Hamas Attack in Israel

[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.

[Mark B]

Originally Posted by Dondilion

Extremely shallow, one-sided: Kindly explain/expand.

Israeli-Palestinian relations can only be understood in the context of their history.

When a knowledgable person presents a sequence of events out of the context of that history it frames one side as the antagonist and the other side as the victim, and is thus a (purposeful?) distortion of the continuum.
_

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by Mark B

Israeli-Palestinian relations can only be understood in the context of their history.

When a knowledgable person presents a sequence of events out of the context of that history it frames one side as the antagonist and the other side as the victim, and is thus a (purposeful?) distortion of the continuum.
_

If you were referring to me, I was responding to Ike's counterfactual assertion that "Israel just wants to be left alone" and not attempting to provide a comprehensive history of the Levant.

[Dondilion]

Levant:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levant

Tidbit: (From the link)
Among the languages of Israel, the official language is Hebrew, Arabic was until July 19, 2018 also an official language. The Arab minority in 2018 about 21% of the population of Israel,...

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by Mark B

Israeli-Palestinian relations can only be understood in the context of their history.

When a knowledgable person presents a sequence of events out of the context of that history it frames one side as the antagonist and the other side as the victim, and is thus a (purposeful?) distortion of the continuum.
_

War creates passions, which tell us that no decent person can disagree with our side. But while truth is not subjective, views of it often are. Be slow to impute malice to people who see things differently. One's own view can be clouded.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by Dondilion

Extremely shallow, one-sided.

Pot/Kettle. Mirror...mirror.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

War creates passions, which tell us that no decent person can disagree with our side. But while truth is not subjective, views of it often are. Be slow to impute malice to people who see things differently. One's own view can be clouded.

Is anybody who's head is not up their ass thinking that Hamas does not deserve every morael of malice pitched at them?

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

Is anybody who's head is not up their ass thinking that Hamas does not deserve every morael of malice pitched at them?

And expansionist Zionists?