Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[TomC]

Bombing the shit out of the very place where the hostages are located is just as likely to get them killed as getting them released.

This is true. And so obvious that I've been left believing that getting the hostages back isn't a particularly high priority.

How about the old-fashioned way of negotiating?

You say this like it's simple. Or at least feasible. I don't think it's even possible.
I don't think that there's anyone in Gaza who has the authority to negotiate much less willingness much less credibility.

The October 7 attack looks like "suicide by cop" to me. A hopeless attempt to go out with a bang, knowing how utterly self destructive it is. Then holding on to the hostages while Gazans die by the thousands. I see absolutely no chance that anybody in Gaza is willing and able to negotiate. I think that the hostages are doomed because they were abducted by cold blooded killers who don't even care about Gazans.

Tom

 

[Tigers!]

OK. Thanks. It seemed like some were unwilling to state the obvious ramifications of their stances.

That's a big problem across the board and on this thread.
Lots of people seem to think that Israelis just need to learn to get along with their Islamic neighbors. Stop responding to violent Islamic terrorist attacks. Without quite being willing to acknowledge the obvious ramifications of that stance.
Tom

Who here has suggested Israel stop responding to violent Islamic terrorist attacks?

Whenever someone here complains about anything Israel does in response to violent Islamic attacks then maybe they are telling Israel to stop responding to violent Islamic attacks?

I see people complaining about some of the things Israel has done in response to the attacks.

Israel must act to protect its citizens. That's why it exists. But that doesn't mean everything it does is automatically justified, especially when what it does kills so many civilians, most of whom are children.

Suppose the response to the Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians had been Hamas gassing Israelis in Tel Aviv the same way the Kurds were gassed by Saddam Hussein. Suppose for every Palestinian that was killed or injured, 10 Israelis were killed in exchange. Would you say that response was unjustifiable murder, or would you say something like 'all's fair in love and war'?

I'd rather that they leave each other alone and learn to get along.
I cannot justify the incessant bombing of Gaza but nor can I justify 7th Oct. The bombing of Gaza is a direct result of 7th Oct. Hamas knew what they were doing. They knew that Israel would respond. We live in a world of cause and effect.
The bombing of Gaza cannot be untangled from 7th Oct.

 

[Tigers!]

Depending on the estimates, the Gazan civilian to Israeli civilian toll falls between 5 and 10. And that ignores the destruction of homes and displacement of people.

I admire your view of "proportionate" but I reject

Could you explain a broad strokes version of a plan to eliminate the ongoing threat of Islamic terrorism from Gaza with a lower death toll? I don't know of one.
Tom

Not bombing the shit out of Gaza in order to get hostages back.

How will they get them (the hostages) back otherwise?

How about the old-fashioned way of negotiating? Bombing the shit out of the very place where the hostages are located is just as likely to get them killed as getting them released.

If a group crossing your border, kills > 1200 people, takes away > 200 we can safely conclude that they are NOT interested in negotiation.

 

[Tigers!]

If you want peace, don't let the extremists and the assholes control the agenda.

What do you do if the extremists already control the agenda? That appears to be the situation in the ME at the moment.

 

[Tigers!]

WTF are you going on about? Israel has not been around for centuries. And bringing in ancient history is truly pointless.

No, but anti-jewish bigotry has been and that's why there are Zionists and Israel.
So where do you want to start history? May 1948?
Last October 7?

This is a very important question. Where should we start in our discussion of current events, and the roots of the current bloodshed?

If you begin on October 7th of last year then the attack came out of nowhere and nothing. But obviously it did arise out of someplace and for some reason, which is why IMO divorcing the attack from the situation in the Occupied Territories is dishonest and foolish.

If you go back 4 months, to July 2023, then our discussion should include the rampage by Zionist settlers near Ramallah. But that, too, did not come out of nothing and nowhere. There are reasons it happened.

If you go back to May, that was when there was an exchange of fire between Israel and Gaza. The Israelis claimed to have assassinated a couple of people they claimed were militants, along with more than a dozen civilians. Apparently there were reasons the Israelis decided to commit multiple murders in a place outside Israel's borders. Obviously that sort of thing, and the deaths of ordinary people going about their everyday lives, fuels the fighting.

The question of where to begin a discussion of the conflict is going to heavily influence why we think it is happening, which will in turn affect how we think it might be resolved.

We could go back to approx. 125AD when the Romans expelled the Jews from Judea if you wish.

 

[laughing dog]

Depending on the estimates, the Gazan civilian to Israeli civilian toll falls between 5 and 10. And that ignores the destruction of homes and displacement of people.

I admire your view of "proportionate" but I reject

Could you explain a broad strokes version of a plan to eliminate the ongoing threat of Islamic terrorism from Gaza with a lower death toll? I don't know of one.
Tom

Not bombing the shit out of Gaza in order to get hostages back.

How will they get them (the hostages) back otherwise?

How about the old-fashioned way of negotiating? Bombing the shit out of the very place where the hostages are located is just as likely to get them killed as getting them released.

If a group crossing your border, kills > 1200 people, takes away > 200 we can safely conclude that they are NOT interested in negotiation.

You can safely draw any wrong conclusions you wish. Hamas has made trades before.

If you bomb the shit out of the area where the hostages are held, can we safely assume you don't give a shit about getting the hostages back alive?

 

[Arctish]

If you want peace, don't let the extremists and the assholes control the agenda.

What do you do if the extremists already control the agenda? That appears to be the situation in the ME at the moment.

You promote policies that move the agenda away from extremist, asshole positions and towards mutually beneficial ones, and you lobby for diplomatic resolution. If you can vote, you vote for someone who isn't an extremist or an asshole. You do your best to keep your kids out of militant organizations that will indoctrinate them into a mindset that views opponents as inherently evil, enemies of god, incapable of goodness, exactly the same as some other extremist asshole somewhere else, or any of the other racist bigoted horseshit that extremist organizations teach recruits.

You don't give up on promoting peace and supporting peacemakers. If all you can do is outlast the extremist assholes, then do that.

“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.” - John Stuart Mill

 

[Arctish]

WTF are you going on about? Israel has not been around for centuries. And bringing in ancient history is truly pointless.

No, but anti-jewish bigotry has been and that's why there are Zionists and Israel.
So where do you want to start history? May 1948?
Last October 7?

This is a very important question. Where should we start in our discussion of current events, and the roots of the current bloodshed?

If you begin on October 7th of last year then the attack came out of nowhere and nothing. But obviously it did arise out of someplace and for some reason, which is why IMO divorcing the attack from the situation in the Occupied Territories is dishonest and foolish.

If you go back 4 months, to July 2023, then our discussion should include the rampage by Zionist settlers near Ramallah. But that, too, did not come out of nothing and nowhere. There are reasons it happened.

If you go back to May, that was when there was an exchange of fire between Israel and Gaza. The Israelis claimed to have assassinated a couple of people they claimed were militants, along with more than a dozen civilians. Apparently there were reasons the Israelis decided to commit multiple murders in a place outside Israel's borders. Obviously that sort of thing, and the deaths of ordinary people going about their everyday lives, fuels the fighting.

The question of where to begin a discussion of the conflict is going to heavily influence why we think it is happening, which will in turn affect how we think it might be resolved.

We could go back to approx. 125AD when the Romans expelled the Jews from Judea if you wish.

We could.

That would encompass the spread of Christianity and Islam in the region, and possibly head off any attempts to assert that Christians and Muslims can't claim to be 'from' there.

I usually start at the beginning of the 20th century. Things were quiet under Ottoman rule. Sure, there had been murderers, thieves, land swindlers, corrupt officials, bigoted assholes, organized crime, etc., but for four centuries the society was as peaceful as we human beings can usually manage. The millet system the Ottomans employed made their empire very egalitarian. The problems associated with it, namely that it fostered separatism, had been addressed by the reforms of the 19th century. All subjects of the Empire were equal in status, and all were equally protected. And since Palestine had been peaceful for centuries up to that point, I think it's sensible to start with the question "what changed?", and to seek the answer to the question " what can we learn from that time to help people living in Palestine find peace again?".

Start wherever you like. But if you find that the things you are discussing appear to have come out of nothing and nowhere, you are probably ignoring something important about the initial conditions.

 

[laughing dog]

Bombing the shit out of the very place where the hostages are located is just as likely to get them killed as getting them released.

This is true. And so obvious that I've been left believing that getting the hostages back isn't a particularly high priority.

How about the old-fashioned way of negotiating?

You say this like it's simple. Or at least feasible. I don't think it's even possible.
I don't think that there's anyone in Gaza who has the authority to negotiate much less willingness much less credibility.

Then how did 1st ceasefire and hostage exchange happen?

 

[Tigers!]

Bombing the shit out of the very place where the hostages are located is just as likely to get them killed as getting them released.

This is true. And so obvious that I've been left believing that getting the hostages back isn't a particularly high priority.

How about the old-fashioned way of negotiating?

You say this like it's simple. Or at least feasible. I don't think it's even possible.
I don't think that there's anyone in Gaza who has the authority to negotiate much less willingness much less credibility.

Then how did 1st ceasefire and hostage exchange happen?

Do remind us how Hamas got the hostages in the first place that they then exchanged in said ceasefire.

 

[Tigers!]

WTF are you going on about? Israel has not been around for centuries. And bringing in ancient history is truly pointless.

No, but anti-jewish bigotry has been and that's why there are Zionists and Israel.
So where do you want to start history? May 1948?
Last October 7?

This is a very important question. Where should we start in our discussion of current events, and the roots of the current bloodshed?

If you begin on October 7th of last year then the attack came out of nowhere and nothing. But obviously it did arise out of someplace and for some reason, which is why IMO divorcing the attack from the situation in the Occupied Territories is dishonest and foolish.

If you go back 4 months, to July 2023, then our discussion should include the rampage by Zionist settlers near Ramallah. But that, too, did not come out of nothing and nowhere. There are reasons it happened.

If you go back to May, that was when there was an exchange of fire between Israel and Gaza. The Israelis claimed to have assassinated a couple of people they claimed were militants, along with more than a dozen civilians. Apparently there were reasons the Israelis decided to commit multiple murders in a place outside Israel's borders. Obviously that sort of thing, and the deaths of ordinary people going about their everyday lives, fuels the fighting.

The question of where to begin a discussion of the conflict is going to heavily influence why we think it is happening, which will in turn affect how we think it might be resolved.

We could go back to approx. 125AD when the Romans expelled the Jews from Judea if you wish.

We could.

That would encompass the spread of Christianity and Islam in the region, and possibly head off any attempts to assert that Christians and Muslims can't claim to be 'from' there.

I usually start at the beginning of the 20th century. Things were quiet under Ottoman rule. Sure, there had been murderers, thieves, land swindlers, corrupt officials, bigoted assholes, organized crime, etc., but for four centuries the society was as peaceful as we human beings can usually manage. The millet system the Ottomans employed made their empire very egalitarian. The problems associated with it, namely that it fostered separatism, had been addressed by the reforms of the 19th century. All subjects of the Empire were equal in status, and all were equally protected. And since Palestine had been peaceful for centuries up to that point, I think it's sensible to start with the question "what changed?", and to seek the answer to the question " what can we learn from that time to help people living in Palestine find peace again?".

Start wherever you like. But if you find that the things you are discussing appear to have come out of nothing and nowhere, you are probably ignoring something important about the initial conditions.

Most of these problems occur because the Jews are harassed, discriminated against, persecuted, mistreated where ever they live. The Jews began to migrate to the ME in the late 19th - early 20th C. because they were driven our of eastern Europe, then western Europe.
Understandably the Jews wish to have a place where they can live in peace (no different to you really). Why not where their ancestors had lived for > 1000 years before being expelled?
If the Jews would be left alone a lot of these problems would not be manifest today.

 

[Tigers!]

If you want peace, don't let the extremists and the assholes control the agenda.

What do you do if the extremists already control the agenda? That appears to be the situation in the ME at the moment.

You promote policies that move the agenda away from extremist, asshole positions and towards mutually beneficial ones, and you lobby for diplomatic resolution. If you can vote, you vote for someone who isn't an extremist or an asshole. You do your best to keep your kids out of militant organizations that will indoctrinate them into a mindset that views opponents as inherently evil, enemies of god, incapable of goodness, exactly the same as some other extremist asshole somewhere else, or any of the other racist bigoted horseshit that extremist organizations teach recruits.

Sounds good until the extremists invade, kill, take hostages (Gaza and the west bank) . Then what?
I do note that people in Israel can choose to vote for someone is not an extremists or a dick. Palestinians outside of Israel do not have that luxury.
That is where your wonderful thoughts fall down.
Fighting should be the absolute last resort. Sometimes it is the only resort.

You don't give up on promoting peace and supporting peacemakers. If all you can do is outlast the extremist assholes, then do that.

“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.” - John Stuart Mill

To support peacemakers you need a peace to keep. That is missing at the moment.

 

[laughing dog]

Bombing the shit out of the very place where the hostages are located is just as likely to get them killed as getting them released.

This is true. And so obvious that I've been left believing that getting the hostages back isn't a particularly high priority.

How about the old-fashioned way of negotiating?

You say this like it's simple. Or at least feasible. I don't think it's even possible.
I don't think that there's anyone in Gaza who has the authority to negotiate much less willingness much less credibility.

Then how did 1st ceasefire and hostage exchange happen?

Do remind us how Hamas got the hostages in the first place that they then exchanged in said ceasefire.

Shift the goalposts much?

If Israel is serious about getting hostages back alive, they will have to either deal with Hamas or risk killing hostages while trying to eradicate Hamas and inadvertently killing 100s if not 1000s of noncombatants.

 

[Arctish]

WTF are you going on about? Israel has not been around for centuries. And bringing in ancient history is truly pointless.

No, but anti-jewish bigotry has been and that's why there are Zionists and Israel.
So where do you want to start history? May 1948?
Last October 7?

This is a very important question. Where should we start in our discussion of current events, and the roots of the current bloodshed?

If you begin on October 7th of last year then the attack came out of nowhere and nothing. But obviously it did arise out of someplace and for some reason, which is why IMO divorcing the attack from the situation in the Occupied Territories is dishonest and foolish.

If you go back 4 months, to July 2023, then our discussion should include the rampage by Zionist settlers near Ramallah. But that, too, did not come out of nothing and nowhere. There are reasons it happened.

If you go back to May, that was when there was an exchange of fire between Israel and Gaza. The Israelis claimed to have assassinated a couple of people they claimed were militants, along with more than a dozen civilians. Apparently there were reasons the Israelis decided to commit multiple murders in a place outside Israel's borders. Obviously that sort of thing, and the deaths of ordinary people going about their everyday lives, fuels the fighting.

The question of where to begin a discussion of the conflict is going to heavily influence why we think it is happening, which will in turn affect how we think it might be resolved.

We could go back to approx. 125AD when the Romans expelled the Jews from Judea if you wish.

We could.

That would encompass the spread of Christianity and Islam in the region, and possibly head off any attempts to assert that Christians and Muslims can't claim to be 'from' there.

I usually start at the beginning of the 20th century. Things were quiet under Ottoman rule. Sure, there had been murderers, thieves, land swindlers, corrupt officials, bigoted assholes, organized crime, etc., but for four centuries the society was as peaceful as we human beings can usually manage. The millet system the Ottomans employed made their empire very egalitarian. The problems associated with it, namely that it fostered separatism, had been addressed by the reforms of the 19th century. All subjects of the Empire were equal in status, and all were equally protected. And since Palestine had been peaceful for centuries up to that point, I think it's sensible to start with the question "what changed?", and to seek the answer to the question " what can we learn from that time to help people living in Palestine find peace again?".

Start wherever you like. But if you find that the things you are discussing appear to have come out of nothing and nowhere, you are probably ignoring something important about the initial conditions.

Most of these problems occur because the Jews are harassed, discriminated against, persecuted, mistreated where ever they live. The Jews began to migrate to the ME in the late 19th - early 20th C. because they were driven our of eastern Europe, then western Europe.
Understandably the Jews wish to have a place where they can live in peace (no different to you really). Why not where their ancestors had lived for > 1000 years before being expelled?
If the Jews would be left alone a lot of these problems would not be manifest today.

History of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire:

Although the Ottomans did not treat Jews differently from other minorities in the country, the policies seemed to align well with Jewish traditions, which allowed communities to flourish. The Jewish people were allowed to establish their own autonomous communities, which included their own schools and courts. Those rights were extremely controversial in other regions in Muslim North Africa and absolutely unrealistic in Europe.The communities would prove to be centers of education and trade because of the large array of connections with other Jewish communities across the Mediterranean.

The history of the Jewish people in the Ottoman Empire is really very interesting. Sephardic Jews fleeing persecution during the Spanish Inquisition were welcome to live in the Empire. Heck, Sultan Beyazid II even sent the Turkish Navy to evacuate Jews from Spain and called Spain's king an idiot for expelling the Jews, thereby impoverishing his own country and enriching the Turks.

Zionist dogma insists that the only place Jews can be treated with respect and their security valued is in a Jewish State. It isn't true. Not only is it possible for Jews to be well respected, well treated, and well protected in a State they share with Muslims and Christians, it already happened, for centuries.

IMO it's time to take a lesson from the Ottoman Turks, and to take what they did well and improve on it.

 

[Arctish]

If you want peace, don't let the extremists and the assholes control the agenda.

What do you do if the extremists already control the agenda? That appears to be the situation in the ME at the moment.

You promote policies that move the agenda away from extremist, asshole positions and towards mutually beneficial ones, and you lobby for diplomatic resolution. If you can vote, you vote for someone who isn't an extremist or an asshole. You do your best to keep your kids out of militant organizations that will indoctrinate them into a mindset that views opponents as inherently evil, enemies of god, incapable of goodness, exactly the same as some other extremist asshole somewhere else, or any of the other racist bigoted horseshit that extremist organizations teach recruits.

Sounds good until the extremists invade, kill, take hostages (Gaza and the west bank) . Then what?
I do note that people in Israel can choose to vote for someone is not an extremists or a dick. Palestinians outside of Israel do not have that luxury.
That is where your wonderful thoughts fall down.
Fighting should be the absolute last resort. Sometimes it is the only resort.

Of course.

Did you watch the Cinema Therapy video I linked to?

You don't give up on promoting peace and supporting peacemakers. If all you can do is outlast the extremist assholes, then do that.

“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.” - John Stuart Mill

To support peacemakers you need a peace to keep. That is missing at the moment.

No, you don't need the peace to already be there. You need to support the people who are working to find or create peace, the ones making peace.

But you do need to stop thinking some people are incapable of peace. That's just racist horseshit. Everyone is capable of peace. Everyone is capable of compromise. The most self centered bigoted assholes resist it the hardest, but even they are capable of it.

 

[Tigers!]

Bombing the shit out of the very place where the hostages are located is just as likely to get them killed as getting them released.

This is true. And so obvious that I've been left believing that getting the hostages back isn't a particularly high priority.

How about the old-fashioned way of negotiating?

You say this like it's simple. Or at least feasible. I don't think it's even possible.
I don't think that there's anyone in Gaza who has the authority to negotiate much less willingness much less credibility.

Then how did 1st ceasefire and hostage exchange happen?

Do remind us how Hamas got the hostages in the first place that they then exchanged in said ceasefire.

Shift the goalposts much?

Unwillingness to say how Hamas got the hostages in the first place is duly noted.

If Israel is serious about getting hostages back alive, they will have to either deal with Hamas or risk killing hostages while trying to eradicate Hamas and inadvertently killing 100s if not 1000s of noncombatants.

Hamas cares nothing for those 1000s of non-combatants (i will remind you that nearly all of the >1200 Israelis killed and hostages were non-combatants too). If Hamas were truly concerned about the hostages they would release the hostages anyway. The inhabitants in Gaza are a means to an end. Why should Israel deal willingly with those who wish their destruction?

 

[Tigers!]

If you want peace, don't let the extremists and the assholes control the agenda.

What do you do if the extremists already control the agenda? That appears to be the situation in the ME at the moment.

You promote policies that move the agenda away from extremist, asshole positions and towards mutually beneficial ones, and you lobby for diplomatic resolution. If you can vote, you vote for someone who isn't an extremist or an asshole. You do your best to keep your kids out of militant organizations that will indoctrinate them into a mindset that views opponents as inherently evil, enemies of god, incapable of goodness, exactly the same as some other extremist asshole somewhere else, or any of the other racist bigoted horseshit that extremist organizations teach recruits.

Sounds good until the extremists invade, kill, take hostages (Gaza and the west bank) . Then what?
I do note that people in Israel can choose to vote for someone is not an extremists or a dick. Palestinians outside of Israel do not have that luxury.
That is where your wonderful thoughts fall down.
Fighting should be the absolute last resort. Sometimes it is the only resort.

Of course.

Did you watch the Cinema Therapy video I linked to?

I will look for it.

You don't give up on promoting peace and supporting peacemakers. If all you can do is outlast the extremist assholes, then do that.

“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.” - John Stuart Mill

To support peacemakers you need a peace to keep. That is missing at the moment.

No, you don't need the peace to already be there. You need to support the people who are working to find or create peace, the ones making peace.

And sometimes peace can only be made by war. Tragically this looks like one of those times.

But you do need to stop thinking some people are incapable of peace. That's just racist horseshit. Everyone is capable of peace. Everyone is capable of compromise. The most self centered bigoted assholes resist it the hardest, but even they are capable of it.

Racist no. No, some people are not capable of compromise or peace. They will never admit to making a mistake. That is independent of colour, creed or religion or lack thereof.

 

[Tigers!]

WTF are you going on about? Israel has not been around for centuries. And bringing in ancient history is truly pointless.

No, but anti-jewish bigotry has been and that's why there are Zionists and Israel.
So where do you want to start history? May 1948?
Last October 7?

This is a very important question. Where should we start in our discussion of current events, and the roots of the current bloodshed?

If you begin on October 7th of last year then the attack came out of nowhere and nothing. But obviously it did arise out of someplace and for some reason, which is why IMO divorcing the attack from the situation in the Occupied Territories is dishonest and foolish.

If you go back 4 months, to July 2023, then our discussion should include the rampage by Zionist settlers near Ramallah. But that, too, did not come out of nothing and nowhere. There are reasons it happened.

If you go back to May, that was when there was an exchange of fire between Israel and Gaza. The Israelis claimed to have assassinated a couple of people they claimed were militants, along with more than a dozen civilians. Apparently there were reasons the Israelis decided to commit multiple murders in a place outside Israel's borders. Obviously that sort of thing, and the deaths of ordinary people going about their everyday lives, fuels the fighting.

The question of where to begin a discussion of the conflict is going to heavily influence why we think it is happening, which will in turn affect how we think it might be resolved.

We could go back to approx. 125AD when the Romans expelled the Jews from Judea if you wish.

We could.

That would encompass the spread of Christianity and Islam in the region, and possibly head off any attempts to assert that Christians and Muslims can't claim to be 'from' there.

I usually start at the beginning of the 20th century. Things were quiet under Ottoman rule. Sure, there had been murderers, thieves, land swindlers, corrupt officials, bigoted assholes, organized crime, etc., but for four centuries the society was as peaceful as we human beings can usually manage. The millet system the Ottomans employed made their empire very egalitarian. The problems associated with it, namely that it fostered separatism, had been addressed by the reforms of the 19th century. All subjects of the Empire were equal in status, and all were equally protected. And since Palestine had been peaceful for centuries up to that point, I think it's sensible to start with the question "what changed?", and to seek the answer to the question " what can we learn from that time to help people living in Palestine find peace again?".

Start wherever you like. But if you find that the things you are discussing appear to have come out of nothing and nowhere, you are probably ignoring something important about the initial conditions.

Most of these problems occur because the Jews are harassed, discriminated against, persecuted, mistreated where ever they live. The Jews began to migrate to the ME in the late 19th - early 20th C. because they were driven our of eastern Europe, then western Europe.
Understandably the Jews wish to have a place where they can live in peace (no different to you really). Why not where their ancestors had lived for > 1000 years before being expelled?
If the Jews would be left alone a lot of these problems would not be manifest today.

History of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire:

Although the Ottomans did not treat Jews differently from other minorities in the country, the policies seemed to align well with Jewish traditions, which allowed communities to flourish. The Jewish people were allowed to establish their own autonomous communities, which included their own schools and courts. Those rights were extremely controversial in other regions in Muslim North Africa and absolutely unrealistic in Europe.The communities would prove to be centers of education and trade because of the large array of connections with other Jewish communities across the Mediterranean.

The history of the Jewish people in the Ottoman Empire is really very interesting. Sephardic Jews fleeing persecution during the Spanish Inquisition were welcome to live in the Empire. Heck, Sultan Beyazid II even sent the Turkish Navy to evacuate Jews from Spain and called Spain's king an idiot for expelling the Jews, thereby impoverishing his own country and enriching the Turks.

Zionist dogma insists that the only place Jews can be treated with respect and their security valued is in a Jewish State. It isn't true. Not only is it possible for Jews to be well respected, well treated, and well protected in a State they share with Muslims and Christians, it already happened, for centuries.

Have never claimed that the Ottomans never had some really good leaders. A small group but they did exist.

IMO it's time to take a lesson from the Ottoman Turks, and to take what they did well and improve on it.

Yes. Let's learn where we can.

 

[laughing dog]

Bombing the shit out of the very place where the hostages are located is just as likely to get them killed as getting them released.

This is true. And so obvious that I've been left believing that getting the hostages back isn't a particularly high priority.

How about the old-fashioned way of negotiating?

You say this like it's simple. Or at least feasible. I don't think it's even possible.
I don't think that there's anyone in Gaza who has the authority to negotiate much less willingness much less credibility.

Then how did 1st ceasefire and hostage exchange happen?

Do remind us how Hamas got the hostages in the first place that they then exchanged in said ceasefire.

Shift the goalposts much?

Unwillingness to say how Hamas got the hostages in the first place is duly noted.

Blather duly noted.

If Israel is serious about getting hostages back alive, they will have to either deal with Hamas or risk killing hostages while trying to eradicate Hamas and inadvertently killing 100s if not 1000s of noncombatants.

Hamas cares nothing for those 1000s of non-combatants (i will remind you that nearly all of the >1200 Israelis killed and hostages were non-combatants too). If Hamas were truly concerned about the hostages they would release the hostages anyway. The inhabitants in Gaza are a means to an end. Why should Israel deal willingly with those who wish their destruction?

I am not privy to Hamas decision-making and neither are you. Your response makes no sense. Historically, Hamas takes hostages to trade for people they wish released from Israeli custody. It makes no sense for them to release them without getting anything that they value. Hamas does not value the lives of their citizens. Hamas only values the lives of their hostages in so far as those hostages are tradable. And in the past, Israel has made such trades.

You seem unable to grasp reality here. If Israel wants to get hostages back alive, they need to deal with Hamas. Otherwise, they risk the hostages either being killed by Hamas or by IDF bombardment. Of course, if Israel does not really care about the hostages, then there is no incentive for Israel to deal with Hamas.

 

[Arctish]

As most regulars here probably know, I'm a fan of anime. One of my favorite films is Princess Mononoke, the movie that brought Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli to the attention of American audiences.

I'm also a fan of the You Tube channel Cinema Therapy, where a licensed therapist and a film maker discuss movie plots, themes, directorial choices, etc. Their recent video, See With Eyes Unclouded By Hate, which focuses on the character of Ashitaka from Princess Mononoke and how he deals with conflict, really hits on a lot of points people have been discussing in this thread, which is why I have linked to it here.

It's a great little video about a great movie that explores an important topic.

Re-posting ^this^ to make it easier to find.