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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As to Likud:

Their original party program:

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

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

The 1999 version:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dutch politics is pathetic. Ridiculous virtue signaling.

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

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

You quote but you don't give a source.

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

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

Yes, carpet bombing was a war crime.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read animal farm. Your rephrasing is a bit silly.

So proportionality isn't a thing?

yeah, saw it too. Very good.

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

Aka "more of the same".

At what cost do we destroy terrorists?

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

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

just badly miscalculated — Count Timothy von Icarus

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

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

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

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

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

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/