5 ms·

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 n

by 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.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    I worry that any serious attempt to get rid of Hamas will create so much collateral damage and/or will cause many people that are currently 'fence sitters' to switch to the Hamas side because of optics will cause the conflict to worsen rather than to move towards a solution. It's rare that you can get a conflict fought between insurgents and a professional army to look acceptable from the outside world looking at it because of the inequality in capacity and force. That coupled with the inevitable asymmetry between the losses is going to cause more problems than it solves. Note that the IRA wasn't 'wiped out' (in spite of many years of trying to do just that, but less visibly aggressive), they simply ran out of support and that was that. Something like that might work. But Israel would have to commit to some kind of compromise, for instance to halt any kind of settlement program, hand back land taken by settlers and to vow to stick to some kind of well defined border. And that's the bit that I don't see happening and every time someone gets murdered it will simply escalate right back to where we are today only then with more chance of really spiraling out of control. Hardliners thrive on conflict, and as long as - on either side - hardliners are major players the conflict will be prolonged and possibly expanded. And each side has the capability to do something about their hardliners. edit: this is the sort of thing that will come back to haunt Netanyahu no matter how the current fight unfolds: https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up... You don't play 'divide and conquer' with what is effectively a terrorist organization just because you think that you've got them bottled up and they serve your goals of destabilizing any attempt at normalization and/or paths that would force you to compromise. The cynical side of me wonders if the hardliners and the right wingers aren't still quietly (privately) cheering on Hamas just so they can strike back that much harder and impose more restrictions on Gaza and possibly the West bank because that is what they really have set their sights on and the occupants of those areas are seen as best removed in some way or other.

by edanm 3y ago

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.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  I worry that any serious attempt to get rid of Hamas will create so much collateral damage and/or will cause many people that are currently 'fence sitters' to switch to the Hamas side because of optics will cause the conflict to worsen rather than to move towards a solution. It's rare that you can get a conflict fought between insurgents and a professional army to look acceptable from the outside world looking at it because of the inequality in capacity and force. That coupled with the inevitable asymmetry between the losses is going to cause more problems than it solves. Note that the IRA wasn't 'wiped out' (in spite of many years of trying to do just that, but less visibly aggressive), they simply ran out of support and that was that. Something like that might work. But Israel would have to commit to some kind of compromise, for instance to halt any kind of settlement program, hand back land taken by settlers and to vow to stick to some kind of well defined border. And that's the bit that I don't see happening and every time someone gets murdered it will simply escalate right back to where we are today only then with more chance of really spiraling out of control. Hardliners thrive on conflict, and as long as - on either side - hardliners are major players the conflict will be prolonged and possibly expanded. And each side has the capability to do something about their hardliners. edit: this is the sort of thing that will come back to haunt Netanyahu no matter how the current fight unfolds: https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up... You don't play 'divide and conquer' with what is effectively a terrorist organization just because you think that you've got them bottled up and they serve your goals of destabilizing any attempt at normalization and/or paths that would force you to compromise. The cynical side of me wonders if the hardliners and the right wingers aren't still quietly (privately) cheering on Hamas just so they can strike back that much harder and impose more restrictions on Gaza and possibly the West bank because that is what they really have set their sights on and the occupants of those areas are seen as best removed in some way or other.