I’m fully in favor of Israel defending itself from attacks and going to the source of those attacks to do battle. On the other hand, I think it is a big mistake for them to allow their people to cross over and create settlements. It fans the flames of hatred and shows no respect for the Palestinean people and what should be their land. In other words, it just exacerbates a situation that seemingly will go on forever.
This is starting to look like Israel’s version of Vietnam. I think it is time for them to shut it down. They made their point.
I’m saying that the Navajo Nation, or Mexico, would remove me. And the US wouldn’t waste any energy defending my indefensible actions. Why poke the hornets’ nest, even if you are on bad terms with them?
If i tried to build in North Korea and brought weapons to “defend” myself, i think the US would say, “that was a dumb move”.
And if a group of Navajo decided that North America is Navajo land from sea to shining sea and that the best way to ensure that the Navajo will be free from sea to said sea is to lob rockets into Sedona, the Navajo would stop those people before the US needs to. There are lots of differences between the two situations.
If the Palestinians had a functional government invested in the best interests of the Palestinian people, there wouldn’t be a Hamas or a war.
Because your hypothetical ignores that if the Navajo or Mexico decide to do something about it, the US Army rolls up and starts killing Native Americans and Mexicans. Settlers aren’t random crazies out to get theirs, they’re backed by the full military might of the IDF.
Gaza is a mess. The West Bank is Israel’s land they haven’t finished colonizing yet.
I’m not american, but isn’t this literally how Texas became a US state? I.e. settlers from the US appropriated land in Mexico, said “this is ours now” when Mexico abolished slavery, and then the USA intervened when Mexico attempted to assert sovereignty over Mexican territory?
But that’s a feature not a bug. The Likud party remains in power because of the fear that Israel has of Hamas and the like and the hard line policies it takes against them. If the Palestinians and the Israelis ever reached a real peace, if the rockets stopped coming or the settlements stopped being built both Likud and Hamas would lose power. So its in both sides interest to keep the antagonization going and prevent any possibility of peace.
That’s not exactly what happened, is it? The “deal” Hamas was offering was to release 30 hostages-or-bodies, refusing to confirm if any of the people they’d be releasing were actually alive, if Israel completely withdrew from Gaza and ended operations against Hamas. And then, if they felt like it, they might consider releasing more dead bodies. All at a rate of 30 prisoners per body.
Fuck. That. Noise. And fuck the dishonest author of this shitty opinion peace.
Opposition’s @Ram_Ben_Barak: “It’s a war with no endpoint which we are unequivocally losing. We’re forced to return & fight in areas we left, we’re losing troops, we’re losing the international arena, destroying ties to the US, the economy is collapsing– show me one success.”
This failed campaign is hurting Israel and killing Gazans, and helping no one but Netanyahu, his allies, and Hamas.
As an aside, I read an op-ed piece (in Swedish) by a prominent Jewish pundit. He thinks that the whole mess, from the POV of Netanyahu (and possibly Israel military) is wholly an act of retaliation, but revenge for being humiliated. What happened was NOT supposed to be possible. So they lash out - and I can certainly see how some IDF brass feels that way.
So there is no exit strategy, no plans for after the war. People who claim ethnic cleansing and genocide, seem to miss that there was no over all strategy, it was just viciously lashing out. The result of this recklessness may or may not result in ethnic cleansing. Netanyahu’s scheming to destabilise the two fractions of Palestinians backfired badly.
As an aside, I was astonished when I heard an interview the other day with Israelis claiming “from the river to the seas,” as in Gaza and the West Bank are part of Eretz Israel and all Palestinians must leave. To where, the interviewer asked? The other side of the river, was the answer. I don’t doubt that there is a small group in Israel who favor ethnic cleansing. And that Netanyahu has been pandering to them.The interviewed also said that “Smotrichwill be our next PM.”
Smotrich supporters tend to be religious fanatics who had a religious education rather than a secular one.
The problem there is, the religious education doesn’t teach you basic things, like math.
Smotrich is polling so badly that there is a real question of whether he would even get back into Parliament if there was an election today. But it makes sense that numerically illiterate religious whackjobs would struggle with basic math.
From Washington Post, in response to the ICC indictment:
I want a political cartoon showing Hamas leaders and Israeli leaders shouting down the ICC, saying in unison, “You can’t compare us to them, we’re the good guys!”
…is that really remarkable? You could do that in a vast array of similar situations - say, Trump’s impeachment inquiry for trying to overthrow the government and Biden’s impeachment inquiry for his son having a laptop.
Speaking of Biden, he agrees that this is a dumb move by the ICC prosecutor:
The political cartoon would obviously have the point of view that neither of them are the good guys. At the beginning of this war, I was absolutely convinced that Israel’s military and government held moral superiority over the murderous Hamas terrorists. I no longer believe that to be true, and welcome prosecution of leaders on both sides for their crimes against humanity.
Believe me, I’m way past the point of holding my breath for anything good to happen on the world stage. But I’d be satisfied with that outcome.
My point is to call attention to the sour and blood-soaked irony of their nearly identical responses: both of them squarely lay the blame for the bloodshed on their enemies, and fail to take responsibility for the blood on their own hands.
