Israel-Gaza war

[Alben Barkley]

Roger Waters called Hamas "the democratically elected government of Gaza," showed up on Hamas TV and spewed a bunch of antisemitic ravings about Sheldon Adelson being the "puppet master" of the US government, etc.

Still can't believe this guy is part of the reason I became so anti-Nazi...

[Alben Barkley]

Hopefully we stay the hell out and don't give Israel a cent.

Hopefully we give Israel , air support

Not our business, not our problem. They're always fighting.

We can help Israel completely destroy Hamas

Who tf cares about Hamas? We have hungry people in America. We're not the world's police.

Please don't go full BG-NY...

[Alben Barkley]

So basically it seems to me that it is almost inevitable Israel will invade and occupy the Gaza Strip.

Just like the US with the Taliban, deposing Hamas won't be the difficult part. That can be taken care of easily enough. Just like back then, the difficult part will be the occupation. You have a population about the size of Chicago (2 million or so people), and almost all hate your guts. So what do you do with them?

The options seem to be:

1. After wiping out Hamas, leave the region back in the hands of the Palestinians. This seems like an easy way to just return to the status quo and have it all happen all over again.

2. Integrate Gaza as a part of Israel, with full citizenship rights for Palestinians. This might sound like a great idea, until you consider those Palestinians will vote overwhelmingly for anti-Israel and anti-Semitic politicians and policies, defeating the purpose and endangering the existence of the Jewish state.

3. Occupy Gaza as essentially an actual apartheid state. Keep martial law indefinitely, do not grant Palestinians full citizenship rights. This would not only pose moral problems, it would likely also turn Israel into an international pariah like South Africa was.

4. Ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from the region, either by forced deportation or worse. This is completely unacceptable for obvious reasons.

So basically, there are no good options. 3 is probably the most likely, and it won't be pretty.

[Alben Barkley]

The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin tonight.

Odd déjà vu... it used to be Blue-Yellow colour scheme back in February of 2022.

Democratic Germany, for its many flaws, didn't have these embarrassing hangups and, unlike the crypto-Nazi West, knew when to stand against colonialism and apartheid.

I feel like a lot of the edgelord online foreign policy contrarians, both tankies and fascists, are motivated not insignificantly by a bizarre desire to not do "cringe" things like unashamedly and openly expressing support for things like liberalism and democracy and Western values and the victims of horrible atrocities. Of course, the irony is that this makes them the most cringe people of all, as they unironically stand up for dictatorships and terrorists and the like.

[Alben Barkley]

Is it too late to bring Jimmy Carter out for the Camp David Accords 2.0?

[Alben Barkley]

Is it too late to bring Jimmy Carter out for the Camp David Accords 2.0?

He'd be given the Folke Bernadotte welcome party.

No chance of an Anwar Sadat welcome party, though?

Man, we could play this stupid game all day, and it appears you've been trying to do just that. Frankly for the sake of your own mental health if nothing else, you probably should be temp-banned, at least from any and all Israel-related boards. You have clogged up practically every thread on this site today as far as I can see with Mel Gibson level lunatic ravings, just from the other side of the aisle (but ironically you share similar views about the Jews). It's genuinely the most second-hand embarrassment I've ever experienced on this site. If it's alcohol-induced, I do sympathize but I can only tell you from personal experience that you need to put down the bottle and just stop. It's not doing you any favors.

[Alben Barkley]

Some posters here seem to agree with an unironic interpretation of Bob Dylan's "Neighborhood Bully:"

Well, the neighborhood bully, he's just one man
His enemies say he's on their land
They got him outnumbered about a million to one
He got no place to escape to, no place to run
He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully he just lives to survive
He's criticized and condemned for being alive
He's not supposed to fight back, he's supposed to have thick skin
He's supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in
He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land
He's wandered the earth an exiled man
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn
He's always on trial for just being born
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad
The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, the chances are against it, and the odds are slim
That he'll live by the rules that the world makes for him
'Cause there's a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, he got no allies to really speak of
What he gets he must pay for, he don't get it out of love
He buys obsolete weapons and he won't be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, he's surrounded by pacifists who all want peace
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease
Now, they wouldn't hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep
He's the neighborhood bully.

Every empire that's enslaved him is gone
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon
He's made a garden of paradise in the desert sand
In bed with nobody, under no one's command
He's the neighborhood bully.

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon
No contract that he signed was worth that what it was written on
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health
He's the neighborhood bully.

What's anybody indebted to him for?
Nothing, they say. He just likes to cause war
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed
They wait for this bully like a dog waits for feed
He's the neighborhood bully.

What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers? Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill
Running out the clock, time standing still
Neighborhood bully.

[Alben Barkley]

We have offered them (the Arabs) a sensible way for so many years. But no, they wanted to fight. Fine! We gave them technology, the latest, the kind even Vietnam didn't have. They had double superiority in tanks and aircraft, triple in artillery, and in air defense and anti-tank weapons they had absolute supremacy. And what? Once again they were beaten. Once again they scrammed. Once again they screamed for us to come save them. Sadat woke me up in the middle of the night twice over the phone, "Save me!" He demanded to send Soviet troops, and immediately! No! We are not going to fight for them.

This in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War 50 years ago.

This time, however, I think the Palestinian militants not only won't have the Russians backing them, they also won't even have the support of the Middle Eastern states except Iran. They're truly f--ked.

[Alben Barkley]

We have offered them (the Arabs) a sensible way for so many years. But no, they wanted to fight. Fine! We gave them technology, the latest, the kind even Vietnam didn't have. They had double superiority in tanks and aircraft, triple in artillery, and in air defense and anti-tank weapons they had absolute supremacy. And what? Once again they were beaten. Once again they scrammed. Once again they screamed for us to come save them. Sadat woke me up in the middle of the night twice over the phone, "Save me!" He demanded to send Soviet troops, and immediately! No! We are not going to fight for them.

This in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War 50 years ago.

This time, however, I think the Palestinian militants not only won't have the Russians backing them, they also won't even have the support of the Middle Eastern states except Iran. They're truly f--ked.

And aren't you just salivating over the coming mass death?

Not at all. I said in this very thread that what's coming won't be pretty at all and will be tragic for all parties involved. I'm tired of your slander of people who disagree with you, and this one seems especially ironic as you seem to have all but been salivating at the mass death Hamas already caused.

Also: I expect you'll be giving up your home in 300+ year "occupied" Philadelphia to a Native American any day now, right?

No?

Then maybe we should be realistic and stop arguing about land claims from the distant past. What's done is done. Whether it was right or wrong, and there's plenty of reason for the Israelis to claim they were wronged first and worse anyway, it's not productive or practical to argue about it now, any more than it would be productive or practical for all white Americans to go back to Europe and leave the land to the Natives. Land has been conquered for literally all of human history, and the solution to that is to stop doing it going forward and to stop caring so much about arbitrary borders. NOT to attack people for what their ancestors did decades or centuries ago, with the implication that you want to try to right a perceived wrong by committing another horrible wrong yourself. As if that's ever worked out in history.

And it's very "funny" how it's always the Jews who seem to get this special treatment from people like you compared to every other nation and people in the world, including your own. They're somehow the "neighborhood bully" for daring to defend their own people, who have been historically wronged worse for longer than arguably anyone else on the planet. Very "funny" indeed, how people like you clearly have zero empathy whatsoever for the victims of the Holocaust or the idea that a people so long hated and persecuted would dare to want a homeland for themselves on their ancestral land. They didn't even demand all of it at first, they just wanted to exist; the only reason their borders even expanded was they were ganged up on by Arab neighbors whose stated aim was to wipe them from the face of the Earth, and against all odds they WON. Multiple times! Then those genocidal anti-Semites and terrorists play the victim card and people like you in the West just lap it up.

Sad!

[Alben Barkley]

https://twitter.com/AnshelPfeffer/status/1712889669183037501?s=20

[Alben Barkley]

Bernie Sanders is refusing to call for a ceasefire, rather a "humanitarian pause" to get supplies into Gaza but he refuses to outright call for the conflict to cease despite immense pressure from the left:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/01/gaza-humanitarian-pause-bernie-sanders

I think he's doing the right thing, of course -- in fact the EXACTLY right thing as my position is practically identical to his on this matter. I will give credit where it's due, and he certainly is doing better than the Squad and even Dick Durbin on this. But I do find it interesting he's not apparently facing as much flak for this stance as mainstream Dems including Biden who have taken essentially the same position.

[Alben Barkley]

But I do find it interesting he's not apparently facing as much flak for this stance as mainstream Dems including Biden who have taken essentially the same position.

Their positions are not the same, but calling for a ceasefire by another name has caught him plenty of flak (for instance, he was in the Onion’s rogues’ gallery of politicians considered too pro-Israel).

Bernie Sanders is refusing to call for a ceasefire, rather a "humanitarian pause" to get supplies into Gaza but he refuses to outright call for the conflict to cease despite immense pressure from the left:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/01/gaza-humanitarian-pause-bernie-sanders

I think he's doing the right thing, of course -- in fact the EXACTLY right thing as my position is practically identical to his on this matter. I will give credit where it's due, and he certainly is doing better than the Squad and even Dick Durbin on this. But I do find it interesting he's not apparently facing as much flak for this stance as mainstream Dems including Biden who have taken essentially the same position.

Bernie has always been too pro-Israel.

1. It's almost like he's Jewish or something and therefore understands why it's so important for Jewish people to have their own state.

2. I didn't realize we were taking The Onion seriously now. I guess that makes sense considering reality is more absurd than any pre-2016 Onion articles ever were.

3. Yes, both Biden and Sanders have called for a "humanitarian pause" so their positions are essentially the same.

[Alben Barkley]

It's worth noting that Netanyahu hates this guy, who repeatedly has challenged him for Likud leadership, and he does not speak for the Israeli government. He's just a bomb-thrower on Twitter.

[Alben Barkley]

It's worth noting that Netanyahu hates this guy, who repeatedly has challenged him for Likud leadership, and he does not speak for the Israeli government. He's just a bomb-thrower on Twitter.

It says UN Ambassador and leader of Likud?

FORMER UN Ambassador, FORMER Minister of Science in Likud. Like 10 years ago. Right now he's just a backbencher.

Indeed Netanyahu fired him as Deputy Minister of Defense some years ago for refusing to accept his ceasefire with Hamas...

[Alben Barkley]

As I said in another thread, this is good news for Biden:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier Tuesday that he had spoken to President Biden in recent days and asked him to help improve the deal. "It was improved so that it will include more hostages for a lower cost," Netanyahu said. "President Biden helped and I thank him for that."

[Alben Barkley]

Confirmed it was Israel now.

Goddamn it. Why?

Netanyahu’s about to lose virtually all his international support, probably including Biden’s.

And for what?

Jesus Christ, man. You had a win!

You killed Iranian officials and all they did was thump their chests in response. It could have been over right then and there.

I was with you all the way to this point but I just can’t do it anymore. This is senseless and stupid.

[Alben Barkley]

Right or wrong , I will stand with Israel . We are not the French or Germans who made us out to be the villains after 9/11 and we should not forget how that made us feel .

Sorry OSR but “My ally, right or wrong” thinking is f—ked up and is how we got things like Reagan siding with the apartheid regime in South Africa for far too long for example.

As the world’s preeminent superpower, we absolutely CAN swing our d—k around. And we can and should do so when it is a net benefit to mankind. BUT we also should never even dream of doing so when it is NOT a good thing for mankind. I hate to literally quote a comic book but the fact remains: With great power comes great responsibility.

Point is, Israel is absolutely our ally, yes. But in this situation, they had already won. They got everything they wanted and then some. Our government begged and pleaded with them to just take the W and not escalate things farther, yet they refused. Some “ally” that is!

I don’t think the people of Israel should be punished for having a megalomaniac for a leader any more than us Americans should have been for Trump. But fact remains their leader right now is a narcissistic asshole and an impediment to world peace. The whole international community needs to put pressure on him to back off and stop swinging his d—k around. Period.