Israel vs Gaza 2021… wtf?

Politics & Elections
201

They apparently did not amount to much, but nonetheless they amounted to something, things still happened, and it affected a non-insignificant amount of people. Quite a few folks were killed, hurt or imprisoned. It ended in 1949. That coincided with a drastic reshaping of the whole political structure of the area. Nobody can say that that reshaping was the reason why the insurgent activity ended, but I think that it possibly was a factor.

Would some kind of reshaping of the current political structure of the Levant be the solution? No idea. However, I think that it would be one factor that, combined with others (which I also have no idea what they could be) might help solve the situation.

The task for those who are on the ground there is to determine what would all those factors be, what shape they should have, and what kind of concessions all the involved parties would have to make. And, of course, have the political will (on both sides) to actually do that.

202

I don’t think I could be more clear, but okay: Mijn did not seem to have noticed that the phrase he was calling out was a conditional. Your reply to him pointed that out and elaborated on it, making very clear that it was conditional and why.

Please: chill. There was no snark in my post and it wasn’t even addressed to you.

203

From some articles I’ve read that delve into the mindset of religiously extremist settlers, including some who are raising their children in the middle of Hebron (a large Palestinian city in the West Bank, where the Jewish settlement is literally like a small fortress in the middle of the city, completely walled off), is that absolutely it is worth it. Religious fanatics don’t think like you and me. The settlers view themselves as retracing the steps of Joshua, they’re re-conquering their birthright and they even use that terminology.

204

Yeah, getting cheap when you’re trying to solve touchy problems never ends well…

More use of landswaps might have gone a long way towards cooling tensions: “OK, we’re going to ask you to move but you’ll be getting land of equivalent value with X, Y, Z amenities plus we’ll arrange transportation of you, your household, and chattel to the new location” and spread money around to sweeten the deal but for some reason that’s never a popular choice.

That would just leave the problem of Jerusalem, which is claimed by multiple religions, all of whom have been squabbling over it for millennia. In fact, this recent uptick in hostilities was triggered by stone-throwing at the Temple Mount. Sometimes I wish the Romans hadn’t stopped at razing the Second Temple and had just kept going and scraped the entire city off the face of the Earth.

Yeah, no one is ever going to put me in charge of solving this conflict… :laughing:

205

You’re not wrong about that. Religious fanaticism rears it’s ugly head in most of the world’s trouble spots.

206

The thing I’ve always felt when talk comes to the conquered Germans and Japanese and why they “behaved so well” versus many other instances of conquered peoples…not behaving so well, is that the Germans and Japanese were under military occupation but I think they were promised and clearly understood they were being granted ultimate independence and self-determination. Other than in East Germany, the Allies were fairly straightforward that their intentions were to convert these into stable, democratic countries. We also pumped a fuck ton of money into them to help them become that.

The other thing is, there were some ethnic Germans who somewhat found themselves in a similar fate as the dispossessed Palestinians–some 25% of Germany’s pre-WWII land, including lands that had been under some form of German rule for over 200 years, was carved out and given to Poland and Russia (Russia primarily Koenigsberg/Kaliningrad, which is a small exclave of Russia to this day.) Almost all of the ethnic Germans living there, including again, people with roots hundreds of years old, were expelled.

The big difference in my mind is those Germans had a “home”, Germany, so even though they had lost the land they lived on, they still had a national home to go to. We aren’t really offering the Palestinians anything like that, and their incentive to lay down their arms and be compliant is…predictably much lower.

207

Right. And the Israeli government should be doing a lot more to push back against their own fanatics (just as all governments should).

208

Frankly I have yet to see evidence that any Israeli govt since Rabin is opposed to settlements. Support for settlers at this point has extremely deep roots in the way the military and police act.

Of course one of the biggest pieces of evidence that it’s a political calculation on the part of leadership (rather than an ideological position) is that they don’t want to get assassinated like Rabin did.

EDIT: I suppose the unilateral withdrawal on the part of Ariel Sharon represents opposition to settlements.

209

Strictly my personal opinion, but I think some of the insular nature of the Ultra-Orthodox and extremist groups is also toxic, decreasing empathy for those outside the group, promoting a siege mentality, and indoctrination. None of that helps the situation.

I’m all for letting people live the lives they choose, but when their lifestyles start cutting people off from the outside world there always seem to be problems down the line arising from that isolation.

210

Even Sharon I think was only tactically opposed to settlements, I think the Israelis do not view the Gaza Strip as that “important” it’s contiguous to Egypt and doesn’t contain much of cultural of strategic interest to the Israelis at this point, back when they seized it they viewed it as a buffer zone against a future Egyptian invasion. Given the deal struck between the Egyptians and Israelis, and the fact the United States basically pays Egypt money every year to not fight with the Israelis, means that concern is much less these days. There were also far fewer Israeli settlers in Gaza, so forcing them out was more viable for an Israeli leader.

The West bank and East Jerusalem are a tad different. I really think the Likud types and the coalition of parties that support them, broadly speaking, want all or most of the land in the West Bank and would prefer that all the Palestinians that live there…go away. But I think that’s not something most of them admit or say openly, because all of the liberal/secular Jews in Israel would be aghast, as would the international community.

211

Agreed - their disproportionate power is a result of Israel’s democratic system; the parties in power need that additional X% of the vote, so the parties in charge go against their own supporters to get the fundamentalists into their coalition. Netanyahu recently challenged them on a core tenant for the first time - for years, ultra-Orthodox men attending religious studies had exemption from military service (and the ultra-Orthodox women just get married and pop out some babies before they get drafted, avoiding military service as well). Since these people are often poor, and Israel has a strong social safety net, they often live off the government, too. This has created a lot of resentment against them in the rest of the population. So, recently Netanyahu pushed back on the military service exemption thing, and that’s what set off some of the recent elections and political turmoil. He dared to go against them, so they torpedoed his coalition.

There are some good signs, I hope. These ultra-Orthodox communities pushed back hard against COVID restrictions at first, leading to predictable results. Once it was obvious that the Orthodox were being affected significantly more than the rest of the country, the religious leadership told its communities to obey government instructions. Not all did, but things did improve.

More recently, there have been a few high-profile accidents caused by the Orthodox community’s insistence on ignoring things like building codes and occupancy limits. Falling bleachers, collapsed buildings, and panicked stampedes have killed dozens and injured hundreds, all because the Orthodox communities thought they knew better than the Israeli government. After the latest such tragedy, I saw an opinion piece from some prominent Orthodox community members saying, essentially, “the country doesn’t need to change - we do”. One can only hope, right?

Much has been made of the high birthrate in these communities, and that’s definitely a real demographic problem. Religiously fundamentalist Jewish and Arab Israelis both have far more kids than their secular counterparts. But at the same time, both of these communities are poor. Secular Israelis, both Jewish or Muslim, do far better economically than these fundamentalist communities. Will their higher birthrate counteract natural attrition to secularization? I certainly hope not.

212

Yeah I agree.

Although the other political calculation for people like Netanyahu is that if there ever actually was a total annexation of the West Bank, the settlement supporters wouldn’t have much of a reason to continue to unite around someone like him, and they might care more about things like corruption. Or they might just fall apart regardless because the factions within the right don’t have much in common other than trying to expand Israel. From a political calculation, the gradual process of building more and more settlements is perfect for the Israeli right.

213

I think you’re talking right along the same lines as that “the country doesn’t need to change, we do” opinion piece I read, so hopefully a movement within the Orthodox community awakens along these same lines. Another hidden benefit of COVID if it does happen, I suppose.

ETA: I don’t think this guy was anti-Settlement mind you, but anything that eases the divide between orthodox and secular Israelis should in the long run aid secularization and integration of these communities which should naturally lead to a less hardline stance on these sorts of issues - which I’m sure is exactly why the rest of the Orthodox community is opposed to it.

214

Gotcha, I was just confused by your ETA but that’s alright. All good!

215

<phew!>

:smiley:

216

As the OP, let me second this. Folks have been very informative & patient and it is very much appreciated.

217

I have sympathy for both sides and I find fault with both sides. Hamas was wrong to initiate the conflict but I think Israel was wrong in its massively disproportionate response. I wish the US could broker a cease fire but I’m afraid the previous administration ruined the US’s reputation as an honest broker with its boneheaded move of the embassy to Jerusalem. I hope that both sides realize that too many innocent lives have been lost and put an end to this madness.

218

Would you please clarify your concept of disproportionate ?.
How do you want to make it “proportional”–by killing more Jews?
It sounds like you want to treat this war like a sports event, where each side scores approximately the same number of points, otherwise it seems “unfair” to you.

The terrorists in Gaza have launched thousands of bombs directly into populated civilian areas, attempting to kill tens of thousands of Jewish Israeli civilians. (They have, so far, failed). But they keep trying, and proudly announce that they will continue to try–their goal is to murder tens of thousands of civilians and destroy thousands of buildings)

The Israelis respond by attacking precise,pin-point targets of MILITARY interest. And yes, sometimes there is “collateral damage”–a bureaucratic term which means very bluntly—dead innocent civilians in Gaza , caught in the fire, (mostly because they are being used as human shields)

NONE of the attacks by Israel are aimed at civilians intentionally.
ALL of the attacks by Gaza are aimed intentionally ONLY at civilians.
Can’t you see the difference?

So far there have been about a dozen Israeli civilians killed, and a couple hundred Gaza civilians killed. There have been a a dozen buildings destroyed in Israel,all of them for civilian use only. .There have been hundreds of buildings destroyed in Gaza–all of which had military connections.
So you seem to think that, gee whiz, to be fair and “proportional”, we should even the numbers out— it would be nice to kill a couple hundred Israeli civilians, and destroy a a couple hundred Israeli homes.

I am typing these words from inside the bomb shelter of my house near Tel Aviv.The door is open right now, but I expect to seal it shut in a few minutes , as I have every day this week,when the sirens sound the alert for incoming missiles.

Suppose Israel’s defense system fails tonight, (i.e the sirens don’t work, or the Iron Dome missiles fail to intercept the incoming missiles from Gaza). The result would be a couple hundred dead Israelis–maybe including me. And hundreds of buildings destroyed.
Would that make you happy? Maybe you think that the Israeli army should just take a break, pull the plug, and turn off the Iron Dome system for a few hours so I and a couple hundred of my neighbors will die, and thus make the numbers meet your definition of “proportional” ? Then we could go back to fighting “fair” on your terms?

The Hamas terrorist government in Gaza has a massive military infrastructure, with missiles hidden in a hundred miles of underground tunnels… That military infrastructure has only one goal–to launch thousands of missiles targeting tens of thousands of Israeli civilians.
Israel’s response is to destroy that military infrastructure, while avoiding civilians as much as possible…

What is “disproportionate” about a country defending its civilian population by destroying the military infrastructure of its enemy? Especially when that enemy uses its military EXCLUSIVELY to attack civilians?

219

A charitable reading would mean less dead Gazans, not more dead Israelis.

220

A proportionate response would be something roughly equivalent to the attack you’re responding to with attempts to minimize civilian casualties. I’m not seeing an attempt to be proportional on the part of the Israelis.