Israel-Gaza war

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Separately, I think the 24 divisions number is misleading. Judea and Samaria have a far larger border with Israel and Israel actually controls the region (and if it didn't, we would probably be seeing this attack also emerge from there), so of course more troops will be located in Judea and Samaria. The question is not why 24 divisions were in Judea and Samaria, but why Israeli troops along the border were taken by surprise and why Hamas was able to make a breach in the first place.

Go to hell.

You have something against using the traditional name for a historic region?

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My hope is that Israel can fully assert control in Gaza swiftly, bring all Hamas members to justice, and establish a reasonable civilian administration for the people of Gaza.

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There is no civilian administration that is possible in Gaza that is friendly to Israel. Establishing rigged elections and hoping westerners buy it isn't gonna work.

Would a Fatah/PLO regime not be more peaceful with Israel than a Hamas regime? I don't what the outcome of a fair election would be, perhaps they might just elect Hamas so Israel could install Fatah undemocratically and it could govern in tandem with the West Bank.

Fatah/PLO explicitly funds lone wolf terrorism via the pay to slay policy so you wouldn't want to back them.

Best head of an interim civilian administration who I can think of would be Mansour Abbas.

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https://twitter.com/ntarnopolsky/status/1711516776666636441?s=46

They should really bring about a national unity government under Bennett. Would be far more competent than Netanyahu as leader

Unfortunately I don't know if it's constitutionally possible to have someone who's not an MK as PM

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Under normal international law the area would belong to Israel anyway. Conquering Gaza is no more (...also no less, I guess) illegal than establishing settlements in the West Bank.

Right- Egypt and Jordan have dropped all claims to Gaza/WB, and there has never been any internationally recognized sovereign Palestinian state, so surely Israel would be the only country with any rights to the area.

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If the Israelis have that hospital and show any tunnels to the world's press, that would probably be a big blow to what is left of Hamas' reputation.

I think you underestimate the ability of a lot of people to blindly oppose Israel despite all evidence

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It's hardly surprising that Palestinians feel this way, even though we'd wish they'd turn on Hamas. It does make the idea of the PA running Gaza look like a bit of a joke, because either way it just ends up feeling like an Israeli occupation. The PA needs to be seriously 'revitalised' to be able to represent the Palestinian people.

The issue is that any Palestinian government which is representative of the Palestinian people is going to be Hamas-led. There's no way to magically stop Hamas being the overwhelmingly favoured option among Palestinians- bear in mind that polling shows most Palestinians in favour of Hamas's actions on 10/7.

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https://twitter.com/AdHaque110/status/1737677067473367294?t=r8mCWCIhPjvsEnJCTDA0...
Down to the leviathans of Micronesia and Nauru.

Even Argentina's crazy new gov voted yea, wow.

Disappointed in the British government for not even being willing to abstain

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This Christmas season, don't just think about Bethlehem 2,023 years ago but think about it being under tyrannical foreign rule right now.
‘Without work and hope’: Bethlehem’s Christmas economy bleeds from Gaza war

The PA's rule may be tyrannical but I'm not sure you can describe it as foreign.

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This Christmas season, don't just think about Bethlehem 2,023 years ago but think about it being under tyrannical foreign rule right now.
‘Without work and hope’: Bethlehem’s Christmas economy bleeds from Gaza war

The PA's rule may be tyrannical but I'm not sure you can describe it as foreign.

Gosh you're delusional if you think the PA are sovereign anywhere in Palestine.

I don't see how anyone can deny that the PA is currently in control of much of Judea, including Bethlehem. The government in the area holds elections to the PA rather than to the Knesset, no Jews are able to safely reside there as is the case in the rest of PA-occupied Judea, etc

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Benjamin Netanyahu

Merry Christmas

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1RwkWWNtT2/

He may be corrupt but at least he's a good speaker.

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https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hamas-islamic-jihad-reject-giving-up-power-return-permanent-ceasefire-egyptian-2023-12-25/

Hamas rejects a permanent ceasefire proposal. I'm sure the "pro Palestine" protestors will respond by protesting against Hamas...

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Glad this thread has turned into a bickering argument between 2 ppl. You two should both do something that starts with an f and has 4 letters, it would ease a lot of the tension here.

This person has long been delusional on here. He thinks if we stop any military assistance to Israel that Iran will invade, conquer the country quickly.

Not Iran- a dissolution of the US-Israeli alliance would likely lead to Egypt and Jordan quickly flipping to anti-Israel positions and literally all of Israel's neighbours invading, in which sheer numbers mean that unfortunately I doubt the Israeli state would stand much chance of survival.

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https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-775777

These sort of things spell the end for Hamas. Basically, the IDF will give no credibility to any or all of the people in Gaza pretending to be from UN related functions.

Cannot wait to see what Egypt and Jordan say after this war about their lack of co-operation and help for the basic Palestinians on the ground.

Unfortunately Egypt and Jordan, like the UN, are unlikely to be held accountable. There are many examples of the UN being institutionally antisemitic (e.g. Unesco erasing Jewish history in Israel) but as long as people do not wish to hold them accountable, they won't be.

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I can't speak for anyone else but my position is simple: Hamas are terrorists and the IDF are far worse than terrorists. They're currently engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against an imprisoned and dispossessed indigenous population and have committed countless atrocities that make October 7th look like a professional military operation with minimal collateral damage. If the international community and Israel's American handlers refuse to act then the only alternative to prevent the extermination of the Gazans is for the IDF to receive a military humiliation at the hands of Hamas and the dozen other local militias. That isn't "support for terrorism" any more than supporting the Soviets over the Nazis makes you a "supporter of Stalinism".

I have an honest question for people pushing the "ethnic cleansing" angle. The Gaza Strip is mostly made up of refugee camps, and even though the people have been there for a long time now, they don't identify with it as a permanent home but instead as temporary camps where they are living until they can return to Israel (hence the name "camp" in most of the neighbourhoods of Gaza). In 2015, over 70% of the population of the Gaza Strip was registered with the UNRWA as refugees.

Generally the very nature of a refugee camp is that it is temporary and that resettling the refugees in long-term accommodation is a goal. After all, having over two million people living in a tiny refugee camp is hardly sustainable long term. So even if people end up having to leave the Gaza refugee camp for long term accommodation in other countries willing to take them in, how is that any different to the dismantling of the Calais Jungle?

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Israel's chief media whip on Fox News suggests Israel will move 2 Million Gazans to South America, Europe and other regions to get de-radicalised before cleaning out all of the military capability in Gaza.

Shipping Gazans Overseas

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1Y97D5OyUt/

Israel's main game now is de-radicalizing the Islamists from Gaza who have 'lost their way'.

This doesn't solve the fundamental issue of finding a country willing to accept refugees from Gaza.

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Israel would be cool with cash compensation. Although without a peace agreement, any cash compensation will surely go to build more bombs.

Arafat's legacy does matter in terms of where we are now, right of return really makes no sense when every town is completely different than it was in 1948. It is more productive to build permanent homes for Palestinians (West Bank has plenty of space to build assuming Israel tears down the settlements 20 miles inside and I assume any treaty would give Gazans the right to move there). I just don't think the college campus "river to the sea" rhetoric is one bit productive.

Realistically though, is giving a population of people who has high rates of antisemitism control of a highland region within ten miles of most major Israeli cities actually a good idea? Even in the event of a peace agreement being signed, the opinions of average Palestinians aren't necessarily going to change.

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Israel would be cool with cash compensation. Although without a peace agreement, any cash compensation will surely go to build more bombs.

Arafat's legacy does matter in terms of where we are now, right of return really makes no sense when every town is completely different than it was in 1948. It is more productive to build permanent homes for Palestinians (West Bank has plenty of space to build assuming Israel tears down the settlements 20 miles inside and I assume any treaty would give Gazans the right to move there). I just don't think the college campus "river to the sea" rhetoric is one bit productive.

Realistically though, is giving a population of people who has high rates of antisemitism control of a highland region within ten miles of most major Israeli cities actually a good idea? Even in the event of a peace agreement being signed, the opinions of average Palestinians aren't necessarily going to change.

Any successful two-state solution will be predicated on Palestinians relinquishing all claims to land outside the 1967 borders. Israel will not agree to any deal if there is a possibility of it becoming a Gaza 2.0 situation. But there’s never going to be a unilateral withdrawal where they just give control to Palestinians, while Palestinians still want to destroy Israel.

Okay, so there's a peace deal with a Palestinian governing political party who's quite politically astute and agrees to a two state solution under the 1967 ceasefire line and drops territorial claims... and as a fully independent state they re-arm... and sooner or later there's some discontent with their government and a more radical one is elected and they decide to revive the old territorial claim and attack Israel. And Israel is defenseless thanks to most of their population being within a few miles of the highland area full of Palestinian military presence.

Why would any Israelis accept this? They will be well aware that is a likely course of events.

So what's your solution? Presumably just kill or expel them all??

Alternatively, a workable peace agreement is the best chance we have of many Palestinians outlook changing for the better - though nobody should expect miracles.

Casually raising genocide as an option is odd.

No, the least bad option is probably full incorporation of the West Bank into Israel with all of the Palestinian population there who want to be Israeli citizens getting it, and having the same rights as the rest of the Arab citizens of Israel. Arbitrary partitions on ethnic lines never tend to work well. Perhaps also involving autonomous regions similar to Srpska in Bosnia, though that might not work well given the current tensions between Srpska and the Bosnian government.

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To highlight the barbaric scale of destruction in Gaza, nearly 70% of all homes there are either destroyed or damaged. Yes, 70%.

Hamas could have unconditionally surrendered at any time and thereby prevented all of this, but they would never do that as they hate Jews more than they care for Palestinians.

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Do you just ever like...acknowledge the 50+ years of occupation, colonization, and economic repression of Palestine or do you just not care?

Palestine is a synonym for the whole land of Israel which is home to several native groups including people who identify as Israelis and people who identify as Palestinians. Claiming that Israel occupies Palestine is like claiming Israel occupies Canaan or that Spain occupies Iberia, it makes no sense. Yes, Israel exists in a region that is also known as Palestine. That is not an occupation.

There is no internationally-well-recognized independent state called "Palestine" and nor has there ever been- in 1967 (which is what I presume you are referring to by "50+ years" ago) Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip from Jordan and Egypt respectively, but those places dropped their claims so you can't even say Israel is occupying Jordan/Egypt.

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This is such a bad faith arguement. Going by your philosophy, there's no such thing as a "Taiwan" and the PRC should have free reign to take over. No oppressed people are allowed to form their own government because welp....shoulda had a country already! Regardless, even if we buy that Israel isn't occupying the West Bank, they are denying basic civil/political rights of the Palestinian Arabs who live there. One ethnic group is prioritized over the other and again, for some reason, most on here seem to be fine with that.

"Palestine" is not the West Bank. The extent of the geographic region of Palestine also covers all of Israel, and in fact Palestinians who are Israeli citizens (of whom there are millions) have full civil rights in Israel. I do agree there should be an easier pathway for Palestinians living in the West Bank to gain Israeli citizenship in the event of Israel deciding to retain long-term control of the region, though.

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Oh, well, as long as there’s an “easier” pathway. If Israel is going to control the West Bank, why not just make the people who live there citizens? If Israel doesn’t want to accept them as citizens, why should it be allowed to control the WB?

Well, legally the West Bank is still under military control rather than incorporated into Israel. Probably thanks to international pressure stopping them from proceeding with direct incorporation for now, but it really needs to happen rather than leaving the West Bank in a state of perpetual territorial ambiguity which it has been in for a long time.

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Well, it certainly foes seem like a number of people on here are pro-Likud, despite them constantly saying they are not.

Moreso that there's little difference between Likud and the establishment center right bloc (Yesh Atid, National Unity) when it comes to Gaza. The primary differences are over settlements. Even center/center left Meretz is quite hawkish.

Well yes, nobody relevant in Israel is going to take the position that you should just stop fighting against Hamas. Israelis are very united in wanting Hamas gone- after all, Hamas killed Jews indiscriminately including killing left-wing peace activists like Vivian Silver.

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The plan to emigrate 2 million people from Gaza has more holes then Swiss cheese. There are no countries that will take this many people and people won't leave voluntarily.

I'm quite sure I recall back in October a large number of Gazan civilians attempting to flee to Egypt only to be forcibly blocked from doing so, with only the dual nationals being allowed out.

I would actually have thought that the majority of people there would, given the chance, immediately take the opportunity to leave.

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The plan to emigrate 2 million people from Gaza has more holes then Swiss cheese. There are no countries that will take this many people and people won't leave voluntarily.

I'm quite sure I recall back in October a large number of Gazan civilians attempting to flee to Egypt only to be forcibly blocked from doing so, with only the dual nationals being allowed out.

I would actually have thought that the majority of people there would, given the chance, immediately take the opportunity to leave.

I'm sure a majority would leave given the chance. I'm also sure the people most likely to cause problems in the future won't leave.
That still leaves the problem of which countries exactly are taking 2 million people.

Few countries tend to voluntarily offer to take refugees but there are plenty which have the ability, e.g. Algeria could manage without difficulty