@ssu@BitconnectCarlos@Manuel
I agree about the West Bank, if the two state solution is the goal. I do remember a ton of bombings on Palestinian side and assassination of Rabin on the Israeli side the closer the two sides got to a real agreement. I remember this. Do you? It makes me think though, do agreements matter? You would have to admit that the Pals under the PLO would have to work either on their own or closely with the IDF to keep security. If they don’t, then Israel got nothing and no real progress happened. Essentially, when or if both sides get to a final phase (as has happened), they can’t keep demanding more and more. There has to be a point where you give up something to get something. That also means the leaders in good faith controlling their people or work to bring their own people to accountability. It also means the moderates can’t keep allowing tacit support for extremes during and after the process.

I certainly agree that Israel should take steps to make its operational procedures more humanitarian, but I refuse a moral equivalence between the standard operating procedures of the IDF and those of Hamas and other terrorist groups. — BitconnectCarlos

Yet those standard operational procedures (SOPs in general) do matter a lot. It starts from things like is fighting a terrorist group a police matter or a military matter? Do you mimic the Wehrmachts approach fighting partizans in Russia during WW2 or the approach of the Bundespolizei "fighting" the Red Army Fraction terrorists? Operational procedures or what kind of war you fight does matter. One of the most striking differences can be seen when you look at how the Soviet Union fought the Mujaddehin and the US has fought basically the same people for far longer. During the Soviet invasion at least half a million and up to two million civilians died. Now during the twenty years the US has fought in the same country about 40 000 civilians have died. That's the difference between SOPs.

You seem to concentrate on the Hamas, yet conflict is far larger than one group among the Palestinians and Israel's actions towards it. One real issue is that now the more protesters have been the Palestinian citizens of Israel, the so-called "Arab Israelis" who aren't living either in the West Bank or the Gaza concentration camp. To say that every nation has the right to defend itself from attacks is true, but that doesn't give a carte blanche.

I haven't studied the IRA conflict in detail, but have IRA members ever ran through London stabbing other people indiscriminately until they were eventually shot? — BitconnectCarlos

Why would they? That they nearly killed Prime minister Thatcher in Brighton in 1984 tells about the capability of the PIRA besides the "positive" kill ratio and the ability to survive to a political agreement, whereas similar knife attacks have even happened even here (and not by Hamas, but your local islamist terrorist wannabe ...and he was put down, not shot dead).

(Prime minister Thatcher with her husband and a personal aide being evacuated after the bomb attack. The facial expressions tell something.)


Yet the conflict in Ireland, not just in Northern Ireland but the whole history from the Irish revolt and the IRA, to Irish Independence and then "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland is quite comparable to the Palestinian conflict, if we separate from this the wars that Israel has fought with it's neighbors. In both in Ireland and in Palestine you actually have the British involved and in both occasions the fighting was a low intensity conflict. The fact is that Northern Ireland is rather peaceful now and the political agreement, the Good Friday agreement of 1998, has held should make people think what did the British do differently? Because in my view they did fight a low intensity conflict differently. Starting from the fact that nobody in the media called it a war or even an insurgency.

. I do remember a ton of bombings on Palestinian side and assassination of Rabin on the Israeli side the closer the two sides got to a real agreement. I remember this. Do you? — schopenhauer1

Don't forget President Anwar Sadat of Egypt. He was killed after making a peace agreement with Israel (and getting back the Sinai) in an military victory parade in 1981. By the usual suspects (religious terrorists, who else?)

I believe this was the case for the Taba negotiations. Namely commit to resolution 242, with some modifications and land exchange. This meant that Israeli's got to keep some land not stipulated in 242 and Palestine would do the same. But the land swap would've been moderate.

This would still be the case for a reasonable resolution of the conflict for the short to medium term. But it's more than enough to work on. Israel has gone very much to the right since 2000 more or less. Yes Hamas beat the PLO in Gaza by very little, but they won. I don't know if there's something to the right of Hamas in Gaza. Maybe.

But it wouldn't really make a difference because the situation on the ground in Gaza is dire. So even if they wanted sophisticated missiles, they can't get them. Nor should they seek them either, don't get me wrong.

So, in short, yes. Moderates or at least a compromise towards moderation is the only way.

The opposing sides in the troubles hated each other but there wasn't the same level of dehumanization. It would have been absolutely inconceivable for the British to have sent warplanes in and bombed Catholic neighbourhoods due to them harboring IRA suspects while the US and other western nations blithely pontificated, over the bodies of dismembered children, about Britain's right to defend itself. No, the Western world would have been in uproar because white Catholics are considered human whereas the Palestinians have yet to reach that level, as demonstrated aptly in this thread. Conclusion: racism is the primary driver behind the defenders of the recent civilian massacres in Gaza.

"We're sorry about those dead children but the IRA were using them as human shields and we had no intention of blowing them into little bloody pieces".
"Oh, no problem. Can we sell you some white phosphorus?"

Final point, if the British had been carrying out (intentionally or otherwise) civilian massacres resulting in, effectively, collective punishment for IRA attacks (some of which were as atrocious as anything Hamas has done*), the whole Island of Ireland would have risen up against them and received massive levels of support in doing so.

*IRA attacks

Conclusion: racism is the primary driver behind the defenders of the recent civilian massacres in Gaza. — Baden

:100: fuckin' percent!

Generally Accepted: Israel has a right to defend itself
Generally Accepted: Britain has a right to defend itself
Generally Accepted: Israel has a right to defend itself [with almost no restrictions][against brown people].
Generally not Accepted: Britain has a right to defend itself [with almost no restrictions][against white people].

You either bite the bullet and say that you would have supported the British in bombing Catholic civilians in order to kill embedded IRA operatives or you are a racist. Own it. (Or explain a fundamental difference between the two "defensive" scenarios.)

(The worst offenders here, imo, are liberals who like to virtue signal about BLM but turn a blind eye to what's happening in Palestine. A racist hypocrite is probably even worse than an honest racist.)

Let's get them out of the closet.

I'm not sure about other countries but in the Netherlands this latest attack by Israel appears to be the death knell for Israeli PR. The majority seems to be pro Palestinian now. @Tobias what's your view on Dutch sentiment?

I read contradictory statements about it. Last thing I saw was an inquiry for Volkskrant newspaper. Support for Israel is at an all time low, but at the same time there is little love for the Palestinians. My sentiment is that the young and well educated in increasing number support the Palestinian cause, but I think most people actually, the biggest voter base, does not really care and see Israel at least not as a threat.

Why would they? — ssu

Ok, so you're telling me that the IRA did not go out of its way to maximize civilian casualties. Something tells me that if they did, the British public would see them quite a bit differently and peace would have been a bit more of an obstacle. The ways in which terror attacks are carried out are deeply relevant both morally and for public perception: A strike on an empty bar on a Sunday morning where the enemy gathers is quite different from one against a crowded night club on a Saturday night where young people gather. The IRA does not strike me as morally comparable to Hamas with both the methods and general hatred coming from Hamas running much deeper. To the best of my understanding, the IRA did not try to maximize civilian casualties or recruit child suicide bombers (in all fairness this one even caused backlash among normal Palestinian civilians.) The IRA also did not seek to destroy the UK or define their vision in uncompromising dogmatic religious language. Take a look at the Hamas charter:

https://fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/880818a.htm

Yet the conflict in Ireland, not just in Northern Ireland but the whole history from the Irish revolt and the IRA, to Irish Independence and then "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland is quite comparable to the Palestinian conflict, if we separate from this the wars that Israel has fought with it's neighbors. — ssu

Unfortunately we can't make this separation otherwise the history and moral judgments that we draw just don't make sense. If we don't consider the wars then it just looks like Israel just grabbed the land out of nowhere.

We need to consider the circumstances under which the land was taken. The conflict cannot be viewed in isolation, it must be viewed as part of the broader Arab-Israeli conflict, and even in this conflict things aren't black-and-white. Egypt also helps with the blockade against Gaza because they don't support Hamas either. Others just conveniently ignore the fact the if the Arab countries wanted they could relieve the pressure, but they don't. If your own people aren't stepping into help when they could that is definitely its own issue. Jews have always accepted other Jews into Israel even when doing so was a serious difficulty.

That's the difference between SOPs. — ssu

Sure we can talk about SOPs and this would be useful discussion to have. I'd suspect the USSR would have been much, much more than brutal than Israel here. I'm certain the Nazis would have been much more brutal as well. I'd suspect the Israeli response would be roughly in line with the US on an issue like this and we can try to draw some numbers. If the US is averaging 2k/year civilians dead in the war on terror then Israel is doing even better, on average and that number includes militants. In these discussions it can be difficult to determine what exactly qualifies as a "humane" number. You drew an example from the Lebanon conflict earlier, but Lebanon was an actual war as opposed to dealing with the Palestinians.

It would still be an extremely useful bit of information to know how IDF SOPs compare with those of the US and UK in low intensity conflicts.

The opposing sides in the troubles hated each other but there wasn't the same level of dehumanization. It would have been absolutely inconceivable for the British to have sent warplanes in and bombed Catholic neighbourhoods due to them harboring IRA suspects while the US and other western nations blithely pontificated, over the bodies of dismembered children, about Britain's right to defend itself. No, the Western world would have been in uproar because white Catholics are considered human whereas the Palestinians have yet to reach that level, as demonstrated aptly in this thread. Conclusion: racism is the primary driver behind the defenders of the recent civilian massacres in Gaza. — Baden

Baden, we in Europe were just fine with Yugoslav's killing well over 100 000 of each other. And in that conflict there were catholics, orthodox and yes, also muslims. When it comes to the Middle East, we simply just tell ourselves that that part of the World is a violent place and these people have been killing each other for ages. Period. If the Swiss would be having an ethnic conflict, we'd have "specialists" giving a multitude of reasons just why the Swiss cannot live in peace with each other and just why it has come to a civil war. And we'd be fine with that: It's just the Swiss, they are so bellicose to each other. And they have so many languages and ethnicities...

Yet I would make an emphasis on the crucial point you made: Basically the British government put it's soldiers and policemen into danger without heavy fire-support. It didn't minimize it's own losses and maximize losses of the other side. Every British government understood that tanks using their cannons, artillery firing shells or the Royal Air Force giving air support to the troops by bombs or rocket fire would mean that everything WOULD BE OVER. The British government could not then deny that there is a war going on. The television pictures would show it. The British government would get criticism and condemnation from European countries (and naturally the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc). It would have the British pop scene making groovy anti-war pop songs and the voters being fed up of the whole mess. Likely the British administration in power would have fallen. It would be just a part in the British malaise would have ended up in something more humiliating than the Suez crisis. Yet the PIRA laid down it's arms and some kind of peace has prevailed in Northern Ireland.

Just to understand how different this was from the present, here's a weekly documentary from 1972. What is telling is how different the interview with a higher ranking officer by the TV journalists is compared to these times. Now we live in an age of classic propaganda where such honest answers wouldn't be given and such questions wouldn't be even asked.



And this is not something only related to the UK. If the Spanish government would have sent the Spanish military into Catalonia with tanks and bombed Barcelona from the air, I think there would be a lot of support for Catalan Independence and widespread condemnation of the Spanish government. But if it would have come to that (or will come to that), in the end after the condemnations we'll just remark "There the Spanish go again...with another civil war of theirs".

So I don't think it's much about racism. We just adapt to people being crazy. Anywhere.

The IRA does not strike me as morally comparable to Hamas with both the methods and general hatred coming from Hamas running much deeper. — BitconnectCarlos

You think the Palestinian conflict is only about Israel and Hamas?

You drew an example from the Lebanon conflict earlier, but Lebanon was an actual war as opposed to dealing with the Palestinians. — BitconnectCarlos

BC, do you know what the objective was of the "Peace for Galilee" operation? What was the main objective of that war and who were the Israelis going after? Let me quote Prime minister Menachem Begin's speech about the reasons why Israel opted to attack it's neighbor with the operation "Peace for Galilee":

As for Operation Peace for Galilee, it does not really belong to the category of wars of no alternative. We could have gone on seeing our civilians injured in Metulla or Qiryat Shimona or Nahariya. We could have gone on counting those killed by explosive charges left in a Jerusalem supermarket, or a Petah Tikvah bus stop. All the orders to carry out these acts of murder and sabotage came from Beirut. Should we have reconciled ourselves to the ceaseless killing of civilians, even after the agreement ending hostilities reached last summer, which the terrorists interpreted as an agreement permitting them to strike at us from every side, besides southern Lebanon? 'Not One Month of Quiet'

There are slanderers who say that a full year of quiet has passed between us and the terrorists. Nonsense. There was not even one month of quiet. The newspapers and communications media, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, did not publish even one line about our capturing the gang of murderers that crossed the Jordan in order to commandeer a bus and murder its passengers.

True, such actions were not a threat to the existence of the state. But they did threaten the lives of civilians whose number we cannot estimate, day after day, week after week, month after month.

During the past nine weeks, we have, in effect, destroyed the combat potential of 20,000 terrorists. We hold 9,000 in a prison camp. Between 2,000 and 3,000 were killed and between 7,000 and 9,000 have been captured and cut off in Beirut. They have decided to leave there only because they have no possiblity of remaining there. The problem will be solved.

I - we - can already look beyond the fighting. It will soon be over, we hope, and then I believe, indeed I know, we will have a long period of peace. There is no other country around us that is capable of attacking us.

He is not referring to the Syrians as being the terrorists, but the PLO. It was all about the Palestinian conflict.

And for the facts about how much "peace" this invasion got? The the massacres at Shabra and Shatila refugee camps didn't help (even if perpetrated by Israeli allies, the IDF ordering them to clear the refugee camps of PLO fighters was not a great move). Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon only in the year 2000 and basically fought a low intensity war all that time there, for 18 years. The so-called "Southern Lebanese Army", the Israeli proxy, collapsed immediately and the area wasn't taken over by the Lebanese Army, but by Hezbollah, which had fought a long time the Israeli occupiers. And after six years Israel fought another war in Lebanon in 2006, which didn't go so well, actually.

So "Peace for Galilee" indeed, as the Likud Prime minister foresaw and "knew".

But anyway, it's a perpetual war and those in power in Israel totally fine with it. Why seek peace when this off and on -conflict isn't threatening the state?

So I don't think it's much about racism. We just adapt to people being crazy. Anywhere. — ssu

Not convinced. Sure, there are political reasons for the British not to have bombed Ireland or the Spanish, Catalonia, but it begs the question to bring them up (and obviously if events did unfold in that direction, they would no longer be inconceivable though the reaction imo would not be nearly as glib as you predict). So, the point remains unanswered, why is it inconceivable to us that white western civilians be subject to heavy military artillery bombardments as part of defensive actions against so-called terrorists while perfectly natural that brown non-westerners should be? The idea of the former we find shocking, the latter is simply shrugged off. In the absence of some other explanation for the disparity, my thesis is racism. I invite anyone who objects to provide an alternative (without going off on irrelevant tangents) or maybe tell me why they think the British should have gone ahead and bombed the Irish. At least there might be some consistency there.

It's quite simple how wars work:

No country goes to war without having a reason to justify it's actions to "international community", to avoid denouncements.

Israel had a good reason to go to war but problem is those reasons are not important to other states, so to make it important their police entered sacred place to provoke Arabs into attacking.

This worked because Israel now had a right to defend it self.

The real reason however (behind the scene) was to stop terrorists getting stronger, which if left over would be serious for Israel in the future.

"Killing civilians" is subjective.

The solution is not to have children.

There is no other solution or cure.

All of histories horrors centre around people unnecessarily having children. These children are histories canon fodder.

If you have children and expect some kind of natural justice and equality then you are deeply deluded.

My children don't live in a refugee camp because they are non existent. Biological Parents are child abusers. This is a philosophically indisputable fact. They create the cycle of harm and exploitation.

These kind of ideological conflicts are not only a distraction from parental responsibility but a deliberate infliction of suffering onto future generations.

Biological Parents are child abusers. — Andrew4Handel

These types of anti-natalists are lunatics

Hamas operates like a small nation, the IRA is a domestic terrorist organisation, the scale is incomparable. Just the premise of this latest conflict, Hamas launching thousands of missiles from the territory they govern into Israel, is incomparable to anything that occurred in the conflicts being mentioned.

I do think race, religion, poverty, culture, geopolitics, all of these things do play a role in public opinion about what happens in Gaza and the West Bank. Western nations are guilty of this in domestic affairs, it only makes sense that it makes a difference here. Probably the biggest factor is narrative, Hamas talk, dress and act like stereotypical Islamic terrorists, they terrify people and neatly fit into the war on terror narrative. The change in tone this time has a lot to do with social media, the narrative isn't so easily controlled by governments and the news media. I don't think public opinion on Israel is advanced enough that people abandon their empathy due to racism.

Good to see Gantz being a great humanitarian:

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-gantz-non-humanitarian-aid-to-gaza-depends-on-return-of-israeli-soldiers-bodies-1.9836555

:roll:

These types of anti-natalists are lunatics — Maw

I refuse to cause suffering to children and I am a lunatic? If that is your notion of reality then I pity reality.

Every antinatalist holds parents responsible for their child's suffering.

The idea that people in a war zone are justified in having however many children they like is sadistic unconscionable child abuse.

Isn't it great that I could have a hundred children and you would blame the Jews and Israel for their suffering?

The pathological Anti-Semites here will never be reasoned with. There is no other dimension to their position. They will blame the Israeli Jews for anything and everything. Another degrading spectacle for humanity.

If anyone has ever wondered how it is that so-called normal people (in Germany, say) let Nazis get away with what they did, to look as the defenders of current-day Israel is to have your answer.



One only has to let Israelis on the street speak without interruption to recognize that it is a state toxic with a virulent, murderous racism down to its very core.

Pretty straightforward illustration of how bullshit the 'Both Sides" approach is and a candid approach to such an interlocuter is to tell them how many Palestinians were injured/killed in a given year and have them guess how many Israelis were killed/injured in that year, and follow up if this is truly a "both sides" issue. Worked on my Grandmother!

What's truly anti-semitic imo is the presumption that being Jewish defines your character is such a way that you must support the actions of Israel's right-wing government or take any particular political or ethical stance. There are plenty of Jewish people (Israeli and otherwise), including posters here, who are perfectly entitled to disagree with your position. So, I caution you to curb your anti-semitism in this regard as it is a bannable offence.

So, the point remains unanswered, why is it inconceivable to us that white western civilians be subject to heavy military artillery bombardments as part of defensive actions against so-called terrorists while perfectly natural that brown non-westerners should be? — Baden

Once when just the riot police seems not to have the situation under control, then there is the next step. And this isn't limited to "other races". It genuinely can happen. We are just so hypocrite, self-righteous and full of ourselves when we say that "it could not happen here". But where is that "there" compared to "here"?

Are (or were) the Yugoslavs, like Slovenes, Croats or Serbs etc. white western civilians or not?

(The civil war started in Slovenia. Tanks & were used)


How about the Greeks? They had their Civil War after WW2. And had a hideous military junta afterwards.

(Artillery used in the Greek Civil War)


Or Ukrainians?


Russians? (Yeltsin using tanks in Moscow against the Parliament...and protesters)


Basically if any government feels so much under distress that it rolls out armour on to it's own streets, then there is a possibility of those vehicles using their firepower. That's why it's usually the last thing to do as nothing provokes a crowd more than a tracked armoured artillery pillbox. The possibility that things get out of control is there. Hence it isn't inconceivable that these kinds of tragedies could happen.

(French tanks guarding the Assemblee Nationale during the Algiers Putsch. in Paris, 1961.)


Even in Catalonia in 2017 military units were deployed to assist the riot police, hence the slippery slope was there. It's even more dangerous when the armed forces haven't trained to operate in a state of political upheaval. In an anti-EU protest the Danish military had to resort to live rounds as they didn't have any rubber bullets or other equipment etc. Luckily only few were injured (and good luck trying to find that in a Google search, as nobody wants to remember that an anti-EU demonstration in Denmark got live bullets fired at it!) We have now seen from the developments in Ukraine and Georgia that a Yugoslav-style civil war breakup of the Soviet Union was totally possible. So this isn't something only limited to the Middle East.

You think the Palestinian conflict is only about Israel and Hamas? — ssu

We can bring in Fatah, we can bring in Al-Aqsa martyrs brigade, we can bring in Black September, we can bring in whoever you like. I only mention Hamas as they are the main players in Gaza right now. Of course Israel would rather have Fatah in charge but Fatah are no angels, either to the Israelis or the Palestinians who they've been known to embezzle billions from.

But anyway, it's a perpetual war and those in power in Israel totally fine with it. Why seek peace when this off and on -conflict isn't threatening the state? — ssu

I agree, and I'm pessimistic about the current Israeli leadership's interest in genuine peace. I'm also doubtful of Hamas' interest in peace. A low intensity war serves political purposes for both sides, still I don't draw moral equivalency between a democratic state and a terrorist group. I've stated many times that I'm not binding myself to a position where I need to justify everything Israel does - I'll attempt to make sense of some of it, but I'm not up to the task of defending everything.

Fundamentally though we need to be forward-looking if we ever hope to make peace as opposed to looking back. When one group of people pits blame on entirely one side it's extremely counterproductive and it just makes that side defensive. I believe many young people have an interest in peace and I hope to see this pay dividends in later years assuming the violence doesn't escalate and hatred doesn't enter peoples' hearts through repeated calls to past injustices and demonization of the enemy. We can help accomplish this through dialogues and communication but this is difficult because Hamas will arrest Palestinians for engaging with Israelis, still there is hope.

So, the point remains unanswered, why is it inconceivable to us that white western civilians be subject to heavy military artillery bombardments as part of defensive actions against so-called terrorists while perfectly natural that brown non-westerners should be? The idea of the former we find shocking, the latter is simply shrugged off. In the absence of some other explanation for the disparity, my thesis is racism. — Baden

Apparently, the very fact of this question res ipsa loquitur. Both those of us waiting for an answer and those who've swallowed their forked tongues in the face of this question tacitly agree, it seems, that there are ethical and political stakes to hazard in owning up to this banal, human all to human, ugliness. I've already named names on this thread, and though I await a germaine response from any of them, I won't hold my breath.