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> An act of terrorism met with a tenfold response in terrorism and violence is needless and cannot be condoned. I don't think this is an accurate description.

by edanm 3y ago

> An act of terrorism met with a tenfold response in terrorism and violence is needless and cannot be condoned. I don't think this is an accurate description. It wasn't "an act of terrorism". It was an invasion and jointly, a rocket attack, by a neighboring semi-state with a military, that has stated it will invade over and over again. And of course, the capture of 250 hostages. This isn't a kind of one-off terror attack that was met with revenge for the sake of it. For the months after the initial invasion, Hamas fired thousands of rockets at Israel, essentially shutting down the country for a few weeks, until they were forced to stop. Hamas militants were literally running around inside of Israel for two days. No nation on Earth could afford to effectively cease functioning as rockets rained down on it, and as other parties like Hezbollah were threatening to widen the conflict to a far more serious attack as well. > If the Palestinians stop defending themselves with terrorism would Israel play nice? I can't answer that, but it's worth noting that during the 1990s there was a sizeable Israeli left that was pushing for peace, there were talks, there were accords that gave the Palestinians self-governance in the West Bank, etc. This was met with terrorism, with the express purpose of stopping the peace process. It's also worth noting that Israel completely left Gaza in 2005, removing all its settlements there and the soldiers there. Gaza then elected Hamas, which immediately started shooting rockets at Israel. So while I highly dislike Israel's right-wing government and extremism, and highly dislike the settlements, I don't think it's accurate to say that the terrorism is helping protect against anything. It comes from a worldview in which Israel will eventually be completely destroyed and the Palestinian will take over all the land.

jakupovic 3y ago
>>Palestinian will take over all the land. You mean Palestinians will go back home.
- edanm 3y ago
  No, I don't mean that. Look, it's a complicated issue. There is some validity to it being "their land", but... even if you don't think the historical connection of Jews to the land means anything, my father was born in Israel. I was born here. My kids were born here. Do we not have any connection to the land at this point? If Hamas's goal of "going back home" (as you put it) is met, what should happen to us?
  - jakupovic 3y ago
    Figure out a way to live together and not shoot at each other for 80+ years. Since I have been a baby it has been a conflict and blame throwing around, please don't kill anymore people, any people on any side!
    - edanm 3y ago
      Of course that's what I want. The only way to achieve that is a two-state solution, where each populace has its own state. The root problem is that there has never been a Palestinian leadership willing or capable of agreeing to a deal (despite multiple efforts), or at least not at the same time as an Israeli leadership existed that could make it possible. And given the failures and continued violence (and demographics!), the Israeli left has lost almost all power, and Israel's right-wing has ruled for most of the last 15 years, and is at best, not contributing to peace. (And I'd say much worse - very actively preventing peace!)
      - lupire 3y ago
        Why must the Israeli State be in Palestine? Approximately zero Israelis have a connection to Israel that wasn't created by immigration, invasion, and conquer in the last 100 years, vs centuries of continuous inhabitation by Palestinians.
        edanm 3y ago
        > Why must the Israeli State be in Palestine? A great question, but not very relevant anymore. Let's set aside for a minute whether Israel should have been founded in that land in 1948 - it was founded there, and it's been 75 years. There are 9 million Israelis (or 7 million Jews if you want to break it down that way) that live there now. I was born here, my father was born here, my son was born here. Do I have less connection to the land, right now, than the million Gazans who are under the age of 18 and have never lived here? More importantly, what do you propose? That all 7 million Jews in Israel be relocated somewhere else? Where? Who would pay for moving an entire country elsewhere? As for the question itself of why the Israeli state should be in Palestine, like I said, while I think it's relevant, it is a good question. Personally, I would've chosen to locate it elsewhere, but then I don't really care about religion or sentimentality "for the land" or anything like that. Practically, I don't think Jews really had another place to go - remember, most of the Jews of Israel were either fleeing Europe before the Holocaust, or were the survivors of the Holocaust, or were ethnically cleansed from surrounding Arab countries. It's not like they had anywhere else to go. That said, I do question your premise: > Approximately zero Israelis have a connection to Israel that wasn't created by immigration, invasion, and conquer in the last 100 years. This is very wrong. For one thing, you're ignoring the 20% of Israelis that are Arabs/Palestinians, but I'll assume you meant the Jewish ones. There has been continuous Jewish habitation of Palestine for literally 2,000, since the Jews were forced out. If you look at the demographic history of Palestine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palestine_(region) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palesti...), you can see that roughly 100 years ago, 10% of the inhabitants of Palestine were Jewish. And IIRC, all of them got there by completely legal immigration, not "invasion" or "conquest".
outop 3y ago
[flagged]
- edanm 3y ago
  What are you referring to? It's nowhere even close to the same scale. Although if you consider the assassination of Rabin, which was carried out by an Israeli settler extremist, then yes, that was something that caused a terrible impact. It's possible that if that had not happened, Rabin would have managed to get us to an actual peace agreement. (Still his murder didn't stop the peace process - it continued. What really stopped it was the refusal of Arafat to agree to a deal, and the second intifiada.)
  - outop 3y ago
    It's a chronological distortion to say that the peace process was stopped by the second Intifada. It did not start until after the breakdown of the peace process.
    - edanm 3y ago
      Well I think that really depends on what exact "peace process" you're referring to. Hamas started terror attacks during the Oslo process IIRC, and intensified terror attacks before the elections after Rabin's assassination, probably helping get Netanyahu elected. And there were peace proposals in 2000, but also in 2007. But really what I meant wasn't that any specific peace process was ended, more that the Israeli pro-peace left lost a lot of political power and a lot of legitimacy because of the continued terror attacks. When the left pushes for disengaging from the West Bank, the right points to the disengagement from Gaza as a case study, and it's kind of hard to argue against.
      - outop 3y ago
        [dead]
      - l3mure 3y ago
        > Hamas started terror attacks during the Oslo process IIRC, and intensified terror attacks before the elections after Rabin's assassination, Portraying Hamas as a unilateral spoiler is completely disingenuous. [1] > In early January 1996 Peres faced another difficult decision. The Israeli General Security Service--Shabak--asked him for permission to assassinate Yahya Ayyash, the so-called "Engineer," who had personally masterminded several Hamas suicide atacks, which killed 50 and wounded 340 Israelis. The Israeli media presented him as public enemy number one, greatly exaggerating his status within Hamas and omitting to mention that the attacks he organized came as a response to the massacre perpetrated by Dr. Baruch Goldstein in Hebron in February 1994. In mid-1995 Ayyash went into hiding in Gaza, and the Palestinian preventive security service told the Shabak that he would not organize any more attacks on Israelis. But the head of the Shabak, who was about to be removed from his post for his failure to protect Rabin, badly wanted to be remembered for one last spectacular success. Peres gave the green light, thinking that apart from dealing out rough justice, the operation would boost the morale of the nation and of the security services. On 5 January, Ayyash was killed in Gaza by means of a booby-trapped cellular phone. The decision to kill Ayyash turned out to be the greatest mistake of Peres's political career. This is what spurred Hamas attacks prior to Netanyahu's election, not opposition to Oslo. [1] Shlaim - The Iron Wall
l3mure 3y ago
> there were accords that gave the Palestinians self-governance in the West Bank If they couldn't stop the settlements, there was no self-governance. > This was met with terrorism, with the express purpose of stopping the peace process. Whereas Baruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir were just peace loving dudes right?
- edanm 3y ago
  > If they couldn't stop the settlements, there was no self-governance. Forgot absolute terms for a minute. The Oslo accords gave Palestinians more self governance than they had before. It was a step in the right direction. The PA does have a form of self government over the Palestinians. It's not a full state, and I hope that we reach an agreement in which the Palestinians do get statehood, but we're not gong to get there by insisting that steps in the right direction are meaningless, and certainly not by increasing the amount of terror attacks to prevent the peace process. > Whereas Baruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir were just peace loving dudes right? No, of course not. They were terrible terrorists. In the case of Yigal Amir, he's sitting in jail where he belongs (Baruch Goldstein was beaten to death in the place he was attacking). Luckily Goldstein didn't derail the peace process, though Amir probably did.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > The PA does have a form of self government over the Palestinians. It's not a full state Yes, it is, and it is recognized by much of the world as such (its a state that has spent its entire existence at war with and partially occupied by Israel, but saying it isn't a full state is like saying Ukraine isn't because of the war and Russian occupation.)
    - edanm 3y ago
      Well, ok. That makes my point stronger, maybe you should be replying to parent comment? They said this: > If they couldn't stop the settlements, there was no self-governance. I was reacting to that.

by edanm 3y ago

jakupovic 3y ago

>>Palestinian will take over all the land. You mean Palestinians will go back home.

edanm 3y ago
No, I don't mean that. Look, it's a complicated issue. There is some validity to it being "their land", but... even if you don't think the historical connection of Jews to the land means anything, my father was born in Israel. I was born here. My kids were born here. Do we not have any connection to the land at this point? If Hamas's goal of "going back home" (as you put it) is met, what should happen to us?
- jakupovic 3y ago
  Figure out a way to live together and not shoot at each other for 80+ years. Since I have been a baby it has been a conflict and blame throwing around, please don't kill anymore people, any people on any side!
  - edanm 3y ago
    Of course that's what I want. The only way to achieve that is a two-state solution, where each populace has its own state. The root problem is that there has never been a Palestinian leadership willing or capable of agreeing to a deal (despite multiple efforts), or at least not at the same time as an Israeli leadership existed that could make it possible. And given the failures and continued violence (and demographics!), the Israeli left has lost almost all power, and Israel's right-wing has ruled for most of the last 15 years, and is at best, not contributing to peace. (And I'd say much worse - very actively preventing peace!)
    - lupire 3y ago
      Why must the Israeli State be in Palestine? Approximately zero Israelis have a connection to Israel that wasn't created by immigration, invasion, and conquer in the last 100 years, vs centuries of continuous inhabitation by Palestinians.
      - edanm 3y ago
        > Why must the Israeli State be in Palestine? A great question, but not very relevant anymore. Let's set aside for a minute whether Israel should have been founded in that land in 1948 - it was founded there, and it's been 75 years. There are 9 million Israelis (or 7 million Jews if you want to break it down that way) that live there now. I was born here, my father was born here, my son was born here. Do I have less connection to the land, right now, than the million Gazans who are under the age of 18 and have never lived here? More importantly, what do you propose? That all 7 million Jews in Israel be relocated somewhere else? Where? Who would pay for moving an entire country elsewhere? As for the question itself of why the Israeli state should be in Palestine, like I said, while I think it's relevant, it is a good question. Personally, I would've chosen to locate it elsewhere, but then I don't really care about religion or sentimentality "for the land" or anything like that. Practically, I don't think Jews really had another place to go - remember, most of the Jews of Israel were either fleeing Europe before the Holocaust, or were the survivors of the Holocaust, or were ethnically cleansed from surrounding Arab countries. It's not like they had anywhere else to go. That said, I do question your premise: > Approximately zero Israelis have a connection to Israel that wasn't created by immigration, invasion, and conquer in the last 100 years. This is very wrong. For one thing, you're ignoring the 20% of Israelis that are Arabs/Palestinians, but I'll assume you meant the Jewish ones. There has been continuous Jewish habitation of Palestine for literally 2,000, since the Jews were forced out. If you look at the demographic history of Palestine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palestine_(region) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palesti...), you can see that roughly 100 years ago, 10% of the inhabitants of Palestine were Jewish. And IIRC, all of them got there by completely legal immigration, not "invasion" or "conquest".

outop 3y ago

[flagged]

edanm 3y ago
What are you referring to? It's nowhere even close to the same scale. Although if you consider the assassination of Rabin, which was carried out by an Israeli settler extremist, then yes, that was something that caused a terrible impact. It's possible that if that had not happened, Rabin would have managed to get us to an actual peace agreement. (Still his murder didn't stop the peace process - it continued. What really stopped it was the refusal of Arafat to agree to a deal, and the second intifiada.)
- outop 3y ago
  It's a chronological distortion to say that the peace process was stopped by the second Intifada. It did not start until after the breakdown of the peace process.
  - edanm 3y ago
    Well I think that really depends on what exact "peace process" you're referring to. Hamas started terror attacks during the Oslo process IIRC, and intensified terror attacks before the elections after Rabin's assassination, probably helping get Netanyahu elected. And there were peace proposals in 2000, but also in 2007. But really what I meant wasn't that any specific peace process was ended, more that the Israeli pro-peace left lost a lot of political power and a lot of legitimacy because of the continued terror attacks. When the left pushes for disengaging from the West Bank, the right points to the disengagement from Gaza as a case study, and it's kind of hard to argue against.
    - outop 3y ago
      [dead]
    - l3mure 3y ago
      > Hamas started terror attacks during the Oslo process IIRC, and intensified terror attacks before the elections after Rabin's assassination, Portraying Hamas as a unilateral spoiler is completely disingenuous. [1] > In early January 1996 Peres faced another difficult decision. The Israeli General Security Service--Shabak--asked him for permission to assassinate Yahya Ayyash, the so-called "Engineer," who had personally masterminded several Hamas suicide atacks, which killed 50 and wounded 340 Israelis. The Israeli media presented him as public enemy number one, greatly exaggerating his status within Hamas and omitting to mention that the attacks he organized came as a response to the massacre perpetrated by Dr. Baruch Goldstein in Hebron in February 1994. In mid-1995 Ayyash went into hiding in Gaza, and the Palestinian preventive security service told the Shabak that he would not organize any more attacks on Israelis. But the head of the Shabak, who was about to be removed from his post for his failure to protect Rabin, badly wanted to be remembered for one last spectacular success. Peres gave the green light, thinking that apart from dealing out rough justice, the operation would boost the morale of the nation and of the security services. On 5 January, Ayyash was killed in Gaza by means of a booby-trapped cellular phone. The decision to kill Ayyash turned out to be the greatest mistake of Peres's political career. This is what spurred Hamas attacks prior to Netanyahu's election, not opposition to Oslo. [1] Shlaim - The Iron Wall

l3mure 3y ago

> there were accords that gave the Palestinians self-governance in the West Bank If they couldn't stop the settlements, there was no self-governance. > This was met with terrorism, with the express purpose of stopping the peace process. Whereas Baruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir were just peace loving dudes right?

edanm 3y ago
> If they couldn't stop the settlements, there was no self-governance. Forgot absolute terms for a minute. The Oslo accords gave Palestinians more self governance than they had before. It was a step in the right direction. The PA does have a form of self government over the Palestinians. It's not a full state, and I hope that we reach an agreement in which the Palestinians do get statehood, but we're not gong to get there by insisting that steps in the right direction are meaningless, and certainly not by increasing the amount of terror attacks to prevent the peace process. > Whereas Baruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir were just peace loving dudes right? No, of course not. They were terrible terrorists. In the case of Yigal Amir, he's sitting in jail where he belongs (Baruch Goldstein was beaten to death in the place he was attacking). Luckily Goldstein didn't derail the peace process, though Amir probably did.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > The PA does have a form of self government over the Palestinians. It's not a full state Yes, it is, and it is recognized by much of the world as such (its a state that has spent its entire existence at war with and partially occupied by Israel, but saying it isn't a full state is like saying Ukraine isn't because of the war and Russian occupation.)
  - edanm 3y ago
    Well, ok. That makes my point stronger, maybe you should be replying to parent comment? They said this: > If they couldn't stop the settlements, there was no self-governance. I was reacting to that.