Israel-Gaza war

[Pres Mike]

(More generally, beyond this, I think Zionism is ideologically good and I think more religions, ethnicities, and ideologies should try to set up 'homelands' on similar lines, but I think my stance here would be the same if Israelis were not the descendants of recent immigrants. That does make it seem more rather than less sympathetic to me, which I think is a reversal of the take of most people in this thread.)

Except Palestinians, for some reason.

I don't agree with Vosem, but:

Do Palestinians consider themselves an "ethnicity" even today?  If you went back to 1924 and asked the Arabs living in Acre whether they considered themselves a wholly separate ethnicity from the Arabs living in Tyre, would they have said yes?  Would they also have said yes if you then asked them if they, concordantly, considered themselves the same ethnicity as the Arabs living in Gaza?  What if you asked Arabs living in Jericho whether they considered themselves a separate ethnicity from Arabs living in Amman?  After all, in the 19th century these were all part of the same administrative subregion within the Ottoman Empire.  Do ethnicities start and stop at the Sykes-Picot borders?

Is "Palestinianism" a distinct ideology?  Did "Palestinianism" exist before 1948?  Does the Palestinian ideology encompass anything more than the desire to conquer Israel, drive out the Jews and resettle the land?  In which case, if the Jews were all killed, would Palestinianism as an ideology continue to exist in a generation?  What, people want a country, therefore their desire for a country is a distinct ideology, and distinct ideologies deserve a homeland, so simply by wanting a country they deserve that country?

Certainly I don't think you would argue the Palestinians have a distinct religion from Egypt or Syria or Lebanon or Jordan.

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.

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!

So please, tell me more about how the Palestinians are a unique ethnicity deserving of their own homeland in Israel.

I disagree.

First, I am a Palestinian. My grandparents and father lived in Jordan occupied Palestine. They did not consider themselves occupied, but they did not consider themselves the same as Jordanians. Even in Jordan today, Jordanians and Palestinians are consider seperate people despite Palestinians having Jordanian citizenship. And outnumbering actual Jordanians!

Norwegians and Swedes are the same ethnicty, northern Europe. Nordic. But they have a different nation. Russians and Ukrainians are both Slavic.

There can be huge cultural differences. Go to any Mosque in America during Ramadan. Food can be crazy different from Egypt to Jordan to Iraq. Just like how food can be different in Poland and Russia and Ukraine.

Not sure who considers Palestinians to be an ethnicity? Its an natioanlity. Yes, Palestinians are Sunni Arabs. No one is demanding some sort of Pan Slavic state in Europe

[Indy Texas 🇺🇦🇵🇸]

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. Hondurans 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.

[Wiswylfen]

Full incorporation of the West Bank is almost certainly the only way to ensure Israel's long term survival– if another state were allowed to form in the West Bank, even if there is a peace treaty in the short term, the geographic reality would effectively make it a Sudetenland striking at the heart of a much more indefensible Israel. There's no way that the creation of a state on high ground within ten miles of almost all Israeli cities should even be seen as an option to be contemplated, really.

The question is what the best way of going about West Bank annexation would be. That's hard to say.

Are we antisemitic if we disagree with this one too?

[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.

[Vosem]

People like Vosem don't consider military dictatorship in the West Bank or 20,000 dead women/children "violence" because Palestinian lives don't really matter to them. Just a statistic or a nuisance.

Yeah, the issue is that if Hamas wins then participants in the next dozen conflicts will be incentivized to make those bigger statistics.

Wars with many more than 20,000 dead have been justified in the past, and wars with many more than 20,000 dead will be justified in the future. But we can try to set up norms today which will make future bloody wars less likely. (This is why Hamas should unconditionally surrender and agree in good faith to carry out Israeli policies.)

Does the life of any Palestinian matter to you at all? Or is this just an extension of your Social Darwinism?

I think letting Hamas win (even in some symbolic way; they must either be destroyed or repudiate their beliefs and work towards letting their former enemies win) would create a world where there are many more wars and those wars are much more deadly; even beyond this, Palestinian liberationism as an ideology offensive to ordinary principles of justice, for much the same reasons fascism was. Nationalism is acceptable, for any nation, but for peace to be preserved it can never come at the expense of an existing nation. Palestinian nationalism may not be anti-Zionist for the same reason German nationalism may not be anti-Polish, or Argentine nationalism anti-Falklander.

I think that Israel should fight in a way that minimizes civilian casualties where possible; that there have been only 20,000 deaths total out of a population of 2 million (of whom something like 7,000 are estimated to be militants), where their enemy openly uses human shields, suggests very strongly to me that this is happening. But in principle, I think if Hamas fought in a way that meant that they could not be defeated except by killing every person in Gaza, then I think that should be done (and if they fought in a way that meant that they could not be defeated except by killing every person on Earth, my very strong instinct would be to call their bluff). Fiat iustitia, ruat caelum.

The idea that we should give in to the demands of militant groups if not doing so would cause many death is evil, and needs to die. I don't know whether this codes as a 'yes' or 'no' answer to your question ("Do the lives of any Palestinian matter to you at all?" -- they matter as much as that of any other person, so a lot but not more than humanity's future ability to thrive in peace). Your question, fundamentally, codes to me pretty strongly as 'this is the wrong question to ask, to a degree which implies that the person asking it is confused about basic aspects of reality, or is living in a different reality from me'.

(Also, what do you mean by 'Social Darwinism'? Do you mean that I think people should be permitted to purchase access to healthcare instead of forcing them to live in societies where access to healthcare is impossible in principle? I also think that is just, yes, and in principle worth fighting and dying for.)

So 20,000 dead, the majority of which you've just admitted are civilians, are acceptable casualties to you?

In order to even take your argument seriously, we have to start from the viewpoint that Palestinians are less than human.

Edit: Just saw the part I bolded. Holy s**t you're evil.

I mean, to defeat Hamas, yes, absolutely. But I don't think this means Palestinians are less than human: I would say the same about any other people in that position. The people who raised me fought in years-long wars with orders of magnitude more civilian casualties in every battle, and I think they were right to do so. (My great-grandfather was part of a partisan group which relayed information to a government bombing the area where most of that partisan group's homes were, and most of the people in that group belonged to an ethnicity that government had deliberately starved less than a decade earlier. And they were right to do so.) The struggle against evil will always be with us, but by not giving in to the propaganda that makes you think that you should give up on a war because of civilian casualties, you can at least reduce the number of civilian casualties in the long run.

Also, really, I would've thought the sentence immediately after the bolded one would've upset you more than the one you bolded.

[GoTfan]

People like Vosem don't consider military dictatorship in the West Bank or 20,000 dead women/children "violence" because Palestinian lives don't really matter to them. Just a statistic or a nuisance.

Yeah, the issue is that if Hamas wins then participants in the next dozen conflicts will be incentivized to make those bigger statistics.

Wars with many more than 20,000 dead have been justified in the past, and wars with many more than 20,000 dead will be justified in the future. But we can try to set up norms today which will make future bloody wars less likely. (This is why Hamas should unconditionally surrender and agree in good faith to carry out Israeli policies.)

Does the life of any Palestinian matter to you at all? Or is this just an extension of your Social Darwinism?

I think letting Hamas win (even in some symbolic way; they must either be destroyed or repudiate their beliefs and work towards letting their former enemies win) would create a world where there are many more wars and those wars are much more deadly; even beyond this, Palestinian liberationism as an ideology offensive to ordinary principles of justice, for much the same reasons fascism was. Nationalism is acceptable, for any nation, but for peace to be preserved it can never come at the expense of an existing nation. Palestinian nationalism may not be anti-Zionist for the same reason German nationalism may not be anti-Polish, or Argentine nationalism anti-Falklander.

I think that Israel should fight in a way that minimizes civilian casualties where possible; that there have been only 20,000 deaths total out of a population of 2 million (of whom something like 7,000 are estimated to be militants), where their enemy openly uses human shields, suggests very strongly to me that this is happening. But in principle, I think if Hamas fought in a way that meant that they could not be defeated except by killing every person in Gaza, then I think that should be done (and if they fought in a way that meant that they could not be defeated except by killing every person on Earth, my very strong instinct would be to call their bluff). Fiat iustitia, ruat caelum.

The idea that we should give in to the demands of militant groups if not doing so would cause many death is evil, and needs to die. I don't know whether this codes as a 'yes' or 'no' answer to your question ("Do the lives of any Palestinian matter to you at all?" -- they matter as much as that of any other person, so a lot but not more than humanity's future ability to thrive in peace). Your question, fundamentally, codes to me pretty strongly as 'this is the wrong question to ask, to a degree which implies that the person asking it is confused about basic aspects of reality, or is living in a different reality from me'.

(Also, what do you mean by 'Social Darwinism'? Do you mean that I think people should be permitted to purchase access to healthcare instead of forcing them to live in societies where access to healthcare is impossible in principle? I also think that is just, yes, and in principle worth fighting and dying for.)

So 20,000 dead, the majority of which you've just admitted are civilians, are acceptable casualties to you?

In order to even take your argument seriously, we have to start from the viewpoint that Palestinians are less than human.

Edit: Just saw the part I bolded. Holy s**t you're evil.

I mean, to defeat Hamas, yes, absolutely. But I don't think this means Palestinians are less than human: I would say the same about any other people in that position. The people who raised me fought in years-long wars with orders of magnitude more civilian casualties in every battle, and I think they were right to do so. (My great-grandfather was part of a partisan group which relayed information to a government bombing the area where most of that partisan group's homes were, and most of the people in that group belonged to an ethnicity that government had deliberately starved less than a decade earlier. And they were right to do so.) The struggle against evil will always be with us, but by not giving in to the propaganda that makes you think that you should give up on a war because of civilian casualties, you can at least reduce the number of civilian casualties in the long run.

Also, really, I would've thought the sentence immediately after the bolded one would've upset you more than the one you bolded.

So now civilian causalities are propaganda?

Bloody hell.

[Vosem]

People like Vosem don't consider military dictatorship in the West Bank or 20,000 dead women/children "violence" because Palestinian lives don't really matter to them. Just a statistic or a nuisance.

Yeah, the issue is that if Hamas wins then participants in the next dozen conflicts will be incentivized to make those bigger statistics.

Wars with many more than 20,000 dead have been justified in the past, and wars with many more than 20,000 dead will be justified in the future. But we can try to set up norms today which will make future bloody wars less likely. (This is why Hamas should unconditionally surrender and agree in good faith to carry out Israeli policies.)

Does the life of any Palestinian matter to you at all? Or is this just an extension of your Social Darwinism?

I think letting Hamas win (even in some symbolic way; they must either be destroyed or repudiate their beliefs and work towards letting their former enemies win) would create a world where there are many more wars and those wars are much more deadly; even beyond this, Palestinian liberationism as an ideology offensive to ordinary principles of justice, for much the same reasons fascism was. Nationalism is acceptable, for any nation, but for peace to be preserved it can never come at the expense of an existing nation. Palestinian nationalism may not be anti-Zionist for the same reason German nationalism may not be anti-Polish, or Argentine nationalism anti-Falklander.

I think that Israel should fight in a way that minimizes civilian casualties where possible; that there have been only 20,000 deaths total out of a population of 2 million (of whom something like 7,000 are estimated to be militants), where their enemy openly uses human shields, suggests very strongly to me that this is happening. But in principle, I think if Hamas fought in a way that meant that they could not be defeated except by killing every person in Gaza, then I think that should be done (and if they fought in a way that meant that they could not be defeated except by killing every person on Earth, my very strong instinct would be to call their bluff). Fiat iustitia, ruat caelum.

The idea that we should give in to the demands of militant groups if not doing so would cause many death is evil, and needs to die. I don't know whether this codes as a 'yes' or 'no' answer to your question ("Do the lives of any Palestinian matter to you at all?" -- they matter as much as that of any other person, so a lot but not more than humanity's future ability to thrive in peace). Your question, fundamentally, codes to me pretty strongly as 'this is the wrong question to ask, to a degree which implies that the person asking it is confused about basic aspects of reality, or is living in a different reality from me'.

(Also, what do you mean by 'Social Darwinism'? Do you mean that I think people should be permitted to purchase access to healthcare instead of forcing them to live in societies where access to healthcare is impossible in principle? I also think that is just, yes, and in principle worth fighting and dying for.)

So 20,000 dead, the majority of which you've just admitted are civilians, are acceptable casualties to you?

In order to even take your argument seriously, we have to start from the viewpoint that Palestinians are less than human.

Edit: Just saw the part I bolded. Holy s**t you're evil.

I mean, to defeat Hamas, yes, absolutely. But I don't think this means Palestinians are less than human: I would say the same about any other people in that position. The people who raised me fought in years-long wars with orders of magnitude more civilian casualties in every battle, and I think they were right to do so. (My great-grandfather was part of a partisan group which relayed information to a government bombing the area where most of that partisan group's homes were, and most of the people in that group belonged to an ethnicity that government had deliberately starved less than a decade earlier. And they were right to do so.) The struggle against evil will always be with us, but by not giving in to the propaganda that makes you think that you should give up on a war because of civilian casualties, you can at least reduce the number of civilian casualties in the long run.

Also, really, I would've thought the sentence immediately after the bolded one would've upset you more than the one you bolded.

So now civilian causalities are propaganda?

Bloody hell.

Since when has the narrative "you shouldn't fight a group if that would cost more than some number of lives" not been authoritarian propaganda?

[GoTfan]

People like Vosem don't consider military dictatorship in the West Bank or 20,000 dead women/children "violence" because Palestinian lives don't really matter to them. Just a statistic or a nuisance.

Yeah, the issue is that if Hamas wins then participants in the next dozen conflicts will be incentivized to make those bigger statistics.

Wars with many more than 20,000 dead have been justified in the past, and wars with many more than 20,000 dead will be justified in the future. But we can try to set up norms today which will make future bloody wars less likely. (This is why Hamas should unconditionally surrender and agree in good faith to carry out Israeli policies.)

Does the life of any Palestinian matter to you at all? Or is this just an extension of your Social Darwinism?

I think letting Hamas win (even in some symbolic way; they must either be destroyed or repudiate their beliefs and work towards letting their former enemies win) would create a world where there are many more wars and those wars are much more deadly; even beyond this, Palestinian liberationism as an ideology offensive to ordinary principles of justice, for much the same reasons fascism was. Nationalism is acceptable, for any nation, but for peace to be preserved it can never come at the expense of an existing nation. Palestinian nationalism may not be anti-Zionist for the same reason German nationalism may not be anti-Polish, or Argentine nationalism anti-Falklander.

I think that Israel should fight in a way that minimizes civilian casualties where possible; that there have been only 20,000 deaths total out of a population of 2 million (of whom something like 7,000 are estimated to be militants), where their enemy openly uses human shields, suggests very strongly to me that this is happening. But in principle, I think if Hamas fought in a way that meant that they could not be defeated except by killing every person in Gaza, then I think that should be done (and if they fought in a way that meant that they could not be defeated except by killing every person on Earth, my very strong instinct would be to call their bluff). Fiat iustitia, ruat caelum.

The idea that we should give in to the demands of militant groups if not doing so would cause many death is evil, and needs to die. I don't know whether this codes as a 'yes' or 'no' answer to your question ("Do the lives of any Palestinian matter to you at all?" -- they matter as much as that of any other person, so a lot but not more than humanity's future ability to thrive in peace). Your question, fundamentally, codes to me pretty strongly as 'this is the wrong question to ask, to a degree which implies that the person asking it is confused about basic aspects of reality, or is living in a different reality from me'.

(Also, what do you mean by 'Social Darwinism'? Do you mean that I think people should be permitted to purchase access to healthcare instead of forcing them to live in societies where access to healthcare is impossible in principle? I also think that is just, yes, and in principle worth fighting and dying for.)

So 20,000 dead, the majority of which you've just admitted are civilians, are acceptable casualties to you?

In order to even take your argument seriously, we have to start from the viewpoint that Palestinians are less than human.

Edit: Just saw the part I bolded. Holy s**t you're evil.

I mean, to defeat Hamas, yes, absolutely. But I don't think this means Palestinians are less than human: I would say the same about any other people in that position. The people who raised me fought in years-long wars with orders of magnitude more civilian casualties in every battle, and I think they were right to do so. (My great-grandfather was part of a partisan group which relayed information to a government bombing the area where most of that partisan group's homes were, and most of the people in that group belonged to an ethnicity that government had deliberately starved less than a decade earlier. And they were right to do so.) The struggle against evil will always be with us, but by not giving in to the propaganda that makes you think that you should give up on a war because of civilian casualties, you can at least reduce the number of civilian casualties in the long run.

Also, really, I would've thought the sentence immediately after the bolded one would've upset you more than the one you bolded.

So now civilian causalities are propaganda?

Bloody hell.

Since when has the narrative "you shouldn't fight a group if that would cost more than some number of lives" not been authoritarian propaganda?

I'm not the one advocating for wiping out Gaza here.

[Vosem]

People like Vosem don't consider military dictatorship in the West Bank or 20,000 dead women/children "violence" because Palestinian lives don't really matter to them. Just a statistic or a nuisance.

Yeah, the issue is that if Hamas wins then participants in the next dozen conflicts will be incentivized to make those bigger statistics.

Wars with many more than 20,000 dead have been justified in the past, and wars with many more than 20,000 dead will be justified in the future. But we can try to set up norms today which will make future bloody wars less likely. (This is why Hamas should unconditionally surrender and agree in good faith to carry out Israeli policies.)

Does the life of any Palestinian matter to you at all? Or is this just an extension of your Social Darwinism?

I think letting Hamas win (even in some symbolic way; they must either be destroyed or repudiate their beliefs and work towards letting their former enemies win) would create a world where there are many more wars and those wars are much more deadly; even beyond this, Palestinian liberationism as an ideology offensive to ordinary principles of justice, for much the same reasons fascism was. Nationalism is acceptable, for any nation, but for peace to be preserved it can never come at the expense of an existing nation. Palestinian nationalism may not be anti-Zionist for the same reason German nationalism may not be anti-Polish, or Argentine nationalism anti-Falklander.

I think that Israel should fight in a way that minimizes civilian casualties where possible; that there have been only 20,000 deaths total out of a population of 2 million (of whom something like 7,000 are estimated to be militants), where their enemy openly uses human shields, suggests very strongly to me that this is happening. But in principle, I think if Hamas fought in a way that meant that they could not be defeated except by killing every person in Gaza, then I think that should be done (and if they fought in a way that meant that they could not be defeated except by killing every person on Earth, my very strong instinct would be to call their bluff). Fiat iustitia, ruat caelum.

The idea that we should give in to the demands of militant groups if not doing so would cause many death is evil, and needs to die. I don't know whether this codes as a 'yes' or 'no' answer to your question ("Do the lives of any Palestinian matter to you at all?" -- they matter as much as that of any other person, so a lot but not more than humanity's future ability to thrive in peace). Your question, fundamentally, codes to me pretty strongly as 'this is the wrong question to ask, to a degree which implies that the person asking it is confused about basic aspects of reality, or is living in a different reality from me'.

(Also, what do you mean by 'Social Darwinism'? Do you mean that I think people should be permitted to purchase access to healthcare instead of forcing them to live in societies where access to healthcare is impossible in principle? I also think that is just, yes, and in principle worth fighting and dying for.)

So 20,000 dead, the majority of which you've just admitted are civilians, are acceptable casualties to you?

In order to even take your argument seriously, we have to start from the viewpoint that Palestinians are less than human.

Edit: Just saw the part I bolded. Holy s**t you're evil.

I mean, to defeat Hamas, yes, absolutely. But I don't think this means Palestinians are less than human: I would say the same about any other people in that position. The people who raised me fought in years-long wars with orders of magnitude more civilian casualties in every battle, and I think they were right to do so. (My great-grandfather was part of a partisan group which relayed information to a government bombing the area where most of that partisan group's homes were, and most of the people in that group belonged to an ethnicity that government had deliberately starved less than a decade earlier. And they were right to do so.) The struggle against evil will always be with us, but by not giving in to the propaganda that makes you think that you should give up on a war because of civilian casualties, you can at least reduce the number of civilian casualties in the long run.

Also, really, I would've thought the sentence immediately after the bolded one would've upset you more than the one you bolded.

So now civilian causalities are propaganda?

Bloody hell.

Since when has the narrative "you shouldn't fight a group if that would cost more than some number of lives" not been authoritarian propaganda?

I'm not the one advocating for wiping out Gaza here.

You are, however, advocating for consigning some unknowable number to slavery -- whoever has the misfortune to fall under the rule of a government willing to sacrifice 20,000 of its own people to clicks to remain in power. I think this is incomparably worse.

(Also, I'm not advocating for wiping out Gaza. I'm advocating for Hamas to unconditionally surrender and begin implementing Israeli policies. As a lesser measure, I'll advocate for Hamas to fight in ways which don't result in civilian deaths, such as by demilitarizing hospitals and schools.)

[Anti-Trump Truth Socialite JD Vance Enjoying Juror]

Full incorporation of the West Bank is almost certainly the only way to ensure Israel's long term survival– if another state were allowed to form in the West Bank, even if there is a peace treaty in the short term, the geographic reality would effectively make it a Sudetenland striking at the heart of a much more indefensible Israel. There's no way that the creation of a state on high ground within ten miles of almost all Israeli cities should even be seen as an option to be contemplated, really.

The question is what the best way of going about West Bank annexation would be. That's hard to say.

The idea that countries have a right to conquer and annex their surroundings for “security reasons” went by the wayside some time in the last century. Israel does not have a right to annex the West Bank to improve the defensibility of its borders, in the same way that Russia doesn’t have a right to annex the Donbas to improve the defensibility of its borders. This line of thinking is absurd.

[patzer]

Full incorporation of the West Bank is almost certainly the only way to ensure Israel's long term survival– if another state were allowed to form in the West Bank, even if there is a peace treaty in the short term, the geographic reality would effectively make it a Sudetenland striking at the heart of a much more indefensible Israel. There's no way that the creation of a state on high ground within ten miles of almost all Israeli cities should even be seen as an option to be contemplated, really.

The question is what the best way of going about West Bank annexation would be. That's hard to say.

The idea that countries have a right to conquer and annex their surroundings for “security reasons” went by the wayside some time in the last century. Israel does not have a right to annex the West Bank to improve the defensibility of its borders, in the same way that Russia doesn’t have a right to annex the Donbas to improve the defensibility of its borders. This line of thinking is absurd.

Sovereignty over the West Bank went from the Ottoman Empire to the UK to Jordan; Israel took control of it and Jordan dropped their claim in 1988. The only country you can conceivably describe as sovereign over the WB is Israel, as every other country very obviously isn't.

Deciding to extend civil law to an area currently under your military control and to explicitly rule out the possibility of handing the area over to a hypothetical new country is not a case of "conquering and annexing your surroundings".

[Comrade Funk]

You're not gonna change the mind of someone who, at best, is ambivalent to 20,000+ Palestinian civilians dying. There's no arguing that.  Plus, if you try, you'll just get a 10 paragraph response that could be shortened to "Palestinians deserve no rights or security."

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

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.

This is one of two questions raised by this comment nest to which I've never thought the "roll back Israel's existence" crowd* has a good answer. The other is whether people really think that Israel's geographic placement in the Southern Levant is as arbitrary as the Nicaragua analogy suggests. It's not some sheer accident of modern history that this situation had more staying power than Zionism-adjacent ideas involving Uganda or the Alaska Panhandle or the Jewish Autonomous Oblast or Madagascar-as-SS-ruled-prison-state.

*It's astounding how fast the Overton window on this has shifted in American leftist discourse as well; not advancing it is now completely unacceptable in certain (admittedly fringe) circles, even if your position is "1947 UN arbitration verdict borders with no land swaps" or something similar.

[VBM]

You're not gonna change the mind of someone who, at best, is ambivalent to 20,000+ Palestinian civilians dying. There's no arguing that.  Plus, if you try, you'll just get a 10 paragraph response that could be shortened to "Palestinians deserve no rights or security."

You should be directing your anger at Hamas, who are the ones using Palestinians as human shields

[Meclazine for Israel]

Israel are saying they have recovered a head in Gaza belonging to an Israeli 19 y.o. man killed on Oct 7.

The head was found in a fridge.

Apparently, the Palestinians had auctioned off the head in Gaza and it was up for sale for $10k???

Beheaded 19 y.o. Head Auctioned by Palestinians

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2QmF7iJPxC/

As someone with a son of a similar age, that is borderline disgraceful.

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

You're not gonna change the mind of someone who, at best, is ambivalent to 20,000+ Palestinian civilians dying. There's no arguing that.  Plus, if you try, you'll just get a 10 paragraph response that could be shortened to "Palestinians deserve no rights or security."

You should be directing your anger at Hamas, who are the ones using Palestinians as human shields

We're talking about an area that is now 10 miles or so long and perhaps 5 or so miles wide considering the southern portion is the wider half. And that's on the generous/large side. Obviously this is a rough idea of the 'battlefield' but cutting Gaza in half, considering how small it already is, should be about correct. In an area that size the 'human shields' narrative really starts to become illogical.

[Storr]

"Large focus in U.S. coverage on Netanyahu's position, which has been the same for decades. But this is the bigger story post-10/7: "One in four Israeli adults currently support the existence of an independent Palestinian state, while most (65%) oppose it.""

"This is almost a complete reversal of where they stood on the issue a decade ago, when twice as many Israeli adults supported an independent Palestinian state (61%) as opposed one (30%)."

https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1748364399495004493?s=20

[CumbrianLefty]

You're not gonna change the mind of someone who, at best, is ambivalent to 20,000+ Palestinian civilians dying. There's no arguing that.  Plus, if you try, you'll just get a 10 paragraph response that could be shortened to "Palestinians deserve no rights or security."

You should be directing your anger at Hamas, who are the ones using Palestinians as human shields

Can't we direct our anger at both?

[Silent Hunter]

"Large focus in U.S. coverage on Netanyahu's position, which has been the same for decades. But this is the bigger story post-10/7: "One in four Israeli adults currently support the existence of an independent Palestinian state, while most (65%) oppose it.""

"This is almost a complete reversal of where they stood on the issue a decade ago, when twice as many Israeli adults supported an independent Palestinian state (61%) as opposed one (30%)."

With similar views on the Palestinian side. Unless something major changes, in the long-term this ends one of three ways for the Palestinians - their subjugation, their expulsion or their destruction as a people.

Let me be clear, that is not a good thing to happen.

[GALeftist]

The things people feel like it's OK to say about Palestinians continues to shock and disgust me.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Well, maybe a few more rockets launched at Israeli civilians would do the trick.

We all know that the only reason they're not suicide bombing schoolbuses and orphanages again is because the IDF got too strong.

[Indy Texas 🇺🇦🇵🇸]

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
This is one of two questions raised by this comment nest to which I've never thought the "roll back Israel's existence" crowd* has a good answer. The other is whether people really think that Israel's geographic placement in the Southern Levant is as arbitrary as the Nicaragua analogy suggests. It's not some sheer accident of modern history that this situation had more staying power than Zionism-adjacent ideas involving Uganda or the Alaska Panhandle or the Jewish Autonomous Oblast or Madagascar-as-SS-ruled-prison-state.

*It's astounding how fast the Overton window on this has shifted in American leftist discourse as well; not advancing it is now completely unacceptable in certain (admittedly fringe) circles, even if your position is "1947 UN arbitration verdict borders with no land swaps" or something similar.

What if, by virtue of the way history has unfolded over the centuries, there are actually more than one group of people who can claim some sort of relationship to a particular geographic area?

If you think Palestinians whose families have lived in that area for hundreds of years do not have a right to remain there because they cannot document an ancestral presence contemporaneous to or preceding the Second Temple Period, what are your thoughts on our rights as Americans to live in and remain in the United States? After all, our ancestors have "only" lived here for 400 or so years at best. Would it be acceptable for indigenous Americans to displace us if they acquired the political and military means to do so?

[Pres Mike]

Full incorporation of the West Bank is almost certainly the only way to ensure Israel's long term survival– if another state were allowed to form in the West Bank, even if there is a peace treaty in the short term, the geographic reality would effectively make it a Sudetenland striking at the heart of a much more indefensible Israel. There's no way that the creation of a state on high ground within ten miles of almost all Israeli cities should even be seen as an option to be contemplated, really.

The question is what the best way of going about West Bank annexation would be. That's hard to say.

Fun fact, most Palestinians are actually fine with a one state solution

You see, 20% of Israel are Arabs. Combined with the Arabs in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, its equals the entire Jewish population. But Arabs have a much higher birth rate. In 10-25 years, there will be more Palestinians between the river and sea.

So yeah, let Israel annex the West Bank and Gaza Strip and give Israeli citizenship to everyone. You will have a Arab majority state in the near future.

But thats not Netanyahu's plan. He plans to annex the West Bank and keep the Palestinians on reservations without Israeli citizenship. Thats basically the reality now. I've been to the West Bank to visit family. The IDF has checkpoints on all roads. You can't leave Ramallah to go to Jericho or any village/town without the right papers. Soemtimes the IDF closes roads "just because".

If a Palestinian is arrested by the IDF, they get no trial. They are just sent to a military prison. Even kids! My father was a teenager in the 80s and was arrested during the First Intifada, just for throwing rocks at a Israeli tank. He was never given a trial and was sent to prison for a year. He was 16, his parents had no idea where he was. Is that a democracy?

[patzer]

Fun fact, most Palestinians are actually fine with a one state solution

You see, 20% of Israel are Arabs. Combined with the Arabs in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, its equals the entire Jewish population. But Arabs have a much higher birth rate. In 10-25 years, there will be more Palestinians between the river and sea.

So yeah, let Israel annex the West Bank and Gaza Strip and give Israeli citizenship to everyone. You will have a Arab majority state in the near future.

Pretty sure the Jewish birth rate is now higher than the Arab birth rate thanks to Haredim.

But thats not Netanyahu's plan. He plans to annex the West Bank and keep the Palestinians on reservations without Israeli citizenship. Thats basically the reality now. I've been to the West Bank to visit family. The IDF has checkpoints on all roads. You can't leave Ramallah to go to Jericho or any village/town without the right papers. Soemtimes the IDF closes roads "just because".

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.

If a Palestinian is arrested by the IDF, they get no trial. They are just sent to a military prison. Even kids! My father was a teenager in the 80s and was arrested during the First Intifada, just for throwing rocks at a Israeli tank. He was never given a trial and was sent to prison for a year. He was 16, his parents had no idea where he was. Is that a democracy?

A year sounds incredibly lenient for attempted murder, to me. Most democracies would give far longer sentences than that surely.

[Velasco]

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
This is one of two questions raised by this comment nest to which I've never thought the "roll back Israel's existence" crowd* has a good answer. The other is whether people really think that Israel's geographic placement in the Southern Levant is as arbitrary as the Nicaragua analogy suggests. It's not some sheer accident of modern history that this situation had more staying power than Zionism-adjacent ideas involving Uganda or the Alaska Panhandle or the Jewish Autonomous Oblast or Madagascar-as-SS-ruled-prison-state.

*It's astounding how fast the Overton window on this has shifted in American leftist discourse as well; not advancing it is now completely unacceptable in certain (admittedly fringe) circles, even if your position is "1947 UN arbitration verdict borders with no land swaps" or something similar.

What if, by virtue of the way history has unfolded over the centuries, there are actually more than one group of people who can claim some sort of relationship to a particular geographic area?

If you think Palestinians whose families have lived in that area for hundreds of years do not have a right to remain there because they cannot document an ancestral presence contemporaneous to or preceding the Second Temple Period, what are your thoughts on our rights as Americans to live in and remain in the United States? After all, our ancestors have "only" lived here for 400 or so years at best. Would it be acceptable for indigenous Americans to displace us if they acquired the political and military means to do so?

General McArthur is using the "interchangeable Arab" trope, according to which Palestinians aren't a people and lack a proper national identity (or at best, it's an artificial construct). Such trope us used to argue that only Jewish Israelis are entitled to live in the lands that once were part of David's Kingdom. Palestinians are depicted as alien invaders that should be relocated in the Arab countries. Sunni Arabs are a broad religious group. Saying that Palestinians are "Sunni Arabs" is as imprecise as saying Italians are "European Catholics". The fact is that the Palestinians have been living there for centuries and the occupied Palestine is their land.

On the other hand, the Jews are an ancient people, but the State of Israel is a modern construct. However, it's pointless to argue Israel or Palestine don't deserve to exist on the basis that they are artificial constructs. All political entities throughout human history have been artificial constructs and not even a single one will last forever.

The big issue here is the existence of two confronted
peoples living in the same land. Due to a great imbalance in strength and military power, one of the peoples have subjugated and dispossesed the other. This situation of injustice has created a lot of pain and suffering, as well as violent and non-violent forms of resistance. As said repeatedly by countless people, the only way to put an end to endless cycles of violence is finding the ways to repair injustice and organize peaceful coexistence