4 ms·

>> What should Israel do? Israel should make peace with the Palestinians. It is only Israel that can decide to have peace, because it is the overwhelmingly mor

>> What should Israel do? Israel should make peace with the Palestinians. It is only Israel that can decide to have peace, because it is the overwhelmingly more powerful side, militarily and in every other way, and even if Hamas put down its weapons and surrendered, there would be no peace if Israel did not agree to it. And just to be sure this is well understood: Israel does not want peace. Israel has maintained its brutal occupation of the Palestinian territories for years well before Hamas, it has broken ceasefires left and right for years, it has continued to massacre the Palestinians every chance it gets, it has continued to settle more and more of the lands where the Palestinians live, and even when the top leadership of Hamas proposed a long-lasting truce, Israel responded by assassinating them, just in case anyone took them to their word: According to Tristan Dunning, Israel has never responded to repeated offers by Hamas over subsequent years for a quid pro quo moratorium on attacks against civilians.[176] It has engaged in several tadi'a (periods of calm), and proposed a number of ceasefires.[176] In January 2004, Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin, prior to his assassination, said that the group would end armed resistance against Israel for a 10-year hudna[k] in exchange for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, and that restoring Palestinians' "historical rights" (relating to the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight) "would be left for future generations". His views were quickly echoed by senior Hamas official Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, who added that Hamas envisaged a "phased liberation".[178] Israel's response was to assassinate Yassin in March in a targeted Israeli air strike, and then al-Rantisi in a similar air strike in April.[179] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#Second_Intifada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#Second_Intifada And let's not forget that the current leadership of Israel has made it exceedingly clear that it is hell-bent against any ideas of a "two state" solution, that it has complete disrespect for any UN resolutions trying to establish any kind of solution that involves Palestinian independence, and has of course worked hard to reduce the Oslo accords to a farce.

tptacek 3y ago
I don't think any of this is a particularly fair summary of the situation. In particular, it ratifies Hamas and the 2022 Netanyahu coalition as the leaders of both sides of the broader conflict; neither are really representative of the populations they serve. Hamas has at least since 2017 been run by a millenarian Bond villain, causing much of Hamas's political leadership to flee the country. Netanyahu assembled a neo-Kahanist fringe coalition as a parliamentary maneuver to keep from losing his post, because it's widely believed he's going to end up in prison as soon as he leaves. Meanwhile: if we're talking about peace in the context of what happened after October 7, there's no country in the world that would have failed to respond militarily to an attack like that, which was the point of the attack in the first place. Sinwar expected Iran to go all-in on a final war that would wipe Israel off the map; instead, Hezbollah stayed home, and the whole plan fizzled. The Israel/Palestine situation is widely considered one of the more complicated geopolitical crises, and for good reason. If you think you have a simple summary of it, like "Israel does not want peace", you're probably glossing over a lot of stuff.
- YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
  No, I think it is your account that is attempting to over-simplify world politics into a Tolkien-esque story of good vs. evil, with Yahya Sinwar as a Bond-like villain and Iran as the secretive puppet master, pulling the strings, pulling the strings from the shadows. The problem is that this simplistic story doesn't seem to have much to do with the facts on the ground, as we can observe them, and not imagine them. For example, I cannot find any information about Ismail Haniyeh having left for Qater with his merry band of revelers because of Sinwar. The scant information we have about the support of Hamas among Palestinians suggests that Hamas is popular enough among Palestinians in Gaza, and certainly in the West Bank, that if there was another election they would easily win it [1]. The same goes for the Israeli government. Certainly everyone agrees that Bibi is doing everything he can to prolong the war to save his ass, but at the same time his government coalition enjoys the support of a majority of the Israeli voters, whom, after all, it represents [2] [3]. And a majority of Israeli civilians support the "war" [4]. Scare quotes because that's not a war but an unhindered massacre of a defenseless civilian population. >> Sinwar expected Iran to go all-in on a final war that would wipe Israel off the map; instead, Hezbollah stayed home, and the whole plan fizzled. There is absolutely no reason to assume any of that is true. We do not know what were the strategic goals that Hamas had in invading Israel. They have given some reasons but they're not exactly a trustworthy source so the best thing to do is to avoid launching into wild speculation. _______________ [1] Palestinian poll shows a rise in Hamas support and close to 90% wanting US-backed Abbas to resign Overall, 88% want Abbas to resign, up by 10 percentage points from three months ago. In the West Bank, 92% called for the resignation of the octogenarian who has presided over an administration widely seen as corrupt, autocratic and ineffective. At the same time, 44% in the West Bank said they supported Hamas, up from just 12% in September. In Gaza, the militants enjoyed 42% support, up slightly from 38% three months ago. https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-palestinians-opinion-poll-wartime-views-a0baade915619cd070b5393844bc4514 https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-palestinians-opinion... [2] The Israeli public has embraced the Smotrich doctrine The terrifying Smotrichization of the Israeli public is embodied in the total willingness to sacrifice the lives of every last Palestinian in Gaza for the ultimate victory that the far-right minister promised in his plan. It is the terrifying indifference to the astronomical number of dead children, and the complete internalization of the idea that any thought of struggle and freedom on the other side of the fence must be extinguished, no matter the human cost. https://www.972mag.com/smotrich-decisive-plan-israeli-public/ https://www.972mag.com/smotrich-decisive-plan-israeli-public... [3] How Israeli youth helped usher in the farthest right-wing government ever Recent polling backs that surprising observation: A joint poll published by the Israel Democracy Institute last month found that 73 percent of Jewish Israelis between ages 18 and 24 identify as right-wing, compared with only 46 percent of Jewish Israelis over 65. Young Jewish Israelis are showing up to rallies and polling stations for the extremist politicians whose November electoral victory ushered in Israel’s farthest right-wing government ever. https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/2/23/23609584/israel-right-wing-young-voters-palestine https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/2/23/23609584/israel... [4] As trauma of October 7 massacres endures, Israeli support for Gaza war remains high https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-trauma-of-october-7-massacres-endures-israeli-support-for-gaza-war-remains-high/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-trauma-of-october-7-massacr...

tptacek 3y ago

I don't think any of this is a particularly fair summary of the situation. In particular, it ratifies Hamas and the 2022 Netanyahu coalition as the leaders of both sides of the broader conflict; neither are really representative of the populations they serve. Hamas has at least since 2017 been run by a millenarian Bond villain, causing much of Hamas's political leadership to flee the country. Netanyahu assembled a neo-Kahanist fringe coalition as a parliamentary maneuver to keep from losing his post, because it's widely believed he's going to end up in prison as soon as he leaves. Meanwhile: if we're talking about peace in the context of what happened after October 7, there's no country in the world that would have failed to respond militarily to an attack like that, which was the point of the attack in the first place. Sinwar expected Iran to go all-in on a final war that would wipe Israel off the map; instead, Hezbollah stayed home, and the whole plan fizzled. The Israel/Palestine situation is widely considered one of the more complicated geopolitical crises, and for good reason. If you think you have a simple summary of it, like "Israel does not want peace", you're probably glossing over a lot of stuff.

YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
No, I think it is your account that is attempting to over-simplify world politics into a Tolkien-esque story of good vs. evil, with Yahya Sinwar as a Bond-like villain and Iran as the secretive puppet master, pulling the strings, pulling the strings from the shadows. The problem is that this simplistic story doesn't seem to have much to do with the facts on the ground, as we can observe them, and not imagine them. For example, I cannot find any information about Ismail Haniyeh having left for Qater with his merry band of revelers because of Sinwar. The scant information we have about the support of Hamas among Palestinians suggests that Hamas is popular enough among Palestinians in Gaza, and certainly in the West Bank, that if there was another election they would easily win it [1]. The same goes for the Israeli government. Certainly everyone agrees that Bibi is doing everything he can to prolong the war to save his ass, but at the same time his government coalition enjoys the support of a majority of the Israeli voters, whom, after all, it represents [2] [3]. And a majority of Israeli civilians support the "war" [4]. Scare quotes because that's not a war but an unhindered massacre of a defenseless civilian population. >> Sinwar expected Iran to go all-in on a final war that would wipe Israel off the map; instead, Hezbollah stayed home, and the whole plan fizzled. There is absolutely no reason to assume any of that is true. We do not know what were the strategic goals that Hamas had in invading Israel. They have given some reasons but they're not exactly a trustworthy source so the best thing to do is to avoid launching into wild speculation. _______________ [1] Palestinian poll shows a rise in Hamas support and close to 90% wanting US-backed Abbas to resign Overall, 88% want Abbas to resign, up by 10 percentage points from three months ago. In the West Bank, 92% called for the resignation of the octogenarian who has presided over an administration widely seen as corrupt, autocratic and ineffective. At the same time, 44% in the West Bank said they supported Hamas, up from just 12% in September. In Gaza, the militants enjoyed 42% support, up slightly from 38% three months ago. https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-palestinians-opinion-poll-wartime-views-a0baade915619cd070b5393844bc4514 https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-palestinians-opinion... [2] The Israeli public has embraced the Smotrich doctrine The terrifying Smotrichization of the Israeli public is embodied in the total willingness to sacrifice the lives of every last Palestinian in Gaza for the ultimate victory that the far-right minister promised in his plan. It is the terrifying indifference to the astronomical number of dead children, and the complete internalization of the idea that any thought of struggle and freedom on the other side of the fence must be extinguished, no matter the human cost. https://www.972mag.com/smotrich-decisive-plan-israeli-public/ https://www.972mag.com/smotrich-decisive-plan-israeli-public... [3] How Israeli youth helped usher in the farthest right-wing government ever Recent polling backs that surprising observation: A joint poll published by the Israel Democracy Institute last month found that 73 percent of Jewish Israelis between ages 18 and 24 identify as right-wing, compared with only 46 percent of Jewish Israelis over 65. Young Jewish Israelis are showing up to rallies and polling stations for the extremist politicians whose November electoral victory ushered in Israel’s farthest right-wing government ever. https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/2/23/23609584/israel-right-wing-young-voters-palestine https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/2/23/23609584/israel... [4] As trauma of October 7 massacres endures, Israeli support for Gaza war remains high https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-trauma-of-october-7-massacres-endures-israeli-support-for-gaza-war-remains-high/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-trauma-of-october-7-massacr...