I disagree. I see a very clear justification for armed resistance.

Nothing that Israel has done regarding land justifies that barbarity to people, sorry. That's what you are supporting, and it's sad. — schopenhauer1

Well, that's pretty strange. I've stated violence is permissible, gave an example of what sort and condemned the way Hamas goes about it and in the post indicated that "by any means" is problematic. What Israel does is exactly what colonisers did, including the horrible treatment of indigenous people. If history has taught us anything then violent resistance is acceptable. I really don't see why not, especially after your derogatory complaint about the lack of resistance of the Dutch during WWII. Your position is inconsistent with historically accepted practices.

I'm sorry, whatever ends you're going for, that's evil on the face of it. It's sad you support it. I am bracketing the issue to this. You can justifiably be against violence by the Israeli military, but if you are not against Palestinian violence due to this particular issue, then you are too far gone. As I said earlier: — schopenhauer1

What's evil about a Palestinian state and a right of return, exactly? Or do you have it in your head again this excludes an Israeli State?

And yes, I think violence against an oppressor is justified. Slaves were justified to revolt too.

At what point have I given the impression I don't think Israel can exist? Israeli's cause vis-a-vis its treatment of Palestinians; the oppression, the stealing of land, the administrative detentions etc. - these combined are simply an act of aggression against the Palestinian people. And there's no just cause to do so.

As I said. Learn to read. Under the Chapter: The position toward Occupation and political solutions (note the word "solutions", eh? It's a dead give away of the purpose of those paragraphs)

It starts out stating that the British gave away to the Jews what wasn't theirs, the UN gave away what wasn't theirs and all resolutions and measures thereafter are not recognised by them. And really, why should they accept a colonizer gives land away that wasn't theirs to begin with? Why should they accept the UN partitioning land that they believe was theirs because they lived there? So in their veiw all these methods of establishing the Israeli state should be rejected by the Palestinians. And in this view, there can be no legitimacy of the Israeli state. That's a perfectly sensible view on the matter. Both ethically and legally.

It then goes on to say that despite these facts, it would accept a two state solution along the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as it's capital.

Rejecting the Oslo Accords is totally sensible as well. It's ridiculous to write away rights of self-determination and self-governance indefinitely and have another State have far-reaching control on governance at the same time. That's not self-determination and by definition can never lead to an independent Palestinian State. That criticism is well established as well and not surprising. The Oslo-Accord has never been popular with a majority of the Palestinians.

It continues to set out that any settlement without a right to return will always be rejected.

Only then do we get a chapter on resistance. The only thing there to disagree with is their "by any means". But it's quite clear resistance and a complete free Palestine is only pursued if the political solution is not reached.

So if you don't want terrorist attacks you need a) a real Palestinian State and b) a right of return.

Not entirely sure outside of decimating Hamas and trying to minimize collateral damage. To call for no military response is absurd and a standard that we would hold no other nation to. — BitconnectCarlos

It would be absurd except for the context of decades of oppression and crimes by Israel that preceded it, that you conveniently leave out so you can pretend it's an isolated incident and Israel is just reacting to it. Hamas' attack was wrong but so is any Israeli reaction to it. No collateral damage is acceptable given that we already have several decades of collateral damage, oppression and occupation. Because the Israeli cause isn't just, every action following it, is contaminated by that unjust cause. You cannot act ethically right in that case. In the case of the Palestinians, their cause is just but Hamas pursued it via unjust means. So their actions are also unjust but they could, if they had used other means - for instance only attacking Israeli soldiers involved in the occupation - they would've been fully in their rights.

Your classification of what Hamas is, is neither here nor there. Their charter is not crazy. It's an easily understood document. Anyone who reads "Hamas wants to destroy Israel" in it, simply cannot read. So I'll post a link here so people can read it for themselves:

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full

Yes it is an ethnostate surrounded by Muslim nations. Just as the Muslims govern in a special way that promotes Islamic ideals, Israel perpetuates Jewish life and Jewish ideals. Israel absolutely values the lives of its own citizens above those of surrounding nations, but this hardly unique to Israel. We should keep in mind that Judaism is not a race. It is an ethnicity and a religion. You may not like the idea of a state with a religious/ethnic character but this is hardly unique to Israel. — BitconnectCarlos

If you combine this with the "no other State west of the river" when you know there's millions of Palestinians living there, you are deliberately creating a huge problem though. Marrying Likud's program to the Basic Law does precisely that. The greatest threat to Israeli security is Israeli policy not the Palestinians. But it's unfathomable for right-wing nutcases to have such reflection apparently; it has to be the "Other" not "Us".

Edit: just for clarity, I"m not calling you a right-wing nutcase but mostly anything Likud and the similarly depraved.

A vague reference couched in absolutist terms of Jordan to Mediterranean all of a sudden means Hamas is for two states? — schopenhauer1

It's only vague if you have reading comprehension problems.

Also to help you with your dyslexia, I said quite clearly before:

I want the Palestinians to win their freedom and think violence is justified to that end but not how Hamas goes about it. — moi

You implied and explicitly said on many posts that Hamas has a legitimate form of how it conducts itself. You tried saying how it's charter is cuddly-wuddly for a two-state solution, — schopenhauer1

Again. You're not replying to the facts. You just don't like it that it's incontrovertibly true that Hamas has indicated a willingness to discuss a two-state solution along the 1967 borders. I linked to the text. If only Japan had taken the same position as you would when they had a nuclear bomb dropped on them! "We don't negotiate with war criminals and terrorists and because the US army dropped it, we will not speak with the US government!"

It's fucking dumb.

Or you beat the enemy so badly (e.g., Germany and Japan and the American South), they're so sick of war that they're ready for peace. — RogueAI

Sounds like a lovely idea. So total war against Israel is justified then? Because while Hamas might have committed a war crime, certainly we are in agreement that the continuous oppression, indiscriminate killing of civilians, administrative detention, illegal settlements - all aimed against a people- is just blatant aggression, that great crime from which every action that is derived from it is a war crime in itself?

You keep comparing Hamas to Nazis and Israel to the Allies but Hannah Arendt and Albert Einstein thought it was certain elements in Israel that learned the most from the Nazis.

"Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the "Freedom Party" (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine."

"Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority. Like other Fascist parties they have been used to break strikes, and have themselves pressed for the destruction of free trade unions. In their stead they have proposed corporate unions on the Italian Fascist model." — 1948 letter NYT

And who is the successor of Herut? It is Likud:

[Herut] had already been in coalition with the Liberals since 1965 as Gahal, with Herut as the senior partner. Herut remained the senior partner in the new grouping, which was given the name Likud, meaning "Consolidation", as it represented the consolidation of the Israeli right. It worked as a coalition under Herut's leadership until 1988, when the member parties merged into a single party under the Likud name. — wiki

EDIT: All that to say that I prefer my peace a bit less bloody, thank you.

That video was ok. I liked the "what's their excuse?" for the West Bank killings when Hamas isn't there best I guess.

I think that was a mistranslation. It's kill all the animals; every man, woman and child.

I understand you get off by dehumanising people simply because they do things you abhor so you can feel all safe and cuddly by blowing up civilians because "necessary and proportionate" to "eradicate" Hamas (as if they're rats). The complexities of politics and actually reaching peace requires people to talk to each other via other means than through the barrel of a gun or cannon. No matter how much they hate each other. You misunderstand my insistence on the requirement to talk to the leadership in Gaza as advocating for terrorism.

So yes, go fuck yourself if you cannot talk to me without implying I have mental problems "you're so far gone" or pretending it's a cultural thing. Maybe just actually deal with the things I say and not whatever shit you make up to deal with the discomfort you apparently feel from the fact someone disagrees with you.

As to Israel supporting a two state solution on paper... the last 5 decades make this irrelevant. — BitconnectCarlos

I fixed it for you. If using violence makes statements irrelevant then what now?

How about you go fuck yourself you with your irrelevant ad hominems?

Ah I see you interpreted my "enitrely" as such. Taking Likud together with the Basic Law, there cannot be room for a right of return and Jews are (and always will be) treated differently in Israel proper. With "entirely Jewish" I meant to say entirely Israeli and therefore a Jewish nation following the principles laid down in the Basic Law:

A. The land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established.

B. The State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, in which it fulfills its natural, cultural, religious, and historical right to self-determination.

C. The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.

Since 2017. We've been over that a year or two ago in this very thread.

As to Likud:

Their original party program:

a. The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.

b. A plan which relinquishes parts of western Eretz Israel, undermines our right to the country, unavoidably leads to the establishment of a "Palestinian State," jeopardizes the security of the Jewish population, endangers the existence of the State of Israel. and frustrates any prospect of peace.
— Likud

The 1999 version:

a. “The Jordan river will be the permanent eastern border of the State of Israel.”

b. “Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel.
The government will flatly reject Palestinian proposals to divide Jerusalem”

c. “The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.”

I'm sure you can find their current party program on the knesset website but I cannot access it.

It means exactly the same as Likud states should be entirely Jewish with the largest difference that even Hamas is in favour of a two state solution.

No it isn't. Can't you read? So weird the PLO was always insisting on a two-state solution because that must have been a very deep disingenuous step in not sharing land, especially when they gave away Palestinians' rights to self-govern ad infinitum in the Oslo Accords.

Let this sink in. Count the number of Israeli settlements in land that isn't Israeli under any international law. Stolen land. And the thefts continue.

@Tzeentch Did you read that they voted in Dutch parliament that they consider the slogan "From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free" to be a call to violence because it would propagate the destruction of Israel?

Funny that. Where's the call to violence exactly? Maybe my English is rusty.

As if we can't be opposed to Israel as a Jewish state (which I consider inherently discriminatory and a source of many of Israel's internal problems) by peaceful means? We can't insist on a one-state solution where all people are equal regardless of their faith or mother? We can't insist on a two-state solution between equal sovereign nations?

Let alone that this is a rallying cry about stopping Israeli oppression rather than the obliteration of Israel. It was a PLO phrase, which always pursued a two-state solution.

Dutch politics is pathetic. Ridiculous virtue signaling.

So here's my position: I do not condemn the Israeli response to the Hamas/Palestinian attack and I do not believe the Israelis to be the instigators in this conflict. My stand with Israel is clear here and you can condemn it as you will and find it unsustainable. — Hanover

I didn't ask you to condemn this response. Go back. Read my post and try again and then I'll entertain your questions. The answers of which should be clear already from my recent posts where I've gone into them.

You quote but you don't give a source.

In any case, "they started it" is just a tu quoque fallacy. Do you have anything interesting to add or just here to glorify whatever Israel does?

Not commit war crimes. Not every problem has an acceptable solution. You think that's an excuse to pursue non-acceptable solutions. I don't.

Yes, carpet bombing was a war crime.

My response was to the situation not the attack, which you conveniently ignore so you can argue against a strawman. Context matters. And yes, I consider Israel more antagonistic, having breached more agreements than the other side, having killed more than the other side, having more power than the other side and having oppressed the other side. I consider the Palestinians to have a right to use violence against Israel to fight their oppression since quite clearly peaceful means has gotten them nothing. That doesn't mean I condone every type of violence. At the same time, the answer is not collective punishment, I don't even think - even if it were possible - that rooting out all Hamas terrorists would resolve the security issue of Israel, because it continues to perfectly create the circumstances in which terrorists will arise.

Israel is an apartheid regime: https://www.btselem.org/topic/apartheid
Israel detains Palestinians for bullshit reasons and no legal recourse: https://www.btselem.org/topic/administrative_detention In the thousands now.
Israel kills more Palestinians than vice versa by a factor of 5. The method really is irrelevant, dead is dead. https://statistics.btselem.org/en/all-fatalities/by-date-of-incident?section=overall&tab=overview&nifgaSensor=%5B%2275c9ac7%22%2C%22a14a397%22%2C%224d9ecf3%22%5D
It steals Palestinian lands: https://www.btselem.org/topic/settlements
Turns a blind eye to settler violence against Palestinians: https://www.btselem.org/topic/settler_violence

Where's your disgust with the daily targeting of Palestinian civilians by IDF forces like "Operation Home and Garden", the detentions, the murder onder the "open fire policy"? How can you condemn Hamas doing exactly what Israel has been doing for years and not do the same where it concerns Israel?

I don't think the calculus would be that cynical that they actually think it's in their interest but anything that's an obstacle to a two-state solution is not necessarily a bad thing in Likud's book (until of course when it is, like now).

5,800 dead Palestinian civilians in the meantime. All in "self defence".

Even things without moral agency don't warrant that they are destroyed. And with close to 50% being minors, moral agency is even a question.

I chose a dog because most people have more respect for animals than Palestinians and the imagery seems to work. A dog barely has agency, much as oppressed people don't. And I think it also reflects how people like Bibi actually see Palestinians; not human.

The answer to bombing is either annihilation of Hamas or escalation and spreading war to the entire region with the aim to eliminate Israel. — magritte

A silly dichotomy but unfortunately reflects a similar lack of imagination of both the media and our political leaders.

That would be my response to the entire situation. You cannot demand security and refuse to give the other party the same. Reciprocity and all that. Israel has been beating a dog for years and now wants to retaliate because it was bitten. I'm quite certain many now feel justified to kill the dog, looking only at the bite, but any sane person realises that's not the real problem here.

And so is Gaza. According to reasoned third-party judgment, the terrorists and the IDF are both proceeding according to the above discussed ideals of world justice. — magritte

Let's not pretend this is a chicken or egg situation. Terrorism has always been a reply to Israeli oppression. .

Should it not be up to the people of Gaza to reject terrorists ensconced in a maze of tunnels under the city? In all the world news I still don't hear anything of the sort anywhere. Apparently it was the Israeli babies' and old women's own fault that they were massacred by righteous Gaza freedom fighters. — magritte

But they don't because Hamas until recently was more popular and would've won in the West Bank as well. And it was more popular because it didn't give away Palestinian rights during the Oslo Accords which is still opposed by a majority of Palestinians, yet inexplicably continues to be hailed as progress in the West.

Maybe read some just war theory? Proportionality is already alluded to in the Melian dialogue and explicitly treated by St Augustine and with Aquinas it was firmly embedded in the just war tradition. Several centuries before Kant.

As to what Israel should do. Israel is reaping what it sowed for years. It should start with dismantling it's apartheid regime and stop it's continuous well documented human rights violations. And getting parties in power that are actually interested in a two state solution, instead of the corrupt turds they have.

Read animal farm. Your rephrasing is a bit silly.

So proportionality isn't a thing?

yeah, saw it too. Very good.

And do you believe that Netanyahu has really a "strategic plan for a two state solution"? I think his strategic plan is to talk about a two state solution (to keep Americans happy) and make sure it never happens. This is the plan: destroy the terrorists. — ssu

Aka "more of the same".

At what cost do we destroy terrorists?

History is replete with peace deals with the most vile dictators, terrorists (didn't we just hands Afghanistan back?) and belligerents. The idea peace isn't possible with Hamas is just a narrative people lap up because it's repeated ad nauseum and it's obvious bullshit. See: ISIL, IRA, ETA and Tamil Tigers.

Instead let's talk with the political deadweight Abbas. As if that will ever go anywhere. If you want peace, you talk to the enemy. Not a bystander.

just badly miscalculated — Count Timothy von Icarus

Obviously this. After the first die is cast, most plans are for the rubbish bins. Especially if you don't have several battalions in reserve and options to manoeuvre in the theater of war, which is simply too small here.

For those illiterate on what Hamas is: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-hamas

At the very least very popular. And if Fatah hadn't ousted them in the West Bank, they would be the see facto representation of the Palestinians. People underestimate what Hamas has also done to help Palestinians, which is why they are so popular and continue to be, even in the West Bank. When people complain Hamas doesn't allow voting in Gaza, they forget their favourite Fatah does exactly the same (but since it keeps out the party nobody wants to see, mum's the word).

And now I'm going on holidays and ignore every electronic device for a week.

Good luck with finding a moral compass for those who don't have one.