Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[Colonel Sanders]

The use of the word "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" is ironic in this case, to put it politely. Over the past 75 years, the Arab nations have made no secret that they would happily eradicate Jews to the greatest extent possible, and through warfare have attempted to begin to do that multiple times. Fortunately, they're horrible at warfare and have failed each time.

Genocide generally takes one of two forms:

1. The expressed attempt to eradicate an ethnic group of people (see expressed Arab intent above).

2. Involves the incitement of genocide. That is, encouraging others to participate in the genocide or to help with it (see Nazi Germany recruiting citizens of other nations to participate in rounding up Jews).

Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically pure.

Israel was attacked and reacted to it. You can argue whether or not the response was appropriate, but it is negligent for a government to fail to protect its people.

Hamas chose this course of action and Iran backed them. The intent by both is to not just kill Jews, but to eradicate them entirely. Just because it didn't work doesn't mean it's a-okay. It's disgusting and outrageous, whether or not they succeed.

So why do liberals support oppressive theocratic nations whose unmistakable intent is genocide?

Fuck if I know.

ETA: if Trump launched a nuclear strike against China and they retaliated in kind, thereby killing tens of millions of Americans, shouldn't Trump be held responsible for starting that bullshit?

Of course he should because those tens of millions wouldn't have been killed without his idiotic choices.

 

[Swammerdami]

2) Even if true the Israeli action that started the war was it's existence. Thus the only "solution" along those lines is Hitler's Final Solution. Is that what you want?

So in your universe, one must support genocide, because they only alternative to genocide is genocide? As opposed to, say, not genocide?

That's not what Loren is saying, and you should be able to infer that on your own, Poli.

Israel has tried repeatedly for decades to keep some sort of peace with muslims living within Israel's borders - and whether you like it or not, Palestine is not a separate country, it is part of the nation of Israel, where Israel has essentially ceded a degree of independence within it's own border to the people who live there. But the residents of that stretch of land have repeated initiated altercations with Israel, including this most recent situation.

Your history omits crucial facts. Gaza was part of Egypt. It wasn't until 1956 when Israel invaded Gaza that it became part of the nation of Israel.

Nitpick: This is slightly misleading. From 1920 to 1948 Gaza was part of Mandatory Palestine, nominally controlled by Britain. After the 1948 war it fell under Egyptian military rule. Wikipedia offers information about the 1948 War's affect on the Palestinian people:

In the 1948 Palestine war, more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs – about half of Mandatory Palestine's predominantly Arab population – were expelled or fled from their homes, at first by Zionist paramilitaries, and after the establishment of Israel, by its military. The expulsion and flight was a central component of the fracturing, dispossession, and displacement of Palestinian society, known as the Nakba. Dozens of massacres targeting Arabs were conducted by Israeli military forces and between 400 and 600 Palestinian villages were destroyed. Village wells were poisoned in a biological warfare programme and properties were looted to prevent Palestinian refugees from returning. Other sites were subject to Hebraization of Palestinian place names.

The precise number of Palestinian refugees, many of whom settled in Palestinian refugee camps in neighboring states, is a matter of dispute, although the number is around 700,000, being approximately 80 percent of the Arab inhabitants of what became Israel. About 250,000–300,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled during the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, before the termination of the British Mandate on 14 May 1948. The desire to prevent the collapse of the Palestinians and to avoid more refugees were some of the reasons for the entry of the Arab League into the country, which began the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

Egyptian rule continued until the 1967 War:

Gaza was invaded and occupied by Israel in 1967 following the Six-Day War. Israel created the Israeli Military Governorate to administrate territories it captured, including Gaza. Israeli settlements began to be established in the Gaza Strip.

Organized armed struggle against Israel in Gaza peaked between 1969 and 1971, but was largely crushed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) under the command of Ariel Sharon.

The only solution that Hamas, Palestine, and the entire Muslim region will accept is the extermination of Jews. They've proven that over and over again.

It takes a whole lot of ignorance to come up with that claim. The entire Muslim region encompasses many areas that don't really care one way or the other about Israel.

We should never generalize all conservatives as bigots, that's unfair! Anyway all Muslims in the Middle East are bigots.

 

[Elixir]

The only solution that Hamas, Palestine, and the entire Muslim region will accept is the extermination of Jews.

Do you have any sense of exactly how "Jewish" an individual has to be to be eligible for extermination?

I'm concerned - I want to visit Egypt, which is 90% Muslim, but as my father was 100% a son of Jewish immigrants, I am at least 50% Jewish.

Do Hamas, Palestine, and the entire Muslim region have the means to detect that level of Jewishness and deem it fir for extermination?

If so, it is a unifying principle like no other. I cannot think of anything else that Hamas, Palestine, and the entire Muslim region is completely unified on.

 

[TomC]

I'm concerned - I want to visit Egypt, which is 90% Muslim, but as my father was 100% a son of Jewish immigrants, I am at least 50% Jewish.

Why are you concerned, and what are you concerned about?

You're a USA citizen.
Just don't upset the violent Muslim people who run Egypt by going to Israel before you go to Egypt. You don't have anything to worry about that I can see.
Tom

 

[Elixir]

I'm concerned - I want to visit Egypt, which is 90% Muslim, but as my father was 100% a son of Jewish immigrants, I am at least 50% Jewish.

Why are you concerned, and what are you concerned about?

You're a USA citizen.
Just don't upset the violent Muslim people who run Egypt by going to Israel before you go to Egypt. You don't have anything to worry about that I can see.
Tom

Okay I’ll arrange my itinerary accordingly.

 

[ZiprHead]

So why do liberals support oppressive theocratic nations whose unmistakable intent is genocide?

Who is that?

Are they under your bed?

 

[TomC]

So why do liberals support oppressive theocratic nations whose unmistakable intent is genocide?

Who is that?

Are they under your bed?

You, pood, LD, and a few others come to mind.
Y'all consistently hand wave the death and destruction caused by Islamic terrorists. People even criticize Israel's incredibly precise decapitation of Hezbollah and the subsequent fall of Assad.
Tom

 

[Colonel Sanders]

So why do liberals support oppressive theocratic nations whose unmistakable intent is genocide?

Who is that?

Are they under your bed?

That's so disingenuous on your part.

I am confident you're able to parse things from context, but whatever, I'll go through it.

First off, I am a liberal and an atheist. I'm not some child who yells "BROWN PEOPLE OPPRESSED" just because they're not white. Unlike too many left of center, I don't have a gag reflex agenda. I am utterly puzzled by those who refuse to hold the Arab states responsible for the acts they commit, particularly when they represent the exact opposite of what the left is supposed to stand for.

Frankly, the left needs some serious introspection, not snarky unhelpful bullshit. Maybe next time you can pick out a spelling error to dismiss what someone says in a Reddit-like attempt to grab upvotes.

 

[ZiprHead]

So why do liberals support oppressive theocratic nations whose unmistakable intent is genocide?

Who is that?

Are they under your bed?

That's so disingenuous on your part.

I am confident you're able to parse things from context, but whatever, I'll go through it.

First off, I am a liberal and an atheist. I'm not some child who yells "BROWN PEOPLE OPPRESSED" just because they're not white. Unlike too many left of center, I don't have a gag reflex agenda. I am utterly puzzled by those who refuse to hold the Arab states responsible for the acts they commit, particularly when they represent the exact opposite of what the left is supposed to stand for.

Frankly, the left needs some serious introspection, not snarky unhelpful bullshit. Maybe next time you can pick out a spelling error to dismiss what someone says in a Reddit-like attempt to grab upvotes.

Frankly, from what I have seen, a lot of Palestinians would pass as white so I don't understand where that is coming from.

And, I definitely place a lot of Israel's problems on Iran. But they are also Israel's problems. Not ours. And that also doesn't excuse dropping 2000 lb bombs on civilian occupied areas to take out a few Hamas operatives. Even Biden balked at that. And Trump has again started supplying those bombs to israel.

 

[Arctish]

Let's just skip over the wordplay and get to the heart of the matter.

People have wondered what can be done to bring about a lasting peace. Some have suggested following historical precedent and negotiating terms based on successful peace negotiations like the ones at the end of WWII, the ones that ended the Warring States Period in Japan, the ones that allowed the French, Germans, and Italians to form a united Switzerland, the one that allowed Bangladesh to separate from Pakistan, etc.

IMO that's the pragmatic approach. Not all such attempts are immediately successful, but some have been and the rest are works-in-progress.

This approach will work when one side had had enough or both realise enough is enough.

One side having had enough is necessary to open peace talks but not sufficient to conclude them.

The Palestinians in the West Bank who turned away from violence as a means to achieving their goals had had enough of the chaos, destruction, and bloodshed of the previous decades. It wasn't enough to get them to a place where their Right to remain in their homes and communities was even given lip service, much less upheld.

This is a huge sticking point. It's why I keep bringing up the Oslo Accords and pointing out that Netanyahu and the faction he leads were violently opposed to them. Right-wing Zionists have the upper hand and keep gaining land and resources for Israel as they take them from non-Jews in Palestine. They see no reason to stop expanding Israel's territory, even though it is clearly fueling the conflict.

It's right there in plain sight but a lot of people refuse to see or acknowledge it. The options Palestinians have is to

1) fight, have their homes destroyed and their properties taken, and be killed, confined, or exiled,

or

2) don't fight, have their homes destroyed and their properties taken, and be killed, confined, or exiled.


Peace is a two way street. The PA is far from perfect but it has taken several steps along that road, some even before Abbas made a formal announcement that the PLO would no longer use violence as a means to an end but would instead pursue a diplomatic solution via the UN.

IMO Israel hasn't been on a path to peace since Rabin was murdered. Netanyahu wants victory and his Zionist supporters want conquest. Both support ethnic cleansing in Eretz Israel, so long as they get to direct it. They might express outrage and dismay when Israeli Jews are murdered but they're far from willing to take the necessary steps to actually be partners in peace.

 

[DrZoidberg]

As a supporter of multiethnic democracy, and the peace and prosperity that comes with that...

I'm cheering on Netanyahu and Likud and the IDF and Mossad.

Netanyahu helped get Rabin murdered.

No he didn't. Netanyahu was asked to limit free speech in order to calm down a situation Rabin had created. Netanyahu was too much a fan of modern democratic values to allow himself to curtail personal freedoms in the name of safety.

If you don't understand this then you don't understand that living in a free society also comes with costs.

Wow! Netanyahu fanned the flames of radicalism that consumed the life of Rabin because any idea of mediation and moderation was deemed evil by Netanyahu. Bibi got what he wanted with Rabin being slaughtered at the hands of an Israeli radical.

How you can spin that as "free speech" is incomprehensible.

That's what I am doing. I think free speech is sacred. Especially in the Middle-East where so few respect it.

They've trashed the most violent Islamic terrorists in their immediate area. They took out Hezbollah, with hardly a casualty. That brought down the Assad regime, which the USA and ISIS couldn't manage together. The Gazan leadership is getting their butts kicked due to their terrorist attack on Israel. The West Bank leadership is also losing.

Talk to me in 5 years about these gains. Gaza lays partially in ruins, former-ISIS formally controls parts of Syria,, who knows about the rest. And Trump is apparently working on ending Israel or the Middle East (both?) itself.

Politics is the art of the possible. The Assad regime was secular, but still a loyal committed member of a conspiracy to destroy Israel.

Sometimes we just need to work with what we've got.

Work with what we got? What type of Rumsfeld bullshit is that? That is spin on 'the region is destabilizing'.

I'm sorry the world is more complicated than you would like it to be

I'm not happy that it took this much violence to accomplish that.

Accomplish what? You listed off temporary gains as some sort of long-term sustained outcome. It took a lot of violence to achieve what is now only temporary gains.

I think Israel is in a better position now to achieve a long-term sustained peace.

No one in this thread is satisfied that Israel is remotely safer today... only that their actions made them safer in the past year.

I think Israel is a lot more safer today. We now know that the preceding peace was an illusion. Hamas had been preparing and just waiting for Israel to lower its guard. In a situation like that the only road to peace is to make it impossible for the other side to wage war. Like Israel is doing now

I think the Muslims needed to be taught that if they use the violent rout Israel will unleash hell upon them. Hamas was also taught that the west cannot be manipulated by using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

Then why is Loren Pechtel (and everyone else in the thread) pretty certain Hamas will strike again?

I am also convinced of this. I think the correct strategy for Israel now is to show overpowering strength and make it as hard as possible for Gazans to strike again (with any force)

Yes, I said Gazans. I think the biggest problem in this conflict is the deep rooted Gazan hatred against the Jews.

The Gazans are like Southern plantation owners resentful about that slavery has been abolished and just refuse to accept they're not a privileged class anymore. Eventually it'll sink in that they're equal to Jews. Only then can we have peace

Blaming this conflict on Hamas is politically convenient. But I think Hamas is a symptom of Palestinian tribalism. Not the root cause.

Fukkin A Bibi!

To fucking hell with Bibi who was caught with his pants down when the onslaught come down on Israel. The guy is 150% asshole. Comparing him to Hamas isn't a good comparison to determine if someone isn't a damn asshole. And most people in Israel don't even want him to run the country.

Yes, Netanyahu is an asshole. You'll have no argument from me.

Odd, you condoned his actions which helped precipitate the assassination of Rabin.

You seem to struggle with the concept of free speech. I defend free speech, even when they say things I disagree with. I really like democracy. A price we have to pay for living in a democracy is that sometimes we will disagree with those who rule us. And we just have to make peace with that. Perhaps say something spicy about it using our free speech

 

[Tigers!]

Let's just skip over the wordplay and get to the heart of the matter.

People have wondered what can be done to bring about a lasting peace. Some have suggested following historical precedent and negotiating terms based on successful peace negotiations like the ones at the end of WWII, the ones that ended the Warring States Period in Japan, the ones that allowed the French, Germans, and Italians to form a united Switzerland, the one that allowed Bangladesh to separate from Pakistan, etc.

IMO that's the pragmatic approach. Not all such attempts are immediately successful, but some have been and the rest are works-in-progress.

This approach will work when one side had had enough or both realise enough is enough.

One side having had enough is necessary to open peace talks but not sufficient to conclude them.

The Palestinians in the West Bank who turned away from violence as a means to achieving their goals had had enough of the chaos, destruction, and bloodshed of the previous decades. It wasn't enough to get them to a place where their Right to remain in their homes and communities was even given lip service, much less upheld.

This is a huge sticking point. It's why I keep bringing up the Oslo Accords and pointing out that Netanyahu and the faction he leads were violently opposed to them. Right-wing Zionists have the upper hand and keep gaining land and resources for Israel as they take them from non-Jews in Palestine. They see no reason to stop expanding Israel's territory, even though it is clearly fueling the conflict.

The expansion of the settlements in the west bank has to stop.

It's right there in plain sight but a lot of people refuse to see or acknowledge it. The options Palestinians have is to

1) fight, have their homes destroyed and their properties taken, and be killed, confined, or exiled,

or

2) don't fight, have their homes destroyed and their properties taken, and be killed, confined, or exiled.


Peace is a two way street. The PA is far from perfect but it has taken several steps along that road, some even before Abbas made a formal announcement that the PLO would no longer use violence as a means to an end but would instead pursue a diplomatic solution via the UN.

IMO Israel hasn't been on a path to peace since Rabin was murdered. Netanyahu wants victory and his Zionist supporters want conquest. Both support ethnic cleansing in Eretz Israel, so long as they get to direct it. They might express outrage and dismay when Israeli Jews are murdered but they're far from willing to take the necessary steps to actually be partners in peace.

 

[Derec]

Looks like Bibi has full backing of the apricot to proceed with genocide as planned.

What "genocide"?

 

[Derec]

Frankly, from what I have seen, a lot of Palestinians would pass as white so I don't understand where that is coming from.

Arabs and Muslims get POC privileges no matter how pale.
Here is some Whitey McWhitekhubz calling himself a part of a "community of color".
And here Linda the Cockroach is admitting that before she donned the headscarf she was just another "white girl from NYC" but has also embraced an identity as a "woman of color".
Linda Sarsour’s Racist Minstrelsy

And, I definitely place a lot of Israel's problems on Iran. But they are also Israel's problems. Not ours.

Israel is an ally. Moreover, they are a democratic country under threat from a genocidal foreign power.
There is also self-interest. A stronger theocratic Iran would be a threat to world peace and to US national interests. And a Iran which was able to seriously harm Israel would gain in power and status.

And that also doesn't excuse dropping 2000 lb bombs on civilian occupied areas to take out a few Hamas operatives.

Hamas hides among and below civilian areas. It is impossible to conduct war in Gaza without operating in "civilian occupied areas". When IDF finally got Mohammed Deif, he was operating in Al Mawasi, a designated humanitarian area. You want to put a restriction on Israel so severe, they would not be able to meaningfully act.
Note also that MK-84 bombs are necessary to break through to Hamas tunnels.

Even Biden balked at that.

Biden balked at that because of anti-Israel people in his own party, i.e. the far left and the Muslims.

 

[laughing dog]

The use of the word "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" is ironic in this case, to put it politely. Over the past 75 years, the Arab nations have made no secret that they would happily eradicate Jews to the greatest extent possible, and through warfare have attempted to begin to do that multiple times. Fortunately, they're horrible at warfare and have failed each time.

Genocide generally takes one of two forms:

1. The expressed attempt to eradicate an ethnic group of people (see expressed Arab intent above).

2. Involves the incitement of genocide. That is, encouraging others to participate in the genocide or to help with it (see Nazi Germany recruiting citizens of other nations to participate in rounding up Jews).

Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically pure.

Israel was attacked and reacted to it. You can argue whether or not the response was appropriate, but it is negligent for a government to fail to protect its people.

Hamas chose this course of action and Iran backed them. The intent by both is to not just kill Jews, but to eradicate them entirely. Just because it didn't work doesn't mean it's a-okay. It's disgusting and outrageous, whether or not they succeed.

So the appropriate response is to announce a policy of ethnic cleansing?

 

[laughing dog]

The use of the word "gen

ETA: if Trump launched a nuclear strike against China and they retaliated in kind, thereby killing tens of millions of Americans, shouldn't Trump be held responsible for starting that bullshit?

Of course he should because those tens of millions wouldn't have been killed without his idiotic choices.

Yes. And you think that hypothetical is relevant to defending the proposed ethnic cleansing of Gaza because.......?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Evidence that BBC News has become a propaganda tool of Hamas.

You're welcome




I hope the west finds a way to eventually deal with our shame of, yet again, gone down the rout of antisemitism. Learning from history clearly isn't our strong suit

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So why do liberals support oppressive theocratic nations whose unmistakable intent is genocide?

Who is that?

Are they under your bed?

That's so disingenuous on your part.

I am confident you're able to parse things from context, but whatever, I'll go through it.

First off, I am a liberal and an atheist. I'm not some child who yells "BROWN PEOPLE OPPRESSED" just because they're not white. Unlike too many left of center, I don't have a gag reflex agenda. I am utterly puzzled by those who refuse to hold the Arab states responsible for the acts they commit, particularly when they represent the exact opposite of what the left is supposed to stand for.

Not seeing many liberals waving flags of Yemen or the United Arab Emirates.

The Arab nations are a source of the problem and solution in the Middle East. What some people are unwilling to accept is that these nations don't want our condescending guidance, especially with all the baggage the West has in the Middle East. Iraq alone, the US supported a mass murderer who used chemical weapons against the Iranians. Then when the Neocons who supported him thought things were problematic after he invaded Kuwait, we fought against him, which then led him to try a plot to kill President HW Bush. Ten or so years later, the Neocons saw an opportunity to finally get back at him.

This is all happening the backyards of the Arab nations. This stuff is out of sight, out of mind for Americans. Our problem in the Middle East is we have meddled too much in the Middle East. This doesn't make the oil magnates or the extremism that is born in many of these nations angels or people to look up to. But it provides a narrative as to why they pretty much don't give a fuck what we think (as long as we are using enough oil to keep oil prices high enough).

And now Trump is talking about permanently displacing the Gazans so he can make money?! The Arabs don't like us because we've done nothing for them to like them over, and we've done quite a bit for them to despise.

Frankly, the left needs some serious introspection, not snarky unhelpful bullshit. Maybe next time you can pick out a spelling error to dismiss what someone says in a Reddit-like attempt to grab upvotes.

Dude, if we aren't allowed to be snarky, what is the entire point of posting anonymously online?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The use of the word "gen

ETA: if Trump launched a nuclear strike against China and they retaliated in kind, thereby killing tens of millions of Americans, shouldn't Trump be held responsible for starting that bullshit?

Of course he should because those tens of millions wouldn't have been killed without his idiotic choices.

Yes. And you think that hypothetical is relevant to defending the proposed ethnic cleansing of Gaza because.......?

Do we know what remains of Gaza that is habitable? I know there are plenty of images showing ruin, but I wasn't certain how much was left that is still manageable habitat.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So why do liberals support oppressive theocratic nations whose unmistakable intent is genocide?

Who is that?

Are they under your bed?

You, pood, LD, and a few others come to mind.
Y'all consistently hand wave the death and destruction caused by Islamic terrorists.

I'd ask you to back up that ugly claim, but... I know you can't.

I'd ask you to recant it, but... I know you won't.

There is a canyon of space between questioning the magnitude and/or strategy of a military response and having no regard for the atrocity that occurred in Israel.