Israel-Gaza war

[Horus]

IDF is saying they've confirmed 32 of the hostages are dead. I guess now they will level the 25% of buildings in Gaza that still stand.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

IDF is saying they've confirmed 32 of the hostages are dead. I guess now they will level the 25% of buildings in Gaza that still stand.

A shame, given their real record in building up Gaza up until the 80s, that they've chosen as their mantra, "Gaza delenda est".

[GMantis]

If the West Bank were formally annexed then by definition it wouldn't be composed of "reservations", whatever that even means. I suspect the likely route they'd take in the event of proceeding with annexation is allowing some people there to gain Israeli citizenship but with restrictions, much like Latvia's restrictions on their Russian population gaining citizenship.

This would never work. As dubious as the Latvian actions against the local Russians are, they at least have the excuse of the exclusion of citizenship being restricted only to immigrants (and their descendants) who arrived in Latvia while the country was occupied. In Israel's case, the Palestinians would be people becoming inhabitants through the conquest of foreign territory, in other words without any choice of their own. To deny them citizenship, would be undoubtedly Apartheid with no ambiguities possible and it would be universally seen as such abroad. Israel's image would be irretrievably tarnished and there would be immense pressure for the Palestinians to be granted citizenship. For this reason, Israel will never take this step, rather continuing the current de facto one state solution, which combines effective Israeli control over the Palestinian territories with no obligation towards the Israeli government. Meanwhile, they can continue to pretend that the situation is a temporary one and will be resolved as soon as the Palestinian come to the negotiating table. And considering the endlessly indulgent US attitude towards Israel, they have good reason to believe that they can maintain the status quo indefinitely.

Not at all.

I'd say the Palestinian Arab population had about as much right to a state as the Sudetenland Germans did.

Bohemia/Moravia: colonization many csnturies ago resulted in a substantial German population existing there; they were unhappy when the native population reasserted independence in the 20th century; they partitioned the state on arbitrary lines to ensure that they had at least part of it but this only served to weaken the Czechoslovak state and it was obviously only a first step towards the German desires of full annexation

The analogies with the desire of the Arab states to conquer Israel is obvious. When a desire for national autonomy is directly linked to imperialism you have to ask questions about to what extent said desire should be supported.

There are so many things wrong with this argument that one doesn't know where to start.

First, the Czechs were themselves invaders who displaced the ancestors of the Germans in the 6th century. So if anyone should have been denied self-determination, it should have been them, not the Sudeten Germans.

Second, even if we accept the Czech as the indigenous inhabitants, they at least lived there. The vast majority of Jews arrived in Palestine only a scant two decades before Israeli independence. It would be preposterous to regard the two situations as comparable.

Third, if self-determination was denied to the Sudeten Germans, they were at least citizenship of Czechoslovakia and equal treatment. This Israel can never allow. In fact, if it had been implemented in 1948 it would have lead to an Arab majority in Palestine. Therefore, even if only by necessity the Arabs would have to have at least some right to self-determination.

Fourth, the whole idea that some abstract "ingenuousness" would deny self-determination to some people while granting it to others is fundamentally unjust. Even leaving aside the difficulty of determining who came first, this principle essentially gives certain groups less rights solely on the principle of their ancestry. In other words, this is a form of collective punishment - something abhorred by all civilized countries. By the way, this is true of the Sudeten Germans as well. Even Woodrow Wilson who promoted the principle of self determination remarked later that he wouldn't have given the Sudetenland to Czechoslovakia if he knew how many Germans lived there. That Hitler later abused the demands of the Sudeten German doesn't mean that they were illegitimate.

You know, I've wondered this question myself -- what if Palestine became a democracy after WWI instead of a British colony? On the one hand, both polling and reports from that era confirm that the Palestinian Arabs were overwhelmingly against Jewish immigration, but on the other hand Jews were already 10-15% of the population, including majorities in their own settlements, and were significantly wealthier; in a real democracy they would've had significant influence and been single-issue pro-immigration voters. Immigration is moderately hard for democracies to stop once it starts, particularly if you have communities colluding with it (...particularly since it tends to raise tax revenue), and if a two-party system emerged then you could very easily see one of the sides making common cause with Zionist immigration. It's not like Americans weren't very hostile to Latin American immigration in the 1990s, but it continued. (And this kind of thing does happen in very poor countries too: consider Zimbabwean or Somalian migration to modern South Africa, which the central government also struggles to stop.)

There's also just the greater global situation -- Iraq became independent earlier than other Middle Eastern states but joined the Axis and was reconquered by Britain in 1941. In the situation where something like that happens you could see Zionist rule emerge earlier (and actually be overtly Kagame-style minoritarian, in a way that the real 1947-1949 was calculated to avoid).

The depressing varieties of this are that it could easily fall to some populist dictator like Nasser (who might have just been authoritarian enough to stop immigration), or alternatively eventual Lebanonization and civil war. But the thing is that by the end of WWI there were enough Zionists in Palestine that they were going to be a significant part of the political calculus no matter what.

It's very unlikely that anything of what you describe what happen. Even the most indulgent democracy would act against the level of immigration that would be needed to raise the Jewish population to a level where they could establish their own state (it would be the equivalent of 160 million people immigrating to the US in 20 years). Especially if the immigrants were obviously trying to create their own state.

In any case, it's rather likely that absent European imperialism Palestine would be just part of a larger Arab state, making Jewish immigrants managing to any influence even less plausible.

No? Israel declared independence as the legal successor to the British Mandate of Palestine, and then it was attacked by a coalition of neighboring states.

This claim might not be as outrageous as some of your other statements, but it's certainly annoying in its sheer separation from reality. No one recognizes Israel as the successor of the British Mandate of Palestine. But more importantly, there is no legal mechanism by which Israel could possibly claim to be such a successor. The Palestinian mandate expired without a successor being appointed by the British who were administering the territory. In fact, they had explicitly given up the right to by asking the UN to it instead. However, the partition plan was never implemented (and of course under that plan Israel could not even claim the entirety of its current recognize territory, let alone the whole of Palestine). So with the end of the Mandate the territory was left in a legal vacuum and in this situation Israel declared independence unilaterally. That Israel today is accepted as a sovereign state by most of the world is due to international consensus - the same consensus that gives them no right over the rest of the mandate territory.

Also, if Israel is the legal owner of the whole former Palestinian Mandate, doesn't that give some obligations towards the inhabitants there? After all, the Mandate established that the civil rights of native inhabitants would not be infringed. Or does Israel have only privileges and no responsibilities?

https://twitter.com/AmichaiChikli/status/1753376889232662889

This ridiculous comparison is a good indication of the true attitude of the majority of Israeli society. One that does not believe in any solution to the conflict but full Israeli dominance, where Palestinians have no rights but only obligations and where they might collectively be punished for the actions of some of them (despite this being considered blatant anti-semitism when used against Jews).

[GALeftist]

The first step is justice for those like Hallel Yaffa Ariel who were murdered in cold blood by state endorsed terror. Members of Fatah and Hamas need to face trials in the same way the Nazis did, with trials of all of the collaborators.

When it comes to rooting out evil, there's no compromise with those who believe the cold blooded murder of children is something to celebrate.

This is not an answer. What is your long term vision for peace?

One state solution is the only way. Israel is the only successor state to the British Mandatory Palestine in existence and the only state with any sort of claim to the region, and modern Palestinian nationalism is explicitly antisemitic including pushing for the ethnic cleansing of all Jewish settlements from a hypothetical Palestinian state.

So I'd say something along the lines of, Israel formally declares the West Bank and Gaza Strip as being part of Israel, recognizes Arabic as a national language and Arab Israelis as a national minority group. Make it so that Arab residents of the West Bank/Gaza can get Israeli citizenship if they want it (along with the responsibilities that comes with like IDF service). Anyone who engages in collaboration with terror groups like Hamas is deported with their property seized by the Israeli state and given to victims of Hamas attacks and their families as compensation; the higher up terror leaders should face life in prison (I'm pro-life and oppose the death penalty on principle no matter how evil someone's actions are). And gradually remove the checkpoints in the West Bank and so on as it becomes safe to do so.

Do you not see that Israel is the major obstacle to the peace you envision? The notion of Israel voluntarily giving up its status as a Jewish state someday, which this situation would, is completely unthinkable. Why do you spend so much time attacking reprehensible but relatively powerless Hamas supporters and so little time attacking the people who insist that Palestinians can never be given equal citizenship, who actually have the preponderance of political power in the region's only nuclear state?

[Vosem]

Right, but it wasn't. It was founded by people who immigrated under a British Mandate, then defended that Mandate against a 1936-1939 uprising, came to dominate its government, and then declared independence. The Mandate became Israel through a regular process of decolonization, rather than having been conquered by some Jewish army. (I guess one could say that the British conquest in 1917 was to some extent motivated by political Zionists in the British government, and Zionists fought alongside that conquest, but then so did the Arabs.)

This is the equivalent of saying the Somalis conquered Cedar-Riverside, Minneapolis, because they immigrated and then took political control. No, that isn't conquest.

If the Somalis declared Minneapolis to be "New Somalia", forcibly deported or slaughtered non-Somalis in their claimed territory, turned those who remained into second class citizens of the newly formed country then that would absolutely qualify as conquest.

...can you not see that breaking off of an established state is what the Palestinians are trying to do? You're getting your metaphors mixed up.

Again, no. The important threshold here is not the Second World War but the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, which has been widely interpreted (as in the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials) as preventing launching an offensive war. Annexing territories in response to a war in which you were attacked is permitted (as demonstrated by numerous examples in the aftermath of the Second World War); the prohibition on conquest hasn't really been amended since Kellogg-Briand.

The Soviet Union is a good example here because it carried out both illegal conquests -- those of the Baltic states, which were never recognized by countries which were not its satellites -- and legal ones from the territories of the former Axis powers (East Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia, Karelia, South Sakhalin), some of which were traded to Poland for other territory. These laws have not changed -- they are rarely applied because offensive wars for conquest, like the ones launched by Egypt/Transjordan/Syria in 1948, have become very rare.

Once again: the fact that the only example you have is the Soviet Union in the immediate aftermath of WW2 illustrates how you literally have zero examples of the principle you claims exists being applied in the post-UN era. Not "very rare", literally completely nonexistent in the modern era. The Soviets didn't get away with land annexation because they were law abiding but because they were winners, the same reason they kept hold of Karelia and eastern Poland despite that territory having been seized in a war of aggression prior to WW2. They didn't even try to make an argument like the one you're making because they didn't need to.

This argument is a fairly standard one in international law because, as I have already mentioned, the prohibition on conquest dates to before the Second World War, yet the Second World War happened anyway. While the Soviet Union was still around, most of the West made a distinction between territories the Soviet Union annexed illegally (the Baltic states) and territories it annexed legally (from Finland, Germany, or Japan, or exchanged with Poland).

I mean, no, legally the war launched by Syria when they attacked Israel in 1948 has never ended, and has only had periods of ceasefire. Syria held (and pretended to annex, contrary to international law) territories within the former Mandate during the period 1949-1967.

Are you just going to use the most absurd logical stretches imaginable to work backwards to find a way to justify anything Israel does?

A state of war technically existed between Israel and Syria. A state of war technically also exists between Japan and Russia too but you'd have to be on crack to think that Russia is therefore legally in the clear to start carpet bombing Tokyo and depopulating Hokkaido in a "defensive annexation".

There has not been a legal state of war between Russia and Japan since 1956; countries which have territorial disputes are not necessarily legally at war with each other. (Consider the US and Canada, which have numerous tiny disputes in the middle of nowhere along the Alaska-BC border and yet are not even technically at war.) This cannot be compared to the DMZ in Korea, or for that matter the DMZ along the Israel/Syria border (...or frontline), or the DMZ in Cyprus, which exist because there is technically a state of war.

No, I don't have to know more about strategy than Ho Chi Minh or Mao to have lived with people who did guerrilla warfare. Provoking the enemy into killing civilians does not win you support if people see you as responsible for those deaths. This is incidentally why the movements you cite, which were mostly supplied by foreign powers, tended to either lose their wars or establish intensely authoritarian regimes if they won -- support among the people was actually lacking. Fighting a 'people's war' for an extended period of time is a good way to turn much of the people against you. (Much of the rhetoric against the war in Gaza, like insisting on talking about children who become casualties rather than political justifications, is also descended from the shameful legacy of the anti-Vietnam movement.)

I completely agree with the bolded section and never claimed otherwise, guerrillas are not guaranteed victory and plenty of guerrilla forces have lost due to blowing their support on the ground one war or another. But it's a two way street: if people think the guerrillas are responsible for their suffering then they turn on the guerrillas, if they think those fighting the guerrillas are responsible then they'll be even more motivated to support them. But convincing anyone of the former requires more than just pure violence and escalation, it takes a "hearts and minds" campaign that the Israelis have demonstrated zero ability or motivation to wage.

I think I pretty much agree with you here, except that I think "long-lasting guerrilla warfare which achieves nothing" does turn people on the guerrillas pretty reliably if people perceive themselves to be suffering for an unwinnable struggle. The histories of the Soviet Union (and Latin America, actually) are replete with examples of this.

I don't know where your theory that I'm pro-Vietcong comes from. I think the Vietcong deserved the same fate that Hamas deserves (either death or forced conscription into enemy ranks -- incidentally a common tactic in inter-guerrilla fighting). I don't think they had the same reputation for deliberately fighting in a way that tended to increase casualty counts even if their interactions with civilians tended to put those civilians in harm's way; the deaths of allied civilians were not the point.

My point isn't that you're pro-Vietcong, my point is that the precedent that guerrilla warfare works was set decades ago and that Hamas prevailing wouldn't change anything on that front. There's no evidence that they're any more prone to "fighting in a way prone to increase casualty counts" than any other such group over the past several decades.

I don't think they're unprecedented (I think I have already said that they originated in Sri Lanka), but I think they're distinctively modern, belonging to the 1980s and later, because earlier guerrillas did not have raising civilian casualty counts as a goal. I think it's good that the LTTE was crushed, with their territories coming under the rule of their enemies, and I think Hamas should have the same fate.

So if it isn't unprecedented then how is it setting a precedent so bad that literally exterminating millions of Palestinians would be justified to stop it?

I don't think the Vietcong deliberately tried to drive up casualty counts in order to appear sympathetic to Western media. I think the LTTE pioneered this and then they were ultimately crushed by the Sri Lankan government, with essentially the whole world cheering them on. I think Hamas deserves something similar -- to be crushed by the Israeli government, but in a way that makes it clear that the judgment against them is not merely a judgment of Israeli society, but a judgment of all of humanity.

This strategy wouldn't work if not for the cooperation of Western media, insisting on not ascribing blame for all casualties to Hamas. Thankfully, with the bankruptcy of news outlets, even the hypothetical effectiveness of such a strategy is limited, and we won't see arguments advanced like the ones against this conflict (or like the ones against the Vietnam War).

What? The Israelis aren't negotiating because of the "Western Media" but because their military strategy has failed to destroy Hamas or to rescue any hostages.

The Israelis are very clearly negotiating in order to have better relations with the Biden administration and EU. (I guess, yes, because some in the current Cabinet have rescuing the hostages as a priority over destroying Hamas, but it was never terribly realistic that both of those goals could coexist, and the latter is very obviously more important.)

Well, of 30,000 militants, 10,000 are dead and 10,000 are captured.

I've seen Israelis claim 10,000 dead but I've never seen even the most hardcore Zionist outlets claim to have captured 10,000 Qassam fighters. Do you have a source on that?

I'll take an L here -- I misinterpreted a claim about a month ago, when there were 9,000 dead *or* captured.

Even the death count is pretty dubious because it looks suspiciously like the Obama era strategy of counting every dead "fighting age male" as an insurgent. If that's the standard then the count is 10,000 down, ~990,000 to go.

Well...not to be cynical but it is obviously in the interests of Israel's current leadership for the war to continue as long as possible, both because international support only seems to be increasing over time (defunding UNRWA was a fringe idea in October), but also because they would be unlikely to win an election and public pressure for one would rise significantly.

All of their international allies have abandoned them.

The US literally just launched a wave of attacks across the Middle East because the allies of Hamas that supposedly abandoned them have killed American troops, attacked American bases and shut down Red Sea transit to America and its allies. Gallant has been threatening to invade Lebanon for weeks because Hezbollah has depopulated northern Israel and forced hundreds of thousands of Israelis to become internal refugees. You have a funny definition of "abandoned"

I mean, yes, every indicator we have is that Hamas expected there to be direct intervention from Hezbollah and Iran into a war, and that they expected that Israeli tactics would result in increased global sympathy for the Palestinians; but the reverse seems to have happened. Hezbollah's non-intervention in spite of heavy Israeli bombardment of southern Lebanon (in spite of hundreds of militant deaths acknowledged by Hezbollah) kind of implies to me that they just literally don't have the strength for it, presumably because of their losses in 2006 and the scale of their intervention in Syria.

If they continue fighting, then the IDF will continue destroying Gazan infrastructure until they do surrender, as most of the world continues happily arming them. The only problem is that the rest of the world is too cowardly to join in the bombing of Gaza themselves.

Okay, so what? Hamas obviously doesn't care about Gazan infrastructure, the infrastructure they built underground has largely survived the bombing campaign intact:

As much as 80% of Hamas’s vast warren of tunnels under Gaza remains intact after weeks of Israeli efforts to destroy them, U.S. and Israeli officials said, hampering Israel’s central war aims...

Late last year, in an operation called “Sea of Atlantis,” Israel installed a series of pumps in northern Gaza, despite concerns about the potential impact of pumping seawater on the territory’s freshwater supply and above ground infrastructure. Israel’s bombing of the tunnels has inflicted widespread destruction to buildings on the surface.

Earlier this month, Israel installed at least one pump in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis to disrupt the tunnel network there, a U.S. official familiar with the effort said. The first pumps installed within Gaza used water from the Mediterranean Sea, while the latest pump draws water from Israel, the official said.

In some places, walls and other unexpected barriers and defenses slowed or stopped the water flow, U.S. officials said. Seawater has corroded some of the tunnels, but the overall effort wasn’t as effective as Israeli officials had hoped, U.S. officials said.

So much for the Vosem patented "flood the tunnels" strategy you assured would take all of Gaza in a month with a hundred casualties. Turns out the tunnels are equipped with a technology beyond the comprehension of Israel's top military thinkers: watertight doors.

But to take over the underground the IDF would first have to secure the surface and every indication is that they're utterly incapable of even managing that. After months of hard fought combat in northern Gaza the Israelis were forced to withdraw and Hamas pretty much instantly popped up to resume their control of these areas as soon as Israeli forces left. Gaza City doesn't even have any infrastructure left for the IAF to bomb yet the Hamas civil administration was able to reestablish itself in record time

What's the end goal here? Is Israel just going to spend tens if not hundreds of billions USD keeping its reservists raised and hundreds of thousands of internal refugees displaced indefinitely so that it can continue blowing up civilian infrastructure in Gaza in the hopes that Hamas will suddenly decide to give up for no reason? Eventually even the IDF will start running low on ammunition regardless of how much fiat their puppets in Congress send them, particularly if things heat up with Hezbollah. If your only strategy is to blow sh*t up and hope they surrender then the only question is whether Hamas wins now or later.

The strategy is to continue bombing until Hamas either doesn't exist or voluntarily surrenders and agrees to implement the orders of an Israeli occupation force. This seems to be going fine at the moment (kind of slow to be sure, but that slowness can be fully explained by a mixture of the secondary goal of recovering hostages, pressure from allies, the desire of the Israeli leadership for a campaign which is as slow as possible, and the likelihood that if the war is ongoing in 2025 the rules of engagement will change dramatically).

No? Israel declared independence as the legal successor to the British Mandate of Palestine, and then it was attacked by a coalition of neighboring states.

This claim might not be as outrageous as some of your other statements, but it's certainly annoying in its sheer separation from reality. No one recognizes Israel as the successor of the British Mandate of Palestine. But more importantly, there is no legal mechanism by which Israel could possibly claim to be such a successor. The Palestinian mandate expired without a successor being appointed by the British who were administering the territory. In fact, they had explicitly given up the right to by asking the UN to it instead. However, the partition plan was never implemented (and of course under that plan Israel could not even claim the entirety of its current recognize territory, let alone the whole of Palestine). So with the end of the Mandate the territory was left in a legal vacuum and in this situation Israel declared independence unilaterally. That Israel today is accepted as a sovereign state by most of the world is due to international consensus - the same consensus that gives them no right over the rest of the mandate territory.

All of this is nonsense which goes against very basic assumptions in international law. Colonial-era borders are always preserved except by agreement by both parties; the sheer fact that there was an internationally recognized declaration of independence in the British Mandate for Palestine means that it has a successor.

Also, if Israel is the legal owner of the whole former Palestinian Mandate, doesn't that give some obligations towards the inhabitants there? After all, the Mandate established that the civil rights of native inhabitants would not be infringed. Or does Israel have only privileges and no responsibilities?

I'm authentically unsure what this refers to. People fleeing who refused citizenship in new post-colonial states were not that rare of a phenomenon during decolonization and it was uniformly the case that new governments were not seen as having obligations towards those people; it is still the case today that governments do not have obligations towards people who renounce citizenship.

IDF is saying they've confirmed 32 of the hostages are dead. I guess now they will level the 25% of buildings in Gaza that still stand.

In a just world, would've been done on the first day of the conflict by a coalition of all the nations of the world.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Can we please get away from these massive debates that occupy the entire thread with huge walls of text?  This is the only thread allowed on this forum about the biggest conflict in the world, the main thing that everyone has been talking about for four months now, and it's just a couple guys talking to Vosem in the form of massive, massive, massive walls of text that absolutely zero other people read.

[Horus]

Can we please get away from these massive debates that occupy the entire thread with huge walls of text?  This is the only thread allowed on this forum about the biggest conflict in the world, the main thing that everyone has been talking about for four months now, and it's just a couple guys talking to Vosem in the form of massive, massive, massive walls of text that absolutely zero other people read.

When the Tara Reade crap (an infinitesimally tiny issue compared to this) was going on, you had text walls just as huge. What kind of person comes on a forum like this and complains about long, sometimes well thought out posts about a very complicated and dire geopolitical matter? The same type of person who throws a tantrum over sign language interpreters in the corner of his screen, I guess.

[GeneralMacArthur]

To try and get things back on track, we have this NYT article:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/02/06/world/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news

Hamas confirmed that it had responded to the proposal, saying it had dealt with the framework “positively,” though it reaffirmed earlier demands, including for a permanent cease-fire, reconstruction of Gaza, a lifting the blockade, and the release of Palestinian prisoners. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has already objected to some of these demands.

Hamas did not lay out its specific response, though its Al Aqsa TV reported that the militant group had offered amendments to the framework related to the issues of a cease-fire, reconstruction, lifting the blockade, evacuating wounded people and the return of displaced people to their homes and providing them with shelter.

An Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, suggested that Israel was dissatisfied with Hamas’s response. Hamas, the official said, wants a deal only if it ensures its continued control of Gaza and ends the war — both conditions rejected by Israel.

Blinken has been trying to get Hamas to accept the Qatar/Egypt ceasefire proposal, where Hamas exchanges the hostages for some Israeli POWs in exchange for a ceasefire lasting about a month.

Hamas responded "positively", but also "reaffirmed earlier demands", which are all their totally unacceptable demands.  So in other words, they said "yes we'd like a ceasefire, but only if we get absolutely everything we want, period."  That's not a real offer.  So it sounds to me like the ceasefire deal is going nowhere.

There's a fundamental difference between a ceasefire and peace.  A ceasefire is a temporary pause in fighting.  The purpose of the ceasefire is to try and create space for negotiation of a permanent peace without destruction continuing in the meantime.

Typically the losing side is the one that is willing to make concessions to get a ceasefire, since the losing side is the one that wants peace.  The winning side is typically motivated to continue advancing so they can improve their negotiating position.  We saw this in World War 1 -- post-revolution Russia and Germany negotiated a cease-fire so they could have peace talks, Trotsky was unwilling to accept the Kaiser's demands for peace, so Germany resumed hostilities and advanced further into Russia, at which point the Bolsheviks agreed to another ceasefire and this time surrendered even more than Germany had originally asked for in order to achieve peace.

Yet here we have Hamas making extraordinary and unreasonable demands in order for them to agree to a ceasefire with Israel, the side that is clearly, unambiguously, overwhelmingly winning this war.  The ordinary thing would be for Hamas to agree to release the hostages in exchange for Israel agreeing to put a pause on bombing Hamas to oblivion.  Instead Hamas is demanding that Israel return thousands of POWs in exchange for Hamas granting the concession of no longer being ravaged by Israel.  How does that make any sense?

And of course Hamas's demands are ludicrously unreasonable.  They want to remain in control of Gaza, and they want Israel to pay to rebuild Gaza.  In other words, they want war reparations from Israel, for a war they started and lost!  And that's even before we get to their attempts to use their strong negotiating position (lol) to end the blockades that started long before the war and were intended to avoid Hamas getting the resources to build heavy weapons.  It's like if during the Treaty of Versailles, Germany had demanded that France not only pay to rebuild Germany, but also pay to re-arm Germany.

What's happening here is that people who want a cease-fire are getting played for fools.  Hamas doesn't want a cease-fire.  What they want is a permanent peace treaty where Israel agrees to release every Hamas fighter from their prisons and pay Hamas billions of dollars to build new tunnels and buy new weapons.  Unless they achieve that pipe dream, they are not going to stop fighting Israel, so Israel is not going to stop fighting them.  There is no such thing as a unilateral cease-fire, that is just called a surrender.  Hamas has to agree to a cease-fire, Israel can't do it on their own.  Since the only cease-fire Hamas is willing to agree to is one that entails an Israeli surrender, it's just never going to happen.  So for heaven's sake you can stop badgering every politician and celebrity to demand a cease-fire from Israel.  It's Hamas you should be yelling at!

[GeneralMacArthur]

Can we please get away from these massive debates that occupy the entire thread with huge walls of text?  This is the only thread allowed on this forum about the biggest conflict in the world, the main thing that everyone has been talking about for four months now, and it's just a couple guys talking to Vosem in the form of massive, massive, massive walls of text that absolutely zero other people read.

When the Tara Reade crap (an infinitesimally tiny issue compared to this) was going on, you had text walls just as huge. What kind of person comes on a forum like this and complains about long, sometimes well thought out posts about a very complicated and dire geopolitical matter? The same type of person who throws a tantrum over sign language interpreters in the corner of his screen, I guess.

90% of this thread is just abstract policy arguments about the conflict.  Only 10% of it, at this point, is about the actual events unfolding in the Israel-Gaza war.  There should be a separate thread for these two entirely separate topics.  If I want to follow how things are actually going in Gaza, whether that's the advancements of the IDF or the diplomatic progress (or lack thereof) towards getting Hamas to agree to end the conflict, there should be a place on this forum where I can do that.

Also I don't know why you're always so intolerably rude to me and always launch these ad-hominem attacks out of nowhere.  I have no idea who you are but you're always like this on this thread.  Absolutely none of my post was directed at you in any way, yet here you are still trying your hardest to start a fight by lying about posts I wrote four(!) years ago.  Can I live?

[patzer]

The first step is justice for those like Hallel Yaffa Ariel who were murdered in cold blood by state endorsed terror. Members of Fatah and Hamas need to face trials in the same way the Nazis did, with trials of all of the collaborators.

When it comes to rooting out evil, there's no compromise with those who believe the cold blooded murder of children is something to celebrate.

This is not an answer. What is your long term vision for peace?

One state solution is the only way. Israel is the only successor state to the British Mandatory Palestine in existence and the only state with any sort of claim to the region, and modern Palestinian nationalism is explicitly antisemitic including pushing for the ethnic cleansing of all Jewish settlements from a hypothetical Palestinian state.

So I'd say something along the lines of, Israel formally declares the West Bank and Gaza Strip as being part of Israel, recognizes Arabic as a national language and Arab Israelis as a national minority group. Make it so that Arab residents of the West Bank/Gaza can get Israeli citizenship if they want it (along with the responsibilities that comes with like IDF service). Anyone who engages in collaboration with terror groups like Hamas is deported with their property seized by the Israeli state and given to victims of Hamas attacks and their families as compensation; the higher up terror leaders should face life in prison (I'm pro-life and oppose the death penalty on principle no matter how evil someone's actions are). And gradually remove the checkpoints in the West Bank and so on as it becomes safe to do so.

Do you not see that Israel is the major obstacle to the peace you envision? The notion of Israel voluntarily giving up its status as a Jewish state someday, which this situation would, is completely unthinkable. Why do you spend so much time attacking reprehensible but relatively powerless Hamas supporters and so little time attacking the people who insist that Palestinians can never be given equal citizenship, who actually have the preponderance of political power in the region's only nuclear state?

Netanyahu recently suggested a two state solution might not be viable and got lambasted for doing so. Some Israeli MKs recently suggested the Jewish population which was ethnically cleansed from Gaza twenty years ago should be able to return to their homes; this again received heavy criticism.

Israel's status as a Jewish state wouldn't be under question following the incorporation of the West Bank and Gaza if done right. It's not about numbers. The Druze minority in Israel largely respects the state institutions; this is true regardless of the size of the Druze population of Israel.

The fundamental issue is that a large number of Arabs living in the area do not respect the existence of Israel or recognize the state institutions. For example the Arab population of Jerusalem is eligible for Israeli citizenship but most have declined because they want to instead be part of a hypothetical state of Palestine.  

[GeneralMacArthur]

Israel's status as a Jewish state wouldn't be under question following the incorporation of the West Bank and Gaza if done right. It's not about numbers. The Druze minority in Israel largely respects the state institutions; this is true regardless of the size of the Druze population of Israel.

The fundamental issue is that a large number of Arabs living in the area do not respect the existence of Israel or recognize the state institutions. For example the Arab population of Jerusalem is eligible for Israeli citizenship but most have declined because they want to instead be part of a hypothetical state of Palestine.  

I know this is an unpleasant reality but the Jews are simply never going to believe this.  The fundamental promise of the State of Israel is that the Jews will provide for themselves, and will never again place themselves at the mercy of others.  This is because throughout history, those "others" -- even others who professed to be friends or at least protectors of the Jews, would inevitably betray them and abandon them to die the instant said friendship became inconvenient.

The last thing the Jews of Israel are going to do is allow themselves to be permanently at the mercy of an Arab majority -- the same Arabs who have spent the last century trying repeatedly to exterminate them, teaching their children that Jews are lower than rats or cockroaches, and offering both financial rewards and the promise of eternal prosperity to anyone who kills a Jew.

Yes, it may be the case that (at least for some time) the Arabs are willing to get along with the Jews and co-exist in a democratic harmony.  But Jews have been in such a situation before and it has always ended with betrayal and murder.  Even in some other Arab countries prior to the founding of Israel, they were able to live in relative peace, only to be violently robbed and expelled in 1948-1952.

If the western world dreams of an Israeli state where a Jewish minority lives in harmony with an Arab majority, I'm sorry but not getting this is the price the western world must pay for millennia of betrayal, degradation and murder of the Jews.

[patzer]

Israel's status as a Jewish state wouldn't be under question following the incorporation of the West Bank and Gaza if done right. It's not about numbers. The Druze minority in Israel largely respects the state institutions; this is true regardless of the size of the Druze population of Israel.

The fundamental issue is that a large number of Arabs living in the area do not respect the existence of Israel or recognize the state institutions. For example the Arab population of Jerusalem is eligible for Israeli citizenship but most have declined because they want to instead be part of a hypothetical state of Palestine.  

I know this is an unpleasant reality but the Jews are simply never going to believe this.  The fundamental promise of the State of Israel is that the Jews will provide for themselves, and will never again place themselves at the mercy of others.  This is because throughout history, those "others" -- even others who professed to be friends or at least protectors of the Jews, would inevitably betray them and abandon them to die the instant said friendship became inconvenient.

The last thing the Jews of Israel are going to do is allow themselves to be permanently at the mercy of an Arab majority -- the same Arabs who have spent the last century trying repeatedly to exterminate them, teaching their children that Jews are lower than rats or cockroaches, and offering both financial rewards and the promise of eternal prosperity to anyone who kills a Jew.

Yes, it may be the case that (at least for some time) the Arabs are willing to get along with the Jews and co-exist in a democratic harmony.  But Jews have been in such a situation before and it has always ended with betrayal and murder.  Even in some other Arab countries prior to the founding of Israel, they were able to live in relative peace, only to be violently robbed and expelled in 1948-1952.

If the western world dreams of an Israeli state where a Jewish minority lives in harmony with an Arab majority, I'm sorry but not getting this is the price the western world must pay for millennia of betrayal, degradation and murder of the Jews.

Realistically Israel would never become Arab majority in such a a scenario anyway, not only because of Jewish birth rates being higher but also because I fully expect most Arabs would not choose to take up Israeli citizenship when offered.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Has anyone ever done a poll of how many Arabs would take Israeli citizenship if offered?  If that's actually true that most Palestinians don't even want to return then it's even more aggravating that Arafat torpedoed the 2000 peace talks over this issue even after Israel offered to let 100,000 Palestinians return.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I would like to hear proposals for how people would like to see this conflict end.  Based on what appears to be Hamas's current negotiating position that they won't "grant" Israel a ceasefire, they will only accept a permanent peace treaty where Hamas stays in power and Israel funds them.

A) Israel accepts Hamas's demands and the war ends (presumably Hamas spends a few years re-arming, on Israel's credit card, and then attacks again in Biden's second term).

B) Israel rejects Hamas's demands and continues bombing Gaza to smithereens, presumably with some hope of eventually eliminating Hamas, rescuing the hostages, and occupying/rebuilding Gaza under Israel's terms.

C) Israel doesn't accept Hamas's demands, but they do unilaterally end the war and abandon the hostages to torture and death, leaving Gaza under Hamas's control.

D) The international community intervenes to end the war by forming an anti-Hamas coalition that occupies Gaza without Israeli involvement.

E) The international community sanctions, and even possibly takes military action, against Israel to force them to abandon the hostages.

I can't think of any other options?

[GALeftist]

The first step is justice for those like Hallel Yaffa Ariel who were murdered in cold blood by state endorsed terror. Members of Fatah and Hamas need to face trials in the same way the Nazis did, with trials of all of the collaborators.

When it comes to rooting out evil, there's no compromise with those who believe the cold blooded murder of children is something to celebrate.

This is not an answer. What is your long term vision for peace?

One state solution is the only way. Israel is the only successor state to the British Mandatory Palestine in existence and the only state with any sort of claim to the region, and modern Palestinian nationalism is explicitly antisemitic including pushing for the ethnic cleansing of all Jewish settlements from a hypothetical Palestinian state.

So I'd say something along the lines of, Israel formally declares the West Bank and Gaza Strip as being part of Israel, recognizes Arabic as a national language and Arab Israelis as a national minority group. Make it so that Arab residents of the West Bank/Gaza can get Israeli citizenship if they want it (along with the responsibilities that comes with like IDF service). Anyone who engages in collaboration with terror groups like Hamas is deported with their property seized by the Israeli state and given to victims of Hamas attacks and their families as compensation; the higher up terror leaders should face life in prison (I'm pro-life and oppose the death penalty on principle no matter how evil someone's actions are). And gradually remove the checkpoints in the West Bank and so on as it becomes safe to do so.

Do you not see that Israel is the major obstacle to the peace you envision? The notion of Israel voluntarily giving up its status as a Jewish state someday, which this situation would, is completely unthinkable. Why do you spend so much time attacking reprehensible but relatively powerless Hamas supporters and so little time attacking the people who insist that Palestinians can never be given equal citizenship, who actually have the preponderance of political power in the region's only nuclear state?

Netanyahu recently suggested a two state solution might not be viable and got lambasted for doing so. Some Israeli MKs recently suggested the Jewish population which was ethnically cleansed from Gaza twenty years ago should be able to return to their homes; this again received heavy criticism.

Israel's status as a Jewish state wouldn't be under question following the incorporation of the West Bank and Gaza if done right. It's not about numbers. The Druze minority in Israel largely respects the state institutions; this is true regardless of the size of the Druze population of Israel.

The fundamental issue is that a large number of Arabs living in the area do not respect the existence of Israel or recognize the state institutions. For example the Arab population of Jerusalem is eligible for Israeli citizenship but most have declined because they want to instead be part of a hypothetical state of Palestine.  

No, the fundamental issue is that you and your Israeli analogues think it is just to render a population permanently stateless because they have political views that you may disagree with or even find reprehensible, such as the belief that Israel ought not to be a Jewish state. That is a fundamentally fascist belief.

As an aside, you are incorrect about Arabs in East Jerusalem. They must apply to become Israeli citizens, and in order to be granted citizenship they must go through naturalization requirements like any other non-Jew, including achieving mastery of Hebrew. It is extremely unjust to annex someone's home and then demand they learn a new language to be granted basic political rights. Hopefully you were just unaware of this fact, but if you can't acknowledge this basic truth then there's really nothing more to discuss.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

I would like to hear proposals for how people would like to see this conflict end.  Based on what appears to be Hamas's current negotiating position that they won't "grant" Israel a ceasefire, they will only accept a permanent peace treaty where Hamas stays in power and Israel funds them.

A) Israel accepts Hamas's demands and the war ends (presumably Hamas spends a few years re-arming, on Israel's credit card, and then attacks again in Biden's second term).

B) Israel rejects Hamas's demands and continues bombing Gaza to smithereens, presumably with some hope of eventually eliminating Hamas, rescuing the hostages, and occupying/rebuilding Gaza under Israel's terms.

C) Israel doesn't accept Hamas's demands, but they do unilaterally end the war and abandon the hostages to torture and death, leaving Gaza under Hamas's control.

D) The international community intervenes to end the war by forming an anti-Hamas coalition that occupies Gaza without Israeli involvement.

E) The international community sanctions, and even possibly takes military action, against Israel to force them to abandon the hostages.

I can't think of any other options?

D would obviously be ideal and should have happened on October 8th, but many of the countries most sympathetic to Israel were obviously war-weary. Otherwise, B is the only option that has a chance of happening and won't result in a global war.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I would like to hear proposals for how people would like to see this conflict end.  Based on what appears to be Hamas's current negotiating position that they won't "grant" Israel a ceasefire, they will only accept a permanent peace treaty where Hamas stays in power and Israel funds them.

A) Israel accepts Hamas's demands and the war ends (presumably Hamas spends a few years re-arming, on Israel's credit card, and then attacks again in Biden's second term).

B) Israel rejects Hamas's demands and continues bombing Gaza to smithereens, presumably with some hope of eventually eliminating Hamas, rescuing the hostages, and occupying/rebuilding Gaza under Israel's terms.

C) Israel doesn't accept Hamas's demands, but they do unilaterally end the war and abandon the hostages to torture and death, leaving Gaza under Hamas's control.

D) The international community intervenes to end the war by forming an anti-Hamas coalition that occupies Gaza without Israeli involvement.

E) The international community sanctions, and even possibly takes military action, against Israel to force them to abandon the hostages.

I can't think of any other options?

D would obviously be ideal and should have happened on October 8th, but many of the countries most sympathetic to Israel were obviously war-weary. Otherwise, B is the only option that has a chance of happening and won't result in a global war.

This is exactly my opinion as well.

As long as the international community cares what happens in Israel/Palestine, Hamas is everyone's problem, not just Israel's.  Yet they rely on Israel to destroy Hamas and sit in the peanut gallery criticizing Israel for not being quick and clean enough about it.

[GoTfan]

The first step is justice for those like Hallel Yaffa Ariel who were murdered in cold blood by state endorsed terror. Members of Fatah and Hamas need to face trials in the same way the Nazis did, with trials of all of the collaborators.

When it comes to rooting out evil, there's no compromise with those who believe the cold blooded murder of children is something to celebrate.

This is not an answer. What is your long term vision for peace?

One state solution is the only way. Israel is the only successor state to the British Mandatory Palestine in existence and the only state with any sort of claim to the region, and modern Palestinian nationalism is explicitly antisemitic including pushing for the ethnic cleansing of all Jewish settlements from a hypothetical Palestinian state.

So I'd say something along the lines of, Israel formally declares the West Bank and Gaza Strip as being part of Israel, recognizes Arabic as a national language and Arab Israelis as a national minority group. Make it so that Arab residents of the West Bank/Gaza can get Israeli citizenship if they want it (along with the responsibilities that comes with like IDF service). Anyone who engages in collaboration with terror groups like Hamas is deported with their property seized by the Israeli state and given to victims of Hamas attacks and their families as compensation; the higher up terror leaders should face life in prison (I'm pro-life and oppose the death penalty on principle no matter how evil someone's actions are). And gradually remove the checkpoints in the West Bank and so on as it becomes safe to do so.

Do you not see that Israel is the major obstacle to the peace you envision? The notion of Israel voluntarily giving up its status as a Jewish state someday, which this situation would, is completely unthinkable. Why do you spend so much time attacking reprehensible but relatively powerless Hamas supporters and so little time attacking the people who insist that Palestinians can never be given equal citizenship, who actually have the preponderance of political power in the region's only nuclear state?

Netanyahu recently suggested a two state solution might not be viable and got lambasted for doing so. Some Israeli MKs recently suggested the Jewish population which was ethnically cleansed from Gaza twenty years ago should be able to return to their homes; this again received heavy criticism.

Israel's status as a Jewish state wouldn't be under question following the incorporation of the West Bank and Gaza if done right. It's not about numbers. The Druze minority in Israel largely respects the state institutions; this is true regardless of the size of the Druze population of Israel.

The fundamental issue is that a large number of Arabs living in the area do not respect the existence of Israel or recognize the state institutions. For example the Arab population of Jerusalem is eligible for Israeli citizenship but most have declined because they want to instead be part of a hypothetical state of Palestine.  

Probably because they have as much right to self-autonomy as any other people. In order to get to the view that they do not have a right to self-autonomy, we have to start from the viewpoint that they are less than human.

[Silent Hunter]

Looks like the Nazi's stole it off the Arabs.

They stole lots of things from lots of people - their "kitsch" was almost entirely borrowed.

One of the Underground stations in Havering, Upminster Bridge, has a Buddhist svastika on the ticket hall floor, that now has a sign explaining why it's there and making it clear it's nothing to do with the Nazis.

Were it not for the fact Havering Council have it as a listed building, they'd have probably removed it years ago.

[Meclazine for Israel]

I would like to hear proposals for how people would like to see this conflict end.  Based on what appears to be Hamas's current negotiating position that they won't "grant" Israel a ceasefire, they will only accept a permanent peace treaty where Hamas stays in power and Israel funds them.

A) Israel accepts Hamas's demands and the war ends (presumably Hamas spends a few years re-arming, on Israel's credit card, and then attacks again in Biden's second term).

B) Israel rejects Hamas's demands and continues bombing Gaza to smithereens, presumably with some hope of eventually eliminating Hamas, rescuing the hostages, and occupying/rebuilding Gaza under Israel's terms.

C) Israel doesn't accept Hamas's demands, but they do unilaterally end the war and abandon the hostages to torture and death, leaving Gaza under Hamas's control.

D) The international community intervenes to end the war by forming an anti-Hamas coalition that occupies Gaza without Israeli involvement.

E) The international community sanctions, and even possibly takes military action, against Israel to force them to abandon the hostages.

I can't think of any other options?

I feel like I am listening to options on a phone menu but none of them fit with the reality of the problem.

What was the option that got you banned?

[GoTfan]

I would like to hear proposals for how people would like to see this conflict end.  Based on what appears to be Hamas's current negotiating position that they won't "grant" Israel a ceasefire, they will only accept a permanent peace treaty where Hamas stays in power and Israel funds them.

A) Israel accepts Hamas's demands and the war ends (presumably Hamas spends a few years re-arming, on Israel's credit card, and then attacks again in Biden's second term).

B) Israel rejects Hamas's demands and continues bombing Gaza to smithereens, presumably with some hope of eventually eliminating Hamas, rescuing the hostages, and occupying/rebuilding Gaza under Israel's terms.

C) Israel doesn't accept Hamas's demands, but they do unilaterally end the war and abandon the hostages to torture and death, leaving Gaza under Hamas's control.

D) The international community intervenes to end the war by forming an anti-Hamas coalition that occupies Gaza without Israeli involvement.

E) The international community sanctions, and even possibly takes military action, against Israel to force them to abandon the hostages.

I can't think of any other options?

I feel like I am listening to options on a phone menu but none of them fit with the reality of the problem.

What was the option that got you banned?

He's under no obligation to disclose that.

[GeneralMacArthur]

What was the option that got you banned?

The "option that got me banned" is completely moot now since the entire point was to avoid the catastrophic war that has now unfolded in the three months since.  That idea was for the Gazan civilians to be resettled outside of Gaza, leaving only Hamas in the Strip itself, to battle Israel on a battlefield free of civilians.  Since the Gazan civilians instead remained in Gaza, we now have widespread devastation to the civilian population who are forced (by Hamas) to live in a warzone.

[Meclazine for Israel]

What was the option that got you banned?

The "option that got me banned" is completely moot now since the entire point was to avoid the catastrophic war that has now unfolded in the three months since.  That idea was for the Gazan civilians to be resettled outside of Gaza, leaving only Hamas in the Strip itself, to battle Israel on a battlefield free of civilians.  Since the Gazan civilians instead remained in Gaza, we now have widespread devastation to the civilian population who are forced (by Hamas) to live in a warzone.

The only thing I am thinking is whether this is heading to a "One State" solution or a "Two State" solution.

I do commend you on your direction for the discussion and I did really examine all the options. I just don't see any of them coming to fruition.

Israel needs to make some very hard decisions over the next two years.

[CumbrianLefty]

Perhaps the most important "hard decision" it needs to come to is that killing or expelling the entire Palestinian population is not an option, so some way needs to be found to live with them instead.

[Pres Mike]

The first step is justice for those like Hallel Yaffa Ariel who were murdered in cold blood by state endorsed terror. Members of Fatah and Hamas need to face trials in the same way the Nazis did, with trials of all of the collaborators.

When it comes to rooting out evil, there's no compromise with those who believe the cold blooded murder of children is something to celebrate.

This is not an answer. What is your long term vision for peace?

One state solution is the only way. Israel is the only successor state to the British Mandatory Palestine in existence and the only state with any sort of claim to the region, and modern Palestinian nationalism is explicitly antisemitic including pushing for the ethnic cleansing of all Jewish settlements from a hypothetical Palestinian state.

So I'd say something along the lines of, Israel formally declares the West Bank and Gaza Strip as being part of Israel, recognizes Arabic as a national language and Arab Israelis as a national minority group. Make it so that Arab residents of the West Bank/Gaza can get Israeli citizenship if they want it (along with the responsibilities that comes with like IDF service). Anyone who engages in collaboration with terror groups like Hamas is deported with their property seized by the Israeli state and given to victims of Hamas attacks and their families as compensation; the higher up terror leaders should face life in prison (I'm pro-life and oppose the death penalty on principle no matter how evil someone's actions are). And gradually remove the checkpoints in the West Bank and so on as it becomes safe to do so.

Do you not see that Israel is the major obstacle to the peace you envision? The notion of Israel voluntarily giving up its status as a Jewish state someday, which this situation would, is completely unthinkable. Why do you spend so much time attacking reprehensible but relatively powerless Hamas supporters and so little time attacking the people who insist that Palestinians can never be given equal citizenship, who actually have the preponderance of political power in the region's only nuclear state?

Netanyahu recently suggested a two state solution might not be viable and got lambasted for doing so. Some Israeli MKs recently suggested the Jewish population which was ethnically cleansed from Gaza twenty years ago should be able to return to their homes; this again received heavy criticism.

Israel's status as a Jewish state wouldn't be under question following the incorporation of the West Bank and Gaza if done right. It's not about numbers. The Druze minority in Israel largely respects the state institutions; this is true regardless of the size of the Druze population of Israel.

The fundamental issue is that a large number of Arabs living in the area do not respect the existence of Israel or recognize the state institutions. For example the Arab population of Jerusalem is eligible for Israeli citizenship but most have declined because they want to instead be part of a hypothetical state of Palestine.  

20% of Israeli citizens are Arab

Fun fact, my grandmother is neither a citizen of Israel or Palestine despite being born in Jerusalem

My grandmother was born in 1945 in the British mandate. Her first citizenship was Jordanian, because East Jerusalem was under Jordanian control when she started school.

Her and my grandfather moved to the US in 1963 and became American citizens

So my grandmother can't live in the place she was born! She can't live in the West Bank where my grandfather is from! She can live in either the US or Jordan. She never lived in actual Jordan!