Oh poor Benkei. You are too far gone in this one it seems. You plant ice, you are going to harvest wind, and all that.

For the record, you are supporting/justifying an organization such as Hamas. And I can see you are unbiased. I would just like to juxtapose this with Baden's response which recognized and condemned such an organization. — schopenhauer1

You have reading comprehension problems. There's a clear difference between "Hamas can be made peace with" and "I think Hamas did the right thing". But yes, your totally unbiased position is very good at picking up on nuance. :chin:

In any case, I'm certainly not unbiased and anybody with moral clarity shouldn't be. Every same person should be pro-Palestinian. The "existential threat" card with the best trained and equipped army is nonsense, especially in light of the limited means the Palestinians have. Meanwhile, Israel continously commits humanitarian crimes against the Palestinians and illegally settles land. All this is well documented.

I'll do it for your then.

Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus. — Hamas charter

So much for the "I'm so unbiased I can't even quote in the right context".

The paragraph titled 2 is no more and no less than Likud has in its charter but they never mitigate it with a clear proposal for a solution. Hamas clearly does above along the lines that international politics considers an acceptable solution. But there's the problem of all the illegal settlers, which problem Bibi only likes to make bigger because he and his party don't want a Palestinian state - tout court.

The rejection of the Oslo accords is really not that interesting. That you think those accords were wonderful just reflects your limited awareness how this was received. A majority of Palestinians rejected it at the time and Edward Said hated it too.

He despaired toward the end of his life of any change in the Palestinians’ disastrous position, whose leadership had signed away any gains made in the national struggle for self-determination with the Oslo Accords, which he called “an instrument of Palestinian surrender, a Palestinian Versailles.” — Foreign Policy

If you want to call something a spade, you better make sure you know what a spade is.

Any news on the liberation of any of the hostages? And would that give space for deescalation if those would be freed?

Yes, maybe continue reading instead of selectively quoting it.

Edit: actually, I think you should be the one to now quote the full paragraph you pulled that from to underline how disingenuous you're being.

Rather, "justice" for Hamas is utterly destroying Israel and cancelling any peace process, making it impossible for moderate Pals (especially in the West Bank). And of course, they don't allow Pals to vote them out. Don't forget, the main (realpolitik) reason Hamas did this was to stall peace talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia. They want to derail that, as they wanted to derail Oslo Accords with suicide bombings, etc. — schopenhauer1

Based on what? Since 2017 they've explicitly changed their charter to allow for a two states solution along the 1967 borders.

Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me but I seem to recall Israel instituting the blockade almost immediately following the election and there was alot to do about Hamas winning because nobody wanted them to.

Anyhoo, I think Hamas is multi-faceted. It has a terrorist wing, at the same time it's the "authority" we have to deal with in Gaza. There comes a point, if you want peace, that you're going to have to treat with the assholes across the table, irrespective of what they've done. Waiting until they are no longer relevant is basically doing nothing. I also think ousting the right wing Israeli parties will be a temporary thing but you're right that that could give some impetus to improvements.

Or we drop the two states solution - and if Israel insists on the shape it's gotten due to all the illegal settlements it isn't even viable - and we create a single state but then integrate Palestinians into that State. But that has even more issues in my view with respect to the stated Jewish character of Israel and obvious security problems.

The rather obvious point why I don't care about these "who would you rather be friends with? " is that that doesn't preclude friends from acting immoraly all the same. The Allies were often worse than the Germans where it concerns how the war was waged for instance. I don't want the Israelis to lose, I want them to stop committing crimes every day - not just this recent insanity of collective punishment again. I want the Palestinians to win their freedom and think violence is justified to that end but not how Hamas goes about it.

Haha, you're an idiot. Is your tactic now, let's ask stupid hypothetical questions to deflect from the war crimes being committed? Or are your seriously suggesting that "rooting for" means acquescing to depravity? Or because life is more comfortable in Israel we just need to do whatever and accept whatever because being oppressed makes you uncomfortable? And really, the only thing that proves is the fucking privilege you apparently enjoy that the answer to that question is glaringly obvious with all the moral consequences that entails for you (let's kill some Palestinians!) Maybe take your kindergarten morality and shove it where the sun doesn't shine and stop asking me disingenuous crap.

The only "side" that ever nuked anybody was the "Allies". The only side categorically refusing to work towards peace is Israeli right wing political parties. The side that had murdered more innocents: Israeli. The side that broke more ceasefires: Israeli. The idea of marrying "trust" and "Israel" is reflective of your lack of knowledge of the history and recent politics of the region. It would be hilarious if not for the fact 80% of the dimwitted fucks that get to vote have the same myopic view.

sigh. This follow up question is as stupid as your question about where you'd rather live.

Yes, the Allies also committed plenty of war crimes.

I agree. When is Israel going to stop with it?

Here's a piece from a Dutch historian and expert on the US about the radicalisation of the Republican Party: https://www.maartenonline.nl/als-een-partij-gek-wordt/

I was replying to your reply to RogueAI (one above your Bibi quote) and think RogueAI's original question was silly.

Israel is the legitimate possessor of its land. — Hanover

Define "its" land.

I think the question in general is idiotic. We're dealing with a question of justice not what's more comfortable or easier.

Would you rather have been African or American in 1700 Or rather a native or a European? A colonist or a coloniser?

We all know being on the wrong side of history is generally easier.

The question for Palestinians is how to eliminate the threat of thousands of homes being indiscriminately destroyed, getting food on the table, having water and electricity, getting to work without harassment, followed by the raping of its women, butchering of its children, kidnapping of random citizens, and the murder of others. — Hanover

The security problem in the region goes both ways. And let's not pretend terrorism wasn't a reaction to the illegal occupation and not the other way around.

For me the core problem with the Israeli response is not too dissimilar from the problems with the Hamas attack. I don't see how it contributes to a long term solution, and it seems to be motivated by the need to be seen as strong as capable at least as much as by actual security concerns. — Echarmion

The long term solution for Likud is to ensure a two state solution is not viable. Bombing Palestinians to the stone age is effective.

Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), says he believes that Iran aims to create “a reality of war in order to exhaust Israeli society, in order to exhaust the Israel Defense Forces. — CNN

It would be very convenient for Israel to cast this as a war between two sovereign nations instead of between oppressor and oppressed (or at least a terrorist org. that apse I from that oppression). I have doubts about Iran or Hezvollah being involved in the original attacks (bad on info that's publicly available) but they might get involved now.

And then when they don't whatever happens to them is their own fault of course. "At least we gave warning" and "that's more than Hamas does" in order to pretend it's not a war crime.

Errr... Didn't the Romans have to continually expand to bankroll their government? The roman empire was one big expansionist war until it started to collapse but admittedly had a decent view on integration.

Well, I guess we should be happy we're fucking up the world to such an extent, in pursuit of shareholder value, that such municipal scale societies will be all that's left in 200 years or so.

Definitely true. It's just that changing everything to a nuanced form was more convoluted and less clear in clarifying the point.

I can see where you're coming from but I don't think the analogy works because in the wardrobe I'm not actively contributing to the situation why the murderer is in my house. For this analogy to work, it's not my house and I stole it from him and now he's back to kill me so he can get his house back. I might think about offering to give the house back instead of calling 911 but not doing anything will result in one of us dead eventually.

So this is interesting again: US envoy talks about attack against Jews

If I'd say Jews are oppressing Palestinians or say they're complicit in the murders of innocents then I'm an anti-semite (even though Israel defines itself as the nation-state for Jews but whatever). So critics have to constantly tiptoe around making sure they're nuanced.

But when I'd confuse a vicious attack on Israeli citizens with an attack on Jews I can drag in the holocaust and play the massive victim cum holocaust industry card and everything is fine and dandy. No nuance needed to approve whatever Jews do to Palestinians, but every nuance needed to criticise the crimes the state of Israel perpetrates against them.

It's another example of another disruption of a level playing field.

It's not an insight but I consider Netanyahu depraved enough to make such a calculus that I worry it might actually be true. And given that he thinks Palestinians are dogs, I'm sure at no time could he have imagined the attacks being so large and coordinated. He probably estimated "something big" to be much smaller as he'd underestimate the Palestinians and probably the Egyptians as well (because not Israeli) and might not even have trusted that rapport without corroboration from Mossad, which appears at this point to have been absent. The likelihood certainly is not 0 but I have no clue how depraved that warmonger actually is.

What is the likelihood Bibi ignored it on purpose considering all the flack he's gotten in the past year? And now score big by levelling Gaza. I think we'll see the worst slaughter of Palestinians in our lifetime the coming weeks.

You understand how hollow that sounds. Perhaps Hamas destroys the Israeli nuclear and chemical weapons deterrence totally and defeats militarily the IDF, then they could start negotiations about all of the borders, not just what about West Bank and Gaza based on the UN decisions done on the subject or the Oslo Accords. — ssu

It's not hollow but logically consistent. What rings hollow is your "might makes right" argument as a reason to ignore their position.

I think the kill-all-Isrealites-including-the-babies Hamas fighters have done their share to raise support for Likud. Both get strength from each other. — ssu

Given what I just quoted as their official position since 2017 this is simply a gross mischaracterization. Nobody actually wants to talk about a solution just have another popularity contest about who is worse.

But peace can be made with Hamas. There's only one party that categorically refuses a two states solution since its inception and that's Likud. Israel needs to be pressured to stop voting for it. BDS is the only way to do that.

It will certainly not come from within Israel any time soon. We need a boycott, divestment and sanction program just like what we did with south africa.

Future risks are a reason to mitigate those risks and therefore do something, it's not an argument for doing nothing. Clearer?

It doesn't address Palestinian security either. You need to keep things open-ended, especially in light of the fact that both sides have their utterly shit extremist motherfuckers that will do everything to fuck up any progress you're trying to make. Acknowledging that also means you can consciously accept it and then think about how best to minimise that risk.

The problem is wanting to solve everything in one go before there's even a modicum of trust between the parties. That's simply not possible.

Palestinians are ostensibly aligned with Iran right now. The current situation is shit though. So that alignment in itself is meaningless. What exactly would the driver be for Palestinians to continue to align with Iran when they are safer and more secure when not being aligned with them? Die-hard ideologues yes but common people do not care - they want a roof and food on the table. The possibility of a better future is much more motivating but there is no such view in the situation they are now in. That's why it's paramount Israel stops committing crimes.

Also this is pertinent to this issues to:

This is a typical argument whereby Palestine is being penalized for what they hypothetically could do, (regardless of any actual objective) while the Israeli government is excused for what they actually do. — Maw

Finally, the nice thing about change, is that you can change again or even go back to what it was. If something doesn't work, you try something else. Future risks are not a good argument not to do anything now.

I do think it's possible but it requires a lot of good faith negotiations. To me it would look like something like this:

Here's a two-state solution and how to get there:

1. Israel to unilaterally recognise a right for the Palestinians to have a sovereign state where the 1967 borders will be the basis for the size of Palestine
2. stop all further settlements in WB and evictions in East-Jerusalem, recognise ownership rights in East Jerusalem
3. repeal all discriminatory laws in Israel proper
4. no more collective punishment of Palestinians
5. no more blockade of Gaza and its air space and sea
6. no more mass destruction in response to ineffectual missiles or balloons
7. tear down the wall
8. For the interim period, Gaza and WB remain occupied territories but they will be policed instead of military oppression
9. Palestinians to commit to an indefinite cease fire as long as Israel maintains the above 8 points
10. Palestinians to recognise Israel along the 1967 borders as the basis of the size of israel

In other words, Israel had to stop committing crimes. There's no excuse.

Enter into the transition period where Palestine should be set up:
1. include the political wing of Hamas in talks as well as PA/fatah
2. land-for-land exchanges to arrive at comparable land size
3. Israel to pay Palestine an amount equal to all the monies spent supporting illegal settlers so it has the means to settle the new lands it receives through the land-for-land exchange
4. Palestine to hire their own first and Israeli contractors second (which will lead to "reparations" flowing back to Israel and creating economic interdependence)
5. have religious leaders negotiate the Temple Mount
6. Jerusalem as independent city-state administered by Palestinians and Israelis alike
7. gradually transition policing activities in Palestine to Palestinians
8. Set up a special task force of like minded Israelis and Palestinians to investigate (terrorist) crimes committed by Israelis against Palestinians and vice versa, where jurisdiction will be with the state of the victim
9. retreat from WB and Gaza and set up border controls
10. Declare a Palestinian state
11. Party with your Israeli neighbours

Intent based on hearsay is not admissable so there should be actual actions and statements from Trump himself unless this is just a reformulation of proof of general intent. As I stated before:

"For general intent crimes juries will be instructed to infer intent from the proof of the act. The federal documents case mostly has general intent crimes I think, as they do not aim at a specific result that mens rea should be aimed at."

So I think it more likely this will be general intent proofs.

Even the political wing of Hamas is in favour of a two State solution but refuses to recognise the Israeli state as a fact in law. Recognising the state of Israel to them means recognising sovereignty over land that they believe ought to be subject of negotiations in its entirety.

Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus. — Hamas

In my view Likud is the singlemost largest obstacle to peace. 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.” — Likud

Now for some reason I cannot access the knesset.gov.il website at all (I get 403 errors) to get the latest but the rejection of a two-state solution is still there.

Then there was Netanyahu saying this that was heralded as being open to a two-state solution by media:

I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan. — Netanyahu

But as David Horovitz wrote in The Times of Israel:

He wasn’t saying that he doesn’t support a two-state solution. He was saying that it’s impossible. This was not a new, dramatic change of stance by the prime minister. It was a new, dramatic exposition of his long-held stance. — Horovitz

No Palestinian State. Ever. Period. There's nothing to gain but more death as long as Israelis continue to vote in Likud.

I have to apologise to @Hanover in particular but I'm devastated by what's going on (both ways) and it's turned me totally cynical on the whole issue. I probably should just shut up on this subject for the foreseeable future.

That's to play a rhetorical game rather than engage philosophically though, isn't it? — Baden

Yes, I think we're beyond morality for some time already but it's taken me until this latest bullshit to realise it. That probably happened around the time when Rabin was murdered.

Yes, why should I justify it for one party if the other doesn't and gets all the moral support and best wishes and guns? That doesn't seem like a level playing field to me.

I'm merely using the same arguments as Israel does. Seems perfectly morally tenable to me.

I indeed didn't follow the link. In any case, a personal tragedy for those involved, and at the same time exactly what Israel has sowed. As I've stated before: every tragedy befalling Israel is of its own making, every tragedy visited on the Palestinians is caused by Israel (or more accurately, Likud and other right wing fanatics who control Israeli politics).

If only Israeli politicians and civilians would care as much about Palestinians as you're expecting us to care about Israeli civilians. Maybe I'll just care as much about Israeli casualties as Bibi does about Palestinians. Because that seems all the care we need.

Almost any method and any means are acceptable when Palestinians are the ones actually existentially threatened through 75+ years of landgrabs and oppression. If not, then moral equivalence would lead to the absurd conclusion that we should be suing former slaves and their descendants for reparations for killing their slave owners in revolt.

I'm not sure the Two-State solution will every come to pass, or if it does, that it will solve many problems. — BC

The two-states solution had been made de facto impossible already. It's a good distraction though as everybody can pretend they're still in favour of peace. Which they are but only after the West Bank and Gaza have been bled dry and there's no such thing as a Palestinian any more.

Unlike the morally upstanding Palestinians. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/10/09/middleeast/israel-hamas-music-festival-aftermath-intl-hnk/index.html — Hanover

Successfully striking against an oppressor seems a good reason to celebrate.

With the current lock down I don't think foreign backing is relevant.

I'm actually impressed how Hamas has managed to keep this operation hidden. I wouldn't be surprised some heads will roll in the Mossad and whoever is in charge of border control.