Israeli economy is quite export oriented:Israel has more advanced hardware and technology at hand. — Punshhh
In Israel, exports account for around 40 percent of GDP. Israel main exports are: cut and uncut diamonds, pearls and other precious metals and stones (33 percent of total exports); electrical machinery and equipment, mechanical machinery and appliances, sound and TV recorders and reproducers and computer equipment (22 percent) and chemical products (11 percent). Main export partners are: United States (28 percent of total exports) and Hong Kong (8 percent). Others include: Belgium, United Kingdom, India and China.
I have thought about the case of one person’s death at length. In the end, I concluded that it’s not the deaths that are pertinent, but rather the harm and intent to harm a national, ethnic, or racial group. — Punshhh
We have to understand the Palestinians themselves don't represent an existential threat to Israel as it has an overwhelming military compared to them. In fact, that ONLY non-state actors have been attacking Israel shows the dominance of the Israeli armed forces. So unlike the narrative cherished by Israel, it's not a tiny country surrounded by mighty Arab armies. Nobody else would dare to attack Israel. — ssu
I find this argument weak.First, Hamas has a destabilisation power over Israel for the victims Hamas’ attacks provoke and for their indirect effects (psychological trauma for the population, internal migration and lack of investments due to perceived insecurity, political extremism/division). — neomac
Ah, sorry to say this, but I've heard this so many times this lurid narrative during the war on terror. But let's think about this.Second, given Hamas extremism and support from Muslim world, there is a risk they could manage to get and use biological/chemical weapons — neomac
OK, first of all, nobody else has territorial demands on Israel than the Palestinians naturally, who want their own independent state and Syria, which lost the Golan Heights to Israel in 1967. Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt or Saudi-Arabia or Iran don't have territorial demands on Israel.Third, Hamas is not a relatively isolated threat (as the Basque or IRA terrorism were). Indeed, it can easily combine with anti-Zionist threats coming from incumbent hostile forces (states and jihadist groups) around Israel, which also may have territorial demands over Israel as history has shown. Besides if Iran’s race for nuclear weapons succeeds, the support to Iran from Russia and China continues, while the support to Israel from the US declines and the normalisation with the Saudis doesn’t succeed fast enough, Israel survival as a state can be very much in danger. The world is changing. — neomac
I don’t know what you take to be “pivotal” in geopolitics.
Again, I don’t see what is happening in the Middle East as pivotal, even though it can generate an awful lot of hot air.As far as I’m concerned, a narrow-minded distinction between “pivotal” and “distraction” can mislead us into discounting or underestimating the role played by circumstances in guiding or misguiding geopolitical efforts.
Yes, more demented behaviour from Trump. There are by the way signs coming out of the U.S. that Trump is suffering from dementia and so won’t make it to the election in a fit state. Everyone around the world is building up their military atm. The issue of Taiwan is tied up more in diplomatic relations and commerce between China and the U.S. than in terms of military showdown, as I see it. I will cover this in my last paragraph.Still the Chinese military build-up, posturing and meddling in other conflicts is understandably taken to signal the US should prepare for the worse anyways. And we should not forget that there are also preventive wars.
Anyways, maybe the US under Trump would not be interested in a conflict with China either:
This presumably would be funded from Putin’s war chest. The money saved up from a few decades of selling oil and gas to Europe, including to Ukraine. All income streams which have stopped suddenly. Russia has been able to sell some oil to China and client states, but I doubt it would make up the shortfall. What other income would Russia have? She is under the most severe sanctions and the ruble is worthless. But I don’t have the figures, so I accept that it may be possible that Russia can rearm for another go in ten years. In the meantime, which was my point, Europe will have rearmed and with the appropriate weaponry for such a fight.You sound pretty confident, I don’t know what evidences you have to support your claims. For example 10 years seem enough time for Russia to restore its pre-war capacity for another push
I’m not making specific claims just making broad observations. For Europe to rearm over the next ten years would be easily financed from the current level of economic activity. Provided there is sufficient incentive( which Russia provides).Again, you sound pretty confident, I don’t know what evidences you have to support your claims
These issues (excepting the pandemic) did not affect the EU as much as the U.S., U.K. etc. apart from the effects of globalisation.financial crisis, pandemics, wars, and the crisis of the Western world order under the pressure of a more assertive Rest,
I know, I can’t see the EU failing to provide enough support. They will be aware of the pivotal nature of the war. I know U.S. funding is under question atm, other countries will provide funding from time to time. Japan for example provided I think $15 billion a few weeks ago.To keep Russia bogged down in Ukraine, the West still needs to adequately and promptly support Ukraine as long as needed.
Yes, in some respects China might be in a malaise of some sort. I expect that they were hit hard by the effects of the pandemic and that they will bounce back to an extent.Economic growth is possible if input, output, shipping are secured, free, and sustainable from and to China. But we are seeing a resurgence of global security concerns, Western protectionism, national demographic decline that may compromise the Chinese economic growth.
Here is the problem, if the quantitative element is totally irrelevant than that definition sounds good also to claim that Hamas’ massacre on October the 7th was a genocide. And any accusation of proportionality as intended by many pro-Palestinians here (1 zillion of Palestinian children casualties vs one Israeli soldier casualty) would be equally irrelevant to defend Hamas’ crimes from the accusation of committing a genocide.
Ukraine is pivotal for both Russia and Europe and by extension for the U.S. and to a lesser extent China. — Punshhh
Again, I don’t see what is happening in the Middle East as pivotal, even though it can generate an awful lot of hot air. — Punshhh
In the meantime, which was my point, Europe will have rearmed and with the appropriate weaponry for such a fight. — Punshhh
I’m not making specific claims just making broad observations. For Europe to rearm over the next ten years would be easily financed from the current level of economic activity. Provided there is sufficient incentive( which Russia provides). — Punshhh
Also Europe in the longer term, which I was referring to when I said it would become a super power is inevitable. With a population over 500 million and wide ranging resources including the longer term opportunities for growth, why wouldn’t it? — Punshhh
I know, I can’t see the EU failing to provide enough support. — Punshhh
Yes, it could be argued that Hamas committed genocide on October 7th. — Punshhh
Firstly, the intent, I don’t see those Hamas insurgents having in their heads an intent to harm the racial group of Israel. But rather to commit a violent raid in a small area outside the wall. I know there are calls from people in important positions in the Hamas hierarchy who have called for the eradication of Israel etc. But this is sounding off, hot air. Arabic people often engage in this kind of rhetoric. — Punshhh
Secondly, the act of genocide, The Hamas attack was not capable of hurting the racial group of Israel. Yes, it did hurt the people in and connected to the incursion. Who have been very vocal and it has caused a lot of turmoil within Israel. But there was no way in which the racial, or ethnic group of Israel, or the Jews was under threat, or being harmed. In a genocidal sense. — Punshhh
I think it is important to bear in mind that genocide is not the intent in itself, but intent and the carrying out of the act intended. So even if it can be demonstrated that Hamas had the intent, I don’t see it being demonstrated that the act intended was carried out. — Punshhh
What Hamas could do was to breach a wall that had lulled the Netanyahu goverment not to focus on Gaza and Hamas. And basically it seems that the Israelis were confident about the inability of the simpleton ragheads to do any kind of coordinated military strike against the wall. And then the wall was breached in a humiliation manner. — ssu
The "destabilisation power" that Hamas had was only because of the Israeli unpreparedness. This simply isn't at all an existential danger. A simple infantry/security team with enough ammunition could fight off the Hamas terrorists, as it in few places happened. — ssu
Ah, sorry to say this, but I've heard this so many times this lurid narrative during the war on terror. But let's think about this.
Biological weapons, really? I wonder which people have more safety measure to deal with HAMASCOVID+, the Israelis and their efficient health sector or the Palestinians now starving to death?
Then chemical weapons? So Hamas have their made at home rockets, which have a tiny warhead. Now filling that up (which would likely kill more Hamas fighters when making them), but what would be the purspose? To freak out the first responders coming to a scene of a rocket attack? Besides, the rockets can go wildly offcourse and aren't precision weapons in any way. And chemical weapons aren't simply very efficient. That's why they haven't been used much after WW1. The real way would pour some nerve gas in the water system of a big city, if you really want many casualties. — ssu
Yet how does this help Hamas? That Bibi's administration has more credibility when saying that they are human animals that one cannot negotiate with? That the media would be even more fixated on the terrorist attacks and turn a blind eye to the response of more intensified ethnic cleansing? That the US and the West would be more firmly on the side of Isreal?
Deadly terrorist strikes are usually made to get a complacent actor to lash out in revenge and get itself stuck in a war it cannot win. — ssu
But if you want to believe that Hamas and the Palestinians supporting Hamas is this rabid death cult who hate democracy and want everybody to be dead, including all Palestinians, then there's not much to argue with you. Because obviously it just then repeating the mantra we heard so many time during the War on Terrorism. — ssu
OK, first of all, nobody else has territorial demands on Israel than the Palestinians naturally, who want their own independent state and Syria, which lost the Golan Heights to Israel in 1967. Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt or Saudi-Arabia or Iran don't have territorial demands on Israel. — ssu
Secondly, do you understand that with nuclear weapons those hostile to Israel seek nuclear parity? If they have nuclear weapons, perhaps Israel won't so casually bomb them as it does Lebanon. Or do you go with argument that Iranians are these rabid mad mullahs who want to destroy Israel and don't care that millions of Iranians could die in the Israeli counter-attack? Is this the death cult argument again?
Why is it so hard to understand that nations seek nuclear weapons for deterrence reasons, especially when a country hostile to them wanting regime change have them? We already see in Ukraine what happens when one country that has ambitions over another one's territory has nuclear weapons and the other one hasn’t. — ssu
There is no food, no drinks. We are eating plants. We started eating pigeon food, donkey food — victim
25 children have died of starvation — David Miliband
You have introduced the distinction between “pivotal” and “distraction”, without clarifying its implications, at least to me.
The difference is that the U.S. has an interest in one and not the other.why the US looks concerned about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict way more than about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
The difference being Europe is an important world power, with geopolitical heft. Israel is a small Western outpost in an area in which there are no big geopolitical players(including Israel).For example the Middle East is pivotal to Israel and the Jews as much as Ukraine is pivotal to the Europeans, right?
I meant a distraction in a general sense. In that it is a region in which the big geopolitical players throw something from time to time, have a proxy war, or play some games with oil, or something. Which may distract the voices flying across the world for a while from other concerns. But things settle down again after a while and the big players settle back to their established positions.To the extant the pro-Israel community in the US (Jews and Evangelicals) is influential to the US foreign policy (and arguably it is), then the US can’t simply pull out from the Middle East just because Middle East is a distraction wrt the competition with China in the Pacific. To use your own words, since Israel is pivotal for pro-Israel Americans then, by extension it is pivotal for the U.S., right? If so, what was the point of invoking the distinction between “pivotal” and “distraction” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, again?
Yes there are complexities to the situation, I’m simply describing the major shift, a profound development in European security planning. The majority of the member states of the EU are successful wealthy countries. Yes there is some economic turmoil around the world currently as a result of the pandemic and the Ukraine war. But they are quite capable of spending a percent or two of their budgets on this.You sound more convinced than convincing. I understand that circumstances are motivating Europeans to think more strategically and re-arm. However geopolitical analyses sound more uncertain about the outcome of this wake up call.
Industrial, technological, innovative resources from a coalition of advanced Western nations. As I have pointed out, Europe has the opportunity to develop solar energy in its southern states to fuel the northern states, also wind farms in the North Sea. The economic activity of developing the accession states in Eastern Europe to similar levels of advancement is a big economic opportunity. Ukraine has great agricultural resources, which will be valuable with climate change.what are the “wide ranging resources including the longer term opportunities for growth” you are referring to?
Germany is making a rapid move away from Russian energy supplies, it will take a while to make the adjustments. Their trade with China is mutually beneficial. If China ceased trading with Western powers such as Germany, it would provide an economic boost and opportunity for whomever replaces the supply, markets would adjust. As I say, China undercutting Western countries with their manufacturing is the main drag on economic activity and growth in those countries. Not to mention China’s economy being dependent on such trade.Germany depending on Russia for oil and on China for export
Who will be doing this?They can try to exploit European vulnerabilities AGAINST Europeans at convenience.
Quite, issues faced by many countries around the world at this time.So even if there is a potential for growth, there is also a potential for decadence. Indeed concerns about EU’s decline are persistent and widespread in all domains: population, economy, politics, technology. Here some related readings:
I know, I can’t see the EU failing to provide enough support.
— Punshhh
Most certainly not enough to support a Ukrainian offensive, right?
I have said more than once that it is only for the specialist investigators who will testify to the ICJ to determine what is in the heads of these terrorist groups. Maybe I should get back to you in 10 years when they have concluded their work. In the meantime all we have is personal opinion, or judgement.So you can scan “intents” directly from people’s heads now? If you dismiss evidences of Hamas’ massacre and declared intents against Israel, others can dismiss your capacity of scanning intents from people’s heads or even retort it against you: one can scan in Nethanyahu’s head he has no intent to commit a genocide and calling Hamas animals is just hot air.
What’s the argument? Dude, I didn’t join this forum to make a survey about people’s opinions or to socialize. I welcome actual arguments if you have any. If you don’t, we’re wasting time here.
You have introduced the distinction between “pivotal” and “distraction”, without clarifying its implications, at least to me.
↪neomac
— Punshhh
The implications are that in the case of the Ukraine conflict the difference between the two outcomes, 1, that Russia wins and incorporates Ukraine into Russia and 2, that Russia fails to win Ukraine and Ukraine becomes incorporated into the EU. Would have far reaching and profound implications for the geopolitics between Europe and Asia (and by implication between the West and the East) for a generation or more.
By contrast, the difference between likely outcomes in the Isreal Gaza conflict will not make much difference to geopolitics either way. I don’t see any significant wider geopolitical ramifications. (Please provide some, if I’m wrong). Any linking of these alternative scenarios to a swing of power towards China, or away from the U.S. is weak as the struggle between the two is primarily elsewhere. Russia and the U.S. have been playing proxy wars in the region since WW2. This is just another of those. — Punshhh
Germany is making a rapid move away from Russian energy supplies, it will take a while to make the adjustments. Their trade with China is mutually beneficial. If China ceased trading with Western powers such as Germany, it would provide an economic boost and opportunity for whomever replaces the supply, markets would adjust. As I say, China undercutting Western countries with their manufacturing is the main drag on economic activity and growth in those countries. Not to mention China’s economy being dependent on such trade. — Punshhh
They can try to exploit European vulnerabilities AGAINST Europeans at convenience.
Who will be doing this? — Punshhh
So even if there is a potential for growth, there is also a potential for decadence. Indeed concerns about EU’s decline are persistent and widespread in all domains: population, economy, politics, technology. Here some related readings:
Quite, issues faced by many countries around the world at this time. — Punshhh
I know, I can’t see the EU failing to provide enough support.
— Punshhh
Most certainly not enough to support a Ukrainian offensive, right?
Imagine the response from European countries should Russia start to make substantial ground and look likely to occupy Kiev. — Punshhh
I have said more than once that it is only for the specialist investigators who will testify to the ICJ to determine what is in the heads of these terrorist groups. Maybe I should get back to you in 10 years when they have concluded their work. I’m the meantime all we have is personal opinion, or judgement. — Punshhh
I think it is important to bear in mind that genocide is not the intent in itself, but intent and the carrying out of the act intended. So even if it can be demonstrated that Hamas had the intent, I don’t see it being demonstrated that the act, (according to the Israeli’s), intended was carried out. — Punshhh
In other words, it doesn’t matter what intent there is, it only becomes genocide when that intent, sufficient to meet the bar of genocide, is acted out on the ground. Hamas was not capable of acting out a genocidal act, all they were capable of was an incursion across the wall, to massacre anyone they found and return home for their evening meal. Doesn’t look like genocide to me. — Punshhh
Your point being? Or is that your defense to continue to defend Israel? Starve 2,2 million to save a few hundred (who are probably starving as well!)? If so, my point stands, go fuck yourself. — Benkei
Well done, Benkei. You need to take a break.
My point being that if you stick your thumb in someone's eye and he in turn takes you by the throat, it is only decent, if you're asking him to remove his hands from your throat, for you to take your thumb out of his eye. That the thumb is hostages makes everything very serious.
Were Hamas just a gang in Gaza I'd mostly agree with you. But Hamas is not just a gang in Gaza. Imo Hamas and their kind are a cancer that should have been removed a very long time ago, but that has been allowed to metastasize to where it will kill its host. By "kill" I mean I expect Gaza soon enough to be a very different place than it is now or has been. — tim wood
So tell us, then, why exactly are Hamas still holding the hostages?There's no excuse to collectively punish, through starvation, a civilian population for the crimes of a terrorist organisation in their midst, or indeed, their government. — Benkei
seem to think the Israeli have a choice. I think they don't, — tim wood
You do understand that in case of the Palestinians, it is an independence movement. You may argue that Hamas has an "anti-Zionist ideology", but naturally an independence movement would be against any state, be it Israel or the United Kingdom. Challenging the Israeli territorial sovereignty is built-in Hamas’ declared anti-Zionist ideology. During the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt the Palestinians fought against the British, hence then you could argue that the ideology was "anti-British".Some of my most basic assumptions are that the first purpose of a state is the monopoly of coercion over a territory, and that people under a state rule are expected to support it at least to the extent the state keeps them safe. — neomac
The "stuck in a war it cannot win" is basically because the Netanyahu government hasn't any policy what to do after the military operation. Here what is forgotten is that war is the continuation of policy. Just saying "destroy Hamas" isn't enough when you have no idea, no political objective what to do afterwards. It is as simplistic and stupid as Bush going to Afghanistan to destroy Al Qaeda and then declaring that he won't do anything else and isn't interested in nation building. Well, it didn't go so and it's naive to think that once the IDF declares that it has destroyed the last Hamas battalion, then it can go home and everything is back to normal.However, that conclusion doesn’t add up with what you want to claim later (which I don't discount). Indeed, if Hamas succeeds in getting Israel “stuck in a war it cannot win”, something like an unsustainable or endless war for Israel, with ever growing material and reputational costs for Israel, then this would be a strategic failure for the Zionist project. And that still is what makes Hamas an existential threat to Israel as a Zionist project. — neomac
At the present, it's obviously low. For them to get any weapons now is questionable. Hamas has been capable of acquiring it's arsenal only by a slow process of making itself the rockets and funneling through tunnels the weapons. And Hamas isn't ISIS, even if don't care to "sort them out". But you will surely find alarmist literature of terrorists getting their hands on "dirty bombs", bioweapons, WMD's etc. It's a small possibility, but not the likeliest outcome, just as Russia invading Finland. That is a possibility too, but not something immediate and likely.I don’t know what the chances for Hamas to get and use bio/chemical weapons are, but I can still argue that there are persistent concerns about bio/chemical terrorism which I have no strong reason to dismiss since they come from both the West and the Middle East — neomac
I'm not seeing anything inconsistent here. Terrorist want that their target governments lash out in anger and thus show how evil they are. That's their thinking.Your arguments don’t sound consistent to me: on one side you readily concede that “Deadly terrorist strikes are usually made to get a complacent actor to lash out in revenge and get itself stuck in a war it cannot win”, on the other side you seem to refuse to accept the consequences of such logic. — neomac
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