Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine - Page 145

On December 06 2023 02:35 Magic Powers wrote:
"Structural Jewish power may be helped by not conscripting them, sure, but it is literally giving individual Arab Israelis more legal power than Jewish Israelis."

Can you elaborate on this? I can't figure out how it would give Arab Israelis more legal power rather than less.

Also, are you aware of the benefits that IDF members receive?

Quote from the article:
"For instance, many Israelis make important and lasting personal connections with their fellow citizens through the IDF, and they also receive many financial benefits, such as education assistance and discounted permits for building homes and owning land."

Another source:
"Referring to it as “fixing a historic injustice,” the ministry reveals additional discounts on entertainment and goods (doubling the budget for this from NIS 16 million to NIS 32 million), partial subsidies of kids’ summer camps (NIS 1,500 per family) and more discounts on electricity bills (from 5% to 15%) and property tax (from 0% to 10%)."

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/defense-ministry-unveils-expanded-discounts-benefits-for-idf-reservists

These are just a few examples.

On December 06 2023 03:21 Magic Powers wrote:
I'm not saying the argument is a 10/10, I only object to calling it "weak". I think it's valid and should be taken seriously, and not dismissed out of hand.

KwarK even acknowledges that it might give Jewish Israelis more structural power.

TEL AVIV—Israeli forces closed in on southern Gaza’s largest city in what is becoming one of the decisive battles of the two-month-old war with Hamas.

Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, is defending its last major bastion in Gaza, where Israel believes the group’s leaders are hiding and holding hostages, after Israeli forces drove the militants and much of the population out of Gaza City in the enclave’s north. Hamas fighters and Israeli troops were in close-quarters combat, both sides said.

Khan Younis, a city of 400,000 built along an ancient trade route, represents a treacherous battleground—a Hamas stronghold home to its leader, Yahya Sinwar, and lined with narrow streets packed with displaced Palestinians. Fighting there would deepen an already urgent humanitarian crisis by pushing tens of thousands of people into Rafah near the Egyptian border, where families are already sleeping in tents and parks, and where food, water and cooking gas are scarce.

Israeli troops were fighting in “the heart of Khan Younis,” Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, commanding officer of the Israeli military’s Southern Command—which is leading the fight against Hamas—said Tuesday. He described the fighting across Gaza as the most intense since the start of Israel’s ground operation.

An Israeli victory in Khan Younis would likely corner remaining Hamas fighters in small areas in central Gaza and close to the Egyptian border, surrounded by Israeli troops. And it could heighten already intense international pressure on Israel to end the war and seek a settlement that frees more than 100 hostages and ends Hamas’s rule in Gaza.

“If Hamas loses Khan Younis, they are done. They may have some enclaves there, but they will lose their centers of gravity,” said Kobi Michael, a senior fellow at The Institute for National Security Studies, a security think tank in Tel Aviv.

Using leaflets, phone messages and social media to warn of the impending operation against Hamas, Israeli forces told residents of Khan Younis on Tuesday to “urgently” evacuate its eastern and northern neighborhoods, .

The Gaza Strip has experienced some of the heaviest fighting of the war in recent days, following the collapse of a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas on Friday. With Israel shifting the focus of its assault to the south, while barring people from returning to the north, Gazans searching for safety are left with few options.

“The whole night we heard artillery shelling and rockets,” said Nasser Qassem, who lives in Khan Younis with his family. “People here are so afraid, it’s complete chaos, people broke into schools and took humanitarian aid by force, the situation is terrible.”

Others in Khan Younis described heavy bombardment overnight as well as ground combat in the city’s east. Residents said they saw Israeli tanks and that troops were taking control of buildings, while Israeli forces were also seen setting up positions to the city’s north.

Israel is encouraging civilians to move to Rafah on the border with Egypt, or to what it calls a “humanitarian zone” in Al Mawasi, a stretch of land in southern Gaza along the Mediterranean Sea.

“The best [thing] for them to do is to always move to the Mawasi, it will be safe for them,” said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, a spokesman for the Israeli military. The United Nations has said it is impractical for a large number of Gazans to flee to Al Mawasi as the area is too small and lacks infrastructure.

Tens of thousands of people have already fled Khan Younis, where the humanitarian situation is rapidly deteriorating. Many have arrived in Rafah, which is already overcrowded and getting hit by Israeli strikes.

Israel is aiming to force Hamas out of Khan Younis while consolidating Israeli control of Gaza City in the north, which was the main center of Hamas’s military and governing power.

Israel military spokesman Avichay Adraee said Tuesday that Israel was fighting in all of Gaza, but especially in the areas north and east of Khan Younis. He called the Salah al-Din Road—the strip’s main north-to-south highway which Israel has asked Gaza’s occupants to use since the start of the war—“a battlefield,” and said it was now too dangerous to use.

Fighting has also picked up along the border with Lebanon, where Iran-backed Hezbollah militants resumed hostilities after the cease-fire ended. In the crossfire, Israel’s air force struck several Hezbollah outposts in Lebanese territory, the Israeli military said.

Hamas leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, are believed to be hiding underground in Khan Younis. The group still retains the majority of its fighting forces. Israel has killed around 5,000 of Hamas’s 30,000 fighters since the start of the war, according to Israeli officials. Palestinian militants still hold hostages from the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel in which Israeli officials say more than 1,200 people were killed.

Health authorities in the Hamas-run territory say around 15,900 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, most of them women and children. The figure doesn’t distinguish between militants and civilians.

Around 70% of Gaza’s population of 2.2 million is currently in the southern part of the strip, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. That includes the hundreds of thousands of people who fled the northern part of the enclave in recent weeks at the request of the Israeli military.

“It is unacceptable that civilians have no safe place to go in Gaza,” said Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has a team in a hospital in Khan Younis.

Gaza’s hospitals have been overwhelmed by the number of injured and dead since the fighting resumed. Video footage from Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis showed injured children being treated on bloodstained floors. Hospitals and their vicinities have been struck frequently in recent days, according to the U.N.

The U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees said on Tuesday that one of its schools in Khan Younis was damaged by a nearby strike, killing four people. More than 3,000 people were sheltering in the school at the time, it said.

Humanitarian aid has all but stopped reaching Khan Younis because of the fighting, according to the U.N., which oversees aid distribution. The Rafah area is the only part of the strip where basic goods such as flour and water are still being delivered to the population, it said.

The limited aid that is reaching the town is insufficient for the swelling numbers, people there said. Prices of food, water and cooking gas have risen higher than what many can afford. Rents in Rafah have increased 10-fold from before the war.

“It’s so overcrowded, everyone is rushing to leave Khan Younis,” said Marah Jamala, who fled to Rafah before the latest offensive in Khan Younis began. “We cannot find enough food. We only have flour and some canned food. Supermarkets are empty.”

The U.N. has warned that as many as one million people could converge on Rafah, which before the war was home to 280,000 people.

“The conditions required to deliver aid to the people of Gaza do not exist,” said Lynn Hastings, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories. “An even more hellish scenario is about to unfold, one in which humanitarian operations may not be able to respond,” she said.

The Israeli movement on Khan Younis from the north and east echoes how Israeli troops began the battle for Gaza City by advancing from several directions before linking up and establishing control over people entering and leaving the battle zone, said Michael Horowitz, the head of intelligence at Le Beck International, a security and risk management consulting firm based in the Middle East.

Israel is looking to bisect the enclave north of Khan Younis and establish a strong position for launching attacks into the south or center of Gaza, he said.

With Israel under international pressure to end the war soon, the country is also preparing for a lower-intensity conflict that could last a long time as it seeks to fully root out Hamas from Gaza, Horowitz said.

“I think Israel senses that the clock is ticking and they need to secure their positions.”

Hamas and other militants still hold more than a hundred hostages taken from Israel during its Oct. 7 attacks. Those held are the group’s main leverage for securing an end to Israel’s assault. Hamas leader Sinwar has long seen Israel’s collective desire to return hostages as its weak point, Horowitz said.

But the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, along with attacks by other Iranian-backed groups in Lebanon, Yemen and the West Bank, have made Israelis determined to win the war, no matter the price, said Horowitz.

“Israeli society understands we are in front of two options: to be or not to be,” he said.

On December 06 2023 03:30 JimmiC wrote:

Yes it can because it is wrong and hateful. Seriously go look up the demographics it does not fit either ethnicity or religiously.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel

Oh look Switzerland is also an ethnostate,

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/switzerland/summaries/



It is extremely sad that you have an ability to be very thoughtful and post interesting things but more often than not you go with the really bitchy lame shit post.

On December 06 2023 08:29 JimmiC wrote:

No, nor would I describe them as an Ethnostate, would you?

On December 06 2023 08:25 Cerebrate1 wrote:
I'm not weighing in on the debate one way or the other, so please no one attack me as though I had, but another factoid that may be relevant in understanding any grand plan for conscription is: Hilltop Youth (extremist settlers mentioned earlier) are not allowed to join the IDF. Not just not conscripted, they can't join even if they want to.

An investigation by +972 and Local Call reveals that 2.5 years ago, the Israeli military established a unit called “Desert Frontier” specifically for hilltop youth settlers, who make up the vast majority of the unit’s soldiers.

A security official familiar with the incident told +972 on condition of anonymity that Desert Frontier, which was established in 2020 and is subordinate to the Jordan Valley Brigade, “consists mainly of hilltop youth … the extreme of the extreme, who otherwise would not have enlisted.” The idea, according to the official, is that serving in the unit is a way to rehabilitate them: “This unit is very unique. We take them and turn them into soldiers.”

The official, in addition to another source familiar with the unit, said that a few dozen soldiers serve in Desert Frontier, most of them from so-called shepherding outposts in the northern area of the Judean Desert and the Jordan Valley. According to these officials, many of them have a history of violence. You have to read it again to believe it: the military is enlisting hilltop youth settlers known for their violence toward Palestinians to serve in a unit that acts against Palestinians living in the same area.

On December 06 2023 08:59 JimmiC wrote:

Wow like 95% of your words were typed to be an asshole and 5% on the discussion, that is actually pretty good for you on the last few pages.

Ethnostate definition:
a sovereign state of which citizenship is restricted to members of a particular racial or ethnic group.
"they actively promoted the concept of a white ethnostate"

None of your links discuss restrictions by race or ethnic group. And their makeup shows that others are allowed and not being chased out.