Israel-Gaza war

[Vosem]

Would be kind of an insane violation of international law for Belgium to have an embassy in Gaza, no? (Also, it appears to be the office of a Belgian aid agency, rather than an embassy.) Anyway, good, all organizations distributing aid to Gaza which are not explicitly pro-occupation should be destroyed.

But keep telling us about all how you really care about the well being of the Palestinian people of Gaza 

Yes? The best thing for the well-being of the Palestinian people would be for the war to end as soon as possible, and the way to do that is to make it impossible for Hamas to be resupplied no matter what, and to make it difficult to survive without surrendering to the IDF. Agencies exactly like this one should be destroyed, and ideally those who collaborate with them in Western countries should be prosecuted.

Would be kind of an insane violation of international law for Belgium to have an embassy in Gaza, no? (Also, it appears to be the office of a Belgian aid agency, rather than an embassy.) Anyway, good, all organizations distributing aid to Gaza which are not explicitly pro-occupation should be destroyed.

But keep telling us about all how you really care about the well being of the Palestinian people of Gaza 

He doesn't. He really does want them wiped out.

I don't think he views it that way (though it's certainly what would happen if we took his ideas here to their logical conclusions), but he does expect everyone to look at this conflict and really life through his ideological lense, and seems very befuddled that human nature doesn't really match his extremely militaristic, zero sum game at all times ancap adjacent worldview. A right wing tankie of sorts.

How is it zero-sum? My point is that if the goal of conquering Israel is abandoned, then there is room for two states. That means that organizations with the goal of conquering Israel should be destroyed, and if there is no way to destroy them except by force, then they should be destroyed by force. It's everyone arguing against me here, saying that there should be a ceasefire, who are exhibiting zero-sum thinking.

Perhaps what you meant to say is universalist? I certainly think that everyone should agree with me in supporting the offensive, literally including the Palestinians within Gaza themselves. I think the opposite perspective is anti-human (and substantially precisely because it is zero-sum), and does not deserve respect. At least within American politics, the thing which has given me the most hope is the enormous disrespect that politicians keep showing pro-Palestinian protesters -- this is the correct and reasonable reaction. My position is certainly one that does not brook compromise.

I think human nature matches my worldview quite well -- that's why I hold it! Obviously not everyone agrees; my point is that everyone should because it is in everyone's interests.

Would be kind of an insane violation of international law for Belgium to have an embassy in Gaza, no? (Also, it appears to be the office of a Belgian aid agency, rather than an embassy.) Anyway, good, all organizations distributing aid to Gaza which are not explicitly pro-occupation should be destroyed.

But keep telling us about all how you really care about the well being of the Palestinian people of Gaza 

He doesn't. He really does want them wiped out.

I don't think he views it that way (though it's certainly what would happen if we took his ideas here to their logical conclusions), but he does expect everyone to look at this conflict and really life through his ideological lense, and seems very befuddled that human nature doesn't really match his extremely militaristic, zero sum game at all times ancap adjacent worldview. A right wing tankie of sorts.

An ex Trot, isn't he? Which certainly fits.

No, I am not an ex-Trot. I have always been pretty lib-right and while my confidence in American foreign policymakers has wavered, I've always been supportive of the moral case for things like the Vietnam War or the War on Terror, even if the ways the political actors behaved themselves were not conducive to winning.

My native language is Russian and I was raised by people from the Soviet Union, and so I tend to advance very Soviet-flavored or Soviet-history-informed arguments (in general, my ideology can be summarized as 'extreme lib-right but with extreme auth-left aesthetics'), so the horseshoe theory meme that I am actually very far-left sometimes comes up on Atlas (and in other communities where I've been active, incidentally), but I am not literally an ex-Trot.

[patzer]

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

Good to see politicians picking up the similarities between ceding the Sudetenland to Bohemian German control vs ceding the Gaza Strip and West Bank to Palestinian Arab control. Sadly I doubt Western leaders will be swayed away from their "Palestinian state" advocacy.

[Vosem]

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

Good to see politicians picking up the similarities between ceding the Sudetenland to Bohemian German control vs ceding the Gaza Strip and West Bank to Palestinian Arab control. Sadly I doubt Western leaders will be swayed away from their "Palestinian state" advocacy.

They mostly already have been -- both during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, they were sanctioned by many Western countries (which were mostly governed by the right, incidentally). Today the same countries are supporting and sometimes arming them; the contrast is actually insane. Anti-Israel sentiment in the West among mainstream political organizations has been slowly dying for the past 40 years.

[Wiswylfen]

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

Good to see politicians picking up the similarities between ceding the Sudetenland to Bohemian German control vs ceding the Gaza Strip and West Bank to Palestinian Arab control. Sadly I doubt Western leaders will be swayed away from their "Palestinian state" advocacy.

You are certainly an excellent fit for the SDP!

[buritobr]

During the Israeli strikes on Gaza, many leftists said that this military operation was not about self defense, but a plan to occupy Gaza forever.

Now, it's not only the leftists who are doing this statement. Ministers of Netanyahu administration attended an event about a permanent Israeli occupation in Gaza
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/01/29/israeli-ministers-join-thousands-of-settlers-in-calling-for-colonization-of-gaza/

[Vosem]

During the Israeli strikes on Gaza, many leftists said that this military operation was not about self defense, but a plan to occupy Gaza forever.

Now, it's not only the leftists who are doing this statement. Ministers of Netanyahu administration attended an event about a permanent Israeli occupation in Gaza
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/01/29/israeli-ministers-join-thousands-of-settlers-in-calling-for-colonization-of-gaza/

So long as Palestinian liberationism exists, occupying Gaza is about self-defense. Your first sentence implies a contradiction.

[GoTfan]

During the Israeli strikes on Gaza, many leftists said that this military operation was not about self defense, but a plan to occupy Gaza forever.

Now, it's not only the leftists who are doing this statement. Ministers of Netanyahu administration attended an event about a permanent Israeli occupation in Gaza
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/01/29/israeli-ministers-join-thousands-of-settlers-in-calling-for-colonization-of-gaza/

So long as Palestinian liberationism exists, occupying Gaza is about self-defense. Your first sentence implies a contradiction.

Wiping out such an ideology is impossible unless you want to wipe out all Palestinians. You haven't said it outright, but . . .

[Pres Mike]

During the Israeli strikes on Gaza, many leftists said that this military operation was not about self defense, but a plan to occupy Gaza forever.

Now, it's not only the leftists who are doing this statement. Ministers of Netanyahu administration attended an event about a permanent Israeli occupation in Gaza
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/01/29/israeli-ministers-join-thousands-of-settlers-in-calling-for-colonization-of-gaza/

So long as Palestinian liberationism exists, occupying Gaza is about self-defense. Your first sentence implies a contradiction.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the ideology of “Palestine liberation”. Palestinian liberation advocates for a Palestinian state. Not the destruction of Israel which you claim. The political party of Fatah, the current ruling party of the internally recognized Palestinian Authority, has agreed to Israel’s right to exist. Their ideology of Palestinian liberation is based on creating a liberated  Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Without that ideology, there would be no Palestinian state.

FYI, not excepting peace deals in 2001 or 2008 does not make the PA anti peace or any Israel.  They were bad deals. Although I do agree that they should have accepted either one, as the situation in Palestine would be much better off today

Hamas has separate ideology. Their ideology is Palestinian liberation through the destruction of Israel. Which makes them terrorists. Than they want to create an Islamic caliphate, which the vast majority of Palestinians do not want

[GMantis]

heres the solution, make the UK sort this out. they got us into this mess, they can fix the mess that they started

That's a bit of a stretch. Like yes, if the British government in the 1930s hadn't pandered to Arab xenophobia and restricted Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany from seeking refuge in the Levant, then far more Jews would have survived and ended up in Israel, and it is unlikely that a Palestinian state would have ever been considered viable. But any other colonial administrator like the Ottomans would have probably made the same decision that the UK did there.

And if Britain had actually self-determination in the Middle East in 1918 rather than turning the region into a number of a de facto colonies, the resulting independent state (or states) would never have allowed Jewish immigration to the level that an Israeli state was ever viable, avoiding the whole conflict in the first place.

[All Along The Watchtower]

During the Israeli strikes on Gaza, many leftists said that this military operation was not about self defense, but a plan to occupy Gaza forever.

Now, it's not only the leftists who are doing this statement. Ministers of Netanyahu administration attended an event about a permanent Israeli occupation in Gaza
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/01/29/israeli-ministers-join-thousands-of-settlers-in-calling-for-colonization-of-gaza/

So long as Palestinian liberationism exists, occupying Gaza is about self-defense. Your first sentence implies a contradiction.

The 1948 war was Arab self-defense then. 

[All Along The Watchtower]

heres the solution, make the UK sort this out. they got us into this mess, they can fix the mess that they started

That's a bit of a stretch. Like yes, if the British government in the 1930s hadn't pandered to Arab xenophobia and restricted Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany from seeking refuge in the Levant, then far more Jews would have survived and ended up in Israel, and it is unlikely that a Palestinian state would have ever been considered viable. But any other colonial administrator like the Ottomans would have probably made the same decision that the UK did there.

And if Britain had actually self-determination in the Middle East in 1918 rather than turning the region into a number of a de facto colonies, the resulting independent state (or states) would never have allowed Jewish immigration to the level that an Israeli state was ever viable, avoiding the whole conflict in the first place.

Why would there have been any expectation that the Palestinians/Arabs welcome European Jewish refugees, to say nothing of a full fledged Jewish state? Seems like the fault and responsibility there lies with the Europeans who would soon embrace or be conquered by fascists and Nazis before carrying out the Holocaust.

[Vosem]

During the Israeli strikes on Gaza, many leftists said that this military operation was not about self defense, but a plan to occupy Gaza forever.

Now, it's not only the leftists who are doing this statement. Ministers of Netanyahu administration attended an event about a permanent Israeli occupation in Gaza
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/01/29/israeli-ministers-join-thousands-of-settlers-in-calling-for-colonization-of-gaza/

So long as Palestinian liberationism exists, occupying Gaza is about self-defense. Your first sentence implies a contradiction.

The 1948 war was Arab self-defense then.  

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.

During the Israeli strikes on Gaza, many leftists said that this military operation was not about self defense, but a plan to occupy Gaza forever.

Now, it's not only the leftists who are doing this statement. Ministers of Netanyahu administration attended an event about a permanent Israeli occupation in Gaza
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/01/29/israeli-ministers-join-thousands-of-settlers-in-calling-for-colonization-of-gaza/

So long as Palestinian liberationism exists, occupying Gaza is about self-defense. Your first sentence implies a contradiction.

Wiping out such an ideology is impossible unless you want to wipe out all Palestinians. You haven't said it outright, but . . .

There is no reason to think this unless you believe that Palestinians are uniquely evil. Of course you can wipe out such an ideology; it has been done elsewhere.

During the Israeli strikes on Gaza, many leftists said that this military operation was not about self defense, but a plan to occupy Gaza forever.

Now, it's not only the leftists who are doing this statement. Ministers of Netanyahu administration attended an event about a permanent Israeli occupation in Gaza
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/01/29/israeli-ministers-join-thousands-of-settlers-in-calling-for-colonization-of-gaza/

So long as Palestinian liberationism exists, occupying Gaza is about self-defense. Your first sentence implies a contradiction.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the ideology of “Palestine liberation”. Palestinian liberation advocates for a Palestinian state. Not the destruction of Israel which you claim. The political party of Fatah, the current ruling party of the internally recognized Palestinian Authority, has agreed to Israel’s right to exist. Their ideology of Palestinian liberation is based on creating a liberated  Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

What I mean by this (and if you want to suggest a better terminology than "liberationism", I'm all ears) is the ideology which says that Israel is illegitimate, and should either be conquered or forced to radically change her constitution, because it is a Zionist state. Fatah has recognized Israel's right to exist in the abstract, but Fatah has consistently refused peace deals which did not come with substantial changes to Israeli immigration policy.

Without that ideology, there would be no Palestinian state.

You're not wrong, but to some extent this is an indictment of the whole concept of having a Palestinian state, no?

FYI, not excepting peace deals in 2001 or 2008 does not make the PA anti peace or any Israel.  They were bad deals. Although I do agree that they should have accepted either one, as the situation in Palestine would be much better off today

Hamas has separate ideology. Their ideology is Palestinian liberation through the destruction of Israel. Which makes them terrorists. Than they want to create an Islamic caliphate, which the vast majority of Palestinians do not want

I don't know that accepting 2001 or 2008 wouldn't have led to a Hamas-run West Bank and the current war happening at a grander scale, but then counterfactuals are always hard.

heres the solution, make the UK sort this out. they got us into this mess, they can fix the mess that they started

That's a bit of a stretch. Like yes, if the British government in the 1930s hadn't pandered to Arab xenophobia and restricted Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany from seeking refuge in the Levant, then far more Jews would have survived and ended up in Israel, and it is unlikely that a Palestinian state would have ever been considered viable. But any other colonial administrator like the Ottomans would have probably made the same decision that the UK did there.

And if Britain had actually self-determination in the Middle East in 1918 rather than turning the region into a number of a de facto colonies, the resulting independent state (or states) would never have allowed Jewish immigration to the level that an Israeli state was ever viable, avoiding the whole conflict in the first place.

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.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Australia vows to investigate UNRWA situation before any restoration of funding occurs.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-february-4-2024/#liveblog-entry-3216021

ABC Australia also reporting Australia took part in the latest attack on Yemen.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-04/us-strikes-houthi-weapons-in-yemen/103424856

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the strikes also had support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and New Zealand.

"This collective action sends a clear message to the Houthis that they will continue to bear further consequences if they do not end their illegal attacks on international shipping and naval vessels," Mr Austin said in a statement.

Great to see we are involved in dismantling the Houthi's.

[patzer]

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

Good to see politicians picking up the similarities between ceding the Sudetenland to Bohemian German control vs ceding the Gaza Strip and West Bank to Palestinian Arab control. Sadly I doubt Western leaders will be swayed away from their "Palestinian state" advocacy.

You are certainly an excellent fit for the SDP!

As in the UK party? Perhaps, there are some things I agree with them with, but there are also some things I do not

[Pres Mike]

During the Israeli strikes on Gaza, many leftists said that this military operation was not about self defense, but a plan to occupy Gaza forever.

Now, it's not only the leftists who are doing this statement. Ministers of Netanyahu administration attended an event about a permanent Israeli occupation in Gaza
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/01/29/israeli-ministers-join-thousands-of-settlers-in-calling-for-colonization-of-gaza/

So long as Palestinian liberationism exists, occupying Gaza is about self-defense. Your first sentence implies a contradiction.

The 1948 war was Arab self-defense then.  

During the Israeli strikes on Gaza, many leftists said that this military operation was not about self defense, but a plan to occupy Gaza forever.

Now, it's not only the leftists who are doing this statement. Ministers of Netanyahu administration attended an event about a permanent Israeli occupation in Gaza
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/01/29/israeli-ministers-join-thousands-of-settlers-in-calling-for-colonization-of-gaza/

So long as Palestinian liberationism exists, occupying Gaza is about self-defense. Your first sentence implies a contradiction.

Wiping out such an ideology is impossible unless you want to wipe out all Palestinians. You haven't said it outright, but . . .

There is no reason to think this unless you believe that Palestinians are uniquely evil. Of course you can wipe out such an ideology; it has been done elsewhere.

During the Israeli strikes on Gaza, many leftists said that this military operation was not about self defense, but a plan to occupy Gaza forever.

Now, it's not only the leftists who are doing this statement. Ministers of Netanyahu administration attended an event about a permanent Israeli occupation in Gaza
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/01/29/israeli-ministers-join-thousands-of-settlers-in-calling-for-colonization-of-gaza/

So long as Palestinian liberationism exists, occupying Gaza is about self-defense. Your first sentence implies a contradiction.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the ideology of “Palestine liberation”. Palestinian liberation advocates for a Palestinian state. Not the destruction of Israel which you claim. The political party of Fatah, the current ruling party of the internally recognized Palestinian Authority, has agreed to Israel’s right to exist. Their ideology of Palestinian liberation is based on creating a liberated  Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

What I mean by this (and if you want to suggest a better terminology than "liberationism", I'm all ears) is the ideology which says that Israel is illegitimate, and should either be conquered or forced to radically change her constitution, because it is a Zionist state. Fatah has recognized Israel's right to exist in the abstract, but Fatah has consistently refused peace deals which did not come with substantial changes to Israeli immigration policy.

Without that ideology, there would be no Palestinian state.

You're not wrong, but to some extent this is an indictment of the whole concept of having a Palestinian state, no?

FYI, not excepting peace deals in 2001 or 2008 does not make the PA anti peace or any Israel.  They were bad deals. Although I do agree that they should have accepted either one, as the situation in Palestine would be much better off today

Hamas has separate ideology. Their ideology is Palestinian liberation through the destruction of Israel. Which makes them terrorists. Than they want to create an Islamic caliphate, which the vast majority of Palestinians do not want

I don't know that accepting 2001 or 2008 wouldn't have led to a Hamas-run West Bank and the current war happening at a grander scale, but then counterfactuals are always hard.

heres the solution, make the UK sort this out. they got us into this mess, they can fix the mess that they started

That's a bit of a stretch. Like yes, if the British government in the 1930s hadn't pandered to Arab xenophobia and restricted Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany from seeking refuge in the Levant, then far more Jews would have survived and ended up in Israel, and it is unlikely that a Palestinian state would have ever been considered viable. But any other colonial administrator like the Ottomans would have probably made the same decision that the UK did there.

And if Britain had actually self-determination in the Middle East in 1918 rather than turning the region into a number of a de facto colonies, the resulting independent state (or states) would never have allowed Jewish immigration to the level that an Israeli state was ever viable, avoiding the whole conflict in the first place.

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.

1. The Palestinians don't really expect the millions of Palestinian refugees from around the world to return. Both in 2001 and 2008, this was agreed upon by the Palestinians
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annapolis_Conference#Negotiations_over_borders,_Jerusalem_and_refugees

Both in 2001 and 2008, the deals failed over the status of East Jerusalem, not refugees

2. If a peace deal was signed in 2001 or 2008, why would Hamas take over the West Bank? Most support for Hamas from the Palestinian people is because they are viewed as freedom fighters, not for their Islamist beliefs. If a successful Palestinian state was created, there would be very little support for Hamas. If a deal was succesful in 2008, would the international community not help the PA clear Gaza of Hamas? 

[Lief 🗽]

Very strange that Hamas isn’t listening to the calls for ceasefire from Chicago and San Francisco city councils??

https://twitter.com/jerusalem_post/status/1754194746438811802?s=46&t=o2RmfeV...

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

Very strange that Hamas isn’t listening to the calls for ceasefire from Chicago and San Francisco city councils??

https://twitter.com/jerusalem_post/status/1754194746438811802?s=46&t=o2RmfeV...

Article has already been updated/corrected, please do the same. Hopefully a ceasefire is incoming.

[7,052,770]

Hopefully a ceasefire is incoming.

Sure, but as always, it's Hamas/Gaza's fault if it's not incoming.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Arab Muslims in Israel.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2onIzWIFY9/

After the events of the last 4 months, none of them are leaving to go to Saudi, Jordan or Lebanon.

[GoTfan]

Arab Muslims in Israel.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2onIzWIFY9/

After the events of the last 4 months, none of them are leaving to go to Saudi, Jordan or Lebanon.

Maybe because they'd rather not leave their homes where they've spent their entire lives?

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Arab Muslims in Israel.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2onIzWIFY9/

After the events of the last 4 months, none of them are leaving to go to Saudi, Jordan or Lebanon.

Post removed by moderator.

I think he's trying to point out the overall quality of life of Arab Muslim Israelis in Israel proper, which is generally true but also kind of feels like a non-sequiter in this thread.

[GoTfan]

Arab Muslims in Israel.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2onIzWIFY9/

After the events of the last 4 months, none of them are leaving to go to Saudi, Jordan or Lebanon.

Post removed by moderator.

I think he's trying to point out the overall quality of life of Arab Muslim Israelis in Israel proper, which is generally true but also kind of feels like a non-sequiter in this thread.

Meclazine excels at that sort of thing

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

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.

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.

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".

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 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?

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.

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?

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.

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"

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.

[Pres Mike]

If Benny Gantz becomes prime minister, it might be the last chance for a two state solution. Just straight out say what a Palestinian state will be and move out (Ariel Sharon's original plan)

According to Yair Lapid's plan, withdraw from all Israeli settlements except the three towns of Ariel, Gush Etzion and Ma'aleh Adumim. Have the US and UK recognize the new Palestinian state and be done with it.

But this must mean no more checkpoints between Palestinian cities and villages. It also means Palestinians control their water and electricity. And allow Palestinian development in Jordan valley.

Israel would probably maintain a permanent military presence on Jordanian border

[patzer]

If Benny Gantz becomes prime minister, it might be the last chance for a two state solution. Just straight out say what a Palestinian state will be and move out (Ariel Sharon's original plan)

According to Yair Lapid's plan, withdraw from all Israeli settlements except the three towns of Ariel, Gush Etzion and Ma'aleh Adumim. Have the US and UK recognize the new Palestinian state and be done with it.

But this must mean no more checkpoints between Palestinian cities and villages. It also means Palestinians control their water and electricity. And allow Palestinian development in Jordan valley.

Israel would probably maintain a permanent military presence on Jordanian border

If Gantz were to become PM and even tried something like that, I imagine the amount of protests against him would be massive and Lieberman would probably withdraw from the coalition so as to bring down the government.

Really don't think there would be much public support for the Israeli state engaging in the ethnic cleansing of most of the Jewish inhabitants of the West Bank followed by ceding control of the area over to a terror state which funds the murder of Israeli civilians.