Israel/Palestine thread

I safely assume this is what the rest of the world was saying about us when Trump was elected, but as we know it was hardly monolithic. I’d be careful in making your generalizations too broad. Just a tip from your “best friend” 😉

Bibi's policies with regard to Gaza and Palestine have near universal support from Israeli Jews. his main opposition, Benny Ganz, is part of the war council in charge of this genocide.

every poll I have seen has 85-95% of people in support of the campaign in its current execution or only of the belief it is not brutal enough.

furthermore, you can read Israeli scholars like Ilan Pappe who have written and spoken extensively for years that the societal indoctrination would lead to this genocide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-SQuxle...

I did it deliberately to illustrate how Mickey Mouse his thesis.

Let him rave on, that men shall know him mad.

It's ok to take the gloves off with US Americans and call them brainwashed and depraved. We just don't do it for other countries out of politeness.

Seems like the world, including most importantly the US, has decided it is time for Israeli to unilaterally ceasefire, with Hamas staying in power.

Looks like the biggest losers in all of this will be people of Gaza (who have absolutely no future with Hamas staying in power) and the Israeli hostages; and the winners will be Iran, who continue to play off endemic antisemitism and hate of the locals to sow chaos in the Arab world.

And Israel should expect the terror from the South to resume shortly.

It is what it is.

Do you really think politeness is the main psychological driver? I would say it is more of a superiority complex.

That is why I am trying to bring balance to the forum by treating the rest of the world like they have agency and the ability to discern right and wrong; which means being critical of them when they clearly choose wrong.

Israel isn't blameless and they ruined all the goodwill that was theirs for the taking after October 7th. Had they exercised a little restraint instead of assassinating grandmothers they wouldn't be having much of the world turn against them.

No that's not it at all. You're allowed to say things about your own country that you're not allowed to say about other countries. It has nothing to do with superiority.

I mean… we’re all brainwashed and depraved

Meh. The people that hated them on October 6th (mostly because they are Jewish) still do, they are just a little more animated at the moment. I dont think they really generated any new enemies or burned any bridges. Obviously not a best case scenario, but I would say the future looks a lot more bleak for the Palestinians in Gaza than Israel.

What the hell do you do with Gaza now, with Hamas still in charge stealing all the food and making things too dangerous for anyone to even try to go in and help? Who the hell is going to want to dump money to rebuilt Gaza, knowing there are no shortage of Iranian funded terrorists who intend for this to happen again sometime in the near future.

I don't see any "non-white" cultures that operate like this. Do Turks or Iranian elites say critical things about their won culture they wouldn't say about the US or Israel? Does China or India? Of course not.

Is there any historical precedent at all for this type of attitude prior to "white" 21st century liberal democracies? It seems most cultures, historical and present, would treat self-criticism and giving everyone else a free pass a betrayal.

The modern liberal world is hyper critical of anything a fellow "white" liberal democratic society does, and gives most of the rest of the world a free pass for much worse behavior. I really dont think 'politeness' is a satisfactory explanation for what is going on.

I'm sure there are plenty of Turks and Iranians that used more measured words when talking about other cultures than they do with their own.

Maybe you're right and it's a Western thing and I just can't see it, but I've also come across some non-Westerners (my Brazilian friend's mom comes to mind) who will go off about their own culture.

Most "tribal" cultures will be self-critical internally. But they would never go so far as to say to outsiders their own culture is uniquely evil, the way many Westerners will.

Do your Brazilian friends hold back criticism of the US or France or Israel out of politeness?

That's what reasonable people do.

Israel will not stop

They may pause

But they are not withdrawing without destroying rafah tunnels

There has to be more tunnels than just those in Rafah. That there is still action in the northern parts and Hamas propaganda videos are well lit with well fed people suggest they aren’t being choked inside their tunnels in a meaningful way

Fair enough. Maybe I suffer the same problem as Victor, in that I am basing my worldview too much off of what I see on social media.

Well, the Rafah tunnels are Hamas's lifeline to the outside world, especially getting heavy weapons from Iran. Majorly disrupting that pipeline would cause Hamas a lot of problems.

Makes more sense than the BS you were talking about.

I don't remember you posting anything about Israelis being brainwashed before. Where is your evidence for that, or even any references to it?

But you think that if the US told Israel to stop, they would do so, despite the brainwashing you just mentioned?

Or did you change your mind about the US being able to stop all this with one word?

Israel’s moral legitimacy to continue depends on its ability to minimize, at least appear to minimize, civilian casualties.

Right now, it looks more and more like Bibi wants to maximize civilian casualties.

Sure. That doesn't mean the Rafah tunnels aren't a significant military target worth destroying. That being said, I am not as convinced as Mets that Israel has the external or internal leverage to undertake said objective.

If their goal is to keep the Palestinians down, it isn't even obvious further weakening Hamas furthers that objective. Hard to imagine the Palestinians pick themselves up in any meaningful way under the current iteration of Hamas.