Israel, Palestine and Iran

[Stevo985]

Just now, OutByEaster? said:

They'll just start on the west bank instead - I'm increasingly convinced that the Israeli plan here is to remove the Gaza from the map permanently.

 

Yep. Telling Palestinians to evacuate to the south of the strip sounds like an easy way to just take the northern half of the strip 

[Chindie]

The West Bank is already under conquest. The 'settlers' take more and more of it every day. Then they take over the water - removing access to wells to non-Israelis, and even concreting over natural springs (yes, really). They even use the West Bank as a dump for rubbish for the entirety of Israel.

And now they've decided it's a brilliant idea to give all 'settlers' assault rifles. There was already an issue with 'settlers' killing people in the West Bank, you can guarantee there will be more.

Utter scum.

[meregreen]

44 minutes ago, Chindie said:

The West Bank is already under conquest. The 'settlers' take more and more of it every day. Then they take over the water - removing access to wells to non-Israelis, and even concreting over natural springs (yes, really). They even use the West Bank as a dump for rubbish for the entirety of Israel.

And now they've decided it's a brilliant idea to give all 'settlers' assault rifles. There was already an issue with 'settlers' killing people in the West Bank, you can guarantee there will be more.

Utter scum.

Have you ever visited Israel, I have, none of the Israelis I met were “scum.” They were pretty decent people, As indeed were the Palestinians I met in the West Bank. There are fanatics of course The tragedy of the region is that they poison the water for those who simply wish for their children to live in peace.

[Pongo Waring]

This is good news right?

 

Edited October 14, 2023 by Pongo Waring

[a-k]

2 hours ago, Pongo Waring said:

This is good news right?

 

Hamas has to go. They are a terrorist organization that do not care about and in fact are a major barrier for Palestinian society to grow. Unfortunately, since there is no current Palestinian democracy, there is no other way to eradicate them other than by brute force.

[fruitvilla]

3 hours ago, Pongo Waring said:

This is good news right?

 

I don't know.

But it is not "breaking news". It was inevitable from the moment Hamas did its thing. And this is what I find sad.

[Vive_La_Villa]

 

[magnkarl]

What I find interesting is that both sides in this conflict have a rather large western fan base or whatever you want to call it, who are propelling their very own side by spreading propaganda, name calling, making up stories, totally overegging reports, making grand statements about what Jews are and their relation to Palestine/Israel etc.

There’s so many in academia in the UK who appear to be sudden experts on the evil Jew, even though they’ve never been to Israel or Palestine.

[mjmooney]

22 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

There’s so many in academia in the UK who appear to be sudden experts on the evil Jew, even though they’ve never been to Israel or Palestine.

There you go again, falling into the antisemitism trap. 

Nothing to do with the 'evil Jew', it's the evil Israeli regime. Just as condemning jihadism is not Islamophobic. 

[OutByEaster?]

Makes point....

26 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

What I find interesting is that both sides in this conflict have a rather large western fan base or whatever you want to call it, who are propelling their very own side by spreading propaganda, name calling, making up stories, totally overegging reports, making grand statements about what Jews are and their relation to Palestine/Israel etc.

Proves point....

26 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

There’s so many in academia in the UK who appear to be sudden experts on the evil Jew, even though they’ve never been to Israel or Palestine.

 

[blandy]

4 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Nothing to do with the 'evil Jew', it's the evil Israeli regime. Just as condemning jihadism is not Islamophobic. 

That's 100% correct.

The problem is that successive regimes in Israel and in Palestine have (with the support of outside groups and nations) each amplified and increased the evil of the other's regimes. The two regimes are each too far gone to pull themselves out of the wanton blood-lust and it needs the outside players and groups to completely reverse their support for the evil actions. It's the only way this, and the future doesn't turn into a complete armageddon, though it's already a hellscape.

[Awol]

Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, today:

"There is an opportunity for Israel to make amends in the coming hours. If not, the resistance will enhance its strategies and change the map of the region." 

Source: Al Jazeera Live 

Israel has already delayed entry into Gaza at US urging, but suspect that was to give the US time to get more assets into place. Meanwhile, Iran is talking itself into a position it can’t credibly retreat from - on the face of it a militarily unwise course of action. 

Can’t help thinking there is another shoe to drop that we aren’t seeing yet, because Tehran is normally far more pragmatic than this in calculating the odds.  What, for example, did Iran manage to negotiate from Russia in return for all the loitering munitions, ammunition, artillery barrels, and instructors?

 

[KentVillan]

The fundamental problem is the idea of ethnonationalism. And especially ethnonationalism in regions which have historically been multicultural.

Hamas are ethnonationalists, the Israeli govt are ethnonationalists. It is to some extent irrelevant which side has the upper hand right now, because both have the unrealistic goal of an ethnically and culturally pure state, to the detriment of the other group. Tip the balance of power in the other direction and the situation would be just as bad.

It’s a good lesson in why multiculturalism, as derided as it is in Europe, is the only viable solution. But very hard to achieve in a setting where hardline ethnonationalists lead on both sides, and both back their chances of achieving their goal.

But I don’t buy the idea that the blame all lies with Israel or its western allies. You have to completely ignore the objectives of Israel’s opponents to make that claim.

[blandy]

1 minute ago, KentVillan said:

the Israeli govt are ethnonationalists

I know the current one is super hard right, but typically the Israeli government hasn't been ethnonationalist, in my understanding. For all the horrors and stuff, there have been and are many other nationals/ethnic groups living in Israel who are granted the same rights in law as the main populations group(s). They do, or many of them do, feel discriminated against and a bit second class citizens in the way people treat them or act towards them, and that's a shame though not something unique to minority populations anywhere.

Unfortunately, populists and grifters and hard-liners and zealots have (as elsewhere) disrupted (relative) stability and with it chances of more peace.

[Rustibrooks]

I cant really understand why Hamas would still be in Gaza if everyone knows IDF troops have been shelling Gaza and are about to start a ground operation. Surely they themselves would not be there either because that’s really stupid otherwise. Yes I know they already launched the dumb attack on them, but it’s still a really dumb tactic. Wouldn’t they be in other locations? 

[Follyfoot]

2 minutes ago, Rustibrooks said:

I cant really understand why Hamas would still be in Gaza if everyone knows IDF troops have been shelling Gaza and are about to start a ground operation. Surely they themselves would not be there either because that’s really stupid otherwise. Yes I know they already launched the dumb attack on them, but it’s still a really dumb tactic. Wouldn’t they be in other locations? 

72 virgins and all that? 

[OutByEaster?]

3 minutes ago, Rustibrooks said:

I cant really understand why Hamas would still be in Gaza if everyone knows IDF troops have been shelling Gaza and are about to start a ground operation. 

Unless they can dig a really long tunnel, hold their breath underwater for several hours or flap their arms and fly, they'll still be in Gaza - but as you suggest, I can't see any reason why they wouldn't just evacuate South like everyone else - it's not like they're going to say "Oh, the Israelis want us to stay here and let everyone else leave so they can kill us, so we best do that".

I think the aim remains to either remove Gaza from the map altogether or shrink it significantly - a good strategy to reduce terrorist attacks along a border is to remove as much of that border as you can.

 

[Mr_Dogg]

13 minutes ago, Rustibrooks said:

I cant really understand why Hamas would still be in Gaza if everyone knows IDF troops have been shelling Gaza and are about to start a ground operation. Surely they themselves would not be there either because that’s really stupid otherwise. Yes I know they already launched the dumb attack on them, but it’s still a really dumb tactic. Wouldn’t they be in other locations? 

The attack was suicide in the first place, might as well follow through.

[magnkarl]

1 hour ago, mjmooney said:

There you go again, falling into the antisemitism trap. 

Nothing to do with the 'evil Jew', it's the evil Israeli regime. Just as condemning jihadism is not Islamophobic. 

It has a lot to do with it when UK Jews are having to answer questions from rabid pro-Palestinians about Israel.

I don’t care for Israel, I don’t want to defend it, I’m expected to by a lot of folks who are so far down the rabbit hole that you can’t even imagine it.

I’m never going to move to Israel or vote in their elections, so why should I be answering for anything they do?

Are you held to account for all Christians at war because you may be Christian? The world’s gone so mad it’s beyond me.

An example if you will, I gave one of my extended elderly family members a ride to the Southampton Hebrew congregation for a memorial service for one of the kids that got killed at the festival today, and outside this congregation you’ve got a crowd of people burning Israeli flags, shouting all sorts of stuff about zionists and being incredibly threatening.

How do you think it feels?

Edited October 15, 2023 by magnkarl

[blandy]

5 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Unless they can dig a really long tunnel, hold their breath underwater for several hours or flap their arms and fly, they'll still be in Gaza - but as you suggest, I can't see any reason why they wouldn't just evacuate South like everyone else

Well they've got 2 choices really - either do as you suggest and melt away, ready to fight again another day, or to fight now, to (probably) be "martyred" but in their eyes to bring about their objective, the destruction of Israel, via a conflict that expands to include Iran and others. Hamas isn't like the IRA, with a relatively few fighters - there's maybe 15000 military trained full time "troops" and double that of part time combatants. That's a big old force. If they want to fight, and they might, they will lose, but they won't half cause some massive losses of Israeli lives with it. Given the way Hamas started this current horror with their atrocities last weekend, maybe, just maybe they will "defend" Gaza, in the hope that in dragging out the battle, other parties get dragged in - Hezbollah, Iran and so on.

It's grim.

As you said the other day, if they run away and hide, Israel will take over and flatten the land they invade and partition it all up into smaller blocks, leaving 2.5 million people in half the space they had before, which was already over densely populated and deprived of basic human conditions - decent power, water, sanitation, hospital, schools etc.