U.S. Support for Israel’s War Has Become Indefensible

[BeaverFever]

On 4/7/2024 at 9:57 AM, I am Groot said:

Israel has lived with terrorism for most of its existence. It knows how to handle it. What happened on October 7 was not the act of a terrorist group. No terrorist group can gather up 3,000 heavily armed gunmen for an attack. Only a government that controls a large territory and population can do that.

It's not indiscriminate.

According to Hamas.

According to Hamas.

What so you imagine would be worse terrorism than Oct 7? And don't think for an instant that if Hamas had been able to carry on deeper into Israel, if it had the strength it would not have done the same to every single man, woman and child in Israel. Because it most definitely would, and has said so. Nor would it have difficulty recruiting men to do it.

The West has done it in every single war. So has every other country. What makes Israel different aside from them being Jews?

1. Apparently Israel's current leadership doesn’t know how to handle terrorism, that’s the whole point  

2. Debatable how you want to describe Hamas as state actor or not.  Technically there’s no Palestinian state so what other label is there besides terrorist. Also terrorists can plan large operations (e.g. ISIS as one example) What’s your point anyway?

3. It’s pretty indiscriminate. Israeli soldiers shot dead half-naked escaped Israeli hostages who approached them hollering and waving a white flag. And of course a Canadian was among the aid workers recently killed by the IDF despite the NGO following all protocols including informing the IDF exactly of all necessary details and riding in clearly marked vehicles.   
 

3. Not just according to Hamas, NGOs and media in Gaza have corroborated 

4. Yes it can always get worse that’s the nature of terrorism  if you think that once the last Hamas member is dead there will be no more terrorist attacks against Israel you are seriously fooling yourself  

5. What makes it different is that the concept of crimes against humanity didn’t exist prior to WW2. And while the US famously protects US soldiers who commit war crimes with half-hearted investigations and prosecutions and slap-on-the-wrist punishments, no western democracy has never committed atrocities on this scale since WW2.  Maybe the USA’s Rolling Thunder carpet bombing of Cambodia, which had the effect of giving rise to the ruthless and murderous Khmer Rouge regime comes close, but also provides an example of how these heavy handed campaigns targeting civilians strengthen and further deprave enemies rather than weaken them. 

[Rebound]

39 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

1. Apparently Israel's current leadership doesn’t know how to handle terrorism, that’s the whole point  

2. Debatable how you want to describe Hamas as state actor or not.  Technically there’s no Palestinian state so what other label is there besides terrorist. Also terrorists can plan large operations (e.g. ISIS as one example) What’s your point anyway?

3. It’s pretty indiscriminate. Israeli soldiers shot dead half-naked escaped Israeli hostages who approached them hollering and waving a white flag. And of course a Canadian was among the aid workers recently killed by the IDF despite the NGO following all protocols including informing the IDF exactly of all necessary details and riding in clearly marked vehicles.   
 

3. Not just according to Hamas, NGOs and media in Gaza have corroborated 

4. Yes it can always get worse that’s the nature of terrorism  if you think that once the last Hamas member is dead there will be no more terrorist attacks against Israel you are seriously fooling yourself  

5. What makes it different is that the concept of crimes against humanity didn’t exist prior to WW2. And while the US famously protects US soldiers who commit war crimes with half-hearted investigations and prosecutions and slap-on-the-wrist punishments, no western democracy has never committed atrocities on this scale since WW2.  Maybe the USA’s Rolling Thunder carpet bombing of Cambodia, which had the effect of giving rise to the ruthless and murderous Khmer Rouge regime comes close, but also provides an example of how these heavy handed campaigns targeting civilians strengthen and further deprave enemies rather than weaken them. 

So, what should Israel do?

[BeaverFever]

The tragic Middle East miscalculation: Mistaking Netanyahu for Israel
 

…

The very understandable and necessary desire to provide security to the 10 million people of Israel after this century’s most grievous massacre of Jewish civilians led Mr. Biden to give succour, material support and political legitimacy to the not-very-legitimate leader of those 10 million people – a man who 86 per cent of Israelis hold responsible for the Oct. 7massacre.

In other conflicts, the distinction between a country and its leader would be irrelevant. But as of Oct. 6, 2023, Mr. Netanyahu, and the coalition of extremist fringe parties he had assembled into a government, was Israel’s biggest problem. He is, as prominent Israelis have repeatedly warned, the worst possible person to be called on to respond to an atrocity.

“In the years leading up to the attack, the country was fractured by Netanyahu’s effort to undermine its democratic institutions and turn it into a theocratic, nationalist autocracy,” Aluf Benn, editor of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, writes in an essay this week.

Not only is Mr. Netanyahu not at all representative of Israel or its people (his party has rarely received more than 25 per cent of votes, and governs with even less popular parties), but he has used his office to undermine any prospects for long-term peace and security.

As a consequence of those politics, Mr. Netanyahu has pursued a military response without apparent strategy or end game, one that has shown no concern for the excessive deaths of civilian families and aid workers or the prospect of further popularizing Hamas and other extremist groups. Mr. Netanyahu has “promised to ‘destroy Hamas,’ but beyond military force, he has no strategy for eliminating the group and no clear plan for what would replace it,” Mr. Benn writes. “He has refused to lay out a postwar vision or order.”

Before Oct. 7, Mr. Netanyahu not only ignored and played down security threats at the Gaza border, but actively cultivated the violent religious-extremist movement Hamas in an effort to sideline the Palestinian Authority, which recognizes Israel.

For years, Israelis have read news reports of Qatari cash being delivered with the help of Israeli agents to Hamas leaders at Mr. Netanyahu’s behest, a practice the Prime Minister defended in a 2019 address to his party’s parliamentary caucus: “Whoever opposes a Palestinian state must support delivery of funds to [Hamas] because maintaining separation between the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza will prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

….

 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/opinion/article-the-tragic-mideast-miscalculation-mistaking-netanyahu-for-israel/

 

 

 

Israel’s Self-Destruction

Netanyahu, the Palestinians, and the Price of Neglect

By Aluf Benn

March/April 2024Published on February 7, 2024

 

…Having failed to stop the Hamas attack, the IDF has responded with overwhelming force, killing thousands of Palestinians and razing entire Gazan neighborhoods. But even as pilots drop bombs and commandos flush out Hamas’s tunnels, the Israeli government has not reckoned with the enmity that produced the attack—or what policies might prevent another. Its silence comes at the behest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has refused to lay out a postwar vision or order. Netanyahu has promised to “destroy Hamas,” but beyond military force, he has no strategy for eliminating the group and no clear plan for what would replace it as the de facto government of postwar Gaza. 

His failure to strategize is no accident. Nor is it an act of political expediency designed to keep his right-wing coalition together. To live in peace, Israel will have to finally come to terms with the Palestinians, and that is something Netanyahu has opposed throughout his career. He has devoted his tenure as prime minister, the longest in Israeli history, to undermining and sidelining the Palestinian national movement. He has promised his people that they can prosper without peace. He has sold the country on the idea that it can continue to occupy Palestinian lands forever at little domestic or international cost. And even now, in the wake of October 7, he has not changed this message. The only thing Netanyahu has said Israel will do after the war is maintain a “security perimeter” around Gaza—a thinly veiled euphemism for long-term occupation, including a cordon along the border that will eat up a big chunk of scarce Palestinian land.

 

…Back in office, Netanyahu offered Israelis a convenient alternative to the now discredited “land for peace” formula. Israel, he argued, could prosper as a Western-style country—and even reach out to the Arab world at large—while pushing aside the Palestinians. The key was to divide and conquer. In the West Bank, Netanyahu maintained security cooperation with the Palestinian Authority, which became Israel’s de facto policing and social services subcontractor, and he encouraged Qatar to fund Gaza’s Hamas government. “Whoever opposes a Palestinian state must support delivery of funds to Gaza because maintaining separation between the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza will prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state,” Netanyahu told his party’s parliamentary caucus in 2019. It is a statement that has come back to haunt him. 

 

…As he sidelined the Palestinian issue, Netanyahu also worked to remake Israel’s domestic society. After winning a surprise reelection in 2015, Netanyahu put together a right-wing coalition to revive his old dream of igniting a conservative revolution. Once again, the prime minister began railing against “the elites” and initiated a culture war against the erstwhile establishment, which he viewed as hostile to himself and too liberal for his supporters. In 2018, he won passage of a major, controversial law that defined Israel as “the Nation-State of the Jewish People” and declared that Jews had the “unique” right to “exercise self-determination” in its territory. It gave the country’s Jewish majority precedence and subordinated its non-Jewish people. 

….

For Netanyahu, still facing trial, the government’s collapse was exactly what he had been hoping for. As the country organized yet another election, he fortified his base of right-wingers, ultra-Orthodox Jews, and socially conservative Jews. To win back power, he reached out in particular to West Bank settlers, a demographic that still saw the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as its raison d’être. These religious Zionists remained committed to their dream of Judaizing the occupied territories and making them a formal part of Israel. They hoped that if given the opportunity, they could drive out the territories’ Palestinian population. They had failed to prevent an evacuation of Jewish settlers from Gaza in 2005 when Ariel Sharon was prime minister, but in the years since, they had gradually captured key positions in the Israeli military, civil service, and media as members of the secular establishment shifted their focus to making money in the private sector. 

The extremists had two principal demands of Netanyahu. The first, and most obvious, was to further expand Jewish settlements. The second was to establish a stronger Jewish presence on the Temple Mount, the historic site of both the Jewish Temple and the Muslim mosque of al Aqsa in Jerusalem’s Old City. 

….

In May 2021, violence erupted again. This time, the main provocateur was Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right politician who has publicly celebrated Jewish terrorists. Ben-Gvir had opened a “parliamentary office” in a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem where Jewish settlers, using old property deeds, have pushed out some residents, and Palestinians held mass protests in response. After hundreds of demonstrators gathered at al Aqsa, Israeli police raided the mosque compound. As a result, fighting erupted between Arabs and Jews and quickly spread to ethnically mixed towns across Israel. Hamas used the raid as an excuse to target Jerusalem with rockets, which brought yet more violence in Israel and another round of Israeli reprisals in Gaza. 

Still, the fighting dissipated when Israel and Hamas reached a new cease-fire in shockingly quick order. Qatar kept up its payments, and Israel gave work permits to some Gazans to improve the strip’s economy and reduce the population’s desire for conflict. Hamas stood by when Israel hit an allied militia, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in the spring of 2023. The relative quiet along the border allowed the IDF to redeploy its forces and move most combat battalions to the West Bank, where they could protect settlers from terrorist attacks. On October 7, it became clear those redeployments were exactly what Sinwar wanted.
 

…

 

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/israels-netanyahu-self-destruction

[Rebound]

25 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

The tragic Middle East miscalculation: Mistaking Netanyahu for Israel
 

The very understandable and necessary desire to provide security to the 10 million people of Israel after this century’s most grievous massacre of Jewish civilians led Mr. Biden to give succour, material support and political legitimacy to the not-very-legitimate leader of those 10 million people – a man who 86 per cent of Israelis hold responsible for the Oct. 7massacre.

 

I strongly believe that Israel needs to dismantle its West Bank settlements and continually promote a two-state solution with the Palestinians. This is a moral imperative.

However, I sincerely don't see the Palestinians coming to peace with Israel. A lot of people simply do not understand that the Palestinians are ferociously war-like people. They refuse to accept the existence of Israel. You probably think, "Israel needs to do this or that" without understanding that clearly Israel has accepted the existence of Palestinian autonomy in West Bank and Gaza, while the Palestinians clearly reject entirely the existence of Israel. 

If Israel continually offers a peaceful two state solution, and if they get rid of their settlements in the West Bank, maybe a peaceful, independent West Bank nation can arise in 20 or 25 years. Israel was bitterly at war with Jordan and Egypt, and those three nations have been at peace for a long time.

Here is a link to the Students for Justice in Palestine "toolkit." I strongly urge you to read it. You can clearly see that they celebrate the October 7 terrorist attacks and that they view the only solution to be the complete elimination of the State of Israel.

[robosmith]

Clearly Netanyahu has REJECTED the two state solution and that will only happen AFTER he is deposed and his right wing coalition is dismantled and defanged.

[BeaverFever]

44 minutes ago, Rebound said:

A lot of people simply do not understand that the Palestinians are ferociously war-like people. They refuse to accept the existence of Israel.

Similar statements have been said about one group or another throughout history, usually as an excuse to continue conflict. In what way are they more “ferociously war-like” than Israelis?  refuses to accept the existence of Palestine yet you judge them differently. And ONCE AGAIN for the record, the Palestinian Authority unilaterally recognized Israel back in the 1990s, and continues to do so it is Israel who refuses to reciprocate. 

[BeaverFever]

48 minutes ago, Rebound said:

Israel has accepted the existence of Palestinian autonomy in West Bank and Gaza, while the Palestinians clearly reject entirely the existence of Israel. 

Not quite accurate.  Israel did not end its occupation of West Bank or Gaza or its claim to those territories but instead recognized that PA and Hamas could police themselves inside of the open-air prisons Israel created for them. Israel continues to control all water, electricity, movement of people and goods etc into and out of those territories. And continues to build illegal settlements and turn a blind eye or even abet settler violence. And PA DID recognize Israel. 
 

54 minutes ago, Rebound said:

strongly urge you to read it. You can clearly see that they celebrate the October 7 terrorist attacks and that they view the only solution to be the complete elimination of the State of Israel.

Yeah well there are extremists who call for the compete elimination of Palestinians, many of whom are in the current Israeli government   Extremists are on both sides and they need to be sidelined not used as an excuse to continue a forever war. 

[Rebound]

11 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

Similar statements have been said about one group or another throughout history, usually as an excuse to continue conflict. In what way are they more “ferociously war-like” than Israelis?  refuses to accept the existence of Palestine yet you judge them differently. And ONCE AGAIN for the record, the Palestinian Authority unilaterally recognized Israel back in the 1990s, and continues to do so it is Israel who refuses to reciprocate. 

I don't know.... maybe if you actually listened to what I said? 

Because what I said is factual. It's not hyperbole.

• 75 years of terrorism directed towards Israel
• 75 years of refusal to accept a two-state solution which would leave them living in peace
• Airline hijackings
• Cruise ship hijackings
• Murdered eleven Israeli Olympic athletes
• Attempted, and nearly succeeded, at overthrowing government of Jordan
• Attempted overthrow of government of Egypt
• Continued, ongoing terrorist presence in Lebanon

QUIZ: WHAT ARE THE DECISIONS THE PALESTINIANS MADE:

A) Live in peace within the borders they have; OR...

B ) Invade Israel, Lebanon, Jordan AND Egypt, refuse negotiations, and commit continual acts of terrorism?

So, you tell me... Did they choose A or B?

Edited April 12 by Rebound

[Rebound]

3 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

Not quite accurate.  Israel did not end its occupation of West Bank or Gaza or its claim to those territories but instead recognized that PA and Hamas could police themselves inside of the open-air prisons Israel created for them. Israel continues to control all water, electricity, movement of people and goods etc into and out of those territories. And continues to build illegal settlements and turn a blind eye or even abet settler violence. And PA DID recognize Israel. 
 

Yeah well there are extremists who call for the compete elimination of Palestinians, many of whom are in the current Israeli government   Extremists are on both sides and they need to be sidelined not used as an excuse to continue a forever war. 

You are once again ignoring fact. Please pay attention: Hamas has never once accepted Israel's right to exist and never once denounced terrorism. 

Billions of dollars have flowed into these so-called "open-air prisons." THE PROBLEM IS, Hamas pocketed the money and spent the rest on weapons and tunnels, instead of spending it on the welfare of their people. 

You should travel to Israel sometime and talk to the Israeli people. They are peaceful. Israel isn't waging war with Egypt, Jordan or Lebanon. The Palestinians are the aggressors, and their position is Israel must be eliminated. That is a fact! Take your rose-colored glasses off and answer the simple question: How can Israel deal with a neighbor whose position is the insistence on their destruction?  

[BeaverFever]

1 hour ago, BeaverFever said:

Israel’s Self-Destruction

Netanyahu, the Palestinians, and the Price of Neglect

By Aluf Benn

March/April 2024Published on February 7, 2024

 

…Having failed to stop the Hamas attack, the IDF has responded with overwhelming force, killing thousands of Palestinians and razing entire Gazan neighborhoods. But even as pilots drop bombs and commandos flush out Hamas’s tunnels, the Israeli government has not reckoned with the enmity that produced the attack—or what policies might prevent another. Its silence comes at the behest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has refused to lay out a postwar vision or order. Netanyahu has promised to “destroy Hamas,” but beyond military force, he has no strategy for eliminating the group and no clear plan for what would replace it as the de facto government of postwar Gaza. 

His failure to strategize is no accident. Nor is it an act of political expediency designed to keep his right-wing coalition together. To live in peace, Israel will have to finally come to terms with the Palestinians, and that is something Netanyahu has opposed throughout his career. He has devoted his tenure as prime minister, the longest in Israeli history, to undermining and sidelining the Palestinian national movement. He has promised his people that they can prosper without peace. He has sold the country on the idea that it can continue to occupy Palestinian lands forever at little domestic or international cost. And even now, in the wake of October 7, he has not changed this message. The only thing Netanyahu has said Israel will do after the war is maintain a “security perimeter” around Gaza—a thinly veiled euphemism for long-term occupation, including a cordon along the border that will eat up a big chunk of scarce Palestinian land.

 

…Back in office, Netanyahu offered Israelis a convenient alternative to the now discredited “land for peace” formula. Israel, he argued, could prosper as a Western-style country—and even reach out to the Arab world at large—while pushing aside the Palestinians. The key was to divide and conquer. In the West Bank, Netanyahu maintained security cooperation with the Palestinian Authority, which became Israel’s de facto policing and social services subcontractor, and he encouraged Qatar to fund Gaza’s Hamas government. “Whoever opposes a Palestinian state must support delivery of funds to Gaza because maintaining separation between the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza will prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state,” Netanyahu told his party’s parliamentary caucus in 2019. It is a statement that has come back to haunt him. 

 

…As he sidelined the Palestinian issue, Netanyahu also worked to remake Israel’s domestic society. After winning a surprise reelection in 2015, Netanyahu put together a right-wing coalition to revive his old dream of igniting a conservative revolution. Once again, the prime minister began railing against “the elites” and initiated a culture war against the erstwhile establishment, which he viewed as hostile to himself and too liberal for his supporters. In 2018, he won passage of a major, controversial law that defined Israel as “the Nation-State of the Jewish People” and declared that Jews had the “unique” right to “exercise self-determination” in its territory. It gave the country’s Jewish majority precedence and subordinated its non-Jewish people. 

….

For Netanyahu, still facing trial, the government’s collapse was exactly what he had been hoping for. As the country organized yet another election, he fortified his base of right-wingers, ultra-Orthodox Jews, and socially conservative Jews. To win back power, he reached out in particular to West Bank settlers, a demographic that still saw the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as its raison d’être. These religious Zionists remained committed to their dream of Judaizing the occupied territories and making them a formal part of Israel. They hoped that if given the opportunity, they could drive out the territories’ Palestinian population. They had failed to prevent an evacuation of Jewish settlers from Gaza in 2005 when Ariel Sharon was prime minister, but in the years since, they had gradually captured key positions in the Israeli military, civil service, and media as members of the secular establishment shifted their focus to making money in the private sector. 

The extremists had two principal demands of Netanyahu. The first, and most obvious, was to further expand Jewish settlements. The second was to establish a stronger Jewish presence on the Temple Mount, the historic site of both the Jewish Temple and the Muslim mosque of al Aqsa in Jerusalem’s Old City. 

….

 

In May 2021, violence erupted again. This time, the main provocateur was Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right politician who has publicly celebrated Jewish terrorists. Ben-Gvir had opened a “parliamentary office” in a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem where Jewish settlers, using old property deeds, have pushed out some residents, and Palestinians held mass protests in response. After hundreds of demonstrators gathered at al Aqsa, Israeli police raided the mosque compound. As a result, fighting erupted between Arabs and Jews and quickly spread to ethnically mixed towns across Israel. Hamas used the raid as an excuse to target Jerusalem with rockets, which brought yet more violence in Israel and another round of Israeli reprisals in Gaza. 

Still, the fighting dissipated when Israel and Hamas reached a new cease-fire in shockingly quick order. Qatar kept up its payments, and Israel gave work permits to some Gazans to improve the strip’s economy and reduce the population’s desire for conflict. Hamas stood by when Israel hit an allied militia, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in the spring of 2023. The relative quiet along the border allowed the IDF to redeploy its forces and move most combat battalions to the West Bank, where they could protect settlers from terrorist attacks. On October 7, it became clear those redeployments were exactly what Sinwar wanted.
 

…

 

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/israels-netanyahu-self-destruction

Continued…

 

BIBI’S COUP

In Israel’s November 2022 election, Netanyahu won back power. His coalition captured 64 of the Israeli parliament’s 120 seats, a landslide by recent standards. The key figures in the new government were Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of a nationalist religious party representing West Bank settlers, and Ben-Gvir. Working with the ultra-Orthodox parties, Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben-Gvir devised a blueprint for an autocratic and theocratic Israel. The new cabinet’s guidelines, for example, declared that “the Jewish people have an exclusive, inalienable right to the entire Land of Israel”—denying outright any Palestinian claim to territory, even in Gaza. Smotrich became minister of finance and was put in charge of the West Bank, where he initiated a massive program to expand Jewish settlements. Ben-Gvir was named national security minister, in control of police and prisons. He used his power to encourage more Jews to visit the Temple Mount (al Aqsa). Between January and October of 2023, about 50,000 Jews toured it—more than in any other equivalent period on record. (In 2022, there were 35,000 Jewish visitors on the Mount.)

Netanyahu’s radical new government stirred outrage among Israeli liberals and centrists. But even though humiliating Palestinians was central to their agenda, these critics continued to ignore the fate of the occupied territories and al Aqsa when denouncing the cabinet. Instead, they focused largely on Netanyahu’s judicial reforms. Announced in January 2023, these proposed laws would curb the independence of Israel’s Supreme Court—the custodian of civil and human rights in a country that lacks a formal constitution—and dismantle the legal advisory system that provides checks and balances on executive power. If they had been enacted, the bills would have made it much easier for Netanyahu and his partners to build an autocracy and might even have spared him from his corruption trial. 

The judicial reform bills were, without doubt, extraordinarily dangerous. They rightfully prompted an enormous wave of protests, with hundreds of thousands of Israelis demonstrating every week. But in confronting this coup, Netanyahu’s opponents again acted as if the occupation were an unrelated issue. Even though the laws were drafted partly to weaken whatever legal protection the Israeli Supreme Court would give Palestinians, demonstrators shied away from mentioning the occupation or the defunct peace process out of fear of being smeared as unpatriotic. In fact, the organizers worked to sideline Israel’s anti-occupation protesters to avoid having images of Palestinian flags appear in the demonstrations. This tactic succeeded, ensuring that the protest movement was not “tainted” by the Palestinian cause: Israeli Arabs, who make up around 20 percent of the country’s population, largely refrained from joining the demonstrations. But this made it harder for the movement to succeed. Given Israel’s demographics, center-left Jews need to partner with the country’s Arabs if they ever want to form a government. By delegitimizing Israeli Arabs’ concerns, the demonstrators played right into Netanyahu’s strategy. 
 

With the Arabs out, the battle over the judicial reforms proceeded as an intra-Jewish affair. Demonstrators adopted the blue and white Star of David flag, and many of their leaders and speakers were retired senior military officers. Protesters showed off their military credentials, reversing the decline in prestige that had shadowed the IDF since the invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Reservist pilots, who are crucial to the air force’s preparedness and combat power, threatened to withdraw from service if the laws were passed. In a show of institutional opposition, the IDF’s leaders rebuffed Netanyahu when he demanded that they discipline the reservists. 

That the IDF would break with the prime minister was not surprising. Throughout his long career, Netanyahu has frequently clashed with the military, and his strongest rivals have been retired generals who became politicians, such as Sharon, Rabin, and Barak—not to mention Benny Gantz, whom Netanyahu made part of his emergency war cabinet but may eventually challenge and succeed him as prime minister. Netanyahu has long rejected the generals’ vision of an Israel that is strong militarily but flexible diplomatically. …

 

But military and intelligence incompetence, dismal as it was, cannot shield the prime minister from culpability—and not only because, as head of the government, Netanyahu bears ultimate responsibility for what happens in Israel. His reckless prewar policy of dividing Israelis made the country vulnerable, tempting Iran’s allies to strike at a riven society. Netanyahu’s humiliation of the Palestinians helped radicalism thrive. It is no accident that Hamas named its operation “al Aqsa flood” and portrayed the attacks as a way of protecting al Aqsa from a Jewish takeover. Protecting the holy Muslim site was seen as a reason to attack Israel and face the inevitably dire consequences of an IDF counterattack. 

The Israeli public has not absolved Netanyahu of responsibility for October 7. The prime minister’s party has plummeted in the polls, and his approval rating has tanked as well, although the government maintains a parliamentary majority. 

…

[BeaverFever]

17 minutes ago, Rebound said:

I don't know.... maybe if you actually listened to what I said? 

Because what I said is factual. It's not hyperbole.

• 75 years of terrorism directed towards Israel
• 75 years of refusal to accept a two-state solution which would leave them living in peace
• Airline hijackings
• Cruise ship hijackings
• Murdered eleven Israeli Olympic athletes
• Attempted, and nearly succeeded, at overthrowing government of Jordan
• Attempted overthrow of government of Egypt
• Continued, ongoing terrorist presence in Lebanon

QUIZ: WHAT ARE THE DECISIONS THE PALESTINIANS MADE:

A) Live in peace within the borders they have; OR...

B ) Invade Israel, Lebanon, Jordan AND Egypt, refuse negotiations, and commit continual acts of terrorism?

So, you tell me... Did they choose A or B?

You are the one ignoring the facts of history that falsely insinuating that Israel has ever offered or been interested in peace or never engaged in terrorism of its own

 

You ignore the facts that many of Israel’s founding fathers were also terrorists who slaughtered Arab civilians and bombed British soldiers and are now revered as national heroes.
 

And of course once they formed a nation state Israel had the luxury of using military and paramilitary forces and occupation and oppression instead of terrorism but you make no reference these facts either

Then you absurdly claim they had the option “to live in peace within the borders they have” which is something Putin might say about Ukraine. What you really mean is they could choose to live under oppression and occupation within the borders unilaterally dictated to it by Israel  and in contravention of international law. 

[Rebound]

17 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

You are the one ignoring the facts of history that falsely insinuating that Israel has ever offered or been interested in peace or never engaged in terrorism of its own

 

You ignore the facts that many of Israel’s founding fathers were also terrorists who slaughtered Arab civilians and bombed British soldiers and are now revered as national heroes.
 

And of course once they formed a nation state Israel had the luxury of using military and paramilitary forces and occupation and oppression instead of terrorism but you make no reference these facts either

Then you absurdly claim they had the option “to live in peace within the borders they have” which is something Putin might say about Ukraine. What you really mean is they could choose to live under oppression and occupation within the borders unilaterally dictated to it by Israel  and in contravention of international law. 

So you thoroughly hate Israel. Got it.

You didn’t answer the question, “What should Israel do?”

The day that Israel became a nation, in 1948, six Arab nations declared war on Israel and Harry Truman ordered a military embargo on the new country.  It’s Israel that was on the defense, not the other way around. Israel’s neighbors declared war on Israel many times, but over time, they negotiated peace, first at Camp David in 1978, which you seem ignorant of. They negotiated peace with Jordan. They negotiated peace with Arafat at Camp David, but that deal broke down because the Palestinians would not accept a two state solution. 

[BeaverFever]

29 minutes ago, Rebound said:

You are once again ignoring fact. Please pay attention: Hamas has never once accepted Israel's right to exist and never once denounced terrorism. 

You are once again ignoring fact. srael has never once recognized Palestine’s right to exist and never once renounced occupation and settlement expansion. Also Israel purposely cultivated Hamas in Gaza to divide Palestinians  

 

29 minutes ago, Rebound said:

Billions of dollars have flowed into these so-called "open-air prisons." THE PROBLEM IS, Hamas pocketed the money and spent the rest on weapons and tunnels, instead of spending it on the welfare of their people.

Including dollars from Netanyahu’s government  you cannot separate Israel’s aggression against Palestinians from Palestinian aggression against Israel  I am not condoning Hamas or Oct 7 but it is unrealistic to expect that Palestinians should always turn the other cheek and simply find ways to cope under the oppression of Israeli hardliners, settlement expansion etc

32 minutes ago, Rebound said:

You should travel to Israel sometime and talk to the Israeli people. They are peaceful. Israel isn't waging war with Egypt, Jordan or Lebanon.

Yeah looks real peaceful there in Gaza.  So what Russia isn’t waging war on Uzbekistan must mean they are peaceful. Israel is waging war on Palestinians and the decades of land-grabs, illegal settlements, stealing water, arbitrarily shutting off water, electricity, import/exports, aiding and abetting militant settler militias….that is all warfare. The war has never ended and has been going since before the bombing the King David hotel, it just takes different forms at different times. 

 

36 minutes ago, Rebound said:

The Palestinians are the aggressors, and their position is Israel must be eliminated. That is a fact!

“The Palestinians” actually have diverse views and the secular Palestinian Authority unilaterally recognized Israel’s right to exist decades ago and still does….Israel is the one who refused to reciprocate That is a fact!

 

40 minutes ago, Rebound said:

Take your rose-colored glasses off and answer the simple question: How can Israel deal with a neighbor whose position is the insistence on their destruction?  

 

Why don’t you take YOUR rose-colored glasses off and ask Netanyahu that same question since he deliberately isolated Palestinian Authority (who recognized Israel and participated in peace process) in order to cultivate and elevate Hamas (who called for Israel’s destruction)?  Netanyahu foolishly believed he could divide the Palestinian people between these two groups and control them both.   Also why don’t you ask how Palestinians could deal with Israel whose position is that Palestinians have no right to their own state and no right to be citizens of the Israeli state and therefore fated to be occupied people for all eternity, all while continuously building illegal settlements and carrying out all the other oppressive activities Ive mentioned several times already?

[BeaverFever]

10 minutes ago, Rebound said:

So you thoroughly hate Israel. Got it.

Wow.  That is lame. You went full Trumpet supporter with that one.  What next you going to tell me that if I don’t unconditionally support Trump I love terrorists and hate freedom?  That’s the level of argument you’ve sunk to here.  You can do better. 
 

10 minutes ago, Rebound said:

“What should Israel do?”

What should Isreal do today after decades of both sides doing everything wrong? Or what should have it done differently after Oct?  Or from the start back in 1948?  I assume the first one but it’s a tough question because the damage was done generations ago.    Let’s start by stopping the slaughter of women and children and tossing Netanyahu and his coalition of militant extremist parties from office  Once Israel has a rational moderate party ideologically willing to work towards a 2-state solution we can look for peace partners in Palestine and beyond amd take it from there  

 

[I am Groot]

8 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

1. Apparently Israel's current leadership doesn’t know how to handle terrorism, that’s the whole point  

Israel's current leadership are incompetent fools and will almost certainly be replaced next election. But Oct 7 was not an act of terrorism. It was a small act of genocide. The best Hamas could manage with its current resources. But they've promised to come back and do it again as often as they can. Although, as one reporter pointed out, in WW2, the German soldiers who had to execute civilians had to get drunk because of how unnatural it was. They weren't gleeful and celebratory the way the Palestinians were at murdering unarmed men, women and children.

8 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

2. Debatable how you want to describe Hamas as state actor or not.  Technically there’s no Palestinian state so what other label is there besides terrorist. 

You're trying to defend them on a technicality?

8 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

3. It’s pretty indiscriminate. Israeli soldiers shot dead half-naked escaped Israeli hostages who approached them hollering and waving a white flag.

You forget that a lot of the soldiers were weekend soldiers, reservists. They were more than a little cautious and trigger happy. Most wound up being withdrawn and replaced by full-time soldiers.

8 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

And of course a Canadian was among the aid workers recently killed by the IDF despite the NGO following all protocols including informing the IDF exactly of all necessary details and riding in clearly marked vehicles.   

Much like Canadian troops bombed by American pilots in Afghanistan. Mistakes happen in wars. 

8 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

3. Not just according to Hamas, NGOs and media in Gaza have corroborated 

Most of the NGOs and media in Gaza ARE Palestinians. The rest mostly hate Israelis and are devoted left wing ideologues, or wouldn't be there.

8 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

, no western democracy has never committed atrocities on this scale since WW2.

You have no personal knowledge of any 'atrocities'. Your information, all of it, comes from Hamas and their Iranian and Qatari assistants. I prefer to believe the Newsweek article which detailed the lengths the Israelis have gone to to avoid civilian casualties, far above what any other nation has done.

And nothing they've done even remotely compares to what others in the region have done. Tell me, can you point to a single post you've made outlining your outrage at the 'atrocities' committed by the Syrians or Russians or Turks or Iranians in the region?

 

4 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

Similar statements have been said about one group or another throughout history, usually as an excuse to continue conflict. In what way are they more “ferociously war-like” than Israelis?  

 

[I am Groot]

4 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

 What you really mean is they could choose to live under oppression and occupation within the borders unilaterally dictated to it by Israel  and in contravention of international law. 

Ah yes, if only they could be free of Israeli interference and feel the joy of freedom in their own land. The same freedom that people living under Isis had. The same freedom people in Afghanistan feel under the Taliban.

An independent Palestine would be an impoverished Islamic state. There would be no freedom there.

[I am Groot]

3 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

 Let’s start by stopping the slaughter of women and children and tossing Netanyahu and his coalition of militant extremist parties from office  Once Israel has a rational moderate party ideologically willing to work towards a 2-state solution we can look for peace partners in Palestine and beyond amd take it from there  

Would it not make a helluva lot more sense for the Palestinians to toss Hamas and their Islamist adherents aside and put some kind of rational, moderate group in charge that is willing to respect Israel's right to exist and work toward's eventual nationhood?

And don't even mention the Palestinian Authority. They have no support, and in the even of a free election would be swept from office by Hamas.

[OftenWrong]

12 minutes ago, I am Groot said:

Would it not make a helluva lot more sense for the Palestinians to toss Hamas and their Islamist adherents aside and put some kind of rational, moderate group in charge that is willing to respect Israel's right to exist and work toward's eventual nationhood?

And don't even mention the Palestinian Authority. They have no support, and in the even of a free election would be swept from office by Hamas.

Exactly, but it's too late for that now. They willingly voted in a militant dictatorship over themselves, so, ain't gonna be no "free election".

Besides, democracy is anti-Islamic, don't you know?

[OftenWrong]

On 4/5/2024 at 1:59 PM, robosmith said:

It is CLEAR that Israel's extreme right government is intent on ethnic cleansing of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians which is why they have NO PLAN for SAFELY moving Palestinians in South Gaza before invading Rafah.

You may be right, but I wonder what other countries would do if same happened to them as when Hamas attacked Israel. The regional conflict goes back many decades and has been worsening. It seems Israel is now fed up, and ready to dish out some good old Hebrew style whoop-ass. Like the biblical driving them off a cliff, or into the sea like. Ramses did in "The Ten Commandments". Or rounding 'em up in detention camps, like Hitler did.

Kinda ironic, i'n't.

[gatomontes99]

Why should the WH defend the war Israel was forced into when they are funding the other side?

[robosmith]

2 hours ago, gatomontes99 said:

Why should the WH defend the war Israel was forced into when they are funding the other side?

It was the Palestinians who were "forced" to deal with the takeover of Palestine by Zionists immigrating and taking their land.

2 hours ago, OftenWrong said:

You may be right, but I wonder what other countries would do if same happened to them as when Hamas attacked Israel. The regional conflict goes back many decades and has been worsening. It seems Israel is now fed up, and ready to dish out some good old Hebrew style whoop-ass. Like the biblical driving them off a cliff, or into the sea like. Ramses did in "The Ten Commandments". Or rounding 'em up in detention camps, like Hitler did.

Kinda ironic, i'n't.

Zionists attacked Palestine first, back in 1948 when they unilaterally declared most of Palestine to be Israel and terrorized the Palestinians into leaving their homes.

[Rebound]

14 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

You are once again ignoring fact. srael has never once recognized Palestine’s right to exist and never once renounced occupation and settlement expansion. Also Israel purposely cultivated Hamas in Gaza to divide Palestinians  

 

Including dollars from Netanyahu’s government  you cannot separate Israel’s aggression against Palestinians from Palestinian aggression against Israel  I am not condoning Hamas or Oct 7 but it is unrealistic to expect that Palestinians should always turn the other cheek and simply find ways to cope under the oppression of Israeli hardliners, settlement expansion etc

Yeah looks real peaceful there in Gaza.  So what Russia isn’t waging war on Uzbekistan must mean they are peaceful. Israel is waging war on Palestinians and the decades of land-grabs, illegal settlements, stealing water, arbitrarily shutting off water, electricity, import/exports, aiding and abetting militant settler militias….that is all warfare. The war has never ended and has been going since before the bombing the King David hotel, it just takes different forms at different times. 

 

“The Palestinians” actually have diverse views and the secular Palestinian Authority unilaterally recognized Israel’s right to exist decades ago and still does….Israel is the one who refused to reciprocate That is a fact!

 

 

Why don’t you take YOUR rose-colored glasses off and ask Netanyahu that same question since he deliberately isolated Palestinian Authority (who recognized Israel and participated in peace process) in order to cultivate and elevate Hamas (who called for Israel’s destruction)?  Netanyahu foolishly believed he could divide the Palestinian people between these two groups and control them both.   Also why don’t you ask how Palestinians could deal with Israel whose position is that Palestinians have no right to their own state and no right to be citizens of the Israeli state and therefore fated to be occupied people for all eternity, all while continuously building illegal settlements and carrying out all the other oppressive activities Ive mentioned several times already?

If Israel refused to allow money to flow into Gaza, then you’d blame them for trying to starve the Palestinians. But since Israel allowed the aid to flow in, you accuse them of complicity with terrorism. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t. 

[OftenWrong]

8 hours ago, robosmith said:

Zionists attacked Palestine first, back in 1948 when they unilaterally declared most of Palestine to be Israel and terrorized the Palestinians into leaving their homes.

Things which happened in many places after the first, second world wars. The British were the so-called authority after WW1 having eliminated the former power structure in middle east, Caliphate. 

Almost every country in the world was similarly affected, but since that time have reconciled with the changes. Not so in the middle east. Why, you may ask? Because says I, they are pawn pieces on a chess board game played by the Great Powers. GB, France, USA, Russia. All want and NEED instability to be maintained.

It's possible Russia has been meddling, as they are the faction who would support a new war breaking out now, one that will involve US interests.

The shit is chess, not checkers.

[Nationalist]

On 4/5/2024 at 4:32 PM, robosmith said:

Have to what? 

It appears that the goal is far more to make Gaza uninhabitable than just to find and kill Hamas members.

First step in highly motivating Palestinians to LEAVE. AKA, ethnic cleansing.

Similar to the harassment of Palestinians in the West Bank.

BINGO! After all this time, you finally got one correct.

Yes! The idea is to wipe the Gazans clean out of the area.

This should have been done that very night. This slow removal is damaging Israel.

[Rebound]

17 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

Wow.  That is lame. You went full Trumpet supporter with that one.  What next you going to tell me that if I don’t unconditionally support Trump I love terrorists and hate freedom?  That’s the level of argument you’ve sunk to here.  You can do better. 
 

What should Isreal do today after decades of both sides doing everything wrong? Or what should have it done differently after Oct?  Or from the start back in 1948?  I assume the first one but it’s a tough question because the damage was done generations ago.    Let’s start by stopping the slaughter of women and children and tossing Netanyahu and his coalition of militant extremist parties from office  Once Israel has a rational moderate party ideologically willing to work towards a 2-state solution we can look for peace partners in Palestine and beyond amd take it from there  

 

So you don't have a realistic answer to what Israel should do. 

Firstly, you don't accept the existence of Israel. But Israel is here and they are not going away.

Second, you are ignoring reality: Hamas invaded Israel, fired many hundreds of rockets at Israel, and has refused ceasefire. You're only looking at Israel's actions inside of a two-party conflict. You've given Hamas a free pass to continue to commit terrorist acts, to fire rockets at civilians, and to hold civilians hostage. IOW, you're ignoring the question, which is, "What should Israel do about the fact that Hamas declared war upon them and repeatedly refuses all requests to surrender or even cease fire?" 

It sounds as though your answer is this: Hamas can murder Jews, and Jews cannot fight back. But, please, tell us in your own words, what should Israel do about the war which was declared upon them.