Please, sir, STFU. Much appreciated.

What evidence do you have that Israelis are committed to murdering Palestinians?

Has anyone ever considered whatever good the various parties have done...? :D

Jussayin' (not that I have a particular answer myself).

Arab Muslims are far better colonizers than Jews will ever be. They are such good colonizers that the Western world takes it for granted that they must be the original inhabitants of the huge swaths of land they've conquered. The Islamic fundamentalism of Hamas is difficult for the West to wrap its mind around because the mentality is so foreign to us but it's encapsulated in the original 1988 Hamas charter: "Jihad is its path and *death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes."*

Maybe we're the ones in the wrong. What's this brief life on Earth compared with the eternal bliss of the one true Creator, Allah? Live for death, not for life.

Please, sir, STFU. Much appreciated. — 180 Proof

But yeah, better to leave your racist rantings there. Not that you could do much worse, but that we don’t have to feel so nauseated by being reminded that members of this forum hold such disgusting, callous views. — Mikie

The Israel haters here (esp. the moderators) sure do come across as pricks sometimes.

I understand that you wish to denounce Israel for establishing itself, for dispossessing Palestinians, and for generally treating Palestinians roughly. Fine, denounce away. But dispossession and cultural disruption just are not the same thing as genocide. I'm pretty sure you understand what the customary meaning of genocide is, so use it.

Cultural destruction is a bad thing too, but I don't see Palestinians being forced to give up their religion, their language, their social habits and practices, etc. Again, their culture and lives are being severely disrupted -- which happens when your homeland is a battlefield.

Gaza probably will be an uninhabitable rubbish heap by the time Israel decides it has destroyed the military capacity of Hamas. The war in Gaza might well be the prelude to another dispossession. Who is going to rebuild Gaza, and for whom?

Arab Muslims are far better colonizers than Jews will ever be. They are such good colonizers that the Western world takes it for granted that they must be the original inhabitants of the huge swaths of land they've conquered. The Islamic fundamentalism of Hamas is difficult for the West to wrap its mind around because the mentality is so foreign to us but it's encapsulated in the original 1988 Hamas charter: "Jihad is its path and *death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes."*

Maybe we're the ones in the wrong. What's this brief life on Earth compared with the eternal bliss of the one true Creator, Allah? Live for death, not for life. — BitconnectCarlos

This is mostly bullshit, though. For the most part, the geographical development of Islam was done by Persians, and it wasn't done violently. Islam was attractive because it served as merchant law throughout Central Asia.

And there's nothing foreign about Muslim extremism. Your bigotry stinks.

Gaza is a concentration camp whose people have been living with Israeli occupation and terrorism for decades. — Mikie

You, Benkie, and others who are perfectly capable of more precise language are falling back on terms applicable to the Nazi extermination of Jews. Israel is neither engaging in genocide nor operating a concentration camp in Gaza. People in the Nazi concentration camps were subjected to severe deprivation leading to very high death rates. Prior to October 7, 500 trucks per day delivered food and other supplies to Gaza. That's a truck load for every 42 people per week. That's 1 truck load of supplies per every 15 people per month. It could have been more, sure, but conditions did not resemble a concentration camp.

Palestinians have described Gaza as an open air prison. That is probably exactly how it felt to people who did not leave every day to work in Israel. But again, not a concentration camp.

The war Israel is conducting may kill another 20,000 civilians before it is over. At the end of the war -- next week, next month, next year, there will be nothing to return to for most of the Gaza residents, save piles of rubble. How literally "nothing to return to" describes reality will depend on how long the current bombing and shelling continues.

Creating a population of 2,300,000 homeless people is entirely worthy of condemnation. Destroying schools, hospitals, businesses, mosques, etc. adds significantly to the Palestinian misery and deserves condemnation -- even if Hamas was living under and in the hospital, the school, the mosque.

You two, @Mikie and @Benkei should be performing at a higher level of expression, especially since you are moderating,

This is mostly bullshit, though. For the most part, the geographical development of Islam was done by Persians, and it wasn't done violently. Islam was attractive because it served as merchant law throughout Central Asia.

And there's nothing foreign about Muslim extremism. Your bigotry stinks. — frank

I think these kind of blanket statements come out of taking the opposite side. "You say that Muslims conquered violently! I say they were a delightful bunch of peaceniks that people simply couldn't resist being a part of." I mean it depends on what part of the history, in what region, the various rulers and empires. There were definitely parts that were violent. The whole reason the Middle East is Islamic is because Arabs formed a deadly army that was able to defeat the floundering empires (like the Byzantine Empire) and other smaller regions in their spread across to North Africa and Spain on one side and into almost Vienna on the other (eventually much later.. but still into Persia and Pakistan area, etc.).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Muslim_conquests

The whole reason the Middle East is Islamic is because Arabs formed a deadly army that was able to defeat the floundering empires — schopenhauer1

If you keep reading you'll find that within about a generation after the Arabs came out of Arabia, the Iranians took back their own territory, as Muslims. At that point, the Islamic leaders were all former Christians, Zoroastrians, and Buddhists. For the most part, Islam was spread in the Persian language.

It's just a historical fact that conversion to Islam was usually voluntary because of the social stability it provided.

Not my point. Many people converted to Christianity for similar reasons. That's how these kind of religions work. In Christendom it was usually kings that converted and then came their subjects or tribal units.. But my point was it was still a conquering, militaristic force.

Ask the people conquered under Genghis Khan their thoughts versus just a generation later under the "Pax Mongolia" of the "peaceful" Mongolian Empire of Kublai Khan. You cannot just skip over stuff because it's convenient for your argument.

You cannot just skip over stuff because it's convenient for your argument. — schopenhauer1

I was just answering Bitconnect's claim that Arabs were great colonizers. That's not true. The great Muslim colonizers were Persian.

I was just answering Bitconnect's claim that Arabs were great colonizers. That's not true. The great Muslim colonizers were Persian. — frank

Cool. The Persians still had to be conquered and made it worth their while to "convert" for this to even be a thing, that's all I'm saying. I'm not sure about the picayunish point (in this debate) that indeed many Persian philosophers and centers of study eventually took shape adding to the Islamic Empire and Golden Age.

The Persians still had to be conquered and made it worth their while to "convert" for this to even be a thing, that's all I'm saying. — schopenhauer1

I agree.

:up:

Your solution leaves out the security issue for Palestinians and is a common denial for people's right to self-determination. — Benkei

As to Palestinian self-determination, they seem to have made those decisions and to have made them consistently for around at least 75 years. Which is why I think them incapable of self-government at least for a while. As to my solution, do you not understand the reference to blue-helmets? My notion here is that the UN would not so much govern but would encourage a relatively free and democratic society, and would enforce peace. As it sits, the history seems to tell all of us that the Palestinians want war and death over peace and prosperity, and they are and have been pushing the Israelis to deliver both, which the Israelis do not have a lot of choice about.

You, Benkie, and others who are perfectly capable of more precise language are falling back on terms applicable to the Nazi extermination of Jews. — BC

If it’s provocative, it’s to get people to understand the situation. Is there truth to it? Yes. Likud is not the Nazi party, however. But I don’t say Nazi concentration camps or say Gaza is Auschwitz, and never have. “Open air prison” is also accurate— but if using that term is preferable because it makes people feel better, I’m not interested.

You two, Mikie and @Benkei should be performing at a higher level of expression, especially since you are moderating, — BC

As I’ve said, this isn’t made up by me — I’m repeating Norm Finkelstein, who himself is citing the Israeli scholar Baruch Kimmerling. Based on what I’ve read, spoken to Palestinians about, and seen, I think it’s an accurate description. It’s not hyperbole .

As for genocide— sorry, but that’s exactly what’s happening.

acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group

I see no way around it when looking at the numbers. We can blame Hamas or excuse it all as “defense” or accidental or (the most inhumane of all, in my view) collateral damage. But that’s buying into a government’s justifications and narrative. Every government and every group, including those deemed terrorists, give some justification for their actions. Hamas does too— and we shouldn’t buy into it.

These numbers are unacceptable. Period. I don’t care what the reason is. You shouldn’t be killing 8000 children. That’s a fucking monstrosity and we should all be outraged.

denounce Israel for establishing itself, — BC

False. I've never done that and that's never been my point.

As to genocide, I'm using it exactly as it is defined. It's asshats like you who pretend to know what they talk about and then whine about semantics, not knowing the definitions. So, once again (the third time in this thread), according to the convention to prevent genocide:

Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
— Convention

I’m not going to go out on a limb here and say that most extreme factions of Palestinians (which are a majority), in absence of an army, use terrorism as a way to assert their “genocidal” beliefs. Oh does that sound like it’s overusing the word? Well, everyone can do it I guess. But as I said earlier, everyone’s going to use their particular cudgel. Whatever Bibi’s policies were in the West Bank, Hamas, Gazans ruling party, made their own series of poor decisions. But I’m sure you’ll find a way to justify that and then turn it around and blame the Israelis for their bad decisions. Always leads to the same answer of the blame game. I wonder why… Whether it’s convenient or not, they were given boatloads of cash and squandered it and blamed Israel. They could have just set up elections, worked on development, etc. there were other avenues, that would have led to simply trading in economics instead of rockets. But when one takes everything as an a priori truth that “Israel has been, is, and will always be wrong” then you’ve already got your conclusions.

But I’m willing to admit, none of these actors right now are playing in the realm of idealism. There is no turn the other cheek and live in harmony. These are two brutally realist actors. I guess one might say the jihadism of Hamas might make them a bit different than realism. Not sure just fundamentalist I guess. Certainly, if mothers consider suicide bombers and rapist murderers as a positive thing, perhaps there is some values out of line there.

This is also why war is different than other conflict. Here you have large populations all holding various ideas that might differ from their official state policies. Yet if the official state policies are hostile and bad natured, then the populations will suffer.

Meaning is use, and it's no coincidence that the language used to describe the Israeli response is intended to write an ironic and hypocritical narrative of the Jewish experience by comparing today's Israel to yesterday's Nazis. It's an argument of moral equivalence.

The terms bantered about here like genocide and concentration camps bear no resemblance to what those terms mean to Jews, and we cannot pretend they are not being used sardonically and intentionally to say "you escaped persecution only to be like those you escaped."

This is the Gaza "concentration camp" prior to the recent war:



I could share photos of Nazi concentration camps, but I'll do my ancestors the respect not to trot those out. They were death camps, designed for the separating, forcing into labor, gassing, and burning of an entire race. But you can compare the ways "concentration camp" is used and decide if it's appropriate to have a single word describe both situations.

As to genocide, this is what genocide looks like:



That's just Europe. Over 900,000 Jews have been expelled from the Middle East since WW2.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_world

The Palestinian population has increased 9 fold in Israel since 1948.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-05/13/c_138055503.htm#:~:text=%22The%20Palestinian%20population%20in%20the,1948%2C%22%20said%20the%20report.

This is why we asshats quibble over your terms.

Great points.

Meaning is use, and it's no coincidence that the language used to describe the Israeli response is intended to write an ironic and hypocritical narrative of the Jewish experience by comparing today's Israel to yesterday's Nazis. It's an argument of moral equivalence.

The terms bantered about here like genocide and concentration camps bear no resemblance to what those terms mean to Jews, and we cannot pretend they are not being used sardonically and intentionally to say "you escaped persecution only to be like those you escaped." — Hanover

This seems to be exactly what’s implied.

This is nonsense.

Israel can't draw the Holocaust card to excuse its own genocidal behavior.

is exactly right. Israel's behavior fits the IHL definition of genocide, and as I have pointed out before, there are examples of people who were convicted for the crime of genocide (for example, during the ICTY) that are much smaller in scale in comparison to what Israel is doing today in Gaza (and what it has subjected the Palestinian people to over the course of decades).

In short, an unsuccessful genocide is still a genocide, and just because the Jewish people were subjected to genocide in the past, does not give them a right to commit the same crime onto others.

Just curious when is there a distinction between genocide and simply the consequences of war itself? Was the carpet bombing of North Vietnam genocide or bad war policy? Was the bombing of Berlin genocide or how the strategic goals of the war were carried out in order to gain unconditional surrender.

I think rather @Hanover is suggesting that rather than dealing in the substance this is using cynical ploys at terminology by so framing this “hypocritical and ironic narrative of moral equivalence”, as he put it.

Rather, the framing of the question should be whether this is the right military strategy, and overall approach to resolving this issue. Their objective might come at too high a cost. But this is also playing in the hands of Hamas. However, it now has to live with the consequences of leading their people down a suicidal path, so they should allow an international coalition to govern the region provisionally, as long as the hostages are given back. Hamas has to step down on some fashion, that seems to be the crux here along with the hostages.

If you don't know the history of Palestine after WWI then you're just willfully ignorant. — Vaskane

What exactly is your point? Is it that October 7th gets a pass because of something that happened before October 7th? How exactly does that work?

I break through your walls and fences and seize and brutalize and murder your family, but oh!, wait, it's ok because your long-gone great-grandfather stole a cow, long gone, from my great-grandfather also long gone, and I am such a victim of that crime that I owe my life to actively seeking vengeance and your death. And, oh by the way, there's a good chance your great-grandfather bought that cow, but that doesn't matter because you're just a Jew and I have to murder you anyway. Is that your argument and point?

Or should the Israelis on October 8th have ignored the attack, saying something like, "Pshaw, they won't do that again," when in fact some outrage or attack from Gaza has been a routine occurrence for years and years?

The same question to you that others cannot answer or will not try to answer: it's October 8th, what do the Israelis do? If you're the Israeli head of state, what do you do? What would Golda Meir have done?

The Israelis have been clear: they want Hamas done, and they want the hostages back. And now the Palestinians in Gaza are paying a terrible price for having chosen Hamas to govern them. But do they really want peace? They could try returning hostages, for a start.

First step is getting Netanyahu out of office. — schopenhauer1

Another thing to consider is, I wonder what it would take for the Gazans to hand over Hamas. — schopenhauer1

Netanyahu might go at some time, but I think the real problem is the extreme right, people like Smotrich and others. They won't go away and the moderates in Israel are few without much support. The Labor party is a tiny opposition party. People that push for the "From the Sea to the River"-soluntion without the Palestinians and are totally against any kind of Palestinian sovereignty do have a lot of power. And from their viewpoint, why not?

Equally difficult is the Palestinian politics. Democratic elections might give authority, but I think with the current environment and actions of the IDF, that might also not get elected the kind of people that we Westerners would assume to solve the situation.

This is the Gaza "concentration camp" prior to the recent war: — Hanover

So apparently not everything that the Gulf States gave their weren't put into building tunnels.

I've lost count how many times the Palestinian areas have been built by outside money just for Israel to destroy the buildings as "terrorist strongholds".

I've lost count how many times the Palestinian areas have been built by outside money just for Israel to destroy the buildings as "terrorist strongholds". — ssu

My point remains that the usage of the terms "concentration camp" and "genocide" has been and continues to be used to create a moral equivalency argument between Israel and Nazi Germany. Acting as if those terms are just generic terms that can be used in all sorts of contexts of varying degrees is not taken seriously by anyone recognizing the context of upon which Israel was given statehood or by who resides in that land.

Netanyahu might go at some time, but I think the real problem is the extreme right, people like Smotrich and others. They won't go away and the moderates in Israel are few without much support. The Labor party is a tiny opposition party. People that push for the "From the Sea to the River"-soluntion without the Palestinians and are totally against any kind of Palestinian sovereignty do have a lot of power. And from their viewpoint, why not?

Equally difficult is the Palestinian politics. Democratic elections might give authority, but I think with the current environment and actions of the IDF, that might also not get elected the kind of people that we Westerners would assume to solve the situation. — ssu

Well, the Labor Party with Ehud Barak was voted in previously, and right after Netanyahu, so there has been a model in the past for such things!

Equally difficult is the Palestinian politics. Democratic elections might give authority, but I think with the current environment and actions of the IDF, that might also not get elected the kind of people that we Westerners would assume to solve the situation. — ssu

Yes. I think the weird unknown here is Abbas and Fatah. The way some people have phrased it, rather than being equivalent to something like a Labor Party or peacniks, they are like Hamas-lite. They still give pensions to terrorists and such. Abbas himself has practically a major in Holocaust-denial (that was his thesis). So I don't really no what their ability to work as "moderates" are, other than they aren't openly supporting terrorism at the moment. But, I have always thought Bibi never nurtured the relations with Fatah and Abbas, and for cynical gain I am sure. So again, Netanyahu and rightwing has to go, and Fatah, I don't even know what to do with that other than find someone who is moderate whether in Fatah or some outsider. I have heard rumors of another guy, I forgot his name.. who might be some moderate voice that both Gaza and West Bank respect?

What I think we got to get away from, absolutely, is looking at ndividuals as completely not autonomous if they are on what you perceive as the "underdog" side.

I've lost count how many times the Palestinian areas have been built by outside money just for Israel to destroy the buildings as "terrorist strongholds". — ssu

Yet after October 7th, are we even doubting there is terrorist activities. I just think this should be stricken as another "strafe" comment, rather than substantive.

Just curious when is there a distinction between genocide and simply the consequences of war itself? Was the carpet bombing of North Vietnam genocide or bad war policy? Was the bombing of Berlin genocide or how the strategic goals of the war were carried out in order to gain unconditional surrender. — schopenhauer1

The distinction is the element of intent, as per the relevant article of legislature that has already been quoted. In the case of Israel, several Israeli politicians including Netanyahu himself have busied overtly genocidal language and thus established intent.

In the case of the bombing of Germany during WWII, I think it is fair to say the Allies had no genocidal intentions. Still, the intentional massacring of huge numbers of civilians is a war crime and morally abhorrent.

In the case of the various different kinds of bombings of Vietnam and Cambodia (including chemical ones), I think this may qualify as genocide given the sheer scale of mass killings and the decades-long impact of the atrocities. That impact is still felt today. Was the mass killing of civilians intentional? In the case of the Vietnam war, I think so. It's a typical phenomenon seen during counterinsurgencies, where the conventional force grows frustrated with its inability to break the resistance, and turns on the civilian population out of frustration.

Rather, the framing of the question should be whether this is the right military strategy, and overall approach to resolving this issue — schopenhauer1

In all situations I've named; the Allied bombing of Germany and Japan, Vietnam, and the Israel-Gaza war, the bombings did not have a decisive impact on the war.

Many of these "strategies" were based on pre-WWII conceptions of airpower, that hypothesized that mass killings among the civilian population could "break" the receiving nation's will to fight.

This is completely unproven. There's not a single instance in history where this was the case, in fact bombing civilians often times strengthens the resolve of the target nation, especially in the case of insurgencies - that's something witnessed during almost every insurgency where mass killings of the civilian population took place.

However, the reason nations still choose this approach is because, especially during insurgencies, airpower brings the promise of low casualties to the own side. It's wishful thinking. All the airpower in the world couldn't bring the US victory in the Middle-East for example, and instead turned it into a nation of war criminals.

I think rather Hanover is suggesting that rather than dealing in the substance this is using cynical ploys at terminology by so framing this “hypocritical and ironic narrative of moral equivalence”, as he put it. — schopenhauer1

There's nothing cynical about pointing out that Israel's actions in Gaza fit the criteria for genocide. As I've noted before, individuals have been convicted of genocide for actions that did not reach the scale of what is taking place in Gaza today. (for examples, look at the ICTY)

I think if Netanyahu were put before an impartial international court, there's enough evidence to convict him of genocide.

That's not a semantical game I'm playing. That's my (in this case educated) opinion.

, the (supposedly) religious aspects aren't quite as innocent as you seem to describe.

Persecution of Zoroastrians
^{— Wikipedia}
Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji (1150-1206)
^{— Wikipedia}

Still to this day, in some cases. :/

Iranian Regime Inciting Hatred, Persecuting Zoroastrian Minority
^{— Ahmad Majidyar · The Middle East Institute · Feb 3, 2017}

↑ There are some genocidal tendencies in this stuff, and the (seemingly) religious aspects of the Israel-Hamas conflict aren't pretty either. If those aspects could somehow be "filtered out" (for all parties), then peace would have a better chance.

(Animated map shows how religion spread around the world (Business Insider · Jul 14, 2015 · 2m:35s))

In the case of the various different kinds of bombings of Vietnam and Cambodia (including chemical ones), I think this may qualify as genocide given the sheer scale of mass killings and the decades-long impact of the atrocities. That impact is still felt today. Was the mass killing of civilians intentional? In the case of the Vietnam war, I think so. It's a typical phenomenon seen during counterinsurgencies, where the conventional force grows frustrated with its inability to break the resistance, and turning on the civilian population out of frustration. — Tzeentch

I mean, I think this is all you need for your arguments to have some merit. Generals tend to go right to the hammer, without considering other tools. But I also think there is a sort of naivete of how warfare manifests. It depends on the objectives and what is being fought over. In this case it is getting rid of an organization that exists to fuck over your population whenever they have the capacity and a chance to do so. It is also to retrieve hostages whilst not giving them what they want. Some objectives require massive force. For example, destroying Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan probably needed massive amounts of force. It is arguably true as well, that Israel could use even more aggressive force (but they don't) to win their objective. But if they are showing some restraint, it can be argued that they should show more restraint. Again, a theme here, is viewing Hamas/Palestinians as having absolutely no autonomy. That is not true. Hamas has the ability to negotiate in terms that would prevent the war from continuing. That is to say, they can make an agreement to leave to Qatar and hand over the hostages forthwith. They could call for an international provisional government perhaps and hand over the hostages. I think Thomas Friedman has a good plan here:

It’s time for the U.S. to tell Israel to put the following offer on the table to Hamas: total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, in return for all the Israeli hostages and a permanent cease-fire under international supervision, including U.S., NATO and Arab observers. And no exchange of Palestinians in Israeli jails. — Thomas Friedman

What Western countries have always had a hard time figuring out is how to conduct asymmetrical warfare whereby the enemy hides amidst the population, uses tunnels, and in the case of groups like Isis and Hamas, use a variety of barbaric terrorist methods, no matter the cost to their own people.