn't going to accept any peace that involves it being treated unfairly going forwards. It may eventually agree to a complete cessation of it's nuclear industry, but it will remember that unfairness and use it to power an attack on Israel and the US at some point in the future.

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That's just what happens. If the US or Israel don't want to be attacked in the future, there needs to be a fair resolution.

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I would personally like to see apologies from Israel and the US. I'm personally not going to forgive either one of those countries unless they do. But sometimes a recognition that a change is needed is enough for now.

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But it's just not going to work if the US tries to say something like "We'll stop bombing you, but because you fired missiles at Israel you're not allowed to have an army any more," because that would be trying to forgive Israel while still punishing Iran, which is clearly unfair.

silk ermine
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The more I look at this convo the more I realize how stuck ppl are in positions

Regardless of what some ppl will say - they are convinced of certain ideas or beliefs and will not change their mind

Arklar is pretty staunchly anti-Israel anti-USA

“This guy” seems to be the reverse

I’m somewhat neutral

Idk about others in this convo

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It’s why I back out of these convos a bit - neither side seems to give the other any ground to try and find middle ground or a solution

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It’s just a war of words that never ends

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But it was engineered by the govt I believe - to keep us divided so we don’t realize how awful a lot of folks in govt are - or atleast not take genuine action against them

#

Am I wrong

silk ermine
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I just want us to stop bickering as a society and focus on expanding the human race to other planets

To conquer the stars

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Humanities manifest destiny

mighty path
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I just want every party involved to have a good time.

thorny stone
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I just want people to stop killing each other.

little pier
silk ermine
thorny stone
mighty path
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Labels are reductionist. Every one here has nuanced opinions and labels only "other"people. I wouldn't call someone something unless they choose that themself.

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I wouldnt even call Arklar anti Isreal unless he says he is.

thorny stone
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I am, but with very good reasons to be I think.

little pier
mighty path
thorny stone
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These days I'm wavering on whether the rest of the world should allow Israel to exist.

little pier
little pier
silk ermine
thorny stone
mighty path
little pier
thorny stone
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It's been war effectively since 1979.

little pier
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For what? There hasn’t been war between Israel and Iran, right? This is pretty new

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Maybe if you mean a cold war?

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I dont think the US is going to be involved as much going forward

thorny stone
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Yeah, I don't really differentiate since even cold wars lead to deaths. But I would call it a continuing proxy war between the US and Iran, that has included the Iraq-Iran war, Iranian support for Hamas and Hezbollah, and Israel's attacks against Iran.

little pier
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Yeah I dont think that’s going to be as much of a thing anymore

thorny stone
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Why not?

little pier
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US discovers shale in 2011 -> US loses interest in the Middle East

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I dont think it’ll actually make the region more peaceful but yeah the US itself will at least be less involved

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Which’ll make some people happy even if its less peaceful

thorny stone
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That in itself will make it more peaceful in the long run, as Israel will be forced to become reasonable without US involvement.

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But I don't think it solves the current conflict, just reduces the chances of new ones.

little pier
thorny stone
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But their initial attitude matters less than their capability. They will simply lose if they try and continue their current path without the US. So they will be forced into peace because of that, or else destruction.

little pier
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The current war with Iran is probably the first time the US has been happy about Israeli aggression, like, ever

little pier
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I don’t see any evidence of any of these countries moving to a more peaceful status quo and the thing I’m very worried about is I don’t see a reason for Israel to hold back on Palestine when making this transition

thorny stone
thorny stone
little pier
little pier
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And they’ll keep doing that with or without us

thorny stone
little pier
thorny stone
thorny stone
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Revolutions are generally not fun things. The benefits need to be significant for them to be worth it.

little pier
thorny stone
little pier
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But the reason I don’t consider Israel propped is because they existed and succeeded before the US provided support

thorny stone
little pier
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Obviously they benefited from the relationship - everyone does - but I don’t see this as a country that suddenly folds as soon as the US isn’t involved. They seem pretty determined to do “whatever it takes” to stay alive

thorny stone
little pier
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They were at war with Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon at that time

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Now its mostly just Iran

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Unless you count the terror groups

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Who are also kinda just Iran

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And they were literally extended further at the time

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Like, physically had more land

thorny stone
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and there are more Palestinians now than there were.

little pier
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Ok yeah Palestine counts for both eras though

thorny stone
little pier
thorny stone
#

and Israel has much less support from the rest of the world. Back in the 60s countries like the UK and France were strongly allied with Israel. Now Israel is an island with the US.

little pier
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Didn’t the UK just send them some jets for the Iranian thing?

thorny stone
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No.

little pier
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Israel is allied with Jordan and Egpyt atm and was building ties with the Saudis

thorny stone
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We moved some jets closer to help defend our own stuff in case of escalation.

thorny stone
little pier
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The countries seem like they’re generally peaceful with each other and have good trade

thorny stone
little pier
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I dont expect them to have like a NATO pact type thing

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Oh that doesn’t look that serious

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I mean maybe it is but I’d be surprised if that escalated to much

thorny stone
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To me it feels like soldiers shooting each other is already quite an escalation.

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But yes, still a long way to go before they're at war for real again.

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Not implausible though. I think the leaders are acting a lot more friendly to Israel than the populace feels.

thorny stone
#

Congratulations Israel. You are now the ones proposing concentration camps. Full circle achieved, you have lost so much perspective that you have become exactly the thing you were trying to escape. No excuses. You have defeated yourselves. You are embodying a crime against humanity.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/07/israeli-minister-reveals-plan-to-force-population-of-gaza-into-camp-on-ruins-of-rafah

the Guardian
Israeli plan for forced transfer of Gaza’s population ‘a bluepr...

Military ordered to turn ruins of Rafah into ‘humanitarian city’ but experts call the plan an internment camp for all Palestinians in Gaza

little pier
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It calls for using the sprawling facilities to "gain trust with the local population" and to facilitate U.S. President Donald Trump's "vision for Gaza."

🙃

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The group that had it does seem to be denying it at least

stark socket
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Palestine doesn’t exist

thorny stone
# stark socket Palestine doesn’t exist

Yes it does. Although perhaps not in the form that it ideally should.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine

Palestine

Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, collectively known as the occupied Palestinian territories. The territories share the vast majority of their borders with Israel, wi...

steep ivy
thorny stone
#

...and on that subject, there's a UN conference later this month about giving Palestine full recognition. Better late than never, I guess. It's still a long way short of what clearly needs to be done, i.e. sending in UN armed forces to remove the Israeli government and then sit on Israel until it learns how to play with others, but it's still a step in the right direction.

Also now (24th July) with France announcing it will recognise Palestine, which is good.

dry jay
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It would be wonderful if NATO just declare its enough and stop Israel from doing what they’re doing

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Like, Israel needs support from countries like the USA - how difficult is it to stop people in Gaza from - almost? - starving to death

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Every country is like ‘Israel needs to stop doing what they’re doing’ yet no country does anything about it

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Because I also think there’s definitely been a shift from governments/leaders in many pro-Israel countries

#

They still support Israel but are starting to be more critical. They just don’t do anything about it

thorny stone
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I think NATO won't ever do anything because it only exists as a way of forcing countries to serve the US. It has no peacekeeping purpose, it's literally just the US and it's gang of followers. The only organisation that has a peacekeeping role is the UN, and all UN action on Israel is being blocked by the US. Were it not for the US, the UN would have acted to stop Israel decades ago.

The way I see responsibility on this issue is as follows:

  1. Israel. They are the ones choosing to create the problem. Ideally, they would realise they are doing wrong and stop it. That they do not, makes them guilty of many counts of multiple crimes against humanity. There's no way to sugar coat it, the events we're watching are caused by some of the very worst actions by any humans in recorded history. These actions are not confined to just a few individuals either, but are relatively widespread throughout multiple Israeli organisations over the span of a hundred years. The problem is not a few individuals, but the entire Israeli state structure. I just don't see how it can be allowed to exist in its current state. It's a danger to the world.
  2. The US. They are the ones enabling/encouraging Israel, and they have the power to stop Israel within hours any time they choose. By not doing this, they are also complicit in the crimes against humanity.
  3. Below those two countries, anyone else taking action to stop Israel means seriously alienating the US and risking the destruction of their economy. That's a heck of a risk to take for people in another country, so I understand why no country has really stuck their neck out as yet. But, if the US and Israel refuse to act responsibly under their own volition, then the only moral choice for other countries is to call them out and take action. So I do hold other countries responsible when they are not doing that. They are much less responsible than Israel or the US, but they do still have some responsibility for not taking a moral stance.
thorny stone
cerulean obsidian
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not even the arab countries

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and not even Turkey

#

realistically not even Iran is doing anything about it

#

Israel w

cerulean obsidian
thorny stone
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The argument that it's all talk doesn't work if there's nothing they can actually do about it. It's like saying people who wish they were taller don't actually want to be taller because they're not making it happen.

still perch
dry jay
thorny stone
# dry jay https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce35nx49reko.amp It’s both sides

There's no equivalency between the two sides. Hamas are saying that they can't compromise on one specific detail (i.e. they don't want to give up their weapons if the war is going to continue, which nobody in their right mind would ask them to do anyway). Israel are saying they can't compromise on anything.

Hamas' position keeps the door open to find an overall compromise, Israel's doesn't.
Hamas' demands are reasonable, Israel's aren't.
Those are the bottom lines here.

dry jay
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But they will never get that. Israel is too strong, Hamas is fighting a losing war

thorny stone
thorny stone
dry jay
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Well that’s for sure. There are no winners in a war

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But clearly Israel is much stronger

thorny stone
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I agree that Israel is stronger for the time being, and specifically if we're just talking about the ability of the two sides to kill each other. But I don't think it is strong enough, or ever will be, to end the war through military strength. Every person they kill just makes more enemies for themselves. They have more enemies now than when they started this war in 1948. It seems clear to me that they are no closer to winning. Even if they conquer all of the land they want, they will still be surrounded by mortal enemies on all sides and live in a state of perpetual war. There is no country or people that can survive that indefinitely.

I also think that Israel's strength is more or less irrelevant with respect to whether Hamas, or Palestinians in another form, will keep on fighting. Palestinians aren't fighting a calculated war to try and gain a state. They are literally fighting for their lives, for their own survival. Nobody would ever stop fighting in that situation.

The tragedy of this war, is that both sides think they are fighting for their survival, and thus will not stop. However only the Palestinians are correct in this analysis. The Israelis are blinded by their previous trauma (and at times an extremist view of their religion), and are still trying to fight the holocaust, still trying to fight the expulsion by the Romans, still trying to fight against everything and everyone because they think everyone is out to get them simply for who they are. But that has never been true, and in fact the opposite has been the case since the end of the holocaust, where most of the world was united in support of them. What they desperately need to learn is that peace is only found by working with others and living alongside them, not separating yourselves off from everyone else and enforcing an "us vs them" attitude.

#

Israel's big problem now, is that Netanyahu has over-extended Israel's aggression for his own internal political reasons. Historically, Israeli leaders have walked a fine line between getting what they want slowly, while still seeming to be reasonable. Netanyahu has completely broken that model and turned effectively the entire world against Israel. This means Israel is now completely reliant on the US' support, which makes the position much more fragile. As soon as that support wavers, or as soon as the US weakens, Israel will be on its own and in an incredibly weak position. I think it is in Israel's own interests for them to agree to peace before this happens, and every aggressive thing they do before then only makes that harder. It also only widens the internal conflict inside Israel. They are currently headed down a route that leads to the destruction of their country one way or another.

thorny stone
#

For anyone that was still needing more information, the UN's human rights council's commission has just released a report in which it concludes that Israel is committing genocide.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/16/un-commission-of-inquiry-report-israel-gaza-legal-analysis-genocide-accusation

The commission concludes that statements made by Israeli authorities are direct evidence of genocidal intent [and] also concludes that the pattern of conduct is circumstantial evidence for genocidal intent and that genocidal intent was the only reasonably inference that can be drawn from the totality of the evidence

cerulean obsidian
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Again, nothing the UN does actually matters

#

We need a new Henry Kissinger to just say ^ out loud

cerulean obsidian
#

Hamas has recalled about 7,000 members of its security forces to reassert control over areas of Gaza recently vacated by Israeli troops, appointing five new governors all with military backgrounds, some of whom previously commanded brigades in its armed wing to oversee operations, according to local sources.

The mobilisation order was reportedly issued via phone calls and text messages that read: “We declare a general mobilisation in response to the call of national and religious duty, to cleanse Gaza of outlaws and collaborators with Israel. You must report within 24 hours to your designated locations using your official codes.”

#

“cleanse Gaza of [..] collaborators with Israel”
Yeah, the ceasefire is definitely going to last. KEKW

thorny stone
#

Who are you quoting? Anyone reliable?

I'd be amazed if Israel even bothers to pretend there is a ceasefire. It's certainly not going to stop the abuses of Palestinians in the West Bank, even if it pauses the abuses in Gaza for a few hours.

cerulean obsidian
#

Yeah, it was BBC that reported it

#

now it says just

A Hamas official abroad declined to comment directly on reports of the security deployment, but told the BBC: "We cannot leave Gaza at the mercy of thieves and militias backed by the Israeli occupation. Our weapons are legitimate... to resist occupation, and they will remain as long as the occupation continues."

#

which is basically the same thing, just watered down

thorny stone
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Yeah, having an external state persecute you for 100 years doesn't mean you don't have internal issues as well. In fact it tends to exaggerate them.

#

Labelling murders as hilarious is pretty racist though.

#

Might not want to use that kind of language to describe what is going on.

cerulean obsidian
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100 years? It’s barely 50.

#

internal issues? Hamas clearly still thinks that they run the place

#

The Hamas-run interior ministry said its forces were seeking to restore order, warning that "any armed activity outside the framework of the resistance" would be dealt with firmly.

Maybe I have a twisted sense of humour, but I do find this statement hilarious.

#

"This time people weren't fleeing Israeli attacks," one resident said. "They were running from their own people."

And this would be a tragic comedy. How do you imagine peace in Gaza with Hamas still being there?

thorny stone
#

Wartime security can be pretty brutal. But Hamas only exists because of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. If we resolved the problem of Israel, the problems of Hamas would also resolve themselves.

cerulean obsidian
#

Hamas tried to resolve the problem of Israel 2 years ago

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It either didn’t go as planned, or it went exactly as planned. Nobody knows anymore.

#

So while Israel was conducting it’s campaign in Gaza, it was also teaching Arab countries on how to combat threats such as the Hamas tunnels

#

The two-state solution is well and truly dead, Arabs have clearly accepted Israel as-is.

cerulean obsidian
little pier
#

any decent analysis on the conflict from day 1 would've told you exactly this was going to happen

#

the only development Trump's given us so far is this funny map one of his guys drew up with a crayon

image.png
cerulean obsidian
thorny stone
# little pier Its a war between Hamas and the IDF at the expense of Gazan civilians

I think it's at the expense of everyone really. Palestinians are being tortured by Israel. Israel is being internally divided by the religious extremism and bullying tactics that are driving the war. The US is spending billions supporting Israel, and the rest of the world is spending billions trying to save as many Palestinians as it can, as well as having Israel meddle in their politics. It's a plague that is weakening the world.

thorny stone
thorny stone
fierce onyx
#

8.7k messages. Who on earth has time to read all that?

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A novel is shorter.

thorny stone
hasty ingot
little pier
thorny stone
little pier
thorny stone
little pier
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Because I looked for those numbers and I dont see good data

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I saw a wikipedia page that goes up to 2020

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I see this shit from 2016

image0.jpg
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If you have actual data to show your point great but if you’re just seeing memes on the internet and getting the “feeling” that the US only supports Israel and the rest of world is banding behind Palestine then that would just straight up be misinformation

thorny stone
#

The US does support Israel far more than it supports Palestinians. The data seems pretty clear on that. But yes, it's not exclusively supporting Israel. Just mostly.

#

There is a pretty clear difference now between the US policy on Israel and that of the rest of the world. But it's not 100% support or 100% rejection from any country in either direction.

little pier
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doesn't even matter about the spending on israel

#

just who gave money to palestine since the war started and how much they gave

thorny stone
#

Which is compared to 18bn in military aid to Israel's war effort from the USA, in the first year after the October attack.

#

Whatever other points or comparisons anyone wants to make, it's a lot of money that the world as a whole is spending on the problem.

little pier
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Thats how much you’d give to gaza if you wanted to help them build a football stadium

#

We can compare this to what countries spend to situations they’re actually concerned about. These are in billions, by the way

image0.jpg
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Also UNRWA is not all of it

#

USAID alone is around 2.1 billion, which would basically mean the US is basically the main country funding Gaza

#

Or was, USAID might’ve gotten Elon’d earlier this year

little pier
thorny stone
thorny stone
little pier
thorny stone
little pier
#

These are countries

thorny stone
little pier
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They used it on something they cared about

thorny stone
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They are using it on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

little pier
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They aren’t lmao

#

They’re decidedly not doing that

thorny stone
#

I've shown you the UNRWA accounts. They clearly are spending that amount.

little pier
#

Donations are measured in billions

#

You even used the word billions

thorny stone
#

What on earth are you talking about?

little pier
thorny stone
little pier
#

The “rest of the world” is collectively throwing pocket change at an issue they dont care about to placate their voters

little pier
thorny stone
#

I'm sorry but claiming billions of dollars is irrelevant is just silly.

little pier
little pier
thorny stone
#

be clear.

cerulean obsidian
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he’s saying that Gaza got billions of dollars from the US and all that bought was Hamas terror tunnels, and that it was chump change, and it was chump change because nobody actually cares about Gaza

little pier
# thorny stone Then wtf are you saying?

I don't actually believe you're confused right now because the points are incredibly simple and straightforward, but the obvious point from all of these stats is that other countries are not spending money on Palestine. When you look at international donations, anything under a billion generally doesn't mean anything

thorny stone
little pier
#

Right now its the US funding Israel, the US funding a Palestine, and then some other countries giving a small donation to keep their name on the plate

little pier
#

Half of the UNRWA number is also US contributions btw

#

so the grand total of literally every other country's spending is less than a billion

#

I think we spent more on the last world cup lmao

thorny stone
#

Tell me which if any of these statements are incorrect.
You're saying that the US formerly contributed a lot of aid to Gaza. Yes, fine, we all agree on that.
You're saying that other countries don't contribute anything significant to Gaza? I mean ok, that's an opinion. If you don't consider a billion a year relevant if it comes from multiple smaller countries, but do consider 2 billion over 2 years relevant if it comes from one big country, then that's up to you.

little pier
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its not a billion a year from small countries

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its collectively a billion, mostly from the US

thorny stone
#

That statement is demonstrably untrue.

little pier
#

what

#

from the UNRWA?

thorny stone
#

2024 accounts.
Total aid: $1,143,878,836
USA contribution: $70,597,571

little pier
#

Thats literally 800 million right there. What percentage of 1.1 billion do you think 800 million makes?

#

what?

thorny stone
little pier
thorny stone
#

So you're adding up the US contributions over 3 years and taking it as a percentage of a single year's UNRWA budget?

little pier
#

where'd you get 1.1 from? is that just 2024?

thorny stone
#

yes

little pier
#

where do you see the total contributions for a year?

#

oh I see it at the bottom

thorny stone
little pier
#

oh dude these guys are putting in way more than 1.1

thorny stone
#

yes

little pier
#

thats gotta be up to 3 billion

thorny stone
#

this is just UNRWA from governments directly.

little pier
thorny stone
#

Yes, clearly.

#

Well, for 2022 and 2023. I don't know which year you'd really consider being the first.

little pier
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honestly though if I was a person who supported palestine I'd be super unhappy with those numbers lol

#

they're still really really low

thorny stone
#

Yes, absolutely. I agree.

little pier
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like individually not a single other country put down more than a billion

#

its literally just germany

thorny stone
#

For sure, more needs to be done.

little pier
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well, something needs to be done at all lol

thorny stone
#

OK. Can we agree now that 1.1 bn per year is not nothing? Although smaller than ideal, it is at least something.

#

But if you're making the point that it's not addressing the real problem, then you're right.

little pier
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Its very close to nothing, for an international collective effort to me thats like as low you can go. Like thats not a number from one country, thats the number after all of the contributions have been added up.

#

Like if this was every country banding behind Gaza to help them out this number would really be upwards of 10 billion

#

at least

#

look at those Ukraine numbers

#

clearing 100 billion everywhere, easily

thorny stone
#

I would say Ukraine is an outlier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_official_development_assistance_received

List of sovereign states by official development assistance received

This is a list of countries based on the official development assistance (ODA) they have received for the given year. More comprehensive and current lists are available from the OECD (Table DAC2a) and the World Bank (Net official development assistance and official aid received (current US$)).
The figures shown are based on OECD measures and def...

#

We're basically fighting Ukraine's war, so that's why the overall number you're looking at looks so high. It's all the expensive weaponry.

little pier
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that shows the opposite right?

thorny stone
little pier
#

the yellow dots on that map are 2 billion, the red dots 200 million

thorny stone
#

Ukraine is 247% higher than the next largest receiver of ODA

little pier
#

thats about what I'd expect to be standard help

thorny stone
#

I think the numbers are easier to read than the map.

little pier
#

I mean that the palestine numbers still look super low here

#

those Ukraine numbers are missing a lot

thorny stone
#

Just so we have them to hand.

image.png
#

Yes, it doesn't cover everything. But it's hard to get a complete picture of every transaction that's going on in the world.

little pier
#

no like

#

its about 10% lol

thorny stone
#

What is about 10%? You mean Palestine is 10% of Ukraine?

little pier
#

we're collectively above 200 billion in contributions to Ukraine. That number only accounts for 28 billion

thorny stone
#

Yes, and as I mentioned before, that's because the vast majority of it is incredibly expensive weaponry. Which obviously we're not giving to other countries, and we're only giving to Ukraine because we're fighting their war for them.

#

Palestine is comparable to other countries in terms of the support given.

#

Arguably supported more per capita than most.

little pier
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being slightly above the peacetime contributions isn't very good

thorny stone
little pier
#

ngl this context makes the UNRWA spending look worse

thorny stone
#

Yes, clearly the USA and EU care a lot about the Ukraine situation. But also because they are part of that war. The USA is part of the Israel Palestinian war, which is why it's contributions there are so high, but other countries are not. Support for Palestinians from the rest of the world is at a level consistent with countries trying to help out while not actually being involved directly in the conflict.

#

Right now, there are no countries giving billions in aid to other countries without actively being involved in the same war.

little pier
#

well yeah if they're just giving the standard amount of AID you give to a conflict it doesn't seem like they're terribly invested

little pier
thorny stone
little pier
#

indirectly

thorny stone
#

The conflict doesn't exist without the US stoking it, and without the US arming Israel, so I would say it's pretty direct involvement. We'd agree that Iran is directly involved because they support Hezbollah and Hamas, right? Or at least, most of the world seems to agree on that. Certainly the USA and Israel do, hence their attacks on Iran.

little pier
#

Iran is not directly involved there, no. Blaming the war on some abstract thing that the US maybe contributed to is also, obviously, indirect

thorny stone
#

The US effect on Israel is not really abstract. It's tangible, concrete support and authorisation.

#

But ok, we can agree to disagree on what constitutes direct vs indirect.

#

The important point is that the US is driving the war forwards, rather than just assisting with humanitarian support. That's the reason for the discrepancy in the financial figures.

#

And the same with USA/EU and the Ukraine-Russia war to an even greater extent. It's not just humanitarian support, it's military assistance.

#

Maybe that's the best way to delineate the difference. They are invested in the outcome of the conflict, not a neutral party.

fierce onyx
thorny stone