Well. It seems like he can find his way to the Pit, after all.
Think reaaal hard Alessan.
To deal with you? Buddy, I don’t even need to be awake.
I too fail to see how destroying the power to water pumps and sewerage is going to help matters any.
I’d have little problem with sending troops in after the soldier or hitting Hamas targets but punishing the population as a whole isn’t going to help anyone other than the hard liners on either side.
Populations tend to become more aggressive and nationalistic when attacked like this. They don’t turn against their leaders (even it was them who brought the attack on).
This move has more to do with internal politics in Israel IMO. The new leaders are showing they can play hard ball. It may give them a win in the short term but it’s not going to weaken Hamas or any of the hardliners.
Well we’ve had a jolly and in depth exchange this evening. Sleep well.
I like the general pro-Zionist position that Israel had nothing, *nothing *to do with the existence of Hamas in the first place. What, like the Israeli occupation and denial of any Palestinian rights for close on 40 years was supposed to yield some government of sweetness and light, imbued by the idea that the Israelis were deeply lovable people? The Israelis treated the Palestinians like shit, and continue to treat them like shit, and now the Palestinians hate them for it. Where’s the mystery?
I have a brilliant idea here – why doesn’t Israel let Palestine be a real country, instead of a Bantustan? Maybe that’s the solution here, eh?
Of course you remember why those lands are occupied, right? My guess is that from approximately 5 minutes after the formation of the State of Israel until now they’ve been perpetually under siege. It could also be that they have been attacked numerous times simultaneously by every country they have a border with. And they won. As long as the attacks continue, from a purely pragmatic point of view they have no reason to show any sort of solicitude to their enemies. And yet they did, with their unilateral withdrawal from Gaza last year. They tried to break the cycle of violence and the Palestinians obviously were not interested.
Where?
Are you saying that the 10% of the West Bank that Israel has no intention of returning is what’s standing between the Palestinians and a Scandinavian paradise? “Palestine” will never, ever be a self-sufficient country, at least as long as the Palestinians continue with the highest growth rate of any population ever in the history of the world. It just won’t happen.
So please, where is this “real country” you’re demanding?
Becuse they wanted it? I’m not sure why you think the Palestinians should have been like “okay, whatever” about Israel taking their land. Especially when Israel never showed the slightest interest in doing anything for the Palestinians except pushing them off to create settlements. If there’s a Hamas now, it’s because Israel spent decades creating the conditions for Hamas to emerge.
So to put this another way, you’re okay with the status quo, where Israel simply helps itself to 10% of the West Bank because it wants to, and leaves the rest of the West Bank and Gaza to rot? Oh, and continues to blame the Palestinians for their plight?
Helps itself? They won it, in a war. The only people helping themselves are the surrounding countries taking shots at Israel for years.
At least Egypt and Jordan came to their senses. It took 2 severe ass-beatings for them to do it, but they woke up. When will everybody else? Israel is there to stay.
So that’s the Palestinians’ fault? Such that when Israel occupies their land for decades and gives them nothing – no rights, no citizenship – they’re supposed to be busily developing warm and fuzzy feelings for Israel? Put yourself in the Palestinians’ shoes for half a second.
So why does Israel owe Palestinians Israeli citizenship?
Yeah, yeah, you want a one state solution. But as we have proved over and over and over and over and over and over, that’s not gonna happen, because: “We will not leave you alone until we have quenched our thirst with your blood, and our children’s thirst with your blood. We will not leave until you leave the Muslim countries.”
The Palestinians are owed – no less than you are – citizenship in some sovereign nation, on their native soil – whether it’s called Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, or something else. Or do you not believe that?
Oh, and by the way, what you have proved and what you have asserted are two very different things. What have any of us ever proved?
Sure, of course. That country could be called “Palestine” or “Jordan” or “Egypt” or “The Pan-Arab Republic”.
But they aren’t owed citizenship in Israel, any more than I’m owed citizenship in Ireland.
And Israel can’t create “Palestine” themselves, Palestinians have to do that. Israelis can’t guarantee that Palestine will be a liberal democracy, Palestinians have to do that. And Israel can’t guarantee peace with Palestine if Palestine can’t guarantee peace with Israel.
Well, exactly. And Palestine can’t be a nation until Israel lets it be a nation, in word and deed – a nation with territorial integrity, control over its own borders, airspace, and waters, free movement of its people, etc.
I dunno. I think that it is a matter of cultural adaptation.
After all, Israel itself was created by a lot of people who had been “treated like shit” by the RoTW - far worse so, in some cases, than the Palistinians. People who had, for example, been forced to flee Europe for their lives, or survived Nazi concentration camps; or were later forced to flee for their lives from Arab lands, like the Shephardim.
Yet Israel was somehow able to put together a reasonably decent country, in spite of their no doubt massive grievances. I think the Palistinians could learn something from their example.
It strikes me that the Palistinian leadership has less interest in creating a viable nation-state than in addressing their greivances against Israel. Palistinians seem to be relatively onside with that ordering of priorities. Whatever the legitimacy or otherwise of Palistinian grievances, there will never be any improvement in the lot of the average Palistinian until they, and their government, re-order those priorities, and focus on nation-building.
One gets the impression that merely addressing some Palistinian grievances will not act to re-order those priorities in and of itself - because there are always going to be more. Unless Israel agrees not to exist of course.
Israel “put together a reasonably decent country” by driving off the Palestinians at gunpoint. You’re not suggesting the Palestinians do the same?
I wish people would stop saying, “Well, the Palestians should just put their own house in order first,” completley ignoring the fact that Israel has forced them into a shithole. It’s a Third World situation in the Occupied Territories, and it’s a Third World situation because Israel made it so. And now, when the Territories are festering and boiling with anger, people want to wag their fingers at the Palestinians and say, “Just play nice now.” Meanwhile, Israel does nothing to ease the material hardship of Palestinians, and in fact does a great deal to increase it – by shutting the borders, preventing the Palestinians from fishing or selling their produce abroad, and now, in the latest go-around, blowing up their electric and sewerage infrastructure. Let Israel play nice first, and then let’s see how things go.
So, any word on that alleged “chemical weapons launch”? Seems if it had really happened, we’d have heard a bit more about it, eh?