Israel-Gaza war

[Devils30]

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.

[Devils30]

Accusing anyone who doubts Israel is telling the unvarnished truth is not wanting to mass murder Jews.

This is true. There are plenty of people that doubt Israel about various things in good faith, and we should all be mindful of this.

However, it appears, at least to me, that pppolitics is not one of them.

We know this because back in this post a few pages ago, in this post, I asked pppolitics to clarify https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=566181.msg9330289#msg9330289

my reading of your use of the large font, bold, and exclamation mark is that you are happy about your (perception) that Hamas has won and you consider it a good thing.

Is that an accurate reflection of your intentions, or did you mean to convey some other sort of message?

...

I hope you will clarify that you do NOT support Hamas and that you condemn their actions in which they have deliberately murdered civilians

Unfortunately pppolitics declined to do so, which would seem to indicate that pppolitics does in fact support Hamas' action in which they deliberately murdered civilians.

This does not necessarily mean that pppolitics "is wanting to mass murder Jews," in your words, because supporting mass murder does not necessarily mean that pppolitics would directly commit in murder him/herself. In other words, pppolitics appears to be a supporter of terrorism, but being a supporter is not necessarily the same thing as being an actual terrorist, though it certainly isn't good.

However, it does appear to imply that, as Chancellor Tanterterg said, pppolitics is "only in this to cheerlead the mass murder of (((Jews)))."

If any of this is wrong, I would encourage pppolitics to correct the record.

Wait wait wait.

Are you saying that I support Hamas because I wrote “Hamas has won” in bold?

Talking about jumping to conclusions.

Israel said that it’s going to continue the war in Gaza until it wins.

My point is that this is nonsense because Hamas has already won (and Israel already lost).

Israel is continuing the war in Gaza to try to save face.

This has nothing to do with justice. Israel is just extracting revenge on civilians.

And just to be clear, I already said this before

Israel isn't fighting Hamas. It already lost.

Israel is just continuing to exact revenge on civilians to try to save face.

You are a leftist thug, plain and simple.

[Devils30]

Accusing anyone who doubts Israel is telling the unvarnished truth is not wanting to mass murder Jews.

This is true. There are plenty of people that doubt Israel about various things in good faith, and we should all be mindful of this.

However, it appears, at least to me, that pppolitics is not one of them.

We know this because back in this post a few pages ago, in this post, I asked pppolitics to clarify https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=566181.msg9330289#msg9330289

my reading of your use of the large font, bold, and exclamation mark is that you are happy about your (perception) that Hamas has won and you consider it a good thing.

Is that an accurate reflection of your intentions, or did you mean to convey some other sort of message?

...

I hope you will clarify that you do NOT support Hamas and that you condemn their actions in which they have deliberately murdered civilians

Unfortunately pppolitics declined to do so, which would seem to indicate that pppolitics does in fact support Hamas' action in which they deliberately murdered civilians.

This does not necessarily mean that pppolitics "is wanting to mass murder Jews," in your words, because supporting mass murder does not necessarily mean that pppolitics would directly commit in murder him/herself. In other words, pppolitics appears to be a supporter of terrorism, but being a supporter is not necessarily the same thing as being an actual terrorist, though it certainly isn't good.

However, it does appear to imply that, as Chancellor Tanterterg said, pppolitics is "only in this to cheerlead the mass murder of (((Jews)))."

If any of this is wrong, I would encourage pppolitics to correct the record.

Wait wait wait.

Are you saying that I support Hamas because I wrote “Hamas has won” in bold?

Talking about jumping to conclusions.

Israel said that it’s going to continue the war in Gaza until it wins.

My point is that this is nonsense because Hamas has already won (and Israel already lost).

Israel is continuing the war in Gaza to try to save face.

This has nothing to do with justice. Israel is just extracting revenge on civilians.

And just to be clear, I already said this before

Israel isn't fighting Hamas. It already lost.

Israel is just continuing to exact revenge on civilians to try to save face.

You are a leftist thug, plain and simple.

For what?

Practicing my 1st amendment right?

You are an anti-constitution fascist, plain and simple.

I'm a Biden voter for christ sakes, if I am fascist then I hate to inform you that another 47% of the United States is even more fascist! The Israel/Palestine debate as far as US support has nothing to do with the constitution, it is purely a matter of policy. Yes, you can be a leftist thug and freely express your opinion under the 1st amendment. White nationalists do it from the right all the time.

I find atheist supporters of the Hamas cause fascinating, it makes no sense. The only reason why people on the left even care about this conflict is the obsession of academia. It is disappointing to see leftist Dems become as brain-dead as MAGA Republicans. If Hamas had real power, leftists like you would absolutely make excuses when they killed 1-2 million Jews.

Your posts are obsessively anti-Israel. Outside of the past dozen or so posts, I mostly comment on things like redistricting, state/local trends and not I-P.

[Devils30]

One thing I would like to add.

Let me present the following axioms that I would guess most anti-Israel liberals would agree with:

1) Hamas is an evil organization, and their elimination would be a great good for the world

2) What Hamas did on October 7 was so egregiously evil that it makes their destruction a matter of immediate urgency

3) The only way to destroy Hamas is via military action

4) Israel has been genocidal, or at least indiscriminate and brutal, in their treatment of the Palestinians over the course of this conflict, in a way that is completely unnecessary and avoidable

5) Israel's conduct is so abhorrent that in the great value tradeoff, it is better for them to end operations (allowing Hamas to continue to exist) than to continue operations (committing more atrocities)

#3 is wrong.

Hamas can never be destroyed militarily since it is as much an ideology as a militant group.

The only way to destroy Hamas is for the people to reject it.

Instead, Israel is driving people right into Hamas's arms.

No, Hamas is a terrorist group that was created 35 years ago during the First Intafada.  What is its ideology that can't be destroyed?  "We hate the Jews, let's use military force to kill them all"?  That's been the ideology of the Arabs in the Levant region since before the founding of Israel.  It predates Hamas by millenia.

Actually the power and popularity of that ideology has waned substantially since the days of the Camp David Accords, which shows that it can be defeated.  But an ideology alone isn't enough to kill people -- you need an organized, well-funded, well-armed, well-trained violent group with the means to act on that ideology.  Which is what Hamas is.

Take that away and you just have a bunch of dudes full of hatred but without the means to rape women, kill men, torture the elderly, and kidnap children that Hamas has.

What most Palestinians want is the same as what most people want: comfy lives and good jobs.

If people reject Hamas, then it can't hide among the population.

Once it can't hide, it can be targeted and destroyed.

For that to happen, the Palestinians have to believe that their best days have yet to come (upward mobility) and that the Israeli government is legitimate as opposed to a Zionist organization bent on stealing their lands.

If the Palestinians had an Anwar Sadat who would recognize Israel on its 1967 borders under the condition that Israel withdraw from the West Bank (at least all settlements far from the Israel/West Bank border that could not be part of a viable land swap), I think Israel would face significant pressure from the US, NATO countries AND many liberal Jews. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan could fund a Palestinian state. Of course this is easier with both Hamas and Netanyahu out of the picture.

But this is how the Palestinians get comfy lives and good jobs, not the pipe dream of 1948 borders.

[Devils30]

One thing I would like to add.

Let me present the following axioms that I would guess most anti-Israel liberals would agree with:

1) Hamas is an evil organization, and their elimination would be a great good for the world

2) What Hamas did on October 7 was so egregiously evil that it makes their destruction a matter of immediate urgency

3) The only way to destroy Hamas is via military action

4) Israel has been genocidal, or at least indiscriminate and brutal, in their treatment of the Palestinians over the course of this conflict, in a way that is completely unnecessary and avoidable

5) Israel's conduct is so abhorrent that in the great value tradeoff, it is better for them to end operations (allowing Hamas to continue to exist) than to continue operations (committing more atrocities)

#3 is wrong.

Hamas can never be destroyed militarily since it is as much an ideology as a militant group.

The only way to destroy Hamas is for the people to reject it.

Instead, Israel is driving people right into Hamas's arms.

No, Hamas is a terrorist group that was created 35 years ago during the First Intafada.  What is its ideology that can't be destroyed?  "We hate the Jews, let's use military force to kill them all"?  That's been the ideology of the Arabs in the Levant region since before the founding of Israel.  It predates Hamas by millenia.

Actually the power and popularity of that ideology has waned substantially since the days of the Camp David Accords, which shows that it can be defeated.  But an ideology alone isn't enough to kill people -- you need an organized, well-funded, well-armed, well-trained violent group with the means to act on that ideology.  Which is what Hamas is.

Take that away and you just have a bunch of dudes full of hatred but without the means to rape women, kill men, torture the elderly, and kidnap children that Hamas has.

What most Palestinians want is the same as what most people want: comfy lives and good jobs.

If people reject Hamas, then it can't hide among the population.

Once it can't hide, it can be targeted and destroyed.

For that to happen, the Palestinians have to believe that their best days have yet to come (upward mobility) and that the Israeli government is legitimate as opposed to a Zionist organization bent on stealing their lands.

If the Palestinians had an Anwar Sadat who would recognize Israel on its 1967 borders under the condition that Israel withdraw from the West Bank (at least all settlements far from the Israel/West Bank border that could not be part of a viable land swap), I think Israel would face significant pressure from the US, NATO countries AND many liberal Jews. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan could fund a Palestinian state. Of course this is easier with both Hamas and Netanyahu out of the picture.

But this is how the Palestinians get comfy lives and good jobs, not the pipe dream of 1948 borders.

There has to be compensation for Nakba.

In other words, those who were displaced and their descendants get cash payment in exchange for giving up their rights to return.

The compensation needs to be of real value, not a penny per square meter.

If they refuse, I guess there are some rural desert areas in Israel that they can be given.

Israel offered considerable compensation in 2000 and would probably up the offer in exchange for a genuine peace agreement. Arafat refused to give up the right to return at that time but talks collapsed soonafter.

[Devils30]

One thing I would like to add.

Let me present the following axioms that I would guess most anti-Israel liberals would agree with:

1) Hamas is an evil organization, and their elimination would be a great good for the world

2) What Hamas did on October 7 was so egregiously evil that it makes their destruction a matter of immediate urgency

3) The only way to destroy Hamas is via military action

4) Israel has been genocidal, or at least indiscriminate and brutal, in their treatment of the Palestinians over the course of this conflict, in a way that is completely unnecessary and avoidable

5) Israel's conduct is so abhorrent that in the great value tradeoff, it is better for them to end operations (allowing Hamas to continue to exist) than to continue operations (committing more atrocities)

#3 is wrong.

Hamas can never be destroyed militarily since it is as much an ideology as a militant group.

The only way to destroy Hamas is for the people to reject it.

Instead, Israel is driving people right into Hamas's arms.

No, Hamas is a terrorist group that was created 35 years ago during the First Intafada.  What is its ideology that can't be destroyed?  "We hate the Jews, let's use military force to kill them all"?  That's been the ideology of the Arabs in the Levant region since before the founding of Israel.  It predates Hamas by millenia.

Actually the power and popularity of that ideology has waned substantially since the days of the Camp David Accords, which shows that it can be defeated.  But an ideology alone isn't enough to kill people -- you need an organized, well-funded, well-armed, well-trained violent group with the means to act on that ideology.  Which is what Hamas is.

Take that away and you just have a bunch of dudes full of hatred but without the means to rape women, kill men, torture the elderly, and kidnap children that Hamas has.

What most Palestinians want is the same as what most people want: comfy lives and good jobs.

If people reject Hamas, then it can't hide among the population.

Once it can't hide, it can be targeted and destroyed.

For that to happen, the Palestinians have to believe that their best days have yet to come (upward mobility) and that the Israeli government is legitimate as opposed to a Zionist organization bent on stealing their lands.

If the Palestinians had an Anwar Sadat who would recognize Israel on its 1967 borders under the condition that Israel withdraw from the West Bank (at least all settlements far from the Israel/West Bank border that could not be part of a viable land swap), I think Israel would face significant pressure from the US, NATO countries AND many liberal Jews. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan could fund a Palestinian state. Of course this is easier with both Hamas and Netanyahu out of the picture.

But this is how the Palestinians get comfy lives and good jobs, not the pipe dream of 1948 borders.

There has to be compensation for Nakba.

In other words, those who were displaced and their descendants get cash payment in exchange for giving up their rights to return.

The compensation needs to be of real value, not a penny per square meter.

If they refuse, I guess there are some rural desert areas in Israel that they can be given.

Israel offered considerable compensation in 2000 and would probably up the offer in exchange for a genuine peace agreement. Arafat refused to give up the right to return at that time but talks collapsed soonafter.

Arafat doesn't matter.

The choice should be left to those who were displaced and their descendants.

What do they want? Cash compensation or right to return?

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.

[Devils30]

Even if Israel isn't committing "genocide", surely you are against the 50+ years of occupation/colonization of the West Bank? Because ignoring that is ignoring the elephant in the room.

The Palestinian Arabs are on Jewish land, land given to the Jews by God, Himself.  Jews were in "Palestine" long before Arabs were.  If you want to play the "indigenous peoples" card here, you lost.  This is beyond question.  

If you want to talk about virtue, the Palestinian Arabs have a long history of desiring to drive the Jews out of Israel, regardless of its borders.  During WWII, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the leader of Palestinian Muslims, collaborated with Hitler, himself, to ensure that no Jews entered "Palestine".  The "Palestinians" have opposed the existence of a Jewish state, regardless of the borders drawnl  The Grand Mufti fled to France, and then to Cairo to avoid prosecution for War Crimes.  They have taken up arms against Israel in 1948, 1967, and 1973.  Not a single Palestinian, whether they be from Hamas or Fatah, from Arafat to Abbas,

At no time has any Palestinian political entity acknowledged the right of Israel to exist, regardless of whatever borders are drawn.  This is undeniable.  You, yourself, have never stated (to my knowledge) what borders an independent Israel IS entitled to.  If you can't specify the borders you believe Israel is entitled to, there is no reason to believe that you are a part of the "From the River to the Sea" crowd.  

Israel has every right to defend itself from foreign entities that wish to destroy it and launch rocket attacks and terrorist actions against Israel within its borders.  The elephant in the room is the refusal of all of its political entities to affirm Israel's right to exist under ANY proposed borders.  If you can show me where any Palestinian political entity of substance acknowledges Israel's mere right to exist withing some set of borders, please edify me.

How do you know that an invisible man in the sky gave the land to the Jews?

Jews have a historical presence in the region but I am not sure using the bible to allocate land in 2023 is a productive exercise.

[Devils30]

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

The Israelis won't be exterminating the Palestinians and any peace deal seems far off. But given your antisemitism, I am not shocked you use this kind of language.

[Devils30]

Israeli ministers keep saying the quiet part out loud again:

https://twitter.com/israeltrnsltd/status/1741891754196901934

https://twitter.com/ShaykhSulaiman/status/1741949923086794759

This guy is basically Israel’s version of Marjorie Taylor Greene. Don’t take it seriously.

[Devils30]

Israeli ministers keep saying the quiet part out loud again:

https://twitter.com/israeltrnsltd/status/1741891754196901934

https://twitter.com/ShaykhSulaiman/status/1741949923086794759

This guy is basically Israel’s version of Marjorie Taylor Greene. Don’t take it seriously.

These aren't just some far-right lunatics.

Itamar Ben-Gvir is Israel's Ministry of National Security

Bezalel Smotrich is Israel's Ministry of Finance

It’s different in a parliamentary system where the cabinet doesn’t require senate confirmation and different parties who don’t like each other still join a coalition.

[Devils30]

I'm not disputing that so I'm not sure what your point is.

My point is simply that they should have the opportunity to move to somewhere that gives them a better life than the Gaza Strip if they want to.

They do want to go elsewhere: back to their native land in Israel.

It's the Israeli government that won't allow them.

The issue is that that's like Germans trying to regain their land in Stettin- it's all long since been developed and entirely different to when their grandparents left, and also in the case of Israel in particular, the prospect of a country of only 9 million which is also having a housing shortage admitting two million refugees really isn't viable, and also, like the Ukraine/Russia example mentioned above, inter-ethnic tensions are likely and discrimination is possible. Also, from a security point of view from Israel, it would be very very difficult to weed out Hamas members if refugees arrived in large numbers.

That's why it's much more feasible for the refugees to find permanent accommodation elsewhere than in Israel. If it was a smaller number of people then Israel would be a more viable option but not on that scale- there are bigger countries better able to absorb larger numbers of refugees without getting overwhelmed.

Israel forced displace them.

It’s not other countries responsibility to take them.

It’s Israel responsibility to take them back.

This doesn't seem to apply to displaced people anywhere else, though, and (...much as it has in Israel/Palestine, actually) insisting that it apply is a recipe for generations of never-ending warfare.

…but but but it happens elsewhere too!

Is that the best excuse that you’ve got?

...what exactly am I supposed to be excusing? Israel didn't forcibly displace anyone in the 1940s, and instead people fled voluntarily. This is not really all that unusual in modernity; a similar Nakba happened last year in Karabakh. (If you want examples of Western democracies doing something like this, then something very similar happened in eastern Slavonia in...uh...1995). It's not a mainstream position that these exoduses were caused by the government which took control, and it is not a mainstream position that those governments have obligations to non-citizens fleeing.

It took around 40 years from the Nakba to revisionist historians in the 1980s saying that the blame resided with the Israeli government; I wonder if in the 2030s we'll see similar stuff from the Serbian revanchists.

(Also, 'forced displace' is incorrect English; you presumably meant to write 'forcibly displaced. Your syntax makes you difficult to understand.)

Forced displacement is clearly voluntary to Zionists.

If my relatives and I use weapons and intimidation to force you to flee your house, then you left voluntarily and the house is no longer yours.

The house is now mine and my relatives’, right?

...what? If you leave because you don't like the government of a place, and then that government seizes it through eminent domain, it now belongs to the new government, yes. Nobody disputes this. If America elects George W. Bush, and then Pierre Salinger flees to France as a political dissident and renounces his US citizenship, the US government absolutely can seize his possessions. (I don't think they did in that case, but this certainly is a thing done with criminals that have fled abroad. While US citizenship cannot be lost except through renunciations or convictions for very specific crimes, many countries do renounce citizenship if you live somewhere else for some number of years, and post-colonial citizenships rarely or never apply to individuals who moved out prior to a formal independence date.

'Forced displacement' is when the government orders you out. Leaving because you don't like the regime is not forced. (Thinking of non-Palestinian examples tends to clarify this point, but it's obviously hard for those with a poor knowledge of recent world history.)

I think the issue with lots of pro-Palestine commentary is that they delude themselves into thinking of the conflict as singular, when most of the general circumstances are very normal and the main strange thing about it is the existence of the toxic Palestinian liberationist ideology; there will be peace when this ideology does not exist, not in Palestine and not among Western or Arab supporters.

Everyone here knows that Israel is intentionally making Palestinian lives as miserable as possible to coerce the Palestinians to leave.

You are not fooling anyone by pretending that forced displacement is voluntary.

For the last f**** time, Israel is not going to be forcibly deporting Palestinians to the Congo. It’s a silly idea and article.

[Devils30]

In that YouGov poll today, of the 18-29 age group 57% said they sympathize with both sides equally or not sure. There is a large group of young people who are not reflexively pro-Israel but just don't care much about this issue. Meaning they are not blocking traffic.

[Devils30]

And the Palestinians are hardly unique in not giving up their struggle for self-determination. How many people under colonial rule - because this is what Israel's rule in Palestine amounts to in practice - have given up the struggle for independence? So while one can certainly deplore Palestinian terrorism, it's preposterous to claim the Palestinians are somehow sick for not giving up their desire for self-determination.

Palestinians don’t have to give up their struggle for independence, they need to accept that they lost in 1948 and that they will not get that land back ever. If Palestinians limited their terrorism to West Bank settlers and soldiers only with the clear demand that “terrorism will only stop when you leave the West Bank” that would be one thing. But the Palestinian demand is that Israel stops existing. They need to accept that they lost in 1948 and this will not be corrected in any way. Imagine if the Algerians demanded not just that the French leave Algeria but that they also leave France. That is what Palestinians demand, and they use terrorism to pursue this fundamentally impossible goal.

Palestinians should be given Israeli citizenship as part of the amended Law of Return.

The whole point of Israel having a Jewish majority is so the country is a safe haven for Jews. If you let Palestinians become the majority, they will slaughter millions of Jews if Hamas’ behavior is any example so far. Now I know you don’t really care about what happens but a lot of people do.

[Devils30]

And the Palestinians are hardly unique in not giving up their struggle for self-determination. How many people under colonial rule - because this is what Israel's rule in Palestine amounts to in practice - have given up the struggle for independence? So while one can certainly deplore Palestinian terrorism, it's preposterous to claim the Palestinians are somehow sick for not giving up their desire for self-determination.

Palestinians don’t have to give up their struggle for independence, they need to accept that they lost in 1948 and that they will not get that land back ever. If Palestinians limited their terrorism to West Bank settlers and soldiers only with the clear demand that “terrorism will only stop when you leave the West Bank” that would be one thing. But the Palestinian demand is that Israel stops existing. They need to accept that they lost in 1948 and this will not be corrected in any way. Imagine if the Algerians demanded not just that the French leave Algeria but that they also leave France. That is what Palestinians demand, and they use terrorism to pursue this fundamentally impossible goal.

Palestinians should be given Israeli citizenship as part of the amended Law of Return.

The whole point of Israel having a Jewish majority is so the country is a safe haven for Jews. If you let Palestinians become the majority, they will slaughter millions of Jews if Hamas’ behavior is any example so far. Now I know you don’t really care about what happens but a lot of people do.

Nakba is Israel's original sin.

It's time for Israel to atone by taking back the Palestinians.

If the Jewish "majority" is so afraid that the Palestinians would do to them what they are doing to the Palestinians right now, they should establish the rights of minorities right now in case they are ever in the minority.

We have nothing to atone for, and when it comes to who owes who what, your ledger with us will never be balanced and every pogrom brings Israel closer and closer to a government who may decide to call in that debt.

Who is we? Aren't you American?

Clearly, his allegiance lies elsewhere.

Let's be 100% honest here, as I have said before, ppp is a leftist thug. And yes, that is what I mean. Under his system of government, we would not be ruled by a democratic system (whether that be a presidential or parliamentary democracy) and instead be at the whims of leftist academics like Kendi/ Middle Eastern studies professors. These people would do whatever the f*** they want and ppp would justify everything.

Let's not mince words, even disregarding Israel, Palestine, this is someone who hates the United States of America and what it represents.

[Devils30]

Israel has got a problem with how it treats Arab journalists. Its atrocious record on that front is evident in the war in Gaza.

Amazingly everyone with a Twitter account becomes a journalist. And I don't know if I will say another thing on this thread. Considering it just turns into name calling with pppolitics, I am probably best heading back to redistricting and election trends instead of this crap.

[Devils30]

If you were to ask me, I would say that Palestinians are just Arabs, mostly Sunni Muslim Arabs, and they already have plenty of states that are basically Sunni Arab ethnically monogamous theocracies:  Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, etc.  and I would further say that the concept of "Palestinians" as some wholly distinct and unique ethnicity deserving of their own unique state was created out of wholecloth in the 1950s as a rationalization for Palestinian nationalism, which itself was just a thin rationalization for the genocidal pursuits of the Arab states.  Furthermore I would say that "Palestinians are an ethnicity" is mostly a Western notion even today, as such a notion was subsumed by Pan-Arabism in the mid-century and by Pan-Islamism today.

Imagine if for some reason, the UN decided to create a Jewish homeland in Nicaragua, and the people of Nicaragua - understandably and predictably - were not okay with this.

Would your response be, "Oh well you should just go live in El Salvador or Mexico or Honduras. Guatemalans aren't a "real" people anyway. You all speak Spanish and look alike. What difference does it make?" Those Central American countries were at one point a single political unit after all.

Would it be okay to deprive Flemish Belgians of their right to national self-determination because they're not a "distinct" enough ethnicity and should just go live in the Netherlands?

Also, what is your answer to the fact that not all Palestinians are Muslim?

Prior to the Six-Day War, Gaza was occupied and administered by Egypt, and the West Bank was officially part of Jordan after the 1950 annexation, done at the behest of Palestinian leaders.  In both cases, peoples freely moved within their states.  Nobody considered this to be ethnic cleansing or any other sort of travesty.  The Arabs in the parts of Egypt/Jordan that would later become Gaza and the West Bank did not by-and-large consider themselves to be occupied or oppressed peoples, denied a state representing their distinct and unique ethnicity.

...because of course they didn't!  At the time, West Bank Palestinians and Jordanians saw themselves as identical peoples, two parts of the whole -- and why not, since Jordan is the eastern half of Mandatory Palestine!

There was literally a civil war because they didn't see themselves as identical peoples.

The 1940s had massive relocations of people throughout the planet. Why is Israel illegitimate but the relocation of ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe okay? Just trying to undo events from 75+ years ago is pointless, the goal should be to make things better today.

[Devils30]

Hamas won't accept, and we'll continue to get anti-Israel protests throughout the United States demanding a "cease-fire" and blaming Israel (who offered a cease-fire) rather than Hamas (who rejected it) for there not being one.

Wanna know how I know this will happen?  Because, it's easy to forget, we already had a ceasefire shortly after Thanksgiving, and Hamas refused to release any more hostages and started attacking Israel again.

Not a single person, not a single organization, not a single protest or march or highway blockade or occupation of a Jewish student center, will call on Hamas to accept a cease-fire.  It will all continue to be Israel's, and solely Israel's, fault that this war continues.  The youth of this country will continue to operate under this premise that if a war has high civilian casualties, it's incumbent upon the winning party in the conflict to unilaterally and unconditionally end it and retreat.  A standard they don't apply to any other country, or any other conflict in world history.  A standard they invented solely so it could be applied to the Jewish country.

The leftists and their Arab academic allies are on a mission to destroy the Democratic Party in 2024.

[Devils30]

Hamas won't accept, and we'll continue to get anti-Israel protests throughout the United States demanding a "cease-fire" and blaming Israel (who offered a cease-fire) rather than Hamas (who rejected it) for there not being one.

Wanna know how I know this will happen?  Because, it's easy to forget, we already had a ceasefire shortly after Thanksgiving, and Hamas refused to release any more hostages and started attacking Israel again.

Not a single person, not a single organization, not a single protest or march or highway blockade or occupation of a Jewish student center, will call on Hamas to accept a cease-fire.  It will all continue to be Israel's, and solely Israel's, fault that this war continues.  The youth of this country will continue to operate under this premise that if a war has high civilian casualties, it's incumbent upon the winning party in the conflict to unilaterally and unconditionally end it and retreat.  A standard they don't apply to any other country, or any other conflict in world history.  A standard they invented solely so it could be applied to the Jewish country.

The leftists and their Arab academic allies are on a mission to destroy the Democratic Party in 2024.

Anyone genuinely believing this should seek a psychologist

Look man, for the conservative camp this is just a football match, in which their camp "win" and "leftists, wokists" lose, they aren't interested in analysis, and they only cry crocodile tears for the victims of October 7th because it makes them feel big online or in some silly debate. Oh and they think Arab lives are worth less because it's cool to be edgy.

This is what it's all about to them. Zero emotional or rational investment. As opposed to the protestors, who have emotional investment but zero rational one, and misunderstand everything about Hamas and their far right Islamist ideology.

I stand by my remark, even that CBS segment had a CAIR representative as a "swing voter." These leftists, which include many Arabs are trying to discredit Biden because they think it will lead to AOC/the squad later realizing their revolution.

[Devils30]

Give it a rest, even many Jewish people are increasingly speaking out against these brutal war crimes and receiving hatred and even having their identity questioned for not supporting this lunatic right-wing government of Israel.

A few hundred kids trying to piss off their parents by advocating for their own extermination are not a social movement. Regardless, they are still irrelevant. Hamas and the ensuing carefully coordinated global wave of violent Judenhass has awakened every bit of collective trauma from Jewish history. The world is now finding out what we actually meant when we said "Never Again". Pay attention.

That sounds like a threat, to be honest.

I don't have the power to execute any threats on this issue! But Israel definitely wants this attitude to be seen as a threat to any who would escalate this conflict beyond the Israel-Hamas one it is right now, yes.

Your threat is rather vague.

I will point out that soon after the war I heard three neo-conservatives making essentially the same following argument:

1) Israel is entitled to vanquish all its enemies;

2) Iran is one of those enemies;

3) Iran is a distant, more populous nation, so it can only be defeated one way;

4) Therefore, Israel is completely justified in pursuing that one way!

We all know what way that is, don't we?

There is no chance any war with Iran would come without US involvement. Hopefully it won't come to this but any action to remove the Iranian regime would involve the US running the show, not Israel.

[Devils30]

I think Al Jazeera is more credible than Israel Hayom and Wall Street Journal.

And if you disregard Al Jazeera purely because of it's name, it's because you're racist.

Al Jazeera is very much the Arab world's FOX News.

[Devils30]

...no? People actually have free will, and it's their fault if they commit crimes. If Gaza turns into a breeding ground for terrorists (strange 'if' as this has already happened), Gazan authorities will be at fault. That's literally how fault works.

Yes, they have free will.

They can go to school, get well-paying jobs, live in nice houses, and pay for good health care.

Oh, wait.

They can't.

What a profoundly strange worldview. Do you think people who can't go to school, get well-paying jobs, and live in nice houses are justified killing people who have those things?

When people think that they have nothing to lose, they don't care whether something is "justified" or not.

He asked if you think it’s justified

If Israel killed my parents, my siblings, my relatives, and my friends and destroyed my house, my school/university, and my work, I would be out for blood.

Doesn't seem to take even that much for most of the anti-Israel crowd unfortunately.

[Devils30]

Israel/Gaza is good illustration of the impending problems for both parties re foreign policy. For Dems, it's the outright support of terrorist groups and desire to see Israel eliminated (no, the squad does not support a 2 state solution) among their activists. For the GOP, it's the desire to let Putin take Ukraine and later Latvia, Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe. One of these sides is likely to have a major f** up that will discredit themselves.

[Devils30]

If you want to write a long post and expect me to respond to all of it you're going to have to come up with something better than a lame whataboutism and the absurd notion that Israel was the aggressor in the multiple wars of extermination that the Arabs waged against them.

BTW, if we want to play the percentage game, how much of the former Ottoman Empire became Arab and how much became Jewish?  100% of the French influence zone became Arab or Turkish (most of modern-day Syria and Lebanon).  Britain had Mandatory Palestine and Mandatory Mesopotamia.  The latter became Iraq, the former mostly became Jordan, except for the small sliver between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, which was divided between Jews and Arabs.  And this is on top of the entire Arabian peninsula and Egypt becoming independent Arab states.

Pretending like Israel got some giant chunk of the post-war partition is a malicious, intentionally misleading manipulation of numbers, scoping the denominator of "land that should have been Arab" down as far as you possibly can to try and have it cover only areas that became Jewish.  The Arabs got like 99.9% of the Middle East after the World Wars, and then spent the next 75 years bitching and moaning and basing their entire personality on how that other 0.1% went to the survivors of the Holocaust.

Palestinians did not perpetrate the Holocaust.

Palestinians did not conduct pogroms in the Russian Empire.

Palestinians did not confine Jews to ghettos in Europe for centuries.

And yet you want Palestinians to bear 100% of the burden for things other people did and that they had no control over. Why is that their problem? Why don't you take it up with Germany?

Furthermore, most Jews in Israel are not descendants of Holocaust survivors. It was wrong for countries like Iraq and Tunisia to throw them out, but, again, Palestinians did not do that. Iraqis and Tunisians did that. It's their problem, not the Palestinians' problem. And it is honestly quite offensive to the victims and survivors of the Holocaust to think merely being deported from a country is morally equivalent to that. By that logic, the Hindus and Muslims who were deported from Pakistan and India in the late 1940s underwent a "Holocaust" which is simply absurd.

"Arabs" are not a singular people. They are literally just people who speak Arabic, in the same way that Hispanics are people who speak Spanish. If you put a Mauritanian and a Lebanese in a room together, they could barely carry on a basic conversation with each other. This is why various attempts to create "Pan-Arab" movements in the 20th century failed miserably.

Your comparison is as ridiculous as if for some reason a Jewish homeland had been established in Honduras, the native Hondurans had been pushed out, and you said, "Well the Hispanics have all the rest of Central and South America. Hondurans should just go live in another Hispanic country."

Well the Jews were expelled from Arab countries after Israel was created in 1948. This event was not unrelated to Israel’s establishment. Do you honestly think it’s a good idea to try to undo everything from then? A lot of leftists don’t even have a Wikipedia level understanding of why Israel exists and seem to think we’ll just naturally create a harmonious democracy with a binational government. Plenty of Arabs sympathized with Hitler in the 1940s and none of these Arab countries today respect religious minorities at all. Islamism as an ideology is completely toxic and would have 7 figure body counts if it had the capacity. Any solution where Israel receives anything less than its 1967 borders and no right to return for Palestinians is not happening. Of course the settlements should be removed in any fair peace treaty but dictating Israel’s immigration policy to allow it to be destroyed ain’t happening.

[Devils30]

Waleed Shahid is a jerkoff.  This is an extremely blatant push poll.  "Experts have said" something that isn't true.  "Attacks on the people of Gaza" is an obviously biased way to frame a war.

I just know we're going to keep getting this annoying manufactured push-poll result shoved at us from now until the end of the war though, because that's what progressives do.

The number of Islamists on Bernie’s campaign is truly astounding.

[Devils30]

https://www.pewresearch.org/2024/03/21/views-of-the-israel-hamas-war/prc_2024-3-21_israel-hamas_1-02/

This is another interesting poll. Just confirms the anti-Israel crowd comes mainly from Muslims and white religiously unaffiliated and not mainline black churches.

Obviously it's understandable why Muslims are more likely to justify Hamas' actions but we need to examine these religiously unaffiliated under 30 voters more rigorously. Mainstream educational institutions should stop teaching people that this is a hopeless country and start reflecting on some of the damage done in the social media era.