Once again Hamas launched missiles into Israel.
I don't understand why the Left hates Israel so much. I support Israel because there is no other country in that part of the world that would be a better ally. Not Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or Turkey.
To me, when the Left pushes pro-Palestinian agendas they are the Anti-Semites yet they call everyone who disagrees with them Nazis. Talk about hypocrisy!

Long live Israel!

Finally a political thread in off topic again!

BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!

Edited 5/23/2021 10:04:48

Israel and Palestine are both shit, they are religious dictatorships that encourage apartheid and fighting, it's literally two kids arguing about who was on the nice chair first except the chair is wide enough for the whole class to sit on it if they want to

There is rarely, if ever, a good side in a conflict.

I find it funny that from 1948-1973 a socialist Israel fought 3 wars with socialist Egypt. Over 70% of all workers in Israel worked for the government. Now a right wing Israel is fighting against a right wing Palestine. There is no ideological component to this conflict. If you get caught up thinking you need to defend Palestine because they are left wingers like you or if you think you need to defend Israel because they are right wingers like you then you are being used.

Palestine is a theocratic dictatorship and Israel is significantly more socialist than the USA with regards to unemployment, automatic child support, Single Payer healthcare, ect.

Taking sides in this conflict is akin to taking sides in the Ethiopia-Somalia conflict. It has nothing to do with your day to day life. It doesn't represent some grand struggle between the Orient and the Occident.

Edited 5/22/2021 19:54:16

TL;DR: It is a waste of time to voice cursory opinions when you could be reading, listening and learning instead. Your opinions and loudness do not contribute an ounce of value to the world. Your capacity to learn and understand does. In a world where people do the former, we have no chance of peace in Israel or really a good world anywhere. If we commit to the latter, then we have a real shot. Our society may reward loud idiots but we reap our actual rewards from curiosity and understanding.

Israel isn't a monolith. This latest conflict has a lot of domestic political context that is not being captured in international reporting and commentary. Netanyahu, as many know, has been declining in popularity gradually over the past few years. Israel has had an ongoing political crisis for 3 years or thereabouts where the country has struggled to form a government. About two years back, there was a duel over the future of Israeli government between Netanyahu (and his party Likud) and a coalition of three parties named Blue and White, led by Benny Gantz. Note that parties in Israel are split by not only ideology but also personality- there's a lot of parties that are just tied to one big personality.

After 3 elections that essentially ended in deadlock, Netanyahu and Gantz made a deal to form a government that resulted in Blue and White losing 2/3 of its parties and Netanyahu/Gantz rotating the Prime Ministership. This deal fell through right near the tail end of Netanyahu's term, when the Knesset (Israeli parliament) couldn't pass the budget. In March, Israel had an election, pitting Netanyahu against the 2 parties that left Blue & White (Yesh Atid and Telem), now led by Yair Lapid, a former media personality who pushes for a secular, economically liberal version of Israel (basically [upper-]middle class bourgeoisie politics, where the focus is on maximizing economic opportunity and tearing down restrictive institutions).

This election resulted in a deadlock- Netanyahu's party won narrowly but wasn't able to form a coalition. Yair Lapid is currently in the process of forming a new government.

Now let me backtrack a bit and introduce you to the United Arab List (formerly part of the Arab Joint List; UAL is also known as Ra'am, the Islamist part of the Joint List, and it left the Joint List). Some years back, the threshold to get Knesset seats in an election was raised to a higher percentage of the vote, allegedly (likely) to shut out the small Israeli Arab parties which hold wildly different views. In response, those Arab parties united and ran on one list in the election, and the Joint List become the third largest faction in the Knesset. Historically, Israeli parties have resisted forming coalitions with them- in fact, one of Blue and White's two promises, along with not working with Netanyahu, was not working with the Joint List (and of course this was the promise they chose to keep).

That's changing today. Yair Lapid was about to enter into a confidence-and-supply agreement of some sort with the United Arab List to form a Yesh Atid-Telem-led government. The chance of this succeeding is/was about a coin flip. Netanyahu was already past his window to form a government.

Yair Lapid's strength is economic policy and likely diplomacy (or at least, some people really do not like the diplomatic position Netanyahu has put Israel in, where it picked a horse to win in American politics and that horse has now lost). Netanyahu's perceived strength is security. Perhaps not coincidentally, a protest in a mosque over a pending controversial Supreme Court decision (over whether certain Palestinians can be evicted) escalated into a rather messy raid of the third holiest site in Islam by Israeli state security forces, which in turn escalated to another conflict in Gaza.

All major Israeli politicians starting paying lip service to conflict de-escalation and diplomacy and voicing their wish for peace and everyone just living happy lives, right when the conflict started. Except Netanyahu.

With rockets fired at Tel Aviv and O(10) Israelis dead, security- Netanyahu's strength- is now top-of-mind for many Israelis. The domestic political landscape has changed.

On the other side of the green line, Fatah (the terrorists who became a government and chose peace and negotiation) and Hamas (the Iran-backed guys who do not seek peace with Israel) have been struggling over the mandate of Palestine for about 15 years. They have not had an election in that time.

Fatah (aka the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian National Authority, now claiming to be the State of Palestine) used to throw suicide bombers and the like at Israel. In the 1990s and 2000s, the United States and international interventions in that area brokered an uneasy peace between Israel and Fatah (a two-state solution even seemed briefly likely) and since then Fatah has given up the terrorism but at the same time they're not huge Israel fans (maps of the region in the West Bank, ruled by Fatah, often exclude Israel and just label the whole place Palestine, even excluding Israeli cities). The last time Palestine had an election, Fatah won in the West Bank but Hamas dominated in Gaza. They briefly formed a coalition to rule the country together, but Israel and the US were not happy with it at all (for obvious reasons) and the US goaded Fatah into breaking the coalition and fighting a brief war for control over Gaza. Hamas won this. Since then Palestine has been split in two: Fatah runs the West Bank, Hamas runs Gaza. Keep in mind that both are effectively occupied zones under de facto Israeli control although Fatah and Hamas have some level of state-like control in some areas (but not enough to establish meaningful sovereignty).

Since that last election and the Fatah/Hamas split, Palestinian domestic politics has been dominated by an ideological war. Do they take Fatah's path of diplomacy and negotiation, seeking recognition and some sort of peace? (Fatah doesn't necessarily want a two-state solution, though they give a lot of lip service to it, but rather probably a one-state solution - which does not play well with Israelis because they see Arabs in the region as a demographic threat and believe the Jews will be dominated; Netanyahu's actually been a key advocate of this demographic time bomb viewpoint). Or do they give up on peace and take up armed struggle against Israel because that is the only justice they know?

There's a reason an election hasn't been held there in the longest time. Hamas might win in the West Bank and politically sideline Fatah entirely.

The rockets? Hamas knows they won't make a serious dent. They know those rockets will backfire and get more Gazans killed, because Israel's missile defense tech is very, very good, and only getting better. But they also know this will make their case for them. If Israel invades Gaza, looking the part of the cruel oppressor... then who do the Palestinians choose but the people actively resisting Israel with violence? Security is now top-of-mind (well, even more top-of-mind) for Palestinians too. And armed resistance is Hamas' selling point, just as security (at the cost of humanity and kindness and fairness and diplomacy and economic efficiency and a secular, liberal society) is Netanyahu's.

Peace in the region is not impossible. Nor is this conflict preordained. What we are witnessing today is merely the culmination of long-running political incentives.

No mother raises a son in the hopes that he will go off to die in some war. He may be brave and save the homeland but she would rather have him grow old and rich in a homeland that does not need saving. People want happy lives, not conflict. Most of us live in accordance with that and if we find ourselves in a fight would put down our guns for a pleasant life anytime, even making peace with the enemy and becoming their friend. Not even Hamas and Netanyahu really seek conflict for the sake of conflict because even the winner in a conflict takes on massive opportunity cost. Conflict simply emerges when people's goals cannot be satisfied through other means. And sometimes those goals are not the goals of all the people but simply the short-term needs of the factions and organizations with the power to start and perpetuate conflict.

---

And as always, I'm going to end on a reminder that you should probably learn about things in a fair bit of detail before you start forming and peddling opinions about them. Information and education are now far more accessible than ever before, and it disappoints me greatly that so many people are so obsessed with their ideologies and opinions that they don't even bother to make use of it to learn about the world we live in. Intellectual vitality isn't measured by your number of strongly-held opinions, and if you're not able to understand why people could possibly feel differently about an issue than you do, it might help to actually learn about the issue first.

(There's a reason you can't tell what my views are from this. It's so you do not waste time bickering with me in some internet ideology points contest and instead develop the habit of bothering to learn about subjects before you speak on them. I'm sure my summaries above have many inaccuracies and opinions you will want to challenge. If you bother to learn about the issue, you can find them and we can discuss them. Hopefully we do that instead of playing the common online game of trying to look dominant in some conversation about issues we do not understand and do not sincerely want to educate ourselves about.)

Edited 5/22/2021 23:57:53

I also forgot a few major details:

- This conflict started on 05/06; if you look at betting markets on who will be the next PM of Israel, the odds have been shifting immensely in Netanyahu's favor since around then, after Lapid briefly became the favorite, although Lapid has started surging again in the past few days as he's found new political messaging to appeal to security-focused constituents.

- Prior to the conflict, the biggest political concern in Israel was a stampede that had happened in late April at a bonfire festival (https://www.rt.com/news/522521-israel-bonfire-festival-deadly-stampede/). Netanyahu and his government were getting some of the blame for it and this was helping Lapid in his government formation talks (because the alternative is Netanyahu; the worse Netanyahu looks, the more it helps Lapid.) This is likely what spurred Lapid becoming the favorite in the betting odds.

- Due to the conflict, Ra'am and Yamina backed out of coalition talks with Lapid, largely ending his path to the Prime Ministership and triggering the next election, where Netanyahu and Likud might perform slightly better than they did in March.

- Netanyahu's been implicated in a corruption scandal for some years now. His trial is ongoing for breaching trust, accepting bribes, and committing fraud (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Benjamin_Netanyahu). Yesh Atid, Yair Lapid's party, has successfully long since branded itself as the anti-corruption party for some time, and Yair Lapid's personal brand has also been tied to anti-corruption.

I'm not saying that Netanyahu provoked and escalated this avoidable conflict to save his political future and personal status, incidentally setting back the Israeli-Palestinian peace process by years and benefiting Hamas (and therefore the side of violent conflict with massive collateral damage) in the process, indirectly murdering dozens of Israelis and hundreds of Palestinians during these past few weeks and over the coming years for his own self-preserving ends.

But I'm saying that if he did, this is exactly what it would look like.

Edited 5/22/2021 23:59:04

I don't support fighting in Palestine and Israel. The Syrian area of dispute should just be decided on and everyone should move on with life. I don't know much about that area. In my opinion, Palestine and Israel should coexist. Europeans took land from the Arabs to create Israel, and Arabs took land from Jews centuries ago. Put it all aside and just live together as two different countries! But, who are we to speak of their affairs, we need some Israelis and Palestinians to come and speak.

Edited 5/23/2021 03:31:45

I would like to correct that the Romans mainly caused the jewish diaspora not the Arabs, but I do agree. In a perfect universe Palestine would've accepted the partisianplan that they are now trying to reverd the borders to...

The Roman work is unfinished

"Once again Hamas launched missiles into Israel"
You can't start the story whenever you want. That is called Hypocrisy. The last rise of events started earlier in April, when the Israeli forces tried to illegally force 500 Palestinians out of their houses to make settlers live there as part of their ethnic cleansing program that has been going on in Jerusalem since Israel existed. After that, Israel invaded AlAqsa mosque, resulting in hundreds of injuries including a lot of severe ones (4 people permanently lost their eyesight). In addition to children with crushed bones, severe injuries and trauma. The Palestinians in Jerusalem kept begging the whole world to interfere but guess what? No one moved a limb (except for all those bullshit condemnation that did nothing). So Hamas issued an ultimatum to Israel, Hamas decided to defend the oppressed Palestinians (their own people) in Jerusalem. And they said that if Israel doesn't stop attacking the Palestinians in the mosque and doesn't stop forcefully evicting the 500 Palestinians out of their houses in Sheikh Jarrah, they would fire rockets at 6PM that day and they did exactly that. Then things escalated and Israel did tens if not hundreds of war crimes. Killing 248 people including 66 children in Gaza. All of that is without mentioning the state-sanctioned terrorism against Palestinians within the lands occupied in 1948. Where hundreds of Israelis used to lynch and attack Palestinians under the protection of the army. Those Palestinians have Israeli passports and are considered part of the Israeli population, but Zionism and hate knows no passports or rights. All they know is destruction, humiliating Palestinians and treating them as subhumans or something.
(And I didn't even mention the West Bank events). Now after the ceasefire, Israel is still oppressing the Palestinians. So in addition to the 500 Palestinians that are being forcefully evicted in Sheikh Jarrah, they want to forcefully evict 800 people in Silwan (which is illegal in international law, but who cares, right?)

Edited 5/23/2021 10:57:42

For those saying "both sides are bad" And "Palestine and Israel are both dictatorships" No they aren't. Palestinians are people under occupation, Israel is an apartheid government. Palestinians don't even have an autonomous government how the heck are they a dictatorship? Hamas only existed in 1987 and the Palestinian Authority in 1993 (which was supposed to last for 5 years before a Palestinian state replaces it according to Oslo accords but Israel didn't allow that or continue the deal but that's another subject). Israel has been an apartheid since much before Hamas was established as a resistance movement and PA was established as a first step for the Palestinian State. So yea, not "2 sides are dictatorships bla bla"

Guess what scrubs. To say Palestine is a dictatorship means you need to recognize Hamas as a legitimate state.

Israel isn't so great either
They are an ethno-state and still decline to give citizenship to legitimate African Israelites.

Supporting Israel means supporting a nation that discriminates on race and skin color.

This would be the equivalent of the American Indian Wars

the only way to fix it is if Bashar El Assad our lord and saviour pulls off a successful invasion

noob spreading propaganda again.
agreeing with the above statement, I keep all my faith in bashar now.

Edited 5/23/2021 14:28:15

Rick if you think that any point I made is wrong you can say that, but saying that I am spreading propaganda just because I am spreading information about my cause isn't a great argument :)

Israel is a police state, from what I've heard. Is there a reason for Israel to demand the West Bank and Gaza Strip? It makes no sense to have those small pieces of land just to say you own it. I suppose if you want to get religious, then you'd want to own Bethlehem and Jerusalem, but that's all you need. Gaza and the rest of West Bank should be Palestine. Or, they could redraw borders to be less separated. Israel is a bit overrated and over supported in my opinion. About two thirds of the world recognizes Palestine, so.... Yet the west demands the world support Kosovo and/or Taiwan. I don't know, the whole thing makes little sense. (By the way, I also recognize Taiwan and Kosovo.)

All we need now is an opinion from a Jewish Israeli, or are you (thenoob) not Israeli? I don't know if Palestine is recognized on Warzone.

The conflict isn't about those small pieces of land Georg. The irony is that the Israelis are for the most part more than willing to engage in a two state solution if it means peace, and it is the Palestinians that don't want the two state solution.

In 1947, the UN proposed the partition plan, in which the Palestinians would receive 67% of Israel and the Jews would receive 33%. Guess, what, the Jews accepted it being grateful to be given any homeland at all but the Palestinians rejected it, insisting they be given the whole of the land. Then in 1948 the UN decided the Israelis could have most of the land, and gave the Palestinians Gaza and the West Bank.

The day after Israel declared its independence, all 6 neighbouring Arab countries attacked. Miraculously, Israel won the war and even gained land in Jordan and Egypt. However, as a symbol of goodwill, they gave all the land they conquered back in exchange for peace. Israel has never attacked or invaded any of its Arab neighbours, yet it has been invaded numerous times. Israel only attacks to destroy Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS and other terrorist organizations.

Here are a list of other two state solutions rejected by the Palestinians:

1949 Ungar 194 Land Plan Proposal
1967 UNSCR 242 Land Plan Proposal
1978 Begin/Sa'adat Peace Proposal
1994 Rabin/Hussein Peace proposal
2000 Barak/Clinton Peace Proposal
2008 Olmert/Bush Peace Proposal
2014 Kerry's Countour for Peace
Trump/Netenyahu Invite to Join Abraham Accords

And don't even get me started on the irony of calling Israel an apartheid state. Muslims in Israel have more rights than they do in other Islamic middle eastern countries! My dad grew up in apartheid in South Africa, why don't you ask him what it's like. Segregated neighbourhoods, schools, buses, beaches, washrooms, etc. All religions in Israel have equal rights, and many muslims serve on the Israeli supreme court. Do you really think a black under apartheid would be able to even get a job other than working in a coal mine, let alone in the supreme court or the ability to run for Prime Minister :)

Even more irony is that before Israel were founded, Jews were kicked out of Islamic countries or killed. And yet you claim the Palestinians are being ethnically cleaned. One, the Palestinians did that to Jews all over the middle east for thousands of years, and two the Palestinians aren't being ethnically cleansed. Jews bought the land you claim the Palestinians are being kicked off of, decades ago, fair and square. Since they own the land, they demand the people living on it pay them taxes. So when the Palestinians refused to pay up, Israel LEGALLY kicked them off the land. If you didn't pay your landlord rent and he kicked you out of your apartment, would you really go around telling everyone he is ethnically cleansing his apartment building?

And as for the neutrals, I don't understand how you tolerate the terrorist organization Hamas. Even other Islamic nations have condemned them for war crimes! They launch over 4000 rockets and target Israeli citizens, and that is totally okay. Then they hide their rockets and weapons in civilian buildings, hospitals, schools, etc (which is against international law, btw) and the world turns a blind eye. Then Israel sends bombs and missiles to destroy the weapons, which are well within its rights.

But get this, they tell the Palestinians where and when they are bombing, and give them days in advance to evacuate. But then when Israel ends up destroying a school or a hospital, because Hamas decided to hide its weapons in their, Israel is the bad guy. When Israel kills Palestinians who refused to leave, despite being given a warning by the Israeli government well in advance, Israel are the bad guys here.

Israel even sends out its military to recover any Palestinians who were hurt and take them to first class Israeli hospitals to be treated. Do you think in an apartheid state, whites would go out of their way to recover injured blacks and take them into their own hospitals? Do you think any country would do this for the people who want them dead and are sending rockets at their cities? But no, free Palestine and Israel is an apartheid is your logic.

I think it is much in the world's favour to support Israel as a nation. The Arabs ruled Israel for over 2000 years, and you know what they did with it? Absolutely nothing. Then the Jews came and turned it into one of the world's most advanced and democratic countries in the world, in less than a century, despite having all of its neighbours hellbent on destroying it. Wanna know some things that came out of Israel in the past 70ish years?

Intel, WhatsApp, Instant Messaging, anti-virus softwares, voice-mail, flash drives, smartphone cameras, and many of the world's smartest people. Can you name me one thing the Palestinians did in the past 2000 years living on that land? I'm waiting.

Most Palestinians I know are actually against Hamas. Hamas is the one causing the Palestinians to die. Hamas and Israel finally agreed to a ceasefire the other day, and you know what happened next? Within 5 minutes of the ceasefire, Hamas sent more rockets at Israel. Could you imagine the world's reaction if Israel did that? But no, it's okay when Hamas, a terrorist organization, does it. In my opinion, Israelis and Palestinians should be both working against Hamas, because sending 4000 rockets at Israeli civilians isn't helping to make a two state solution.