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> What if Israel stopped killing Palestinians and normalized relations with Gaza? Israel could choose a different path. Hamas slaughtered over a thousand Jewis

> What if Israel stopped killing Palestinians and normalized relations with Gaza? Israel could choose a different path. Hamas slaughtered over a thousand Jewish civilians three weeks ago. They've been continuously launching rockets into Israel since then. They have been able to do that because Israel had chosen to partially normalize relations, eg by allowing trucks to import goods into Gaza, allowing the import of concrete and other building supplies, and allowing Gazan's to enter Israel to work. The latter is particularly atrocious, as it appears that many of those cross-border workers used their access to Israel to help Hamas massacre Israeli civilians. Obviously, normalizing relations prior to Hamas taking steps to reject violence comes at enormous risk. If Israel had instead decided against taking steps to normalize relations with Gaza, 1400 and counting Israeli's would probably still be alive today.

jacquesm 3y ago
I don't particularly value an Israeli life any higher than I do a Palestinian one. Palestinians have died in larger numbers, just not as suddenly and that's what makes the difference in terms of the response but dead is dead, no matter whether you're the statistic of the day or a victim in a large scale attack. Hamas has given Israel a good reason to strike back but not indiscriminately and in retribution you have to work really hard to not sink to the level of your attacker - or even lower. Note that Israel has zero reasons to keep settling more and more ground and bulldozing more Palestinian homes and that as long as that keeps happening and they overreact to various attacks this conflict will simply never end. And that's exactly how Hamas and the Hawks want it, because it legitimizes their existence, they relish the conflict.
- edanm 3y ago
  First, I want to emphatically agree - an Israeli life isn't worth any more than a Palestinian life. > Hamas has given Israel a good reason to strike back but not indiscriminately and in retribution I want to argue against your framing here, because that is not how Israelis see things. At least the normal ones don't think of it as "striking back in retribution" or anything like that. The thing is, Hamas has declared war on Israel. They slaughtered 1400 people, took hostages, and are actively and continually firing rockets at Israel. There's been 3 weeks of rocket attacks. Luckily Israel has lots of defensive capabilities to block these kinds of attacks, but they are actively waging a war in the hopes of killing as many Israelis as possible. So the situation from Israel's perspective is - we are bordering a semi-state, whose government is intent on destroying Israel, have shown themselves capable of killing many Israelis, and is continuing to wage war. What should Israel do? The only response that most Israelis come to, which is what any other country in the world would do when faced with a similar situation, is to attack the enemy country until it doesn't have the capability to hurt you anymore. It's not some kind of "tit for tat" terrorist attack. It's literally a bordering country intent on destroying you and actively trying to do so. And btw, people seem to think that Israel is all-powerful or something here and can just choose whatever response it wants - but several other countries are actively threatening to join the war and attack Israel all at once. It's as if Mexico invaded the States, killed thousands of Americans, was firing rockets at American cities, and Canada was threatening to join in the war. What kind of response would make sense in this context? I mean that sincerely - what do you think Israel should do given this current situation? Because I sure as hell don't have a better idea than "try to destroy Hamas before they kill me".
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    > what do you think Israel should do given this current situation? I think the answer to that is to first figure out what kind of vision people have a for a long term view of what that part of the world will look like. If the vision is that at some point all these people are going to have to live together and mix freely then we are already on the wrong pathway for 70 years. If the vision is that Israel is forever going to be a state surrounded by enemies that slowly expands by virtue of being a forward post of the West with nukes then that is effectively condemning Israel and its citizens to pawns on the geopolitical chessboard. It's possible that 'the end of oil' will somehow tip the scales in Israels' favor, but it is also very well possible that at some point the Arab world will become more of a nuclear power than they are today. And in a world where 'might makes right' and proliferation worries dominate a lot of these discussions the current situation is highly unstable. If Israel doesn't manage to get to the first kind of solution in the foreseeable future I fear that in the longer term is may cease to exist entirely. By the way: thank you for the respectful discussion on this extremely sensitive subject. Given some of the incredible garbage in this thread it is a welcome relief.
    - edanm 3y ago
      > By the way: thank you for the respectful discussion on this extremely sensitive subject. Given some of the incredible garbage in this thread it is a welcome relief. Likewise! > I think the answer to that is to first figure out what kind of vision people have a for a long term view of what that part of the world will look like. I think the only viable option is a two or possibly three state solution. For obvious reasons (obvious to Israelis at least), Israel must remain a majority-Jewish state, so a one-state solution is simply impossible. That means a two state solution where the Palestinians have their own state. But how to get there from here is the problem. There have been many attempts at peace, including several peace deals that the Palestinians walked away from. The common line is that Israel has agreed to every compromise peace deal that's ever been put forward, which I'm sure isn't accurate, but is largely true; I fully believe that if the Palestinians had a decent leadership that would try to negotiate with Israel today and offer a deal, Israel would accept it. But as long as the Palestinians insist on things that are unrealistic - with Hamas obviously being the worst example, insisting that Israel stop existing! - as long as that's the demand, I just don't see how we get to a peace deal. And obviously, Israeli leadership has been somewhat between apathetic to the Palestinians and full-on discouraging any kind of deal, so it's not like the Israeli government are exactly saints on this topic. The only possible hope I have is that the current war is so bad, it forces Israel to actually wipe out Hamas, but then help get a more decent leadership on the Palestinian side that will actually help get to peace. I'm very doubtful that will happen, because I don't really trust either side to acutally pursue peace.
enterprise_cog 3y ago
Oh, so if only they went back to a total lockdown of Gaza and treated it like a more maximum security prison, then this wouldn’t have happened? What if they didn’t treat it like a prison, or Palestinians like subhuman prisoners? Do you think that maybe then they wouldn’t want to go on raids and kill people? That those 1400 soldiers and civilians would still be alive?
- jacquesm 3y ago
  The Israeli viewpoint in some circles is that the number would then be higher. And they may well be right, but that doesn't mean that the situation can continue the way it has been going for the last 20 years. The fanatics on both sides will have to be brought to heel.
  - nec4b 3y ago
    What would you do if you were the leader of Israel? They have pulled out of Gaza in 2005. Hamas goal is destruction of Israel, I doesn't want any peace talks.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      I would ask myself first where I want Israel to be in two centuries and then steer course for that even if that means losses in the short term. Because long term this won't end well if there isn't a real change of course even though in the short term it looks as if Israel has the upper hand. Note that 'The State of Israel' is not synonymous with the Jewish people - even though there are a lot of people on both sides of this who seem to want to propagate that, and that religion and land (the two major things this conflict is all about) are not worth millions of lives lost.
      - nec4b 3y ago
        They have a fanatical enemy today who will not negotiate or stop hostilities until Israel is gone. Again how should they solve this problem now?

jacquesm 3y ago

I don't particularly value an Israeli life any higher than I do a Palestinian one. Palestinians have died in larger numbers, just not as suddenly and that's what makes the difference in terms of the response but dead is dead, no matter whether you're the statistic of the day or a victim in a large scale attack. Hamas has given Israel a good reason to strike back but not indiscriminately and in retribution you have to work really hard to not sink to the level of your attacker - or even lower. Note that Israel has zero reasons to keep settling more and more ground and bulldozing more Palestinian homes and that as long as that keeps happening and they overreact to various attacks this conflict will simply never end. And that's exactly how Hamas and the Hawks want it, because it legitimizes their existence, they relish the conflict.

edanm 3y ago
First, I want to emphatically agree - an Israeli life isn't worth any more than a Palestinian life. > Hamas has given Israel a good reason to strike back but not indiscriminately and in retribution I want to argue against your framing here, because that is not how Israelis see things. At least the normal ones don't think of it as "striking back in retribution" or anything like that. The thing is, Hamas has declared war on Israel. They slaughtered 1400 people, took hostages, and are actively and continually firing rockets at Israel. There's been 3 weeks of rocket attacks. Luckily Israel has lots of defensive capabilities to block these kinds of attacks, but they are actively waging a war in the hopes of killing as many Israelis as possible. So the situation from Israel's perspective is - we are bordering a semi-state, whose government is intent on destroying Israel, have shown themselves capable of killing many Israelis, and is continuing to wage war. What should Israel do? The only response that most Israelis come to, which is what any other country in the world would do when faced with a similar situation, is to attack the enemy country until it doesn't have the capability to hurt you anymore. It's not some kind of "tit for tat" terrorist attack. It's literally a bordering country intent on destroying you and actively trying to do so. And btw, people seem to think that Israel is all-powerful or something here and can just choose whatever response it wants - but several other countries are actively threatening to join the war and attack Israel all at once. It's as if Mexico invaded the States, killed thousands of Americans, was firing rockets at American cities, and Canada was threatening to join in the war. What kind of response would make sense in this context? I mean that sincerely - what do you think Israel should do given this current situation? Because I sure as hell don't have a better idea than "try to destroy Hamas before they kill me".
- jacquesm 3y ago
  > what do you think Israel should do given this current situation? I think the answer to that is to first figure out what kind of vision people have a for a long term view of what that part of the world will look like. If the vision is that at some point all these people are going to have to live together and mix freely then we are already on the wrong pathway for 70 years. If the vision is that Israel is forever going to be a state surrounded by enemies that slowly expands by virtue of being a forward post of the West with nukes then that is effectively condemning Israel and its citizens to pawns on the geopolitical chessboard. It's possible that 'the end of oil' will somehow tip the scales in Israels' favor, but it is also very well possible that at some point the Arab world will become more of a nuclear power than they are today. And in a world where 'might makes right' and proliferation worries dominate a lot of these discussions the current situation is highly unstable. If Israel doesn't manage to get to the first kind of solution in the foreseeable future I fear that in the longer term is may cease to exist entirely. By the way: thank you for the respectful discussion on this extremely sensitive subject. Given some of the incredible garbage in this thread it is a welcome relief.
  - edanm 3y ago
    > By the way: thank you for the respectful discussion on this extremely sensitive subject. Given some of the incredible garbage in this thread it is a welcome relief. Likewise! > I think the answer to that is to first figure out what kind of vision people have a for a long term view of what that part of the world will look like. I think the only viable option is a two or possibly three state solution. For obvious reasons (obvious to Israelis at least), Israel must remain a majority-Jewish state, so a one-state solution is simply impossible. That means a two state solution where the Palestinians have their own state. But how to get there from here is the problem. There have been many attempts at peace, including several peace deals that the Palestinians walked away from. The common line is that Israel has agreed to every compromise peace deal that's ever been put forward, which I'm sure isn't accurate, but is largely true; I fully believe that if the Palestinians had a decent leadership that would try to negotiate with Israel today and offer a deal, Israel would accept it. But as long as the Palestinians insist on things that are unrealistic - with Hamas obviously being the worst example, insisting that Israel stop existing! - as long as that's the demand, I just don't see how we get to a peace deal. And obviously, Israeli leadership has been somewhat between apathetic to the Palestinians and full-on discouraging any kind of deal, so it's not like the Israeli government are exactly saints on this topic. The only possible hope I have is that the current war is so bad, it forces Israel to actually wipe out Hamas, but then help get a more decent leadership on the Palestinian side that will actually help get to peace. I'm very doubtful that will happen, because I don't really trust either side to acutally pursue peace.

enterprise_cog 3y ago

Oh, so if only they went back to a total lockdown of Gaza and treated it like a more maximum security prison, then this wouldn’t have happened? What if they didn’t treat it like a prison, or Palestinians like subhuman prisoners? Do you think that maybe then they wouldn’t want to go on raids and kill people? That those 1400 soldiers and civilians would still be alive?

jacquesm 3y ago
The Israeli viewpoint in some circles is that the number would then be higher. And they may well be right, but that doesn't mean that the situation can continue the way it has been going for the last 20 years. The fanatics on both sides will have to be brought to heel.
- nec4b 3y ago
  What would you do if you were the leader of Israel? They have pulled out of Gaza in 2005. Hamas goal is destruction of Israel, I doesn't want any peace talks.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    I would ask myself first where I want Israel to be in two centuries and then steer course for that even if that means losses in the short term. Because long term this won't end well if there isn't a real change of course even though in the short term it looks as if Israel has the upper hand. Note that 'The State of Israel' is not synonymous with the Jewish people - even though there are a lot of people on both sides of this who seem to want to propagate that, and that religion and land (the two major things this conflict is all about) are not worth millions of lives lost.
    - nec4b 3y ago
      They have a fanatical enemy today who will not negotiate or stop hostilities until Israel is gone. Again how should they solve this problem now?