Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[Tigers!]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/16/politics/joe-biden-israel-visit/index.html

Desperate to bring calm back to Israel, President Biden is heading to Israel in hopes that he can gaffe the region into complete confusion, ending the bloodshed.

He will probably confuse PLO/PA with Hamas

 

[Copernicus]

Get a dictionary. Understand what "terrorism" actually means.

First of all, if you want to make an argument, it's up to you to get that dictionary, put up the definition you think makes your case, and explain why it doesn't also make my case. Cutting off the water supply to the civilian population of Gaza and ordering over a million civilians to flee their homes or face death--that's what you think would not be called terrorism. Let's see the definition you think would make the difference. Hamas killed a lot of civilians and took hostages. The bombs the IDF is raining down on cities in Gaza are not distinguishing combatants from civilians. Leveling city blocks is not just striking legitimate military targets. Israel is threatening to kill far more civilians, taking no hostages. In my opinion, both sides are engaged in terrorist acts against civilians.

A siege is not terrorism. What Israel announced was a classical siege.

Here is your formula: "Get a dictionary. Understand what "siege" actually means."

Well, I'll step up to that. A lot of the definitions I have found mentioned surrounding a fortified building or place, but Gaza can hardly be considered either. Here is a lengthier description of a  siege from Wikipedia:

A siege is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or by well-prepared assault. This derives from Latin: sedere, lit. 'to sit'.[1] Siege warfare (also called siegecraft or poliorcetics) is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict characterized by one party holding a strong, static, defensive position. Consequently, an opportunity for negotiation between combatants is common, as proximity and fluctuating advantage can encourage diplomacy.

A siege occurs when an attacker encounters a city or fortress that cannot be easily taken by a quick assault, and which refuses to surrender. Sieges involve surrounding the target to block provision of supplies and reinforcement or escape of troops (a tactic known as "investment"[2]). This is typically coupled with attempts to reduce the fortifications by means of siege engines, artillery bombardment, mining (also known as sapping), or the use of deception or treachery to bypass defenses.

Failing a military outcome, sieges can often be decided by starvation, thirst, or disease, which can afflict either the attacker or defender. This form of siege, though, can take many months or even years, depending upon the size of the stores of food the fortified position holds. The attacking force can circumvallate the besieged place, which is to build a line of earth-works, consisting of a rampart and trench, surrounding it. During the process of circumvallation, the attacking force can be set upon by another force, an ally of the besieged place, due to the lengthy amount of time required to force it to capitulate. A defensive ring of forts outside the ring of circumvallated forts, called contravallation, is also sometimes used to defend the attackers from outside.

Picture of the siege of Rancagua during the Chilean War of Independence
Ancient cities in the Middle East show archaeological evidence of fortified city walls. During the Warring States period of ancient China, there is both textual and archaeological evidence of prolonged sieges and siege machinery used against the defenders of city walls. Siege machinery was also a tradition of the ancient Greco-Roman world. During the Renaissance and the early modern period, siege warfare dominated the conduct of war in Europe. Leonardo da Vinci gained some of his renown from design of fortifications. Medieval campaigns were generally designed around a succession of sieges. In the Napoleonic era, increasing use of ever more powerful cannons reduced the value of fortifications. In the 20th century, the significance of the classical siege declined. With the advent of mobile warfare, a single fortified stronghold is no longer as decisive as it once was. While traditional sieges do still occur, they are not as common as they once were due to changes in modes of battle, principally the ease by which huge volumes of destructive power can be directed onto a static target. Modern sieges are more commonly the result of smaller hostage, militant, or extreme resisting arrest situations.

Israel, is not conducting a siege in any conventional sense of the word. It has amassed an invasion force, which is poised to attack, not sit outside of a fortified location to wait them out for a formal surrender. Cutting off water to Gaza was done to punish all Palestinians living in Gaza, not just Hamas. Maybe the idea was that Hamas would somehow sympathize with all of those Palestinians who were not part of Hamas or its attack? Was the idea to appeal to the sympathy and humanity of Hamas to surrender? After all, the Palestinian population of Gaza didn't vote Hamas into power. They just live in that huge open-air concentration camp called Gaza that has been under blockade from Israel since 2007. Palestinian civilians in Gaza are not combatants. They just have to put up with having their water cut off, their food rations disappear, medical supplies run out, and being ordered to flee their homes within 24 hours and go south without any concern by Israel for what will happen to them. 80% unemployment. So lots of young people hanging around with nothing to do but look for the best opportunity to survive their confinement to a prison state run by terrorists that don't care what happens to them.

 

[lpetrich]

They also got into early Zionists and how they were essentially secular nationalists. Also Zionists' terrorism against the British occupiers. They seemed to ignore the long history of Arab terrorism and the long history of Arabs wanting nothing less than "Drive them into the sea!"

Do you make a distinction between Jews and Zionists? I ask because I am not sure if the quote above are your words or those of the author you are referring too.

Those are my words, and I indeed recognize a distinction between Jews and Zionists.

Zionism is support of a Jewish national home in Palestine. One can be Jewish and reject Zionism, and some Jews indeed do.

 

[steve_bank]

Right or wrong it looks like this time Israel may end the conflict once and for all.

In the long run it may benefit the Palestinians by getting Hamas off their backs. At a cost in innocent Palestinian lives.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Is it any wonder that Israel is scorned and hated by vast numbers around the world?

Hamas is scorned and hated by many too. One each I guess.

And no, contrary to Israel and its apologists, Israel‘s foes are not “anti-Semitic.“ They are anti-Israel, a whole different thing.

How do you propose to distinguish between Israel and the Jews living therein?
If you could detail the logical steps from being Anti-Israel -> not being anti-Semitic that would certainly make these discussions a little easier.

You mean being against hard line Israeli Governmental policies as they impact those in Gaza and are counterproductive to long-term stability and peace for Israelis, while not being against the Israeli population on a whole. Kind of like how I detested the W and Trump Administrations without actually hating America, Americans, or Christians.

Is it that hard?!

 

[pood]

Is it any wonder that Israel is scorned and hated by vast numbers around the world?

Hamas is scorned and hated by many too. One each I guess.

And no, contrary to Israel and its apologists, Israel‘s foes are not “anti-Semitic.“ They are anti-Israel, a whole different thing.

How do you propose to distinguish between Israel and the Jews living therein?
If you could detail the logical steps from being Anti-Israel -> not being anti-Semitic that would certainly make these discussions a little easier.

So, according to you, anyone who opposes Israel or its policies for any reason is … anti-Semitic?

Of course — exactly my point. That’s what Israel and its apologists want you to believe — that anyone who even criticizes Israel is anti-Semitic.

Israel is a state (not consisting entirely of Jews, I might add). Judaism is a religion/culture. There is your distinction. Very simple. When Israel does bad things, I can criticize it as a state, and specifrically I can criticize its leaders, without being in the least bit anti-Semitic.

 

[Copernicus]

Israel is a state (not consisting entirely of Jews, I might add). Judaism is a religion/culture. There is your distinction. Very simple. When Israel does bad things, I can criticize it as a state, and specifrically I can criticize its leaders, without being in the least bit anti-Semitic.

And it is worth pointing out that many Jewish Israelis also criticize the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government, including the policy of opening up new West Bank settlements for Jews. Anyone who has paid attention to the Knesset knows that it is a very contentious country politically.

 

[TomC]

If you could detail the logical steps from being Anti-Israel -> not being anti-Semitic that would certainly make these discussions a little easier.

Israel is a state (not consisting entirely of Jews, I might add). Judaism is a religion/culture. There is your distinction. Very simple. When Israel does bad things, I can criticize it as a state, and specifrically I can criticize its leaders, without being in the least bit anti-Semitic.

I wish the stupid word anti-Semitic would go out of use. It's excruciatingly vague. The Palestinians are as Semitic as Jews.

Zionist, Israeli, and Jewish are three different things. A Jewish person can be extremely critical of Zionist policies from the Israeli government without being anti-Israel, much less anti-Jewish.

I believe it was my culturally and ethnically very Jewish BIL who once pointed out that there are more Zionists in Texas than Israel. That's because the premise that Exodus is a land grant directly from God is extremely common amongst evangelical Christian people.
And that's Zionism in a nutshell.
Tom

 

[Copernicus]

They also got into early Zionists and how they were essentially secular nationalists. Also Zionists' terrorism against the British occupiers. They seemed to ignore the long history of Arab terrorism and the long history of Arabs wanting nothing less than "Drive them into the sea!"

Do you make a distinction between Jews and Zionists? I ask because I am not sure if the quote above are your words or those of the author you are referring too.

Those are my words, and I indeed recognize a distinction between Jews and Zionists.

Zionism is support of a Jewish national home in Palestine. One can be Jewish and reject Zionism, and some Jews indeed do.

A good example of an anti-Zionist Jew would be Noam Chomsky. It's not that he opposes an Israeli state as a socialist haven for Jews, but that he also wanted it to be a socialist haven for Palestinian Arabs, too. In fact, one of the reasons he got into linguistics in the first place was his interest in the politics of his mentor, Zellig Harris. (I once had the privilege of taking a seminar from him. That guy had an answer for everything, and, like Chomsky, he didn't suffer from doubts about his ideals.) Rather than call such people "anti-Zionist", I would prefer the label Socialist Zionist. They truly believe in a diverse multicultural Israel.

 

[steve_bank]

Pragmatically is stability possible without a strong central power in the region?

From observation probably not. Without Qaddafi Libya descended into factionalism. Iran vs Arabs, conflict within the Arab oil states.

Even without Israel as a factor the regions would still be a quagmire.

Putting aside the issues with Israel for a moment, Israel is a tiny island of stability in a sea of chaos.

Gaza will never be stable until Hamas is eradicated. The West Bank will not be bale to make a case against Israel until extremists are eliminated.

Pragmatically for Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah Israel is not going away. It is a member of the UN which legitimizes its status as an independent nation.

Militarily Iran is not going to topple Israel directly or indirectly by terrorism.

 

[Derec]

Pragmatically is stability possible without a strong central power in the region?

Reminds me of "what have the Romans ever done for us" ...

Gaza will never be stable until Hamas is eradicated.

That is true. What must be prevented is that another extremist group, like Islamic Jihad or even ISIS uses the power vacuum to swoop in.
Can the PA hold Gaza after Hamas is eradicated? That is the big question. Abbas is weak and unpopular. He is also not long for this world. Who will replace him as the head of Fatah? Head of PA? And what about Fatah's own terrorists? So many imponderables.

 

[Gospel]

ETA ~What was the point to EuroChristian society creating the State of Israel?
I'm confident that I know. But I'm asking you.~

BTW ~ Zionism & Guilt (VIA the Holocaust). Euro-Christian's were just used as the tool like they've always been to support the efforts rooted in a plethora of historical, political, and ideological factors. Your move.

Edit: It was nationalism & greed on the part of the white folks with toilet paper in hand. Euro-Christians were duped like the dopey asses they've always been.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Pragmatically is stability possible without a strong central power in the region?

From observation probably not. Without Qaddafi Libya descended into factionalism. Iran vs Arabs, conflict within the Arab oil states.

Even without Israel as a factor the regions would still be a quagmire.

Putting aside the issues with Israel for a moment, Israel is a tiny island of stability in a sea of chaos.

Gaza will never be stable until Hamas is eradicated.

Hamas is a concept with adherents to it... not an actually material thing. You can kill the adherents, but you can't kill "Hamas". When are people going to get this?! The goals of the Israeli military should be to accomplish things that are tangible / achievable, not metaphysical and philosophical... that'd be a political thing.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

ETA ~What was the point to EuroChristian society creating the State of Israel?
I'm confident that I know. But I'm asking you.~

BTW ~ Zionism & Guilt (VIA the Holocaust). Euro-Christian's were just used as the tool like they've always been to support the efforts rooted in a plethora of historical, political, and ideological factors. Your move.

Edit: It was nationalism & greed on the part of the white folks with toilet paper in hand. Euro-Christians were duped like the dopey asses they've always been.

WTF are you talking about?

 

[Tigers!]

Thank you for all your clarifications re. Zionism, anti-Semitism etc.
I just wish they would all stop blowing each other up and hating each other so much.

 

[Tigers!]

Israel is a state (not consisting entirely of Jews, I might add). Judaism is a religion/culture. There is your distinction. Very simple. When Israel does bad things, I can criticize it as a state, and specifrically I can criticize its leaders, without being in the least bit anti-Semitic.

And it is worth pointing out that many Jewish Israelis also criticize the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government, including the policy of opening up new West Bank settlements for Jews. Anyone who has paid attention to the Knesset knows that it is a very contentious country politically.

The settlements on the West Bank need to be halted to try to give a breathing space.

 

[lpetrich]

Abby D. Phillip on X: "Rep. @AOC on DeSantis saying all Gaza refugees are anti-semitic: "How incredibly destructive and dangerous that rhetoric is. We just had a six year old boy, stabbed 26 times because of rhetoric like that. It is dangerous, it is unacceptable, it is reckless" (vid link)" / X - she appeared on CNN

Funeral-goers mourn 6-year-old boy killed in an anti-Muslim stabbing : NPR

Mourners gathered outside Chicago on Monday for the funeral of Wadea Al-Fayoume, the 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy who was stabbed to death in his home late last week in an apparent anti-Muslim hate crime.

Authorities say the family's landlord Joseph M. Czuba, 71, attacked Wadea and his mother because they were Muslim. Illinois prosecutors have charged Czuba with hate crimes and other offenses.

Wadea's mother, 32-year-old Hanaan Shahin, was seriously wounded in the Saturday morning attack in unincorporated Plainfield Township but is expected to survive.

...
Also on Monday, Czuba made his first appearance in Will County court, where he was read the eight felony counts he faces, including murder, aggravated battery and hate crimes charges.

A judge ordered that Czuba remain behind bars. His next court appearance is a preliminary hearing scheduled for Oct. 30.

...
Prosecutors at the hearing said Czuba had been listening to news about the war between Israel and Hamas on conservative talk radio and grew increasingly worried about his safety, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Czuba's wife reportedly told investigators that her husband believed Shahin was "going to call Palestinian friends to come and harm them," the outlet reported.

Conservative talk radio? That does not seem very surprising.

 

[lpetrich]

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez On The Israel-Hamas Conflict & USA's Role - YouTube - Ebro in the Morning of HOT 97 in NYC
Nice interview.

She noted that some 20% of Palestinians are Christians instead of Muslims, though they are Eastern Orthodox and Catholic ones instead of evangelical Protestants.

The interviewers noted that it was not just fundie Jews and Muslims, but also fundie Xians, supporting Israel because of their interpretation of the Book of Revelation as some elaborately coded future history which states that the Jews have to return to their old homeland to encourage Jesus Christ to make his Second Coming.

Supporting nuttiness like this:

Does a heifer herald the building of the Third Temple – The Forward

The days of the Third Temple are apparently upon us. Why? It’s all thanks to a cow.

In the Bible, red heifers feature heavily in Temple law. The cows must be pure red, without even two hairs of another color, and without any other form of blemish, and they’re an essential part of sacrificial purity laws. Their ashes are required, according to passages in Numbers, to purify the Temple’s priests and its altars.

But these laws have long been irrelevant — after all, there hasn’t been a Temple in well over a millennia in which to slaughter the cows. Some religious stories, however, say that before the Third Temple is built, heralding the messianic era long prayed for by both Jews and Christians, a pure red heifer will be sacrificed again.

Prophecy fulfilled after red cow is born at Temple of Israel

Seems like that "prophecy" was self-fulfilling.

 

[lpetrich]

I read somewhere that many israelis mock these pro-Israel Xian fundies in private, but they have not been very public about that, for obvious reasons.


Reps. Bush, Tlaib, Carson, Lee, Ramirez Lead Colleagues in Call for Immediate Ceasefire

Ceasefire Now Resolution urges support for an end to violence in Israel and Occupied Palestine

Washington, D.C. (October 16, 2023) — Today, Representatives Cori Bush (MO-01), Rashida Tlaib (MI-12), André Carson (IN-07), Summer Lee (PA-12), and Delia C. Ramirez (IL-03), alongside Representatives Jamaal Bowman (NY-16), Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12), Jesús “Chuy” García (IL-04), Jonathan Jackson (IL-01), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), Ilhan Omar (MN-05), Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), and Nydia Velázquez (NY-07) announced a resolution urging the Biden Administration to call for an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine, to send humanitarian aid and assistance to Gaza, and to save as many lives as possible.

In Gaza's deadliest day, hospital strike kills about 500 | Reuters

The two sides blamed each other: "Gaza authorities said an Israeli air strike on Tuesday killed about 500 people at a hospital in the Palestinian enclave, but Israel said a Palestinian rocket had caused the blast."

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A siege is not terrorism. What Israel announced was a classical siege.

  Terrorism

Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of intentional violence and fear to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war against non-combatants (mostly civilians and neutral military personnel).

So, a siege can be viewed as a form of terrorism.

It is not thus viewed, however. The fundamental difference is the besieged party has the option of surrender. Terrorist victims do not.