Hamas Attack in Israel

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by finnbow

Except those who illegally settle the West Bank (and those supporting these settlements (e.g., Bibi's coalition)), assassinate a Prime Minister (Yitzhak Rabin) for seeking peace, murder 29 and wound 125 Muslim worshippers in the Cave of the Patriach in Hebron (Bibi's National Security Minister hangs the mass murderer's portrait in his office), and engage in provocative, intrusive protests on the Temple Mount, among many other indignities.

For a person who knows so little about the realities on the ground in Israel and environs, you sure do have strong opinions about matters there. It's far more complicated than your simple-minded take on it.

I find it interesting that so many of you want to keep dragging the situation in the West Bank into the discussion about the war in Gaza. The situations are completely different. Whether you hate Bibi enough and whether I hate Bibi enough for you isn't even the point. The point is that there were no settlements in Gaza after August 15, 2005...almost 20 years ago. There were no blockades, and the border restrictions were less stringent...perhaps even reasonable depending on one's biases. Palestinians in Gaza had their own state. But the terrorism never stopped. And when Gazan Palestinians decided they wanted a vile murderous terrorist organization to constitute the government of their State in 2007 (Gaza it had been their state, under their control since August 2005), that's when the Israelis and the Egyptians decided they couldn't tolerate a bordering rogue state under the control of terrorists without significant protections. Thus the joint Israel/Egypt blockade. Reckon why the Egyptians get a pass from you and from Hamas?

So if you want to talk about the "settlements" issue, how's about you start a new West Bank thread and I will make my argument for why the West Bank is never going back under the control of any country or state besides Israel. If I were an Israeli Jew and not a bastard Irishman Jew adoptee, a decision by the Knesset to turn the control of the West Bank over to Palestinians, or Jordanians (who the Israelis took it from in 1967...not any Palestinians) would be causing my head to burst into flames.

PS - any suggestion that Netanyahu and Ben Gvir directed Yigal Amir to murder Rabin is Israeli radical left wing political propaganda. Amir is Israeli Mizrahim...headcases who consider themselves to be the only real Israelis. The accusation that Netanyahu ordered the murder of Rabin is like accusing Nixon of ordering the murder of JFK. Bullshit propaganda.

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

I find it interesting that so many of you want to keep dragging the situation in the West Bank into the discussion about the war in Gaza...

I was responding to your assertion that "Israelis just want to be left alone." Their actions on the West Bank (and Bibi's acquiescence thereto) belie that profoundly uninformed comment. There are now over 500k illegal settlers on the West Bank and these settlers are becoming increasingly violent towards Palestinians there, risking significant further escalation.

https://www.economist.com/middle-eas...-the-west-bank

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/i...ans-rcna123311

PS - any suggestion that Netanyahu and Ben Gvir directed Yigal Amir to murder Rabin is Israeli radical left wing political propaganda. Amir is Israeli Mizrahim...headcases who consider themselves to be the only real Israelis. The accusation that Netanyahu ordered the murder of Rabin is like accusing Nixon of ordering the murder of JFK. Bullshit propaganda.

I made no such suggestion. I was just pointing out that the last Prime Minister who actually took concrete steps toward peaceful coexistence in a 2-state solution was gunned down by one of his own countrymen for his efforts.

In this country, people like you love to play the anti-Semitism card whenever anyone criticizes Bibi, his policies, his far right coalition partners, or the illegal settlers/settlements, notwithstanding the fact that 80% of Israelis believe his cynical policies vis-a-vis Hamas and the weakening of Israeli intelligence and military resulting from his attempted judicial coup helped set the stage for the current Gaza violence. I have been critical of Bibi for years before this latest blow-up.

Your emotions far exceed your grasp of the situation there.

[Rajoo]

Originally Posted by finnbow

I was responding to your assertion that "Israelis just want to be left alone." Their actions on the West Bank (and Bibi's acquiescence thereto) belie that profoundly uninformed comment. There are now over 500k illegal settlers on the West Bank and these settlers are becoming increasingly violent towards Palestinians there, risking significant further escalation.

https://www.economist.com/middle-eas...-the-west-bank

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/i...ans-rcna123311



I made no such suggestion. I was just pointing out that the last Prime Minister who actually took concrete steps toward peaceful coexistence in a 2-state solution was gunned down by one of his own countrymen for his efforts.

In this country, people like you love to play the anti-Semitism card whenever anyone criticizes Bibi, his policies, his far right coalition partners, or the illegal settlers/settlements, notwithstanding the fact that 80% of Israelis believe his cynical policies vis-a-vis Hamas and the weakening of Israeli intelligence and military resulting from his attempted judicial coup helped set the stage for the current Gaza violence. I have been critical of Bibi for years before this latest blow-up.

Your emotions far exceed your grasp of the situation there.

Mr. Thomas Friedman agrees with you.

If you care about Israel, you should be more worried than any other time since 1967. Back then, Israel defeated the armies of three Arab states — Egypt, Syria and Jordan — in what became known as the Six-Day War. Today, if you look closely, you’ll see that Israel is now fighting the Six-Front War.

This war is being fought by and through nonstate actors, nation-states, social networks, ideological movements, West Bank communities and Israeli political factions, and it is the most complex war that I’ve ever covered. But one thing is crystal clear to me: Israel cannot win this six-front war alone. It can win only if Israel — and the United States — can assemble a global alliance.

Unfortunately, Israel today has a prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and a ruling coalition that will not and cannot produce the keystone needed to sustain such a global alliance. That keystone is to declare an end to the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and overhaul Israel’s relations with the Palestinian Authority so that it becomes a credible, legitimate Palestinian partner that can govern a post-Hamas Gaza and forge a broader two-state solution including the West Bank.

If Israel is asking its best allies to help the Jewish state seek justice in Gaza while asking them to look the other way as Israel builds a settlement kingdom in the West Bank with the express goal of annexation, that is strategically and morally incoherent.

It won’t work. Israel will not be able to generate the time, the financial assistance, the legitimacy, the Palestinian partner or the global allies it needs to win this six-front war.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/25/o...stine-war.html

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by Rajoo

Mr. Thomas Friedman agrees with you.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/25/o...stine-war.html

I have friends and family (son, daughter-in-law) who lived and worked in Israel for years and I have been there on extended trips several times. It's a very diverse, interesting, complicated and sometimes infuriating place - much to recommend it, but with a myriad of issues that Bibi has only made worse with his deal with the devil (the far right and settlers) to keep himself in office and out of jail. He has done his country no favors.

[Rajoo]

Originally Posted by finnbow

I have friends and family (son, daughter-in-law) who lived and worked in Israel for years and I have been there on extended trips several times. It's a very diverse, interesting, complicated and sometimes infuriating place - much to recommend it, but with a myriad of issues that Bibi has only made worse with his deal with the devil (the far right and settlers) to keep himself in office and out of jail. He has done his country no favors.

As I have stated, Israel can do what they want, but US tax payers should not be funding their wars or land grab. Their economy is robust enough they can pay their own way.