Israel-Gaza war

[All Along The Watchtower]

Does anyone know what the Arabs Israelis citizens think of this conflict?
At the same time they are culturally close to the Palestinians but on the other hand they are being targeted as well but Hamas terrorist attacks.

Good question. I would like to know as well.

[All Along The Watchtower]

So…a rather underrated motivation for Hamas attacking Israel when they did wasn’t a looming Israeli-Saudi deal per se but the Saudis providing a substantial amount of money to the Palestinian Authority as part of said Israeli-Saudi deal.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Collective punishment will continue I guess.

[All Along The Watchtower]

How far are we from the Final Solution to the Palestinian Question?

What an absolutely gross, moronic, despicable comment, and I say that as someone who rather dislikes Israel in terms of its policies and its politics, and certainly dislikes my country’s level of support for Israel (again, in terms of both policy and politics—especially the latter).

Just because there are and have been cynical, bad-faith accusations of anti-Semitism coming from the pro-Israel side does not mean that there isn’t plenty of anti-Semitism coming from the “pro-Palestinian” side. Your little quip here brazenly crosses the line into the latter. Do better.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Totally shocked by the tenor of discussion over the past few pages, given the thread subj…

ahahaha no, of course I’m not.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Another one bites the dust.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67914727

Wissam al-Tawil has been nullified on Lebanese soil.

The Israeli's are sending a strong message to Hezbollah about their potential vulnerability.

Or a strong message that they should get more involved in the conflict and attack Israel from the north. Obviously that carries significant risks for Hezbollah—though, I suspect Hezbollah‘s relative restraint thus far has less to do with them not wanting to fight Israel, and more them (and Iran) not wanting to jeopardize their power within Lebanon itself.

It’s important to stress that Lebanese Hezbollah is the key proxy for Iran’s “Axis of Resistance”; without them, Iran’s external projection of force across the region (and world) is seriously degraded.

[All Along The Watchtower]

So a Palestinian gives you their opinion on the whole thing-which us going to have significantly more personal insight that most of us the rest of us-and you just want to rubbish them and pretend they're an idiot?

Well you can’t expect Palestinians to have things worth saying, a majority support Hamas after all, unlike some guy in Washington who clearly knows more about the Palestinian territories than anyone living there or with family there.

/s

[All Along The Watchtower]

Re: MENA and democracies other than Israel, I would say Lebanon is a very flawed sort of (??) democracy (although it's in dire shape as a country in general), Tunisia as a country that had democratic promise but is rapidly backsliding under its current President, Turkey as an increasingly authoritarian hybrid regime (also backsliding under its Prime Minister-turned-President), and Kuwait as the least authoritarian of the MENA monarchies, followed by Morocco and Jordan (still not democracies ofc).

[All Along The Watchtower]

But many Palestinians were forced out. Precisely how many is a matter of heated dispute and competing propaganda narratives, but that forced expulsions did occur is a matter of historical fact.

[All Along The Watchtower]

If the building was used by a university to promote opposing Zionism, then I am not sorry to see it go. The future of Palestinian nationalism must not be anti-Zionist.

*Well, the UNRWA, but the distinction between them can be elided for most purposes.

Imagine being this full of arrogance, delusion, contempt, and hatred. But then, I suppose sentiments like this are utterly normalized in "the only democracy in the Middle East"

Rogue state.

[All Along The Watchtower]

@prageru

hmm

[All Along The Watchtower]

heres the solution, make the UK sort this out. they got us into this mess, they can fix the mess that they started

I’m afraid that, and with all due respect to our British forum members, the UK is rather less powerful on the global stage than was the case a century ago.

[All Along The Watchtower]

During the Israeli strikes on Gaza, many leftists said that this military operation was not about self defense, but a plan to occupy Gaza forever.

Now, it's not only the leftists who are doing this statement. Ministers of Netanyahu administration attended an event about a permanent Israeli occupation in Gaza
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/01/29/israeli-ministers-join-thousands-of-settlers-in-calling-for-colonization-of-gaza/

So long as Palestinian liberationism exists, occupying Gaza is about self-defense. Your first sentence implies a contradiction.

The 1948 war was Arab self-defense then. 

[All Along The Watchtower]

heres the solution, make the UK sort this out. they got us into this mess, they can fix the mess that they started

That's a bit of a stretch. Like yes, if the British government in the 1930s hadn't pandered to Arab xenophobia and restricted Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany from seeking refuge in the Levant, then far more Jews would have survived and ended up in Israel, and it is unlikely that a Palestinian state would have ever been considered viable. But any other colonial administrator like the Ottomans would have probably made the same decision that the UK did there.

And if Britain had actually self-determination in the Middle East in 1918 rather than turning the region into a number of a de facto colonies, the resulting independent state (or states) would never have allowed Jewish immigration to the level that an Israeli state was ever viable, avoiding the whole conflict in the first place.

Why would there have been any expectation that the Palestinians/Arabs welcome European Jewish refugees, to say nothing of a full fledged Jewish state? Seems like the fault and responsibility there lies with the Europeans who would soon embrace or be conquered by fascists and Nazis before carrying out the Holocaust.

[All Along The Watchtower]

at this point you basically sound like a 19th century Manifest Destiny proponent wondering when the Noble Red Savages will finally get out of the way

Well, he is an Andrew Jackson fan...

[All Along The Watchtower]

Oh, to have the level of optimism and delusional certainty that Vosem has...

Gotta admit, seems like it would be fun.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Biden's response to this all since October has been an unmitigated disaster. His confident proclamation this week that a truce was coming ended up as a nothingness and he's still unwilling to act like the leader of tge superpower he is. He's protecting Netanyahu while killing his reelection chances

 Netanyahu definitely wants Trump back in office.

Which makes Biden’s support all the more absurd.

Though to be honest, we shouldn’t be surprised. Biden’s always had a lot of views on foreign policy in line with the Beltway Blob, including being reflexively and staunchly pro-Israel, and he had already expanded upon Trump-Kushner’s so-called Abraham Accords long before October 7th. Furthermore, he allowed himself to be bullied by Saudi Arabia’s Son-King, who now enjoys a level of power and impunity that he didn’t even have under Trump. So much for making the Kingdom “a global pariah.”

I guess Biden got scared by the deranged freakout over Obama’s Iran deal by Israel, the Gulf monarchies, and their lobbyist sh-itheads in Washington, as well as the intense backlash over his own administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal (which was admittedly a humiliating and horrifying fiasco in the way it went—no sense in denying that). Still, as unsurprising as it might be, it is so depressing that both of America’s major political parties continue to double down on the same indefensible and frankly, stupid policies in the Middle East. And obviously a Trump comeback would be even worse—considerably worse. Ugh.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Whatever the truth of that may be, it’s rather off-topic to this thread IMO. Yes, I know I’ve been guilty of this too, but it doesn’t mean we can’t improve the quality of discussion about the ongoing Israel-Gaza war—though considering the countries involved, I’m not getting my hopes up about that.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Are there any decent estimates of how many Hamas/PIJ et al, commanders are left? Surely they've taken heavy casualties.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Are there any decent estimates of how many Hamas/PIJ et al, commanders are left? Surely they've taken heavy casualties.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Israel violating UN resolution by dropping bombs on Rafah.

https://twitter.com/mhdksafa/status/1772780840134553885

No more weapons.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Israel violating UN resolution by dropping bombs on Rafah.

https://twitter.com/mhdksafa/status/1772780840134553885

No more weapons.

Unless the US has a way to get the hostages back, cutting off Israel won't stop the war, it will only escalate it. Biden knows this.

Israel doesn't need US weapons to starve the Palestinians.

Right, so why give them any more at all?

[All Along The Watchtower]

Israel violating UN resolution by dropping bombs on Rafah.

https://twitter.com/mhdksafa/status/1772780840134553885

No more weapons.

Unless the US has a way to get the hostages back, cutting off Israel won't stop the war, it will only escalate it. Biden knows this.

Israel doesn't need US weapons to starve the Palestinians.

Right, so why give them any more at all?

Because the closer Israel gets to being backed into a corner, the more is on the table.

Unless the US wants to get on the ground and liberate the hostages themselves, they would be very stupid to end their partnership with Israel.

The US needs to sell Israel weapons to have a partnership with them? That's the same practice that defines the US relationships with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and all the other despots we backed during the Cold War. I suppose the relationship with Israel makes sense as part of that. And we do lead the world in the global arms trade, so that also tracks.

Seems a lot more stupid for the US to be complicit in other countries' war crimes. Makes it harder for much of the world to take the "rules-based international order" and "democracy vs dictatorships" rhetoric seriously, or to gain broader support for Ukraine, or compete with China and Russia for influence.

[All Along The Watchtower]

And it will end when Hamas is no longer holding Israeli hostages.

Well that could well happen the way things are going on account of the remaining Israeli hostages being dead. Certainly more likely without a sustained cease-fire!

Israel can't be forced into a surrender here.

All the more reason to cut them off. Especially given the hysterical language of “surrender.” Really it’s the Palestinians who can’t be forced into a surrender no matter how many Israel kills.

All the special pleading in the world won't change the fact that Hamas started this war with an act of unprecedented barbarism

Seems to me the special pleading is coming from those who want the US and other “Western, rule of law, liberal democracies” to support Israel. And on a global scale, there was nothing unprecedented about the barbarity of what Hamas did on October 7th.

and Israel will finish it no matter what it takes.

Again, all the more reason to cut them off.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Israel is the most likely country in the world to launch a renegade nuke and it's not remotely close.

I think it would be the US under a Trump Restoration, assuming that that happens.

The US remains the only country to use them, after all, and we threatened using them at multiple points during the Cold War. And Trump arguably threatened to nuke North Korea before he “fell in love” with Kim Jong Un.