They weren’t really sustaining themselves before, they lived in extreme deprivation.
I have no idea what changes can be made to ever make Gaza or the Palestinians, and the Israelis, reach a peaceful co-existence. I think it’s probably not possible.
After an attack on defenseless civilians as brutal as what happened on October 7th, I don’t think there’s a single country on earth that wouldn’t bitch-slap to hell and back the people and place from which the attack came, collateral damage be damned. But also, after decades of living in a place like Gaza, I don’t know how anyone could tolerate it without lashing out at Israel by any means necessary, collateral damage be damned.
I have no insider knowledge or political expertise, only my intuition. But my intuition suggests to me that the conflict will continue until one side drives the other out of their land and takes it over.
If 4 or 5 elections in a couple of years failed to change Israel’s government, why do you expect anything to happen now? Though, I admit it is impossible to predict those kinds of events in advance using logical reasoning. On the other side, despite Israel’s long support of Hamas they do not control Hamas’s or other Palestinians’ constitutions.
Singapore has 272 square miles and over six million people; not sure what you are trying to say.
There was an Israeli in this thread who described it as a conflict between ethnic groups, which makes sense, although I wonder how much directed conflict remains after subtracting out the corrupt politicians that hold sway in Israel and Palestine. (For that you would need a major political revolution first.)
Netenyahu’s going to have a lot more trouble clinging to power in the next election, which AIUI can happen anytime between now and October 2026. Current polling says 64% of Israelis believe an election should happen sooner than that and nearly 75% want Bibi to step down.
And if the Supreme Court strikes down the judicial reform bill like today’s leak suggests they will, that’s only gonna make Bibi’s life even harder.
I was under the impression Netanyahu may be a lot of things but deserves a Nobel Prize in stymieing his political opponents. I do not believe that political events can be accurately predicted via rational behaviour or polls like “nearly 75% want Bibi to step down”, thus I certainly do not know for sure.
Singapore was mentioned - about 25% of their land area has been reclaimed from the sea. Perhaps such a project might form part of a Gazan Marshall Plan.
They have, indeed, been consigned to a ghetto. No, they shouldn’t just lie down and die. Israel should stop bombing them, for one. and I think America should stop pouring money into Israel unless an agreement can be worked out under which at least half of that money goes into rebuilding everything in Gaza that Israel fucked up with their bombs. But that will probably never happen.
From what I can Google, Gaza has oil and gas reserves which Israel currently holds control over. That seems like bullshit to me and I think Gaza should have access to them and be able to profit from them. Also, if it is really possible to reclaim land from the sea, Gaza and Israel should both do it. Anything that creates more land that people already aren’t living on seems like it would be a good thing, although it sounds far-fetched to me.
I’ve never been to Gaza, but I lived and worked in the West Bank. The son of one of my colleague’s from there was shot in Burlington, Vermont.
One thing I’ve learned, and this will certainly upset some people in this thread, is that Palestinians are people. When their children are shot on the streets of America, they are upset. I know that is controversial here.
Not sure how common it is, but here’s how a point of view some on the left have to the October 7 attack that seems to me at least to downplay it in a certain way. I’d seen it alluded to elsewhere, and it’s what I had in mind when making some comments in the past.
(One commenter seems to see Hamas as a legitimate resistance force, which does seem to be a fairly unpopular minority opinion, but I did think the post sums up that side of the debate straight from someone who believes it.)
No, never part of Egypt - just occupied by Egypt 1948-1967 (excluding a four month Israeli occupation 1956-1957). The Sinai has been Egyptian territory for centuries, but Gaza was just the spoils of the 1948 war. But unlike Jordan and the West Bank, it was never annexed. Instead it languished under various puppet governments and military occupations, as above variously Egyptian and Israeli. Egypt formally surrendered all claims in the 1979 peace treaty that returned the then Israeli-occupied Sinai peninsula to their control. It hasn’t been an Egyptian problem for a couple of generations now.
Well, right. I was just saying that Egypt was the last country prior to Israel to control Gaza. It doesn’t get any less murky before that, seeing as the British Mandate and the Ottoman Empire no longer exist.
What matters is that the period after the end of military action is going to be the best chance for a lasting peace that there’s been in awhile, and Israel is going to have to step up to the challenge of achieving it, whether that means full independence or some sort of self-responsible autonomous protectorate.
(Or would Ottoman Palestine have been part of the Egyptian Khedivate? We never really covered 19th century geopolitics in high school.)
Ottoman Palestine was composed of a couple of sanjaks (sub-provincial divisions) which initially fell under the larger province encompassed by the Damascus Eyalet (Syria). From the mid-19th century the main part of it became a directly administered unit as the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem. The eyalet/pashalik of Egypt covered Sinai.
I disagree. Some posters here are arguing that the dead Palestinian children are merely the price Gaza must pay for the actions of Hamas, but I doubt that these same posters would argue that the Israeli children killed in the October attack are simply the price Israel must pay for the actions of the Israeli government.
Maybe I’m wrong, maybe the same posters who shrug off the Palestinian civilian deaths also shrug off the Israeli civilian deaths, but I doubt it. For some posters here, a dead Israeli child has worth greater than a dead Palestinian child and I wish someone would articulate why that is.
The question isn’t whether we disagree. The point is that (a) you said: “One thing I’ve learned, and this will certainly upset some people in this thread, is that Palestinians are people.” And (b) if you’re right and I’m wrong, then find “some people in this thread” who are certainly upset by that fact.
If you don’t see the difference between breaking into a Kibbutz and slaughtering and raping women and children in an attempt to destroy the country they live in and genocide their people on the one hand; and between attacking the group that perpetrated that act even if they operate out of civilian areas specifically to make counterattacking them difficult - then I cannot help you.
The Palestinian people are people, people under the boot of a very oppressive terrorist regime that uses them as ammo in their war against Israel. The Palestinian people will continue to suffer in this cycle until the leadership causing this is removed. Hence, this war.
And no, the fact that Netanyahu’s government is also odious does not justify Oct 7. Netanyahu is extremely bad; Smotrich and Ben Gvir are much worse, and they only exist as a political force because Bibi conjured them to keep himself out of prison. Yet on their worst day, they are not Hamas. And besides, it’s not like Hamas’ goal is to remove Bibi from power; their goal is to erase Israel.
More projection than a fucking megaplex. The life of a Palestinian child is, of course, equal to the life of any other child.
The difference is that when Israel bombs Gaza with the goal of destroying Hamas, this is helping to bring about a better outcome - one where the children of Gaza are free from Hamas’ rule, where instead of the combined resources and efforts of 2 million Palestinians being harvested by corrupt terrorists for their own multibillion net value portfolios and to attack Israel, those resources can be directed towards improving the lives of the Palestinian people.
When Hamas engages in “brave acts of rapesistence” against Israeli civilians, this is pure evil. The outcome Hamas wants to bring about is genocide, as they tell you in their charter and routinely in their own words.
It seems like many are fine with the Palestinians languishing under Hamas rule indefinitely so long as Israel doesn’t engage in any newsworthy military campaigns that offend their delicate sensibilities, and I wish someone would articulate why that is.
What makes this conflict so unlike most others, and so intractable, is that the authorities of one side see no intrinsic worth in the lives of their own people.
“The Israelis are known to love life. We, on the other hand, sacrifice ourselves. We consider our dead to be martyrs. The thing any Palestinian desires the most is to be martyred for the sake of Allah, defending his land.”
