For what it’s worth, this is very clearly an incredibly difficult time for Israelis, and there is no easy way to solve the abominable problem that is a murderous death cult (Hamas and others) on your doorstep with no compunction about enmeshing itself among noncombatants, but that doesn’t make ethnic cleansing okay.
If you’d like to open a thread about the cleansing of indigenous Americans, I would be happy to contribute.
I did say “morally indefensible”. I’m just saying that’s not synonymous with condemnable.
You’re wrong here. It’s morally indefensible and condemnable. Very much so.
So far, Israel has gone to extreme lengths NOT to kill civilians. Most of the time, the army issues maps of safe areas for civilians to flee to. And yes, there are times when those safe areas are not as safe as promised…but it is still far, far
different than the indiscriminate bombing of civilians which the US did to its enemies
Israel has a right to remove all threats from its borders. Removing Hamas is the only way to do that.
it is not ethnic cleansing…it is cleansing terrorist barbarians from northern Gaza..
And, I personally don’t think it will work. So yeah, I will criticize it, for practical reasons.
cite:
Thank you..seriously.
I’m glad you understand and are willing to say out loud what Israel is fighting for. Unlike, for example, the students on campuses in America who have no idea what they are protesting about, and proudly wave Hamas flags.
But now that you have admitted that they are a murderous death cult who have no compunction about enmeshing themselves and thus killing their own children —what would you do about it? Your are telling the Israeli army to stop fighting, and let Hamas re-arm so they can continue their ethnic cleansing of all the Israeli citizens they can reach.
Please make more realistic suggestions.
Moderating:
The discussion of the beneficiaries and responsibilities born of the European colonization/conquest of the Americas is a worthwhile debate, but is a hijack of this thread. I am instructing all to drop it, though you are free to open a new, linked thread.
How to spin off topic
If you are responding to something in a thread that is basically off-topic or likely to lead to a hijack, try this:
How to Reply as a linked Topic:
Click Reply, in the upper left corner of the reply window is the reply type button, looks like a curving arrow point to the right.
Choose Reply as linked topic and it starts a new thread. As an example, you can choose GD, IMHO or The Pit for it.
That is actually the best method.
I think the Israeli government has been screwing this up in a major way since Oct 7th and long before. I’ve detailed what I think should have happened in other threads (not that I’m an expert - but I think history bears out that Israel is decidedly NOT in a better position, long term, now, than they were immediately after Oct 7th).
At this point, I think the war has done so much long term damage to Israel’s future that the only course of action is to cease. Every day they’re just creating more and more lifelong future members of Hamas. Every day they’re sowing the seeds of future bloodshed for Israelis. This path just doesn’t work. They can’t and won’t kill and bomb their way to peace and security. The only way possible would be something akin to the Irish/UK peace process, which took decades, and was never as bad as this is now. But the killing needs to stop now. If Netanyahu left power, and Israel put every military asset in a solid, fortified defensive position on Israeli territory, and ceased killing and bombing right now, they could have security in the short and medium term, and maybe create the space for an actual peace process in the long term (decades, optimistically). But the killing and bombing isn’t doing anyone any good except extremists like Hamas and the Israeli right wing. Daniela Weiss is probably doing backflips with glee right now. Never before have the extremists like her had so much power in Israel.
How would that stop rocket and mortar attacks, not to mention terrorist bombing?
In the long term, by creating an actual peace process. In the absence of that, Israelis and Palestinians will be fighting and dying forever.
How’s what they’re doing right now working out?
I doubt the first and think the second is most likely.
OR, here’s a thought- the Palestinians can kick out the terrorists- who cause them nothing but misery and death. I bet, once the terrorist attacks stop, the Israel retaliation stop also.
That sounds about as likely and feasible (in the short or medium term) as Israelis kicking out all their extremists, including Netanyahu, his allies, settlers, and everyone who engages in or tolerates in brutalization of West Bank Palestinians (and everyone who, like Netanyahu, enabled and aided in the rise of Hamas as the only power in Gaza).
Which ought to motivate any right-thinking person to say “this is wrong and shouldn’t be repeated”, not the grossly crass “ah well, what can ya do, everybody does it.” That kind of fatalism is an obstacle to ending the cycle of violence, because it’s a green light for the victors to keep right on genociding.
The election, some say- was close-
Jerusalem and LondonCNN —
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu owes his victory in last week’s Israeli elections partly to a change in election rules promoted by the political opponents he is now shutting out of power, CNN analysis of the November 1 results shows.
Netanyahu and his allies are set to have a small but clear majority of seats in parliament, the Knesset, but they won the popular vote by only a razor-thin margin.
One reason his Knesset majority is bigger than his popular vote victory is that three parties in the outgoing Knesset each got less than 3.25% of the popular vote – so they get no seats in the new parliament.
The irony of the situation is that it was Avigdor Liberman of the Yisrael Beiteinu party and Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid who pushed to raise the threshold from 2% to 3.25% in 2014, when they were political allies of Netanyahu and in government with him.
Partly because of the rule change they wanted, they’re now part of the outgoing coalition that he defeated. The Lapid-Liberman coalition would have gained seats if the threshold was still 2%.
But Netanyahu party did win the election. Hamas hasnt won any elections since 2006.
But sure Bibi and his party are at fault also.
What utter, utter bullshit.
How do you create an actual peace process with the Third Reich?
You don’t, you create a peace process with the majority of regular people who just want peace, security, and the freedom of self determination. You know, like any other big group of humans. There’s nothing special about Palestinians (or Israelis, for that matter) - these are just people like any other.
That’s what we told ourselves when we marched into Iraq in 2003: that we were liberating the peace-loving Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship; why heck they would welcome us with open arms. For that matter we were certain that the people of South Vietnam wanted peace and only a handful of terrorists backed by a foreign dictatorship were importing war into the south.
“Regular people who just want peace” has NEVER worked as a foreign policy.
It tends to work better when the bombing and killing stops. The bombing and killing certainly didn’t help in Iraq.
Thankfully, you weren’t in charge of the UK or Ireland when that violence seemed intractable. Peace is a lot more likely when people actually try (which, yes, does require stopping the bombing and killing).