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On November 02 2023 05:22 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2023 05:20 lolfail9001 wrote:On November 02 2023 05:14 Nebuchad wrote:On November 02 2023 05:02 JimmiC wrote:On November 02 2023 04:04 Nebuchad wrote:On November 02 2023 03:44 JimmiC wrote:On November 02 2023 03:25 Nebuchad wrote:On November 02 2023 03:14 JimmiC wrote:On November 02 2023 03:08 Nebuchad wrote:On November 02 2023 02:53 Liquid`Drone wrote:
[quote]
As for the second point, you'll notice i have not used the phrases ethnic cleansing nor genocide, and ive fairly consistently argued against using words with contentious definitions because that is a surefire way to get bogged down in a semantics debate.
I can see the merit to what you're saying, my pushback would be that since there's only one side who is ready to argue against words like this, you'll end up with a rhetorical slant. Terrorists and religious fundamentalists on one side (accurately), and on the other whichever words will be acceptable to talk about a clear ethnic cleansing attempt, which will necessarily be a much less violent-looking (and less accurate) word. Imo that's because we have this slant in the discourse of the West in general that so many people can't see through the self-defense arguments. Or you just do not understand what ethnic cleansing is and is not, and can’t explain why this is ethic cleansing despite it not having any of the key characteristics. Even Drone saying he chooses not to use those words vs it is not is disrespectful to the seriousness of the accusations as well as all of those who have been unfortunate enough to actually experience or have loved ones who did. Not so fun fact is basically everyone in Israel is part of that group. This is literally my next post after your decision to stop going back and forth with me Go for explain the definition of ethnic cleansing and how Israel fits that definition or stop being ignorant and hateful. As I remember it, I asked you to explain to me what the non-ethnic cleansing reasoning for the West Bank settlements was, and you couldn't provide an answer. You said "You'd have to ask them". As long as I can't think of a reason to do them that isn't ethnic cleansing, I'm going to feel conforted in my belief that they are part of an ethnic cleansing campaign. Amongst the dozens of links that I could have chosen, here's an article in Jewish Currents by Raz Segal, "an associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University and the endowed professor in the study of modern genocide": https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide So the settlements are not genocide or they are and you can just not explain why? Yes if Israel follows through on its most obscene threats then it would have committed genocide. But that is not what you have been saying, you have been saying they have been committing it for the last 70 years and used settlements as proof. I completely agree that if Israel commits genocide it will be genocide. I was expecting a much better article to be honest. Actually when I said genocide in reference to Gaza you also attacked that, but that was earlier in the thread. "Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction." The degree to which it is obvious that this describes what is happening in the West Bank is hard to overstate. Israeli settlers are taking land and settlements from Palestinians living there, forcing them to move (often through violence), with the explicit intent of making the land inhabited by Jewish Israelis as opposed to Palestinians. Amongst the dozens of links that I could have chosen in reference to the West Bank specifically, here's this one: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/10/un-expert-warns-new-instance-mass-ethnic-cleansing-palestinians-callsAnother way of looking at this is, you've agreed with me that West Bank settlements are bad. I would ask, why are they bad? What is the thing that is happening that makes you believe they are bad? The sheer comedy of claiming that Jews settling a place that was inhabited entirely by Arabs before is intent on making the place ethnically homogenous is unmatched. You can argue that methods used are bordering straight up robbery, but your very definition straight up tells us that West Bank case is literal antithesis of ethnic cleansing. If Israelis were coming and living among the other people in the village then you have a valuable criticism of my position. Since they're instead taking the homes of the people who are there and forcing them to leave, you don't.
Some settlers like Jacob here (infamous for his "If I don't steal your home someone else will" video) are willing to share momentarily, but even he has to acknowledge the removal of Palestinians as a "necessary evil" and that he's more "easy going" than most settlers.
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I'm glad you brought this article. It highlights yet another very complex issue that gets highly simplified in most media narratives for the sake of easy consumption by foreign audiences.
The Beduin population in Israel is growing exponentially. They still keep polygamy (technically illegal in Israel, but not enforced on them) and about one in three Beduin men in the Negev have multiple wives. Without getting into the math, that can lead to a serious amount of babies. Israel provides financial assistance per child, so they can eat, but you can imagine such large families do not end up super wealthy.
The result is a lot of people who need housing. They end up setting up tents and huts all over the place, even on other people's land which they did not buy. It's a sad situation, but letting them squat on any spot they find is not fair to people who bothered to aquire the land using the same laws that have been used there since Ottoman times. Being as they don't own the land of these new ramshackle structures, and never did, Israel has a policy to demolish these new structures and help the residents move to proper housing units in nearby towns.
Is that the ideal solution? I don't know. But a full understanding of the situation doesn’t seem to indicate villianous intent of any party here. The Beduins are just having unsustainably large families and Israel is just maintaining property law (incidentally, they frequently demolish settlements of extremist Zionists who don't legally aquire the land as well.)
If you have other articles that discuss other issues, I'd be happy to discuss those as well. Context is important, and I'm happy to see that many people in this forum are interested in understanding things deeper than article headlines.
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On November 02 2023 06:32 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2023 05:14 Nebuchad wrote:On November 02 2023 05:02 JimmiC wrote:On November 02 2023 04:04 Nebuchad wrote:On November 02 2023 03:44 JimmiC wrote:On November 02 2023 03:25 Nebuchad wrote:On November 02 2023 03:14 JimmiC wrote:On November 02 2023 03:08 Nebuchad wrote:On November 02 2023 02:53 Liquid`Drone wrote:On November 02 2023 02:07 Cerebrate1 wrote:
[quote]
Dude, if you are going to quote me, please don't change the context of that quote entirely. I was not commenting on the blockade at all there. I was making a suggestion that humanitarian aid should increase corresponding to the amount of time Gaza kept a ceasefire. I've still yet to hear any arguments about why that wouldn't be a good idea either.
As for settlements, I certainly didn't endorse them. I was merely clarifying that they do not fit the definition of the phrase that kept getting flung about. If you read my post carefully, I actually suggested people criticise the things they don't like about them. Just to criticise what actually happens rather than create fictions to bash the side they don't like. As for the second point, you'll notice i have not used the phrases ethnic cleansing nor genocide, and ive fairly consistently argued against using words with contentious definitions because that is a surefire way to get bogged down in a semantics debate. I can see the merit to what you're saying, my pushback would be that since there's only one side who is ready to argue against words like this, you'll end up with a rhetorical slant. Terrorists and religious fundamentalists on one side (accurately), and on the other whichever words will be acceptable to talk about a clear ethnic cleansing attempt, which will necessarily be a much less violent-looking (and less accurate) word. Imo that's because we have this slant in the discourse of the West in general that so many people can't see through the self-defense arguments. Or you just do not understand what ethnic cleansing is and is not, and can’t explain why this is ethic cleansing despite it not having any of the key characteristics. Even Drone saying he chooses not to use those words vs it is not is disrespectful to the seriousness of the accusations as well as all of those who have been unfortunate enough to actually experience or have loved ones who did. Not so fun fact is basically everyone in Israel is part of that group. This is literally my next post after your decision to stop going back and forth with me Go for explain the definition of ethnic cleansing and how Israel fits that definition or stop being ignorant and hateful. As I remember it, I asked you to explain to me what the non-ethnic cleansing reasoning for the West Bank settlements was, and you couldn't provide an answer. You said "You'd have to ask them". As long as I can't think of a reason to do them that isn't ethnic cleansing, I'm going to feel conforted in my belief that they are part of an ethnic cleansing campaign. Amongst the dozens of links that I could have chosen, here's an article in Jewish Currents by Raz Segal, "an associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University and the endowed professor in the study of modern genocide": https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide So the settlements are not genocide or they are and you can just not explain why? Yes if Israel follows through on its most obscene threats then it would have committed genocide. But that is not what you have been saying, you have been saying they have been committing it for the last 70 years and used settlements as proof. I completely agree that if Israel commits genocide it will be genocide. I was expecting a much better article to be honest. Actually when I said genocide in reference to Gaza you also attacked that, but that was earlier in the thread. "Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction." The degree to which it is obvious that this describes what is happening in the West Bank is hard to overstate. Israeli settlers are taking land and settlements from Palestinians living there, forcing them to move (often through violence), with the explicit intent of making the land inhabited by Jewish Israelis as opposed to Palestinians. Amongst the dozens of links that I could have chosen in reference to the West Bank specifically, here's this one: https://newint.org/features/2023/10/26/settlers-displace-west-bank-bedouins-amid-israel’s-gaza-attackAnother way of looking at this is, you've agreed with me that West Bank settlements are bad. I would ask, why are they bad? What is the thing that is happening that makes you believe they are bad? The same reason it is bad when people buy a building and force all the residents out so they can resell for more, exactly as I said earlier.
You're not "reselling for more" though, you're replacing them with other people based on the first people being of a certain ethnicity and the second people being of another ethnicity.
+ Show Spoiler +On November 02 2023 06:56 JimmiC wrote:
We will never find common ground.
Agreed! Guess we should stop talking to each other then On November 02 2023 06:32 JimmiC wrote:
Edit : nice ninja edit, look me too! It’s up to you if you want to confront that you believe it is a fact that the settlements are a secret long term plan to erase Palestinians. Might be worth considering all the media you are taking in that led you to that conclusion.
Thanks for the suggestion! I considered the media I am taking and it's fine. I don't quite think it's a "secret long term plan" though, in that it's not much of a secret at all, anybody with intellectual honesty can see it.
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Norway28558 Posts
On November 02 2023 06:38 Cerebrate1 wrote:I'm glad you brought this article. It highlights yet another very complex issue that gets highly simplified in most media narratives for the sake of easy consumption by foreign audiences. The Beduin population in Israel is growing exponentially. They still keep polygamy (technically illegal in Israel, but not enforced on them) and about one in three Beduin men in the Negev have multiple wives. Without getting into the math, that can lead to a serious amount of babies. Israel provides financial assistance per child, so they can eat, but you can imagine such large families do not end up super wealthy. The result is a lot of people who need housing. They end up setting up tents and huts all over the place, even on other people's land which they did not buy. It's a sad situation, but letting them squat on any spot they find is not fair to people who bothered to aquire the land using the same laws that have been used there since Ottoman times. Being as they don't own the land of these new ramshackle structures, and never did, Israel has a policy to demolish these new structures and help the residents move to proper housing units in nearby towns. Is that the ideal solution? I don't know. But a full understanding of the situation doesn’t seem to indicate villianous intent of any party here. The Beduins are just having unsustainably large families and Israel is just maintaining property law (incidentally, they frequently demolish settlements of extremist Zionists who don't legally aquire the land as well.) If you have other articles that discuss other issues, I'd be happy to discuss those as well. Context is important, and I'm happy to see that many people in this forum are interested in understanding things deeper than article headlines.
While I appreciate you bringing context to stuff posted (I'll happily admit that I'm getting at this from a foreigner's perspective, although I've been making sure to read quite a bit of Hareetz lately (I'm familiar with their position on the political spectrum)), are you saying this quote: ' “The demolitions are the latest in an unrelenting show of force by the Israeli authorities, who have destroyed at least 421 structures belonging to Palestinians in the first six months of 2021 alone. This marks a 30 per cent rise in demolitions for the same period in 2020,”said Ort.
Last year, the Israeli authorities demolished 848 Palestinian structures in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem – a 36 per cent increase compared to 2019.' refers solely to Beduins who are having unsustainably large families?
I also had the impression that 'having unsustainably large families' is also an apt description of some of the most orthodox jews, in particular Haredis, and that this is a driving factor in the aggressive settlement policies (among other things because they end up needing larger houses for their families which are much less expensive in those regions). Do feel at a liberty to correct me if I have misunderstood anything here!
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Holy shit I just figured out the disconnect. I think of the settlers as individual actors looking to better their situation in some way and you see the settlers as a grand Jewish conspiracy.
Colonists in America were individual actors looking to better their situation in some way, too. I guess that makes everything that was done to the indigenous peoples totally okay!
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On November 02 2023 11:14 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2023 10:57 Salazarz wrote:Holy shit I just figured out the disconnect. I think of the settlers as individual actors looking to better their situation in some way and you see the settlers as a grand Jewish conspiracy. Colonists in America were individual actors looking to better their situation in some way, too. I guess that makes everything that was done to the indigenous peoples totally okay! Pretty sure they made their intentions clear as did their government, in fact they were quite proud of it, not to mention we have what actually happened as proof. It’s an awful and super flawed argument, you know this right? Do you guys really not see that you are making the same arguments with the same logic used over and over at R/TheDonald?
No, actually majority of settlers in Americas were quite happy to just build their little farms and ranches and live there without any ill thought towards the locals. It's only after the locals started raiding and killing them that things really started taking an ugly turn, of course the main reason the locals started raiding them was because the colonists were taking over more and more of their land using guns provided by their government to get what they wanted, which is really not that different from what is happening in Palestine.
In this situation you and him are taking your assumption, that there is a secret plan to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians as fact. That is by definition a Jewish conspiracy, that you believe it to be true does not make it so.
I don't assume that there is a secret plan to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians, where do you keep getting that from?
The interesting thing in this situation is one side has actors who might be planning a secret ethnic cleansing and the other side is openly trying commit ethnically cleanse.
I totally agree with this, one side might be planning an ethnic cleansing (not very secretly, mind, but yea), while the other is actually openly carrying out ethnic cleansing. The thing is, Israel is the side that is actually doing it -- Israel is the side that is pushing people out of their homes and killing people on a nearly daily basis. Hamas and their ilk might well be wishing they could wipe out every single Jew (that would be the 'planning an ethnic cleansing' part) -- but they aren't actually doing so, you could argue that's only because they lack the capability but that doesn't change the fact that they aren't doing it whereas Israel provably is.
Some how many of you are really extra mad at the group that might be and pretty damn empathetic to the side that is all about ethnically cleansing not mention a whole host of other horrific beliefs such as about women. Why is their empathy for that side and not the others?
You seem to be misunderstanding me and most of the other posters that are arguing with you here. I'm not really mad at Israel, and sure as hell don't have any empathy for anyone who takes up guns and goes on to kill unarmed civilians, whether that's a Hamas or an IDF member. Israel is doing what they have decided is 'best' for them, however wrong they might be in my opinion they're just pursuing their selfish self-interest.
What really pisses me off is the stubborn refusal of the supposedly progressive and righteous Western democracies to insist on human rights and international law to be respected by all parties involved. Hamas gets plenty of condemnation (and rightly so!) for their terror acts. Why isn't Israel being condemned for the war crimes that they commit? I firmly believe that if the US and the EU continue to lack the balls or the integrity to stand up against war crimes of their allies then they have no right to protest crimes of anyone else, either, and the whole 'rules based order' will just continue to be a joke.
I believe that laws and rules are important. I believe that the world needs some sort of morality, something better than 'realpolitik.' But if the supposed leaders of the world only follow rules when it suits them, then you can't expect anyone else to care about them.
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On November 02 2023 11:14 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2023 10:57 Salazarz wrote:Holy shit I just figured out the disconnect. I think of the settlers as individual actors looking to better their situation in some way and you see the settlers as a grand Jewish conspiracy. Colonists in America were individual actors looking to better their situation in some way, too. I guess that makes everything that was done to the indigenous peoples totally okay! Pretty sure they made their intentions clear as did their government, in fact they were quite proud of it, not to mention we have what actually happened as proof. It’s an awful and super flawed argument, you know this right? Do you guys really not see that you are making the same arguments with the same logic used over and over at R/TheDonald? In this situation you and him are taking your assumption, that there is a secret plan to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians as fact. That is by definition a Jewish conspiracy, that you believe it to be true does not make it so. The interesting thing in this situation is one side has actors who might be planning a secret ethnic cleansing and the other side is openly trying commit ethnically cleanse. Some how many of you are really extra mad at the group that might be and pretty damn empathetic to the side that is all about ethnically cleansing not mention a whole host of other horrific beliefs such as about women. Why is their empathy for that side and not the others? And fun other facts about conspiracies is everyone you think is nuts for believing them is actually the same! They also get the real news from the non main stream media.
A bit off-topic but:
Manifest Destiny was absolutely composed primarily of individual actors trying to better their situation. Sometimes they had the US government’s endorsement, sometimes they didn’t. Obviously Homestead Act stuff is pretty explicitly the government saying “please, we’re begging you, go settle all this land we have,” but other times it was a bunch of individuals deciding to go into “foreign” land, seize some territory, and hope to convince the US to annex them. There was even a term for it – “filibustering.” Sometimes the US actively tried to discourage this, even prosecuted filibusters when they got back.
But – and I think the compare and contrast with Israel here is important – it’s insufficient to say Manifest Destiny was merely the aggregate result of self-interested individuals. There was an ideology to it, a shared vision that they were building something. America, sea to shining sea. And that meant, one way or another, separating Native Americans from their land, and killing, relocating, or assimilating them. Private actors would, for instance, lend tribes money they knew they couldn’t pay back, so their debts could be used to bring them to the bargaining table. That was part of the machine just as much as state actors forcing unequal treaties or unilaterally declaring forced migrations.
Returning to Israel: to me the question regarding application of the term “ethnic cleansing” is whether the Israelis (either state or private actors) are intending to serve a larger goal of expansionism and annexation. Or, from the current residents’ point of view: killing, forced migration, or assimilation (and if the latter, it’s worth looking long and hard look at what that “assimilation” looks like). My impression has been that settlements are intentionally distributed to make any clean partition impossible, and constantly expanding and encroaching, bit by bit. That sounds to me like part of an effort to serve the larger goal of seizing all of the land eventually, but if someone thinks I’m misreading that, I’d love to hear what they think I’m missing.
(Edit: fixed some minor grammatical stuff)
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On November 02 2023 02:53 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2023 02:07 Cerebrate1 wrote:On November 01 2023 21:29 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Yeah. There are attempts at understanding why Hamas does what Hamas does, at attempting to understand why they enjoy considerable support within Palestine/the islamic world ('they're shitty people doesn't really qualify), perhaps there have been examples of 'it's inevitable that Hamas will respond the way they do when they're subject to the treatment they are subjected to), but I haven't seen a single actual defense of the terrorist attack on October 7. People who critique Israel tend to qualify their posts with 'obviously Hamas are disgusting terrorists'.
Not saying that people are giving Israel a free pass - but I'm seeing far more people defend bombing of civilians on the Gaza strip (they have to do this to get to Hamas/stating that the death counts are fabricated) than I am seeing people defend killing Israeli civilians. I mean, I'm not here to defend killing Israeli civilians, I'm not even making an equivalence between the two, but there are elements of what Israel does which I find entirely condemnable and struggle seeing how is defensible even in 'an act of war'. While there are posters who are clear in their condemnation of settlement policies/ hindering water food and electricity even while having an overall 'I understand that Israel must do what it must do to squash Hamas', I definitely feel it as less ubiqitous from that side than I find the condemnation of Hamas from the 'pro-palestine'-side.
Our resident Rabbi on the other hand seemed to defend the blockade ('you can be sure that all the Palestinians who think with their stomach or wallet will start hating Hamas every time a missile is fired') and defined the settlements as 'Israeli settlers have been buying up empty hilltops and building houses on them'. I'm not interested in the semantics side of the argument, but I would have hoped that there are some areas where basically everyone could find themselves in agreement. Dude, if you are going to quote me, please don't change the context of that quote entirely. I was not commenting on the blockade at all there. I was making a suggestion that humanitarian aid should increase corresponding to the amount of time Gaza kept a ceasefire. I've still yet to hear any arguments about why that wouldn't be a good idea either. As for settlements, I certainly didn't endorse them. I was merely clarifying that they do not fit the definition of the phrase that kept getting flung about. If you read my post carefully, I actually suggested people criticise the things they don't like about them. Just to criticise what actually happens rather than create fictions to bash the side they don't like. Sorry about the initial misunderstanding. Does that mean you oppose(d) the blockade? It still makes it sound like you favor starving the population if hamas breaks the ceasefire though, but either way, my bad. As for the second point, you'll notice i have not used the phrases ethnic cleansing nor genocide, and ive fairly consistently argued against using words with contentious definitions because that is a surefire way to get bogged down in a semantics debate. That said I cant see how your phrasing there isnt hopelessly euphemistic, but im glad you dont actually endorse the settlements, always happy to find common ground 
I had noticed your avoidance of hot and misleading phrases and I really appreciate that! A lot of my posts are really for the benefit of people who haven't had the time to research these topics thoroughly themselves, but I don't know who knows what, so I kinda just shotgun it out there sometimes. Feel free to fact check me if you feel I get something wrong though, I'm not perfect and the more we all look for truth, the better we'll all be.
Re: my aid ramp up plan- My suggestion was to have a minimum baseline aid so people will eat, but have increasing amounts of aid corresponding to the length of successful ceasefire. Like maybe construction materials in year 2 and business investments in year 3 or something. If Hamas launches an attack with that background, the business owners (the people with the money) will be pissed at Hamas when their business plan gets stopped and the families who have to wait another 2 years for their new house get pissed too. It's a gentler way to create internal domestic pressure on Hamas to de-radicalize, which is a better long term way to change a nation than the external regime change we may see instead. It's also a nicer incentive to play nice than missile strikes. Anyways, I was just spitballing ideas that might actually improve the conflict, so take it or leave it. Not like the UN is going to listen to me anyways
Re: the blockade- There are a lot of psy ops going on and there is a ton that us civilians (or even other governments) aren't privy to. Therefore, I don't think it makes sense to judge any party until we see what they actually follow through with.
I'll give you an example: A lot of people were up in arms about Israel only granting people 24 hours to evacuate their homes before a ground invasion. If they had actually invaded 24 hours after making that announcement, I would have agreed that it was unreasonable to expect that many people to relocate that quickly. However, in practice, they actually moved in some two weeks after the announcement. The "24 hour" announcement got people to take it seriously and not drag their feet. It also kept the pressure on Hamas to make mistakes based on an inaccurate timeline of events. Had they said "two weeks" in their announcement, it might have gotten less people out and Hamas could have used that time to build more traps instead of getting insomnia waiting at guard posts. All that to say, in hindsight, critique of Israel for the "24 hour" announcement was unjustified by the time the facts hit the ground.
With that in mind, I don't think it makes sense to criticize Israel for their blockade at the moment. If they ended up really sealing off Gaza to the point that 2 million people starved to death, that would be critique worthy (even if Hamas would still share a lot of the blame because they are apparently sitting on months of food and water and some serious stores of fuel that they aren't sharing with their civilians.) But I highly doubt it will come to that in practice. I mean, the main danger in a siege is lack of water, and they turned the pipes back on just a few days after laying the siege. They just did so in a time and manner that worked for them (encouraging civilians to evacuate the war zone). I'm sure they will provide food in a similar manner if it comes to that. And, in the meantime, it is keeping the pressure on Hamas to hopefully make sub-optimal choices and lead to a faster Israeli victory (which means a shorter war, which we should all want.)
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On November 02 2023 00:37 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2023 00:18 RvB wrote:On November 01 2023 18:54 Nebuchad wrote:On November 01 2023 16:45 RvB wrote:On November 01 2023 06:34 Nebuchad wrote:On November 01 2023 06:28 RvB wrote:On November 01 2023 04:08 Nebuchad wrote:On November 01 2023 03:59 RvB wrote:On November 01 2023 01:32 Nebuchad wrote:On November 01 2023 01:29 RvB wrote:
They weren't. There was a ceasefire. Hamas broke the ceasefire.
+ Show Spoiler [fog of war] +
The settlements in the West Bank
The settlements aren't an armed attack. Neither is an armed response necessary. The settlements in Sinai and Gaza were abandoned after the peace agreement and unilateral retreat. A solution for the West Bank settlements was also a part of the negotiations with Arafat and Abbas. All of them are violence, in violation of peace treaties and international law, and it's not uncommon that weapons are used to force Palestinians to displace, in addition to the more traditional methods. They're illegal yes. That does not make them an armed attack. Small scale violence does not automatically fall under that definition. Otherwise a border skirmish would trigger the right to self defense. Either way one of the conditions for self defense is necessity. As I pointed out there are other options to solve the settlements. So self defense does not apply. One of the salient points of this conflict is that it isn't a border because Israel is intent on not letting Palestinians have a state. I'm taking your house, I have an army supporting me (it's not an armed attack), you fight back how dare you attack me now I can respond in self-defense. This is absolutely a reasonable conversation between two adults and not some apologist bullshit. Israel already accepted a Palestinian state when they accepted the UN partition plan in 1947. There were two other offers they made for a two state solution after the Oslo accords. I am not accepting this as an answer to my post in the context of what we were discussing, it doesn't cover any of the topics. There's also no contradiction, Israel can have a position on a Palestinian state at the time and a different one today. Unless you plan to deny that they're very intent on not letting Palestinians have a state today I am not sure why you felt the need to write this. The settlers have killed more than 100 Palestinians in the West Bank since october 7th. If you make the mistake of going on Elon Musk's doomed social media site you can do a search with "South Hebron Hills" and you'll get a bunch of videos related to communities being threatened with weapons and forced to leave their homes. Your claim is that Israel is not intent on Palestinians having a state. I'm pointing out that they've accepted the idea of a Palestinian state for decades. As I said earlier some of those negotiations included solutions for the settlements we were talking about. Accept the argument or don't. It's not my concern. You mean, they've paid lip service for years. West Bank has no autonomy and rather than transitioning to a situation where it might become such, Israel's actions have very clearly been the exact opposite there. Gaza's autonomy is as an open-air prison where the prisoners may rule it themselves, but the warden maintains strict control over any contact with the outside world, including the supply of drinking water, food, fuel, electricity, etc. If we're generous, this is at best a 1 1/2 state solution, but realistically it is a single state with an apartheid government. Gaza and West Bank have less ability for self-rule than the Bantustans in South Africa. And nobody seriously considered any of those as independent nations even though they had far greater autonomy than Gaza.
No I don't mean that. There has never been an agreement for two states. Without an agreement we're stuck with the status quo where Palestinians don't have a state. That does not mean Israel pays lip service to a two state solution. They've made multiple offers for one but that's not relevant when there's no agreement.
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On November 02 2023 11:44 ChristianS wrote:
Manifest Destiny was absolutely composed primarily of individual actors trying to better their situation. Sometimes they have the US government’s endorsement, sometimes they didn’t. Obviously Homestead Act stuff is pretty explicitly the government saying “please, we’re begging you, go settle all this land we have,” but other times it was a bunch of individuals deciding to go into “foreign” land, seize some territory, and hope to convince the US to annex them. There was even a term for it – “filibustering.” Sometimes the US actively tried to discourage this, even prosecuted filibusters when they got back.
But – and I think the compare and contrast with Israel here is important – it’s insufficient to say Manifest Destiny was merely the aggregate result of self-interested individuals. There was an ideology to it, a shared vision that they were building something. America, sea to shining sea. And that meant, one way or another, separating Native Americans from their land, and killing, relocating, or assimilating them. Private actors would, for instance, lend tribes money they knew they couldn’t pay back, so their debts could be used to bring them to the bargaining table. That was part of the machine just as much as state actors forcing unequal treaties or unilaterally declaring forced migrations.
Returning to Israel: to me the question regarding application of the term “ethnic cleansing” is whether the Israelis (whether state or private actors) are intending to serve a larger goal of expansionism and annexation. Or, from the current residents’ point of view: killing, forced migration, or assimilation (and if the latter, it’s worth looking long and hard at what that “assimilation” looks like). My impression has been that settlements are intentionally distributed to make any clean partition impossible, and constantly expanding encroaching, bit by bit. That sounds to me like part of a effort to serve the larger goal is seizing all of the land eventually, but if someone thinks I’m misreading that, I’d love to hear what they think I’m missing.
That's a good basis for describing US - Israeli relations.
I'm sure US understands that Israel enacts a colonial vision, just like with Manifest Destiny it cannot be stopped barring a disastrous set-back which (from US perspective) cannot be allowed.
Where the countries differ is on the final outcome of this process, US would prefer some equivalent of reservations and eventual assimilation.
Unrestrained Israel would likely take the shortcut of ethnic cleansing.
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On November 02 2023 11:14 JimmiC wrote:
And fun other facts about conspiracies is everyone you think is nuts for believing them is actually the same! They also get the real news from the non main stream media.
Israels ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is a conspiracy now? Wacky take.
The Guardian isn't mainstream media anymore?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/16/israel-gaza-mass-evacuation-ethnic-cleansing
Israel appears to be on the verge of ethnic cleansing in Gaza
The author is the executive director of Human Rights watch.
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Norway28558 Posts
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Why is Israel banking on Egypt to take inn all these people? Last I checked there's a west bank they could send everyone to instead, or is there something I'm missing?
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Some video showing how even peaceful Jewish protesters are getting treated by Israel in Jerusalem.
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On November 02 2023 18:46 Excludos wrote:Why is Israel banking on Egypt to take inn all these people? Last I checked there's a west bank they could send everyone to instead, or is there something I'm missing? What your missing? That Israel also wants to own the west bank, without any Palestinians there?
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United States41983 Posts
Why not simply stack the Palestinians in shipping containers into the sky?
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Northern Ireland23821 Posts
On November 02 2023 11:14 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2023 10:57 Salazarz wrote:Holy shit I just figured out the disconnect. I think of the settlers as individual actors looking to better their situation in some way and you see the settlers as a grand Jewish conspiracy. Colonists in America were individual actors looking to better their situation in some way, too. I guess that makes everything that was done to the indigenous peoples totally okay! Pretty sure they made their intentions clear as did their government, in fact they were quite proud of it, not to mention we have what actually happened as proof. It’s an awful and super flawed argument, you know this right? Do you guys really not see that you are making the same arguments with the same logic used over and over at R/TheDonald? In this situation you and him are taking your assumption, that there is a secret plan to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians as fact. That is by definition a Jewish conspiracy, that you believe it to be true does not make it so. The interesting thing in this situation is one side has actors who might be planning a secret ethnic cleansing and the other side is openly trying commit ethnically cleanse. Some how many of you are really extra mad at the group that might be and pretty damn empathetic to the side that is all about ethnically cleansing not mention a whole host of other horrific beliefs such as about women. Why is their empathy for that side and not the others? And fun other facts about conspiracies is everyone you think is nuts for believing them is actually the same! They also get the real news from the non main stream media.
It’s hardly a conspiracy theory if it’s something happening right out there in the open. Gentrification in cities works along similar mechanisms, it’s a zero-sum game is housing and it doesn’t necessarily require some top-down conspiracy to displace poorer citizens for that to be the result of aggregate moves from the wealthy. Likewise Jewish settlers don’t have to have any kind of Zionist master plan in mind when encroaching further and further in, but they’re still displacing other folks at the end of the day.
The Palestinians have what empathy they do have from Western causes because of their material conditions. If they had a state, free of various shackles people would very quickly judge their cultural outlook through a very different lens, and view them like most of us would view and Iran or a Saudi Arabia.
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EPT
