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Lemniscate Blue
Apr 21, 2006

Here we go again.

Potato Salad posted:

If Israel wanted to get serious about durable security for its civilians, there's an option on the table that would immediately cut a massive share of Hamas' support out from under it.

All it takes is a willingness to neither purge Palestinians from their homeland nor legally treat them as second class citizens. It's functionally free.

Remember this at any time the Israeli State elects--for little material upside--not to pay this cost for peace.

The ghost of Yitzhak Rabin is nodding along sadly.

E: brain fart, wrong PM

Lemniscate Blue fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Oct 27, 2023

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Borscht
Jun 4, 2011

PurpleXVI posted:

I'm going to vehemently disagree here. Even if you ignore the actual history of the conflict, when there's this huge a power disparity and the Palestinians have absolutely tried every peaceful way to resolve things, the responsibility for ceasing the violence is entirely with the Israelis. Now, if Israel gave all the stolen land back, put some IDF personnel, politicians and settlers in war crimes courts for what they've done, paid some reparations to get the Palestinians back on their feet, and the Palestinians still lobbed rockets at them? Yes, I'd agree, equal blame on both sides. But that's not where things stand.

That’s a pretty assured position you have on a improbable hypothetical. I just don’t see how it would reverse 4000 years of religious violence.

I don’t have any better ideas, though. So it’s probably the right way to proceed.

Potato Salad
Oct 23, 2014

nobody cares


Borscht posted:

I agree with you on first steps but I think you’re underestimating how deep the hatred of Jews goes in the Levant. This same story has played itself out thousands of times already but with swords and sticks instead of precision guided munitions and ultralights.
The solution to this has to come from both sides just like the blame lies on both sides. There’s just too much generational violence to have it any other way.

It's challenging to take this kind of opinion at face value because I usually see it wielded as advocacy for the status quo--basically "the right kind of fix has to fit the framing that both parties are equally to blame." That framing produces no results because it does not match reality: one of these parties has a national policy of pushing the other into the equivalent of reservations or concentration camps, then deliberately creating mass civilian casualties and crushing, oppressive poverty. As others point out, It's not symmetric.

Basically, I distrust "the fix needs to reflect both sides' blame" because it asks for solutions that don't reflect reality and thus never results in change. After this much time has passed with nothing materially improving for Palestinians and only worsening, that both sides stump speech can start to be criticized as simply a political diversion intended to buy more time for the status quo and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine to be completed.

That's how it often comes across when our political leadership tries to both-sides the issue without qualifications or recognizing the power disparity and forced displacement already embedded in the status quo. You and I and other goons are small fry just talking and venting and seeking understanding, so I'm not accusing anyone in here of being sus with it.

Borscht posted:

That’s a pretty assured position you have on a improbable hypothetical. I just don’t see how it would reverse 4000 years of religious violence.

I don’t have any better ideas, though. So it’s probably the right way to proceed.

In good faith, here and in prior posts, I get the sense that you do kinda recognize that the situation is not symmetric -- I am definitely not accusing you of being one of the people who weild the both sides thing as a stalemating tactic. If I'm reading you right, you want to point out that embedded religious/ethnic hatreds will present extreme challenges no matter what is tried. I do agree with you there.

Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Oct 27, 2023

Borscht
Jun 4, 2011
Thanks, I just want the problem fixed and have no clue on how to achieve it.

Potato Salad
Oct 23, 2014

nobody cares


Likewise.

RFC2324
Jun 7, 2012

http 418

Has anyone considered moving Israel somewhere less contentious?

They should be fine with just picking up a nation and moving it, right?

bird food bathtub
Aug 9, 2003

College Slice
The best solution to where we are today would have been decades and decades of Israel not doing what they have been doing to make this inevitable at some point. We're sort of out of the "good" options now.

Borscht
Jun 4, 2011
Maybe we could convince everyone to convert to Baha’i?

Just Another Lurker
May 1, 2009

RFC2324 posted:

Has anyone considered moving Israel somewhere less contentious?

They should be fine with just picking up a nation and moving it, right?

Antarctica is currently defrosting if you want something in the longer term. :edi:

mrmcd
Feb 22, 2003

Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

Just Another Lurker posted:

Antarctica is currently defrosting if you want something in the longer term. :edi:

There's a book called The Yiddish Policeman's Union that's a detective novel set in an alternate universe where Israel was setup in a part of coastal Alaska America donated to them instead of Palestine.

Cugel the Clever
Apr 5, 2009
I LOVE AMERICA AND CAPITALISM DESPITE BEING POOR AS FUCK. I WILL NEVER RETIRE BUT HERE'S ANOTHER 200$ FOR UKRAINE, SLAVA

mrmcd posted:

There's a book called The Yiddish Policeman's Union that's a detective novel set in an alternate universe where Israel was setup in a part of coastal Alaska America donated to them instead of Palestine.
I loved this book, but it was contentious at my book club.

Crab Dad
Dec 28, 2002

behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB
Give ‘em Cyprus and call it a day.

Joke Miriam
Nov 17, 2019



Give them Kaliningrad.

psydude
Apr 1, 2008

Crab Dad posted:

Give ‘em Cyprus and call it a day.

Ah yes, another former British colony with absolutely no territorial disputes.

golden bubble
Jun 3, 2011

yospos

https://www.timesofisrael.com/surveillance-soldiers-warned-of-hamas-activity-on-gaza-border-for-months-before-oct-7/

I knew it was impossible for something so big being planned in such a small urban area to avoid notice.

quote:

In a segment aired on Kan News on Wednesday evening, two soldiers, Yael Rotenberg and Maya Desiatnik, recounted their experiences in the months before the attack and up until 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, October 7.
Rotenberg recalled frequently seeing many Palestinians dressed in civilian clothing approach the border fence with maps, examining the ground around it and digging holes. One time, when she passed the information on, she was told that they were farmers, and there was nothing to worry about.
...

The Hamas terrorists would train at the border fence nonstop, Desiatnik told Kan. At first, it was once a week, then once a day, and then nearly constantly. In addition to passing on information about the frequency of the training going on at the fence, the surveillance soldier said she collected evidence of the content of the training, which included how to drive a tank and how to cross into Israel via a tunnel. As the activity on the border increased, she realized that “it was just a matter of time” until something happened.


quote:

Former tatzpitaniyot (IDF Combat Intelligence Corps) Amit Yerushalmi: “We sat on shifts and saw the convoy of vans. We saw the training, people shooting and rolling, practicing taking over a tank. The training went from once a week to twice a week, from every day to several times a day,” she told Channel 12. “We saw patrols along the border, people with cameras and binoculars. It happened 300 meters from the fence. There were a lot of disturbances, people went down to the fence and detonated an outrageous amount of explosives, the amount of explosives was crazy.”

Like Rotenberg and Desiatnik, Yerushalmi said that she passed the information along, but that nobody seemed to take it seriously. “I saw what was happening, I wrote everything down on the computer and passed it on. I don’t know what happened with it, we don’t actually know what they do with the information.”

....

In the weeks before October 7, Rotenberg noticed that the efforts of the Hamas soldiers were concentrated at two specific points of the area she was responsible for tracking. However, she continued to hear from her commanders that it wasn’t important and that there was nothing that could be done about it.

On October 7, the areas highlighted by Rotenberg were just two of the multiple points along the fence through which 2,500 Hamas terrorists stormed into Israel.

Potato Salad
Oct 23, 2014

nobody cares


Someone once suggested Utah and I haven't really been able to stop thinking about that option.

v yes in all seriousness, displacing people from settled land is the core issue :thejoke:

Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Oct 27, 2023

Cugel the Clever
Apr 5, 2009
I LOVE AMERICA AND CAPITALISM DESPITE BEING POOR AS FUCK. I WILL NEVER RETIRE BUT HERE'S ANOTHER 200$ FOR UKRAINE, SLAVA
Maybe instead of "giving" any group already populated territories, we could call out the whole concept of ethno-states is bankrupt and morally appalling, no matter where they are or what ethnicity asserts dominance? Whether such states actively expel and exterminate other-ized groups, shunt them into ghettos and bantustans, or even grudgingly afford them semi-equal second-class citizen status, it's all vile poo poo.

Western countries are grossly imperfect and we're all well aware of their shortcomings, but they do today offer a level of genuine openness that make them relatively safe to traditionally marginalized groups. Hell, the largest Jewish population in the world is in the United States (and would be even larger if liberals hadn't been complicit for decades in whitewashing the ethno-colonialist enterprise as a noble homecoming). The subtext of The Yiddish Policeman's Union, as I read it, is that home is the family you make along the way and that the messianic, violent retaking of fabled ancestral lands is not just a short-sighted dead-end, but a tragic stoking of a cycle of pain and trauma.

pantslesswithwolves
Oct 28, 2008

Looks like it's starting.
https://israelpalestine.liveuamap.com/en/2023/27-october-israeli-army-spokesman-the-ground-forces-are-expanding

Alchenar
Apr 9, 2008

Cugel the Clever posted:

Maybe instead of "giving" any group already populated territories, we could call out the whole concept of ethno-states is bankrupt and morally appalling, no matter where they are or what ethnicity asserts dominance? Whether such states actively expel and exterminate other-ized groups, shunt them into ghettos and bantustans, or even grudgingly afford them semi-equal second-class citizen status, it's all vile poo poo.

Western countries are grossly imperfect and we're all well aware of their shortcomings, but they do today offer a level of genuine openness that make them relatively safe to traditionally marginalized groups. Hell, the largest Jewish population in the world is in the United States (and would be even larger if liberals hadn't been complicit for decades in whitewashing the ethno-colonialist enterprise as a noble homecoming). The subtext of The Yiddish Policeman's Union, as I read it, is that home is the family you make along the way and that the messianic, violent retaking of fabled ancestral lands is not just a short-sighted dead-end, but a tragic stoking of a cycle of pain and trauma.

I'm going to post something a friend of mine posted on Facebook shortly after the attacks.

quote:

I was awoken yesterday morning by news of a rocket attack in the south, including the city I grew up in, Beersheba. I did the usual: called my family still there, messaged, and made sure everything was okay. I started following the news, expecting the "normal" routine. They fire, we respond. We get called mass murderers and are accused of being worse than Nazis. Then there's a ceasefire, silence, and eventually, another confrontation.
It became clear quite soon that this was different. People began sharing videos online of Hamas troops inside our cities, on vehicles. I assumed they must have stolen these vehicles, as they couldn't have brought one through the barrier. How wrong I was.

For the next several hours, a still incomplete picture was forming. A disturbing video here, an unbelievable tweet there. The details didn't make any sense. To add to the confusion, our government was silent. No one was informing us of anything; the traditional TV news seemed behind.

At some point a grim realization sinks in: invaders had gone from home to home, executing humans. To add, many, regardless of age, were taken to Gaza. I shudder at the thought of what Hamas could possibly want with a 4-year-old Jewish child. Sadly, The intention behind the abduction of young women became a bit clearer to me when I saw a father on TV, whose daughters had been kidnapped, telling how he received a giddy call from Gaza about how his daughters were "nominated for marriage." or some term like that. I know what ISIS means by it. I know what this is. You do too.

As horrible as these events are, it's not the first time Jews have endured such horrors. Pogroms have been in our lives for nearly two millennia, Jewish families have seen armed men come to their homes, murder them, rape them, abduct them and their children, and abuse their corpses. In this regard, Hamas is no innovator. They are part of a long line of armed men - From York To Madrid, From Warsaw to Alexandra, and on to Bagdad to name a few,- These armed men always show up.

It is never due to "blind hatred." Oh no, there is always a “the reason”. The Jews did SOMETHING to deserve it. Sometimes we killed Christ, in others we poisoned the water, caused a plague, controlled the world through our banks, or are to blame for losing a war - The list is long. Today, while we are still counting our dead and trying to prevent more atrocities, we are back to the now 75 years old, and going strong, reason.
Those justifying what is happening to us say that "the Reason" is the actions of the State of Israel. Not anti-Semitism god forbid, no, no, It’s just THESE Jews in Israel who are the ones causing anti-semitism themselves. Jews would never have been touched, or accused of anything if only that state didn’t exist, or at least behaved.

The fact that Jews abroad are receiving threats and that somehow, save the “the reason”, this is all the same as before, is lost on these apologists.

Except it is not all the same. One thing is different, very different, and it’s the only comforting thought I’ve had these past two days:

Before establishing our state, we relied on local lords, Sultans, Kings, Tsars, and Emirs for protection. Their aid was contingent on their whims and priorities. Today, we can do this ourselves. Today I know that this horrible thing that happened to me is being taken care of by people who can say it also happened to them. Yes, I dislike our current government, to put it very very mildly, but I know that this also happened to them. I know the soldiers fighting now can say the same. That makes a huge difference. I know I am not at the whims of a Lord, or even a Democratic majority to learn if what happened to me is worth responding to or not, It will be responded to, because it also happened to them.

So today I, like many Jews before me, hear screams of horror and testimonies of unspeakable acts being done to us. But also today, We will get up, dust ourselves, and stop those who committed these horrible crimes against us. I hope we use the minimum amount of force necessary. But that minimum is probably high, very high.
And the world, The world will hate us again, for our response will be ugly, disproportionate. But we no longer have to beg. We don't want to be murdered in our homes anymore, We don't want the people who take our children to get away with it.

This self-reliance, this essence, is a big part of what Zionism is for me. The ideology that enables the rest. The idea is that for once, Jews decide if murdering them in their homes, raping them and abducting them warrants action.
If these events mark the end of Israel, which I don’t for a second believe, I will know that I was lucky, if only for a few years, to be one of the very rare free Jews in History. From all the reasons pogrom apologists chose over the years, this is the best - it means we have a state, it means we make our decisions, it means we decide the value of our lives.

I think that last paragraph is the thing that most people simply do not understand about the moderate Zionist mindset. It isn't about taking someone else's land. It's not about something promised to them by God. It is about Jewish people getting to decide what their lives are worth, set against two thousand years of others deciding their lives are worth nothing. You are never going to convince them to give that up for 'an acceptable level of antisemitism from the average Western society'.

e: and regardless of whether there are certain points in the narrative above you might question, I think it very eloquently sums up why this attack has struck such a nerve in the Israeli psyche.

Alchenar fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Oct 27, 2023

Comrade Blyatlov
Aug 4, 2007


should have picked four fingers






:smith:

Cugel the Clever
Apr 5, 2009
I LOVE AMERICA AND CAPITALISM DESPITE BEING POOR AS FUCK. I WILL NEVER RETIRE BUT HERE'S ANOTHER 200$ FOR UKRAINE, SLAVA

Alchenar posted:

I'm going to post something a friend of mine posted on Facebook shortly after the attacks.

I think that last paragraph is the thing that most people simply do not understand about the moderate Zionist mindset. It isn't about taking someone else's land. It's not about something promised to them by God. It is about Jewish people getting to decide what their lives are worth, set against two thousand years of others deciding their lives are worth nothing. You are never going to convince them to give that up for 'an acceptable level of antisemitism from the average Western society'.
Their post very much exemplifies why I have such visceral reaction against Israel's ethnonationalist enterprise. Like a lot of folks here, I grew up in a country scarred by a legacy of white supremacy and have watched throughout my life how my society is still struggling to reckon with its persistent, pernicious effects. While white nationalism stands in the shadows as a monster yet to be slain, it seems we at least have reached a point where it's broadly acknowledged you should deck that squishy, privileged white "moderate" who'll say they're not racist, but thinks things were so much simpler and safer in the 1950s where everyone kept to their own "kind".

It's tragic that we've not been able to recognize the evils of ethno-nationalism as universal, not isolated to any individual bullshit construct of race or ethnicity. The only difference between the ethnonationalism of the white supremacist and the Jewish supremacist is that the latter has a historical reference point for when their own group was subject to the abject horror of a maximalist ethnonationalist state. What really gets my goat is that, instead of recognizing that only an open, tolerant society can afford true safety for all, so many have been lured in by the false promise of safety through supremacy and have for decades viciously exploited the long history of the wrongs done to their group to inflict the same depravations on another. That Israelis play this up, inciting fear in Jewish populations abroad to bolster their own state's ethnonationalist agenda is utterly despicable, and, as events have shown, an utter lie: Israel's decades-long occupation and subjugation of the Palestinians has fostered a degree of internal prosperity and bred a great deal of complacency, but there's no true safety to be had while digging a boot into the necks of an otherized minority.

Proud Christian Mom
Dec 20, 2006
READING COMPREHENSION IS HARD
actually kind of remarkable how all right-wing rhetoric used to justify atrocities sounds so similar

Potato Salad
Oct 23, 2014

nobody cares


I'll be straight with you, there are few less surprising contributions that could be made to this thread than "Quite a few of the involved persons are sincere about their national policy of ethnic displacement and ethnic cleansing."

Yes, we know. Believe me, much of the world is aware of--and agonizes about--exactly this thing. There's no need to post on Facebook even more about it.

lightpole
Jun 4, 2004
I think that MBAs are useful, in case you are looking for an answer to the question of "Is lightpole a total fucking idiot".

Alchenar posted:

I'm going to post something a friend of mine posted on Facebook shortly after the attacks.

I think that last paragraph is the thing that most people simply do not understand about the moderate Zionist mindset. It isn't about taking someone else's land. It's not about something promised to them by God. It is about Jewish people getting to decide what their lives are worth, set against two thousand years of others deciding their lives are worth nothing. You are never going to convince them to give that up for 'an acceptable level of antisemitism from the average Western society'.

e: and regardless of whether there are certain points in the narrative above you might question, I think it very eloquently sums up why this attack has struck such a nerve in the Israeli psyche.

I don't want to minimize tragedy but nothing here answers the question "Can you provide a non aparthied state for the Jewish people?". The two fastest growing segments of the population there were ultra orthodox Jews and Palestinians so I'm all ears when it comes happy solutions for everyone.

I feel good about the integration of the Jewish diaspora in the US and am happy to support it. I dont need to worry about providing them their own state if it means constant tragedy and the subjugation of others.

Potato Salad
Oct 23, 2014

nobody cares


I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but if we're keeping tragedies onto the pile of human misery, climate change is making the region practicably inhospitable

One way to look at the eruption of the Syrian Civil War is a streak of horrible famine that put Syrian farmers functionally out of business and locked out of capital market. I don't have the link on hand, but in one publication Department of Defense labels climate changes that worsen existing regional instabilities as "Unrest Aggravation Factors" and I'm really, really not looking forward to what the medium term future has to hold for us.

ThisIsJohnWayne
Feb 23, 2007
Ooo! Look at me! NO DON'T LOOK AT ME!



Alchenar posted:

I'm going to post something a friend of mine posted on Facebook shortly after the attacks.

I think that last paragraph is the thing that most people simply do not understand about the moderate Zionist mindset. It isn't about taking someone else's land. It's not about something promised to them by God. It is about Jewish people getting to decide what their lives are worth, set against two thousand years of others deciding their lives are worth nothing. You are never going to convince them to give that up for 'an acceptable level of antisemitism from the average Western society'.

e: and regardless of whether there are certain points in the narrative above you might question, I think it very eloquently sums up why this attack has struck such a nerve in the Israeli psyche.

You think "we get to make sure the shoah never happens again", the foundational principle for the Jewish state, is unknown in here? That it's not been the first thing you learn about Israel for 70 years?

You didn't notice this thread being about how the noble principle, has been abused and demeaned and turned into a route alibi for whatever is wanted or simply the venaly expedient, against critism, since they shot Rabin? Israeli discourse did, and a long time ago

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Radical 90s Wizard
Aug 5, 2008

~SS-18 burning bright,
Bathe me in your cleansing light~
Newsflash, your Zionist friend is a piece of poo poo

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Laughing Zealot
Oct 10, 2012


Lots of reports about communications blackout in Gaza and even more intense bombings...

movax
Aug 30, 2008

Has Elon hosed with Starlink there yet? Or is it not operating there yet?

Eason the Fifth
Apr 9, 2020
I might be missing something, but how could Gaza get starlink if they don't have starlink antennas?

Kazinsal
Dec 13, 2011

movax posted:

Has Elon hosed with Starlink there yet? Or is it not operating there yet?

No ground stations in the area to provide coverage.

e: Nearest one is about 1200 km away in Turkey, and I think the ground stations are only good to about 800 km on average.

Kazinsal fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Oct 27, 2023

That Works
Jul 22, 2006

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy


https://vxtwitter.com/SanaSaeed/status/1718002941112590580

Discussion Quorum
Dec 5, 2002
Armchair Philistine
Combined with Joe doing a little light trutherism on the Palestinian civilian casualties, not a good look

Was listening to some Israeli official on CNN in the car earlier (tuned in late, don't know who but he certainly spoke as if he was speaking forIsrael rather than about it) and, among other bloodcurdling things, he made a comment about Israel not being able to tolerate "a Palestinian enclave" anymore

Just what the gently caress

Wasabi the J
Jan 23, 2008

MOM WAS RIGHT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbgRk_hlM3U

bulletsponge13
Apr 28, 2010

Al Jeezera is reporting that they were approached by US and Israeli Officials to suppress reporting.

Shortly after, the AJ Gaza Reporter (he had an official big title I can't recall) had his family killed in a targeted strike.

Lovely Joe Stalin
Jun 12, 2007

Our Lovely Wang
He's their Gaza Bureau Chief. They killed his wife, son, daughter, and grandson iirc.

Potato Salad
Oct 23, 2014

nobody cares


Khashoggi moment :(

Kazinsal
Dec 13, 2011

So what's everyone's thoughts on which airbase the US is going to take over and the CAF is going to set up a Timmy's at?

Electric Wrigglies
Feb 6, 2015

Potato Salad posted:

I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but if we're keeping tragedies onto the pile of human misery, climate change is making the region practicably inhospitable

One way to look at the eruption of the Syrian Civil War is a streak of horrible famine that put Syrian farmers functionally out of business and locked out of capital market. I don't have the link on hand, but in one publication Department of Defense labels climate changes that worsen existing regional instabilities as "Unrest Aggravation Factors" and I'm really, really not looking forward to what the medium term future has to hold for us.

You can draw a line/band across the Sahel and through the middle east of land that used to be arable but is now considered suitable for subsistence farming only. That line moves a bit further South each year. I don't think it is a coincidence that that line also pretty neatly lines up with increased extremism, conflict and unrest. The desertification and reduced arability is a direct consequence of climate change and for me is the first real genuine population level impact of climate change - increased conflict and war.

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knox_harrington
Feb 18, 2011

Running no point.

Borscht posted:

Right on. Isn’t food water and medicine interference prohibited by the Geneva convention?

The justification is that, while they're not allowed to interfere with supplies coming in to civilians, they're not obliged to provide them and not prevented from interfering with supplies going to aggressive forces. The trick being of course that Hamas can’t be distinguished from civilians and Israel's excuse is they've told all the civilians to leave.

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