Israel / Palestine News Thread

[Nivsch]

https://x.com/naamalazimi/status/1819036209110503668

Edited August 1 by Nivsch

[Husseinisdoingfine]

 

[Karmadhi]

5 hours ago, hundreth said:

Israel's goal from the start has never been de-escalation and a ceasefire, it was the elimination of Hamas. 

From that lens, everything checks out

Also to ethnically cleanse Gaza by making it impossible to habit by people.

From that lens their bombing and destruction of water supplies, civilian housing, hospitals, schools and agricultural land checks out

[Raze]

8 hours ago, hundreth said:

Israel's goal from the start has never been de-escalation and a ceasefire, it was the elimination of Hamas. 

From that lens, everything checks out. The only ceasefires Israel has been serious about are either temporary, or with the full release of the hostages and no other conditions. This will never happen.

The only remaining question is how many more Hamas leaders will Israel take out before it decides it's time to let up. 

 

Hamas offered to release all the hostages if Israel didn’t invade, and is currently offering a full release if Israel stops the war and returns their Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas “letting up” doesn’t make sense, if Israel is going to keep attacking until they’re all dead as they said they would, giving back the hostages makes no sense because their situation stays the exact same.

[Raze]

4 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

 

Israel depends on the USA to sustain itself, but the young generation in the US has turned against them or at least against what they are doing, so in 20-30 years when they are the majority of voters they will start demanding aid to Israel becomes conditional. A two state solution is probably impossible at this point or soon to be.

I think Israel’s plan is that they go to war and critically damage hezbollah and get the USA to topple Iran’s regime, so they lose their only major military adversary left, then they push out the population of Gaza and more of the West Bank, until they don’t have so many Palestinians on the land, by then they’ll be able to avoid the USA finally turning against them by doing a one state solution, but because their are now less Palestinians than Jews on the land it’ll remain a Jewish state and they will no longer be accused of apartheid so they can start normalizing relations.

[Raze]

 

[Nivsch]

Edited August 2 by Nivsch

[zazen]

13 hours ago, Karmadhi said:

Also to ethnically cleanse Gaza by making it impossible to habit by people.

From that lens their bombing and destruction of water supplies, civilian housing, hospitals, schools and agricultural land checks out

They've definitely made it un-inhabitable. According to the UN there are 40 million tonnes of rubble which could take up to 15 years to clear up before even getting started on re-building.  ''Debris poses a deadly threat for people in the Gaza Strip as it can contain unexploded ordnance and harmful substances.''

@hundreth The objective might be to eliminate Hamas, but Hamas is just a avatar representing a cause. That cause is resistance to a situation, that situation is occupation (already known but further confirmed by ICJ earlier this month) and denial of Palestinian statehood, dignity and rights. As long as that exists, resistance in some form will exist. To get rid of Hamas we need to get rid of the situational cause for their existence. Of course this is easier said than done due to logistics, ideologies, resentment and entightlement. The remedy is simple, but difficult and full of hurdles.

Gaza's situation and what Israel has made of it entangles them even more - the hope initially was that Palestinians would be cleansed to Egypt, but Egypt will never allow this. First, to not be complicit in ethnic cleansing and cause domestic uprising. Second, to not be caught in a fight with Israel if and when Hamas / some Palestinian resistance were to launch attacks from Egyptian lands. But then if they don't let Gazan's in they are also in a way complicit in their suffering in Gaza - this is Egypt's bind. With Gaza now destroyed and only habitable in some make shift tent territory for the foreseeable future, Israel has put 2 million people in this unacceptable purgatory which only shifts world opinion towards Israel in the negative the longer this goes on. It seems they want to shift attention to the North towards Hezbollah and Iran to deflect from the quagmire. 

[Nivsch]

13 hours ago, Raze said:

in 20-30 years when they are the majority of voters they will start demanding aid to Israel becomes conditional

A future optional government of Lapid, Gantz, Yair Golan will have chemistry with them and no problem to reach genuine understandings.

Edited August 2 by Nivsch

[hundreth]

15 hours ago, Raze said:

Hamas offered to release all the hostages if Israel didn’t invade, and is currently offering a full release if Israel stops the war and returns their Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas “letting up” doesn’t make sense, if Israel is going to keep attacking until they’re all dead as they said they would, giving back the hostages makes no sense because their situation stays the exact same.

I was speaking about Israel letting up, not Hamas.

I agree with you otherwise. Neither side has real incentive for the war to end. The ceasefire talks are mostly political theater. 

[hundreth]

4 hours ago, zazen said:

@hundreth The objective might be to eliminate Hamas, but Hamas is just a avatar representing a cause. That cause is resistance to a situation, that situation is occupation (already known but further confirmed by ICJ earlier this month) and denial of Palestinian statehood, dignity and rights. As long as that exists, resistance in some form will exist. To get rid of Hamas we need to get rid of the situational cause for their existence. Of course this is easier said than done due to logistics, ideologies, resentment and entightlement. The remedy is simple, but difficult and full of hurdles.

I believe this is half true. 

For one, we often speak of the Palestinian response as purely deterministic - with literally no other option for how to proceed. We give the Palestinians zero agency. I don't believe this to be the case.

Hamas is not just a product of Israel, but a distinct entity with it's own agenda which harms both Israelis and Palestinians. It's philosophies and motives are consistent with other extremist movements in the region. At some point we also need to recognize the role of Islamic extremism. You can't simply bury your head in the sand and pretend this is 100% on Israel.

Second, history has shown that the Palestinians have not and will not be satisfied with any arrangement that does not see 100% of the region returned to them. This is the overarching motive for both Hamas and Hezbollah. It is also the major reason why the peace talks faltered and did not continue. It is easy to blame the entire failure on Israel's security demands, but throughout negotiations you need to continue pushing. You need both sides present.

Now, as a result of those failures Israelis have shifted towards the same 100% expectations. It seems Israel is now content with a split Palestinian leadership, settlement expansion, and a slow deterioration of the Palestinian movement. 

It is really sad, and I think we both recognize how irreconcilable the situation is. I just don't see it quite as black and white as you do.

[Raze]

 

2 hours ago, Nivsch said:

A future optional government of Lapid, Gantz, Yair Golan will have chemistry with them and no problem to reach genuine understandings.

Secular leaning Israelis are leaving the country and the right wing and orthodox have higher fertility, Israel will drift further right over time.

[Nivsch]

20 minutes ago, Raze said:

 

Secular leaning Israelis are leaving the country and the right wing and orthodox have higher fertility, Israel will drift further right over time.

Some leave but in the other hand the moderate-democratic camp becomes more active and still roughly half of the Israelis.

Edited August 2 by Nivsch

[Hatfort]

An interesting interview of a former Zionist and his journey.

 

[Raze]

 

@hundreth would you consider the accounts from this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqusa-96WLs

and this

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/bf4mfymnmn4t1wyvdkx4h/Letter.pdf?rlkey=z3ekl4u9gtya2p33ek6ud2zet&e=1&dl=0

to be war crimes?

[Leo Gura]

On 8/1/2024 at 4:02 PM, Raze said:

Hamas offered to release all the hostages if Israel didn’t invade, and is currently offering a full release if Israel stops the war and returns their Palestinian prisoners.

Surely you understand why Israeli leaders cannot accept such a deal.

Hamas is a genocidal terorist organization by their own admission. No responsible military defense leader could make a deal that would assure such an organization safeharbor, even in exchange for 200 hostages. Because the last act Hamas did killed 1000+ civilians. So the calculus doesn't make sense because they could easily kill another 1000 if they are allowed to grow like a cancer.

Don't be so anti-Zionist that you overlook this basic logic.

To acknowledge what I said doesn't mean you have to support Zionism.

Military leaders have a much higher responsibility than just freeing hostages. They have to ensure future security.

Edited August 3 by Leo Gura

[Raze]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Surely you understand why Israeli leaders cannot accept such a deal.

Hamas is a genocidal terorist organization by their own admission.

I disagree. Their original charter had some language like that, but it was written by a small group that was under siege, and the founder said he isn’t against Jews as a group. Hamas has never targeted Jews outside of Palestine. They also replaced that charter with a new one that doesn’t call for the destruction of Israel.

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

No responsible military defense leader could make a deal that would assure such an organization safeharbor, even in exchange for 200 hostages. Because the last act Hamas did killed 1000+ civilians. So the calculus doesn't make sense because they could easily kill another 1000 if they are allowed to grow like a cancer.

The only reason they were able to do that was because Israel removed guards from Gaza to help settlers in the west bank and didn’t pay attention to intel they got warning them. When the IDF is paying attention to Gaza all Hamas can do is fire rockets which rarley hit their target until they’re forced to stop due to Israel bombardment.

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

To acknowledge what I said doesn't mean you have to support Zionism.

Military leaders have a much higher responsibility than just freeing hostages. They have to ensure future security.

That’s the thing, they put themselves in an impossible scenario.

Israel was refusing to negotiate with Hamas while also propping them up, this left a growing population of 2 million blockaded inside Gaza, their access to clean water was running out, 40% were unemployed, the situation was getting worse and they had no way out. At the same time Israel was slowly expanding the violent occupation in the West Bank. This doomed Israel to face extremism from Palestinians who were backed into a corner. 

Apparently they thought the losses they did take were so minor it was worth absorbing. But as I said, they got sloppy and left Gaza unguarded.

I understand negotiating a ceasefire before getting revenge militarily after Oct 7 would be political suicide, but this war has failed to retrieve the hostages and instead put Israel at huge safety risk by turning much of the world against them and making Palestinians even more desperate and extreme. 

They may still end up having to make a ceasefire deal with Hamas, which can potentially expand by recruiting the war orphans, or if they destroy Hamas, which may mean losing many more hostages, another extremist group could rise up and cause even more damage years down the line.

At this point I think even Israelis are starting to realize this, according to polling 60% said they are ok with a ceasefire if it means the hostages come back. But Netanyahu can’t do it because Smotrich and Ben Gvir said if he does they’ll leave his coalition which would dissolve the government and force elections, and he would lose the elections and then be tried for corruption and go to prison.

If safety and the hostages was the number 1 priority as insane as it sounds they’d have to do a ceasefire deal to get the hostages back right away, then they’d need to do a political solution to give Palestinians a path to a future to undercut Hamas. This is because the war effort risks hostage lives and is risking a wider war with Hezbollah and Iran which is a much larger safety risk than Hamas.  Of course no one in the government would be willing to do that because it would be career suicide and ideologically they oppose it so it couldn’t happen. It would be like if after 9/11 Bush didn’t invade Iraq or Afghanistan. We know now that would have damaged the US much less, but he would become a pariah because they’d view it as relenting to the enemy.

I’m not necessarily anti Zionist, I’m just against the way they went about doing it.

Edited August 3 by Raze

[Hatfort]

I understand Israel killed a Hamas political leader. But if the two sides were in a pre-dialog situation for a ceasefire, it is a dangerous escalation that can perpetuate the war more and more. Maybe that's what Israel wants, even if it doesn't say it clearly, because that way they keep killing more Palestinian population and worsening the conditions of the ones left to do what they please with them, their true objectives. The thing is, Hamas as a military force is resisting, causing enough casualties on the opponents to prevent them from taking full military control of Gaza, and some Israeli officials have said they can't defeat them.

It's also dangerous that the attack on Ismail Hanuyeh was made in Iran, which could retaliate according to law. There's also the risk of a full war with Hezbollah, some analysts say they have a missile and ballistic power that Israel could not defend from, although the ongoing restrain is understandable because Israel is capable of destroying Lebanon too. The risk of a bigger war is growing, and I think Israel is the one adding the most gas to the fire with those international attacks.

[Nivsch]

 

Edited August 3 by Nivsch

[Moutushi]

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Surely you understand why Israeli leaders cannot accept such a deal.

Hamas is a genocidal terorist organization by their own admission. No responsible military defense leader could make a deal that would assure such an organization safeharbor, even in exchange for 200 hostages. Because the last act Hamas did killed 1000+ civilians. So the calculus doesn't make sense because they could easily kill another 1000 if they are allowed to grow like a cancer.

Don't be so anti-Zionist that you overlook this basic logic.

To acknowledge what I said doesn't mean you have to support Zionism.

Military leaders have a much higher responsibility than just freeing hostages. They have to ensure future security.

@Leo Gura Found this discussion in line with your comment, I think Rudy Rochman has a balanced a relatively less biased Israeli position than other speakers out there. I obviously have major reservations and criticism of PBD's podcast and it's right wing leaning nature, and am certainly not promoting his channel by sharing this here.