Israel is pitching to US Congress a plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza in a second Nakba

[John Dule]

Anyone paying attention to Likud's rhetoric lately knew that this was coming. They no longer see a two-state solution as viable. Their plan is to depopulate the Gaza Strip completely, and the West Bank is probably next.

[John Dule]

Ideally, Gaza should just be fully integrated into Egypt.

Not going to happen so long as Egypt doesn't want Gaza and your beloved Bibi wants more land.

[John Dule]

But I guess it would be a second Nakba in a certain sense, since the first one was also people voluntarily leaving a government they didn't want to live under.

This is like saying the Trail of Tears was voluntary. Jesus Christ.

[John Dule]

But I guess it would be a second Nakba in a certain sense, since the first one was also people voluntarily leaving a government they didn't want to live under.

This is like saying the Trail of Tears was voluntary. Jesus Christ.

No, there is a difference between being forced out by a government and leaving because you don't want to live under a particular regime. Plenty of Israeli Arabs stayed, precisely because there were not expulsions by force. (They were, incidentally, economically and politically better off afterwards.) Leaving because you fear that the new regime will commit reprisals is sad, but it isn't forced expulsion, especially because the new regime didn't commit those reprisals. It is more analogous to something like Loyalists fleeing after the American Revolution; it was unfortunate but it was not, actually, caused by deliberate policy on the part of the United States, and those that stayed were ultimately fine. The reason for it was political conviction.

This is an interesting dispute because in discussions with Palestinian-Americans in the real world -- as mentioned before I went to high school in a decently heavily Arab-American community -- I've never heard pushback on the point that their ancestors left because of fear of the new regime (or literally for the purpose of joining political movements which opposed it), rather than being forced out, but on the Internet I invariably get linked to various small-r revisionist post-Cold War historians and told that this is the most offensive opinion it is possible to hold.

Saying the Palestinians left during the Nakba because "they didn't want to live under a particular regime" is a nauseating whitewash of the destruction of villages, the poisoning of Arab wells, mass rape, unlawful imprisonment, and the massacre of villagers. Yeah, the reprisals didn't continue afterwards... because Israel got what it wanted. If the Palestinians had stayed, there is little doubt in my mind that Zionist militias would have continued to harass and torment them. If you think it vindicates your argument to say that the Israeli military didn't literally march them out of the land at gunpoint, then good for you I guess. But that is hardly the point.

It's becoming increasingly clear that Israel defenders cannot possibly justify their positions without engaging in absurd historical revisionism or erasure. You are not helping your cause with these posts. Every time I read something like this, I become more pro-Palestine.

[John Dule]

The counterfactual here isn’t necessary because the counterfactual exists: many stayed behind and were not, in any way, harassed to emigrate. The argument that they were deliberately expelled is a conspiracy-theory one because no evidence for such a conspiracy has ever been found.

This only makes sense if you believe that Israel's goal was to expel every last Arab from its land. Israel wanted to seize land and ensure a Jewish majority in that new territory, and they had no problem with treating the Arab minority well so long as that was the case. Again, all this means is that the Nakba accomplished its essential goal of expelling the vast majority of Palestinians.

The eviction of Arab civilians was a goal of the Ben-Gurion government and it devoted substantial resources to achieving that end, even if it was not explicitly stated outright. This is the definition of ethnic cleansing. There is no "conspiracy" involved. All one must do is look at the public historical record (not even factoring in the elements that Israel has tried to conceal). I'm not sure what possible counterargument one could make to this.

[John Dule]

Dule at worst you can say Likud are Cheney style neocons but that’s still obviously better than being literally the Islamist version of Nazis (and yes Palestinian extremism has a direct link to Hitler) so please stop with false equivalency.   Even if you think both sides are bad , what the British did with their empire is far far worse than anything Israel has done yet they were obviously the good guys vs the Nazis because good is a relative comparison .

Saying you oppose both sides is a complete false equivalence here and you should know better than to do that

You can keep coming in with your "crosstabs" about "Palestinian public opinion" all you want. It will not win over anyone aside from your fellow extremely online Indian Zionist weirdos. To everyone else, comparing civilians who are being bombed and expelled from their homes to the most evil regime in human history will always be in poor taste. 

Don't worry-- when Israel finally enacts its final solution outlined in the OP, I will no longer "both sides" this conflict. I will be outright pro-Palestine.

[John Dule]

Dule at worst you can say Likud are Cheney style neocons but that’s still obviously better than being literally the Islamist version of Nazis (and yes Palestinian extremism has a direct link to Hitler) so please stop with false equivalency.   Even if you think both sides are bad , what the British did with their empire is far far worse than anything Israel has done yet they were obviously the good guys vs the Nazis because good is a relative comparison .

Saying you oppose both sides is a complete false equivalence here and you should know better than to do that

You can keep coming in with your "crosstabs" about "Palestinian public opinion" all you want. It will not win over anyone aside from your fellow extremely online Indian Zionist weirdos. To everyone else, comparing civilians who are being bombed and expelled from their homes to the most evil regime in human history will always be in poor taste. 

Don't worry-- when Israel finally enacts its final solution outlined in the OP, I will no longer "both sides" this conflict. I will be outright pro-Palestine.

Palestinian Extremism has direct links to Hitler and Nazis and its government is run by adherents to that ideology. So yes it is completely fair to compare them to Nazis because they have direct link to the Nazis and denying this is completely morally disgusting in every way possible. Anyway Israel bombing of Gaza is far less extensive than our bombing of Germany in 1945 so your point is false to begin with as well .

Even if you could prove empirically that every Arab resident of Gaza was an antisemitic neo-Nazi (which is ridiculous), that would not justify their mass murder and expulsion from their homes. We are not talking about civilians living in a country we have declared war on. We are talking about civilians who are being used as human shields by a terrorist organization that is deliberately trying to get as many innocents caught in the crossfire as possible to strengthen their own propaganda. And Israel is taking that bait without any reservation, egged on by Netanyahu and his land-grabbing cronies.

Neither Hamas nor Likud care about the lives of Palestinian civilians. This is a situation that cannot be defined as anything but "both sides are bad."

[John Dule]

Their plan is literally trying to reduce as many civilian casualties as possible by trying to convince neighbors countries to accept residents of Gaza into their nation . Literally all this plan does is condition US aid to Egypt , Jordan , Iraq on them accepting refugees from Gaza which isn’t ethnic cleansing by any definition. It is actually propaganda to call it that so please stop .

Do me a favor: Look at the numbers in the OP. Assuming those accurately reflect what's being proposed-- 1 million refugees to Egypt, 500k to Turkey, and 250k each to Iraq and Yemen-- then that accounts for the entire population of the Gaza strip. This is not Israel attempting to set up "refugee corridors" for people who might want to flee voluntarily. This is very obviously a first step towards expelling every single last resident of Gaza.

There is also no reason to believe that this report is inaccurate, as it comes from a conservative Israeli news outlet that is a staunch Netanyahu supporter.

Please explain to me how this is not ethnic cleansing in the making. I would love to hear your tortured logic stretch itself to its absolute breaking point.

[John Dule]

It clearly states it won’t be forced though.

Right, just like how the Nakba wasn't forced I guess Israel can cut off electricity, drinking water, basic emergency services, foreign aid, and imports of medical and other essential supplies... but if the Palestinians want to leave, it's ultimately their choice. Don't make me laugh.

I have a question for you and that is if Likud was a genocidal as you claim then why have they even bothered with doing a ground invasion rather than just completely carpet bomb Gaza beginning on 10/8.

Doesn’t the fact they are doing a ground invasion and not conducting a bombing campaign even as extensive as our bombing campaign against ISIS show that they aren’t genocidal

Look at how world opinion has turned against Israel in the past two months, and then ask yourself how much worse the situation would be if Israel were to simply level Gaza. I doubt if even the bowtied neocons you worship would continue to support Likud if it wiped out two million people in one fell swoop. Honestly, could you bring yourself to justify such an action? If Israel were to lose the support of even people like you, it would become a pariah state overnight. It is ultimately still completely dependent upon support from the United States, and while it has jeopardized that support, it cannot take any action that would eliminate it.

Now answer my question: What possible motive could Israel have for suggesting refugee allocations equivalent to the entire population of Gaza aside from depopulating Gaza? And if that were to happen, why would that not be ethnic cleansing?

[John Dule]

1. The plan clearly would be in coordination with the US government

Yeah, duh, because it depends on us cutting off aid if these countries refuse to take the refugees. What's your point?

2. No I wouldn’t be able to support them if they did that but would they care what the US thought if they were as bad as you say they were . Genocidal leaders don’t care about world opinion as much and they probably would try to openly court Russia or China in this case or would think they could court them as these types of leaders are extremely arrogant

Genocidal leaders absolutely do care about the opinions of their benefactors, because they depend upon them for their existence. Israel has no one else to turn to; the US is the most powerful country on Earth, and Russia and China are not nearly as invested in it, nor do they have anything to gain by aligning themselves with a tiny country that is outright hated by all its neighbors.

3. I reject the premise that world has turned on them . The US is more supportive of Israel than it was prior to the 1990s . India is more supportive of Israel than they ever have been and arguably so is most of Western Europe .

There have been protests across Europe and the US against Israel's actions for the past two months. These protests have dwarfed those supporting Israel.

In any case, this isn't essential to my point. I am simply saying that Likud has had to restrain itself in order to appease western interests. There are dozens of Likud politicians who have suggested simply flattening Gaza; I don't know if those voices would have won out under different circumstances, but you cannot deny that they exist.

4. Look at the plan proposed by Henry Morgenthau for what the Allies should do to post WW2 Germany and you can see even we have floated absolutely horrible plans as well . What mattered was it wasn’t implemented and neither will this one

Ok, then let's not let it get to that point. I think it's clear from the rhetoric coming from Likud politicians and ministers that Israel is close to taking some sort of drastic action with Gaza (whether it's the one outlined in the OP or not). Can we agree that Netanyahu and all his cronies should be expelled from office so as to prevent them from acting on the ideas they've floated?

[John Dule]

1. yes and we probably may consider it for a more limited and more workable plan than the one floated here . We will likely propose a much more humanitarian way to do this and implement that plan

2. That’s true but you also have to agree they are far more arrogant to think they won’t lose support or will get support from others . Israel also has a good deal amount of nukes so such a leader may think they wouldn’t need the support from the US either .

3. As the summer of 2020 shows , big protests doesn’t mean public support . What matters at the end of the day are what the policy makers in each nation supports and the summer of 2020 showed them that they don’t need to go along with the opinions of large and intense protests.

I do not deny that but I would point you to also Lindsey Graham rhetoric here or the rhetoric of many neoconservative politicians that didn’t end up actually taking place . At the end of the day what the military leadership does matters more when it comes to individual battles or operations .

4. Israel has brought in many opposition parties into the wartime cabinet so Likud already has less power than they did before and Bibi probably will be removed before post war plans are implemented

I don't think Israel wants to be a Jewish North Korea, which is what it would become if it committed a genocide or used its nukes. Still, even despite the damage it would do to Israel's position in the world, high-level Likud ministers are floating ideas like these. That has got to make you pause and reconsider your support.

I'm not sure what you're referring to when you mention Lindsey Graham, as he's said so many insane things. As a general rule though, I feel the same way about American politicians who endorse invading or nuking sovereign countries for no reason whatsoever, or committing acts of ethnic cleansing. This is why your comparisons to Bush/Cheney are so laughable to me: I want both of those men tried and executed by the Hague.

I hope you're correct that Likud will never be able to enact any of these policies. My concern is that even if Israel loses its faith in Netanyahu, a new right-wing government will eventually come in, and they will still carry with them the ultimate goal of "solving" the Gaza problem once and for all.

[John Dule]

I don't think this discussion needs to get bogged down in the question of how public opinion is evolving on Israel, because that was pretty ancillary to the argument I made in this thread. Regardless of what public opinion is now, it's indisputable that an all-out depopulation of Gaza would lose Israel the majority of its western support.

“Anti death penalty”

If you were to actually read my past comments on why I oppose the death penalty, you'd see why this is consistent with my views.