news Israel-Palestine Conflict 2023/ 2024 Mega Thread

[Cloröx]

 

[Mean Trees]

5 hours ago, Harrier said:

They did not negotiate the release of Thai nationals from Hamas custody by being needlessly antagonistic towards them. Thai Muslim negotiators were an effective choice for that reason. Additionally it's clear from the wording of his responses that he has personal sympathies for Hamas - I'm sure you can see that. I mean 'it's war people die' as a response to a question about 39 Thai nationals being killed on Oct 7th is a pretty pathetic response, and is equivalent to the extremely weak defenses given to the IDF murder of Palestinians. Nevermind the widly charitable interpretation of Hamas' motives to taking captives 

 

Also, the fact that they did not brutalise the Thai hostages they took does not get them any credit, it is quite literally the bare minimum

 

I just will never understand how campists like yourself can justify defending and doing apologia for this obviously right-wing, obviously religious extremist, obviously corrupt group of angry men that just want to do revenge and brutality and who have no actual concern for Palestinian lives. What is Hamas' end game here? What are they achieving right now? It is truly astonishing to me. I don't spend any time defending the IDF or Hezbollah or anyone else - it's so easy not to. I just don't get it.

Campists? Hmmm interesting term to use. Trotskyists never have seen an war waged by the West that they never liked. The Trotskyist to Neocon pipeline is REAL.

 

And I am sure that Communion was pro-Ukraine so you're wrong about that.

[Communion]

6 hours ago, Harrier said:

I just will never understand how campists like yourself 

I don't think that word means what you seem to think it means, and would advise against using words just because you see them becone popular ad hominems on liberal globe emoji twitter!

 

I don't even think third campism - the actual term - is relevant to modern politics. Are you accusing me of being a member of the Ba'ath party of Iraq? 

 

I think it's interesting that liberals find themselves unable to accept genuine socialist views that they then accuse socialism of being something else, like anti-Americanism, and make horrific assumptions like as though I support Russia. If your theory was correct, you'd find me supporting Russia. But we know that's not the case. And that it's more so that since I criticize Russia not for being "an enemy" of America (Obama & Putin did seem close!) but for being a capitalist, oligarch-ran police state very much like America, my criticisms are apparently the "wrong" criticisms. 

 

It's just weird to find myself about to articulate your own ideology for you and give detailed examples about how you are clearly indoctrinated into a Western supremacist view and much of the contradictions present in your views of allegedly wanting "liberal values like peace" come from holding the view the West is inherently more human and less savage than anywhere else and thus no crime can actually be truly irredeemable when the West must always be the world's police and thus justified to some degree.  Meanwhile you use...slogans that I don't think you yourself know how to explain.

 

Did you have to stop using tankie as a slur because you couldn't provide an answer when asked what country is rolling their tanks into Gaza?

Edited December 2, 2023 by Communion

[heckinglovato]

ICYMI

 

 

[Communion]

Also things like this are so funny:

7 hours ago, Harrier said:

 What is Hamas' end game here? 

Because your brain is so rotted with War on Terror liberal racism, your own shortcomings see you accuse those who simply acknowledge basic facts about the current situation as like...somehow endorsing the methods chosen. 

 

Hamas: *state that they want the release of all hostage Palestinians, a permanent ceasefire, and the end to settler violence in the West Bank, and will use the threat of violence to scare the Israeli people into pressuring their government to comply*

 

Western Leftists: I don't agree with the reality of violence, but those goals are ones that are objectively needed for any chance of peace, and it's on the shoulders of Israel to comply. 

 

You: I CANT BELIEVE YOU TERRORIST LOVING TANKIES ARE SUPPORTING THESE MUD SAVAGES AND GOAT FUCKERS IN THEIR DESIRED CAMPAIGN OF AIMLESS KILLING. THEY LITERALLY HAVE NO GOALS OTHER THAN TO SPREAD SHARIA LAW AND SIP ON JEW BLOOD!!!!!

Edited December 2, 2023 by Communion

[State of Grace.]

Legit felt my heart sinking as I read this

 

 

[hoax]

12 hours ago, Harrier said:

 I just will never understand how campists like yourself can justify defending and doing apologia for this obviously right-wing, obviously religious extremist, obviously corrupt group of angry men that just want to do revenge and brutality and who have no actual concern for Palestinian lives. What is Hamas' end game here? What are they achieving right now?

Disregarding the semantic arguments, this is something I've spent a fair amount of time thinking about. Ultimately, there are only four possible outcomes: the status quo ante bellum, one state run by the Israelis, one state run by the Palestinians, or two independent states. The sqab outcome is obviously not possible, as the Israelis no longer trust the Palestinians in Gaza, and the Palestinians know that Gaza is merely a prison used by the Israelis to keep them contained for the next time they decide to start slaughtering them. The same logic holds for a two-state solution, as Israel no longer trusts the Palestinians in Gaza and seemingly has zero interest in offering any piece of its sovereignty over the WB or Gaza as a negotiating chip (that died with the Trump plan). Any attempted imposition of a single state governed by the Palestinians (even a state governed in peace with full rights to both sides) will be seen as an existential threat by the Israeli government and will be responded to with whatever force is required. A single state governed by the Israelis is obviously just as much of an existential threat to the Palestinians as the opposite is for the Israelis, but the Palestinians don't have nearly the same degree of leverage to stop that from happening. I believe that a de-militarized state under a hybrid Israeli-Palestinian administration that extends full freedoms to all citizens and pays reparations to the Palestinians is the best outcome, but I'm willing to accept that it is not possible because the Israeli government would see it as a doomsday threat, even disregarding the extreme ideological hurdles that need to be overcome. 

 

Hamas' actions so far have not moved the needle toward any outcome that would actually be desirable for the Palestinian people. They've managed to kill 1400* Israelis, take 250 hostages, kick over the metaphorical hornet's nest, and show Israel that their "worst nightmare" wasn't actually as bad as they imagined. I've seen it argued that this is an incremental step in Palestinian liberation, but considering that the Israelis are more than happy to meet them with a 1,000:1 kill ratio, I fail to see how the next step at this rate can be made before the death of the last Gazan. I sympathize deeply with the goals of Palestinian liberation, but it's a form of willful ignorance to pretend that October 7th didn't significantly expedite and increase the slaughter of Palestinians and that the previous paths of slow negotiation (that are now a nonstarter) were probably the Palestinian's best shot this decade at achieving any meaningful progress in the peace process. As a group with the express goal of the liberation of the Palestinians and the destruction of Israel, Hamas has shown itself to be highly ineffective. Before October 7th there had been progress toward worker visas and food supplies, and it seemed that any Saudi-Israeli deal would include provisions for the Palestinians. Both were small steps in the right direction, but they both seem miles away from a possibility now because of Hamas' actions. Hamas used its equivalent to the 'nuclear option' on October 7th, and all it did was destroy its negotiating position and give Israel the green light from the US to do as they saw fit, which is an annihilation Hamas is incapable of stopping. 

 

Now, all that is rather meaningless at this point given how events have played out. The Israeli goal in the post-October 7th world is (at least) the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt and the execution of those who stay, hence the only acceptable outcome to the Israelis is one where they exclusively govern Gaza. As the party in the stronger military and negotiation position, Israel will have far greater sway over the outcome up until the day that Hamas makes a tank drive to the front steps of the Knesset or flies thousands of aerial missions over Israel, destroying Tel Aviv (the only actions that would put Hamas at an equal bargaining position to Israel). Those are clearly outside of Hamas' capabilities, and the strongest card in Hamas' arsenal (basically what happened on October 7th) directly led to an Israeli response of extermination. Hamas has no other card left to play, and all they've managed to accomplish is a guarantee of their own genocide. They can continue to launch rockets into Israel, they can try for more hostages, they can try to breach the border and attack IDF bases or civilians again, they can even attack the Knesset or Netanyahu, but all that will achieve will be the further aggravation of a government already dead set on genocide with the means to accomplish it.

 

I know there are arguments of 'Well if their demise is inevitable, then wasn't October 7th justified, and aren't all their actions justified anyway?' and 'Do they not have the right to fight against their oppressors?', and the answer to those questions in a vacuum is yes. In the ideal world, the Palestinians would have the ability to successfully and fairly fight for their freedom. In the real world where every Israeli death is met by 1,000 Palestinian deaths, every attempt Hamas has made at resistance has directly led to thousands of Palestinian deaths in retaliation. At what point is it no longer worth pursuing? I can understand the emotional appeal of a fighter dying for their cause, but is making a society-wide kamikaze play worth the moral high ground (especially when the civilians paying the price had little say in the matter)? Israel's actions are not justified, but Israel has not shown any signs of stopping, so is any argument about what should be happening even worth making? Hamas' actions (in conjunction with the Israeli response, but the Israeli response would not be what it is without October 7th) have set in motion a catastrophic future for Gaza, and I think the users celebrating this as "liberation" are missing the forest for the trees. If no Palestinians survive to feel justified in their "liberating" attacks against Israel, does it matter how justified they might have been? 

Edited December 2, 2023 by wastedpotential

[ClashAndBurn]

46 minutes ago, wastedpotential said:

the previous paths of slow negotiation (that are now a nonstarter) were probably the Palestinian's best shot this decade at achieving any meaningful progress in the peace process.

The "previous paths" included the Abraham Accords, which completely sidestepped the Palestinians altogether and were about to leave them with zero relevance and legitimacy anyway. Hamas genuinely had nothing to lose, and the eventual forced expulsion from Gaza and the West Bank was already only a matter of time once Israel's relations with the Saudis and UAE were officially normalized.

[State of Grace.]

My god. Seeing all of these journalists and people I follow in Gaza posting their last messages to the world is so ******* soul crushing. We have failed them greatly 😞

 

 

[nooniebao]

@Communion

 

 

[Harrier]

11 hours ago, Communion said:

I don't think that word means what you seem to think it means, and would advise against using words just because you see them becone popular ad hominems on liberal globe emoji twitter!

 

I don't even think third campism - the actual term - is relevant to modern politics. Are you accusing me of being a member of the Ba'ath party of Iraq? 

 

I think it's interesting that liberals find themselves unable to accept genuine socialist views that they then accuse socialism of being something else, like anti-Americanism, and make horrific assumptions like as though I support Russia. If your theory was correct, you'd find me supporting Russia. But we know that's not the case. And that it's more so that since I criticize Russia not for being "an enemy" of America (Obama & Putin did seem close!) but for being a capitalist, oligarch-ran police state very much like America, my criticisms are apparently the "wrong" criticisms. 

 

It's just weird to find myself about to articulate your own ideology for you and give detailed examples about how you are clearly indoctrinated into a Western supremacist view and much of the contradictions present in your views of allegedly wanting "liberal values like peace" come from holding the view the West is inherently more human and less savage than anywhere else and thus no crime can actually be truly irredeemable when the West must always be the world's police and thus justified to some degree.  Meanwhile you use...slogans that I don't think you yourself know how to explain.

 

Did you have to stop using tankie as a slur because you couldn't provide an answer when asked what country is rolling their tanks into Gaza?

Oh I'm very happy to call you a tankie - because that's what you are - I'm just having a bit of fun using a trendy term in its modern usage, which is to refer to someone who supports any organisation/group that opposes the United States or the West. It's handy here because it perfectly describes you and your deranged, morally simplistic ideaology. I have never seen you once offer any straightforward criticism of anything non-Western, because it is so anathema to you, to sometimes ridiculous extents as with the China situation. You've become a known meme on this website because of it.

 

You are so confident in your beliefs, so smug and arrogant and condescending, so stubborn to taking on board opposing perspectives or new information. You attempt to characterise me as some vicious racist, going on some ridiculous rant about mud bloods or something - by no means your first time getting vicious and personal on no provocation - rather than engaging with what I said about the Thai negotiator. But that's always what you do: highlight some small part of a post and go off on some irrelevant point based on your preconceived notions, and attempt to pigeonhole a user into being something they aren't.

 

I'd direct you to read wastedpotential's post - a thoughtful discussion of the actual impact of Hamas' actions. Put aside your leftist ideaological framing drivel about resistance, oppressor and opressed, global north global south, power ect - and think about what is actually happening, where this is going, and what Hamas have achieved with their dumb, pointless brutality.

 

 

[Communion]

27 minutes ago, Harrier said:

 non-Western

So you claim I support Russia, and then say the evidence for that is that I am...anti-Western? Where do you...think Russia is located?

 

That you don't think Russia is a Western country shows what means you view this conflict in. 

[Harrier]

11 minutes ago, Communion said:

So you claim I support Russia, and then say the evidence for that is that I am...anti-Western? Where do you...think Russia is located?

 

That you don't think Russia is a Western country shows what means you view this conflict in. 

I absolutely do think Russia is a Western country, and that fact is what permits you to feel comfortable being critical of it 

 

Despite your various attempts to characterise me as a pro-violence, pro-Israel neocon, I actually want peace and the end of this endless conflict. I just see Hamas as an obstacle to that peace, as is shown by their consistent undermining of concrete steps towards a solution. In the same way that the Israeli right wing has been an even more significant obstacle to peace. I see your and others support of this group as misguided and partly based on an instinctive desire to support anyone that opposes US or Western foreign policy, regardless of their beliefs or the impact of their actions.

 

The difference between me and the others in this thread distilled simply is that I want peace, while y'all want historic justice, even if getting there involves great violence. It is why I would be satisfied by a either a two state solution or a one state - whatever gets the death and destruction to stop - but you wouldn't. And ultimately it's why we will never agree.

[ZIVERT]

10 hours ago, Mean Trees said:

Campists? Hmmm interesting term to use. Trotskyists never have seen an war waged by the West that they never liked. The Trotskyist to Neocon pipeline is REAL.

 

And I am sure that Communion was pro-Ukraine so you're wrong about that.

If denying Ukraine’s right to defend ourselves from a war Russia chose to start because something something NATO and then back tracking after the Bucha Massacre was unveiled is “pro-Ukraine,” then I guess

 

But a genocide-denying, Stalin apologist cannot be pro-Ukraine out of principle. Ironically, the only time Communion has ever said anything in defense of Jewish people was to push the Russian fascist conspiracy theory that Ukrainians are Nazis.

[ClashAndBurn]

14 minutes ago, Harrier said:

Despite your various attempts to characterise me as a pro-violence, pro-Israel neocon, I actually want peace and the end of this endless conflict. I just see Hamas as an obstacle to that peace, as is shown by their consistent undermining of concrete steps towards a solution.

Hamas is Israel's tool to ensure that peace is impossible. I don't know what you think the culmination of 75 years of occupation and oppression under apartheid rule enforced by Western complicity is meant to achieve other than that one singular purpose. The entire purpose of Hamas and the funding it received from Israel was to undermine Fatah (the Palestinian Authority) and make it so that a two-state solution would always remain an impossible goal, no matter how much the US policy (except under Trump) was to force something that every Israeli PM this century has rejected out of hand.

 

They WANT to cleanse Gaza and push the civilians into Egypt. That's why they're demanding Arab states intervene to help them solve the "Palestinian problem" and accept refugees from the humanitarian crisis they are directly engineering due to Biden's "No Red Lines" stance giving them the green light.

[hoax]

4 hours ago, ClashAndBurn said:

The "previous paths" included the Abraham Accords, which completely sidestepped the Palestinians altogether and were about to leave them with zero relevance and legitimacy anyway. Hamas genuinely had nothing to lose, and the eventual forced expulsion from Gaza and the West Bank was already only a matter of time once Israel's relations with the Saudis and UAE were officially normalized.

And that's certainly a valuable point, but it's worth recognizing that the people of Gaza are suffering much more right now than they would be had Hamas not attacked. There may have been "nothing to lose" since the demise of the people of Gaza was an inevitability given the regime in Tel Aviv, but the situation on the ground has been made far, far, far worse  (versus where it was on October 6th) because of Hamas. Israel has only felt the liberty to massacre children to the degree that they have because they know they have carte blanche from Joe Biden, because of Hamas' actions. The Saudi normalization deal was anticipated to include a condition aiming to improve the lives of Palestinians in Gaza to some degree, in an effort to appease the Saudi population (even if a minor step forward - on a day to day existence, it's better to have food and to be able to go to school or a hospital than not), and now that's completely out the window, probably forever. Hamas might have seen this as their last chance to enact change, and they might have been right, but they failed and have brought the brunt of the consequences on the innocent civilians of Gaza. Because of Hamas' actions, the lives of the people living in Gaza will not improve from what they are like today for years, if not longer (and we can assume the opposite to be true if Hamas had chosen to not act and the Saudi-Israeli deal had gone through). All that is rather moot at this point, given that the combination of Hamas' feelings of the inevitability of their own destruction and Israel's feelings of insecurity following October 7th have ultimately led to a long future of mass death and destruction in Gaza that no one aside from Netanyahu, Smotrich, or Ben-Gvir wanted. 

[hoax]

58 minutes ago, Harrier said:

The difference between me and the others in this thread distilled simply is that I want peace, while y'all want historic justice, even if getting there involves great violence. It is why I would be satisfied by a either a two state solution or a one state - whatever gets the death and destruction to stop - but you wouldn't. And ultimately it's why we will never agree.

Well to some the ideological victory matters more. 

[ClashAndBurn]

7 minutes ago, wastedpotential said:

And that's certainly a valuable point, but it's worth recognizing that the people of Gaza are suffering much more right now than they would be had Hamas not attacked. There may have been "nothing to lose" since the demise of the people of Gaza was an inevitability given the regime in Tel Aviv, but the situation on the ground has been made far, far, far worse  (versus where it was on October 6th) because of Hamas. Israel has only felt the liberty to massacre children to the degree that they have because they know they have carte blanche from Joe Biden, because of Hamas' actions. The Saudi normalization deal was anticipated to include a condition aiming to improve the lives of Palestinians in Gaza to some degree, in an effort to appease the Saudi population (even if a minor step forward - on a day to day existence, it's better to have food and to be able to go to school or a hospital than not), and now that's completely out the window, probably forever. Hamas might have seen this as their last chance to enact change, and they might have been right, but they failed and have brought the brunt of the consequences on the innocent civilians of Gaza. Because of Hamas' actions, the lives of the people living in Gaza will not improve from what they are like today for years, if not longer (and we can assume the opposite to be true if Hamas had chosen to not act and the Saudi-Israeli deal had gone through). All that is rather moot at this point, given that the combination of Hamas' feelings of the inevitability of their own destruction and Israel's feelings of insecurity following October 7th have ultimately led to a long future of mass death and destruction in Gaza that no one aside from Netanyahu, Smotrich, or Ben-Gvir wanted. 

That's all irrelevant when you consider that all Israel is doing now is what they were eventually going to do anyway, with or without resistance. October 7 just moved up the time table. The Abraham Accords being finalized would have been the absolute end for Palestine, and they would inevitably be pushed into Egypt. You may say that being forcibly displaced and facing an ethnic cleansing is preferable to death, but many Gazans would rather die than suffer the indignity of another Nakba.

 

Arab leaders want nothing to do with Palestine and are privately cheering Israel on, hoping that Hamas can be finished once and for all. It's the Arab populations that they answer to who are outraged by the horrors inflicted by the IDF on Palestine, and rightly so. But MBS and all the others wish they could wash their hands of the whole thing and go back to simply making Joe Biden kiss their rings for cheap oil and gas.

 

As for "no one aside from Netanyahu (and his cabinet)" wanting this... the robust settler movement that is thriving under IDF protection in the West Bank would say otherwise.

[ClashAndBurn]

 

 

[hoax]

41 minutes ago, ClashAndBurn said:

That's all irrelevant when you consider that all Israel is doing now is what they were eventually going to do anyway, with or without resistance. October 7 just moved up the time table. The Abraham Accords being finalized would have been the absolute end for Palestine, and they would inevitably be pushed into Egypt. You may say that being forcibly displaced and facing an ethnic cleansing is preferable to death, but many Gazans would rather die than suffer the indignity of another Nakba.

 

Arab leaders want nothing to do with Palestine and are privately cheering Israel on, hoping that Hamas can be finished once and for all. It's the Arab populations that they answer to who are outraged by the horrors inflicted by the IDF on Palestine, and rightly so. But MBS and all the others wish they could wash their hands of the whole thing and go back to simply making Joe Biden kiss their rings for cheap oil and gas.

 

As for "no one aside from Netanyahu (and his cabinet)" wanting this... the robust settler movement that is thriving under IDF protection in the West Bank would say otherwise.

I can't speak to the willingness of the residents of Gaza to sacrifice their lives in place of resettlement and cleansing, but I'd be almost certain that there's a significant cohort of the population who isn't quite so dedicated to the cause. That aside, I'm not the one you have to convince that the Palestinian cause is basically hopeless and that the death and expulsion of the Palestinians in Gaza in the post October 7th world is an inevitability. 

 

However, I disagree with the claim that what is happening now is exactly what would have happened regardless of Hamas' actions. Before October 7th, Netanyahu's political position was incredibly fragile, and his imprisonment and replacement by Yair Lapid or Benny Gantz or basically anyone else (all people who would previously have been at least marginally more sympathetic to the Palestinian plight) was looking more and more possible (at least dependent upon which direction the court reform issues swung), which may have opened the door to an improvement in living standards (such as by increasing the volume of work visas and thus remittences, or by loosening food import restrictions or whatever). It's no peace settlement and no Palestinian-led one state solution, but it would have kept a few thousand from slipping into famine (not as if that matters now). Additionally, while MBS sees the Palestinians as a speed bump between him and a large pile of Israeli money, his father was pretty personally involved in the 1973 oil embargo because he strongly sympathized with the Palestinian plight, and to the best of my knowledge there had been several internal disagreements between them over how many concessions they should demand for the Palestinians in their negotiations with the Israelis. It wouldn't have been a two-state solution, and it wouldn't have lasted more than a decade, but any number of circumstances could have shifted in that decade and changed the outcome. For all we know, after a decade of Republican government, there may have been a different Democrat in office, who may have drawn a slightly harder line for Israel and saved the lives of 3000 children that are now dead. That's a tortured hypothetical to be sure, but Hamas' actions on October 7th have fully cemented the deaths of those children, because they are already dead, and they will soon be joined by thousands more children who may have died otherwise. The path to negotiation and a marginally less-bloody peace was very, very unlikely before, but now it's impossible. I'm sure the Hamas leadership in Qatar aren't losing any sleep over it, though. 

 

I will grant that I wasn't considering the settlers (or their representatives) in my last point, I was only thinking of the historic Israeli political establishment. 

Edited December 3, 2023 by wastedpotential

[ClashAndBurn]

5 minutes ago, wastedpotential said:

I can't speak to the willingness of the residents of Gaza to sacrifice their lives in place of resettlement and cleansing, but I'd be almost certain that there's a significant cohort of the population who isn't quite so dedicated to the cause. That aside, I'm not the one you have to convince that the Palestinian cause is basically hopeless and that the death and expulsion of the Palestinians in Gaza in the post October 7th world is an inevitability. 

 

However, I disagree with the claim that what is happening now is exactly what would have happened regardless of Hamas' actions. Before October 7th, Netanyahu's political position was incredibly fragile, and his imprisonment and replacement by Yair Lapid or Benny Gantz or basically anyone else (all people who would previously have been at least marginally more sympathetic to the Palestinian plight) was looking more and more possible (at least dependent upon which direction the court reform issues swung), which may have opened the door to an improvement in living standards (such as by increasing the volume of work visas and thus remittences, or by loosening food import restrictions or whatever). It's no peace settlement and no Palestinian-led one state solution, but it would have kept a few thousand from slipping into famine (not as if that matters now). Additionally, while MBS sees the Palestinians as a speed bump between him and a large pile of Israeli money, his father was pretty personally involved in the 1973 oil embargo because he strongly sympathized with the Palestinian plight, and to the best of my knowledge there had been several internal disagreements between them over how many concessions they should demand for the Palestinians in their negotiations with the Israelis. It wouldn't have been a two-state solution, and it wouldn't have lasted more than a decade, but any number of circumstances could have shifted in that decade and changed the outcome. For all we know, after a decade of Republican government, there may have been a different Democrat in office, who may have drawn a slightly harder line for Israel and saved the lives of 3000 children that are now dead. That's a tortured hypothetical to be sure, but Hamas' actions on October 7th have fully cemented the deaths of those children, because they are already dead, and they will soon be joined by thousands more children who may have died otherwise. The path to negotiation and a marginally less-bloody peace was very, very unlikely before, but now it's impossible. I'm sure the Hamas leadership in Qatar aren't losing any sleep over it, though. 

 

I will grant that I wasn't considering the settlers (or their representatives) in my last point, I was only thinking of the historic Israeli political establishment. 

The settlers  still thrived under Yair Lapid, so I genuinely don't think things would have been different. Furthermore, Netanyahu is like Trump in that he never faces accountability for anything. Highly doubtful he would have been out of power any time soon.

 

I still hold that eventual displacement was inevitably going to happen. Conditions in Gaza remained deplorable even while Netanyahu was briefly out of power, the IDF still killed people, including a high-profile assassination of an American journalist (Shireen Abu Akleh) in the West Bank that was swept under the rug by Joe Biden and Naftali Bennett/Yair Lapid and met with much less outcry than Jamal Khashoggi. The IDF brutalized pall-bearers carrying her casket. There might not have been a siege like we're seeing now, but the ethnic cleansing would have still happened, albeit through a slower campaign of IDF soldiers still shooting civilians and never really abiding by the ceasefire to begin with, despite the claims by Westerners how everything only started on Oct. 7 with Israel being completely innocent and doing nothing before then.

 

Not only that, but after said decade of Republican government, who's to say that the Republican president (DeSantis, Haley, or Trump) wouldn't have egged Israel on once the Abraham Accords were finalized?

[hoax]

2 minutes ago, ClashAndBurn said:

The settlers  still thrived under Yair Lapid, so I genuinely don't think things would have been different. Furthermore, Netanyahu is like Trump in that he never faces accountability for anything. Highly doubtful he would have been out of power any time soon.

 

I still hold that eventual displacement was inevitably going to happen. Conditions in Gaza remained deplorable even while Netanyahu was briefly out of power, the IDF still killed people, including a high-profile assassination of an American journalist (Shireen Abu Akleh) in the West Bank that was swept under the rug by Joe Biden and Naftali Bennett/Yair Lapid and met with much less outcry than Jamal Khashoggi. The IDF brutalized pall-bearers carrying her casket. There might not have been a siege like we're seeing now, but the ethnic cleansing would have still happened, albeit through a slower campaign of IDF soldiers still shooting civilians and never really abiding by the ceasefire to begin with, despite the claims by Westerners how everything only started on Oct. 7 with Israel being completely innocent and doing nothing before then.

 

Not only that, but after said decade of Republican government, who's to say that the Republican president (DeSantis, Haley, or Trump) wouldn't have egged Israel on once the Abraham Accords were finalized?

I think the broader point I'm trying to make is that there was still room for speculation on an outcome in the pre-Oct 7th world, and even though you are correct in pointing out how stacked the odds were against a peaceful settlement (and there's nothing to say that things couldn't have gotten significantly worse during the next US presidential administration either), there was still the faintest possibility. That has been lost. 

[ClashAndBurn]

4 minutes ago, wastedpotential said:

I think the broader point I'm trying to make is that there was still room for speculation on an outcome in the pre-Oct 7th world, and even though you are correct in pointing out how stacked the odds were against a peaceful settlement (and there's nothing to say that things couldn't have gotten significantly worse during the next US presidential administration either), there was still the faintest possibility. That has been lost. 

And what I'm trying to get across is that even the Palestinian Authority is too "Jew-hating" for Israel to accept even as a US-backed puppet entity in a post-Hamas fake two-state solution, then there was never a path to anything other than a one-state solution under Israel. The settler movement would have eventually pushed all of the West Bank Palestinians out eventually. East Jerusalem would have eventually been purged. The Gaza cleansing would have been last. Israel has been shifting more and more right-wing even before Oct. 7. The only difference is now peaceful coexistence has gone from being a minority position to a nonexistent idea in Israeli society. It was never going to happen. Two-state solution, peaceful coexistence under one state. None of that. The only outcome was ever going to be ethnic cleansing and Israeli expansion.

[hoax]

16 minutes ago, ClashAndBurn said:

And what I'm trying to get across is that even the Palestinian Authority is too "Jew-hating" for Israel to accept even as a US-backed puppet entity in a post-Hamas fake two-state solution, then there was never a path to anything other than a one-state solution under Israel. The settler movement would have eventually pushed all of the West Bank Palestinians out eventually. East Jerusalem would have eventually been purged. The Gaza cleansing would have been last. Israel has been shifting more and more right-wing even before Oct. 7. The only difference is now peaceful coexistence has gone from being a minority position to a nonexistent idea in Israeli society. It was never going to happen. Two-state solution, peaceful coexistence under one state. None of that. The only outcome was ever going to be ethnic cleansing and Israeli expansion.

And that seems like an absolution of Hamas, which I fundamentally disagree with, and I can pretty safely assume you fundamentally disagree with my belief that Hamas bears some responsibility for what is happening in Gaza now. I don't think there's any point in going further in our discussion, but I do appreciate your perspective, since we've basically reached the same conclusion on the inevitability of an outcome from very different starting opinions. 

[Communion]

3 hours ago, ZIVERT said:

If denying Ukraine’s right to defend ourselves from a war Russia chose to start because something something NATO and then back tracking after the Bucha Massacre was unveiled is “pro-Ukraine,” then I guess

 

But a genocide-denying, Stalin apologist cannot be pro-Ukraine out of principle. Ironically, the only time Communion has ever said anything in defense of Jewish people was to push the Russian fascist conspiracy theory that Ukrainians are Nazis.

Sis, this obsession is weird! I'm pretty concerned that you accepted being run out of the thread by 20+ members after your genocide denial yet only return to slander me! I wouldn't be shocked if you were discussing me and talking about me and posting slanderous lies about me both in numerous DMs and outside of ATRL, as well! Do I got be worried? Scrub my profile for any details that could lead one of yall to seek me out in real life? The anger that me not wanting Palestinians to die inspires in some of you is...oh. Like you're not even engaging with me, but literally talking about me?! The personal attacks you have to resort to should probably result in a thread ban because at this point you have no actual opinion to offer besides hating me.

 

My views are middle of the road 60s hippie pacifism. How far gone and blood thirsty are some of you if that makes you want the CIA to put me on a watch list?

 

Also, I'm not really moved by your argument that being ideologically consistent is bad, especially when you didn't even seemingly know who Hamas was 5 years ago when you said Israel was an apartheid state yourself!

 

Your arguments are also contradicting. You say I was pro-Russia for not supporting the US intervening in a foreign conflict, but by your definition, then I am in no way pro-Hamas because I do not support the US intervening in this foreign conflict either!

 

Can you find me a single instance where I ever called for my country - or even any country - to intervene in a conflict, let alone in a way you think shows my bias and reveals what "side" I am on? Spoiler: Joke posts about Biden saying universal healthcare is bad and me going "Xi Jinping, the people of America cry for regime change!" don't count!

Edited December 3, 2023 by Communion