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Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

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I suggest moving them to the nearest point of safety as a short-term solution, and to places where they have relatives or where their families are from as a longer term solution. That's why I suggest Ashkelon.
Ashkelon doesn't seem particularly good to me. It's a small Israeli city. It's been bombed by missiles from Gaza. It's largely inhabited by Israelis forced out of their homes somewhere else. It's further away than Egypt for most Gazans at this point.

Egypt is the obvious choice to me. Close, Muslim, safe from Zionists.
Tom
Zionists have been trying to force Palestinians out of Eretz Israel since Plan Dalet was enacted, and Palestinians have been fighting back for just as long.

Relocating the Gazans to Egypt instead of bringing them to safety in Israel or the West Bank would look like a continuation of the exact same policies that led to the war in the first place. Israel would be providing the motive and justification for another Hamas.
 
The civilians favor the attacks. They share some of the culpability.
You keep repeating that inanity. Unless the civilians favored it a prior, you are spouting illogic.
Since it was obviously secret no such poll results can exist. We can only work with the data we have--which says that Gaza supports 10/7 and the Muslim world in general also supports it.
Work with the data logically, not illogically.
But that doesn't mean simply denying inconvenient facts.
What inconvenient fact do you think is being denied?
That the people support 10/7.

Just because we don't have unobtainable information doesn't mean we should ignore what we do have.
 
The civilians favor the attacks. They share some of the culpability.
You keep repeating that inanity. Unless the civilians favored it a prior, you are spouting illogic.
Since it was obviously secret no such poll results can exist. We can only work with the data we have--which says that Gaza supports 10/7 and the Muslim world in general also supports it.
Can you provide a link to that data?
Google hit #1: https://www.reuters.com/world/middl...attack-israel-support-hamas-rises-2023-12-14/

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it before.
From your link:

Fifty-two percent of Gazans and 85% of West Bank respondents - or 72% of Palestinian respondents overall - voiced satisfaction with the role of Hamas in the war.

Conveniently, it is the ones not getting bombed that favor the war more.
That's still the majority who support it.
 
The civilians favor the attacks. They share some of the culpability.
You keep repeating that inanity. Unless the civilians favored it a prior, you are spouting illogic.
Since it was obviously secret no such poll results can exist. We can only work with the data we have--which says that Gaza supports 10/7 and the Muslim world in general also supports it.
Work with the data logically, not illogically.
But that doesn't mean simply denying inconvenient facts.
What inconvenient fact do you think is being denied?
That the people support 10/7.

Just because we don't have unobtainable information doesn't mean we should ignore what we do have.
The fact people support 10/7 ex poste does not mean they supported it ex ante or would support another one.
 
Make a deal and honor a deal are two different things.

Iran does have reason to distrust the US as well.
Both are painfully true.
I see Iranian intransigence as largely due to Teaparty Obstruction during the Obama administration. They torpedoed the peace deal with Iran, then Trump finished it off.
Thereby demonstrating that the USA is generally in favor of conflict and cannot be trusted for longer than a political cycle. As a result, we have nearly zero influence/soft power. Iran is strongly allied to Russia and China. All three are inclined to give the USA fits, including our unofficial 51st state of Israel.
Now we're reaping what the GOP sowed.
Tom
Iran has been putting itself as the leader of Islamic terrorism for a lot longer than that.
 
Too many people are giving Netanyahu too much benefit of the doubt.
Several posters here would have us believe that unless we personally can think of a better solution we just need to accept that Netanyahu’s current plan is the only and best option.
We have no requirement that you personally come up with it. Rather, that anyone come up with something--and so far all we see is stupid nonsense that has no chance of success.
 
Too many people are giving Netanyahu too much benefit of the doubt.
Several posters here would have us believe that unless we personally can think of a better solution we just need to accept that Netanyahu’s current plan is the only and best option.
We have no requirement that you personally come up with it. Rather, that anyone come up with something--and so far all we see is stupid nonsense that has no chance of success.
Are you privy to the discussions that Biden a his team has about alternatives with Netanyahu? I’m not but I’d be surprised if it were “stupid nonsense”.
 
But nobody has one.
Nobody has a solution (including BiBi). But I think an understanding on priorities regarding a military response could easily be had.
Wanting there to be a better answer doesn't make one exist.

This is the fundamental flaw of the left: the belief that there must be a good answer. And it's corollary that if the answer isn't good it must be the fault of those with the most power.
 
Fair enough, perhaps that was a bit of hyperbole with the use of the word "personally". Honestly, I don't know what other options may have been floated by any other governments, organizations, or individuals, including Israelis. "Feasible" is a vague term so it's hard to say what that means.

I guess it depends on what the concrete goals of the Israeli government actually are, and where the line is drawn for acceptable civilian deaths (on both sides) to achieve those goals.
I would be shocked if it wasn't the case that every major power in the world was studying what's happening there. If anybody actually had a better plan don't you think someone would say something about it? Either to help Israel or to embarrass them? The silence speaks volumes.
 
A descendant is a descendant is a descendant.
If you say so. So what conclusion do you propose that we should derive from somebody being a descendant?

(The thing to keep in mind, though, is that the rights and wrongs of the modern conflict aren't determined by genetics. Politesse had it right: "But I don't think the concept of indigeneity applies to the situation at all." ...
I do think the concept applies.
How would you apply it? What follows from indigeneity? If being a descendant makes you indigenous then the Ashkenazi and Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews who immigrated in the 30s and 40s were indigenous too. A descendant is a descendant is a descendant.
Being a descendant does not imply indigeneity. It only implies some degree of ancestry.

The term indigenous means something else.
From your link:

"...considerable thinking and debate have been devoted to the question of the definition or understanding of “indigenous peoples”. But no such definition has ever been adopted by any United Nations-system body.
...
observers from indigenous organizations developed a common position that rejected the idea of a formal definition of indigenous peoples at the international level to be adopted by states. Similarly, government delegations expressed the view that it was neither desirable nor necessary to elaborate a universal definition of indigenous peoples. Finally, at its fifteenth session, in 1997, the Working Group concluded that a definition of indigenous peoples at the global level was not possible at that time, and this did not prove necessary for the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
...
Article 1 indicates that self-identification as indigenous or tribal shall be regarded as a fundamental criterion for determining the groups to which the provisions of this Convention apply."
So yes, it means something else: it evidently means whatever a speaker wants it to mean. So how would you apply it? What follows from indigeneity?

The Ashkenazi are of mixed European and Middle Eastern ancestry. They might be considered indigenous in parts of Europe where their families lived for thousands of years but they don't have the same heritage as the Palestinian Jews who are part of the indigenous population of Palestine.
The Palestinian Jews and Arabs also have mixed European and Middle Eastern ancestry.

From your link:

"One of the most cited descriptions of the concept of “indigenous” ... Martínez Cobo offered a working definition of “indigenous communities, peoples and nations”. In doing so, he expressed a number of basic ideas forming the intellectual framework for this effort, including the right of indigenous peoples themselves to define what and who indigenous peoples are. The working definition reads as follows:

Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with
pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves
distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing on those territories, or parts of them.
They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop
and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the
basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns,
social institutions and legal system.
This historical continuity may consist of the continuation, for an extended period reaching into
the present of one or more of the following factors:

a. Occupation of ancestral lands, or at least of part of them
b. Common ancestry with the original occupants of these lands
c. Culture in general, or in specific manifestations (such as religion, living under a tribal system,
membership of an indigenous community, dress, means of livelihood, lifestyle, etc.)
d. Language (whether used as the only language, as mother-tongue, as the habitual means
of communication at home or in the family, or as the main, preferred, habitual, general or
normal language)
e. Residence in certain parts of the country, or in certain regions of the world
f. Other relevant factors.

On an individual basis, an indigenous person is one who belongs to these indigenous populations through self-identification as indigenous (group consciousness) and is recognized and accepted by these populations as one of its members (acceptance by the group)."
The Israelis clearly satisfy Cobo's criteria.

Golda Meir once called Palestine "a land without a people for a people without a land".
That's anachronistic. Cite? ...
You're right. I apologize for the error.

She said:

"There was no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country from them. They did not exist." <link>

She later said this:

"When were Palestinians born? What was all of this area before the First World War when Britain got the Mandate over Palestine? What was Palestine, then? Palestine was then the area between the Mediterranean and the Iraqian border. East and West Bank was Palestine. I am a Palestinian, from 1921 and 1948, I carried a Palestinian passport. There was no such thing in this area as Jews, and Arabs, and Palestinians, There were Jews and Arabs." <link>

Then she made a bit of a quibble:

"I don't say there are no Palestinians, but I say there is no such thing as a distinct Palestinian people."

So first she says Palestinian people did not exist,
"a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people". So no, she said "a" Palestinian people did not exist.

As I said, using "people" in the singular is always propaganda. Her words in no way imply Palestinian people did not exist. The Arabs and the native Jews and the Ukrainian immigrant Jews like herself were all Palestinian people and she did not say any of them didn't exist. She was simply rejecting the "a Palestinian people" propaganda narrative. (In favor of her own propaganda narrative, of course.)

even as she admits there were people in what she herself calls Palestine
"admits". Nice. Shall I describe you as "admitting" Israelis are capable of human speech? Of course there were people there; when is Meir supposed to have denied it, or made some argument it's a point against?

and that the Zionists threw them out.
Not seeing where she admits that. Her point appears to be quite the contrary: that the Israelis never threw the Arabs out of Palestine, because the people supposedly thrown out are still in Palestine. The Jews and the Arabs were all Palestinians, all living together in Palestine, and since they weren't getting along, it was partitioned: the Jews getting a fifth and the Arabs getting four fifths. This was the original two-state solution -- the Arab Palestinians already got their own Arab Palestinian state, which was renamed "Jordan".

Then she asks "what was all this before Britain got the Mandate over Palestine?" Obviously the answer is, it was Palestine. And then she pivoted to talking about "a distinct Palestinian people", which begs the question, distinct from what? Egyptians?
Distinct from Jordanians, presumably. Perhaps she meant Egyptians too, since the Gaza Strip was under Egyptian control then.

She was denying the existence of the indigenous population of Palestine
That is not a reasonable interpretation. "There was no such thing in this area as Jews, and Arabs, and Palestinians, There were Jews and Arabs." is explicitly asserting the existence of the indigenous population; what she's denying is that "Palestinians" is a more appropriate term for the non-Jews than "Arabs".

so she could hand wave away the "we came and threw them out and took their country from them" part.
From her perspective, it was "we came and took control of a fifth of their country and those who didn't want to be in a place we controlled were free to move to the other four fifths." Why should she have accepted a "we came and threw them out and took their country from them" narrative, which plainly implies the Jews took their whole country, when they only got a fifth of it? Can you show Jordan was objectively not part of Palestine?

Zuheir Mohsen, a PLO bigwig, said the following to a Dutch newspaper:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism."​

Was he denying the existence of the indigenous population of Palestine? Was he hand waving away the "came and threw them out and took their country from them" part? Was he claiming Palestinian people did not exist, with no "a"? Golda Meir appears to have simply been agreeing with the PLO's real views instead of with a narrative the PLO peddled for propaganda purposes.

The denial that there even is such a thing as an indigenous Palestinian people has direct bearing on the current conflict.
"such a thing as an"? "People" is plural for "person". Using it in the singular is always an exercise in propaganda,

It's the word sociologists, anthropologists, Native Alaskans, and probably quite a few others use when talking about communities of individual persons who share a common ancestry, history, heritage, culture, and long term occupation of a specific area across multiple generations. For example: the Zuni people, the Scottish people, the Alutiiq/Sugpiaq people, etc.
Yes, I'm familiar with the usage, thank you. So can you show that Palestinians and Jordanians were objectively two "peoples" and not "a people", or can't you? Sociology and anthropology rarely rise to the level of sciences. What falsifiable prediction can be derived from labeling Scottish persons "a people"?

whether you're claiming the Palestinians aren't "a people", or are. There exists no "truth-maker", no objective criterion, for one group of people having "a people"-hood and another group not. Whether "there even is such a thing as an indigenous Palestinian people" is irreducibly a matter of subjective opinion.
Ah, semantics.
Ah, another entry for the 'Phrases that mean “I have no argument but I want to post a neener-neener.”' thread.
 
If you read your own words, you'd see that the your use of "vague possibilities" and "feasible plan" make your response internally consistent.
I presume you meant "inconsistent".

Could you explain why? I'm not seeing it.
Feasiblity and vagueness are in the eye of the beholders. When the beholders deny every offered possibility based on those standards, they are saying Netanhayu's plan is the best one available.
This sounds awfully QOP.
 
It really hinges on what you consider the word "feasible" to mean and what both the short- and long-term goals are here. If the goal is truly to eradicate Hamas entirely, it seems likely there is no alternative to complete occupation of Gaza, be it by Israel and/or other nations. Even that may not ever truly get rid of all terrorism.

But I do get a feeling that options like ceasefires and negotiations, or basically anything that could even resemble compromise or capitulation by Israel, will simply be brushed off.
Israel has pretty much all along offered cease fire for releasing the hostages.

What they won't accept is capitulating to Hamas--that will make things worse down the road.
 
You keep putting impossible conditions on your ask. Using your "reasoning", since Gazan air space is part of the Hamas infrastructure because terrorist breathe air, it is permissible to gas Gaza.
Seriously, you think I said anything remotely like that?
FFS, at least pretend to read with some comprehension. You are the one defending the wholesale destruction of Gaza because "the military installation has been interwoven with Gazan civilian infrastructure". I simply used that reasoning to show its implications. If you don't like the consequences of your reasoning, that suggests your rationale is defective.


This is a big part of why the situation in Gaza is so intractable. People like you keep telling other people what they mean.
Tom
No, the big part of the problem is that people like you don't think about what they actually write.
You are playing games with misunderstanding what we are saying. What we have said is clear but not to your liking.
 
Israel was built by Zionists. People who had been driven out of somewhere by anti-jewish bigotry and collected there. I don't think they will give up the security of a "Jewish homeland" short of nukes.
This sounds to me like there was nothing there before the Zionists moved in. I know you don't think that.
You realize that by a simple look at the population it's clear that they have built at least 90% of what's currently there?
 
I see it as a fundamental part of Zionist Identity. Whether it's important to you or not, Zionists were created by anti-jewish bigots.

Around the world, from medieval times until October 7, 2023, Jewish people have been fighting to survive the Abrahamic world for centuries. The survivors formed Israel and are fighting for survival in a hostile environment.
And that's the thing. Literal Zionists aren't a particularly representative sample of Jews. They're the ones who took on the challenges of surviving the modern Abrahamic world. I don't think that they'll accept defeat under any circumstances. They'll keep fighting until they're dead.
I hope it doesn't include nukes.
Tom
I see it slightly differently: They look at world history and understand that to accept defeat is to die. An awful lot of the Jews of the world have been killed, to accept defeat in Israel will embolden their attackers. And Zionism exists because no country on the planet has a long term record of being safe for them.
 

That is incorrect but perhaps the misunderstanding is because I forgot to be really wordy in my post.

Palestinian Jews from families that have lived in Palestine for centuries are there legally. Likewise for Jews who legally emigrated to Palestine before 1939 and their descendants. Many Jewish immigrants to Palestine from 1939 to 1948 (but not all of them) arrived illegally.

Jews who live on land that was not allocated to the State of Israel by the UN Partition plan can make the case that they live there legally since the international community and the Palestinians have recognized the 1967 borders, even if they moved there following the implementation of Plan Dalet. The ones who are living in the Occupied Territories can't make that claim because a State moving its citizens on to land it took from people living under military occupation is a violation of international law.
They would be slaughtered under your approach.

His translation is correct.

translation: Let the slaughter resume!

Not at all.
Saying so doesn't make it so.

The choice here isn't between slaughter or allowing some people to steal land from other people. That is a ridiculous excluded-middle fallacy.
You are imagining a middle that does not exist.
The choice here is between sitting by passively as people are slaughtered or moving them to safety. Where better to move Palestinians than to a different part of Palestine, away from the fighting?
And you think Hamas would allow their human shields to leave? Their track record is shooting shields who try to get off the X.

No, there are places to where refugees could be evacuated. Possibly some to a location in Israel, to Ashkelon or somewhere. But that's not "illegal" housing or "stolen" land just because there are Jews living there. Maybe there's room for some refugees there, but that doesn't mean Jews living there must first get the Hell out because they're illegal or the land there was stolen. To say that is just to say that it's time for the slaughter of the Palestinians to resume, or continue, because there's no other alternative.

Instead of demanding dogmatically that Israel must surrender to Hamas

Who in this thread is even suggesting that Israel surrender to Hamas?
The peace proposal is effectively an Israeli surrender to Hamas.

Your argument is based on some wild hot takes.
because they're illegal and stole everything, it's more productive to consider locations to where Palestinians could be evacuated, from their current location where they're threatened. If you don't care anything about saving some of them, then just say outright that it's time for the slaughter of them to resume.

Why should they be allowed to continue to inflame the situation while children remain in peril?
How is it being inflamed by just evacuating someone to safety so they don't get killed? You prefer the alternative of innocent people getting slaughtered?

The situation is being inflamed by the on-going ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionists like Netanyahu and the settlers he caters to in exchange for their support.
And where do you find ethnic cleansing? I'm not going to take the time to hunt down updated numbers but it was running about 40% combatants. For urban combat that is very good even not considering widespread human shield tactics.


I agree.

They should be evacuated now.

I suggest moving them to the nearest point of safety as a short-term solution, and to places where they have relatives or where their families are from as a longer term solution. That's why I suggest Ashkelon.
How in the world do you think Hamas will agree?

And how in the world do you think Israel is going to let them have access to a city to destroy it? (The result would inevitably be it would be booby trapped from hell.)
 
Too many people are giving Netanyahu too much benefit of the doubt.
Several posters here would have us believe that unless we personally can think of a better solution we just need to accept that Netanyahu’s current plan is the only and best option.
We have no requirement that you personally come up with it. Rather, that anyone come up with something--and so far all we see is stupid nonsense that has no chance of success.
Are you privy to the discussions that Biden a his team has about alternatives with Netanyahu? I’m not but I’d be surprised if it were “stupid nonsense”.
I don't know what they might have proposed. However we do know:

1) Israel has already criticized the US approach as causing too many civilian casualties.

2) If they actually came up with something useful don't you think it would have been implemented? We wouldn't be hearing about it, we would be seeing it in action.
 
That the people support 10/7.

Just because we don't have unobtainable information doesn't mean we should ignore what we do have.
The fact people support 10/7 ex poste does not mean they supported it ex ante or would support another one.
But why should we think they wouldn't??
Human nature. I do not support 10/7. But if I saw my friends or family getting bombed to hell and children getting killed, I can see how someone might react with "Hamas did not do enough to the fucking Israelis". It is part of many people's nature to react that way to perceived injustice. It doesn't mean they are actually in favor of murder and destruction. As anyone who participates in an online forum should know by now, talk is cheap.

So, I don't take those polls to mean that the participants necessarily are in favor of terrorism. Some or all may be, but they may be expressing their displeasure of what they perceive as grave injustice towards their group.
 
That the people support 10/7.

Just because we don't have unobtainable information doesn't mean we should ignore what we do have.
The fact people support 10/7 ex poste does not mean they supported it ex ante or would support another one.
But why should we think they wouldn't??
Human nature. I do not support 10/7. But if I saw my friends or family getting bombed to hell and children getting killed, I can see how someone might react with "Hamas did not do enough to the fucking Israelis". It is part of many people's nature to react that way to perceived injustice. It doesn't mean they are actually in favor of murder and destruction. As anyone who participates in an online forum should know by now, talk is cheap.

So, I don't take those polls to mean that the participants necessarily are in favor of terrorism. Some or all may be, but they may be expressing their displeasure of what they perceive as grave injustice towards their group.
And many people here feel the death and destruction in Gaza is an acceptable result when considering the current and future safety of Israelis. We can all get numbed to some degree of violence we ourselves are not subject to or partaking in.
 
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