Israel/Palestine thread

The un did not condemn hamas for October 7

When Israel finally retaliates that immediately condemn Israel and demand a ceasefire

Nobody can take the UN seriously

Hamas is not a state entity so there is no state to condemn. They’re insurgents against an occupying power.

So is cutting off water from a million innocent children, but you like that idea well enough

Uh? It has even participated in elections before suspending them.

Hamas is the ruling party of Gaza

There may be a difference exactly as you describe. If so, the magic word of 'terrorism' does little work and creates confusion. You can just say "hamas wants to exterminate all Jews, while idf just wants to exterminate Hamas."

Democracy... another magic word.

Anyway, by the "democratic" definition attacking the US military with unconventional weapons is terrorism.

Chile elected leaders who had economic policies the US didn't like so we assassinated their president, murdered 20k civilians via proxy and tortured many more (civilians were directly targeted) and thus terrorized them into implementing the policies we prefered. This was not terrorism.

How does this make sense, other than "terrorism is when THEY do it?"

Palestine is not a member state of the UN. USA has made sure they do not have officially recognized statehood.

Note: This question is not meant for Victor, Pointless, or Trolly. I dont consider any of you serious people.

But for anyone else highly critical of Israel; what is the mechanism for Israel actually moving towards peace given the realities of Palestinian society (they generally want all the land back, and generally support foreign supported Islamic terrorist organizations that do not want peace under any terms, and will use violence to railroad any peace movement).

Like say Israel unilaterally leaves Gaza and even the settlements and says they want to move towards a 2 state solution (I am not saying they have any intention of doing either of these things, but as a thought experiment lets say they did).

In response I expect Gaza would just be retaken by Hamas, and they and the various other foreign funded terrorist groups just start re-arming for the next attack against Israel (either rockets, drones, another invasion like 10/7, etc.). And they would start firing rockets into Israel at low volume almost immediately.

So given the realities of Palestinian society, what would Israel even accomplish in a movement towards peace by leaving Gaza/West Bank? Seems they would just be compromising their own security for no gain at all.

Israel withdrew from gaza
The Palestinian Authority took over
Then the people of gaza voted hamas making it a separate entity from the WB

The use of the word occupation regarding gaza is propaganda

Not being a "state entity" because they aren't in the UN doesn't mean that aren't a government

It's bad wordplay to try to justify their behavior

Saudi Arabia and other countries put pressure on Gaza to vote for politicians that acknowledge Israel has a right to exist in exchange for a two state solution. If Gaza does not do this and does not actually back this up, then Gaza remains rubble because no one is going to pay to rebuild it when another 10/7 is inevitable and the city is just going to get destroyed again.

Hamas will not agree to this. Which is why I've said 1000 times itt hamas needs to be destroyed or surrender

Like without occupying gaza militarily, who is going to oversee these elections? Hamas? Unrwa?

They don't really have a choice.

I never said that there should be no military force in Gaza.

Destroying Hamas is not a realistic option.

I think Mets is right. There is no reason to expect Hamas, or Islamic Jihad, or Lions Den, or any number of other foreign funded Islamist militias would allow any of this to happen. And there seems to be no will in Palestinian society to oppose Islamist militias. To the contrary, they seem to be generally supported.

It seems turning Gaza into rubble and then not letting them really rebuild might be Israel's actual strategy. But it doesn't seem like this is moving towards any actual peace. And eventually the Islamist militias would rebuild to a point where Israel's security would be threatened.

Again, I am not arguing Israel actually wants peace, or 2 state solution.

I am just saying I dont really see any rationale reason why Israel should even bother to try (if there was a will) given Palestinian society and culture.

In my scenario Hamas does not have control of the outcome past the two outcomes I presented unless you believe they have the capacity to both rebuild Gaza and to keep attacking Israel.

None of the Arab nations has any leverage on Hamas because they never supported Hamas to begin with. Iran is the backer, nobody else matters enough to counter Iran's wishes.

And ultimately the Palestinian people's wishes. Hamas wouldn't be able to function as it does just because Iran is their sponsor, if the Palestinian people didn't support them.

The idea the rest of the world could refuse to give aid to the Palestinians unless they stopped supporting Islamist terrorists, and made a point to stop them from operating unencumbered, is interesting. Although I am not sure the world has the will to follow through with this if the Palestinians get stubborn, because so many civilians would die from deprivation.

I don't think Iran will be paying to rebuild Gaza, especially when they're also giving the arms to Hamas to incite another event which results in what they rebuild getting blown up again.

Giving aid and rebuilding are not the same.

Hopefully US gives them aid

At the end of the day I am not sure Israel even wants any of this to happen. They may just want the Gaza Palestinians gone.

Still I think it is useful to think of how Palestinian society could be reformed to the point Israel would even have any motivation at all to do any of the things their critics want them to. When the current dynamics they dont have any reason/motivation towards unilaterally working towards peace (at the expense of their own security), except some abstract appeal to a shared humanity the Palestinians dont even give any pretense toward believing in.

I have very little knowledge of the particulars. But it seems to me that historically and recently both sides have done bad stuff and experienced bad stuff, and there are religious and cultural conflicts that will not soon resolve.

So I doubt we will live to see an end to the violence or a permanent solution. Both sides will have to accept a certain amount of misconduct from the other, including violence.

It sounds bad, but that's reality. Politicians and other BS merchants like to say things like "we must end domestic violence," but really we tolerate a certain amount because we don't want to e.g. all wear body cameras 24/7. And we just try to minimize and manage the problem.

I've given a lot of examples of this. Islamist attacks in other countries, the KKK and Co, sex crimes etc. You can't just kill 30k civilians every time something bad happens.

As bluegrass and others have pointed out, it's far from clear that more violence actually helps. We can look at things like the US war on drugs as models for how fighting a problem with blunt force can just make it worse.

I think elements on both sides thrive on the cycle of violence.

The South African model of peace and reconciliation seems to work better than making sure every bad actor is punished.

It might take a long time, like it did for the kkk to shrink down. But I don't think the kkk would have shrunk faster if we were destroying hospitals throughout the sourh and killing anyone who had connections or sympathies with them. Nor do I think that would have been morally defensible.

FBI went to war with kkk and almost lost

Taiwan isn't in the UN either and is recognized as a state by fewer countries than Palestine; taiwanese parties are still state actors in any practical sense

It seems that more rationale state actors seem to follow your line of logic. That both sides should just accept violence from the other side indefinitely, and it isn't morally defensible for Israel to use force to try to actually stop the violence, because too many Palestinians would die as a result.

It seems Israel was more or less willing to follow this line until 10/7. And there was a fundamental shift after that, where they currently aren't.

I will say as drone/AI/rocket/biowarfare technology continues to improve, and eventually it trickles into the hands of actors like Hamas, I dont think we should take it for granted that Israel will always have enough of a technological advantage to effectively defend against Palestinian violence.

Even 10/7 was allowed to happen in part because Palestinians started using Chinese communication technology that Israel intelligence had no ability to hack and surveillance, which probably wouldn't have happened even 5 years prior.

Maybe Israel believes it is inevitable that if it allowed the status quo to continue their effective technological edge would continue to shrink, their security would keep getting more and more compromised, and they feel the pressure to resolve things now.

Incredible how we are okay with collectively punishing Gazans for what Hamas does but aghast at assigning any moral responsibility to informed citizens of a mostly functioning democracy.