Israel / Palestine News Thread

[Nivsch]

@Raze There were negotiations for many years. I won't dispute that maybe Israel was also too tough in its demands, but there was a genuine desire from Israel to acheive a deal.

Edited June 8 by Nivsch

[_Archangel_]

2 hours ago, Vrubel said:

Like, it's obvious that these people die because of Hamas, yet I have to explain, go figure the absurdity.  

All this is perfectly within integrity. Israel will do anything for life. Hamas will do anything for death. Don’t be a shill for that.

8+ months and the bias is still rock-solid i see. reality-bending, even. And the problems for israel won't end if dudes like you keep having this attitude.
To say 35000 pople died because of Hamas is ridicoulus and luckily more and more poeple are realising how inadequate  this Israeli governemnt is at finding a sustainable solution to this mess, which they are part of.

[lina]

40 minutes ago, Nivsch said:

@Raze There were negotiations for many years. I won't dispute that maybe Israel was also too tough in its demands, but there was a genuine desire from Israel to acheive a deal.

The missing point is that Zionism as a movement has always had expansionist ambitions from the very start whether Palestinians accepted it or not. 

In the words of Ben Gurion, the primary national founder of the state of Israel: 

• "After the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the state, we will abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine “— Ben Gurion, p.22 “The Birth of Israel, 1987” Simha Flapan.

 

• “The acceptance of partition does not commit us to renounce Transjordan. One does not demand from anybody to give up his vision. We shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today — but the boundaries of Zionist aspirations are the concerns of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them.” P. 53, “The Birth of Israel, 1987” Simha Flapan

 

• 27 July 1937, Ben-Gurion wrote in a letter to his 16 year old son Amos: “We have never wanted to dispossess the Arabs [but] because Britain is giving them part of the country which had been promised to us, it is fair that the Arabs in our state be transferred to the Arab portion”

 

• 5 October 1937, Ben-Gurion wrote in a letter to his 16 year old son Amos: “We must expel the Arabs and take their places…. And, if we have to use force-not to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev and Transjordan, but to guarantee our own right to settle in those places- then we have force at our disposal.”

 

• “If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”David Ben-Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.'

 

• “Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country. … Behind the terrorism [by the Arabs] is a movement, which though primitive is not devoid of idealism and self sacrifice.” David Ben Gurion. Quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky’s Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan’s “Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.

 

So please tell me , if you were a Palestinian during 1948 and you knew that's how Zionist leaders think (not necessarily all Jewish people), would you agree to the partition plan? 

Edited June 8 by lina

[hundreth]

5 hours ago, Raze said:

Well yes, how was it fair for the Jews to expel thousands of Palestinians from their homeland to declare a Jewish state on land other people lived on without their consent?

If someone kicked you out of your home because they said their religious text claims their ancestors owned this land thousands of years ago would you be ok with it?

Except this isn't what happened. You can try to create a narrative but you can't ignore history.

Jews moved to the land legally. The land was occupied by the UK as it was occupied by different regimes for centuries. Post Holocaust the Jews wanted a land, obviously preferably in their ancestral homeland. The U.N. drafted a partition plan. War ensued. Your narrative pretends Jews just barged in and start pushing out natives, and that's simply not true. It's unfortunate what happened to the Palestinians, but the cause of that is not simply "bad Jews". It's a combo of the UK, the UN, some Jewish factions, surrounding Arab nations, and their own actions.

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Many famous historians and economists both defenders and critics of Israel are warning Israel is on the path to self destruction. Israel very possibly may be going away and potentially bringing us all down with it if they don’t change their ways. You aren’t helping them by trying to deflect every criticism to other countries. Maybe if the West treated Israel like it treats Syria you’d have a point, but we are enabling this.

Perhaps that's true but I'd argue that the fault also lies with far leftist types who continue to call into question the formation of Israel and behave as though it shouldn't exist and encourage the Palestinians to go for the whole pie. "From the river to the sea." I feel they've caused immeasurable harm to the Palestinians with these fake promises.

If we want to make progress, we need to stop reliving the past and focus on practical solutions. Right now the Israeli administration is a barrier, no doubt... but it's telling that Pro Palestinian voices hate when you ask them what should be done going forward because then they need to contend with the realities on the ground. The default answer is "I don't know but it's all Israel's responsibility." Well ok you can dig into this position, but you aren't helping anyone.

[lina]

1 minute ago, hundreth said:

Perhaps that's true but I'd argue that the fault also lies with far leftist types who continue to call into question the formation of Israel and behave as though it shouldn't exist and encourage the Palestinians to go for the whole pie. "From the river to the sea." I feel they've caused immeasurable harm to the Palestinians with these fake promises.

If we want to make progress, we need to stop reliving the past and focus on practical solutions.

If you want to make progress in peace, one must at least acknowledge its past mistakes as a first step, not lie, gaslight and manipulate. 

[hundreth]

4 hours ago, Karmadhi said:

I dont like ethnostates and colonialism. That is all. Since Jews are doing it then I will hate on them. Its not inherent hate on them, its hate on their actions.

Like I said, this is selective outrage.

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Dude cant you see that dumping million of Europeans in an Arab land is wrong? We live in 2024, people are sensitive to colonialism. 

I do not have issue with Jews having a state but it is a dick move to make it by kicking out natives of a land. Especially when those natives treated Jews very well. You see, historically Arabs were much nicer to Jews than European Christians. Jews in Europe were unwanted, put in ghettos and finally killed by Europeans during WW2. It would be fitting for Europe to give them a state as compensation. Issue is that they did not do it in their land, but instead picked a land which they controlled where people lived that had nothing to do with oppression of Jews through the centuries. I call it flawed because basically Palestinian Arabs had to pay the price of European devilry. If Israel was made in Germany, I would have no issue with it. It would be very fitting. But Palestinians were much kinder to Jews than Europeans and they did not deserve it. Imagine if an innocent person was treated like shit by a group of people and that had nothing to do with you. Then that group of people felt bad and to make the innocent bullied person feel better, went to your house and told you "this guy been through bad shit, give him half your house". You would be like "wtf dude".

First of all, this framing of Jews as simply Europeans is wrong. It is the same as the ethnic cleansing you describe about Palestinians. Jews were expelled from their home land into Europe. They kept their faith and traditions and did not completely assimilate into the European way of life. This is a primary reason why they were despised. As a Jew you would know the importance of being in Israel in the sense that every Jew outside of Israel has to observe each holiday two nights as opposed to one. That has been tradition before modern day Israel. Pre 1948 the connection to Israel was always there. They also were not allowed to migrate back to their homeland until the UK finally let them back in after the holocaust. But simply erasing the Jews connection to Israel and labeling them as Europeans is no less ethnic cleansing.

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This is why they keep expanding illegal settlements in the West Bank. Does not seem like "wanting to be left alone" to me.

Fair enough, but even with these orthodox Jews you need to understand that the "West Bank" as you know it is ancient Judea-Sumeria and in fact the most important historical Jewish area. I'm not saying it's right, because it is a barrier to the peace process... but also there is a religious significance to the region and it's unlike extreme Islamism which actually does want to conquer the entire world and spread. 

[hundreth]

10 minutes ago, lina said:

If you want to make progress in peace, one must at least acknowledge its past mistakes as a first step, not lie, gaslight and manipulate. 

This isn't what happens. Both sides make extremely exaggerated claims. Their entire identities are brought into question. It creates a lot of animosity and increased hate. We literally see how this line of dialogue has progressed. It has brought us further apart.

We were much closer in the 90s when both sides were forced to sit down and negotiate. We were actually extremely close to a deal being made. 

[Nivsch]

@lina Ok then Ben Gurion was indeed quite far right-wing according to that.

There is no "fundmanental" or "one" Zionism. Every side in the political spectrum see this term differently.

At the deep sense there is a reason Jews returned here.

Edited June 8 by Nivsch

[hundreth]

24 minutes ago, lina said:

So please tell me , if you were a Palestinian during 1948 and you knew that's how Zionist leaders think (not necessarily all Jewish people), would you agree to the partition plan? 

We don't know what Palestinians knew and we don't know what Zionist leaders thought. Some of those quotes are disputed, but that's not a line of argument I care for... because I'm sure they did have these thoughts and some of the quotes are likely true.

At the same time though, people are complex and so are their actions. For example, Arafat was originally one of the most hard line anti Israel fighters... he was the one who called for a single state that extends from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. And yet, he is also the Palestinian figure who was closest to reaching a peace agreement with Israel. 

What we say and think in private is often very different from how we act when we're confronted with the world at large. Both Arafat and Ben Gurion are parts of a much larger machine.

[Yimpa]

20 minutes ago, hundreth said:

We were much closer in the 90s when both sides were forced to sit down and negotiate.

You cannot force opposing forces into peace in the long-term.

[Raze]

https://twitter.com/alon_mizrahi/status/1799189139029409935

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Israeli Colonel Doron Hadar was the commander of Israel's military negotiation unit with 27 years of experience, which included some of the most sensitive negotiations and prisoner exchanges (some probably still secret). Last week he retired, and this weekend Israel's YNET (a large mainstream media outlet and newspaper) publishes an extensive interview with him. Doron Hadar says clearly: before the ground invasion there was an opportunity to get all Israeli women and children held by Hamas for a very modest price (namely without releasing Palestinians with blood on their hands). Netanyahu's office dismissively rejected all such opportunities and decided to focus instead on its 'human animals' campaign. We are given to understand that Israel chose escalation, genocide, and crazy incitement over sanity, de-escalation, and healing. Israel basically gave up its own people to expand and prolong the genocide, based on deeply-rooted right-wing worldviews. Doron Hadar is the utmost authority on what happened on the Israeli side of any negotiations. The story he tells is detailed and decisive: Israel had many chances to do so but chose not to free its hostages. In addition to getting a heavy burden off his chest and maybe paying an honorable debt to his people in the military, Doron Hadar's interview needs to be seen as part of the last-ditch liberal Zionist campaign to remove Netanyahu. But it will be to no avail. The Israeli public has been fatally poisoned. Equally tragic: the socioeconomic class Doron belongs to never did and never will refuse to carry out any orders. They are the backbone of Israeli establishments. - For months I've been saying: there will be no deal. Israel does not want a deal that will both allow Hamas to present an achievement, and confuse the Israeli population ('If you can negotiate with them, how are they absolute evil?'). Now this sad prognosis has been confirmed in full

 

[lina]

27 minutes ago, hundreth said:

We were much closer in the 90s when both sides were forced to sit down and negotiate. We were actually extremely close to a deal being made. 

Sadly nothing in the horizon as long as people like Netanyahu are allowed to remain in power. 

26 minutes ago, Nivsch said:

@lina Ok then Ben Gurion was indeed quite far right-wing according to that.

I appreciate you acknowledging this.. Hearing some of those Ben Gurion lines, or even worse those religious fanatics who call for Greater Israel from Nile to Euphrates would make any Palestinian or Arab unlikely to agree to any of this in the beginning. Even if Ben Gurion was just a far-right voice and not a representative of all Jewish people but he was still the main rep and leader of the country at its creation. 

12 minutes ago, hundreth said:

For example, Arafat was originally one of the most hard line anti Israel fighters... he was the one who called for a single state that extends from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. And yet, he is also the Palestinian figure who was closest to reaching a peace agreement with Israel. 

I agree with you here. 

Edited June 8 by lina

[Vrubel]

44 minutes ago, hundreth said:

We don't know what Palestinians knew and we don't know what Zionist leaders thought. Some of those quotes are disputed, but that's not a line of argument I care for... because I'm sure they did have these thoughts and some of the quotes are likely true.

At the same time though, people are complex and so are their actions. For example, Arafat was originally one of the most hard line anti Israel fighters... he was the one who called for a single state that extends from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. And yet, he is also the Palestinian figure who was closest to reaching a peace agreement with Israel. 

What we say and think in private is often very different from how we act when we're confronted with the world at large. Both Arafat and Ben Gurion are parts of a much larger machine.

Good deep point: life is complex and not black and white. Everybody has good and evil inside themselves. And matters often depend on perspective and contex. 

It's good to stand for the truth of the matter whether Palestinian or Israeli. However, the demonizations and relentless narrative mushing are only fuelling the conflict. Ideally, this whole thing would be moderate Palestinians and Israelis against the extremists within our own Society. But unfortunately, reality is much less rosy and more unromanticly harsh. If Palestinians were stage blue-orange I think they would get along with Israelis much better and see common values. They would also pursue their agenda in a more genuinely productive way. Just being a healthy stage blue (like for example the Kurds), that alone will do away with all the stage red riffraff and footshooting behavior.

Edited June 8 by Vrubel

[Merkabah Star]

Bless those hostages that were freed. Stop the bombing and focus on hostage release only. This should have been the main thing from day one. Israel blocked it at every turn. 

[Merkabah Star]

The Israeli Settlers Threatening To Take Back Gaza | Recolonising Gaza

 

 

[Merkabah Star]

Glenn Greenwald interview, Briahna Joy Gray on Her Firing from The Hill After Criticizing Israel.

 

[Karmadhi]

6 hours ago, Vrubel said:

savagely twisted mind

Please stop with this cringe bias. Both sides have hatred and sick people. 

6 hours ago, Vrubel said:

Still, I would be so fucking mad at Hamas for fucking my beloved Palestinians over so hard and so unrelenting.

I dont like Hamas. Tell me where I liked Hamas. Most people do not like Hamas. But the truth is that Israel is the one killing people.

During the Second World War there were huge resistance groups against the Nazis in the occupied countries. Examples being in Belarus, Poland, Yugoslavia. They would attack the German occupiers and the Nazis responded by killing thousands in repriasal attacks. Yet, people do not say "It is the fault of the resistance fighters for attacking Germans because that lead to the Germans killing civilians in response. The fault is on the resistance fighters not the Germans, because they knew how the Germans would react yet they still did it". Nobody says this. Germans are blamed and nobody says anything about the resistance attacks that triggered the Germans to massacre the civilians. Why dont you hold the same standard for Hamas?

6 hours ago, Vrubel said:

Yet instead of this you just created this cult of blaming Israel for everything it does and doesn't do

Because they do tons of war crimes and unnecessary murder. When i see footage of a child head being blown up by an Israeli sniper I will blame Israel. No reason to kill that kid other than pure hatred.

6 hours ago, Vrubel said:

You essentially hold the Palestinian people to the moral standard of human animals and Israel to an exceptional standard that the world has not yet known.

I hold Hamas fighters to low standard because most are orphans whose lived have been destroyed by Israel. I do not expect these people to act like saints. You are the one that holds Palestinian civilians in Gaza in a low standard because you believe they support an open genocide towards Israelis. I do not think that. I think most are decent people that want their own country and to live their lives at peace. Hamas fighters do not. For me Hamas fighter and Palestinian civilians are worlds apart. Most of the times at least. There are exceptions.

I do not hold Israel in high standard. They are the most ruthless army in the 21st century competing with the Wagner group in terms of brutality. There was news coming that they tortured the people they abducted and interrogated with electoshocks and some died. 

Now UN put them in the list of countries that harm childreen. Nice job Israel. Another piece of shame in their already destroyed reputation.

I dont know where you live but here in Western Europe all the youth is totally disgusted by what Israel is doing. Regardless of where they are from. It is truly baffling how different people tend to be united now by their disgust of Israeli actions. So their reputation is gone now.

6 hours ago, Vrubel said:

I have this desperate desire of wanting to respect the Palestinian people because they are the ones whose fate got interwoven with the Jewish people, which actually could be a positive thing and ultimately should be

No you dont. You say "they all celebrated october massacre and therefore I have no empathy for them". As if you read the minds of 2.2 million people. How do you know that? You saw some footage on Youtube of 50 people celebrating. Wow...

Edited June 8 by Karmadhi

[Merkabah Star]

6 hours ago, Nivsch said:

Nothing is compared to being alone with zero control on your life, utterly deffenseless and with no freedom of motion.

You just described what gazans are going through. Israelis only see it their way. No wonder you will never have peace or awaken as a country. The Israel ego is giant. Dreaming all day long. 

[Karmadhi]

1 minute ago, Merkabah Star said:

The Israel ego is giant. Dreaming all day long. 

The fault is with most of the world treating them like they are special.

The West should sanction the shit out of them and cut all diplomatic ties, enforce visas on their citizens etc , that will force them to wake up and improve their ways.

A spoiled brat will stay a brat.

[Karmadhi]

4 hours ago, hundreth said:

Like I said, this is selective outrage.

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Name me some colonialism happening right now except that? 

You could argue with what Russia is doing in Eastern Ukraine but there is also tons of outrage about that. 

4 hours ago, hundreth said:

First of all, this framing of Jews as simply Europeans is wrong. It is the same as the ethnic cleansing you describe about Palestinians. Jews were expelled from their home land into Europe. They kept their faith and traditions and did not completely assimilate into the European way of life. This is a primary reason why they were despised. As a Jew you would know the importance of being in Israel in the sense that every Jew outside of Israel has to observe each holiday two nights as opposed to one. That has been tradition before modern day Israel. Pre 1948 the connection to Israel was always there. They also were not allowed to migrate back to their homeland until the UK finally let them back in after the holocaust. But simply erasing the Jews connection to Israel and labeling them as Europeans is no less ethnic cleansing.

The Roman empire did indeed kick them out. But humans in time change and evolve. They may come from the land, but after 2000 years it is irrelevant where they came from. They no longer are from there. By that logic we all came from Africa. This is silly. 

By 1947 Jews were European and that land was Arab land. You could argue you had Arab Jews but that is something else. The truth is that Europe did not want Jews in it anymore so they just dumped them into Palestine because it was their colony so they could. Everything else is just bs they say to look like the good guys. I feel sorry for those Jews but 2 wrongs do not make a right. So because they got killed does not give them right to steal land and kill others. Point is that you do not use history from 2000 years ago to justify land grabing now.

Imagine if the entire world started doing that.

That is exactly the argument Putin uses in his illegal unjust war in Ukraine. He says "Russia and Ukraine were 1 unit 800 years ago so Ukraine does not exist, it is Russia. We need to take them". That mindset leads to devilry and war and bad things.

You can blame the Roman Empire for kicking out the Jews 2000 years ago but it is not the current Palestinians living there in 1948 fault that it happened. Therefore their houses should have stayed as theirs. 

 

 

Edited June 8 by Karmadhi